Newt's WorldNewt discusses the upcoming election with two experienced pollsters, John McLaughlin and Doug Sosnik. They discuss key issues voters are considering, the six or seven states that could vote either way, and the potential closeness of the election. McLaughlin and Sosnik agree that the race has been stable since last November, with Trump maintaining a narrow lead. They also discuss the potential impact of third-party candidates and the importance of voter turnout.
On this episode of news World. In five months, we will have finished the election process on Tuesday, November fifth, voting for the next president, eleven governors, thirty four US Senators, four hundred and thirty five House members, and all sorts of state legislators. So what are the key issues voters are considered and at the national level, what states are blue red or could possibly vote you the way? How close is this election going to be? Here to answer all these questions and more, I'm really pleased to welcome my two guests. They are among the most experienced and well known posters in the Democrat and Republican parties. John McLaughlin is the CEO and partner at McLaughlin and Associates, a national survey, research and strategic services company. He has worked professionally as a strategic consultant and pollster for over thirty five years. He's worked as an advisor and polster for President Donald Trump and Doug Sosnik. Doug served as a senior advisor to President Bill Clinton from nineteen ninety four to two thousand, playing a key role in policy, strategy, political and communications decisions in the White House. He has advised multiple US Senators governors, Fortune, one hundred corporations, foundations and universities for thirty five years. John and Doug, welcome and thank you for joining me on Newtsworld.
It's a pleasure.
I was excited because that's a great opportunity to have two really professional veteran polsters representing both sides of the aisle. We can have just a conversation, and I want to start with we're five months away from the final round of the election in November. How would you describe the state of the race of this moment to someone who isn't paying attention to the daily news cycle in Poland. We'll start with Doug and then we'll go to John.
Thank you for having me today. I would say that the race has been pretty stable and static since last November, and that's despite a number of events that have happened around the world and in the United States, Donald Trump has haden say a narrow the durable lead both nationally and in the key battleground states. Essentially, I think you have three groups of people right now. You have the people that love Trump and vote for no matter what, and then you have the people who hate Trump and to vote against them no matter what. And you have the third group that really is not thrilled about either choice, and it's largely stayed starteant tuned out of the election because they don't like their choices. So I think the architecture of our country right now, the political divisions of our country, which you can talk about if you go, which I think based largely on education, has created a narrow divided country that currently is the Trump's narrow advantage.
John, how do you assue I'd largely agree with Doug. Actually it's been more stable. It goes back to Biden at some point what I call the surrender of Afghanistan, and it's on our website, on the monthly polls that we published from McLaughlin online dot com. We were never heading the national popular vote for Trump at twenty sixteen. It was always an electoral battleground state play. Same in twenty twenty. It was never when he was trying to get reelected. By the way, there was one point Doug havn't worked for the Clintons. He probably has moments like this. At one point I had flown back from Europe after seeing some clients. They said, you have to be back here for a meeting. You just did around a paulling with Tony for Brizzio and the campaign. You got to come back for an Oval office meeting, and it was March thirteenth and twenty twenty and come back into the office and President Trump gets up from behind the desk. It's Jared brad Parscal, myself, Tony and Brian Jack and others, and he says, I think I have to shut travel down to Europe tonight. I looked at the others and so that's too bad. I was carrying all these Crossday books with polls that said we were going to win.
I just chucked them. And from then on it was always we were in a battleground, you know, again, electoral votes. We were losing the national popular vote from that point on, and we were going to win by electoral votes. But this time, at some point in September twenty twenty one, we went ahead in the national popular vote. And as Doug said, it's been fairly stable where there's certain amount of voters who disapprove of Joe Biden and we're skating up among those voters. And because it wasn't just the surrender of Afghanistan and weakness, it was also inflation was triggered at that point, and it became really the most important issue. We've held that steady lead up until like last week we put out national numbers and he's had forty seven forty three percent Trump over by and there hasn't been much change. And you can aggregate the data over periods of time, and the real difference is there is a Biden twenty twenty voter that's now voting for Donald Trump in twenty twenty four. Who is there four or five percent of the electorate. There's another four or five percent that's undecided, But that Biden twenty voter Trump twenty four voter, Derek quarter, Black quarter Hispanic average ages thirty five. They're parts of the Obama coalition coming to Trump, and it's very different.
I don't know if I'm adding on what John said or building on it, But if Biden is this, and I think he still has a decent chance of winning. But if Biden ought to lose, I think we would look back at the period that John mentioned in the summer of twenty twenty one and in the fall as the key moment. Trump never had fifty percent job approval for I think a single day and his president Biden had a mid to high fifties job approval until July of twenty twenty one. But it was a confluence of four events, a couple of which John mentioned, that really created Biden going upside down on his numbers and he never recovered. The first was the fourth of July when he did an event on the South Lawn and he declared basically victory over COVID and said by Labor Day we'd be back to normal. Then there's the August withdrawal Afghanistan of the John mentioned, and then, as John mentioned, also in September, it was the first month that we had over six percent inflation. The fourth thing, which is probably a big factor in when drove the inflation was we began by the end of September early October to really start suffering supply chain problems. And so if you look at all the polling of Biden's job approval, you can see that his lines crossed in the summer of twenty twenty one and where his job approval was in early November of twenty twenty one, and his largest stay frozen since then.
So what you're describing both of you is a country in which a very large percent, maybe above ninety ninety two percent, have sort of made their mind up and they're not open to the argument. On the other side, I mean, Trump supporters aren't going to listen very much to whatever Biden's people say, and Biden's supporters aren't going to listen very much to whatever Trump's people say. And the question is, if the momentum stays about as it is now, you're going to come down to a fairly narrow election. Does it do both of you expect that?
I think that's what the likely expectation is. When you look at the seven states they're following in the two congressional districts Nebraska two and mean two for the Trump campaign, that's a conservative estimate. When you're looking at Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. You're looking at those states and saying, that's where the election is going to be decided, and that's where you can see from the inverse, that's where the Biden campaign and the super PACs are spending money, and that's where He's spending money. But I think the missing element here is it's another historic Trump election. The guy's not a politician, and he does things as a businessman in a lot of respects as an outsider. He beat the establishment to get where he was both the Republican establishment and the Washington establishment when he won in twenty sixteen. But what's really amazing is right now, I looked at last year and said, you know, when Trump was getting indicted, the only crime that Trump had committed was that he was ahead in the pulse, and Biden's strategy was to indict him. Literally, you could trace all these indictments to connections and networks to the Biden Whitehouse. And this year it's about getting him convicted, and a lot of the cases have been slowed down or went the wrong way. But it's historic in that we've never in America seen the incumbent president and his allies indict their leading political opponent with the objective to put him in jail. Donald Trump has gotten stronger as he's gone through this and held that lead, as Doug's talking about, it hasn't diminished. So right now, when we get past that point and then Biden wants to debate him, I think we're seeing an unprecedented, historic election that we're looking at.
If what John said was true, I mean this was a command and control effort out of the last winning by the Biden White House over these Trump trials. It will probably be the first evidence we've seen in three and a half years of effective command and control. The second point I'll make is I think it's a little bit higher than that eight percent of the voters, and I think it's probably closer to sixteen eighteen percent. I think that turnout is a wild card this year, Unlike in the past and since that, we had historic turnout in twenty twenty highest percentage of eligible voters in one hundred years. The twenty eighteen mid term was historic, the twenty twenty two is near historic. I'm not sure we're going to have that kind of turnout in twenty twenty four. So I think who votes it's going to be more important than normal. You have sixty one percent or whatever, people don't think that Trump and Biten are both too old to run, twenty percent don't like either one of them, and you do also have the possibility of a turnout for third party. So I think it's going to be a little bit more than just these swing voters. I think turnout's going to matter more than it has in the past several elections.
Just ask them if a turnout election turnout will be lower, isn't it more likely that that hurts Biden much more than Trump. That the intensity of the Trump supporters and the degree to which they've already endured all the news media attacks makes it relatively unlikely that they'll stay home.
The favor of Republicans right now, and I'm sure John eyer Pole shows that the public poll show it is that there's more energy and enthusiasm right now with Republicans to vote the Democrats. So that's certainly an advantage for Republicans. On the other hand, there was a column last week by Nate co on this. When the three of us started politics, Republicans always did well admit terms, and Democrats did better in presidential because he quote unquote occasional voters voted Democratic. That's now been completely turned on its head with Trump's takeover the Republican Party and making it more of a working class party. So the occasional voters, if they were to vote, is much more to the advantage of Trump than Biden. So I think a lower turnout, which probably skewed towards more educated voters, at least as a percentage with favored Biden.
There was a column by a professor Michael McDonald, who runs the US Elections Project, and he called it the Trump's enthusiasm problem. And I think, like, when I take my national polls, we just do likely voters, and that's what we've tracked. If they tell us they not voting, we don't bother them. And it goes back to who comes out is really important. So going back to twenty sixteen, when President Trump said to me, all these poles have Hillary ahead, how are we going to win? I said, well, only one hundred and third million people voted the Romney Obama election, and there's ninety million people that didn't vote that were eligible. And we're going to get out what I called You called them occasional voters, don't I called them casual voters. W would get these casual voters out, who were working class voters in the Sun Belt and Rust Belt states for Trump and the ones that were close. And that's what we did, and we got nine million more voters out nationally and we were able to win it. Now, the babport was in twenty twenty during COVID. David Pluff wrote a great book book for us, a great book for Democrats about a citizen's guide to defeat Donald Trump, and they focused on not just battleground states, they focused on effect battleground counties where they figured out the way to defeat Trump was to register a lot of voters in counties that would have voted for Hillary and then make it easier for them to vote drop boxes, you know, very liberal mail in ballots, etc. Like that. That's what they did. And you had a record turnout of one hundred and sixty million during COVID turning pandemic, and the Democrats did a much better job at that. You know, the Republican campaign was they kept telling us, Oh, there's no signs of the buying ground game. I'm like, yeah, they're all being paid for by nonprofits. And they're focused not just in Georgia. They're focused in Fulton County and Foresight. It's where the Facebook, the Zuckerberg drop boxes were in Philadelphia and Milwaukee and Dane County in Wisconsin, in Maracopa County, and they really dove in, drove up turnout in those counties and flipped the states in a record turnout of an election of one hundred and sixty million, And I agree with Doug. The midterm twenty two the turnout went down compared to twenty eighteen, and that was interesting. Overall, the national vote for Congress, I don't know if it's going to turn and go down from one hundred and sixty million, but one hundred and sixty million is a lot of people to vote. But I do agree with Doug. It's who turns out. And I'm not sure you know the thesis of McDonald and Cohen that better educated voters are going to turn out in higher proportion to working class voters right now, because these working class voters they've felt exploited, they're angry, they want to channel that anger, and they want to make their lives better. And Trump's relying on that coalition, particularly in the three you know, you got Pennsylvania nineteen electoral votes, Bishuham at fifteen, Wisconsin with ten, those three Rost Belt states plus now we have, I mean the Trump campaign we put out like a couple of weeks ago, Minnesota, we're tied with Kennedy on the ballot. You got Trump forty, Biden forty, Kennedy at nine Virginia, which is Posi Sumbelt government state, but it's Trump thirty seven, by and forty and Kennedy was at eight and Kennedy today they said they got enough signatures to get in New York. So you know, I think we're looking at a really historic election where we might still have high turnouts, but it's going to come down to these key battleground states, and that is going to focus on actually in the counties. You know, Arizona's going to be decided by Americopa County, Nevado be decided by Clark Wisconsin, by what goes on in Milwaukee. If you're in one of these battleground states, there's going to be a lot of focus. The only difference is I do like the idea of expanding the map because when I was younger and we were all working for Ronald Reagan and then older, like the lee Atwards School was to play for fifty states and try to campaign nationally. When our friend Carl Rove became Bush's strategy I used to kid Carl, I said, you never do any away games. You only work in the states where you're supposed to win. And for those of us who grew up in New York, grew up in the democratic areas. You took a lot of Democrats to elect Republicans, and that's what we were used to doing.
It struck me in sixteen that Hillary was not ahead enough nationally to win the swing states because she was going to carry New York, Illinois, in California by such big margins that if she didn't get further ahead, she would literally would not have any votes left in places like Michigan, et cetera. And it's partly circular. I mean, if we had a popular election campaign, Republicans would have to spend in California, New York, and Illinois and the results would be much closer.
The same thing.
In twenty twenty, Biden's national margin was less than the margin of his victory in California New York, so he actually take those two states out the other forty eight. Trump got more votes.
But now when you get to the so called swing states, some of which were surprised me as a guy who represented Order for twenty years, I frankly did not think we would lose the state. But Times pulled back at the end of April begnion of May, they show Trump up twelve in Nevada, him up ten in Georgia, seven in Michigan, which m Dubius about. But those begin to be the kind of numbers where they're not swing states. Both of you guys have advised campaigns. You understand strategy. Isn't Biden in danger of seeing his map of opportunity shrink to a point where it there's not enough in play.
First of all, the Electoral College has favored Republicans the way it votes. The last two Republican presidents elected lost the popular vote. It's six points more favorable now than it was in twenty twenty to reapportionment and redistrictate. And if you look at the current polling, I don't think Biden's behind by those numbers he just said, but he is behind the map, and the options for Trump are a lot better than Biden. I think Biden only has really what I call one and a half options. If you want to say seven swing states include North Carolina. There are three Roust Belt states that are competitive, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And they have four Sun Belt states North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Now, those four states have traditionally voted more Republican, but they were becoming Democratic because, as we used to say fifteen years ago in the Democratic Party, demography is destiny, which meant that as young people and Hispanics and blacks become a larger part of the population, these states were all going to become Democratic well if anything happened on the way to destiny. Those voters now are becoming more working class voters, and so Biden has lost ground with a number of different groups of voters since the twenty twenty election, but it particularly with young voters and working class blacks and Hispanics, and so because of that, generally less competitive than those Sun Belt states, which means his path to victory now is a narrow path through the Midwest, with those three Midwestern states and carry Nebraska too. Modal to the simple math, if Trump wins North Carolina, which is favorite, in Georgia, which is favored, he's at two hundred and fifty one electoral votes, so he has multiple paths to two seventies, starting with the fact if he carries Pennsylvania, the election's over. So I think Biden's really only has, as I said, one and a half pass. I don't see how he wins the election without winning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. If you want to lose Michigan. His other option is in Arizona and Nevada, which will probably have abortion the ballot initiatives. But that's really I think his two most viable paths. With the Midwestern version overwhelmingly he has a better chance, but Trump, on the other has multiple options to two seventy.
I would agree with that we're closer, but you can't take any of these things for granted. And when you're looking at like we said in Georgia, when it comes down to Georgia, the reason why I think we're in better shape is the late speaker there. Ralston got a new voter law passed where if you vote early in person, you vote by absentee, you vote on election day, you got to show ID and Biden denounced them. They got the Major League Baseball All Star Game moved and everything like that. But you know, in twenty twenty two you had honest elections, but the number of writing absentees because the Secretary of State doesn't keep track of dropbox versus writing absentees, but there were a million paper ballots out of the five million, and in the midterms, it dropped to two hundred and fifty thousand, and it's because the drop boxes. You can't have somebody drop up and throwing thirty forty to fifty ballots anymore. They're in government buildings and they're secured and you can throw one. It's kind of like the way they do it in Florida. So Georgia is probably a better shot for us. But still in Pennsylvania got Acts seventy seven, where by the time Oz was up for the midterm election, he was losing by like eight hundred thousand votes on election day because the Democrats had put in a lot of absent dee ballots. To their credit, they did it, and the Republicans waited and they just couldn't make up the difference on election day. And the Democrats still have a superior what they'd call ballot operation. Republicans are still getting out of the mindset of get out the vote on election day or seventy two hour weekend or whatever like that. As you mentioned, Speaker, it starts in September, it goes through October. Most states are voting, and if Republicans, if the Trump voters don't get online the first day of early in person voting if they don't change their mentality about getting their votes in for Donald Trump as soon as possible. The same with Independence the Democrats that believe, you know, we could find out a much closer election day race that comes down to the handful of states that Doug mentioned.
Well, they're getting mixed signals though about this starting with your candidate.
I think that's true. Although he has sort of begun swinging towards admitting that the election starts in September. I have a hunch their ads are all going to say that.
He agreed to an early debate. So we'll say.
Mark Alpern put out a map that had Republicans are two sixty six and Democrats are two twenty six, and he had four states in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada still up in the air. But I'm puzzled because he assumed that Michigan would be red. It seems to you that Michigan is legitimately up in the air still, that the margins aren't big enough there for Republicans to relax at all. Am I missing something about that?
I don't think so. The Real Clear Politics averages forty seven to forty six in Michigan. It's still close. And what's interesting is that's why Biden when you think about it, and Doug would know better than I do, because I I just only know what's going on with the Democrats from what I observe. But they're still focused on Israel and they're waffling around because of the Arab vote. You know, Arab Americans they vote in Michigan. You know, you can see the number of people that spoil ballots in the Democrat primary. Now you've got resheeted to leave saying that Biden's going to have to make some changes. So it's a battle within the Democrat base that could put Michigan up for grabs. Plus what's going on with electric vehicles. The auto manufacturing industry psychologically is a big deal in Michigan. And you know, when you're talking about mandating electric vehicles, you're talking about sending a lot of jobs out of the country. And it's not just the United Auto Workers, but Ford and GM are not taught about building new plants in Michigan. They're talking about building new plants in Mexico.
There's one other problem providing in Michigan, which is if you look at the swing state polling and look at the economic conditions in the state and the mood of the people. It's more negative in Michigan than it is in any of the other swing states. In fact, Wisconsin's the most positive, which is why Biden has been doing the best there. Michigan was, prior to the conflict in Gaza, was considered the most democratic of all those states. They had three elections cycles in a row of Democrats running the table. They took control of the governorship and the state legislature in twenty twenty two for the first time since the mid nineteen eighties. So this is more than a speed bump for Democrats. What's going on in Michigan right now. They're three hundred thousand Arabs in Michigan and there were one hundred thousand Jews in a Michigan. So it's made it much more difficult for Biden. It's close to a dead heat in Michigan. But as I've said earlier, the elections close trumps largely maintained both nationally and the swing states, a small but durable lead in these states well within the marginal era.
That's sort of the case in Michigan.
Given all this, what do you think the dynamic will be of Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
Well, I'd apparently have a different view than President Trump, because my view is that all these minor party candidates heard Biden more than Trump, and that I don't see. As John has pointed out, Trump's favorability and other numbers have gone up in the last eighteen months, but I don't see him ever getting the fifty percent. And I think that where he can get to forty six, forty seventy, and forty eight percent is a lot more attractive in a multi candidate race than it is in a two person race. So I believe ultimately, certainly Stein and all the rest of them are going to hurt Biden more than Trump. You take Michigan in twenty six, Team Trump won by ten thousand votes roughly, and there are two hundred and seventy five thousand, third, fourth and fifth party voters in those states. They would have voted overwhelbling for Hillary in a two person race. So I think it's ultimately is going to hurt Biden more than Trump. Now, Trump, on the other hand, has spent a lot of time going after Kennedy in the last couple of weeks. You guys, apparently and your polling have different information than what I think.
I agree with you on this.
That Robert Kenny.
I don't know him person I don't know if you know him personally. But I live on the poor side of the Hudson River. He's on the rich side, or at least I saw a story in the New York Post that said he has an address over there.
I just have to say, I know you own up. The idea that you are on the poor side of the Hudson would be seen in most of America as doing okay.
Well, the way New Yorkers look at it, that's like the rest of America. I might as well be in Ohio, so but it's still He's a Westchester he's a Kennedy Liberal. We don't have frack in New York. They have it in Pennsylvania, but we don't have it in New York because a Robert F. Kennedy. He's an environmental lawyer. He's for higher energy costs, he's for big tax increases. He's definitely soft on immigration, he's soft on crime. And the minute he was talking about getting in you know, you go to the rowd. F Kennedy Fund, and all his family members are on it, and Barack Obama's on there as an advisor. Joe Biden's on there as advisor, Cheryl Hines his wife's on their advisor, but he's not on it. He took him down. I always thought he was a trojan horse.
Well, is Trump been going after him?
He's a liberal. It's an honest debate. He'll tell you he likes it personally, but it's an honest debate to say, you know, he's a liberal. And some of these mavericks, some Trump people, are like, oh, you should take him for VP. I'm like, you got to be kidding. It's like, no, it's not happening. But anyway, he's a factor. And by the way, those one hundred and forty five thousand signatures he put it in New York are hundred thirty five thousand. He's forty five. It won't be Trump people challenging those signatures. And the story is about him having a parasite in his brain or not really having an address in Westchester. They didn't come from the Trump campaign, so we'll see. But I agree with Doug. The bottom line is, I agree with you. These third party candidates that are, you know, Cornell west Stein, even the guy that they're putting up, this guy Chase Oliver from the Libertarian Party. He's for puberty blockers and open borders. It's a left of center guy. He's not a right of center libertary. He's a left of center libertary.
Given that kind of turmoil, and given they're currently still a narrow race, what do you think is the impact on the center races.
Doug, I'll let you lead.
Assuming that Republicans take West Virginia, they really just need one more state to take control of the Senate. I think the two places that Democrats are most vulnerable to the top of the ticket. I was in Montana in Ohio, and Montana Trump did and will probably carried by twenty points or more. And in Ohio won by eight percent and sixteen and twenty, which was the best of any Republican margin in Ohio as it's Bush, so there is a limit. I mean, they're both Tester and Brown and those two states are exceptional politicians, but at some point it gets really difficult no matter how good a politician you are, if you have that kind of headwind at the top of the ticket.
The Matt favors Republicans for the Senate. Out of the thirty three seats, there's twenty two Democrats up, and some of them like West Virginia, it's really hard for the Republicans to lose. But the Democrats keep hitting their opponents as maga Republicans, So it doesn't work to hit your opponent as a maga Trump Republican if Trump's going to win Montana, or win Ohio and even Nevada. I mean, Jackie Rosen's attacking Sam Brown, the Republican for being for Yucca Mountain that he's radioactive on that issue. So when the Democrats go on offense like that, it looks good for us to take the Senate. I think a lot of the published polls to have a say head in the generic battle for Congress, but we won the popular vote for Congress last time, but it was only a five seed victory. The Senate is more definable, as those races can break apart too. If the Democrats have been on offense about in Arizona against Kerry Lake because they're freight, she'll marry up to Trump's numbers and be able to win that seat. So they got cent them out of the race, and you got Gego in there, who's pretty left of center, but they're playing on our offensive, going after carry Lake instead of running on a Democratic agenda. I think the Senate looks good for the Republicans, but right now, we've got to make sure that we focus every day between now and November fifth, I'm getting votes out for Trump and keeping that vote because, as you and Doug have said, this could be extremely close with the electoral College ballots.
The other thing is, in the last survey we did, I think the Republican generic for the House was up five, which I think bow's pretty well if it remains true.
If that is the case, that's totally right.
It does very well.
I haven't seen any polling that has a five point margin. I've seeing one or two points, and actually i've seen it there or it was three or four months ago. I think it's pretty close. But even by historical standards, even if say it's a one point plus one for Republicans, that's a lot better than it's been historically.
Again, it's because of the way reportionately worked over the years. Democrats need a two or three point lead on the generic to be a break even I want to thank both of you. I think Johnny Doug, this has been a terrific conversation. You are two of the best in the business, and I think being able to sort of explore it together on a bipartisan basis is really helpful to the American people. So we're going to continue to have links to the latest polls on our show page. And I want to thank the two of you because you are great examples of what it takes for a free society to operate. So thank you both very much.
Thank you guys, Thank you gentlemen, Thank you, Miss the Speaker, Thanks Dog.
Thank you to my guest John McLachlan and Doug Soznak. You can learn more about the state of the election on our show page at newsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Gingrid three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guernsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at Gingrid three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of newts World can sign up for my three free weekly columns at Gingrich three sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newtsworld
