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- [00:00]
A
Hey there, listeners. A quick note before we get started. We're going to be doing live coverage of the Michigan primary and, well, primaries in all of the other states that you're going to hear us talk about on today's episode on Tuesday night starting at 8pm eastern@gdpolitics.com so make sure to head there. You'll be able to see our live reactions as the results come in. We're going to be dissecting what it means for the parties and all that jazz. We'll see how late we end up going and of course, we'll have a reaction podcast for for you either late Tuesday or early Wednesday. All right, here's the show. Can you just make sure that your wires are fully plugged in on your mic? I'm feeling I'm hearing a little bit of, like, distortion or disruption.
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B
Is it possible my gain is just a little too high?
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A
It could be.
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B
How's this?
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A
Tell me about Tennessee and then I'll
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B
be able to judge about Tennessee. What about Tennessee? It's a state. It borders more states than any other state in the union. It has a surprisingly competitive state.
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A
Oh, that's good. I didn't actually know that.
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B
Yeah, it borders eight different states. It's the most neighborly state.
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A
The most borderous state.
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B
The most borderous state. Yeah.
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A
Congratulations. Texas. That's a good superlative.
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B
Yeah, yeah, it's a good one.
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A
Well, I wonder if they've ever used that in like a talk about borders. We know borders. Tennessee. The most borderous state.
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B
The most borderous state.
- [01:36]
A
Hello and welcome to the GD Politics podcast. I'm Galen Dweek. The blockbuster Democratic Senate primary of late summer is upon us. Hailey Stevens and Abdul El Sayed are facing off in Michigan on Tuesday. Tuesday, current polls don't show a particularly close race. Elsa had leads by 13 points on average. But these things can be volatile and either way, we're going to learn plenty about how Democratic primary voters are feeling. Michigan also isn't the only consequential primary on Tuesday. There are competitive races on both sides to succeed Kansas's Democratic governor Laura Kelly and House races on new maps in Missouri and Tennessee. Also shout out to Virginia and Washington. I didn't forget you or we're probably not going to talk about you. Plus, on the topic of midterm primaries, we're a week out from what has been a chaotic Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor. Various scandal plague dropouts, one reentrants after a dropout, late stage endorsements, and a Democratic socialist leading the pack. We're gonna get into all of that. We'll also take stock of the midterm environment overall as President Trump hits a new approval rating low. And we've got a good data, bad data or not data example on which party is more supportive of scandal plagued campaign candidates. Here with me to do it all is Jacob Hrabashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections. Welcome back to the podcast, Jacob. It's good to have you.
- [02:53]
B
Howdy, Galen.
- [02:54]
A
Okay, so put my energetic opening to the side because we're actually going to start things with something quite tough to talk about. But on the topic of scandals, Ohio Republican Representative Max Miller is facing calls to step down after court documents from his divorce from Emily Moreno became public. So his ex wife, Emily Moreno, is the daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, making things perhaps all the more sensitive or complicated for the Republican Party. Bernie Moreno weighed in for the first time over the weekend and called on Miller to step aside in his reelection race. The accusations against Miller include throwing boiling water on his wife and questions about his role in his two year old daughter's broken collarbone. Rough stuff. So at this point, Matt Miller put out a video over the weekend onto a live X ray feed saying that he was not going to step aside, fighting back, trying to publish documents that say, you know, acquit him of the accusations. Where does this all stand? Like, is Max Miller going to be forced out of his race, let alone his seat, by Republican politicians?
- [04:08]
B
Max Miller has a couple of days under Ohio law to withdraw from the ballot and let Republican leaders in the district select a replacement. It does not seem like that is where he is headed at the moment. If you look at his pretty defiant address that he gave yesterday, once that deadline passes, which is at the end of this week, essentially beginning of next week, he's on the ballot. And I think that he will face a difficult reelection. This is a district that leans Republican, but it is not an overwhelmingly Republican district. This is kind of the suburbs of Cleveland. And he's got a real opponent in Brian Poindexter, who's the Democratic nominee. This is going to be a real race. And I think this is a good example of a type of district in Ohio of which there are a handful that on paper look Republican because Ohio has shifted toward Republicans in recent years. But if you readjust your perspective back to Ohio as a toss up state, as an evenly divided state, this district actually looks highly, highly competitive. And at the moment, when you look at the Senate race and you look at the governor's race, both of those races are essentially tied or the Democrats are actually up a point or two. And if Democrats like Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton are winning statewide, they're carrying Ohio's seventh District. And that already puts a lot of political pressure on Max Miller. You add in what are some really shocking and grim accusations from his ex wife and things look even more difficult for him. And quite frankly, I think his response both in the last couple of days and in previous iterations as well doesn't do him any favors either. There's there he's not handling it particularly well. And I think all of that, you know, whether it's the Republicans who succeed in pushing him out in the next couple of days or the voters who push him out in November, the odds of him not returning to Congress next year are only going up.
- [06:31]
A
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about his reelection prospects, which I understand ultimately sort of, that's the perspective from which we cover many of these things. But, but what about his prospects of staying in Congress through the rest of the year? Obviously, Republicans have a very slim margin. And so either for those reasons or because, you know, as we will get into in our good data, bad data or not, data care less about these scandals. They're not sort of inclined to push people out over scandals. Mike Johnson will say, you know, we have, you know, an ethics committee that can investigate these kinds of things for a reason. Of course, his opponent in the race, his Democratic opponent in the race has said, you know, these things are true. It's not a question of whether he belongs in Congress, he belongs in jail. And I'm curious how Republicans are handling the severity of these accusations after, to some extent dining out on the downfall of Eric Swalwell and Graham Platner earlier this year.
- [07:25]
B
I don't think they really want to talk about it. I think. Well, no shocking there. You know, Mike Turner, who is another Ohio congressman, was on one of the Sunday shows and he was asked about it repeatedly and essentially said this is a question for a court of law. It's not a question for Congress. Bernie Marino, who has an incredibly personal connection to it, given that it is his daughter and his granddaughter in the center of all of this. He tried very hard not to say anything about it for several days before I think the pressure got too much and he had to release that statement over the weekend. Look, I don't know. I think that these things happen very slowly and then all at once when it comes to the way that Congress acts at policing its own. And you kind of have to assume that any member is gonna be safe from discipline until the moment where everything happens at once and they end up resigning. You know, that's how it has worked over the years. And even in the moments when, like you said, like Swalwell or Tony Gonzalez, Sheila Shurfos McCormick, which wasn't a violence accusation, but she was under federal indictment, she was accused of all sorts of crimes and insisted on sticking it out until it became very clear she wasn't gonna win. And then she resigned as well. So, look, the short answer is like, I don't know. And quite frankly, there is very little new here. The accusations against Max Miller have been out there for quite some time. Both from Emily Moreno, the accusations of abuse. There was a back and forth between the two of them several months ago that included Miller releasing several recordings he had made surreptitiously of their private conversations on Twitter, tweeting them out, attacking her and Bernie Moreno by name on Twitter. Her legal filings have also been out there in the past. Max Miller, before he even got elected to Congress, was accused of domestic domestic violence by a previous girlfriend, Stephanie Grisham, who was the White House communications director. The criminal charges that were filed against Max Miller when he was a college student, his mugshot was floating around on Twitter the other day. All of that has been out there for a very long time. Despite what anyone in the House Republican Conference says, nobody should be surprised at kind of the latest development and kind of incremental new information that we've received about him. I think it's just, again, because of the moment that we're in that people are being forced to take it with a more appropriate level of seriousness, perhaps, than they had been before.
- [10:19]
A
Well, I was gonna save this until the end of the show, but since we're deep into this, we do have some data that discusses how accepting voters are of this kind of behavior. All kinds of different scandalous behavior, but including things like domestic violence. And so I want to read an excerpt from this Politico poll and ask what you make of it. And so I'll quote them directly. They write, Americans are largely tolerant of scandals among politicians, but nobody is more willing to stick by an empadled candidate than a MAGA voter. The political poll finds President Donald Trump's MAGA supporters, and in this poll, they asked, you know, are you a MAGA Republican or regular Republican, if you will? MAGA supporters are the most loyal of any group of voters, with majorities saying they would stick by. GOP candidates confronted with an array of scandals from DUI conviction or accepting Lobbyist gifts to more serious accusations, including domestic violence, sexual assault and anti Semitic social media posts. Two thirds of self identified MAGA Trump voters said they would continue supporting a GOP candidate accused of sexual assault, 13 percentage points higher than the share of Trump 2024 voters writ large, which include those who do not identify as MAGA. By comparison, 40% of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 would continue backing a Democratic candidate accused of sexual assault. So still quite a high number. They're 40%, but not a majority, as we see in the case with MAGA voters. They want to write 72% of MAGA TRUMP voters say they would stick with a GOP candidate accused of domestic violence, more than 10 percentage points higher than the overall share of Trump 2024 voters who would back a GOP candidate. 61%. 39% of Harris voters said they'd stick with a Democrat accused of domestic violence. I mean, my generic question is good data, bad data, or not data? But what I'm really trying to get at with that question is what is this information telling us? Because my mind goes to any quote, unquote, MAGA Trump voter taking this poll is going to think you're just asking me if I approve of Trump. Because Trump has been accused of many of these things, you know, not a DUI or whatever, but like sexual assault, corruption in office, all of these kinds of things. And what they're ultimately saying is, yeah, I support Trump. You asked me that question already. But there's more here. So what do you make of it?
- [12:40]
B
I tend to agree with you. I think that this poll, certainly, when it comes to the segment of MAGA voters, is just asking about Trump. That's how it's being interpreted. And quite frankly, I, I, the reason why I tend toward a judgment of bad data is if you're a Trump voter, you did support a candidate who used legal tax loopholes. You did support a candidate who has been accused of workplace bullying. You did support a candidate who was accused of sexual assault. You did support a candidate who has exaggerated military service. He loves to post that photo from his high school of him in a military uniform as if he, you know, actually went to a service academy or something like that. You did support a president who was accused of sharing classified information with a foreign government. So I look at these numbers and I say, oh, only, only 66%. That's, that's, that's wrong. Categorically.
- [13:39]
A
It should be 100% as well.
- [13:40]
B
It should be 100%. Right. And I Think that if you're asking people, if you're priming them by asking them, are you a MAGA Republican? Right. You are already throwing off all of this data and I don't know the specific order of, of the questionnaire here, but I think by and large I agree with you that any Trump voter who is taking this survey is going to, rightfully or not, read it. As you're asking me about Trump. It makes it really hard to abstract out and then reapply to another person because we have seen that there are lots of things that Trump can get away with that nobody else can. I mean, we'll see what happens with Max Miller if he remains on the ballot. But it is an example, one of many of other Republicans who are accused of bad behavior and who do not get the benefit of the doubt from voters that Trump continues to receive.
- [14:40]
A
Yeah, I mean, there's another directional question here which is are, you know, they just compared here Trump voters with Harris voters, so not specifically MAGA voters. And directionally it suggests that Trump voters in 2024 are more accepting of scandalous behavior. In every category that they asked about, except two categories which is anti Semitic statements and previously convicted of a dui. There's relatively little difference in making anti Semitic statements. About 50% of both Trump and Harris voters say they would accept it or not accept it. It's split 50, 50 previously convicted of a DUI. Close to 70% of Democrats say that they would accept a candidate vote for a candidate who was previously convicted of a DUI and 5 percentage points less of Trump voters. But in every other category, accepting gifts from lobbyists, being accused of domestic violence, there's a huge gap there, 20 percentage point gap between Trump and Harris voters, you know, accused of workplace bullying, things like that. And so is this again, respondents know that they're being asked about Trump here or get a sense that they're being asked about Trump here. So respond in kind or, and like, I'll say I'm asking the question, but to me I think there is something a little bit deeper that like over a decade Democrats have proven themselves to be less accepting of scandals by politicians, candidates, the like than Republicans. And so at this point it is part of their identity and that is a change. Whereas like the first half of the 21st century in American politics, you probably would have said that Republicans were less accepting of personal scandals.
- [16:12]
B
Yes, I, I'm inclined to agree with you. I think that Trump has created space in Republican voters minds for a greater level of tolerance and probably decrease the tolerance on the other side, but I think is the cause of this split. Again, to the Max Miller point, it was not until Mother Jones wrote the latest article about the latest legal filings, which was just the most recent development in a very long train of developments when it came to the accusation against Max Miller that people started talking about it differently. But all of this has been out in the open for as long as Max Miller has been a public figure. And I guess it's hard for me to believe if he were a Democrat that he would have won his primary in the first place and then not face some sort of repercussion internally politically earlier.
- [17:12]
A
All right, well, I will link that poll in the show notes in case folks want to take a look at it for themselves. But let's move on to the Michigan Senate primary, the results of which we will. I don't know if we'll find them out Tuesday night, but if the early polls or the pre election polls are any indication, we probably will. So according to the averages over at 50 plus one, Abdul El Sayed leads Haley Stevens by 13 points. We've said many times on this podcast that primary polling can be volatile because these are all Democrats that we're talking about here. There's not as steep of a hurdle to climb to cross from one candidate to the other, although I imagine that both candidates are pretty well defined in Michigan voters minds at this point in the race given how contentious it has been and how much money has been spent. So Jacob, how are you thinking about the contours of this race in the final day?
- [18:02]
B
Galen, this primary has gone on for about 30 years already. And I for one, I think along with probably every Michigan voter, is simply happy that we are coming to the long awaited conclusion tomorrow night. This has been a expensive, potentially one of the most expensive Senate primaries in American history. It has been nasty. It has had its fair share of ups and downs, twists and turns. Mallory McMurra, the state senator, was in this race until the summer when I went on vacation and she decided to drop out.
- [18:40]
A
It was personal. It was personal.
- [18:42]
B
It was. She knew. She knew. This race has had it all. It's got the ideological component here, right? You've got a more moderate Democrat from, from a swing, formerly of a swing district. Haley Stevens, you've got a progressive candidate backed by Bernie. You've got the late mobilization of the state's political establishment, Gretchen Whitmer, Gary Peters.
- [19:08]
A
You've even got the gender divide. You know, like the sort of women who won in swing districts in 2018. Versus the kind of like Bernie Bros, I guess, if you will.
- [19:18]
B
Absolutely. You've got the flashpoint of Israel, which has emerged as one of the defining themes of this race. Hailey Stevens, of course, benefiting from tens of millions of dollars in outside spending from aipac. She is previously benefited from support from AIPAC in her 2022 race against Andy Levin, which was another big fractious Democratic primary. Abdul, a very prominent critic of Israel who has drawn a ton of attention to the spending that AIPAC has poured into this race. It has and it is taking place in a must win state for Democrats, one of the most evenly divided states on the map. They've got to hold on to this Senate seat if, if they want really any hope of reclaiming the majority. It's already a steep climb for them. When you look at the nationwide map, if they're down 1 in Michigan, then the whole project becomes that much more unstable. So there's a lot riding on this primary and I think both of these candidates, they have issues, right? I mean, not to be too blunt about it, but I think that neither one of them are shoo ins for a general election, despite the Can I
- [20:33]
A
just ask then, since you're saying this, why weren't Democrats in Michigan able to draft Gretchen Whitmer or any other of a number of more high profile battle tested, if you will, Democrats who probably could have done more to clear the field?
- [20:54]
B
It's like you read my story on Inside Elections.com, the top five Senate candidates who didn't run and why they might affect the majority, which starts with a rundown of the three candidates who were approached to run in Michigan on the Democratic side after Gary Peters said that he wouldn't run for reelection, all of whom passed on a bid. So Governor Whitmer, of course, I think was the first call for a lot of people. Frankly, the sense that I get from her, and this is not directly, but it's through watching how she's acted over the last two years. She's done with politics for a little while. At the beginning I thought she was gearing up for a presidential run, but I have become increasingly convinced that she needs a break. She didn't pass on the Senate race because she wants to run for president. She passed on the Senate race because she's not interested in being a candidate for office at this particular point in time. And people always say that. But I am increasingly a believer that that is why she turned down what I understand to be a fairly significant pressure campaign, both from people in state and here in D.C. to run. And I think she would have cleared the field of pretty much any serious challenger. I think that she would have been a very strong Senate candidate. And I think that quite frankly, I'm not even sure that Mike Rogers would have run. If Gretchen Whitmer had made clear early on in that year that she was going to run for Senate, I don't think that he would have felt that it was worth the time and energy. But she said no. Pete Buttigieg was next on the list. And he was also approached by plenty of people in D.C. and in Michigan to run for Senate. He's now a Traverse City resident. You know, he moved from Indiana a couple years ago. Former Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is incredibly prominent in the Democratic Party, she personally was trying to recruit him into the race. He, I think gave it a lot more thought than Whitmer did, but ultimately passed on it as well. And he's running for president right like that. He made kind of the flip side of that calculation. And I think he would have done very well in a primary too. I don't think he would have cleared the field of progressive challengers just because he doesn't have the same kind of in state clout as Whitmer. But I think he still would have won. And after Pete passed, attention turned to Kristen McDonald Rivett, who's a first term congresswoman from Flint who flipped us or held a swing district in 2024 outperformed the top of the ticket. She didn't want to run. It was only after that that the field kind of opened up and you started getting the Haley Stevens trial balloon. Mallory McMorrow got into the race. Abdul got into the race. The former state House Speaker Joe Tate briefly ran. There was conversation about whether Dana Nestle, the outgoing Attorney General, would run. And that's kind of how you end up with this field is because at least three and potentially more that we didn't hear about. Other candidates who were approached about running opted not to. And the other thing I'll say is that on paper I think there's a lot to like about Haley Stevens from an electability standpoint. From the standpoint of if you're trying to draft a candidate to win Michigan, she fits the bill. I mean, she won a very tough election in 2018. She flipped a longtime Republican held district in that race. She was one of that class of Women in 2018 along with Alyssa Slotkin in Michigan and plenty others elsewhere that flipped these longtime Republican districts. She did it off of the strength of a manufacturing message, talking about her time working for the auto bailout under the Obama administration. She did it with a personal shout out from Barack Obama. And then she ran it back in 2020, and she won another really tough reelection campaign. And in 2022, she was drawn into the same district as Andy Levin, and he decided to run against her rather than run in kind of a neighboring district that in hindsight, he absolutely should have run in and he would have won. And she wip floor with him in that primary. Yes. She got help from outside groups. She got help from aipac, who didn't like Andy Levin because he is a Jewish critic of Israel. And that's the profile that scares them more than anything else. But he was the scion of the state's most prominent Democratic political family. He was a guy with a lot of strengths, a lot of political clout, a lot of political talent, and that primary didn't end up even being close.
- [25:27]
A
Yeah. So. So why haven't things gone as swimmingly this time around? And, you know, I'll just offer my two cents here, which is that like, not only did Democrats or the establishment or in state Democrats, out of state Democrats not get the candidates that they wanted, they also don't have an electorate that likes them.
- [25:47]
B
Yeah, yeah. No, I think the party has changed. The electorate has changed. Right. 2022, the pre October 7th, pre Gaza war, the primary there, just a very different valence in terms of the role that Israel issues played and the way that Democratic primary voters thought about that particular issue, but also the lack of trust in the establishment. Right. Think about where we were in 2022. Biden was still president. Democrats had passed a bunch of stuff in Congress when they had that trifecta. Moderate Democrats were winning primaries off the strength of their association with Joe Biden. If you remember that Ohio primary, Chantel Brown versus Nina Turner. Chantel Brown had Biden's cabinet secretaries cutting ads for her. She was running ads hitting Nina Turner over her derogatory comments toward Biden. And that was a really effective message for Democratic primary voters. But after Biden drops out, after Harris loses the election, and after Democrats in D.C. spend the first year of the Trump administration looking feckless and unable to, you know, prevent any of the sort of things that Trump wants to do in power that Democrats, Democratic voters find so incredibly upsetting and distasteful, I don't think that the establishment has nearly the kind of clout that they used to. And so being the establishment candidate becomes a detriment. And no matter how much money it gets you. No matter how many endorsements you can get from Whitmer or from Gary Peters or from Jim Clyburn, if voters don't want what you're selling anymore, if they feel like they've gotten a raw deal from you and your team over the last couple of years, they're gonna look for alternatives. And Mallory McMorrow tried to be that alternative, but she also tried to be a little too kind of. She was, she was trying to do two things at once. And instead of appealing to everyone, she kind of turned everyone off. And so she flamed out. And Abdul has been, you know, true to who he is from the beginning and, and, and honestly from eight years ago when he ran for governor as a progressive candidate, as a Bernie backed in 2018. And he was offering something different, something new, something energetic. And clearly people are resonating with it because he's not politics as usual. He's different. And he pokes fun at this, right? Like his intro video is kind of poking at this tension that is inherent to his profile, which is on one hand, he's got this blue chip resume, valedictorian at University of Michigan, Columbia Medical School. He was a Rhodes scholar. He's got his, you know, PhD in public health from Oxford. He's held these high level positions. He was, you know, he was like the captain of the lacrosse team at Oxford. Right. Like, on one hand he's got this incredible pedigree, and on the other hand, you know, his name is Abdul Rahman El Sayed and he is the son of Egyptian immigrants and he would be the first Muslim person ever elected to the United States Senate. And there's a tension there, and he leans into that. And, and, and I think has used it really well to his advantage in, in, look, I am somebody who is new. I am different. I'm obviously not like these other people you've elected. But also I've got the credentials, I've got the pedigree, I've done the work, I have the expertise. So I'm you, you can trust me to do a good job. But it's going to look different than what you've been voting for in the past. And right now that's a really strong message for Democrats. I mean, you look at people in some of these other primaries who only have one of those things, right? They only have the, the difference and they're not winning necessarily. Right. Like, I think about a guy like Kai Newkirk, who ran against Greg Stanton in Arizona a couple weeks ago, you know, he was just. He was a progressive. He was, you know, a track APAC candidate, like all those things, but he didn't really have any. He was a social worker. He, you know, was not kind of. He wasn't a Rhodes scholar. Right. Like, and he got 30 something percent against.
- [30:07]
A
The social worker is really catching strays on the GD Politics podcast this morning. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. You don't have to defend yourself. I totally get what you're saying.
- [30:16]
B
And he got more than 30% of the vote. And so it's like, you take that, let's try something different, and you layer onto it the political skill that Abdul has and the pedigree that he has, and it becomes incredibly potent.
- [30:33]
A
Jacob, I need to ask you because you have been one of the strongest advocates for money mattering in politics. That more money is getting in. It is still just as influential as ever. And that sort of. Our American politics will be increasingly ruled by the wealthy who can spend as much money as they want on candidates as they wish. This is the second primary where we're like talking about one candidate who spent, you know, the treasury of a small nation trying to win the primary, and the other candidate didn't get anywhere close. And the big spending candidate still lost pretty decisively. Now, okay, again, I have no idea if Abdul Al Said is going to win. And we're going to have a reaction podcast and we're going to talk all about it. I think we're doing live coverage on Tuesday night as well, so we will get into it. But it's not looking good for Haley Stevens, given that. Have you started to question how much money matters?
- [31:38]
B
Big picture? No. Right. Because I think that you're always going to find exceptions to the rule. I think that my feeling about money and politics in general is that politics is a numbers game. And for every one or two races, you can find where the overwhelming cash advantage enjoyed by one candidate doesn't come through for them, ultimately you will find a hundred races that don't get as much attention that have the opposite story. And so I do think that for most of these races, the money is still the biggest thing. And especially for the races that don't get the national attention. And I do think that is kind of the equalizer here in some ways.
- [32:24]
A
I was referring to Texas when I was saying the other race. I didn't make that explicit, but obviously.
- [32:28]
B
And I hear. I thought you were talking about the Maryland 2024 primary with David Trone, which is kind of where my mind went and actually, I would say, and not to argue against myself here, but the Illinois Senate primary between Roger Krishnamoorthy and Juliana Stratton is another example of this. And I've always kind of been clear about how I think that you do hit a point of diminishing returns. And ultimately, if voters don't want what you're offering, no amount of money will be able to get you past that hurdle. I think that is what David Trone ran up against in Maryland when he spent $60 million to lose to Angela. Also, Brooks, I think it's what Raja ran up to in Illinois. If voters feel like they have options and they don't like you, no matter how much information you give them about yourself, if they don't like who you are and they feel like they have a viable alternative, you're going to really struggle to win. And Abdul, people like him. People like him better than they like Haley Stevens. Democratic primary voters, and they know who he is. They know that they have that option. He has met whatever sort of minimum threshold between his own fundraising, which has been as good or better than Haley's, between the little bit of outside support that he's gotten and between the significant earned media coverage that his campaign, I think, has been very skilled at garnering. He has been able to introduce himself to the primary electorate. And so I think that's the story. There is ultimately, yes, in certain instances, if a candidate can meet a minimum threshold to introduce themselves to voters and the candidate that has so much more money is simply not well liked, is, is there's something that's holding them back, then the candidate with fewer resources can win. I don't think that that means that money isn't a problem in politics. I don't think that it means that there isn't an increasing tendency for big money to come in and exert influence over politics as a whole. I think it means that in a few specific examples where there are similar circumstances to each other, a candidate with fewer resources can win.
- [34:51]
A
Well, I think to some extent folks try to get at this from a quantitative angle. And we did get a recent question about a quantitative analysis of the role that money plays in politics, and we will get to that eventually. Not on today's podcast, because we've got a lot of other primaries to talk about. I'll also say in terms of lessons for the Democratic Party, the mood of the voters, whatever, we're going to talk about all of it in our reaction podcast after the voting all happens and is tallied and what have you, I don't want to get too much into postmortem territory before anything even happens. GD Politics is powered by you, the listeners. If you enjoy the show, the data driven analysis, the genuine curiosity and lack of partisan bs, and yes, sometimes the silliness too, please consider becoming a paid subscriber@gdpolitics.com paid subscribers help make the podcast possible, and they also get twice the number of episodes and access to the paid subscriber chat where you can send me whatever questions you've got. Independent political media only works if the people who value it support it. So if GD Politics is part of your week, head to GDPolitics.com and become a paid subscriber. That's GDPolitics.com I so appreciate it. Thank you. Also, on Tuesday night, as I mentioned, we have the primaries for Kansas governor and then we've got some House races in Missouri. At least we can talk about Tennessee if you want to. I think what the story has been largely so far in the Kansas governor's race, the primaries, is the role that data centers have played. And you know, there are 40 data centers in Kansas City. The current Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, has been quite business friendly and the state provided incentives for more businesses to come into the state, including data centers. And so actually on both sides of the aisle you have candidates fighting about the role that data centers should play in Kansas. That has popped up in politics across other states as well. And I'm curious if like that's sort of what the media has glommed onto in this race or if that's really sort of people are thinking about that as they're heading to the polls in Kansas or if you know, it's the same old like one Democrat has branded herself as the progressive friendly candidate, one candidate the has has branded himself as the more moderate establishment endorsed candidate on the Democratic side at least. And that's just that.
- [37:20]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the data center issue is is infiltrating politics all across the country in kind of dynamic and ever changing ways. I would say there's not been a ton of money spent on the Democratic side in the Kansas gubernatorial primary. And so I'm not quite sure how much the data center issue has made its way all the way down to voters. It's also a little muddy because the candidate who has staked out the more anti data center position, she also did vote for the data center in the state legislature and now she's kind of reversed her stance. But she did have that vote on her, which I think makes it A little bit more difficult to make the case. I think the greater.
- [38:09]
A
And we're talking here about just to name them. Sidney Holscher has branded herself as more progressive and anti data center, who did originally vote for the legislation that attracted data centers to Kansas. And then her opponent is state senator. They're both state senators. Is Ethan Corson, who is endorsed by city governor Laura Kelly.
- [38:28]
B
Yes. And there's a third candidate who has a great name, Kurt Skoog, who is the mayor of Overland Park. But he got into the race late. He's not really as much of a factor. Look, I think, and I don't know if this is moderate versus progressive so much as, like, you know, establishment versus non. Establishment.
- [38:46]
A
Insurgent.
- [38:48]
B
Insurgent, something like that. Because Courson is Kelly's candidate. Right. And. And. And similar to some of these other states, he was not the first pick. There were a number of other Democrats who were approached about running for governor who didn't want to do it. And kind of, they got down the list to Ethan Courson, who said that he would. But he's been endorsed by Kelly, he's been endorsed by Sibelius, but he's not the most dynamic character. He's a very nice guy, perfectly fine person, but he is. Nobody would ever accuse him of lighting the world on fire. And Cindy Hoelser, I think, has run a more dynamic campaign. She's also a woman running against two men in a Democratic primary, which is. Is typically an advantageous position to be in politically. And, you know, you layer on top of that the ideological component at a moment when progressives are surging across the country, you layer on top of it the data center issue, which has begun to become more of a thing in this race. And you understand why I think she's gonna win. I think that despite the fact that she's got a bit of a financial disadvantage, despite the fact that Ethan Corson had had Governor Kelly on TV for him for the last couple of weeks, I get the sense from conversations that I've had with folks in Kansas over the last couple weeks that she is in the driver's seat for this primary. And that's surprising. I think it'll be a tough race in the general election, no matter who emerges on the Republican side.
- [40:20]
A
There's very little polling here, by the way, so we can't even really tell folks what the polling average is. For what it's worth. We've seen her lead, but in kind of friendly and sparse polls. Yeah, but go ahead, talk about the Republican side.
- [40:34]
B
Yeah. So the Republican side, you know, I think the, the, the, the data center issue has gotten more money put behind it because the candidates on the Republican side just have more money to play around with. Sarnecki, who is the kind of the business candidate who's running, he's been self funding. He also has a supportive super package and he has gone after Ty Masterson about this issue. Masterson is the Trump endorsed candidate. And so that's another valence here.
- [41:06]
A
You've also got after Masterson in what sense? Because Masterson is too pro data center or not pro data center enough to
- [41:13]
B
pro data center, saying that Masterson gave tax breaks to the data center developers and voted for the data center bill, the same one that Hoelscher voted for. I think it'll be very interesting to
- [41:26]
A
see
- [41:29]
B
is the data center issue if Sarnecchi can hit it hard enough. Is that the key to getting past the Trump endorsement from Asterson? I think that's an interesting question. Scott Schwab, who is another candidate here, he's the state attorney general and he has struggled to fundraise. He was also the first candidate in the race. He's got kind of the most, if you were to just again look at them on paper, you would say that guy is cut out to be the front runner. But he has really struggled to gain traction. And then you've got state insurance commissioner Vicki Schmidt, who's the final candidate in the Republican primary. And I wonder if the sum total of all of this kind of Trump endorsing Masterson, Schwab failing to get off the ground, but then Sarnecki coming in and dumping a ton of money against Masterson creates an opening for Vicki Schmidt, who is by far the most moderate candidate in the race. And before she was insurance commissioner, she was part of the kind of more moderate faction of Kansas Republicans that is in that state's legislature. Because the Kansas Republican Party really is kind of bifurcated between two different factions, kind of more conservatives and more moderates. And I think Vicki Schmidt, I think would almost certainly be the most the strongest general election candidate for Kansas. And for a long time I've thought she had the most difficult path in the primary. But if everyone else is kind of beating each other up, if she can get through with a fraction of the vote, that could be something to watch as well.
- [43:03]
A
If it isn't Vicki Schmidt, ultimately we are talking about whether Kansas, which has oddly enough been governed by Democrats more than you would expect for such a red state, if a Democrat can actually win there in A sympathetic year for Democrats across the country. Do you think that either of the leading candidates that Democrats have put forth could pull another Laura Kelly give Kansas Democratic governor for what would then become a total of what, 12 years?
- [43:35]
B
12 years. I think they have a shot. Like you said, Kansas likes electing Democratic governors. It's this kind of weird thing. Laura Kelly won under favorable circumstances in 2018. She had the national environment. She was running against Kris Kobach, who had just beat the incumbent governor Jeff Collier in the Republican primary. And there was an independent Greg Orman on the ballot as well. And so Kelly was able to win with a plurality. So there she had a lot going for her, not all of which will be present again in 2026. That said, I wouldn't count either of these candidates out in a general election if the political environment is kind of as bad for Republicans nationally as it could be and if the Republican nominee comes out of their primary of wounded and potentially with some baggage, I think ultimately the long legacy of Sam Brownback continues to deliver for Kansas Democrats and his tenure as governor was so bad in the minds of voters that they are still skeptical of returning a Republican to the governor's office even as they continue to obviously vote for Republicans down ballot. So look, I think Kansas is kind of an interesting state politically. It has more of this kind of old school Democratic plains populist streak than some of these other states still do. I mean, Nebraska, Oklahoma, these are places where Democrats used to win but haven't in a little while. And Kansas is kind of the last bastion of that type of politics. So I wouldn't count either Hoelser or Courson out. I think that they will be underdogs in the general election.
- [45:20]
A
Speaking of Plains states, actually, would you consider Missouri to be a Plains state?
- [45:25]
B
GALEN I was born in Washington D.C. i grew up in Maryland. I live in D.C. now. There are some things that I, I fights I don't want to get in in the middle of one of which is the, the regionalism of the state of Missouri. So I will leave.
- [45:40]
A
So you're unqualified. You're unqualified.
- [45:43]
B
Unqualified. To answer that question, I will leave it to those, those of us on this podcast who have spent ample time in, in the Midwest and, and the closer regions.
- [45:55]
A
The upper Midwest is, is a very different place. I mean, I think for Wisconsinites, Missouri is the south basically. But okay, let me get to the question I want to ask, which is is Cori Bush going to win her seat back? I think everyone knows who Cori Bush is. But like former member of the squad who was ousted in a Democratic primary, AIPAC got involved here. The candidate who beat her was, is much more sympathetic to Israel. Of course, this is another test of how much the party has changed since then. You know, the things that she stood for or believed in that were controversial back then have become somewhat more mainstream in the Democratic Party at this point. And so. And she's making, she's making another go for it.
- [46:38]
B
Yeah. Look, I have seen no polling in this race. I don't know if there has been any public polling that's been released. I will say that at the results of a lot of the other Democratic primaries that we've seen around the country over the past eight months, you have to like all of that if you're Cori Bush. Right. You have to. You know, you look at Adam Hamoi and Anna Lilia Mejia winning their primaries in New Jersey, you look at how well Abdul is doing in Michigan. You look at Francesca Hong in Wisconsin, I think there's a lot to like there. But I don't know. I, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if either of these candidates win. But clearly the winds are blowing a particular way among Democratic primary voters, and that way is not super favorable to Wesley Bell.
- [47:32]
A
Okay, I want to. Speaking of Francesca Hong, I do want to talk about the top secretary of Wisconsin governor's race. Are there any other House races that you want to shout out for Tuesday night before we do that?
- [47:44]
B
Washington is on Tuesday, right?
- [47:46]
A
Mm. They got some Supreme Court races that we're maybe going to be following.
- [47:52]
B
The race in Washington that I want to put on people's radar is Washington's 5th congressional district. This is out in eastern Washington. And what I am looking for there is can the independent Nate Powell make it to the general election? Washington is an all party primary state, so everyone runs on the same ballot. The top two finishers, regardless of party, make it to the general election. So the general election is only two people. The Michael Baumgartner is the incumbent. He's a Republican. He's going to have one of those spots. But there's an independent candidate, Nate Powell, who's a firefighter, who has gotten some support from an outside super pac. And if he makes it to the general election, I think that'll be an interesting race because it's not an overwhelmingly Republican district. It was about Trump +11 in 2024. Just something to watch. I'll be watching that one. There are a number of Democrats on the ballot though, including the 2024 nominee, Carmela Conroy. So Powell has to get into second place if he wants to make it to November.
- [48:49]
A
We ended up in Washington because I made you talk about the House, but I forgot that while we were in Missouri, there are some pretty interesting ballot measures that voters are going to be deciding on on Tuesday night.
- [49:01]
B
Yeah. So the big ballot measure in Missouri has gotten very little coverage, but it's incredibly important to the politics of the state. Essentially right now, Missouri voters, if they submit enough signatures, can get initiatives placed on the ballot that can then be passed with a simple majority. And this is the mechanism by which what is a fairly conservative and Republican leaning state has managed to expand Medicaid, has managed to enshrine protections for abortion, raise the minimum wage, enact a number of progressive policies because the voters themselves have made, managed to get it on the ballot and then approve them. It is also the way that the state is the voters. Democrats are trying to strike down Missouri's new congressional map. That map is probably going to be used for this year, but they are going to get to vote on it. That vote won't happen until November and would affect the 2028 midterms or 2028 presidential cycle elections. But the vote that's happening on Tuesday is essentially a Republican effort to neuter that citizen led initiative measure. So currently the way it works is you collect signatures, if you get enough signatures, you get your measure on the ballot and then you can pass it with a simple majority. The legislature can also put things on the ballot as initiatives that then are also passed with a simple majority. What the constitutional amendment that they're trying to pass tomorrow would do is it wouldn't affect anything that the legislature does. So the legislature would still be able to put measures on the ballot that could pass with a simple majority. But if the citizens, if the voters petition to put something on the ballot, then not only does it have to pass with a simple majority, but it actually has to receive a majority in all of Missouri's congressional districts.
- [50:54]
A
Hmm.
- [50:54]
B
Each one. And if it doesn't make a majority in any one of Missouri's eight congressional districts, then the measure would pass even if it's getting, you know, 80% of the vote or whatever statewide, which makes
- [51:06]
A
gerrymandering all the more influential in Missouri.
- [51:11]
B
Yes, absolutely. No, it would effectively, it would effectively prevent any sort of progressive ballot measure from passing. It would probably prevent most ballot measures from passing that are any measure of controversial because it would allow kind of the most conservative congressional districts to veto Things that are approved by voters elsewhere
- [51:36]
A
and frankly, even the most liberal congressional districts. Right. You also probably couldn't pass conservative measures under that plan. But the legislature.
- [51:43]
B
The legislature. Exactly.
- [51:45]
A
They could do it.
- [51:47]
B
Exactly. So it would allow the. Because the legislature is controlled by Republicans, it would allow them to do it. So in any, in any event, do
- [51:54]
A
you think that's going to pass?
- [51:56]
B
You know, I don't know. I actually don't think so. I don't think so. They try. They put it on the primary because I think that they were worried. And this is a classic Missouri move to put these controversial measures on the primary date instead of the general election date in the hopes that the lower turnout will benefit them. But I, I am kind of skeptical that it will pass. I think that voters don't like these kind of nakedly anti Democratic measures even. Even if they kind of appreciate the underlying, you know, politics behind it.
- [52:33]
A
Yeah.
- [52:33]
B
Yeah.
- [52:35]
A
Okay, let's wrap on Wisconsin, where, like I said, we've had dropouts, we've had drop ins, we've had late stage endorsements, and now we have a surging Democratic Socialist. So, of course, this is the race for governor to replace Tony Evers. It's very likely on the Republican side that it's going to be Tom Tiffan who wins the Republican primary. And I mean, I think originally folks probably thought that Mandela Barnes, the former Senate candidate on the Democratic side, would do well. He recently dropped out of the race after some, you know, accusations of, of misconduct that were in the vein of, you know, using his political authority to get with, you know, staff or, you know, young adult women staffers and things like that. There was another Democrat who dropped out of the race because of a sort of fundraising accounting scandal who at one point was also thought to be maybe the sort of standard bearer for the establishment. And after all of that, this is where we are. What do you make of the field right now? Is this done deal for Francesca Hong?
- [53:43]
B
This is, you know, one thing that I love about elections, Galen, and talking about elections and writing about them is somebody wins and somebody loses. You get answers about the most important questions in ways that tons of other areas of coverage, political or otherwise. You're just kind of always left grasping at different arguments and trying to make the case for why you were right and other people were wrong. And in politics, you get to find out Wisconsin is a great example of a race where I think the public data and the private data, it differs fairly significantly. I think Francesca Hong has put up very strong numbers in the public polling that's been released.
- [54:24]
A
They're leaving by 18 points on average in the public polling on coordinate 50 plus 1.
- [54:30]
B
Yeah. And some of those polls are good polls. Some of those polls are maybe less than good polls. I think that this is one of these cases where you've got some newer and untested pollsters.
- [54:45]
A
Wait, Jacob, I feel like you're intimating that you have seen private polls that you might put a little more faith in. What are you looking at?
- [54:55]
B
I think that much of the machinations that have taken place over the last couple of weeks in that state are being driven by the belief that there is a path to consolidation for David Crawley and that Francesca Hong's lead is not nearly as robust as it has appeared in some of the public polling. I don't think anyone disagrees that she is out in front, but I do think that the idea that she is 30 points ahead differs from the numbers that the candidates themselves are seeing. I mean, Mandela Barnes put out a poll from mid July that showed her up 13. I think that that is more in keeping with what the campaign's data shows rather than kind of the larger leads that some of the public data shows.
- [55:58]
A
So to also put a finer point on what you're saying, Tony Evers endorsed David Crowley after. So he dropped out of the race. He got back in once, Rodriguez dropped out, and he is now hitting the road trying to sort of get him across the finish line. And because. And he's the Milwaukee County Executive. And so because all of this is sort of happening, this consolidation, like you said, is happening in late stages. Maybe the polling isn't picking it up yet. And to be clear, in the averages, Francesca Hong has not cracked 40% support. So it's not as if she has 60% support and is leading by 18 on average. She has sub 40. And so there is a majority out there that has not yet coalesced behind Francesca Hahn.
- [56:39]
B
Right. Yeah. No, I think that's. That's fair. And. And to be clear, the. The pollster that I'm talking about is there's a new polling group called Wedgwood Polls that nobody knows who they are. And they've been open that they support Hong. And I think their polls have gotten a lot of coverage because they're polling some buzzy races. And I don't think that any pollster that doesn't say who. Who they are, like the people behind them is. Is not one that should. You need to, like, pay a ton of attention to. There are other polls in this race. You know, Mary And Chaz did their poll. That had hung up a considerable amount. We'll see. Like I said they could. If they're right, that's like a huge feather in their cap, because they will have outdone.
- [57:30]
A
You're talking about Mary Radcliffe's work with State Navigate. Yeah. They had a poll showing Francesca Hong leading by 29 points.
- [57:36]
B
Yeah. And look, if they get this right, I think, you know, and they have nailed a couple of other races in the polling project that they've spun up over there. But, you know, I think this would be a big. This would be a statement for them, because I do think there's some disagreement about how big her lead is. But. Yeah, no, I mean, this primary is a cluster, right? Like, there's. There's no other way about.
- [58:02]
A
It's okay.
- [58:02]
B
You can swear on the podcast, the. The primary, the Democratic establishment, if they were playing to win, they sure fooled me because, like, the. The way that they've handled this thing from start to finish has been pretty abysmal. So, yeah, look, I think that you, Hong, is probably more likely than anyone else to be the nominee at this point. But to your point about primaries being more fluid, this primary is the most fluid of any of the primaries that we've talked about, just because of the sheer number of candidates jumping in, jumping out, the kind of the swings that we've seen, the rapid, rapid rise in attention that Francesca Hong has enjoyed over the last couple of weeks. You know, what's the more. It's like this primary is gaseous. Right. It's not even fluid anymore. It's so everything is bouncing around so much that it's like we're approaching plasma status here to extend the chemistry metaphor. So, yeah, I mean, it's fun to cover. It's going to be a competitive race in the general, no matter who gets through. I'm not in the school of belief that Francesca Hong can't win a general election in 2026 in Wisconsin. You know, who knows?
- [59:22]
A
Like you said, the good thing about elections is we find out.
- [59:25]
B
We find out. Exactly.
- [59:27]
A
But that's all. We're going to save that all for next week. In the meantime, folks can tune back in later this week for our live coverage and reaction to the primary in Michigan and also, of course, in Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington. But that's it for now. Jason Jacob, thank you so much for joining me.
- [59:46]
B
Always a pleasure.
- [59:47]
A
My name is Galen Drook. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you get your podcast. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes. You can also join in our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. And you ensure that we can keep making a podcast that prioritizes curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. Also, be a friend of the POD and go give us a five star rating wherever you listen to podcast podcasts, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon.