Can Weather Sway the Election?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Can Weather Sway the Election?"

Off the Radar
Host: Emily Gracey
Guest: Dr. Robert Stein, Professor of Political Science at Rice University
Release Date: November 5, 2024

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Can Weather Sway the Election?" hosted by Emily Gracey of Off the Radar, the discussion delves into the intricate relationship between weather conditions and electoral outcomes. Gracey is joined by Dr. Robert Stein, a renowned political scientist, to explore how various weather phenomena—from rain and snow to catastrophic hurricanes—can influence voter turnout and, consequently, election results.

Historical Impact of Weather on Elections

Dr. Stein begins by emphasizing the longstanding influence of weather on elections, stating, "Weather has impacted every election since the founding of the Republic." (06:44). He references the 2012 election during Hurricane Sandy, noting a significant decrease in voter turnout in states affected by the hurricane, particularly those without extensive in-person early voting options. Historically, adverse weather conditions on Election Day have tended to benefit Republican candidates, attributed to their voter base being older, wealthier, and more likely to vote regardless of weather disturbances. "When it rains or snows on Election Day, there's a dividend for Republicans." (00:55)

Modern Shifts with Early Voting

The advent and expansion of in-person early voting have altered the traditional weather-elections dynamic. Dr. Stein explains, "Starting in 2000 through, of course, 2024, many, many more states have adopted in-person early voting. And as a consequence of that, particularly in the south and southwest, when there has been bad weather, the dividend has been not only reduced but almost reversed." (08:34). This shift allows voters to cast their ballots before inclement weather can affect Election Day turnout, diminishing the Republican advantage previously enjoyed during poor weather conditions.

Mail-In Voting and Weather Effects

While early voting has mitigated some weather-related impacts, mail-in voting presents a different scenario. Dr. Stein asserts, "Mail in voting doesn't work to remove the weather effect." (08:38). He explains that in many states, voters must request a mail ballot, and the process remains susceptible to weather-related disruptions. Even states with all-mail voting require voters to be proactive in requesting ballots, which does not entirely eliminate the influence of weather on voter participation.

Impact of Catastrophic Weather Events on Turnout

The conversation shifts to the effects of catastrophic weather events, such as hurricanes Helene and Milton, on voter turnout. Dr. Stein discusses how such disasters can severely impair voter ability to participate in elections. "These are people whose homes have been destroyed, who don't have anywhere to stay. They've been displaced. So where do they vote?" (10:37). The destruction of polling places, the displacement of voters, and the lack of poll workers can lead to significant reductions in voter turnout in affected areas, potentially swaying election results in closely contested regions.

Potential Changes in Election Scheduling

In light of these challenges, Dr. Stein suggests reconsidering the timing of elections to avoid periods prone to severe weather. "We need to plan for it... Maybe we should start thinking about holding our elections at a different time of year." (15:20). Adjusting election schedules could help minimize the impact of adverse weather, ensuring higher voter turnout and more accurate reflection of public will.

Heat Waves and Voter Turnout

Addressing concerns beyond precipitation and cold snaps, the discussion turns to heat waves. Dr. Stein mentions that extreme heat does not have a significant historical impact on voter turnout. "I've looked at weather as in temperature in that paper... The short answer is no." (15:45). He notes that while heat can be uncomfortable, it hasn't been a substantial deterrent to voting compared to other weather factors like flooding or hurricanes.

Predictions and Concluding Remarks

When forecasting the upcoming election, Dr. Stein points to battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, where weather-related voter turnout could be pivotal. He highlights the potential for reduced turnout in Florida and the Carolinas due to recent hurricanes, which may narrow margins in these states. "I do think the margins will be much smaller because of turnout." (18:16). Despite these insights, Dr. Stein remains cautious, acknowledging the complexity of factors influencing election outcomes beyond weather alone.

Notable Quotes

• "Weather has impacted every election since the founding of the Republic." – Dr. Robert Stein (06:44)
• "When it rains or snows on Election Day, there's a dividend for Republicans." – Dr. Robert Stein (00:55)
• "Mail in voting doesn't work to remove the weather effect." – Dr. Robert Stein (08:38)
• "We need to plan for it... Maybe we should start thinking about holding our elections at a different time of year." – Dr. Robert Stein (15:20)
• "I've looked at weather as in temperature in that paper... The short answer is no." – Dr. Robert Stein (15:45)
• "I do think the margins will be much smaller because of turnout." – Dr. Robert Stein (18:16)

Conclusion

Emily Gracey's episode with Dr. Robert Stein provides a comprehensive examination of how weather conditions can influence electoral outcomes. From historical precedents to modern voting practices, the discussion underscores the multifaceted ways in which Mother Nature intersects with the democratic process. The insights offered highlight the need for adaptive measures in election planning to ensure fair and accurate representation, regardless of unforeseen weather challenges.

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This summary is based on the transcript of the podcast episode "Can Weather Sway the Election?" from Off the Radar, produced by the National Weather Desk.

Transcript

[Emily Gracey]

It's Election Day, and across the country, voters are braving the elements to make their voices heard.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

I just wanted to be out here early so I can get my vote in. We got online outside for a long time in the blistering sun.

[Emily Gracey]

But could the rain, snow, or even extreme temperatures on this crucial day sway the outcome of the election?

[Brian Petrus]

Anything could happen on Election Day. A storm, any type of emergency, some urgency could happen.

[Emily Gracey]

Weather impacts so many aspects of our lives, from our commutes to our social plans, so it's only natural to wonder how it might influence something as important as the democratic process. Today we're going off the radar to explore the surprising ways that Mother Nature can influence the results on the ballots.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

Weather has impacted every election since the founding of the Republic.

[Emily Gracey]

From historical data showing partisan advantages on rainy election days, there are several papers.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

That show that when it rains or snows on Election Day, there's a dividend.

[Emily Gracey]

For Republicans to the political impacts of this year's major weather events.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

These are people whose homes have been destroyed, who don't have anywhere to stay. They've been displaced. So where do they vote?

[Emily Gracey]

We'll dive deep into how the weather forecast could forecast the future of our democracy.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

The bottom line is we're not doing real well here. Planning for bad weather.

[Emily Gracey]

I'm meteorologist Emily Gracey, and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desk. On the show, we dig deep into topics about weather, climate, the oceans, space, and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it as much as we do.

[Brian Petrus]

Hey prime members, have you heard? You can listen to your favorite podcasts ad free Good news With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com adfreepodcast that's Amazon.com adfreepodcast to catch up.

[Emily Gracey]

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[Brian Petrus]

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[Emily Gracey]

Welcome to off the Radar. I'm your host, Emily Gracey, and I have a special guest with me today. I'm very excited you've heard me mention him, I think, at the end of every podcast. Brian Petrus, associate producer for off the Radar. Thanks for coming on today.

[Brian Petrus]

Hi, Emily. Thanks for having me.

[Emily Gracey]

So glad that you're here and we could talk about this, because this is something that's a little out of my wheelhouse, and you are kind of a podcast pro, and I stick to the weather side of things, so it's good to get your perspective on this, to bring you on. Can you give me a little background on your role with Sinclair Broadcast Group and kind of the other podcasts that you work on?

[Brian Petrus]

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm an associate producer. I've been working in podcasting for about five years now. I have a kind of a dual background in environmental science and creative writing, and that kind of led me into podcasting. So off the Radar is definitely a good fit for me in terms of my interests.

[Emily Gracey]

Yes, but you also seem to have good knowledge on a broad range of topics, because I know you're working on true crime stuff. And then you and I kind of brainstormed this episode today, which I don't know if you've voted yet. I've got my. My. Did you. You did some early voting, too?

[Brian Petrus]

I did. I, I. Since I just moved. I voted before I moved so that it wouldn't get lost in the shuffle.

[Emily Gracey]

Um, did you have any thoughts going into this that really you were surprised by after we did this interview with Dr. Stein?

[Brian Petrus]

I wouldn't say surprised so much as just kind of fascinated. Honestly. It was cool.

[Emily Gracey]

It was cool. And it's cool also because the people who are real deep into this world of elections and studying this, like Dr. Stein, who we interview today, are just so knowledgeable that they're not even thinking emotionally like the rest of the world is. You know, they're just thinking almost like scientists. They are scientists, so it's really cool to get their feedback. So the person that I keep mentioning, Dr. Robert Stein, he's a professor of political science at Rice University, and we found him because he's done a lot of research, not just on election day stats, but as it pertains to weather. And there's so many different ways to go about that because, you know, there's like, the daily weather of what's happening on election day, and then there's, like, bigger picture of weather that's happened in the last few months and how that impacts Election Day. And then there's the even bigger picture of climate and climate change and how that affects the election. So we talk about all of those things. But you ask a great question in the interview too. That definitely surprised me. So it's interesting to see which types of weather because there's specific types that do impact elections and voter turnout. Brian, I'm so excited about some of these new episodes we have coming up here soon. We're going to talk to an astronaut about the International Space Station. We're going to talk to a meteorologist who worked on the top of Mount Washington about what that was like. We have some really, really great episodes coming up at the end of the year because the 20 year anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami is coming up. If you remember, that was 20 years ago in 2004. So we're actually going to talk to a survivor. So some really great topics that we've got coming up here in the next month or two. Brian, is there anything else you want to share before I let you go?

[Brian Petrus]

I'm just really excited about everything we have coming up. I'm always talking up this show to all my friends and encouraging them to listen. So it's really great. It's going to be cool stuff.

[Emily Gracey]

Thank you for always being my voice of reason when it comes to content on the podcast and for all of the work that you do. Very much appreciate it.

[Brian Petrus]

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Emily Gracey]

Enjoy the show. We have Dr. Robert Stein from Rice University. Robert Stein, thanks so much for coming on today to talk about weather and elections. Big election that we've got going on and you know, it seems like I've heard stories in the past of how weather or rain has impacted elections, but those are like old stories from the 1800s. Can you think of any instances from back in the day when when weather may have actually impacted people going out to vote?

[Dr. Robert Stein]

Weather has impacted every election since the founding of the Republic. Probably the most impactful ones have been the 2012 election when Hurricane Sandy ran through, of course, the East Coast. My research showed that in states which had in person early voting, which were not many on the east coast, the diminution and voter turnout was far less than it was in states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, which at that time did not have in person voting. We've seen historically there are several papers that show that when it rains or snows on election day, there's a dividend for Republicans. In the past, Republicans have been older, wealthier, college educated and more likely to have not only a history of voting, but are what I would call heartier voters. In a moment, I'll tell you how that's changed, but that shouldn't be any great surprise. Some say there's more than a subtle realignment. As a result, Democrats in bad weather simply had greater difficulty in turning out their voters. What I found with my colleague Martin Johnson was that's all very true, but again, in modern times, starting in 2000 through, of course, 2024, many, many more states have adopted in person early voting. And as a consequence of that, particularly in the south and southwest, when there has been bad weather, the dividend has been not only reduced, but almost reversed. And so Democrats seem to take advantage of that there. Another paper I wrote with Brian Hamill and Jen legally shows that the Democrats are aware of this and they use it as part of their campaign strategy.

[Emily Gracey]

Okay, so early voting has changed things. What about mail in votes?

[Dr. Robert Stein]

Mail in voting doesn't work to remove the weather effect. And it's simply kind of logical. In most states, with either no excuse or excuse only mail in voting, you still have to request a mail ballot. Weather forecasts are probably good for three, four, even five days, hurricanes, maybe a week, week and a half. But mail in balloting, with the exception of all mail voting, states like Oregon and Washington and Colorado require you to be kind of like aware of the bad weather and aware of an upcoming election. So, and you have to do something. You have to apply in the other states with all mail in voting, you get a ballot no matter what, whether you want it or not. So mail in voting didn't seem to have an effect on reducing or increasing or maintaining turnout in bad weather, but the early voting does.

[Emily Gracey]

Okay, so let's say there are major weather events like this year leading up to a big election. Could that make a difference if there's.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

Bad weather and we've had a hurricane, of course, in Florida and one in the Carolinas, consecutive once, Helene. And you know, Milton, I would argue that the remedy of early voting might not matter. And here's my thinking. These are catastrophic events. They're not the kinds of events that might have you standing in the rain or in the snow or may have to drive in some inclement weather. These are catastrophic. And they've not only obviously greatly impaired individual voters, but what it's done is it's kind of put voting as the second most important or third or fourth or fifth. These are people whose homes have been destroyed who don't have anywhere to stay. They've been displaced. So where do they vote something. Also, I think we're not thinking about. You can't hold an election without poll workers and you could have very few voters showing up. But if you don't have a poll worker to open the door, turn on the power, turn on the machines, check in voters, verify that they are voters eligible, you don't have an election.

[Emily Gracey]

In your research, do you see that during natural disasters like Sandy or like Helene, now that those certain states, people are not coming out to vote and it's swaying the election one way or another because those states are a certain color?

[Dr. Robert Stein]

Yeah. I mean, there weren't many states on the east coast that had in person early voting. The few that did, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, had adopted it, but hadn't really yet implemented it there. Of course, the warnings about Hurricane Sandy were as much as a week to 10 days out. So what I showed was that in those early voting states, when I call them weather people, meteorologists start telling you, look, Sandy's serious, it's coming and you should prepare. Many of those people say, well, the first thing I'll do is with nice weather, I'll go vote. I won't wait till election day, or I won't wait until the end of early voting. As Sandy, Sandy hit on practically on election day, it didn't reverse the trend, but it did reduce the degree to which voter turnout was diminished, I think by as much as two, two and a half points since Sandy. Many of those states, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, of course, New York, I think is the largest of those states, have adopted in person early voting. I don't know what the predictions are right now for bad weather on election day, but what I've noticed is that in those states, and they adopted it after 20 for the 2020 election, the share of vote cast early has been going up and up. And there are other reasons, not just bad weather, just much more convenient to choose where and when. If you're going to wait in line, you get to choose where and when. I work with a lot of election officials and after Sandy, I had to testify at one of the congressional hearings on this and I was hanging around with a lot of New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Connecticut election officials, and they all just said we should have been adopting this years ago. You know, November is not always just a cold month.

[Emily Gracey]

I was going to say November is like a volatile month. You've got hurricane season. You can still get severe weather, sometimes snow, rain, flooding. Like it's a big month for flooding because of super moons. So it's, it's kind of a volatile month when it comes to weather. Anything could happen in November. And then there seems to be, like, a lot of different moving parts, too. I read an article about pulling places in Florida flood zones. Do you know anything about, like, an increasing need for polling places to be moved out of places that flood? Is that a problem? Are these ever underwater?

[Dr. Robert Stein]

I. Yeah, you didn't. You have. I mean, I can send you the papers on this, but one of the things we studied is, you know, where do people vote? And traditionally, people voted at schools, churches, and government buildings. And they're pretty hearty right there. Well, they weren't so hearty during Sandy, and surely they weren't that hardy during Milton and Helene. And so what's beginning to happen now is it just. You just don't have a lot of polling locations that are available after events like Helene and Milton. They were just as vulnerable, not only to destruction, but remember that if you do have early voting, you have to have electricity, not just to turn on the voting equipment, but to make certain that when people vote at one location, they don't go to another location about the second or third time. Voter fraud schools, which probably are, we would think, the most frequent location for people to vote and probably the most secure. But now increasingly we're finding schools don't want to have polling locations at their locations. And why that? Why is that? Because they're afraid they won't be able to secure them against people who could do bad things at schools. The superintendents are simply saying, thank you, but no thank you. So I think what's happened is we've taken for granted how we conduct elections and weather. The bad weather that we're having, Helene and Milton, are just catastrophic. But I do a lot of work in Arizona and Colorado, and if you're familiar with Colorado, where the frontage mountains are, it snows in October. The bottom line is we're not doing real well on. How can I put this? Planning for bad weather. No. Whether it's there or not and why it's there. Harbor the missions. That's for somebody else. But we need to plan for it. And elections become really problematic. And one argument is that we should probably start thinking about holding our elections at a different time of year. And maybe we should start thinking about, you know, moving those elections to a time and day that is not as susceptible to bad weather as if there were.

[Emily Gracey]

I was going to say, when is that? Go ahead, Brian.

[Brian Petrus]

I had a question. So I was curious. You know, outside of obviously catastrophic situations like a hurricane We've been talking mainly about like precipitation and cold snaps. But what about heat waves? Has there been any historical trend with voter turnout and heat waves? I know in some states too it's like illegal to give out water or things like that in line.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

Yeah, it's a very good point. I've looked at weather as in temperature in that paper. It's in one of the appendices. I don't recommend it. The short answer is no. Now, as meteorologists or weather people, you know, there's a high correlation between severe participation when we go fluvial rain and that. We, you know, we think of the hurricanes and the wind and the surge. Right. But fluvial rains, just a lot of rain, can cause severe flooding. And that's what we saw in North Carolina. But the short answer is, and you're absolutely fair to ask it, I was an expert in a lawsuit in which I was asked just that question. If Georgia, for instance, prohibits people from giving voters in line water, will that be detrimental? And I said no, it's pernicious. It's probably mean spirited, particularly for elderly people like myself. I've been asked by a lot of election officials, particularly in Florida, whether or not people should be able to be allowed to obtain a mail ballot electronically and return it electronically. We allow that for military and overseas voters, by the way. So to the extent that we use these phones and we get a ballot on it and we send it back, you do your banking, you do all kinds of what I call privacy or private transactions on your phone, it may very well be. And I know the governor of Florida has been asked to do that, and I think he said no for a variety of good reasons, not the least of which is it's kind of late in the game to do that now. But if you had that in place. Many governors of states have emergency powers. Pennsylvania governor did it in 2020 when he allowed mail in voting that the legislature had not approved. But he did it as part of an emergency act to prevent people from getting Covid and potentially dying. But I think we need to rethink it. I can tell you that my area of research for 20 years has been on elections and, and the last two or three years I have had more interest and financial support for my work, which I think gives you some idea of how, how interested people are mostly around the issue of what you would call weather. Trust me, Republican candidates, Democratic candidates and their parties are now making these accommodations as part of their campaign if elections get close. And boy, it couldn't be any closer, right now then, people will invest in these other activities.

[Emily Gracey]

Going back to Helene, are those people going to be able to get to the polls? Do you think that the lack of power and trees covering roads and roads washed out in some of these communities is going to actually sway the election?

[Dr. Robert Stein]

Yeah, I do. I'll give you two examples of that. And it goes two ways. You've just described what gets in the way. A tree, a building that you were going to vote at and you can vote at. And these are in rural and exurban areas, so not like being in New York City or in, let's say, Trenton, where they're early voting and election day vote centers where you can vote anywhere you want. Right. And there are lots of them. You can just get on a train or a bus or a subway. If you're in, you know, Hampton, North Carolina, or in Davidson, they're just this one or two places, and they may not be open. I mean, they may literally have been victims of a mudslide or a wipeout. Second, the people that work at the polls, they're just as affected. There may not be anybody to actually run an election for you. But maybe the most important one, my third one, is you got other things to worry about. God forbid either of you or us who are affected by this. You have children, you have family, you have homes, you have possessions. It's not the first thing on your mind. And this is a competitive election. North Carolina is very much in play. So I think that people who live in these areas that have been devastated and every bit of news seems to suggest that the recovery is going to take weeks, if not months. I lived through Harvey in my own state of Texas. You just don't particularly realize how many what I call collateral issues pop up, not the least of which is that you're maybe dislocated and not living at your residence, which means, where do I vote? How can I vote? Particularly now, what's interesting about Florida, and I was kind of taken aback by this, was all the, frankly, false news and information. If you're familiar with Florida and the west coast, that's a solidly red Republican electorate. You know, from north to south along the west coast of Florida, up to Tampa, St. Pete, of course, even up to Tallahassee, if you consider the Ben, those are red counties there. They're the backbone of. Of the Republican Party's strength in Florida, which has been pretty strong. And there's every reason to think that the same story I've just said about the Carolinas will show up. Do I Think there was somebody manipulating the weather. I wish they could. The fact is that people, you know, whether I make a joke about that and the three of us say, of course we can't change the weather. We wish we could. People believe it. And when people believe things, they act accordingly. It doesn't matter that, you know, we didn't intentionally seed the clouds to flood all of the west coast of Florida. People believe that. But again, I think the people of Florida are not thinking right now about an election. I don't think I would be thinking about an election. I think people think about other things. Can I get food? Can I get to work? Can I get my medicines? Are my children okay? If, you know, we're younger, I think you're going to see a change in voter turnout. And if these elections are close, yeah, I think they can matter. I do think they'll matter in North Carolina tremendously. I think there's no question that when you have these rural, they're not big vote counties, but we have a reason to think that North Carolina, among maybe the other battleground states, may be the closest. Weather matters. And I've not seen an election in modern times where the weather made a difference in the overall outcome of the election. I don't expect Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to have what I call bad weather episodes. Sandy was the one. 2012 was not a big close election. It was Romney and Obama and it was Obama's second term and the election wasn't that close. And those are states that were solidly blue, with maybe the exception of Virginia and North Carolina. But as you move north, Sandy had its biggest effect probably in New York and New York metropolitan area. So you get a bad one in the Carolinas, in Florida, you know, I don't think either of those two states are going to go blue, but I do think the margins will be much smaller because of turnout.

[Emily Gracey]

Do you think in the opposite direction that people are ever inspired by big weather events to go out and vote? Like this is the candidate that showed up after the disaster. So I'm going to go vote for them. Or these extreme weather events are getting bigger and worse and we need somebody who's going to do something about climate change. Is it ever inspirational?

[Dr. Robert Stein]

It's a reasonable hypothesis and those of us who study elections will watch it. There's no real way to test that because you don't get what we call a nice experiment. But let me suggest this, my third point, which is when you are stressed by bad weather of this sort, catastrophic. I think voting is not something that you do with regularity. Most Americans vote once every four years. Most Americans live in places where voting just doesn't, in their mind, matter. If you live in New York or California or Texas or Wyoming, you sort of know what your state and county is going to do. Now, if you live in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, maybe in Nevada and Arizona, North Carolina, yeah. You may be the subject and the object of an enormous amount of campaigning. But I still think when you go through catastrophic, not just the bad rain and snow, but catastrophic, I'd like to think, like Emily just said, that you're motivated to vote either because candidates are coming out and reminding you to vote because of the bad weather. I do think that bad weather can be overcome by these alternative modes of voting, early voting, maybe even the mail voting, relaxed mail voting. But I don't think it's going to happen now. And no, I don't think people are going to say, oh my God, it's all post global warming. We've got to cut down on fossil fuels. I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris. Maybe there's two people out there, but I think the first thing on their minds is, can I get through the day? Can I, can I get my food? Can I get my medicine? Can I get my kids to school? Now, if you can answer all four of those for people who are living in really dire circumstances in western North Carolina, maybe they'll show up. But I know the candidates in those areas have all but suspended their campaigns. Right. They've all said out of respect, they're out there trying to help people. I thought the fema, the attack on FEMA by elected by the social media just makes the situation worse. These are not people who are going to trust government. And least of all, and I want to vote. I'm more worried about the aftermath of this election than who actually gets elected.

[Emily Gracey]

We're forecasters and you know, we look into the future and try to forecast the weather. Can you give us an election forecast?

[Dr. Robert Stein]

If I had to pick a winner, I'll look to Pennsylvania. I look to maybe three or four counties. Warren, Erie, some of the counties, Bucks around Philly. But I think it comes out if. And the problem is, you know, of course Pennsylvania is in an eastern time zone, so we should know early. But the state has so many mail in voters now, and the state does not allow the counting and mail ballots until the end of election day. So I don't think we're going to know on election night. I think this is going to be unfortunately hangar and president Trump. Former President Trump has made it very clear he's not willing to accept defeat. He believes that if he loses, it's a stolen election. And to back that up, he's filed lawsuits, several already challenging post Election Day counting of mail ballots. But I think in Wisconsin in particular and Pennsylvania, that'll be important. If I had to give an edge, the only thing I can think of is turnout, who gets their votes. And I think she. Vice President Harris has the slightest of edge here. President Trump has done something that I thought his campaign people are not happy with, which is he's outsourced most of the campaign to private companies. And, you know, that may be the way to run a business. It's not the wrong way to run a campaign. You need fervent, passionate, hardworking, dedicated people knocking on doors. Not people are getting $12. They'll knock for, you know, one minute and then leave. That can make the difference. I mean, you know what? The margins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2020 weren't over 40,000 votes. So, yeah, it matters. But I. I'm not making any predictions.

[Emily Gracey]

You forecast like I do, I'll go.

[Dr. Robert Stein]

So far as to say you think who gets elected matters. I'm not convinced about that. I know many of my colleagues think that who you elect matters. But think about it for a moment. The country's in gridlock in the House and the Senate. Maybe Trump will do all the things he said he's going to do, but he still has the courts, the House, the Senate not altogether clear the first day of office, he's going to be able to do 20 million deportations. I'd like to see somebody try doing that.

[Emily Gracey]

Dr. Stein, thank you so much for your time. This is very enlightening. Off the Radar is a production of the National Weather Desk. Make sure you're following the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. New episodes publish every Tuesday. If you like today's show, please share it with a friend and make sure you check out some of our past episodes. Thank you to Dr. Robert Stein from Rice University for his expertise today. Also, thanks to my associate producer, Brian Petrus for his help on this episode. For the National Weather Desk, I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie. Make it a great day and don't forget to vote.