← A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard
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- [00:02]
A
We are seeing some pretty significant gender gap of women more supportive than men. This has been going on, at least in American politics for some time. Women voting much more consistently for Democrats, men much more consistently for Republicans. But what is going to be interesting to see in this election is just how big that gap will be.
- [00:35]
B
Arguably, it's been the most eventful US Presidential campaign in history and the stakes couldn't be higher, not just for the United States, but for the world. In the space of just a few months, we've seen two assassination attempts on former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump, who became the first US President to be convicted of a felony after a New York jury found him guilty of hush money payments to an adult film star. We've had Joe Biden drop out of the race after the most disastrous presidential debate performance in history and to be replaced by America's first woman of colour to run for president, the current Vice President, Kamala Harris, now running as the Democratic nominee. Reproductive rights are a central issue in the campaign and for a while, satirical cat lady memes almost broke the Internet as women reacted to Trump's vice presidential candidate, J.D. vance, talking of miserable, childless cat ladies. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people remain glued to every twist and turn, including many of us here in Australia, as we wait to see who America will vote for for this special US election episode. I am thrilled to be jo by American analyst and editor in chief of the Cook Political Report, Amy Walter, to help us unpack everything and hopefully give us some predictions about what we can all expect on polling day on November 5th. Amy, thank you for joining us. I'm truly delighted to have you with us.
- [02:17]
A
Oh, this is such an honour. Thank you for having me.
- [02:20]
B
Now, Amy, we're going to talk about the polls, the issues, how gender is playing into this election and, and your predictions. But before we do, I just want to set the table here because the details of the American electoral system can be a bit confusing to outsiders. On Election Day, November 5, Americans will mark their ballot papers for Trump or Harris. But it isn't as simple as then working out who got the most votes and declaring them the winner, is it? Instead, the outcome is determined by what is called the Electoral College. Can you explain the basics of that system to.
- [02:59]
A
I can. And to be fair, I think there are a lot of Americans who are still very, I wouldn't say confused, but it does feel very antiquated and it is right. This is a something that is in the American Constitution for reasons really going back to the founding, the founding fathers of the country that were worried that American voters themselves might be too overtaken by their immediate passions and that they need, there needed to be somebody to temper that. And the somebody would be those who were the elites at the time who could make sure that the right person would ultimately be chosen to serve as, as President, United States. Now, what it means is, is simply this, that you're right, there's a popular vote that does get counted, but the popular vote does not determine the president. Instead, each of the 50 states has a certain number of electoral votes. The bigger the state, the more electoral votes that you get. But even the smallest states do have at least three, because you get one for each senator and then you get one for each congressional district that you have. Now, what we know is that there are a lot of different ways to get to an electoral college victory. What you need to do ultimately to win outright is have 270 of the 538 electoral votes. And I remember playing this game with my niece when she was really young. She was obsessed with this. She thought this was such a fun game to say, well, how can we add, add all these numbers up? How do you get to 270? And you're right, the easiest way to do that, of course, is you win the biggest states. And that gets you to that number pretty quickly. But that's not how the country act, especially at this moment in time, is divided much like so many places in the rest of the world. We do have something of an urban rural divide here, with urban and suburban areas being here more Democratic or more progressive leaning, and the rural areas being. And small towns being more conservative. Some states are overwhelmingly rural, and those will pretty easily, easily go to the Republicans. Some states, you think of a place like New York or California that have pretty significant urban populations. Those states are Democratic leaning. And then we have what are called the swing states. And in this day and age, what a swing state is, is essentially a state that is pretty evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Here in this country we call Democrats are represented by the color blue and Republic by the color red. And so when we talk about purple states in this country, essentially what we're talking about is there is an equal number of blue and red in that state. And blue and red together make purple. And for the last let's really three elections, it's been the same purple states that have become really determinative. And who wins the White House. In fact, you have to go back very far in American history to find a time when the electoral college was as stable as it is now, meaning most states give their electoral votes to the same party election after election after election. And just a handful actually go between the two parties. And those handful are the seven states that we now focus on. Three of them in the Midwest, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. And now we have areas in the southern part and the southwestern part of the country. Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. And those 70ish votes that they cast real ultimately determine who the president is.
- [07:28]
B
Yeah, I think here in Australia and in many places around the world, we're kind of familiar with the concept of safe seats, you know, ones that don't change hands between elections and that political parties have got pretty much a lock on. Obviously you can have upsets, but generally they go with the political party they've always gone with. And then you have what we would call marginal seats, the swing states. So looking at those swing states, I'd be interested in just getting your quick snapshot of the kind of issues that are driving them. So if we go first to what's called the Sun Belt ones of the swing states, the ones that are more to the south, let's start with a state like Arizona. What's that like? And what's driving the issues there? That's one that's in contest. One of the seven swing states.
- [08:19]
A
It's clearly a state because it does share a border with Mexico. That the issue of immigration, obviously always a front burner issue. It's also a very fast growing state. This is a state where you have a lot of people moving in every year. There is a pretty hot job market out in Phoenix, but you also have a lot of retirees moving there because of the warm weather. And it has a significant Latino population. What is distinctive about Arizona? It's a big state physically, but Almost the entire 60% of the vote comes from Phoenix and the area around Phoenix. So it is a much more suburban state than say, North Carolina, which is a state that has a number of decently sized cities. But it is also, there are a lot of rural parts of North Carolina. So Arizona is, that's, you know, if you think about Arizona and Nevada, which is next door, you know, the immigration issue, really significant. In Nevada, though, it's fast growing, but its economy is really driven by the service industry. Right. This is Las Vegas. And so when the economy hits a downspot, especially when you had Covid, or if you have something else that's really impacting people's ability to go out and spend money and travel and do things like that, that hits that state harder. Than probably any other. And they both have really significant Hispanic populations. This, Julie, is one of the most interesting things I think about this election is that we're going to be able to answer the question as to whether we're seeing something of an inflection point in terms of the coalition that each party is putting together. And for years, the Democratic Party has been known as the party that is the diverse party. It's diverse, it's younger and it is more labor union centered. Right. Working class party. And the Republican Party was known as more of a suburban white conservative, the party of business. And now what we're seeing with Trump is the Republican Party being more affiliated with a certain level of populism with even with labor government spending than the party had ever been associated with before. But that means that their coalition is moving also to working class voters who are not white, who are Latino. And we saw Trump do better in some of those places, like Arizona, Texas, Nevada, among Latino voters than he had in 2016 in polling. We're seeing him continue to hold on to pretty significant support from that community. And so if we are going to see a real shift in that coalition, Arizona and Nevada are the place where it would show up.
- [11:45]
B
That's incredibly interesting. So that's two of our swing states, Arizona and Nevada. I've never been to Arizona. I have been to Las Vegas. I was one of those people who went and didn't place a bet on anything. So maybe I didn't get either.
- [11:58]
A
I haven't either and I would never want to do it. But, you know, you gotta see it to believe it. It is, it is Americana. Very much so, yes.
- [12:07]
B
Yes, it's definitely an experience. Now, what about Georgia? How does Georgia, which is in this belt of swing states, how does that comp to Nevada or Arizona? Is it the same or a bit different?
- [12:20]
A
It's very, very different. Georgia is in terms of its vote, it is 30% black. And the success that Democrats have had in Georgia for the last at the federal level, both so for Biden, and we've had three Senate races since then, getting the support of black voters in the state is critical for Democrats here because they don't do as well. White voters here, more conservative, more Republican leaning. But where Democrats have succeeded is when they have done exceptionally well with black voters and winning over enough of these suburban areas. The interesting thing about Georgia is the Atlanta area is growing very, very fast. And it is the suburbs there are diversifying, not just white and black, but you have a really significant South Asian influence there. An Asian influx of folks who've moved to Atlanta. And that diversification has really been the difference for, for Democrats in Georgia. And again, part of this new, this, this question about what the, the coalition is going to look like. There are also, in the polling, we're seeing Trump do better with black voters. Specifically, we're talking about black men and younger black men. And the question is, will those voters turn out ultimately for Trump? Will they stay home? Will they, are they just showing support for Trump in the polls? But maybe they don't do it on election day, who knows? But it has been a pretty consistent feature of polling up until this point.
- [14:21]
B
And so those three states, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, they all voted for Biden in the last campaign. We're going to come to the fourth in this region, North Carolina. And that's a bit different because it went for Trump last time.
- [14:35]
A
That's right.
- [14:36]
B
It's got some fairly dramatic things happening at the moment. Can you take us through that?
- [14:42]
A
Holy. Very, very dramatic. What, what makes North Carolina unique is that it is a state unlike all of the other states we just mentioned. It does not have one major metro area. So Arizona has Phoenix, Nevada has Las Vegas and Georgia has Atlanta. North Carolina has a number of medium sized cities. Charlotte people might have heard of Raleigh, Durham, which is the capital, but also the home of what's called the Research Triangle. A number of famous American universities are there. Duke, for example, is in that Research Triangle. But this is a big and very, there are a lot of small towns and rural areas. Its black population is significant, but not as big as Georgia. So about 20% of the vote there. Then, as you pointed out, it's also a state that has been beset by natural disaster. Now, normally when we talk about North Carolina, natural disaster, the eastern part of North Carolina, I feel like almost every hurricane season gets hit with some sort of storm. This year, of course, there was something that none of us have ever seen in our lifetimes, which is a hurricane that actually came inland and dumped just loads and loads of moisture on the western and more mountainous part of the state. And so you have a significant number of counties in the western part of the state, more, mostly rural, probably a little more conservative leaning, Republican leaning parts of the state. Will it impact the voting? That's a question that I think a lot of us are thinking about right now, which is the question of whether polling places are going to actually be able to open. I mean, towns have literally been wiped off the map. People's homes have literally been completely washed away. You know, we're far enough away from the election. It's not like the election is in a week. So theoretically there's time for this to be set up. And I'm sure there will be the political folks there are talking about this being something they're going to be focused on. And I have no doubt about that. But I think, yeah, the question of what that will look like is still a little bit up in the air. What it will look like, meaning the ability for people in that part of the state to vote. Just backtracking for a minute. I think maybe the easiest way to think about the Electoral College right now is to think about the path, the easiest, the quote unquote easiest path to 270 electoral votes that each candidate wants to take for the Trump campaign. And they've been saying this even when Biden was in the race for them. Winning Georgia, which they didn't last time, winning North Carolina, which they did, and then winning Pennsylvania, if they hold every other state. So they don't need to win Arizona or Nevada, anything else that Minnesota, any of these other states that Biden carried last time just win all the states he won in 2020, plus Georgia, plus Pennsylvania. That gets you 270 electoral votes, which is why you see the Trump campaign so zoned in on Georgia and North Carolina. They're in Pennsylvania too. But just speaking specifically to those two states, if Harris were to win one of those, it doesn't mean she automatically wins. It does mean though, it took a very important path away from Donald Trump.
- [18:39]
B
And so coming now to those states which are in the north, more industrial, you've mentioned Pennsylvania, which is the biggie because it's got 19 electoral college. It's a big state. But before we come to Pennsylvania, let's just have a look at the other two which are a bit smaller. Wisconsin is the smallest of them. Ten Electoral College votes. Hillary Clinton famously didn't Visit Wisconsin in 2016 and Trump took that state, but Trump lost it to Biden in 2020. What can you tell us about Wisconsin?
- [19:13]
A
Wisconsin is such an interesting anomaly because if you just looked at it demographically, it looks as if this would easily go to a Republican. It's overwhelmingly white. It is more of a working class state and rural state with two medium sized metro areas, one being Milwaukee and the other being Madison. What makes Wisconsin just as interesting, how it's become more of a Democratic area over the years, is it it really was a more progressive state. Its history is in more progressive politics. And I think that's still a big piece of that. But what's happening fundamentally in Wisconsin is that the two parts of the state, the more urban suburban part and the more rural part, just they so equally balance out that all it takes for one side to win is an extra, you know, 10,000, 20,000 of their side to turn out, then the other side turning out. And so the other thing helping Democrats a bit in Wisconsin is that even as the rural areas which once voted Democrat, again, there's so many parts of the, the country in. When we talk about the Midwest that used to be considered rock solid Democratic areas because they were working class labor union areas, those are now more Republican. But the areas that are trending away from Republicans and toward Democrats are those wealthier suburbs in and around bigger cities like Milwaukee. Michigan tends to be more Democratic leaning in part because it has a bigger black population, the city of Detroit, but it also has a really rich labor history. Obviously, you've got the auto industry centered there. So we're watching just these really fascinating shifts in parts of each one of these states. And again, as each one of the, you know, as the western part goes more Democratic, the northern part of the state or the labor areas of the state go more Republican. That's what keeps Michigan really, really competitive, also making Michigan competitive this year. And a new wrinkle is the war in Gaza. There is a significant Arab American community in Michigan and they have made their voices heard already, encouraging voters to put uncommitted on the ballot during the Democratic primary to show their frustration with the Biden administration's policy toward Israel and Gaza. You see, I think it was just a few days ago that Vice President Harris went and sat down with members of this community. You've got many, many Democrats going in and trying to repair some of this damage politically with this community. But it's not clear that it is actually getting any better.
- [22:42]
B
Looking at Michigan, held by Biden in 2020, but went to Trump in 2016, definitely one of our swing states. Definitely one to watch. And now coming to the biggie, Pennsylvania, the very biggie, the biggie, 19 votes. Can you tell us about that?
- [23:00]
A
It is the one state that both sides have spent the most money and it will continue to be the centerpiece for the rest of the campaign. It's 19 votes. And it really is, again, it's sort of the, the keystone for each one of the paths to 270 votes that these candidates are trying to take. So for Trump, it would be if he wins Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, every other state he carried in 2020, that's 270 for Harris. If she wins Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, she can lose those other states. She doesn't need to win Arizona or Nevada or North Carolina, Georgia, that's 270 for her. So you can see why so much energy is going to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a very unique place because if you are from where, you know, I'm here in Washington, D.C. i think of Pennsylvania as an east coast state because I spend time in Philadelphia and we are, you know, we are connected to Philadelphia in that part of the state. But if you drive all the way across the state, it'll probably take you, I don't know, four hours or so. And once you get to Pittsburgh, the next major city, the city anchoring the western part of the state, you're basically in the Midwest. And they do not have, it does not feel like you're anywhere in the same place. And then what you have in between those two major cities, you've got a lot of rural areas, but you also have some fast growing suburbs in and around like basically bedroom communities to places like New York or to people who are commuting into Philadelphia from places that once were considered pretty rural areas. So the state itself had been going to Democrats pretty consistently. Even when Democrats weren't doing very well nationally, they could pretty much count on winning a state like Pennsylvania. What's happened since then is the state has been trending more Republican in part for the reasons we've been talking about with other, these other Midwestern states that the ancestrally labor union areas of the state that were voting Democrat for years and years and years now find themselves culturally, politically more aligned with the Republican Party. Democrats doing better in the suburbs, in and around Philadelphia and the city of Philadelphia. But it, again, it's a very narrow balance that Democrat and Republican who has the advantage at any given time. So Donald Trump won the state in 2016 by about 68,000 votes and Biden won the state by about 80,000 votes. This is a narrow right that is a fraction of an inch, basically. It's a percentage point or less than a percentage point in the case of Donald Trump, the difference between winning and, and losing that state. And so if you, if you look at, well, what will deliver it to one candidate or the other for Trump, what he is hoping is that many of those areas of the state that are more working class that voted a little bit more for Biden than they did. Hillary Clinton did so because they felt something of a kinship with Joe Biden. He grew up in a town in the northeastern part of the state called Scranton. He's from Delaware, which shares a media market with Philadelphia and that area. So there was a familiarity with him and a relationship that he had with labor unions that went back so many years. Being a United States senator. There's not that same connection with Harris. They don't know her very well. She's not exactly somebody that's been on the scene for 50 years like Biden was. So can she hold on to those margins there? And will she be able to get the city of Philadelphia to turn out at a higher rate than it has in the most recent elections where we've seen, you know, a real drop in Democratic numbers there, A lot of it based on the fact that you've got some disaffected voters who feel like things aren't going well in the city. They haven't been going well for a while now. Why should I vote at all? Doesn't really matter much. And then in the western part of the state, you've got a really significant issue with energy extraction, so called fracking, which is something that has been debated in this campaign a lot. When the vice president was running for President in 2019, she said she would ban the practice of fracking. She has now said that she would not. But that is being used against her in ads. And of course, Donald Trump brings it up as often as he can anytime he's in that part of the state.
- [28:34]
B
I remember how agonizing the count was for Pennsylvania in the 2020 election. We were waiting for days, I think, till Saturday.
- [28:44]
A
Saturday is when they called it after the Tuesday election.
- [28:48]
B
I remember the late night host Stephen Colbert tweeted something like, the human brain is not designed to think this much about Pennsylvania. Thank you for all of that dive. I think that really does help us understand what's going on and to know what to look out for. I now want to come to some of the issues that whatever swing state you're in, whatever part of America you're in, are bearing down on voters and what they're thinking about as they go out to vote. The Bill Clinton era gave us the very famous saying, it's the economy, stupid. A fiery way of reminding campaign volunteers that what drives votes is economic opportunity, jobs, cost of living. Is it right to say that's the biggest thing in this campaign and it's what Donald Trump is setting his stall out around, that he would say the economy was better, stronger, things were cheaper when he was president. And Vice President Harris is just a continuation of bidenomics, which has brought people and Particularly working families, these stresses and strains.
- [30:05]
A
Yes, you're exactly right. That is a very big piece of it. And you know, the economy, stupid and peace and prosperity. Right? You know this as well as anybody. Those are the two most iconic phrases in any campaign. Right. That you want to be able to promise constituents or you want to be, you want to be rewarded for bringing to your constituents peace and prosperity. And so for the Trump campaign, their argument isn't just that the prosperity piece is a problem because of inflation that had hit a 40 year high. I mean, over the course of the four years that Biden and Harris have been in office, there's been a 20% increase in the cost of stuff that's significant. And you think about, you know, the last time we've seen inflation like this in the U.S. you know, 40 years ago for most people who are in the voting age, I consider myself a middle aged person. And 40 years ago, I, I'll admit I wasn't worrying about how much things cost at the grocery store because that wasn't my responsibility. My responsibility was being in middle school. So this is a brand new thing for so many Americans, what it means to actually have something like this level of inflation. But there's also what, what Trump is, is counting on and he is focusing on is the immigration situation and that at the U.S. border, there has been a record number of migrants. And it's not just the southern border that was impacted by this. Many of them now are in cities, especially major cities like Boston and Denver, New York, Chicago, that have felt the strain of having all these folks come in, needing place, needing shelter, needing city services. So these are two really, really significant factors here. And I think those both work in Donald Trump's favor. That is his the two places where in polling at least, he's seen as having a better handle on handling economy and immigration than Harris. What's interesting though, is that his lead on those issues against Harris is significantly lower than it was against Biden. And on something like the issue of inflation, we're starting to see his lead really narrow. And to me, the question is, why is that? So there could be a couple of things. One is that people are actually feeling a little bit better. And again, seeing that in polling that while voters aren't incredibly optimistic about the economy, they're less pessimistic than they were, especially about inflation. And I can't remember when this was, but we really are finally starting to see that the cost of living is keeping pace with people's actual paychecks. So that has been helpful. I think the other thing working to narrow Trump's lead is that Harris has been spending a great deal of time since, really since the minute she was announced as the candidate, focusing in on affordability as a central sort of tenant of her campaign messaging. How are we going to bring costs down for things like the cost of prescription drugs or the cost of buying a house, the cost of groceries? You don't hear Trump talk about those really specifics. He talks a lot about bringing America back to the prosperity that they had when he was president. But it's in these sort of bigger picture proposals. Right. The tariffs and making sure that jobs aren't outsourced to China and making stuff in America, all of that is an economic philosophy. But for somebody who's saying, well, okay, so how is that going to maybe lower what it costs for me to go and get these drugs that I need, these prescription drugs? I don't know that they're hearing that. The final thing, and this goes to really the heart of the, the challenge for Donald Trump, which has been pretty much the case since he first started running for president, which is that he has a hard time staying on message. Right. Which is he likes to talk about a lot of things. Okay. And so he likes to talk, and you'll see him sometimes on the, on the Sunday shows or the other political shows, you know, basically begging Donald Trump, just talk about the economy. Don't talk about this other stuff. Don't get caught in your grievance. Don't get caught in going after things that are unfair or why you don't believe that this conspiracy theory or this tangent over here or personal insults. All you have to do is talk about the economy and security and people will be happy to hear that. But that is not what he's doing. So you put all of those together, and that makes sense for why Harris's deficit, on inflation and even on immigration is not as significant as it was, say, back in when Biden was the nominee and when Harris before Harris was the candidate.
- [36:12]
B
Yeah. I mean, a remarkable feature of this campaign, really, is that Harris has managed in many ways to position herself as a change candidate, even though she's vice president.
- [36:22]
A
So if you don't, that's quite remarkable. Yeah.
- [36:24]
B
If you don't like the way things are now on Cost of Living, you know, I'm the change you need. Even though she's vice president and obviously Trump is fighting to hold her back and say, no, she's a continuation of Biden.
- [36:37]
A
Yep.
- [36:38]
B
But let's come now to the role that gender is playing in this campaign. And let's start with Kamala Harris herself. I mean, she's the first woman of colour to run for president. How differently do you think she is being treated because of that? How much are gender and race playing into the reception of her maybe the media reception, the online reception or even the reception in voters heads?
- [37:00]
A
This is really a question I think is a centerpiece of this election. And yet the way it's being discussed today is so different than Hillary Clinton was being discussed in 2016. And so I think about a couple of things. The first is that had Harris gotten into this race as a candidate, in other words, if instead of President Biden bowing out in July and basically anointing her, if he in January had said, you know, I'm not going to run again, and there were a primary, I think this issue about gender, about a woman of color, about being a continuation, all of that would have played its way through both the Democratic primary and within the media. The fact that we had a historic, this is nothing we've seen in modern American politics, a president dropping out this close to an election. It has now made that conversation much less a centerpiece. Because as you pointed out, the real conversation is is she going to be change or is she going to be more of the same? When we know there's one piece that of course just who she is means she won't be more of the same. And I think that's part of how she's been able to avoid being labeled as the status quo because she's look at me, I don't look anything like anybody who's ever been here before. And I'm certainly don't look like Biden age wise and I'm a lot younger than Donald Trump too. So she's been able to get some, some credit for that. I do think that the conversation about gender is also one that the Harris campaign themselves are not interested in having. In the same way that say the, the Hillary Clinton campaign was interested in having, this was a, in 2016, it was historic. We had just come off of the first black president in American history. Now we're going to break another ceiling and we're going to get the first woman. And even though when she writes about this and talks about Hillary Clinton, that is, you know, so much so of not wanting to have a campaign that was focused solely on this being a woman. But it was clearly part of the campaign and the conversation, this is more of yeah, she, it, it is a first. But what we're hearing about more than anything else is the idea of her being, as you said, like this. Is she, is she new or is she a continuation? But I, I've been looking, and I think everybody's trying to figure out how this is going to show up in the actual vote. And we are seeing some pretty significant gender gap of women more supportive than men. Now, this has been going on, at least in American politics for some time. Women voting much more consistently for Democrats, men much more consistently for Republicans. But what is going to be interesting to see in this election is just how big that gap will be. Now, when I look at where we are, the Cook Political Report has actually, we are working with two pollsters this year for the first time ever. It's a Democratic and a Republican polling firm. We have been going into those seven swing states that we talked about at the beginning here, and we just came out of the field with a poll about a week ago. And just to give you an example of how men and women see this race differently, so Kamala Harris is getting 44% of the vote from men in these swing states. Trump gets 54% of men, but Harris is getting 54% of women, and Trump's getting 43% of women. Now, more women than men tend to vote, so usually it's 52% or so of the electorate will be female. So winning over women is critically important. But even when you look at breaking it out by black men, Latino men, white men versus women of the same racial category, and black men are giving, for example, giving Kamala Harris 71% of the vote, but black women are giving her 84% of the vote. Latino men, 52%, Latino women, 61%. You know, it's just, again, these are on the margins, and it's also hard. This is where I would love to have actually just an entire seminar on this or really to really dig through this, because some of this is, is it because she's a woman or is it because what we know is that women are more attracted to the message and the ideology of a Democratic candidate. And so it was true with Biden as well. He did much better with black women than he did with black men. He did better with white women than he did with white men. So it's not just a gender piece, but the, the fact that we are not talking about it as openly as we were or as deliberately as we were in 2016. I agree with you. I think it is this thing that when we come to the end of this campaign, we're looking Back at this campaign, we say, was this a, Was this something that was in there? It was part of the conversation, but we didn't really understand or appreciate it because we were dealing with so many other things at the same time.
- [43:46]
B
It's fascinating to hear those statistics, and it's going to be incredible when we've got the race over and we know the result. To dig through this, I mean, there's certainly evidence in other parts of the world that, that women are disproportionately attracted to more progressive messages. But it will, you know, to try and parse it out. What percentage is the message? What percentage is the, the candidate? The comparative with Biden will obviously help do that. But we can't ignore the fact that there's also a huge women's rights issue in play as well as a female candidate, and that's the reproductive rights issue. And just a reminder for listeners, abortion rights in the US Historically relied on a Supreme Court case called Roe v. Wade, which was decided in 1973, and the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned that case. And that was made possible because Trump, as president, appointed a number of conservative judges to the Supreme Court. And since the court decision overturned Roe v. Wade, individual states have legislated on abortion rights, with some going for near total bans and some going for what really amounts to pretty much the same thing, a ban on abortion after six weeks. And of course, as we know in the real world, many women don't know they are pregnant in that amount of time, let alone have the time to make a decision about what to do in relation to the pregnancy. So can you talk to us? How are reproductive rights playing into this campaign? I mean, obviously key to Vice President Harris's messages.
- [45:33]
A
Yes, it is. And this is the challenge, too, of this issue and trying to measure it with voters in the same way we do the other issues we talked about, like the economy or crime or immigration separation. Because you can ask voters, what's your number one issue? And they'll tell you, yeah, my number one issue, the thing I think about day in and day out, is can I pay the rent? Can I afford these certain things? Right. Am I safe in my neighborhood? Totally understandable. But when it comes down to, well, what's the most salient issue issue in your vote, that may be something different. And so you can have somebody who says, yeah, I don't particularly think the economy is doing well, and I would like a change, but I do feel as if reproductive health is the issue I'm gonna have to vote on. This year, because that, to me, is the most salient at this moment, even if I would also like a different economic path. So in 2022, when this case actually came out, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, it was called the Dobbs decision. This was in the middle of the midterm elections. That's when the House and a third of the Senate are up. And it was one of those decisions that definitely had a tremendous impact on the election, but we didn't really know how much, because, again, when you asked voters, well, what's your most important issue? They didn't say abortion. They still said the economy, because we were. We were in the middle of the. Inflation was continuing to rise at that point. But what we found was you had incredible turnout in places like Michigan, where there was an abortion referendum on the ballot, where candidates, Republican candidates who were running had taken very conservative positions on abortion, and Democrats were very successful in that election where the issue of abortion did seem to be both a way to drive turnout, but also it was one of those issues where you would hear women, again in focus groups saying their number one issue was the economy. But then later on in the conversation, they'd say, oh, I could never vote for so and so because of how restrictive they are in abortion. Right. He said, but I thought you said the economy was here. Right. So this is, this is why I think we can't be sure how it's going to play. But it is definitely an issue where Harris not only has a benefit, but a significant benefit over Trump. And you can see in his language and language of his vice presidential nominee trying to backtrack on some of the positions that they had taken or espoused, trying to, in the case of Trump, really both owning that Supreme Court decision and also trying to distance himself from it. It. It's a very challenging thing to do because voters just in general, much like they would say, well, we trust the Republican Party when it comes to taxes, and we trust them, say, on crime issues, we trust Democrats on health care and we trust Democrats on abortion. And so the more that abortion is in the center of the conversation, the harder it is for any Republican, even somebody like Trump, who's been trying to, you know, really distance himself from that Dobbs decision.
- [49:30]
B
And in terms of turnout and abortion, I mean, turnout's a kind of weird thing for Australians to think about because we have compulsory voting.
- [49:39]
A
So.
- [49:39]
B
So we don't. We don't spend our time here thinking who's going to turn out, because everybody's going to turn out. But Obviously, in the US Turnout is a real fact. And as you say, abortion being a sort of referendum proposition in your state in 2022, that did increase turnout. And this time round, I think abortion is a proposition for referendum in 10 states. There's one swing state in that bucket, the state of Arizona. And the proposition is about increasing access to abortion. And there's one in Florida, which is significant because it's. It's Trump's home state, so he'll have to vote on it. And it's once again an attempt to make access to reproductive health easier. It's to overcome what is currently a general ban after six weeks. So just Arizona, Florida, the impact of these referendums, what do you think's gonna happen there?
- [50:38]
A
Yeah, I mean, what we're seeing right now, too, in both of those states is there are significant number of voters who are doing both things. They are saying, I'm going to vote for this referendum that's going to expand reproductive access, and I'm also voting for Donald Trump. Those two things can exist in the same place now as an issue for motivating voters, though that is really an important question even in states outside of Florida and Arizona. So when you think about turnout and American elections, I think you have to think about American elections this way. There is a section of Americans, a certain subset of Americans, probably, let's call it about 60% of the electorate, they turn out in pretty much every election. They see it as civic duty. They also are probably more partisan, so they. They wear their jersey of their Dem or Republican team. The people who decide elections in this country, though, are the 30, 35% of voters who don't turn out in every election. What turns them out is either something that they're really excited about. And Donald Trump does very well with these voters, right? He's. He turned out people in 2016 and in 2020 who hadn't voted maybe ever, but certainly hadn't felt any sort of relationship with a politician the way they found with Donald Trump. He spoke differently, he acted differently. He was nothing like anybody they'd ever seen before. And so he has sort of a special hold on them. They're not going to come and turn out for any old Republican. They don't really care about the party. They're not interested in seeing how many seats one party or the other has in the Senate or in the House. They're there for him. You also have people, though, who are turning out not because they necessarily love any of the candidates, but they're fearful of what happens if One person gets elected. And I think Biden succeeded in 2020 with many of those voters who, they would say, you know, I don't know how I feel about Biden. I'm not really excited about him, but I'm really fearful of what four more years of Donald Trump would look like. And so that's where I think abortion also plays in, is getting to voters who don't already have opinions formed about the two candidates who aren't necessarily engaged in politics right now, who probably wouldn't turn out in the presidential election in a different year. But to say, look, here's, here's something that's on the line that's going to impact you. Maybe you don't. Maybe you think all politicians lie to you, maybe you think politics doesn't matter, maybe you think government doesn't work. But, but here's one thing you do have to know is, you know, there are going to be the, these folks and the restrictions, etc. That is, I think, a lot of what the Harris campaign and Democrats are hoping is that especially for younger voters, and it doesn't have to be just women. I mean, you see, there are clearly a lot of men who also are in this camp. In fact, when I sit in focus groups, the thing I hear mostly for men is, you know, I don't really have much say in this, but I just don't think it's anybody's business but hers. Right. And so that's where they weigh in it. They, they don't want to talk about it because they feel a little bit uncomfortable there, especially if it's in a mixed group. So this, this isn't necessarily just about getting women to turn out, I think, for that, for younger voters especially, but also just women who, as we talked about, the women who are putting the issue of, say, economy and the cost of stuff first, but also know that whether it's their own health or their daughter or someone in their life, that that becomes a driving issue more than their frustration with the state of the economy.
- [55:15]
B
That has been a fascinating canvas of the states and the issues. But, of course, you know, I'm going to put to you the hard question. Oh, here we go, Amy. Who's going to win?
- [55:29]
A
Oh, man, if I knew that, see, I would be in Las Vegas actually, gambling. This is, this is, this is the hardest thing about where we sit right now. So there was a poll released a couple weeks back by Pew, and they do great, great, great work. And they asked voters and they were able to verify this against the voter file so if you said you voted in 2020, they don't know how you voted, but they can go back and make sure that you actually showed up and voted. Okay, so for the people who said that they voted in 2016 and 2020 for Donald Trump, 97% of them are voting for Donald Trump. For the people who voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the last two elections, same percent are voting for Kamala Harris. 90, I think it's like 94, 95% of people who voted just in 2020 for, for a Biden or for a Trump are voting for that same party. In other words, we've had a lot happen in the last four years. We've had a lot happen in the last eight years and still 90 plus percent of Americans say they're going to pick the same party, Right? So that leaves the percentage of people that will determine this election to be this big or the undecided voters are this big. And then the people who decide the election are, are those 90 plus percent of people, are they all going to show up? So that's question number one. And then where's that tiny sliver of voters who either haven't made up their mind yet or don't? Maybe they're thinking, I don't know, I don't want to vote for either one of them. I'm going to vote for this third party candidate even though I know they can't win. But I just want to show my, you know, frustration with the two party system and trying to figure out where those voters, who they are and where they go is fascinating. And this gets back to the, the question in American politics that is very much unlike Australian politics, if you know the answer to who's going to show up and vote, that's, that would give you the answer to who's going to win. And we just don't know that. And we try to find, pollsters, do, campaign professionals do, all kinds of ways to get at the, at somebody's intent to vote. As I said, the one thing we know that is the most predictive is that you've actually voted before. So if I know that you have voted in the last four elections, there is not 100% certainty, but pretty close to that that you're going to show up and vote again. The people that I don't know are those people who aren't necessarily consistent voters. Now, what we do know is that Harris has been able to consolidate most of Biden's vote from 2020, but not all of it. So to me That's a big piece of this. Is she going to be able to consolidate that vote in just these next, whatever many days that we have left. And Trump seems to be getting the voters who have always been with him and maybe picking up some other voters along the way, as I discussed earlier, that are working class voters of color. The answer to who's going to win one, Pennsylvania is going to be the place. So if God could come down now and just tell me that who won Pennsylvania, I could tell you who won. But unfortunately, I hope God has a lot of other more important things to be worrying about right now. But the next question is going to be just, you know, whether or not the Harris campaign, as I said, is going to be able to consolidate that vote, which right now she doesn't. So that that is giving Trump something of a benefit right now. But the more that he takes himself off of message, the easier it is for her to make her case. So I really, I mean, again, if you look at any piece of data out there, it tells you that it is going to be much like we saw in 2020, where we had to wait till Saturday. I don't know if it will be that, that long of a wait. Remember, this time we don't have Covid. And so there won't be as much of the mail, you know, voting in the mail as there was in 2020. But I'm expecting it to be incredibly, incredibly close. It also, here's the thing we didn't really discuss, but the New York Times did an excellent way of, of outlining this. If the polls are off in one way or the other, it could actually not be close at all. And we could see, this is the thing, when you're talking about a margin that's one or two points for the last two elections, those seven closed states have been decided each of those states by less than 3 points and in some cases by, you know, 10,000 out of 5 million votes cast right. In the state of Georgia, for example. So if we follow that pattern again, right, we had 2016, 2020, it would make some sense that once again we'd have a race decided by that narrowest of margins, everything suggesting that that is what's happening. If, however, the polling is off just the slightest, just one or two points, somebody could win by a landslide, meaning they win by two points instead of by just 10,000 votes. So they win by 50,000 votes instead of 10,000 votes. And then our night is over earlier than we expected. But I just keep going back to that fact that you've got 95% of Americans who now say they're voting the same way today as they did four years ago, even though we've had a lot happen over the course of four years, which suggests that if that is the case, then the race will continue to be that close.
- [62:14]
B
Well, we will watch, wait and be anxious. I think there's an alternative to that. And we will watch admiringly the work that you and your colleagues do between now and then. I can't imagine that much sleep is going to be involved. So, Amy, all power to your arm as you get through these final few weeks.
- [62:37]
A
Thank you.
- [62:37]
B
We'll be relying on your analysis. And thank you for sharing the benefits of your very, very deep expertise with us today.
- [62:45]
A
Thank you so much. Really enjoyed it.
- [62:50]
C
A Podcast of One's Own is is created by the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at the Australian National University, Canberra, with support from our sister Institute at King's College, London. Earnings from the podcast go back into funding for the Institute, which was founded by our host Julia Gillard, and brings together rigorous research, practice and advocacy as a powerful force to advance gender equality and promote fair and equal access to leaders. Leadership research and production for this podcast is by Becca Shepherd, Alice Higgins and Alina Ecot, with editing by Liz Keene from Headline Productions. If you have feedback or ideas, please email us at giwlnu. Edu Au. To stay up to date with the Institute's work, go to giwl.anu.edu au and sign up to our updates or or follow us on social media. Oolanu. You can also find A Podcast of One's Own on Instagram. The team at A Podcast of One's Own acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Thanks for listening and we hope you'll join us next time.
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A
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