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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind the Iran War Backlash and Trump’s Slipping Support
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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome back to a numbers Game with Ryan Garduski. Thank you so much for being here, guys. I want to remind you all that before the big story came out about Kristi Noem and her husband, I said on this podcast that a secretary was telling reporters off the record that her husband was gay. Just so you know, I didn't name Kristi Noem because I wanted to keep that privacy because I'm not here to out people. But the Guardian or the Daily Mail did it for me. So. But I told you guys all way ahead of time that this was happening and that this was what she was buzzing about to reporters. I wouldn't be shocked if someone in her close circle was the one who passed along some of that information to the Daily Mail reporters. I just want to let you know that listen to this podcast, you learn about the news a little earlier. Okay. My main topic for today is not about Kristi Noem's husband. It is about is the Iran war sinking Donald Trump and the Republican Party? That is the question I am posing to my audience now. When the bombing campaign originally started five weeks ago, I, like many Republicans were somewhat supportive and I said much the effect that, you know, look, Iran has funded terrorism for decades. They have, they've killed Americans. They have threatened American troops that are stationed overseas. They've threatened our allies, they Israel and Saudi Arabia. They have not made a secret. They want to make long range ballistic missiles which could target Europe. They were absolutely a threat to stability, not only in the region but in the world. I know Israeli intelligence has said that they were trying to build a nuclear bomb. I'm not a big believer in Israeli intelligence when it comes to Iran. They've been off quite a bit over the last few decades. So I'm going to put that to the side. But they did were absolutely trying to build a long range ballistic missile program and trying to enrich uranium. And I said in this program that as long as this was just about bombing campaigns, most Republicans were not going to care. They weren't going, it wasn't going to affect their life, you know, to most effects. And if it was very successful, it would be like Venezuela with the arrest of Maduro, which was flawless. But it wasn't going to positively impact the president very much because we don't care about foreign policy policy as a country right now. That idea that Republicans are not going to care is changing and it's changing fast. We've had in this country as far as, because of this, you know, because of the war, we've had a few terrorist attacks which have killed American civilians. We have had soldiers die overseas, abroad. And we. Most importantly though, as far as political ramifications go, not human life obviously lost, but political ramifications. We're seeing the price of oil skyrocket. I got a text yesterday or the day before from one of my aunts, big Republican Trump supporting aunt who was very angry that gasoline in her town had increased by 40 cents in a single day. The average price of gasoline has increased by more than a dollar in a month nationwide. In, in 11 states in this country, gas is over $4 a gallon. California, Alaska, Maryland, Hawaii, Arizona, Utah, Illinois, Nevada, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. At least one of those states has a very important U.S. senate election. Alaska, Colorado, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Vermont are very close to any $4. That's according to AAA insurance. That is not good because despite an increasing number of people using electric vehicles, gasoline is one of the fastest indicators to how people feel about the economy. You see the sign as you're passing along the highway. It is like food prices. You see it relative to your daily travels all the time. How gasoline is changing. You're reminded of it constantly. And polls are showing that it is costing support for this war. You know, in, in a, in a, in a, in a large magnitude. Pew research found that 61% of Americans disapprove of the war. 38% approved. CNN had nearly identical numbers, 59 approved disapproving, 41% approving. Quinnipiac, also nearly identical numbers, 57% disapproved, 37% approved. Fox News, 58% disapproved. 42% disapproved. CBS News, 60% disapproved. 40% approved. RMG Research 52% disapproved. 39% approved. It is overwhelming. It is across the board is Republican pollsters and Democrats and nonpartisan. They are finding about a 15 point disapproval for this war overall. When you add everything up now, I know a lot of people like to say, especially in the media, especially supporters of this war, like the Mark Levin types, they say, well, look at the maga. MAGA supports him. Look at, you know, when you look at MAGA Republicans, it's 90, 95% support him, 89% support him, depending on the poll. That is a very, how do I say this less than smart way of trying to figure out how Republican voters and Trump voters specifically feel about this poll. Because there is no being a MAGA voter to a pollster is a Self indicator. So it's not like I can look at your voting card or your voter registration information and cross select that with who I'm calling when I'm doing a poll or who I'm texting. It's all, you know, am I MAGA supporter, yes or no. It's how I feel inwards. It's not am I a white male, am I a millennial, am I a registered Republican, am I married, am I single, am I, you know, I'm a parent. Other things work to, you know, cross check if you're telling the truth or not. When you're doing these s poll sample size sizes and doing the methodology, there's nothing to work with. The question of are you a MAGA Republican? It's all self, you know, it's all self checked. It's all what you believe inward and it changes over time. You could be a MAGA Republican one day and not a MAGA Republican the next day. You, you can't be, you know, a man and a woman unless you're Caitlyn Jenner every day. Like you are one fixed thing in when you're, when you're doing the samples and other parts of methodology which are more accurate. I would like to look at two other indicators to see how Trump voters actually feel. One being how do Republicans and specifically people who voted for Donald Trump feel? And the second is how do whites without a college degree, Donald Trump's strongest voting bloc, look? Republicans at the beginning of the conflict overwhelmingly supported the war. It was, most polls found it over 80% support. Now polls find between the mid 70s to the mid 60 level support, Fox News, 74%, Politico 75, 70%. YouGov found that it's 68% with 24% of Trump voters. These are Trump voters opposing the war. 8% undecided. Among independents who voted for Trump, it is even more lopsided. Right? The, the independent vote, the Tulsi independents, the Latino men, the Maha RFK moms, the Rogan podcast bros, the young voters, the independents, the Latino working class men. These are people that Trump added to the coalition to win the popular vote to swing states like New York and Los Angeles and sorry, California, by immense numbers and you know, win every single swing state that there was. Those are the people that are isolated from this war effort. It's not people who necessarily have a cardboard cutout, you know, Donald Trump figurine in front of their house. They're not the ones necessarily moving. Maybe it's not the people who, the front, front row Joes who go to every single one of his rallies because it's all self identifying whether you are a MAGA Republican. But if they voted for him in 2024, they are, I don't know, not less MAGA or not less. They were. They're new to the coalition. You can't afford to lose them. And I'll put out a caveat. The Quinnipiac poll did find it much higher at 86%. I want to at least mention that. But there's a trajectory that is very obvious that looks at the war effort and you see a downward slope over time increasing because independents, independence of lean Republicans and Republican voters themselves, and Trump voters themselves are increasingly undecided moving away from the war. Similarly, whites without a college degree went from supporting the war effort by a double digit margin to opposing the war by a double digit margin. That is Donald Trump's base. It's not anything else. As whites without a college degree, a Republican cannot win a single office in this country, statewide office in this country, without winning the bulk support, 65, 70, 75% of the white working class vote. That is the base of the Republican Party. That's who Republicans need to win over time and time again, that is who is, you know, obviously the most negatively impacted by increased gas prices, who really can't afford it is whites without a college degree. And independent numbers are at their lowest level ever for Donald Trump, for the first time in a long time, independents have a more favorable opinion of the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. Remember, we've been going on and on this podcast about how can Democrats win if independents view them negatively. And, you know, partially it's because it's a binary choice, just one or the other. So upset with one you go to the other. It's like, you know, being a divorced child with two different parents. However, they were like, we don't like the Democrats, but we might go vote for them because they're not the Republicans. Now they're saying the Republicans are way worse than the Democrats. Not where you want to be, just not where you want to be. And it gets even worse. I saw this headline and I wanted to rip my hair out. This is from Axios. This is the headline. And the headline is Doing some work. This is obviously a very liberal headline that is doing a lot of work on behalf of Democrats. But the story has some merit. Axios GOP weighs Health Care cuts to Pay for Iran War. This is important. Top House Republicans are looking at health care offsets addressing fraud in federal programs as they did during last year's debate over the budget law that made deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending and impose first time work requirements. Not a bad thing, by the way. There are some other items we're looking into right now, especially in the area of fraud, waste and abuse that we're working through with our members, house Majority Leader Steve Scalise from Louisiana told Axios. House Budget Committee Chairman Jody Arrington from Texas is reviving an idea that was considered last year to fund the Affordable Care act payments known as cost sharing reductions. The Congressional Budget Office previously found that it would move it would lower the overall benchmark of the aca premiums by 11%, but it would reduce 300,000 more uninsured. It would cut the subsidy amount that some enrollees receive, thereby increasing out of pocket premium costs while saving the government $30 billion. $30 billion is not going to cover this war effort. It's just not. This war effort is about a third of what Iraq and Afghanistan were at this point, a third to a fourth. There's no health care subsidy cuts that are going to do this. But I want to remind people, forget about the math for a second, although that matters. One of the most effective ways that Democrats targeted Republicans during the fight over the ICE spending was what AOC said. I mean, I'll give her credit where it's due when she said the GOP was cutting funds for health care to fund ice. That is not true. But as far as campaign tactics go, when it was polled, the most effective way that that it was addressed, the most effective campaign tool. Which is why, by the way, Rahm Emanuel, because he's running for president, or exploding. The idea is saying he's going to cut ICE funding and move to community colleges. The idea that you are spending on Iran, the idea that you're spending on ICE and it could go to programs that make people's lives easier and better. Whether that be true or not true, it doesn't matter. I'm talking about the rhetoric. The rhetoric is extremely, extremely effective. Americans, by and large do not believe President Trump is focused on the right issues. They do not believe that they should be doing all this foreign policy intervention. They do not believe the economy is working for them, nor do they believe it's getting better. And job hiring numbers are awful right now. It all comes back down to the economy and gas prices. And the polls are showing that even for Republicans, even for Trump's most loyal voters, whites without a college degree, this is impacting them now. This is not just bombs anymore. This is changing the trajectory and it shows up in the polls. Even Real Clear Politics, which has avoided publishing some polls critical or less favorable for Donald Trump, are saying he's at a worse place now than he was at this point in 2021. New York Times. He's under 40%, according to Nate Silver, who's not, you know, a genius, but he's not a dummy either. Trump's approval ratings fell by five points in the last week and is under 40% after being relatively unchanged for the last few months. The shooting in Minneapolis didn't really affect him. The Venezuela arrest Nicholas Mador didn't really affect him. He was always kind of floating 41, 42, 43, maybe the high mark. The Iran war is affecting him. Gas prices are affecting him. They're affecting Republicans. The Trump administration has been extremely good on some issues, like immigration, his executive order on housing, his push for most favored nation status. When it comes to health care bills. However, it's all coming back to kitchen table issues at this moment. It is. What sank Joe Biden is the biggest reason. Sank Jo Biden. There were many things that sank Joe Biden. I don't want to overstate him, but kitchen table issues, inflation definitely help sink Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And Trump is feeling the pressure over the same exact issues, right? With the Iran war, with gas prices, with kitchen tables concerns. That is why he's, you know, reduce our strategic petroleum reserves. And that's why he's moving the needle, if you've listened to what him and the Trump administration are saying, moving the needle on Iran very quickly. On Sunday, Secretary Rubio said that the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened one way or another. And on Monday, President Trump said if Hormuz strait is not immediately open for business, they're going to blow up Iran's electrical plants and oil wells. And then by Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal, he told Top AIDS he's willing to end the war without opening the straight of horror moves. Time is ticking down very badly towards the midterms. It is ticking so quickly. And the Iran war is not Venezuela and polls are showing it. Independents are fleeing, young people are angry. And turnout for Democrats is going to be so intense over the last couple of weeks, something I haven't covered that I've not been mentioning. Yeah, because I'm going to do a deep dive. In Virginia, the Democrat turnout, the black vote turnout for this referendum on congressional districts soared after not voting at all. Black vote, not voting whatsoever. The black vote right now is soaring. In Virginia, the referendum is probably going to pass. Democrats are getting activated and getting motivated and showing up after spending weeks sleeping through this election. It all comes down to the economy. It all comes down to what is affecting people's pocketbooks. And Iran is finally starting to affect people's pocketbooks. And I'm telling you, he is going to walk into George W. Bush territory if gas prices go over $5 a gallon. If you want to see Donald Trump with lows like you've never seen him, because even during the first time, even during the chaos and all the news stories and does he watch a show just gorillas fighting and leakers and people getting fired, he was always net positive on the economy. Now he's lower on the economy than Joe Biden was. And a Harris, Harvard Harris poll found that more people think that Joe Biden was better for the economy than Donald Trump. I don't necessarily believe that poll, although it could be just that people forget, because people forget everything, but it just shows the anger and the anguish and the saddest thing, the most annoying thing as someone who voted for Donald Trump every time he's been on a ballot, the most annoying thing as a conservative and a Republican operative is he has had answers to address these concerns over economic populism, the type of stuff Republicans usually don't support. That got him that independent vote. That got him those former Democrats. That got him the Obama voters and the Maha voters and the Hispanic men and the young bros, you know, most favored state status with medical bills, prescription drugs rather, that should be in Congress. That should be voted on tomorrow. Let dare the Democrats to vote against it. Insider trading bills. People feel like Congress is completely warped. That would pass immediately if President Trump sat there and fought for. I know I just said sat there. I'm trying to avoid it. But it is the truth. If he. The credit card, limiting credit card interest rates. I know that's not economically popular. It's politically a huge win for people over and over again. And the Republican Party saying don't do populist stuff. That's what Republicans in Congress don't do. Popular stuff. That is the only thing that's going to save them at this point. And I will tell you guys the story. There's now there's a big, a lot of negative headlines. I've never actually said this before and I was, it's not in my script. I'm just going through it in my head. There was a, there was, there's all these stories now about all the tax cuts that companies are going to get because of the big, big beautiful bill. I got to go to the House representatives, to a top leadership Republican, one of the most senior Republicans that there was in the House. And I presented him all this polling information and I said to him, on the big beautiful bill, the tax cuts, no tax on tip, no tax on Social Security, huge wins, usually popular, no tax overtime, usually popular. You're going to win over so many people. You know what the one thing you're going to lose them on? Tax cuts for people who make too much money, tax cuts for corporations. If you get rid of that part of the bill and keep everything else, you actually make this a net positive bill instead of a polling net negative bill. And he looked so angry that I had presented that information to him and I just said, this is what it is. I'm not, you know, I'm just here to tell you how the people feel right now, that they feel ripped off and left out. And we left that meeting. I said, I really want you to consider what I'm saying to you. You need to have more economic populism towards the working, towards the middle class, towards young people. And he said, thank you and have a nice day. And it went out with me. But the Congressional Republicans are not going to do on their own. They need a leadership from Trump. And he knows this because he picked up the million dollar bill. That is why he became president. The million dollar bill on the floor on immigration, on trade, on populism, on manufacturing, on war. And man, oh man, there are times he feels like he's shredding it little by little. All right, coming up next, I want to talk about some other interesting data that you guys will love to know and ask me. Anything's coming up later, so stay tuned. So every year 60 universities get together, produce something called the Cooperative Elections Study. It details American life and American politics. And it's fascinating. I covered it in my newsletter over the weekend, my popular national populist newsletter. But I want to talk about some highlights that I found so important that you guys would really appreciate. Because this is not like a loosey goosey 100 person survey. This is like 17,000 people, 60 universities, lots of professors and students get involved with this. It's a really well accredited report. So first thing they said on the politics side, the only group of people, the only demographic willing to claim that they are Democrats, not that they're independents, not that they're on either party, but to say openly they're Democrat, only one demographic, and that's white men with a college degree that I thought was fascinating. They also found that, absolutely, this is not going to shock anybody who's ever listened to my podcast or, I don't know, met another person. But Americans really don't like trans stuff in children. They really, really, really don't like the trans stuff in children. Two thirds of Americans oppose any kind of transitioning drug or for minors or any kind of transitioning surgeries for minors. The most opposed by religious groups are white evangelicals, orthodox Christians, Mormons, white Catholics all over 70% oppose that. Support for this is also fascinating. Support for more border guards and border wall funding is down considerably, including among Republicans, because Trump fixed the border. So people are not concerned anymore. People have to have an emergency to feel like they, that they have to do something. But that is why it is so critical that Trump builds the border this term. Because build the border wall this term. Because if three years go by and there's no border crossings, it's not going to be an issue in the 2028 election. People be like, what do you mean? I forgot all about Biden. What happened then? Trump's fixed the border. We don't have to worry. We could elect a Democrat. You've got to build the border wall now and you've got to really ramp up every kind of protection of the border so that way a Democrat can't, you know, Democrats not going to bulldoze the border wall. I think support for abolishing zoning laws and building multifamily homes in communities is down. This is so interesting because when Mandani was elected, there's all these conversations about affordability and housing and we. And there's all these cretins on the Internet who are like, you know what would be great? Let's just abolish all zoning laws. We could have a strip club next to a K through 12 school next to a gun shop next to someone's house next to apartment building, and we'll just ruin a neighborhood and make it completely unlivable where only transient people who rent will ever want to be there. That, it turns out, is very, very unpopular specifically. But this is interesting. The group it's most unpopular with are women who live in the suburbs and are not religious. That's usually Democrats. And I wonder if it's possible in the same way that Republicans lord suburban women for years over the issue of crime, if protecting zoning laws was a way to re engage with those voters. I don't know the answer to that, but I find it very interesting. And last part of this poll that I thought you guys should know is that support for an assault weapons ban. I'm going to use budding quotes. Assault weapons ban. Support for an assault weapons ban has increased among Republicans. Now I thought, at first I saw this, I was like, this is a head scratcher. And of all the data, I was really confused by this. But in, but it increases, it starts spiking in 2024, this increasing ban for assault weapons. And I said, what's happened since 2024 that Republicans would be acknowledging? So I don't know this to be true. I'm guessing that there are three events. One, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump to the successful attempt, sorry, successful assassination of Charlie Kirk and all the trans mass shooters in schools. I think that Republicans feel especially targeted. Like if Donald Trump doesn't have, doesn't have the correct protection from these left wing lunatics, who does? I don't know that that's true, but the data is pointing to that assault weapons bans is increasingly important supported among Republicans. It's not the most important issue, which is different, but it is an 8020 issue. Assault weapons ban is an 8020 issue that Democrats are on the popular side of, like Republicans are on the popular side of the trans issue, another 8020 issue that the American public overwhelmingly is in favor of. Now, on the trans issue, they've managed to pass a lot of local laws. On the, on the firearms issue, there are some laws, but the Supreme Court's really been very strict about the second Amendment and the rights of the second Amendment. Well, and I'm, I'm diverting from, I'm transitioning from the cooperative election study, by the way. I'm going into this about other 8020 issue. The other 8020 issue that's emerging according to all this data. And if you listen to this podcast, you know what I'm going to say. It's AI. And I know, I feel you feel like Ryan, you're beating a dead horse. You talk about this all the damn time. I know, I know, I know. When I say that this is probably going to be top three, three most important issues of the 2028 election, if not top two. I am, I feel very strong about that. A poll from Quinny Piak asked voters about a lot of questions about AI and this, it's interesting because they broke this poll down based upon age ranges because I wanted to know, maybe young people feel differently than old people and maybe young people are more welcoming of AI and it's, you know, it's just an old person thing because they don't Understand it well. They asked Americans, are you excited or nervous about AI? 35% were excited 62% were nervous. The only group that was excited where a majority was excited were people who earn more than $200,000 a year. Among Gen Z 35 excited 62% not excited millennials 41% excited 58% not excited even those who know a Great deal about AI 44% Excited 56% not excited Listen 80% it's an 80% issue. I'm going to get there. When asked are you concerned with AI? 77% of Gen Z 81% of millennials 76% of people making more than $200,000 a year 78% of Republicans 89% of Democrats it's across the board. It's an 8020 issue. 51% of people said AI is moving faster than they expected. When the question is how much do you Trust the information AI is giving to you? 21% said all or most of the time 76% said hardly ever. Even those who have a great deal of knowledge with AI 25 said all or most of the time. 71 some or hardly ever of the time. 50% of the public said they used AI in their day to day life. The idea that this is just a small niche group of people, no, this is half the country now using AI and the more they use it, the more questions that they have about it. Do you think when it comes to your day to day life, will AI do more harm than good? 55% said more harm 34% said more good. More harm was the majority of every age group, every political party, both sexes, people with and without a college degree, blue and white collar workers. The only group once again to say that they that saying the opposite, that it was doing more good than harm were people who make over $200,000 a year. It is a very small class of people based upon income that are feeling really good when it comes to education. Will AI do more harm than good? 27% said good. Only 27% 64% said more harm including 70% of Gen Z who are the most and the only generation has been exposed to AI in the classro Millennials weren't. We didn't have AI growing up. I had the Oregon trail once again every age group, sex, political party, all earners say more harm when it comes to education. The only silver lining for the pro AI groups is on health care. 43% said AI will be improved. Their health care 45 said will do more harm. People believe AI will improve medical diagnosis and help cure diseases. But only 3% of people, so they are willing to trust medical scans being done by AI alone without a doctor. Super majority of people, over 80%, they want a doctor there working with AI. But here's the most important question for politics. Do you think the government is doing enough to regulate AI? 13% said yes, 74% said no. It's an 8020 issue, everybody. It's an 8020 issue. It's like the trans issue, like the gun issue, but a lot more important to people. And I want to tell you this ahead of time, while everyone else is talking about which personalities are fighting with each other, Trump is on the wrong side of this issue. Trump is absolutely on the wrong side of this issue. When it comes to voters. He is. It's literally like saying, I want to have grown men shower next to teenage girls when they declare themselves women. It's, it's. The polling is emphatic and it's one of many moving. 59% of Republicans say the government isn't regulating AI enough. 59% of Republicans when Trump has been the AI president, 23% said they are. 88% of Democrats, 80% of independents say they are not regulating enough. Even people making more than $200,000 a year who are favorable to AI, the most favorable group saying AI is going to be good in their life. 75% say government not regulating AI enough. The most fascinating part of this was Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X and baby boomers are the same. They're all the same when it comes to the percentages, regulation versus no regulation. You'd think that this is just a scary thing for old people. No, it's. It is equal. I was. My jaw dropped when I was looking at the differences in generations, and there was no difference. It is astonishing because that's not true of almost any other political issue. You ask people, when it was asked, will AI create more job opportunity or less, 70% said less. But, and this is the little part where it actually does change by generation. 66% of baby boomers said less. 67% of Gen Xers, 71% of millennials. It goes up to 81% by Gen Z. It gets worse as they get younger. It should be the opposite. Where the youth generation who's been exposed to technology is not afraid of it, is studying it, is learning it. But it's not. It's the opposite. The more they're exposed to it, the more they are running from it. 61% of Republicans, 78% of Democrats 73% of independents, 73% of college degree older. 60% of people without a college degree. All income brackets, all both sexes. Everybody says this is going to destroy jobs. How concerned are you that it will make your job obsolete? 30% of Americans said they are concerned, very concerned or somewhat concerned. Do you use AI at work? One in three people said yes. Only group says majority is $200,000 a year. Last you know, note or two, that I think is important. 51% of Americans oppose using the military. Disliked AI for targets. The only group that opposes it are Republicans and baby boomers and myself kind of. I think they should work with people. And I know a lot. I know I talk a lot about AI, I am sure more than other conservative podcasters. Some of them hardly ever talk about it. They're all talking about, you know, Israel and you know, who hates who and I do not care whatsoever about personal infighting like this when this is on the table. Call me when we have no problems and we'll talk about it. Who hates who. But we are witnessing the mo. One of the, one of not only a technological change that will affect everybody's life, but also that will change our politics in the next three years. It's not, this is not a far away fantasy question. And you know who knows this? The Trump administration and the AI companies because they started a new pack that will spend $100 million this year, led by former Trump official Taylor Butterwich, to promote the President's vision. AI, which is advocacy for AI, which is. No. Which is a law to ban states from regulating AI. $100 million. It's not cheap. It's a little bit of money. It's not a little bit of money that's enough to change the Senate race. But they're spending it on AI. They would not be spending this kind of money if they didn't think that they were losing the issue, that the issue was escaping them, that they had to stop it from being an 8020 issue. But I think the clock is running out and I think that enough of these tech bros and these AI bros, they are not around normal people enough to set and know how crazy they sound. It's like they read the book, the Frankenstein monster book and they rooted for the doctor to just keep making more of that. You know, it's, it's, it's bizarre. It's. They are very bizarre behavior that's very off putting to a lot of people and it's showing in polling and if job and unemployment numbers go up and the number of job number of people hiring goes down. I have to tell you folks, it's an 8020 issue that a lot of Republicans are on the wrong side of and they should change their ways. Now something now Ask Me Anything's coming up next. Now it's the Ask Me Anything segment. If you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me ryanumbersgame podcast.com that's ryanumbersgame podcast.com first question coming up is from Keith. He writes first time writing in but I'm a longtime client, buck listeners and numbers game listener. Thank you Keith. Love the podcast with all the data and insightful analysis on the data along with the quality of the data you bring to the table. As a retired engineer, we had a saying in God we trust, all else must be bring data. That is so true. My question is this. We have many Democrats that campaign as centrist, but they enact policies that are nowhere near centrist and go crazy. Far left. Biden, Spamberger, yada yada yada, love or hate that hate Trump. He's doing what he said. Has there been any polling specifically addressing buyers remorse? But the difference between what is promised and what they did beyond just voter satisfaction as a result of this election cycle. That is a great question. That's actually a phenomenal question. There are multiple times that this question is polled per year, but it's always on a national level. I've never seen it done on a state level for a governor or a senator before, but I it's done on a national level all the time. And I agree with you. Spamberger ran as a, as a moderate and she's a crazy far left is probably one of the most left wing governors in the country. What did Papu Canon say in his 92 culture or speech? The the DNC is the world's largest drag bowl where radicals dress up as centrist. That's, that is very much how a lot of Democrats are doing it. And Spamberger won by a huge margin doing that. The numbers on Trump I did look up for you. So Tipp, which is an A plus pollster, they found in Wisconsin 9% of Trump voters regret voting for him. A poll from the Argument magazine found it was about 15% of Trump voters nationwide. They say they regret voting on him. It used to be a lot less. I think, I think a couple of things. The economy, the Iran war, gas prices maybe are fueling a little bit of spike. But this 15%, 9%, it's not unusual. For when Biden was president, there was a poll, I think, by Zogby that had a 22% of people who said they were. They. They regret their vote. It's usually, I mean, it depends on how popular the president is at any time, but usually it's not. It's. It's a good 10 to 20% that say they regret their vote. And whichever partisan person in, in a magazine or whatnot will pick it up and be like, look, all these Biden voters regret their vote, or all these Trump voters regret their vote. It's a small percentage right now. It's a smaller percentage for Trump than it is for Biden, but it has been climbing. I don't if there's any that I see on the state level, I will report it. I have not yet seen anything, though, that indicates that. Okay, last question for the show comes from Sean from Utah. He writes two questions. I have become a regular listener over the last few months. Sean, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm not joking. I really am not joking. I am grateful for all of my listeners, anyone who listens this to this podcast. And I try to make it like you can, you know, talk to me about whatever, ask me anything. I. There's no question that's that stupid of a question. There are some that are questionable, but anyway, this is not a stupid question because I read it beforehand. With the primary season coming into full swing, I keep wondering, what is the best state's primary system to get the best representative elected in? Maine and Alaska, they have the whole ranked choice thing. California, Louisiana do a jungle primary. Georgia has a funky one where there's a runoff after the general. And I know many other states use different systems. What is the best system to collect the best person? That's really hard to say because, and I thought a lot about this after I read the question. It really depends on the character of people running. Right? Because like Alaska's voting system was created for Elisa Murkowski to protect her. Right. That's how they do the rank choice and, and, and the runoff and all the rest of the stuff. And ranked choice in Maine was put forward because the Republicans elected governor. They got a Republican elected governor who won. Paul LePage won the first time with 38% of the vote because there were so many independents running. And they want to avoid. These blue states want to avoid a Republican winning with a minority percentage of the vote. So I don't think there's a very fair reason of having ranked choice. Also, ranked choice is created a lot of times by centrist Democrats to avoid progressive Democrats from winning the nomination. Because the belief is is that centrist split the vote and eventually enough of them will kind of come together towards the same candidate and defeat progressives. That's actually happened in New York City more than once, except for the last time. And then there are other states that do like publicly funding campaigns like New York does that for local and state candidates. But now we're seeing where the Republican governor, Republican governor candidate for New York is not eligible for those funds. They're playing partisan politics. However, when it's on the city council level. I know a lot of ordinary people who don't have access to a lot of money partake in the publicly funded program. But those states also have tons of corruption scandals. Louisiana has tons of corruption scandals. New York has tons of corruption scandals. I guess when it comes to the integrity of the people who are running the state, that probably does it best. And I really thought hard about this is probably New Hampshire. They have a regular election system like anybody else. But the. But they have two things I think go for them. One is they have so many elected representatives, it's 400 for such a small state. Which means that just a few hundred people elect your representative. There's a lot more personal dialogue with your representative. And also state representatives in state senators are paid just a hundred dollars a year. So you can't make a full time career out of being an elected politician. You have to be have a normal job. Now that may deter people who will like to do it full time but can't because they have to be a nurse somewhere. But it does create a system where there's more real representation when it comes to when it comes to people living a normal life. Because you can't be a politician and be isolated and just hang out with donors. And you can win an election on relatively very little money because if you just talk to 500 people, which over six months is not that hard, you can win your state representatives. If you are from a very large family in New Hampshire, has a lot of kids and cousins, you probably win there too. Second question was how does the SAVE act help with reducing voter fraud? For example, in Senator Mike Lee's state and my state of Utah, the issue of driver's licenses to non citizens. I don't understand why does Utah do this? Why do they have such liberal laws on some things? There are no Democrats left in that state. It's mind boggling. Someone could show up and vote with their voter ID but not be a citizen. What am I missing here? You're not missing anything. This is actually the one. I mean, listen, I think the SAVE act is a good idea. I think that it's a little overblown on how much of an impact it will have, especially in red states, which there's already heavy regulations. The one area I think it will actually really impact something positively is when it comes to automatic voter registration, which does happen in red states like in Georgia and it in. And in Pennsylvania and other places and. And states that give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. In that case, I think it will be a benefit which will mostly be in blue states. That's where I think you're going to see some kind of change of. I actually have a hard time figuring how they're going to do automatic voter registration in those states. So that's where I think you're going to see some difference is in those blue states. In a lot of red states which don't have automatic voter registration don't give illegal driver's licenses. I think the change is going to be relatively very, very soon. But I think that the change will be really big in those blue areas. So. Excellent question. Excellent show, guys. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you like this podcast, please like and subscribe to the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast. Get your podcast and on YouTube and I will see you guys on Friday with VRBOcare. Help is always ready before, during and after your stay. We've planned for the plot twists, so support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind.