A Guide To 2025's Statewide Elections

Summary

GD POLITICS: A Guide To 2025's Statewide Elections

Host: Galen Druke
Guests: Chaz Nuticombe (State Navigate), Mary Radcliffe (State Navigate, 50 Plus One)
Date: October 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

With one week left until the 2025 off-off-year elections, Galen Druke and his guests break down the key statewide contests: Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial and legislative races, California’s pivotal redistricting proposition (Prop 50), and several notable down-ballot races and measures elsewhere. The episode delves into polling, voting demographics, campaign strategies, and key trends that will define the outcomes. The conversation is data-driven, witty, and full of practical details for understanding the fast-approaching elections.

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Main Segments and Timestamps

1. Introduction & Banter [00:36–03:11]
2. Virginia: Gubernatorial, AG, and Legislature [03:11–26:49]
3. New Jersey: Gubernatorial and Demographics [26:49–39:03]
4. California Proposition 50: Redistricting [39:03–43:23]
5. Other Races to Watch [43:23–48:22]
6. Maine: The Graham Platner Scandal [48:22–54:02]

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1. Virginia: The Gubernatorial and Down-Ballot Races

[03:11–26:49]

Key Points

• Abigail Spanberger (D) vs. Winsome Earl Sears (R):

  • Spanberger leads by ~8 points in polling average but individual polls range from a 5-point to 13-point lead.
  • State Navigate model gives Spanberger a 98% chance of victory with an estimated margin of 11 points.
  • Polling variation stems from methodological differences in how pollsters benchmark the likely electorate (2021 exit poll vs. updated partisanship trends).
    • "There's a number of pollsters that are sort of mystifyingly to me, weighting their demographics to the 2021 exit poll, which seems crazy..." – Mary [08:13]

• Demographic Shifts & Campaign Strategy:

  • Spanberger:
    • Focusing on the economy and cost of living → gaining with lower-income voters.
    • Doing well in Richmond and among well-educated suburban voters.
    • Potential underperformance with Black voters in Hampton Roads and Asian voters in Loudoun County.
  • Sears:
    • Focusing on cultural “red meat” issues, especially transgender policies, to energize the base rather than persuade swing voters.
    • Targeting Asian voters and hoping to replicate prior Republican base turnout strategies.

• Attorney General’s Race (Jay Jones D vs. Jason Miyares R):

  • Very close after Jones’s texting scandal; most polls have Miyares ahead, except State Navigate's poll, which had Jones +5.
    • "It's going to be probably a single digit race either way, a low single digit race either way." – Mary [17:25]
    • Significant ticket-splitting is expected; 7% of Spanberger voters may back Miyares.

• State Legislative Races & Redistricting Maneuvers:

  • Democrats likely to keep or expand their majorities and are mounting a cutthroat move to gerrymander the state via a special legislative session.
    • "Democratic leadership in the General assembly is getting filthier than a pig at a mud festival with this." – Chaz [23:03]
  • Constitutional amendments and primary date changes would be required for lasting changes.

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2. New Jersey: The Gubernatorial Race & Demographics

[26:49–39:03]

Key Points

• Mikey Sherrill (D) vs. Jack Cittarelli (R):

  • Sherrill leads by a projected 5–6 points; State Navigate gives her an 88% chance of winning.
  • Less methodological variation in polling compared to Virginia.
  • Key Factors:
    • Cost of living issues dominate, and with an unpopular Democratic incumbent (Phil Murphy), anti-incumbency may boost Republicans.
    • Cittarelli's appeal as a "regular guy" Republican (like Youngkin in VA).

• Demographic Patterns:

  • Sherrill: Strong with non-white (especially Black, Asian, and Hispanic) and college-educated voters.
  • Cittarelli: Leads with white and non-college-educated voters.
    • "In a recent Rutgers Eagleton poll, Sherrill's leading among non white voters by 30 points and Cittarelli is leading among white voters by 7 points." – Mary [30:56]
  • Hispanic Voters:
    • Large populations in Passaic and Hudson counties; current turnout is lagging, raising questions for Election Day.
    • "Currently Passaic and Hudson are the two counties with the lowest turnout in the state of New Jersey." – Mary [34:44]
  • Unique coalition factors: Orthodox Jewish communities in Lakewood and elsewhere have endorsed Cittarelli; suburban swing remains key.

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3. California: Proposition 50 & Gerrymandering

[39:03–43:23]

Key Points

• Proposition 50 would end independent redistricting and allow Democrats to redraw congressional lines, potentially netting five seats.
• Recent polling shows Yes (pro-prop) ahead by 20+ points (Emerson: 60–40, CBS/YouGov: 62–38).
  • "A 20 point lead is a 20 point lead." – Mary [40:57]
• Voter turnout is unpredictable in a purely off-year, single-issue election, but universal mail ballots may bolster participation.
• Electorate may skew more Democratic than usual due to issue salience and voting modes.

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4. Other Key Races and Ballot Measures

[43:23–48:22]

Notables

• Pennsylvania Supreme Court: Retention votes for three justices. GOP campaign to de-seat Democratic incumbents, tying it to abortion rights.
• Georgia Utility Commission: Statewide elections for two of five commissioners (currently both Republicans) in a swing state, with the potential for long-term partisan implications.
• Ballot Measures: Maine voting system changes; Bolts Magazine cited as a top resource for tracking local ballot measures.

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5. Maine: The Graham Platner Primary Scandal

[48:22–54:02]

Key Points

• Graham Platner (D) for Senate—embroiled in multiple controversies:
  • Old Reddit posts with problematic content.
  • Tattoo resembling Nazi Totenkopf; Platner claimed ignorance, since covered up after attention.
  • Membership in the Socialist Rifle Association and an infamous "Pride Month Range Day" promotion.
• Polling after scandals:
  • UNH poll: Platner +34 (mid-tattoo story).
  • NRSC poll: Platner +21 (flagged for calling tattoo “anti-Israel”).
  • SoCal Strategies poll: Mills +5 (after all news broke).
    • "It's all a very confusing picture… Generally, it's very early… voters are not going to be reacting on a dime to every political scandal…" – Mary [52:52]
• General takeaway: It’s early, polling is inconsistent, and Maine Dem voters may not be fully tuned in yet.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Virginia Gerrymander:
  "Democratic leadership in the General assembly is getting filthier than a pig at a mud festival with this."
  — Chaz [23:03]

• On Polling Methodology:
  "There's a number of pollsters that are sort of mystifyingly to me, weighting their demographics to the 2021 exit poll, which seems crazy..."
  — Mary [08:13]

• On Base Voter Turnout in Off-Years:
  "In these off, off year elections, it is always interesting to see who bothers to turn out. And usually the answer is the most pissed off voters."
  — Galen [43:23]

• On Maine's Wild Year:
  "Their promotional materials for their Pride Month range day… presumably a homosexual lobster with a rifle in front of a rainbow flag."
  — Galen [49:52]

• On Election Analysis:
  "Wake me up when Waukesha reports."
  — Mary [43:17]

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Recap: Major 2025 Election Trends

• Democrats favored in major statewide races in Virginia and New Jersey, but magnitudes differ; quality of candidates and anti-incumbency play key roles.
• Demographic shifts continue: wealthier, well-educated and some non-white groups trending Democratic, but turnout among Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters remains a watch point.
• Redistricting battles prominent in both legislative maneuvering (VA) and ballot measures (CA).
• Down-ballot and “in the weeds” races (courts, commissions) warrant attention in key swing states.
• Polling uncertainties are heightened in off-years, with likely electorates harder than ever to define.

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For Further Information

• Polling aggregation: fiftyplusone.com (Mary's project)
• State legislative analysis: statenavigate.org
• Down-ballot coverage: Bolts Magazine
• More podcast episodes: GD Politics

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Listeners gained a data-rich, candid look at the state's most competitive 2025 races, understood polling’s nuanced limitations, and left with guidance on what to watch as results roll in.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there listeners. Before we get started, I wanted to remind you all that one week from Monday night. So, November 3rd, Nate Silver, Claire Malone and I will be at the Comedy Cellar in New York City for our final 2025 election preview. It's going to be a lot of fun. There'll be question and answer games, there'll be booze, laughs. Great company. I am sure we still have some tickets left and you can get [e-mail] I will also put a direct link in the show notes for the this podcast. I'm looking forward to it and I can't wait to see you there. All right, here's the show. You stand in your light.

[B]

Yeah, it's a good thing I was a theater kid.

[C]

How many of us are thespians?

[A]

Wait, are you a thespian, Mary?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

There we go.

[A]

You want to know the craziest thing I ever did as a thespian?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

We did a lot of jogging along the surf in the mornings when the boardwalk traffic was light. Is that. That's you? Holly liked to run trailing.

[A]

Okay. As a child I narrated audiobooks.

[C]

Oh my God, Galen, that's awesome. For basketball and soccer games from time to time I hung around the beach parking lot.

[A]

I also used to have like a little bit of an upstate accent, which I think I lost, but you can hear on my 12 year old V. Hello and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drouke and we are a week away from election day 2025. So this week we're zooming in on the biggest contests of the year. Today it's Virginia and New Jersey. We'll also check out the latest polling in California's redistricting proposition. And then later in the week, we're going to take a detailed tour of how New York City's vastly different neighborhoods are coming down. And in the mayoral race. But today we'll start in Virginia, where Democrat Abigail Spanberger currently leads Republican winsome Earl Sears in the race for governor by an average of 8 points. Underneath that, though, there's plenty of variation with recent polls ranging from a five point lead to a 13 point lead for Spanberger. And the Attorney General's race, in which Democrat Jay Jones has had to apologize for text messages that promoted political violence, is significantly closer. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Democrat Mikey Sherrill leads Republican Jack Cittarelli by six points. On average, most polls there have shown a mid single digit race in the legislatures in both states, Democrats appear assured to maintain their majorities or grow them. We're also going to take a closer look at some specific parts of Virginia and New Jersey that could give us some indication of how parts of the electorate are reacting to Trump 2.0. They're the wealthy in Northern Virginia and Northern Jersey state suburbs, large Hispanic communities also in Northern Jersey, large black communities in Hampton Roads. So we have a lot to cover and if you stick around, we might even get to the latest Graham Platner polling in Maine. Here with me to do it all is Chaz Nutticombe, executive director of State Navigate, which covers state level politics around the country from a data perspective. Welcome, Chaz. It's so great to have you.

[B]

Thank you for having me.

[A]

Also with us is Mary Radcliffe, who everybody already knows, but who also works at State Navigate and as a couple weeks ago, also runs the polling aggregation site fifty plus one. So welcome, Mary, and a big congratulations.

[C]

Thank you so much. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. We're really excited to be up and 50 plus one will have a ton of new stuff coming your way soon. We are continuing to build and take into into account people's suggestions and I'm just like so thrilled.

[A]

Mary, nothing can stop you from aggregating every single poll in America on the Internet. I don't know how, where the limits of your polling knowledge are, but they're quite broad.

[C]

I mean, mostly the Internet. I don't have all the newspapers.

[A]

Fair enough. Okay, so let's begin with Virginia State Navigate actually has a forecast of the race which projects Abigail Spanberger wins 98% of the time with a projected margin of 11 points. So with that, let's move on to New Jersey. No, I'm kidding. In all seriousness, Chaz, tell me a little bit about why this race appears to be so wrapped up. The Virginia governor's race.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, look, it's been since 1977 that Virginia has always elected a governor opposite of the incumbent presidential party, with the exception of 2013, of course, when Terry McAuliffe, Democrat running against Republican Ken Cuccinelli, won while Barack Obama was beginning of his second term. That's the only exception. So there's a lot of history here. There's also, I think, the big difference in candidate quality. Winsome Sears is not really looking like she's going to do as well on persuasion. There's also the environment, of course, there's a whole bunch of things we can talk about with like presidential approval. Right. Trump was popular at the start of his term just narrowly, and now he's down high single digits in approval. And then we can Talk about party ID changing as well. Gallup. Q3 2024 was R +1. When pushing leaners, you know, they ask, are you a Democrat, Independent or Republican? And then they ask the second question for the independents, which one do you lean towards? So it was like R +1. Then Q3 this year is D +7, which is actually higher than what Democrats had in Q3 in 2017. And for context on Q4, it was like R +5 in 2021. That was, of course, after the Afghanistan withdrawal. A whole bunch of things that led to Glenn Youngkin's victory in 2021.

[A]

Okay, so you set the scene pretty clearly here for an environment that is favorable to Democrats and also a dynamic between the two candidates that is favorable to Democrats. Nonetheless, we're seeing a decent amount of polling variation, as I mentioned in the intro. As I also mentioned in the intro, Mary has been tracking all of it. What I didn't mention is that State Navigate also conducted its own poll in Virginia, which was one of the strongest performances for Abigail Spanberger, showing her leading by 13 points over winsome Earl Sears. So first I should say polling variation is not a bad thing. In fact, if you've been listening to this podcast or it's forbearer for a while, you know that sometimes when all of the polls suggest the same result, we worry about hurting and that pollsters are trying to cut their losses and maybe play it a little conservative by tweaking things that get the expected result. And that can sometimes lead to an inaccurate polling average instead of an accurate polling average. So it's fine that the, the ranges in terms of how much Abigail Spanberger is leading by range from say like 5 to 13 percentage points. But Mary, in talking before we got on today, you suggested that there are methodological differences in how those polls are being conducted that may say something about where you expect at least this race to fall.

[C]

Yeah, there's this really interesting thing happening in the Virginia polling. You can sort of split the polls into two buckets. There's like a bucket of polls that show Spanberger leading by high single digits into low double digits. That includes, of course, state navigates poll, but also like the recent poll conducted by Washington Post and the George Mason University, which had spanberger ahead by 12 and some others. And then there's another bucket of polls that show this as a mid to low single digits race. And there is a key methodological distinction between these buckets of polls which I find really interesting happening in Virginia, which is how you benchmark the partisanship of the electorate in 20. So there's a number of pollsters that are sort of mystifyingly to me, weighting their demographics to the 2021 exit poll, which seems crazy because it seems like, you know, as Chaz was describing, with partisan affiliation changes that you see in Gallup, with the history we know of how turnout looks in Virginia in these off year elections, to expect that the demographics of the electorate in 2025 would resemble the demographics of the electorate in 2021 during the Biden presidency again post Afghanistan withdrawal. These should be two very different electorates. So what's especially notable though is even among surveys that are benchmarking to the 2021 exit polls in Virginia, Spanberger is still leading. Right. So even if you imagine the electorate to look just like it did in 2021, which it will not, pollsters win some RLCRs ahead. So I think that's sort of what's in the background of this polling is this, this methodological distinction where pollsters are thinking about the electorate in two different ways, giving two different types of results. All that being said, my expectation for this race is probably closer to that high single digits, low double digits. You know, state Navigate's survey had it at 13 points. That might be a bit high, but there's a bunch of other surveys that have it at 9, 10 points. I think that's probably the ballpark that I would expect.

[A]

Yeah. To your point about how we expect the electorate to change, I mean, what do Spanbergers and winsome Earl Sears coalitions look like?

[B]

One thing that's really unique that our poll found was when we broke down people by income, Spamberger's making a lot of gains relative to 2024 presidential margin. Looking at polling and everything with the lowest income voters. And I the reason why that is is because Spamberger has made the cost of living the focal point of her campaign. Bob Holsworth, a very famous Richmond based political analyst, been around for three, four decades now, had an article out today that kind of made this point on how Republicans pretty much cut their losses in the gubernatorial race since the summer. They want to save Attorney General Jason Vieiras. If he can just get across the finish line, then they have somebody to run in 2029 who's an incumbent to run for governor. Maybe the Democrats have the White House and that Virginia tradition continues. And then we get Governor Mieris. Right. So Spamberger's focal point has been the economy and cost of living that's been just the number one thing she's been talking about on her ads and in messaging and everything. Whereas Winsome Sears has really tried to just get red meat out to the base and that red meat is transgender policies. I would say the area where it's most salient, I gu Would be in Northern Virginia. There was a sex offender who was registered. A registered sex offender who was arrested in a public school in Arlington county, having identified as a woman. This was toward the beginning of the year. Republicans have really been harping on that, hoping that they can catch fire like they did in 2021 with this kind of separate story in Loudoun county that really energized the base. So I think Sears is really just looking to get as many strong Republicans out as she can, rather than winning on persuasion. Whereas I think if I were to say. I would say Spambergers focused more on persuasion than the base. But what I will say is that when you look at the early voting numbers, I mean, Richmond, Richmond metropolitan area, you know, the media market is just coming out for this thing in droves, which is good for Spamberger because that's where she's from. That's where her base is. Our poll had the Richmond media market swing swinging 14 points to the left from 2024. Interestingly enough, Northern Virginia, even though everybody's talking about Doge only swinging seven points to the left, and Hampton Road's just about even, right? Those are the three big. We call it the urban crescent. So those are the big areas in Virginia.

[A]

And just to break down what that means, in maybe layman's terms, people are focused on Northern Virginia because, yes, it's a lot of federal employees and also wealthier suburbs of D.C. so when people talk about Northern Virginia, they're talking about maybe parts of the country that were ancestrally Republican that have swung significantly to the left since Trump's ascent. And then Hampton Roads is black voters. So it's maybe notable here to say that we are seeing continued shifts to the left amongst the wealthier, better educated voters and people who maybe are more affected by a government shutdown and Doge cuts from earlier in the year. And then also, of course, Richmond, which maybe has some similar characteristics, but is also has to do with candidate quality, but that it doesn't seem like Abigail Spanberger is overperforming with black voters compared with Harris in 2024.

[B]

You know, I think Spanberger was definitely in difficult territory with. You know, I think there was a lot of speculation with black leaders in Virginia. I think this is part of the reason why Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas wanted Bobby Scott to run for governor and not Abigail Spanberger. Right. There was all that hubbub toward the beginning of the year, but that Abigail Spanberger would have difficulty with turning out black voters. She's doing great with turning out black voters in Richmond. And black voters in Hanson Rhodes do seem to be lacking. But one thing I do want to add here is that when you so if you go to statenavigate.org Virginia we have a tracker that shows as of this day one year ago, how many early votes were there in 2024, how many early votes are there today by mail and everything. And you break down that as a percentage, Hampton Roads black areas do seem to be lacking. And I think that is part of why President Barack Obama is going to be coming to Norfolk to campaign for Spanberger. I would say the biggest demographic issue for Abigail Spanberger are Asian voters, particularly Loudoun County. And I think this is where the one area where Winsome Sears just really harping on the whole transgender issue is going to work. Asian voters, particularly in Loudoun, these are Muslim voters, these are Indian American voters are pretty socially conservative, but you know, they are traditionally Democratic. And I mean look, when we talk about Loudoun county, we think about last year. Pretty much anybody who knew how to read results when Loudoun county dropped everything at 7:30pm knew that Donald Trump was going to be president. I think another aspect for why Loudoun County Asian turnout is lacking is because you got a whole bunch of freshman delegates in there who I don't think are really campaigning as hard as some of these other longer term incumbents and safe Democratic seats. But I would say, and you know, look, we are working on this final state navigate poll that will be out the Saturday before election day and we're going to ask about the top issues. I would say probably the transgender issue probably ranks about as high as it does with white voters, as it does in Asian voters. But you know, we're probably gonna have a pretty small N on you know, the Asian sample on that. So take with, you know, take with it what you will, but I think that is something that is worth watching for. Youth voters are also really interesting. You know, I think there's been a whole bunch of hubbub around like is is the youngest Gen Z. Right? Trump won 18 year olds by one point last year according to David Shore. Is Gen Z like very conservative or are they just anti incumbent? You know a lot of polling suggests that they are anti incumbent. But trying to pull 18 to 29 year olds, especially those on the youngest side, are very hard to do. Especially as our team has been noticing over this process, you know, we've, we've been workshopping like language to get them to answer, starting with like putting an LOL or something. And that works like, but you know, it. So there are these competitive college town districts and I think that, you know, if the polling is right, this national polling that shows 18 and 29 year olds swinging toward the Democrats compared to 2024, then that will get Democrats anywhere between two and four seats in the House of Delegates, my alma mater, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg. Voter registration there is surging. It's the highest it's been since 2019. So in all likelihood I think that district flips.

[A]

But yeah, it's also worth mentioning just how different the youth vote will look this year compared with 2024. When we're talking about 18 to 29 year olds, we're talking about the people who are least likely to vote of all the age cohorts and they don't turn up in great numbers during a presidential election. They probably aren't turning up in great numbers during an off off year election, an election that probably a lot of people don't even know is happening. I mean in Virginia they're more likely to know that it's happening. But you know, I'd be curious to see a poll of 18 to 29 year olds around the country to see how many of them know that there are gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey this year. I do. Before we move on, I want to talk a little bit about the AG race that you brought up and maybe the state legislature. Mary, what are we seeing in the polls in terms of how close the race is for AG between Jason Miaris and Jay Jones?

[C]

Since the texting scandal, most polls are showing miari's ahead with the exception of our state NAVIGATE poll which had Jones ahead by five. It's going to be probably a single digit race either way, a low single digit race either way. If you dig a little deeper into polls conducted since the scandal, like for example in the state NAVIGATE poll, Jones is leading by 18 points with those who say they have already voted. But among those who have not voted yet, Miyares is ahead of but who have not voted yet and say they intend to vote. So I think this one is going to be a little bit tricky cuz it depends a lot on just how much turnout there is. Right. Like this is going to depend on who shows up to vote. If we have a pretty high turnout on election day and in this early vote that's happening since the scandal broke, Miaria stands a pretty good shot at this. I feel like I don't know the answer to who's gonna win this race. I feel like I know the answer to who's gonna win the governor's race and I don't know the answer to who's gonna win this race.

[A]

Do we have a sense of who those split ticket voters are? Right. Clearly there's going to be a significant split between Spanberger's margin and Jay Jones's margin. Sort of no matter where it ends up.

[B]

I think where Mieris is getting Spamberger support. Our poll gave 7%, had 7% of Spanberger voters going to mi eras. It looks like it's mainly white voters, a little bit more those with a college education. And I think something to note here are two things. One, in survey responses, when we talk about survey response bias, there's a very well known phenomenon where candidates with a scandal like Jones will receive less support in the polls because people don't want to say they're voting for somebody with a scandal. Right. There is a House of Delegates race here in Virginia in Henrico county where there was a Democratic candidate with a scandal. This is two years ago and they had overperformed their polling because people don't want to say that they're, you know, there's like kind of this social stigma, I guess with, with voting for somebody who has some sort of faults with their character. And so if you look at in our poll, the people who have said they are already voted, there's a higher concentration with those who selected already voted and undecided for the AG race compared to like LG and Gov. So you know, if you want to call them Shy J. Jones voters or what, you know. And then the other thing here that.

[A]

I think already voted but undecided. Can I harp on that for a second? It means that you're saying I did vote and girl, I'm not telling you who I voted for.

[B]

Exactly, exactly. They don't want to say that who they voted for in the AG race. And they mostly tend to be people who voted for Spamberger and Hashmi for those who are in that little small bucket. So and the other thing here to note in polling is, and you can see this in ours because we broke down like, are you definitely voting for Jones? Are you probably voting for Jones leaning toward Jones? Most of the people when we pushed the undecideds were going to Jones, but Jones had a lot of soft support. So what Miyares needs to do through the next week or really just since our poll is he probably needs at least 8% of Spanberger voters. I think with where this is looking like where it's going to head in the gov race and then you have to get, he has to get like at least 1%. I think of you know, Spamberger voters who just write, do a write in or just don't vote in the AG race maybe depending on margin, up to 3. So you know, I mean he needs both of that. There needs to be quite a bit of drop off from gov to ag but 7% is pretty impressive. I mean what we're going to see this year is probably the biggest ticket split rate between two statewide elections in Virginia during these gov years since 2013. Ralph Northam, when he was running for LG won by 11 and then the attorney general race was decided by a nax eyebrow when Mark Herring barely won. That was an 11 point difference. In 2017 the difference was like maybe 3 or 4 between LG and gov. And then 2021 was like maybe a point or a point and a half. Um, so this is going to be probably the biggest ticket splitting we've seen in just about 10 years.

[C]

Just to put some numbers, some firm numbers on that. In our survey we had 49% of respondents say they were definitely voting for Abigail spanberger and only 36% said that they were definitely voting for J. Jones. That's across the board, already voted, whatever. So you know that's a 13 point difference in the definitelys. So I think that's to Chaz's point like people are less willing to be like yeah, I'm all in on this scandal plagued candidate. Whether they vote for him or not is yet to be seen.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Okay. So of course the House of Delegates is also in play next Tuesday and we can talk about that by way of getting to Chaz, what you're going to be doing later today, which is you're headed to the Virginia state House because Democrats have called a special session to attempt to gerrymander the state in response to Republicans push for mid decade redistricting. I think Democrats are hoping to get another two to three seats out of Virginia if they aggressively gerrymander there. And this would rely on an amendment to the state constitution similar to how, you know, Democrats would have to do this in other states because they're perhaps a little bit hamstrung. Does it look like Democrats are going to Be able to successfully gerrymander the state.

[B]

Yeah, this is. I would describe this move as cutthroat because this takes Sears off the campaign trail for one day. This session might go for three days. I mean, this is probably the. You know, and. And Democrats. The base wants Democrat. The Democratic leaders to fight dirty while Republic, you know, Republicans beginning this redistricting war. And I would say that the Democratic leadership in the General assembly is getting filthier than a pig at a mud festival with this. I mean, they're bringing everybody back to Richmond one week before election Day. So how this happened is the special session called for the. By the governor. And I want to say it was for the, like, finalizing the budget in May 2024 was never officially adjourned. Governor can call for a special session. General assembly leaders cannot, as far as I recall. So technically, they use the fact that that session never officially adjourned to continue that special session to do redistricting. Um, they can call for it back to continue and just say, we're going to get back and continue this session. So it is. It is one of the most cutthroat maneuvers, I think Democrats in Virginia and when they have been in power, that they have done since probably the 1990s, and there was a whole bunch that they did with a very different majority then. So to answer your question, so what needs to happen here is they need to pass this. Here in Virginia, we have a independent redistricting commission. For those who don't know, we passed it in 2020. The Redistricting Commission technically failed, and it went to special masters appointed by the state supreme court. And we have pretty fair partisan maps on the congressional and state legislative district level. What needs to be done is that constitutional amendment needs to be repealed. Voters have to vote on the ballot for this. So what needs to happen is the General assembly needs in two different sessions. So they need to approve it this year, and then they need to approve it and in January. And so what needs to happen after that? Let's say they approve it and they're able to get a constitutional amendment. Voters would need to vote on this and approve it in the spring in 2020. I think, like 2/3 of Virginians voted for the independent redistricting commission during that session. What needs to happen is Spamberger also needs to change the. Has to sign a bill that would adjust the primary date. So Abigail Spamberger, technically or any governor. Right. Because, I mean, Abigail Spanberg is almost certainly going to become governor of Virginia, but even Youngkin does not have a say in this current session. The governor doesn't have a role in the constitutional amendment process. What Abigail Spamberger does have a role in is changing the primary date. Because you're going to need to change the primary. We have these primaries in June. If we're going to have district different districts, you have to delay it to like August or something. Right. She would have to sign a bill to where it moves the primary date. So technically, she does have a say in redistricting thus far. She has previously indicated that she does not support Virginia getting into the redistricting wars. But I don't think there has been a official statement since Brandon Jarvis of Virginia Scope broke the redistricting news last week. Now, that being said, I don't think this is all going to really change the outcome of like, the House of Delegates races or the governor's race, because as much as all three of us and probably your listeners love redistricting and elections and this sort of thing, the average voter isn't going to care about that. They're going to care about their pocketbook. And Democrats can pull this session because they don't have any competitive incumbents. Our forecast gives every Democratic incumbent at least a 90% chance of winning reelection, whereas Republicans are defending over a dozen seats where they are either underwater or they are just above water. So this is another thing to where it's like, it doesn't really hurt Democrats in holding their majority, holding the session, because their members are all coming back.

[A]

All right. Well, we will see how that all plays out in Virginia this week. Let's move on to New Jersey. But first, a break. Today's podcast is brought to you by you, the listeners. Without paid subscribers, GD Politics wouldn't be possible. Your support means we can continue making an independent podcast guided by curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. In particular, we can have conversations like the one we're having today. We're quickly approaching the first election day since 2011, when I was a senior in college that I haven't covered from the cocoon of a mainstream newsroom. And I couldn't be more thrilled about it. So first I want to say thank you for making that possible and to anyone considering subscribing and head over to GDPolitics.com and join the community. Today you get about twice the number of episodes. You can join the paid subscriber chat where you can pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. And you can connect your personal feed to your favorite podcast players so you get every episode right where you already listen to podcasts again, that's gdpolitics. Com. See you there. In New Jersey, the state navigate forecast has Mikey Sheryl winning 88% of the time and projects a five and a half point margin in her favor against the Republican Jack Ciarelli. We've talked on the podcast before about why Spanberger looks likely to perform better in Virginia than Sheryl in New Jersey despite the fact that New Jersey has historically been more Democratic leaning than Virginia. Has to do with candidate quality and also the fact that New Jersey has shifted more to the right over the past several elections than Virginia has. Okay, so I mentioned at the top, Mary, that we aren't seeing quite as much variation in the polls in New Jersey as we are in Virginia. I mean, do you have a sense of, of why and to the extent that we are seeing variation, what's the landscape look like?

[C]

Polling in New Jersey generally has this as a mid single digits race and it's fairly consistent. There was one survey for a Democratic super PAC recently that had it at a 12 point race, but that's the highest we have seen. Mostly it's five sixes and sevens around there. There's a few Republican leaning pollsters that have it at low single digits rates, but it seems to be pretty consistently in the mid single digits across the polling landscape. I haven't really noticed as much of the sort of methodological shenanigans that we were just talking about in Virginia in the New Jersey polls. That sort of reflects to me that this is probably a mid single digits race. And I wanted to pick up on something that Chaz was talking about in Virginia when we think about New Jersey. So Chaz was mentioning that we're seeing in the Virginia surveys higher support for Spanberger among younger voters, among voters with lower incomes thinking about cost of living. And Chaz mentioned that this might be sort of just like an anti incumbency sort of situation. I think this is really probably part of the distinction between New Jersey and Virginia because the New Jersey race is also really focused on cost of living issues and the incumbent governor in the state of New Jersey is a Democrat. So if we're thinking about the electorate orienting themselves around cost of living and being mad at current leadership, it sort of makes some sense that voters in New Jersey might be looking toward a change in leadership at the state level, which is a Republican. Citarelli has been really focused on these issues and has seemed to me at least as sort of a regular guy kind of Republican, sort of in the Youngkin mold from the Virginia 2021 race. So I'm sort of not surprised to see that the New Jersey polling looking like it is being much closer than Virginia.

[A]

From the polling, do we have a sense of what Cheryl's and Chitarelli's coalitions look like, Mary?

[C]

They sort of look the way you expect. You have white voters leaning toward Chittarelli and non white voters leaning towards Sheryl. So, for example, in a recent Rutgers Eagleton poll, Sherrill's leading among non white voters by 30 points and Cittarelli is leading among white voters by 7 points. Younger voters, though, are pretty mixed. So unlike in Virginia, in this Rutgers Eagleton survey, among voters 18 to 34, Cheryl's lead is much smaller than you might expect. It's only six points among those young voters. Obviously, you know, as we've seen the education divide play out in American politics, you see Cheryl doing quite a bit better with voters with a college degree. She's leading 61 to 35among those voters. Cittarelli is leading 55 to 38among voters that don't have a college degree. So, I mean, it's pretty reflective of like sort of the broad trends in American politics. I think the performance among younger voters though. Right. Cheryl's sort of lackluster performance among younger voters relative to perhaps Spamberger is why we're seeing such a big distinction here.

[A]

Well, and as Chaz highlighted, maybe younger voters are more anti incumbent voters than they are ideological voters. And if they are, in fact anti incumbent voters, marrying that with your analysis, Mary, it would suggest that younger voters in New Jersey might also be voting against Phil Murphy, the unpopular Democratic incumbent governor. So I think, I think, I think the picture is. It all still aligns as far as I'm concerned.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think there is a pretty consistent story that we can tell across both of these states if things go the way that we expect them to go based on the pre election data.

[B]

And so Mary's point, I think it's been not since, what, the early 60s or the 50s that Jersey has elected a Democrat three times in a row for whatever they call. I want to call it the governor's mansion because we call it the governor's mansion in Virginia. But it's like some weird, I want to say, Dutch name for what they called the governor's residence in New Jersey. And I can't remember.

[C]

I didn't know that.

[B]

Yeah, it's like, I think it starts with a t tuttam putt or something. I don't remember.

[A]

Weird drum thwacket Drum Thwacket.

[B]

Drumthwacket is the name.

[A]

I was not familiar with this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Drum Thwacket is the official residence of the Governor of the U.S. state of New Jersey.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Wow. Drum Thwacket.

[B]

Drum Thwacket. Which I will say one thing that is Jersey has over us is a cooler name for where the governor lives. I'll give that to them. That's the only thing I'm giving to them.

[A]

Well, there is one other thing that New Jersey has that Virginia doesn't really have, which is a large Hispanic population. And we have talked plenty after the 2016 election, 2020 election, 2024 election, about how Hispanic voters have shifted to the right of any racial or ethnic group. We saw the largest shift amongst Latino voters from 16 to 20 and then took that distinction again from 20 to 2024 for like a grand total, I think of 16 point swing over that eight year period. And we, we see in northern New Jersey in particular, there are sizable populations of Hispanic voters. And I think a big question is, are Republicans going to be able to keep those voters in their column? Do we have Mary, any early indication of how that's looking?

[C]

Yeah. So I went to look at the turnout county by county. So far in Jersey, the early vote and mail in ballot returns, there are.

[A]

Two turnouts which again comes with all kinds of caveats.

[C]

Of course, this is just turnout. I don't know who these people voted for. There's two counties in New Jersey that have over 40% Hispanic population. Those are Passaic and Hudson. Currently Passaic and Hudson are the two counties with the lowest turnout in the state of New Jersey.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[C]

Yeah. So far that's, and this is, this.

[B]

Is interesting compared to Virginia because I was looking at, we have like a precinct map of percentage of 2025 votes as a percentage of 2024. And the Latino precincts in like NOVA are coming out pretty strong thus far. So it, I think that's really interesting.

[C]

Well, I mean I, I should caveat this that like Hudson and Passaic did have relative to other counties, pretty low early vote and mail turnout in 2024. They were among. But not the lowest. Right. They were among the lowest but not the lowest in 2024. So this may just be like how it is in those places. People vote on election day rather than. Than early vote.

[A]

Right. Like how you vote has become a cultural difference in America.

[C]

That's true. But this is just something I have my eye on. Right. Because according to a survey from Fox News Cheryl does have a pretty significant lead among Hispanic voters in the state. They have Cheryl ahead among Hispanic voters, 53 to 32. That's 21 points. But if we, if, if you're ahead by 21 points and your voters aren't turning out, that doesn't really help you very much. You know, there's some anecdotal reporting that I have seen that Hispanic voters are just particularly not very excited about this race. So there's sort of two questions for me with respect to the Hispanic vote is A, do Hispanic voters vote and B, do they sort of continue this anti incumbency sort of streak that we are talking about and the shift toward Republicans? I don't know the answers to those things yet, but I'm very excited to find out.

[A]

And Mary, we might have an opportunity to talk about it on election night. I haven't really revealed this yet, but we're, we have some livestream planning in the works that we I'll get into more detail at a later date, but we are definitely going to be watching sort of how Hispanic voters turn out and how they vote in Northern Jersey. Are there any other parts of the state or particular demographics that you'll be watching in New Jersey?

[B]

I'll note that the question as well in Jersey this year is whether the inroads that ciatarelli made in 2021 with suburban voters holds, especially South Jersey. He's been trying very hard to make inroads with minority communities, black communities, Latino communities, Asian communities since he lost in 2021. Citarelli did better with white supreme voters than Trump did, but he did poorer with minority voters in Jersey than Trump did. And another thing, when we talk about demographics, I know it's like not a huge chunk of the electorate, but it still is important in 2021. The I hope I'm pronouncing this right, but the VAD, the Orthodox Jewish population in Lakewood, New Jersey, and this is a rapidly growing township and they had actually endorsed Murphy, the incumbent governor, in 2021. So these are, these are block voters in New Jersey. In New York, you have these orthodox block voters pretty much when you know, the religious leaders, community leaders say we need to vote for this candidate, almost like 90% of them usually vote for that candidate. And it doesn't matter. They endorse Democrats, they endorse Republicans. So like, you know, they had, they had endorsed Trump last time and you know, Trump got like 80 high 80s to low 90s percent in the vote in Lakewood, I want to say, and this time Chitterelli has their endorsement. So there's a lot of Jewish voters in New Jersey. Particular concentration in Bergen county as well. Bergen county went from, you know, Biden 16 to Harris plus three. Just harp on that a little bit earlier. And the Democrats there are treating this as a competitive election in their county as well as Passaic, which, you know, again went from Biden plus 17 as Mary was talking about, to Trump plus 3 because of the Latino population there. So I think those are the interesting demographic tidbits to add to that.

[C]

I saw a piece of news yesterday that there are six Hasidic communities in Jersey and all six have endorsed Cittarelli.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

All right, so more parts of the state to keep an eye on on election night. Let's turn to California and Proposition 50, which has attracted a lot of spending in the state. It's going back to our topic of gerrymandering and redistricting will determine whether Democrats are likely to pick up five congressional seats in the state. And the last time we talked about this, if you refer back to our primer for the 2025 elections that I did with Jacob Rubashkin, he seemed pretty confident that Democrats and Gavin Newsom would be able to, you know, pull this out and get a victory on Prop 50. But we didn't have a lot of polling at the time. Things have changed since then and that's why we have our queen of polling, Mary Radcliffe here to talk about it. It seems like things have only become more certain, right, Mary?

[C]

Oh, yeah. So we've gotten a couple of surveys conducted in mid October here that just came out last week. Emerson College has proposition 50 ahead 60, 40 after they push leaners. And CBS News YouGov has it ahead 62, 38. Those are pretty similar numbers. So that's pretty good news if you're Gavin Newsom and Democrats in California. I do want to just like caveat that this is going to be. I mean, I caveat everything. You know me, Galen, not to like, say these polls are inaccurate, but this is a very difficult election to determine who is likely to vote because this is an off year election which they don't usually have in California. And this is the only thing on the ballot statewide. You know, people may have local races and things on their ballots, but this is the only statewide election. So it's going to be pretty tricky for pollsters to get a good feel on the likely electorate. That being said, a 20 point lead is a 20 point lead.

[A]

Yeah, it's interesting because California is a 60, 40 state.

[C]

Right.

[A]

When you look at presidential elections, that's how things come down a lot of the time. And so on one hand it's not surprising. On the other hand, you would think that maybe Democrats would lose some support on the idea of should we gerrymander? You know, should we? Bipartisan independent commissions are quite popular around America now. Like we've all said here, they don't attract a ton of attention. They're not a priority for voters, especially in an environment where voters are clearly saying cost of living is the most important issue. It's on one hand both not a surprise at all that the electorate would break down according to expected partisanship. And on the other hand, interesting that it runs against, you know, stated preferences for bipartisan independent commissions. But the question really here has been, have Democrats been able to get the message to break through that this is all about sort of anti Trump, anti Republican moves after sort of Republicans did it first in Texas? And given the amount of spending that we have seen in this race, I think it's maybe not a surprise that that message has broken through. We should also say here, California mails ballots to all Californians who are registered to vote. And so whereas in an unexpected off year election elsewhere, we might expect a massive drop off, and I think we probably should still expect a drop off in turnout. In a state where you have universal mail voting, you might expect less of a drop off. You don't have to do very much. The ballot just shows up to your house.

[C]

Yeah, that's true. And to the extent that this is more mirroring the partisanship of the state, I wonder if part of the reason for that is that the people likeliest to vote on this are like the hardest partisan Democrats that are like, yes, absolutely, we must do that. So, like, if you were to look at, say, registered voters, perhaps you would see something closer. Not quite 60, 40, but when you shift, shift into that likely electorate. That's why, I mean, that's pushing it back towards higher support for yes. So it'll be interesting to see the breakdown of who does vote in this race. I'm just sort of curious, right? Like if, if we see a significantly more Democratic electorate than we usually do in California.

[A]

Mary, are you saying that it all comes down to turnout?

[C]

Yes. Yeah. Wake me up when Waukesha reports.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Right. I mean, in these off, off year elections, it is always interesting to see who bothers to turn out. And usually the answer is the most pissed off voters. And in 2025, that is liable to be Democrats We've given a lot of time to Virginia, New Jersey, and California. Like I said, we're gonna be giving a lot of time to New York later in the week. But these are not the only places where Americans are going to the polls on November 4. Are there any other races that we should have our eyes on before we get to Graham Planner in Maine?

[C]

I have a couple of things that I'm watching. So, as a Pennsylvanian, of course, judicial retentions in Pennsylvania. So the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is an elected court, but rather than have reelection campaigns, what we commonly do in. In the Commonwealth is put on the ballot a question. Should we keep this judge in place or should we run a whole election?

[A]

That's interesting.

[C]

Yeah, it saves a lot of money and time and energy, obviously, to ask that question first. So if you vote yes on the retention, that judge will get another term and we don't have to run a whole election. If the state votes no on the retention, then we run election for that judge. So there are three members of Pennsylvania State Supreme Court up for retention. Republicans in the state have been running a campaign to not retain them. They'd like another shot at taking a republic majority on the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court. And to do that, they need elections. So that will be an interesting one to watch, in part just because Pennsylvania is a swing state. To see what that looks like, I will say these judicial retentions usually go through, like, it's fairly rare for the voters to vote not to retain a judge unless some very anomalous circumstance has happened. But the Republicans are messaging this as an opportunity to reshape Pennsylvania's abortion laws by restructuring or getting on the. On the state Supreme Court. So that's one I have my eye on. Not just as a Pennsylvania.

[A]

I mean, we always, you know, we're always gonna pay to pay attention to a contest in a swing state. In fact, you know, the most recent tipping point state.

[C]

I have one more swing state contest for you then, David.

[A]

Oh, do you ever.

[C]

In Georgia, there are two GOP incumbents that sit on the Georgia Utility Commission, which really.

[A]

Getting. Really getting into the nitty gritty here.

[C]

I know this is. Listen, the way Georgia structures this commission is completely insane. These members represent districts, but they're elected statewide for some reason. And there's been some, like, shenanigans in the background in the past few years where these elections were supposed to be held before and they were canceled and changed and moved anyway. They're finally voting statewide on these members of this commission, which deals with, like, electricity projects and and energy prices and things like that that actually matter in that pocketbook area, that cost of stuff that we've been discussing throughout today's episode. So I'm interested in these two races, obviously, again, because Georgia is a swing state. But also I'm wondering, given how close Georgia has been, if the fact that there's also like mayoral and city council races in say, Atlanta that could juice Democratic turnout relative statewide, whether there's an opportunity for Democrats to finally make some inroads with these state level elected positions in Georgia. There's two opportunities there. I know it's like way down the ballot and no one's thinking about it, but I'm thinking about it because.

[A]

And are these partisan elections? Like, is the utility commissioner a Republican or a Democrat?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And they're currently both Republicans.

[C]

Yes. So this is a five member commission. If the Democrats were to win either of these seats, they're not going to take control of the commission. But I'm just sort of interested just in general in the trajectory of Georgia's electorate and the fact that we have a statewide contest to sort of consider is worth keeping an eye on.

[A]

Okay, well, you can be our special correspondent for Georgia Utilities Commission on election night. May I look forward to your.

[C]

I'm sorry, is this too in the weeds?

[A]

No, no, it's not. I love it. I love it. It's great.

[C]

There's also some ballot measures that people could keep an eye on. In Maine, for example, there's some ballot measures that would change some of the like voting systems. Things. Yeah, I would shout out here actually, if people are interested. Boltz magazine does a phenomenal job rounding up all the things people are voting on. You can go to their website. It's boltsmag.org what's on the ballot? It's great. It's got everything. It's all organized by like statewide cities, whatever. It's a phenomenal resource. So if people are interested in what other weird little in the weeds down ballot stuff there is, that's a, that's a great place to go.

[A]

Okay, so for listeners who only stuck around listening to this whole podcast because I previewed in the intro that if we had time, we would get to Graham Platner's scandals and the polls that have come out since the last time we covered this, this, dear listeners, is your moment. So since the last time we covered this topic and at the time we talked about his posts on Reddit that CNN had reported on that covered a range of things earlier on things that probably would offend liberals and later on, things that would probably offend conservatives. Since then, we also discovered that Graham Platner had a tattoo that resembled a Nazi tattoo. He said that he had no idea that it was symbolic in that way. And since that time, he's got it covered up as well, which resulted in a shirtless interview on local tv. In Maine. There was also more news about his participation in the Socialist Rifle association, where I guess from what I understand, you teach fellow socialists how to shoot handguns and rifles. For anyone who is really interested in the details of this story, they also hosted a pride event where they taught gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans socialists also how to shoot rifles and handguns. The only reason I bring this up is because Mary sent this to me and their promotional materials for their Pride Month range day show. Presumably, I'll show it to the listeners who are the people who are actually watching show, presumably a homosexual lobster with a rifle in front of a rainbow.

[C]

Flag graphics team getting it done.

[A]

So anyway, the content, the content is really, you know, it's giving Mary, but it doesn't. See, it doesn't seem like Mainers are necessarily, or at least Democratic. Mainers are necessarily upset about this. So since all of this has come out, what. What have we learned about Mainer's preferences?

[C]

Well, it's a little confusing. We've seen three surveys that I am aware of since these scandals started to break. They've been conducted at various times within the scandal timeline. The first survey came from the University of New Hampshire that showed platner with a 34 point lead. That was conducted October 16th to 21st. So folks can get out their calendars and plot out. This is post Reddit. Post Reddit, but partially mid tattoo.

[A]

Pre Nazi tattoo.

[C]

Okay, Mid tattoo tattoo's in the middle of that.

[A]

Oh, okay. And that's. Wait, so that's a 30 point lead over Janet Mills in a hypothetical Democratic primary.

[C]

Correct. There is another survey that was conducted post tattoo and Reddit. I honestly, I haven't seen as much circulation of the story about the socialist militia paramilitary thing. So I'm going to leave that out of the timeline because that hasn't gotten as much play as a Nazi tattoo. So this, the next survey was conducted by the nrsc, that is the National Republican Senatorial Commission. So let's grain of salt. Anything that they're going to put out on the Democratic primary, they have their own motivations that had platner with a 21 point lead. Now, people may have seen something from this survey getting a lot of play, which is that the way they wrote their memo, it said after voters found out about the tattoo, they were more likely to support Graham Platner. That's a little misleading because the question wording that they, they, they used in the survey was not Nazi tattoo. They called it an anti Israel tattoo. Yes. So don't believe that. If you've read that, put it out of your mind. It's not true.

[A]

Interesting. Right, okay. And to be more specific about what the tattoo is, it's a symbol of Nazis who are guarding concentration camps.

[B]

Toten camp.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, it's the Totenkonf.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And also real, real quick, I think there was a story where somebody found one of his Reddit posts to where he's talking about the tattoo. You know, he had made a statement that's like, I didn't know. And he got, he got it covered up.

[C]

Yeah. No, that was Andrew Kaczynski in the K file. It was Andrew Kaczynski in K file for CNN. Yes. Finally, our last survey comes from SoCal Strategies. This is post all the things, and that has Mills ahead by five.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

The hypothetical primary. Right. So this is all a very confusing picture. Mid scandal, it looked like, if you look at the UNH survey, Platner was leading pretty handily. I'm going to set the NRSC survey aside for all of the partisan reasons and then post scandal, we have a survey with Mills ahead by a couple of points. Here's what I would say. Generally, it's very early. We are in October of the year before this primary is actually going to happen. Voters aren't as tuned in as you are, dear listener, which is fine. They don't have to be. They'll learn about this stuff eventually and we can can figure out the fallout then. But voters are not going to be reacting on a dime to every political scandal that only has impact on an election that's going to happen like in six months or whatever, whenever the primary is in Maine. So patience, friends.

[A]

All right, fair enough. Well, we will continue to watch that fallout as well. We're gonna leave it there for today. Thank you so much for joining me, Chaz and Mary.

[B]

Thank you so much for having me.

[C]

A pleasure as always, Galen.

[A]

My name is Galen Drouk. Remember to become a subscriber to this [e-mail] and wherever you get your podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and access to the videos for the podcast. You can also join our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. Also, be a friend of the podcast and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to pods, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.