A Strong Close—And an Iowa Poll Shocker

Summary

Pod Save America: A Strong Close—And an Iowa Poll Shocker

Hosted by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor | Crooked Media

In the episode titled "A Strong Close—And an Iowa Poll Shocker," the hosts of Pod Save America delve deep into the final days of the election race. As the countdown to election day intensifies, Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor share their firsthand experiences from the ground, analyze the latest polling data, and dissect the strategies of the principal candidates: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

---

Canvassing in Arizona and Nevada: Realities on the Ground

The episode opens with the hosts recounting their recent canvassing efforts alongside Nina Harris amidst the heated battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada.

Tommy Vietor reflects on the morale-boosting encounters:

"The best part is meeting all the folks who are there from Votes of America... meeting people like that who are taking action and getting off the polar coaster that last weekend and knock some doors." [02:31]

Despite the challenges of facing numerous doors with many residents already decided, there were significant moments of voter persuasion. For instance, Jon Lovett narrates an interaction with a 73-year-old Asian American woman in East Las Vegas who was initially undecided but ultimately committed to voting for Kamala Harris after discussing her policies on border control and healthcare:

"We were like, Kamala Harris. He goes, 'Did she let in all of the migrants?'... She starts liking at all. And she goes, 'Yeah, okay, I'm voting Kamala.'" [04:28]

The contrasts between canvassing experiences in different regions were stark. While Las Vegas had a more supportive and less tense atmosphere, Arizona's political climate was fraught with fear and polarized sentiments, especially concerning immigration and recent ballot measures.

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Kamala Harris's Final Campaign Push

As Kamala Harris nears the election, her campaign intensifies its efforts across key states. The team highlights her extensive rally schedule and strategic use of media to solidify her standing.

Jon Favreau outlines Harris's multifaceted campaign approach:

"Kamala Harris clearly believes every swing state is still in play because she was everywhere from Georgia and North Carolina to Michigan over the weekend." [10:23]

Harris's final ads aimed to resonate with undecided voters by emphasizing her connection to everyday Americans and her commitment to tackling economic issues. She also made a notable appearance on Saturday Night Live, delivering a performance that merged humor with a compelling political message:

"Keep Kamala and carry on." [12:20]

Jon Lovett praises the campaign's consistency:

"Honestly, my overall reaction is that it's like there's nothing particularly new in the video. And it's a testament to how just exquisitely on message this campaign has been from the moment she became the candidate until these final days." [15:11]

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Donald Trump's Final Days: A Spiraling Campaign

In stark contrast, Donald Trump's final campaign efforts have been marked by erratic and aggressive messaging. The hosts express concern over his troubling rhetoric and unpredictable statements.

Tommy Vietor criticizes Trump's demeanor:

"It's just like a grievance fest... He seems just like an exhausted old man who is, you know, at the end of a process that would be brutal for someone half his age." [25:12]

The episode delves into Trump’s controversial statements, including his remarks about journalists and threats toward political opponents, highlighting a departure from conventional campaign conduct:

"Have to shoot through the fake news." [23:58]

Despite these issues, the Trump campaign remains a formidable force, leveraging a loyal base and unconventional strategies that continue to pose challenges for opponents.

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Iowa Poll Shocker: Ann Seltzer's Unexpected Results

A pivotal moment in the episode centers on Ann Seltzer's final poll in Iowa, which sent shockwaves through the political landscape. Historically a challenging state for Democrats, the new poll indicates a surprising lead for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.

Jon Favreau provides a detailed analysis:

"Ann Seltzer's final poll showing Trump up by seven was the first and only sign that the polls were underestimating Trump like they did in 2016." [34:13]

The poll, showcasing Harris leading by 47 to 44 in Iowa, suggests a potential shift in voter sentiment, particularly among older and independent women. However, the methodology differences and historical polling inaccuracies raise questions about the poll's reliability.

Tommy Vietor emphasizes the significance:

"I personally cannot overstate how large insults are loomed in my life because she basically called the Iowa caucuses in 2008..." [35:29]

The hosts debate whether this poll indicates a broader trend or remains an outlier, considering other polls like the Marist's final national poll also hinting at Harris's strength.

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Final Polls and Election Implications

The episode progresses to discuss the broader spectrum of final polls, revealing a tight race across most battleground states. While some New England states show modest leads for Harris, others like Arizona continue to favor Trump.

Jon Lovett observes:

"What you want to stop? And I was keep going. All in all, it suggests that there's more movement in the Sunbelt and it's going towards Harris." [31:32]

The conversation highlights the complexity of the polling data, the variability across different regions, and the elusive nature of predicting election outcomes solely based on final polls.

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Takeaways and Closing Thoughts

As the episode draws to a close, the hosts reflect on the lessons learned from the race. They emphasize the critical role of effective campaigning, the impact of candidate selection, and the evolving dynamics within political parties.

Jon Lovett succinctly summarizes:

"Polling is broken. I hit that one. Candidates matter." [49:18]

Tommy Vietor adds:

"Abortion is not a secondary issue for people... the results of the Dobbs decision became more and more prevalent and the stories became more personal and horrifying. And I think that drove voters." [51:01]

The trio expresses cautious optimism about Kamala Harris's prospects while acknowledging the unpredictable nature of the final hours leading up to the election. They also underline the importance of continued political engagement, regardless of the outcome, to address underlying social and economic issues.

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Key Quotes Highlighted

• “Polling is broken. Candidates matter.” – Jon Lovett [49:18]
• “Keep Kamala and carry on.” – Jon Favreau [12:20]
• “She did it all.” – Tommy Vietor [16:53]
• “What do these mean? We will have no idea until the votes come in.” – Jon Lovett [41:42]

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Conclusion In "A Strong Close—And an Iowa Poll Shocker," Pod Save America offers a comprehensive analysis of the final days of the election race. Through ground-level canvassing experiences, evaluations of campaign strategies, and scrutinizing the latest polls, the hosts provide listeners with an insightful and nuanced understanding of the political landscape as election day approaches.

Transcript

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Jon Lovett]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Jon Favreau]

Do your mouth to Carl's Jr Big Burger good Burger.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Jon Favreau]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Jon Lovett]

I'm Jon Lovett.

[Tommy Vitor]

I'm Tommy Vitor.

[Jon Favreau]

We are coming to you with a special episode. With just one day left before the results start coming in, the final polls have arrived, including an atomic bomb from Anne Seltzer. And this race is either headed towards the closest finish we've seen in our lifetimes or a landslide or a million different outcomes in between. None of which should really surprise us because of the last decade in politics. We're gonna get into all that a bit later on. But first, the three of us, Dan votes Save America's own Nina Harris were out canvassing in Arizona and Nevada over the weekend. You guys want to talk about what stuck with you out of all of our door knocks and canvas kickoffs.

[Tommy Vitor]

Absolutely. I mean, the best part is meeting all the folks who are there from Votes of America. There were people who lived in Nevada or Arizona and just came over to do a shift. There were people that traveled from out of state. I talked to a guy who had come to a Pod Save America live show in Las Vegas in 2018 with his daughter who was in high school at the time. She asked a question later, got so interested in politics that she worked for intern for Jackie Rosen, now is getting advanced degree out here in California. And those are just, you know, the best part of doing the show is meeting people like that who are, you know, taking action and getting off the polar coaster that last weekend and knock some doors.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. So first of all, one thing, that was two hopeful signs. One is we were knocking on. We'd have to walk a bunch of doors before getting to the next door that we would knock, in part because we've hit a lot of these doors and a lot of these people have either said, please do not knock on my door again. I already voted, or I'm planning to vote. But we were onto these last few doors. And there's one person that answered the door while I was knocking on doors with Nina and she was like, I'm gonna vote sometime next week. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You have to vote on Tuesday. Now. She didn't know how to vote. She didn't know where to vote. We got her that information. And there were other people. I know you guys knocked on a door of somebody who was truly undecided.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. She was a 73 year old Asian American woman in East Las Vegas. And we knocked on her door and there was a very large barking dog, a lot of those that was barking while she was trying to talk to us. And it was sort of broke. You know, we're trying to understand her. And she basically was like. She's like, president Trump. Trump. And we're like, no, no, Trump. And she's like. And we held up our lit and it said Kamala Harris, you know, and we're like, kamala Harris. He goes, did she let in all of the migrants? And we're like, we're like, no, no.

[Jon Lovett]

Yes, but it's good.

[Jon Favreau]

And we were like, look, if she becomes president, here's what she's gonna do on the border. And she's already done this and it's gonna close. And people who are here and working have a path to citizenship. And also. And then Tommy's in the background. Tommy goes and she's gonna lower your taxes. Lower your taxes. And Nina and I are like, and your prescription drugs and also your healthcare. Stuff like that. And she starts licking at all. And she goes, yeah, okay, I'm voting Kamala. And then Nina's like, really? She's like, I promise. I promise, Kamala. And we're like, yeah, shout out to.

[Tommy Vitor]

Nina, who is absolutely fearless about talking to everyone. Like, the Trumpiest person we walk by, the dude next to her on the plane that she then had to sit next to for an hour when he turned out to be a Trump fan. Every waitress we had, we got one. We got two waitresses. We lost the hostess.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. We lost that. Yeah. We lost a host since we got the waiter, which is tough.

[Jon Lovett]

I didn't get any of my dealers.

[Jon Favreau]

I will say in craps deal, blackjack, not drugs.

[Jon Lovett]

Don't look at me like that. Both.

[Jon Favreau]

I will say the people. Even the people who were voting for Harris, especially in Vegas, were really enthusiastic. They were like, yes, of course, Kamalo. There was a lot of. Of course. Of course. We kept saying that the vibes felt better in Vegas than they did in Phoenix. Part of that, though, when we talk to a lot of the folks who have been on the ground in Arizona, I don't know if it's necessarily, like, the vibes aren't as good because we're losing. Is. It is. It's really tense in Arizona. Like, the people are afraid to put Kamala Harris signs up, and there's a lot more Trump signs this time, and there's, like, people talking about threats and harassment and stuff. And it was very. It really gives you a window into, like, what it's like being on the ground in a highly contested swing state.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. The other point to note is that, like, we didn't see any Trump or Republican canvassers out on any of the. We were in, like, look, we have. We have knocked on doors in college towns. We have knocked on doors in Madison, Wisconsin, and that's a breeze.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. That's when you get people who aren't on your list and they're walking their dogs, and they're like, oh, friend of the pod.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, you open the door, it's a. It's a Call Congress sweatshirt. Like, I think we got this person.

[Tommy Vitor]

In the back a stop project 2025 button.

[Jon Lovett]

But these were the really. These were the really closely divided and, like, last kind of persuadable areas. And so you do feel that tension.

[Jon Favreau]

How about the guy in Henderson? We Were in a suburb of Vegas, Henderson, and it was like a pretty divided neighborhood. Trump and Harris. And one guy opens the door and we were actually, like, looking for his wife. And he's like, she's voted. And we're sort of nervous. We're like, what about you? Are you voting for Harris? He's like, yeah. And they were like, what about your neighborhood? He's like, it's a tough neighborhood. He's like, half of us are voting for Kamala and the other half are treasonous assholes. Like, okay, we got them. We got him.

[Jon Lovett]

Joe Biden's message worked on it. Yeah, that was the other thing too. It's like there were so many people turning out to knock on doors. We like, in all these places, there was more people than we expected to see. And you go look on some of these Republican candidates, and they're putting up their pictures of their kimvis kicks off. And they don't have. They don't have the bodies. They don't know the people.

[Jon Favreau]

I will say, just in case you're thinking like, oh, well, door knocking is about, like, reminding voters or there's some people who still aren't super tuned in. Remember the guy who is like a, like late 20s, he's washing his car in Henderson. We go by, we start talking. He's got his headphones on. Are you gonna vote? Who you gonna vote for? And he's like, probably. Kamala Lovett's like, probably. What else can I say to you? What else can I say? Do you wanna talk about politics here on a Sunday morning?

[Tommy Vitor]

He's like, please go away.

[Jon Lovett]

And I also just, like, found myself too. Like, there was somebody that answered the door and he, he. He was not on the list, but I think his two members of his family were on the list. And he's like, I don't vote and I'm not registered to vote. And he's already passed the deadlines. We're like, well, we'll get you next time. And. And I just found. You realize, like, at the end here, like, you just want to go to something so simple. I was like, comos for lowering costs. Trump's for a national sales tax. Tell your family, tell your friends, tell everybody.

[Tommy Vitor]

You also realize just how divorced the kind of cable news, Twitter conversation about politics is. And we're in a very working class neighborhood. And I guarantee you those people are not up to speed on the whether Liz Cheney should be out on the trail or how many interviews Kamala Harris had done or call her daddy versus Joe Rogan.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, it was squirrel assassination.

[Tommy Vitor]

We were so busy. I kind of have missed that.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't want to anyway.

[Tommy Vitor]

But, yeah, it was like a lot of people living in some tough, you know, economic circumstances and a reminder of who we as Democrats are supposed to be helping. We want the government to help and, you know, some motivation.

[Jon Favreau]

And then on the flip side, all of you, all the volunteers are so consuming all of the information. We got off the. We got off the plane last night. Tommy and I were walking to the car and this like. I mean, I didn't even know who the hell an Seltzer was.

[Tommy Vitor]

Should have been telling all my friends.

[Jon Favreau]

About Ansell, my friends about the Seltzer poll. Hopefully a lot of you guys were out there in the doors, too, making calls to your friends in the battlegrounds. You know who else was making calls to his friends?

[Tommy Vitor]

Who?

[Jon Favreau]

This guy.

[Jon Lovett]

Hello, Aaron, Tim here. What's up, man?

[Jon Favreau]

How are you?

[Jon Lovett]

Hey, I'm good. Anything going any. Not much going on right now. Just two days to the election, so. Hey, hey, I'm calling. We got it. We got an operation going. We're getting folks that are pushing to get make sure their friends have voted and got somebody else to vote. You guys done already voting?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, we have.

[Jon Lovett]

All right. You take anybody else to poll? Well, I made sure Wolfie voted. That's good work right there, man.

[Jon Favreau]

We're gonna win this thing, Aaron.

[Jon Lovett]

And I'm grateful for your.

[Tommy Vitor]

Grateful for that support.

[Jon Favreau]

If you get anybody else to the polls, I know you got all the.

[Jon Lovett]

Kids to vote and everything, but call somebody else.

[Jon Favreau]

Get them.

[Jon Lovett]

We're making a chain of this stuff. Pod Save America listeners. Hey, I just made my call to friends, to my three friends.

[Jon Favreau]

Get out there, make the difference on this thing. We got two days. Let's win this thing.

[Tommy Vitor]

All right, Tim Walls.

[Jon Lovett]

Tim.

[Jon Favreau]

You know what, guys? If Tim Walls.

[Tommy Vitor]

Tim Walls can do it, who is.

[Jon Favreau]

Doing a million rallies a day can find the time to call his friends. You can find the time today and tomorrow morning whenever, right up until polls close to call your friends in swing states and get them to vote.

[Tommy Vitor]

Three friends. Also, according to our folks over at VoteSave America, the Votes of America volunteers have made nearly 12 million voter contact attempts, including 215,000 door knocks and nearly 5 million calls made. So people have been putting in the work. So thank you, everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

So proud of you guys that did that. You should be proud of yourselves, too. All right, let's talk about the candidates final weekend. Kamala Harris clearly believes every swing state is still in play because she was everywhere from Georgia and North Carolina to Michigan over the weekend. Today alone, the campaign has a series of rallies and concerts in Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Raleigh, Pittsburgh, and one final event in Philadelphia that will feature Lady Gaga, the Roots, Oprah, Ricky Martin, and Fat Joe. Which is always how you end a campaign.

[Jon Lovett]

What a coalition.

[Jon Favreau]

What a coalition.

[Jon Lovett]

Get Liz Cheney up there.

[Tommy Vitor]

Joe's looks.

[Jon Lovett]

Maybe George W. Bush is a surprise.

[Jon Favreau]

Guess George W. Bush and Taylor SW Swift Walker.

[Tommy Vitor]

Joe looks like he lost a few, you know.

[Jon Favreau]

No, he's looking like a healthy Joe. I haven't seen him.

[Tommy Vitor]

I just want to give him some credit.

[Jon Favreau]

The big celeb cameo this weekend came from Kamala herself.

[Jon Lovett]

Bodybuilding. I thought of it too late.

[Jon Favreau]

The big celeb cameo came this weekend from Kamala herself, who made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live. Let's listen. It is nice to see you, Kamala. It is nice to see you, Kamala. And I'm just here to remind you you got this because you can do something your opponent cannot. You can open doors.

[Tommy Vitor]

I see what you did.

[Jon Lovett]

They're like to a garbage truck, right, Kamala?

[Jon Favreau]

Take my Pamela. The American people want to stop the chaos and end the Dramala with a cool new stepmomala. Kick back in our pajamas and watch.

[Jon Lovett]

A rom com.

[Jon Favreau]

Like Legally Blondala.

[Jon Lovett]

Because what do we always say?

[Jon Favreau]

Keep Kamala and carry on a lot. What did you guys think about snl?

[Tommy Vitor]

Just really funny.

[Jon Lovett]

It was good.

[Tommy Vitor]

It was well done. I mean, I'm really going to miss Dana Carvey as Joe Biden. That is just hilarious.

[Jon Favreau]

I didn't get to watch the entire skit until last night. We got home. Once again, he just nailed Joe Biden.

[Jon Lovett]

It's also pretty intense that he's. That they did that Joe Biden bit in front of Harris who's sitting there in that chair.

[Jon Favreau]

I know.

[Jon Lovett]

Which I. Which is great. Yeah, it was good. I mean, like, I appreciated that. It was like pretty on message, you know, I know that Trump wants to shut down NBC and put Lorne Michaels in prison for some sort of law breaking related to this, but it was. It was a pretty good and kind contribution. I'll take it.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, do you see? They gave Trump.

[Jon Lovett]

They gave him nascar.

[Jon Favreau]

They gave Trump the same amount of time during a NASCAR event, a NASCAR race yesterday.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, it was definitely a high information skit. You had to know about Trump's stupid garbage truck driving press car conference, which, by the way, Politico found some voters, some Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania who saw that and actually Thought it was a continuation of the Kill Tony joke that kicked this hole off calling Puerto Rico an island of garbage. So brilliant plan there.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think it's. SNL is not changing any minds, but I do think it projects, like, confidence and optimism, like in the final weekend and she can hang. And I got to a text from a friend who, he was always going to vote for Kamala, but there was a, you know, like a month ago, I was really trying to convince him that, like, she's, she's good, she's a great candidate. She's going to win. And he was like, really down on it. And he texted me after that. He was like, oh, she's going to win now. She's going to win. That was amazing. I'm like, okay, well, let's, let's not go too crazy. But, but I think it did give some people who were probably already on her side, like, all right, let's do this. Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

I mean, look, the message of, like, we want to move on from this kind of politics and we want to just go back to watching rom coms and not thinking about it so much. I think it appeals to a certain, certain SNL watching who will be disappointed.

[Jon Favreau]

Even if we win.

[Jon Lovett]

But I thought, I thought it was good.

[Tommy Vitor]

I saw, you know, I think SNL is primarily consumed on YouTube these days, and 9.3 million people had watched the opening skit. So it's pretty good.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Harris pretty much stuck to the closing argument she delivered in D.C. over the weekend, the campaign also released two final two minute ads. One that shows Harris talking to people she's met on the campaign trail, promising to be a president for all Americans, touting her economic plans. They also have like big giant block letters on the screen. Take on price gouging. Bring down the cost of groceries. Bring down the cost of prescriptions. If that was the, the prose version of the final ad, there was a more poetry version that just came out right before we recorded that's sort of more sweeping. It's got the movie narrator voice. It's doing freedom hits Trump and Elon Musk. Ties them to. Ties Trump to billionaires and politicians doing the same old shit. I like, I like that one, too. Any thoughts on her overall final pitch in these last days, either with the ads or on the stump?

[Jon Lovett]

Honestly, my overall reaction is that it's like there's nothing particularly new in the video. And it's a testament to how just exquisitely on message this campaign has been from the moment she became the candidate until these final days. They are trying to hammer these key points that they think will bring along the last few. Undecided on things like costs, on common sense solutions. Something that she said in her speech and that is in both of these ads clearly must be something that tests very well amongst a narrow sliver of voters they're trying to get to. And I like the ad. I look, I'm a sucker for this morning we rise kind of an ad works on me every time. That's, that'll, that'll never change for me. But overall it is just a reminder that like we're going to talk about what we know, like what we've learned over the course of this campaign. And we have learned a lot. But I do think one thing we are going to find out on Wednesday is about the value of an incredibly effective campaign and a campaign that is on message trying to reach people.

[Jon Favreau]

And yeah, I will say at her rally on Sunday night, she didn't mention Trump's name once. It was the first time. And in the first ad, doesn't really mention Trump. Trump's barely mentioned in that second ad, the freedom ad. And I think that I've been like listening to her message. The ads at the end of the week, Tommy and I had this friendly debate on the last pod about the fascism and the economic stuff. The truth is they did it all. You know, at the end of the day they realized that you kind of, you have to, you have to raise the stakes of the election. You have to remind people what they don't like about Trump. You have to introduce her, you have to make sure that she's defined in a way that she's acceptable to people. And then you also have to talk about her plans for those. You know, like, I just, I think they did it all.

[Tommy Vitor]

They definitely did it all. I mean, I think the question, the challenge in politics is measuring inputs versus outputs. And you can obviously put all of that in the speech. The question is what gets to people. And it is kind of funny that there's two final two minute ads. Like usually you have one because you're making some choices.

[Jon Lovett]

Campaign that has a billion dollars right.

[Tommy Vitor]

There'S got so much money. But I think they're great. Like, I like the, I love the clips of her talking with voters where she seems like a human being connected with them. I like the policy stuff at the top. I hate the narrator voice stuff, but whatever, that's fine. Not us. Who knows what, like what voter is going to see this ad that hasn't already seen a trillion ads? We don't know, but I did. Like, usually these campaigns close on a positive message, at least Democrats close. Positive, close. Optimistically. I noticed, too, that they proactively released two press that they had not mentioned Donald Trump in that event. I don't know if that's undercut by then releasing an ad that very much does mention him and has eclipse of Elon Musk looking like a goober. I'm guessing no one gives a shit. But I like her telling us that there is a different brand of politics that we can achieve on Tuesday.

[Jon Favreau]

I also think the decision to do everything everywhere all at once is very reflective of the information environment we're in now and how there's just like huge segments of voters that they need to reach that aren't getting their news from the same place, that aren't watching the same media. And so it's like, all right, little cost for this group of voters, little freedom and abortion for this group of vote right. Like, they kind of have to do it all. And for us, it seems, because we are junkies who pay attention to this all the time, it seems like it's all over the place. But if you're one of these voters we talked to over the weekend and you just happen to turn on the TV or look on YouTube or wherever you get your news from, hopefully you see the right messages during the week.

[Jon Lovett]

You just feel this ad, there's like a pen an inch above the paper and they're just like trying to fucking drag the pen just down to get the fucking thing on the. Just get on the fucking thing.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't quite know what that.

[Tommy Vitor]

Like, it's a metaphor.

[Jon Lovett]

I think it's just like that this feels to me like ads aimed at people who are either trying to get.

[Tommy Vitor]

Them to vote, but the people that.

[Jon Lovett]

Are leaning towards Kamala that are open to Donald Trump, and they're just trying to get people to just like that last little gap of like, am I really going to vote for this person?

[Jon Favreau]

What you were just saying about on the doors, like, the best thing about talking to undersided voters is you don't have much time. And you really do have to boil it down to just like, what's your. What. What's the thing you're going to say to them if you have five seconds? Yeah, yeah, right.

[Tommy Vitor]

On the Republican side, it is like they're closing on a dead squirrel somewhere for some reason.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, look, and I will say they're at. What about to talk about Donald Trump. Their ads are closing on the message. Probably the right message, you know, at least if you're the Republicans who want to win.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vitor]

All right, here's what I'm going to do this week. Okay, this hurts me because I despise both of these teams, but we got jaden Daniels over 241 pass yards. I feel like that's going to happen. And then Derek Henry over 83 and a half rush yards. So look again. I hate the Commanders. I hate Baltimore. No offense. I mean offense, I don't really care. To all of you listening, I'm a Patriots fan and I'm an asshole and I endorse that. But price picks is super fun because it makes you care about games you wouldn't otherwise watch.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, best of luck. We'll check in with you to see how you did.

[Tommy Vitor]

Thank you.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Lovett]

Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. Can you name every single subscription you have? Probably not.

[Tommy Vitor]

Nope.

[Jon Lovett]

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[Tommy Vitor]

It, use it myself and it works.

[Jon Lovett]

So stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocket money.com/crooked that's rocket money.com crooked rocket money.com crooked.

[Jon Favreau]

Trump on the other hand, he's taken a different approach to his final days on the trail, where he has openly fantasized about people shooting Liz Cheney and journalists said he regrets ever leaving the White House after his failed coup, promised to put an anti vax conspiracy theorist in charge of public health, mused that it should be illegal to release polls that show he's losing, called Democrats demonic, and deep throated a microphone. Let's listen to get me somebody would.

[Jon Lovett]

Have to shoot through the fake news.

[Jon Favreau]

And I don't mind that so much.

[Tommy Vitor]

I don't mind.

[Jon Lovett]

This is a group of people. Large group of people. Larger than people think. But it's a very demonic party.

[Jon Favreau]

We had the safest border in the history of our country.

[Jon Lovett]

The day that I left, I shouldn't have left. I mean, honestly, isn't this better than my speech?

[Jon Favreau]

I love being off these stupid teleprompters.

[Jon Lovett]

Because the truth comes out.

[Jon Favreau]

Isn't this better than my speech sounded like? If I didn't know that he didn't drink, I would think he was a little.

[Tommy Vitor]

He hates his prepared remarks.

[Jon Favreau]

So Politico's headline about Trump's final weekend is Trump Returns to his grievances for his closing argument. The Washington Post went with GOP's closing election message on health baffles, strategists, worries experts. And the New York Times story out of the Pennsylvania event called Trump, quote, sluggish and aggrieved. That was in the headline. And the piece pointed out that Susie Wiles, who's running the Trump campaign, appeared to be giving Trump the wrap it up sign at some point during the remarks. I bet. What do you guys think is going on with Trump in these final days? And would anyone like to argue that any of it is strategic?

[Tommy Vitor]

No chance. I mean, I walked by the TV this morning and I heard him repeatedly mention Al Sharpton. I was like, what? What happened here? Did Al Sharpton endorse Donald Trump? No. He was telling a long, whiny story about Van Jones being mean to him. And I believe 2017, that's where we're at. It's just like a grievance fest. And I think we're, we don't know if he's going to win or lose, but there's just no question if he loses that part of it is because of this last since, what is it? October 27th was Madison Square Garden hate fest, which was so terrible that even Megyn Kelly, like a dyed in the wool MAGA person, now was complaining about it. And he's talking about shooting reporters. I mean, the bulwark just had a piece out where Trump came off stage after the event where he suggested that reporters might get shot. And he knew he had screwed up. He knows that relitigating 2020 is bad. So he seems just like an exhausted old man who is, you know, at the end of a process that would be brutal for someone half his age. And I think he also takes cues from the audience and he wants to entertain them. And he doesn't think his speech is entertaining. You know, he starts with, are you better off than you were four years ago? And then he's bored of that. And by the end, he's doing the weave for 96 minutes and we're talking about, you know, squirrels or something.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. I mean, like, he jokes about. It's worth hearing that the amount of, like, kind of a performative laughter from the crowd when he jokes about reporters getting murdered. You know, we went through a new cycle of. Actually, there's an explanation for his weird, violent fantasy about murdering Liz Cheney.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, the chicken hawk.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, the SNL trying to call the.

[Jon Favreau]

Journalists chicken hawks, too.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, right.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Jon Lovett]

The SNL part that people aren't talking about is part where with the Trump impression and actually really kind of capture something about Trump in the home stretch here, which is like, I don't want to keep doing this. I don't want to be up here anymore. There is a, like, be with you people. Donald Trump still wishes he were running against Joe Biden. He. You can see in how he is right now that he is, like, fundamentally, like, pissed off, because if Joe Biden were the candidate, he thinks he'd be walking away with this thing. And now he's fighting it to a draw. I am sure he is seeing the actual internal polling from the Trump campaign showing how fucking close it is. It's infuriating to him. And there's like, just. He's angry. He's angry and he's tired, and when he's tired, he can't help but be himself, and it's counterproductive.

[Jon Favreau]

I've heard some people surmise that maybe all this RFK Jr. Shit that's going on where he's, like, letting RFK Jr. Out, saying he's going to run public health, and Trump saying, I'm going to put him in charge of women's health. And Trump's appearing with him in Michigan, and all this kind of stuff has to do with, like, maybe they're trying to, like, get some RFK Jr curious voters on board with Trump, especially places where RFK Jr couldn't take himself off the ballot. Like Michigan, like, Wisconsin, like, maybe. But I also think Occam's Razor here is just like Trump says, whatever the fuck comes out of his. What's on his mind.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

And I don't know that RFK is the most loyal guy. I mean, he's always been kind of a narcissist in it for himself. But, yes, you know, Trump's out there getting questions about whether he would ban vaccines, not get rid of vaccine mandates, ban vaccines. And, you know, we're not just talking about, like, MRNA vaccines or Covid. You know, RFK Jr. Is someone who questions the polio vaccine measles. I mean, things that, you know, put humanity in a much better situation.

[Jon Favreau]

And by the way, get rid of Trump. Left it open when asked.

[Jon Lovett]

It open.

[Jon Favreau]

Left it open. Yeah. I mean, again, as you're making arguments to people in the last minute, RFK Jr also he decided to tweet like when Trump takes office in January, the first thing we'll do is remove fluoride from drinking water.

[Tommy Vitor]

Like what?

[Jon Favreau]

Like something that has helped people's dental health for decades now.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, like that's what America is going to go for. The polls, they want more cavities. Let's time for America's children to have more cavities. That's what everybody's out for right now. I do like, I think two things can be true.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Jon Lovett]

I think he is hearing like, hey, there's some, the, the low information RFK people still may be voting for rfk. Let's try to get something in front of those people. Counting on the fact that in the last 72 or 48 hours of the election, the fact that Donald Trump is suddenly promising to end all vaccine mandates and maybe take vaccines off the shelves is not going to reach the other kinds of people for whom that might be persuasive or at least a, another final proof point for how Donald Trump is unstable and dangerous.

[Jon Favreau]

Tim Alberta in the Atlantic has a long piece about sort of the Trump campaign towards the end. And you know, he makes a good point that based on all the people he talked to close to Trump, Trump just doesn't like calm and normal and disciplined. He doesn't trust it. And he gets bored, like Tommy saying with his speech. He also just gets bored with everything seeming normal and going well for him. He loves the chaos. He, he wants to trust his gut and say whatever the hell he wants and all the kind of qualities you want in a president.

[Jon Lovett]

Just a classic look, look, the man needs therapy. You recreate the patterns you had in your childhood. It makes you feel safe. You don't trust when things are going well. Trump, we've been there. We've all been there. Gotta work through that.

[Tommy Vitor]

I can't believe that Tim Alberta piece came out this weekend.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I was on our flight. On our flight. We're reading it on our flight to Arizona. Yeah, but I do, look, I think he has closed horribly again. He might win. Right? Because maybe a lot of the vote is already, a lot of the vote is already baked in and a lot of people have already decided. And so maybe that's enough for Trump to win. I just. It is not. It was not surprising to hear David Plouffe and Jenn OMalley Dillon and folks on the Biden campaign saying that they are, in the last week, they won undecided voters by double digits. Because I don't think Trump has done anything to convince people in this last week who weren't already inclined to vote for Detroit Free Press, front page, split screen. Uh, it says, VP Harris voices optimism for America in message to Michigan. And then on the other side, it says Trump campaigns and swing states says he shouldn't have left White House. Like, that's the front page. The Michigan voters are waking up to, you know, bad news. All right, so this weekend we also got the final dump of polls in this race. Uh, the last round of time, Sienna swing state polls came out on Sunday morning. It's kind of a surprising mix. Uh, they have Harris up three points in Nevada, two points in North Carolina, two points in Wisconsin, one point in Georgia, tied in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and down four in Arizona. Nate Cohen wrote in his analysis that there's some evidence of late deciders breaking for Harris. He has it at 16 points, 58 to 42. The gap is much wider in the Sunbelt states. And then Trump leads by about the same margin among late deciders in the blue wall, which is interesting.

[Jon Lovett]

That was the. Yeah, you want to stop? And I was keep going.

[Jon Favreau]

All in all, it suggests that there's more movement in the Sunbelt and it's going towards Harris. But basically everything tied everywhere. At least according to the Times, their average now is one point or less in every battleground except Arizona. Want to stop and just talk about these polls?

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, let's do this first, because that, because overall, it's just another set of polls showing it's really, really close. And the fact that voters in the Sunbelts are breaking towards Harris comports with what David Plouffe was saying. There is this one strange number out of these polls, which is that in the northern swing states, Trump led 60 to 40among late deciders, which is an opposite of the three Sunbelt states. And from what we've heard from the Harris campaign. So it was just, it was just strange. And it's just one of those, like. Well, that data point makes a narrative really hard to form. And that's all.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, so that, you know, it's all. It's all tied up. I do think one explanation for her doing better in the Sunbelt and then slightly worse in the northern battlegrounds is it's just the electorate is starting to return to form to the 2020 electorate a little bit. And you know, you saw this some. YouGov did had done a series of polls of black voters and Trump's share of the black vote has basically stayed the same over the last several months. But Harris's has grown in the, in their final wave of polls. And so you're starting to see in high quality polls that sort of focus on an entire demographic so that you don't get these like, you know, cross tab small samples. You see the black vote starting to look more like it did in 2020. You see the Latino vote starting to look more like it did in 2020, the youth vote starting to look more. Right. So you're seeing some reversion in some of these polls to like what the electorate was like in 2020, which would make sense of why the Sunbelt is getting a little better for her and then it's getting a little tighter in the northern ballot.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I also want to. Nate Cohen pointed this out about late deciders, that both of these things can't be true. It can't be true that in the, that in Pennsylvania, according to the Times, late breakers are going towards Trump and according to the Harris campaign, they're going towards Harris. Just one of those things has to be true. And the question is, like, what is the artifact of this polling that's pulling out that kind of information? It might just be that the, like that, that people saying that they are late deciders may have in a previous poll is what Nate pointed out might have already have been saying they were voting for Harris. They've been called a week or two earlier.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, there's generally just a mixed bag. I mean, we want her to win the Midwestern states first and foremost because that seems to be the most likely path. But there was a surprisingly strong result out of Nevada that we hadn't seen in a while, which seemed to cut against the doom and gloom we'd seen from John Raulston about the early vote. So again, we're just emotional basket cases reading these things.

[Jon Lovett]

That's right.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, the poll heard round the world.

[Tommy Vitor]

There we go.

[Jon Favreau]

Dropped on Saturday night as the legendary Ann Seltzer of the Des Moines Register came down from the mountaintop with a tablet that showed Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 47, 44 in the state of Iowa, a state that Donald Trump won by eight points in 2020 and where Seltzer's June poll of this year had Trump leading Joe Biden by 18 points in 2020. Seltzer's final poll showing Trump up by seven was the first and only sign that the polls were underestimating Trump like they did in 2016, when Seltzer's final poll showed him with a seven point lead over Hillary Clinton. He ended up winning the state by nine that year. That was a terrifying moment for all of us in 2016 where we're like, oh, maybe this is not gonna go the way we think.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I remember when I was.

[Jon Lovett]

Let's all ignore that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. According to the poll, the shocking result this time around is based on a surge towards Harris among older and independent women. Trump, of course, called it a fake poll done by a Trump hater in a call with an NBC reporter. He had previously called it a really great poll. Of course, the Harris campaign said on a briefing call, quote, we are seeing that we're closing strong. I would not read into it any more than that. Point taken, but let's do it anyway. Tommy, how should people be thinking about this poll?

[Tommy Vitor]

I mean, I think it's a shocking outlier, but one from someone who is considered one of the best pollsters in the business, if not the best. I personally cannot overstate how large insults are loomed in my life because she basically called the Iowa caucuses in 2008, or at least she had Obama winning by basically the margin that he ultimately won by. So you explained how Selter got this result, which was older voters, independent women breaking for Kamala Harris. Oddly, she has Harris winning senior men men over 65 by two points, which is just kind of like hard to fathom. Seltzer says she doesn't know exactly how, why this is happening. She thinks it's because of Iowa's extremely draconian six week abortion ban and the impact that is having. The one thing that's just worth knowing is Seltzer's methodology is different from a lot of other pollsters because she basically just draws her sample by randomly calling Iowa phone numbers, landlines and cell phones. They contacted 1,000 adults to get 808 Iowans. They waited a little bit, but they're not doing all the kind of monkey business that a lot of other pollsters are doing where they are basically asking respondents who they voted for in 2020 and weighting their sample that way so it looks like that electorate. So, you know, it's a gutsy poll to release because she knew, you know, she says in an interview with Tim Miller, she did yesterday, one day my methodology won't work and I'll Explode and, like, spread into little pieces over Des Moines or something. Very funny like that. But we'll see.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I mean, like, my takeaway from the poll. So, first of all, there's another poll out of Kansas that showed Trump only winning by five. And I bring it up only because these are polls that can't hurt because no one else is polling these states. And those polls could actually end up becoming outliers. And it turns out that the polls showing a tie or Trump ahead are correct. And we'll say, oh, these were outliers, because maybe those voters were. Because of how she samples or because of the politics of those places, slightly different. But all in all, it takes tells me, like, you know, Nate Cohen wrote up about these Times Sienna polls, that basically, if there's a polling error like 2020, it could turn out that Donald Trump could run the table. If there's a polling error like 2022 could turn out that Harris runs the table. And I think the truth is, we just don't know because as Tommy pointed out, a lot of these polls are being weighted towards the 2020 sample, which is just a way to kind of basically have them all heard towards a result that kind of looks like 2020 with certain assumptions about how the electorate has changed. Baked in. But that's not really a pollution. Right. That's something else. That's. That's a model or that's.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, I was. And Seltzer said this to Tim, but her waiting that, you know, she's defending her waiting. Right. Which is not weighted towards recalled vote or party, even party ID or registration, but it is by demographic. And so she's getting enough of each kind of voter in Iowa and by region. Right. So she's trying to get. So she's trying to avoid the earliest congressional district breakdowns. Yeah. Just getting a bunch of excited libs. But who knows? I think there's just a signal in the poll. I think that's the best you can say. Right. Which is that there is that Harris is holding up surprisingly well, maybe among older voters. Now, of course, the poll said that Biden was doing really well with seniors. And then he did typical performance with seniors. He did a little bit better than Hillary had. But. And it's showing that women, older women, independent women, are really, really motivated to go vote. And that could have implications for Wisconsin, that traditionally that has been what Seltzer's poll has told people. And this was the case in 16 and 20. Like, oh, well, if Trump's doing that well in Iowa, then maybe Joe Biden or maybe Hillary Clinton aren't doing as well as we think. According to the polls in Wisconsin, which ended up being true that those years, she could be wrong. Of course, her last miss, her last big miss on the presidential level was in 2004. But even then she had Kerry up by three. Bush ended up winning by 0.7. So that wasn't so. Like, he's tight. This is what she has in this result is an 11 point swing from the 2020 results. Margin of error at the 95% confidence level is 9. Let's say that it's 9. Right? Let's say she's off by 9. That's still Trump + 6 in Iowa instead of Trump + 8 would still be a shift to the left by 2 points.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, the, the, the takeaway for me, like stepping all the way back is, okay, well, it seems like Ann is suggesting there's an error in the polls that looks a bit more like 2022, that there is this pro choice, anti Dobbs vote. And then the question becomes, okay, I was a place with a draconian abortion law. Wisconsin's a state that just elected a Supreme Court judge to stop them from having a draconian ancient abortion law in place. But it's a state where that was very much of fear. You have Michigan, where Gretchen Whitmer campaigned on protecting abortion access. You have Pennsylvania, where you have a Democratic governor that has been able to protect abortion access. The question is, what does that anti Dobbs pro abortion coalition look like in states where abortion isn't as much under threat? Or in a state like Arizona where they have a ballot measure, or Nevada where they have a ballot measure. And I guess that's. That to me is the open question.

[Tommy Vitor]

For what it's worth, Tim asked Anne Seltzer about what this result could mean for Wisconsin. He's like, because there's a lot of white people in both places and they eat at Culver's. And she cautioned against that kind of analysis.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, Iowa, she just said she can't. She's like, I'm not qualified to know because I don't.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, she said, well, yeah, she said the only way I would agree to do that is if I pulled that state. But it's also just worth pointing out that Wisconsin is getting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of messaging every day. There's field teams, there's people knocking doors. Iowa's got none of that because it's not a competitive state. So it's probably easier to reach people. They're Just not hearing the campaign messaging. So it's just like, it's a big, like, who knows. But the hopeful version is definitely like, okay, maybe this is a signal that something good is happening out there.

[Jon Favreau]

Another high quality, highly rated pollster, Marist, just came out with their final national poll, 5147 Harris. They are the other big, high quality pollster that does not wait by education or past vote. So there's something, there's, there's some split there and you know, we'll find out.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, we will find out. But I will say I just want to be on like, even if the election results, results end up mirroring the kind of cascade of ties, that will not mean that their approach was the correct one. It will just mean that they herded luckily correctly and we will run in, in the next midterms and the next presidential the same confounding. What do these mean? We will have no idea until the votes come in.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but two things before we do that. First, reminder that we're going to be doing a show every day until the race is called. Yay. What a day. As always, is going to have a new episode in your feed every morning, breaking down what you need to know. In just 20 minutes, the hosts of strict scrutiny and hysteria will be making appearances across the network to unpack breaking news. So make sure you're following all these shows to get the very latest. And again, a vote save America shout out and request. As you probably know, mail in ballots come in all the time with little mistakes like a missing signature and they can get thrown out if they aren't fixed. That's why we need your help reaching these folks to correct or cure their ballots. That's what it's called. By going to votesaveamerica.com cure and signing up to volunteer. This is incredibly important.

[Tommy Vitor]

So important.

[Jon Favreau]

This is like a signature issue, whatever, and they give you a chance to fix it. And you know, there's like thousands of ballots that need curing usually in every state. I think there's already a couple thousand in every, in a bunch of these states where early votes come in and that can be the margin.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. This is the voter who voted who made a little mistake and you can make sure their vote counts.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, yeah. It's a reminder too that there's going to be work we're going to have to like, even if we get good numbers, good results starting Tuesday night, we have to be vigilant and there's going to be work to do between now and the moment Kamala Harris is inaugurated.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, and of course again, as we just heard from Tim Walz, you can call a friend, you can reach out to a friend, text a friend in swing states, not in swing states, just get people to vote. In these last 2448 hours, this message has been paid for by votesafeamerica. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. We'll be right back.

[Tommy Vitor]

Positive America is brought to you by article™ believes in delightful design for every home and thanks to their online only model, they have some really delightful prices too. Their curated assortment of mid century modern, coastal, industrial, scandi and boho designs makes furniture shopping simple. Article's team of designers are all about finding the perfect balance between style, quality and price. They're dedicated to thoughtful craftsmanship that stands the test of time and looks good doing it. Article offers fast, affordable shipping across the US And Canada. Plus they won't leave you waiting around. You pick the delivery time and they'll send you updates every step of the way. Article's knowledgeable customer care team is there when you need them to make sure your experience is smooth and stress free. We have some great Article furniture at the company. Yeah, we got a bunch of chairs.

[Jon Lovett]

Some couches, very comfortable desks.

[Tommy Vitor]

They look good and they show up really, really fast. And they're durable. We've had them for years now. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit Article.comCrooked and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. That's article.com crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more.

[Jon Favreau]

FX presents say Nothing Based on the gripping true story in New York times bestseller. In 1970s Belfast, two young and idealistic sisters joined the IRA to fight for a united Ireland, graduating from rioting in the streets to robbing banks and planting bombs. Thirty years later, one of them agrees to a tell all interview about her ferocious and fascinating past. Under the condition it would only be.

[Jon Lovett]

Released after her death.

[Jon Favreau]

FX's say nothing. All episodes now streaming on Hulu. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This month is all about gratitude and along with thanking family or friends, there's another person we don't get to thank enough ourselves.

[Jon Lovett]

Little Pat yourself on the back.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, it's sometimes hard to remind ourselves that we're trying our best to make sense of everything. And in this crazy world, that isn't.

[Jon Lovett]

Easy it isn't easy.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's a reminder to send some thanks to the people in your life, including yourself.

[Jon Lovett]

I think the term trying our best doesn't mean anything.

[Jon Favreau]

You've never done anything half assed.

[Jon Lovett]

I know. Well, there's no, we're not all trying our best. That's wrong.

[Jon Favreau]

No, we're not all.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, that's just sort of like, oh.

[Jon Favreau]

You'Re saying, oh, everyone's trying their best.

[Jon Lovett]

Like, oh, well, they're trying their best. Maybe. I mean, I don't know. Like, do you, like, even when you are trying your best, it's not always clear. Like, are you?

[Jon Favreau]

Sounds like a conversation you should have with your therapist.

[Jon Lovett]

That's what I'm saying.

[Jon Favreau]

If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Therapy is great. You can go on rants like Lovett just did and the person's paid to listen. Even if you think you're fine, you just go sit down with someone.

[Jon Lovett]

Trust me, I don't think I'm fine.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, well, even if you do let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp, visit betterhelp.com PSA today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com PSA all right, we're getting to the end here. We said all along rather be us than them. You guys still feel like that's true?

[Tommy Vitor]

I think so. I would have had a different answer two weeks ago, to be totally honest with you. And now I feel hopeful because Kamala Harris is closing strong and I think Trump has fumbled every bag he has been handed for 10 days now.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, I would rather be us than them. It wouldn't have changed for me over the last couple of weeks, even with the ebb and flow, because this, the push to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris was just a bet on politics and we are practicing politics. Donald Trump is doing something else. And I still would rather bet on politics.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I much rather be us. I mean, I think question is, what are we talking about when people head into the voting booth? And we are. What the Trump campaign would want people to be thinking about when they head into the voting booth is Joe Biden whether or not you feel better off than four years ago. Inflation, immigration, squirrels. Right. Yeah. We're not talking about any of the things that we know the Trump campaign wants people to think about because it's in their ass. And so now, again, maybe people have already decided and so that doesn't matter, but they are not doing that at the end. And Trump's just saying crazy shit. He's being off his rocker. He has. Anyone who's just tuning into this whole thing, think of what they have seen in the last week from Donald Trump. And because it may be like, well, sometimes that works with people. Yeah, that works with his base, but not people who are just hearing it. So. And I think fundamentally, if you're zooming out like, like she. Her coalition is relying on more reliable voters than his. Right? And now his base is certainly reliable. The turnout in the rural areas already, early vote is, like, through the roof. But he's betting on low propensity men to save the day for him. And it could pay off, but it's a riskier bet.

[Tommy Vitor]

Plus army of incels.

[Jon Lovett]

I just think about, like, I will for me, like, the last week and a half has truly, to me, been about Trump Jon Joe Rogan versus Michelle Obama. And I just think, like, Michelle Obama made a case not just to people who are gonna vote for Harris, but for the people around those people. Right? Like, for them to go to their husbands, to go to their brothers and their sisters, and to say, please come with me. I don't. Donald Trump has not given a message to his MAGA base or on that show that says, I know you're with me. Here's how to go get some other people. He just has not done that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. All right. Before we sign off for the last time, before results come in, while we're all in agonizing suspense, we thought it'd be a good time to talk about what we've learned from this race and any takes we feel confident about, regardless of what happens on Tuesday.

[Jon Lovett]

I'll run through a couple quick. Polling is broken. I hit that one. Candidates matter. Switching from Biden to Kamala is why we have a chance. She has been an extraordinary candidate. She took on the mantle, and she deserves so much praise for that. No matter what happens. And I am sure there'll be plenty of recriminations if we were to lose. And I just want to be on record saying that because I would like to not be a part of that. There'll be not a perfect campaign. But if it required a perfect campaign to defeat this fucking moron, then America's got bigger fish to fry. Campaigns matter. She ran a great campaign. The bigger points to me are the full takeover. The Republican Party by Trump is complete. And I don't know what comes next for Republicans if Donald Trump loses, but we cannot forget what these people fucking did. Every single one who capitulated, every single one who sold their souls for him, they're not walking away from that. We will remember the last piece, too, is because Kamala became the candidate late because of a lot of headwinds around people being frustrated by the cost of living. An anti incumbency trend that is global. It may not manifest in this election, but there is an. There's not just an anti Trump coalition out there. There is a pro freedom, pro democracy, economically populist coalition out there that we can assemble. We see that with Dan Osborne and the success he's had. We see that with ballot measures across the country, that movement, that majority is there for us, win or lose.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I mean, I think. I totally agree that candidates matter a lot. I think that if this were Biden versus Trump, we would be on a path to Trump getting 400 electoral votes or more. And it would be very, very bad.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. The good news there is there'd be less anxiety, less anxious.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right. There'd be more battening down the hatches.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

More applying for passports in other places. I think also we learned that abortion is not a secondary issue for people. It's not a, quote, unquote, social issue or one that declined in salience as we got further from Dobbs. It's an issue where the results of the Dobbs decision became more and more prevalent and the stories became more personal and horrifying. And I think that drove voters. There's been a lot of polling where you've seen abortion tick up over the last few weeks in terms of its relevance. I also think there was a very annoying kind of Internet Twitter meme for a while when Trump would say something and people would be like, lol, nothing matters. You know, I remember that. And like, sometimes that's true. You know, when you're in the kind of dregs of an off year, he can say something. Most people won't see it. It won't matter. And I also think that ultimately, look, the fact that we're here suggests that January 6th wasn't a career ending event like it should have been. But what he says and does matters on the margins. I mean, the Madison Square Garden rally has hung with him. Yep. Broken. There's a Univision poll of Pennsylvania Latino voters that found a lot of people personally offended by that joke, the Kill Tony joke about Puerto Rico. 71% of respondents said the Joke suggested there was racism in the Trump campaign and 53% think Trump is very disrespectful to Latinos.

[Jon Favreau]

So racism in the Trump campaign and a shocker, right? Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

Nick Fuentes.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. I mean like the flip side to Joe Biden would be down to Trump. We don't know what it would be like right now if they had run a normal Republican like Nikki Haley versus Biden, but like Nikki Haley versus Kamala Harris. Like we don't know what it would look like that they had all the trends of anti incumbency, all the anger at the economy, all the, all the anger at the Biden administration behind a normal candidate running a strategic campaign. I don't think we'd be pretty happy sitting here either.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, divided country, anything could happen. Sucks that we got here, but feeling.

[Jon Favreau]

Better if she loses. I think the explanation to me feels pretty straightforward, which is that voters who don't follow news closely, who don't show up in every election, were still pissed about high prices and or at the border, which is sort of the post pandemic malaise that has, as you said, love it, just taken down incumbents all over the world. And trading our very unpopular incumbent for his vice president 90 days out from the election still wasn't quite enough to overcome that environment. That was that. I think if she loses, that to me is the most likely explanation. If she wins, it is because the anti Maga coalition that has turned out in every election since 16 to beat Donald Trump and beat MAGA politicians did it again. And it was fueled by women who were pissed about Dobbs and people and anti Maga coalition, very pissed about Donald Trump's threat to democracy. And what Kamala Harris did, which would be an incredible like history making achievement, is in 90 days she reminded people of what's at stake and also defined herself in a way where she neutralized Donald Trump's advantage on the economy and on immigration just enough to make sure that that anti Maga coalition could propel her to the White House. And it's sort of why I'm like relatively calm, because I feel like we have done all we can to make sure everyone who's paying attention knows the stakes. And when I say we, it's like the other thing that makes me sort of proud and happy at the end here is like the anti Maga coalition got the assignment. We were seeing that at the convention. Kamala Harris had to walk the highest, narrowest tightrope and you can count on one hand the number of times that she stumbled generally Dillon, who was the Biden campaign chair and now Kamala Harris's chair and the entire Biden campaign, who's now the Harris campaign, plus all the new people who joined, they all got the assignment. They did everything they could. The left AOC and Bernie did everything they could. Liz Cheney and the never Trump Republicans did. Like the legacy media clearly covered the stakes. A lot of people have complaints about the media, but like plenty of articles out there about how, what Donald Trump's planning to do if he wins again. And so if people choose that then like that's what the country wanted. And I don't believe that's what the country wants. And I think that we can overcome that. But that's, I really, I'm proud of everyone for pulling together and doing everything we can to stop this guy.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah. I will say too though, even in that circumstance, even with all of us doing everything we can, if we lose, I do think like, will that be because this country wanted someone as awful and terrible as Donald Trump? Will that be because this country wanted tariffs and a national sales tax and mass deportations? I think some people really want those things. I think some people are pretending to believe he won't do those things or actually believe he won't do those things. But I also do think that like we, we can't always lay at the feet of the Harris campaign or Democrats or even the media. Like what, what it means for someone like Donald Trump to be anywhere close to the White House. And those are deeper economic problems, those are deeper social problems, those are problems with social media that will continue that. We have to keep figuring out how to fight back against.

[Jon Favreau]

And it's true regardless of the outcome.

[Jon Lovett]

And that is true regardless of the outcome.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's our show for today. Tomorrow is election day. If you can get away from work to help get people to the polls, do that. We're going to record the show as late as we can tomorrow night to get the fullest picture we can. Dan will be here too, the whole gang. We will release that show as soon as possible. And as we mentioned, we'll have a show every day until there's an official call. Stick with us. Hang in there, everybody. Go get every last vote. And you know you should feel good.

[Jon Lovett]

Yeah, feel good, everybody feel good. But also nervous.

[Jon Favreau]

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