It was at the dull institute of politics at the university of kansas this is one hour 15 minutes. After the program, we will have time for the audience to ask questions. If you have a question, please raise your hand and ask a student worker for the microphone and a student will come to you. For virtual viewers we send your questions to joel questions at ku. Edu. Please just as one brief question. The institutes mission is to foster respectful discussion around difficult but important topics. Please raise your questions with this in mind and ask is one brief russian. I would like to remind you to turn off your cell phones and these join me in welcoming the director of the dull institute joel dole institute. Think you for your introduction. I am grateful for students like will and the Advisory Board work helping set the tone for our conversations here. This is the 20th anniversary of the institute and we are fortunate. And for that education is washington editor of the wall street journal capital journal columnist and 45 year veteran journalist and kansas native. And the best political journalism has to offer. Midterm election cycles have been relatively sleepy affairs and we know that this year, that is not the case. Jerry will help us navigate the changing waters of the Campaign Season as it develops as a route 2022 Midterm Election big class consist eight a let big consequences. Big consequences. Todays conversation features the top two political pollsters one from each side of the aisle. Our conversation will be followed by q a from the audience. Thank you for joining us and engaging with us. It is my pleasure and please join me in welcoming our fellow jerry sites. [applause] thank it turns out that you can come back home again. It is really nice to be here. Thank you. Beside me, i will entry introduce you to them in a second. But this is an important election. All the people have the control of the house, the senate, and the shape of the rest of the biden term and it is happening against the backdrop of the narrowly divided country and one that is kind of angry about it all. So it is an important Midterm Election. I am here and glad to be here with these two guys. I will give you a brief introduction both have done so much in the political world that it is hard to summarize but john was on president bynums full of the 2020 campaign. Somebody won that race if i recall. You are trying to date me, know you got 12. But he has worked on other democratic president ial candidates. And he has is working on a bunch of active current campaigns in this midterm cycle. And tony i met in 1996 of the Republican Convention in san diego where tony was the chief pollster or goals pleasure vigil campaign. Hes done a lot of republican campaigns including president trumps successful 2016 president ial campaign and the 2020 president ial campaign. Thank you guys for being with us here. It is not a coincidence after the 2020 campaign we have lost we hired these two guys to do polling for us because they are very good and bipartisan by nature as a team they do very good survey work. They are here today because they are not just stores. But the they understand the country and can analyze where the country is. And that is what politics is all about even more than a horse race. So let me start of the 10,000 foot level. If i could. We are in the midst of the campaign that almost feels like to campaign. Theres a traditional Midterm Campaign where the metrics on the table a middling president ial rating the history that says a new president ial party uses a lot of seed in the first midterm after he takes office. And a very weary country on the economic front. A lot of economic anxiety due to inflation. You have these wildcards that are showing up in the last few months. You have an abortion issue that has worked to the benefit of democrats. Gas prices are dropping and you have continuing trump drama i will ask each of you let me start with you. How did those competing forces play out now and how do you think they will play out between now and election day . Thinking jerry thank you are having as it is great to be here in see all the history about senator dole. If we go back a few months we was a the prospects for republicans were risky. And it was not only talk about us taking a big majority in the house but we would take it easy majority in the senate. Everything was coming up roses for us. But i think those projections were probably too rosy at that time. I think that the Economic Issues that were driving voters to the republicans also affected democrats and softened support among key democratic constituencies whether they be hispanics, africanamerican, asiapacific Asian AmericanPacific Islander voters. But what happened is, along the path comes the rope roe v. Wade ruling, gun violence, some relief if you will when it comes to gas prices. And truth my party never misses an opportunity to snatch a victory when it can. And what happened is we saw a reversal out only in a number of key craft should going back to democrats that we saw a significant increase in their vote likelihood which was something that was lacking. They did not have the same energy that we did. And now, we are back to a 5050 proposition funding for mail and in virtually every race we can think of acrosstheboard. One of the things is that weve all been in politics collectively. A long time collectively. We think we know what is going on but sometimes we dont know what is going on meeting they we have these historical trends. Republicans do really well if you have a republican president in midterms the democrats have done well. It has held steady in that way in almost all the modern presidencies. And youre sitting in mainline and it looks that way. It look like republicans would take 35 or 45 seats. And little over the historical ones and redistricting has made sweet districts fewer. But like tony said, all these things happened. And usually, if you get to the summer, things just are steady and he will have that historical trend. I will say a couple things that i think are really important. They won, the democrats were defensive and they did not have a positive. They were supporting people who democrats felt could not get things done. We spent over a year trying to build this thing asheville back better with the biden agenda. And outside forces came to the roe v. Wade ruling, you have you all day, texas you have, uvalde, texas, you have the election Inflation Reduction Act that makes corporations pay their fair share with minimum tax and lowering Prescription Drug costs of point is we did not have a positive or negative message in may but now, we not only have a positive message but we have these two kind of contrasting messages line on abortion and social issues and other on the fact that republicans voted against all this stuff that the American People actually like. So, in traditional years you have a doubledigit advantage of what we call the generic ballot. Are you more likely to vote democrat or republican . Given the fact that you have terrible job rating for the economy you should have doubledigit advantages for the republicans. As tony said, they have not taken advantage of that. Here is what i believe you with. May what democrats are on the defensive may 4 is where the coders got leaked. You keep voting you get the decision on abortion and june and becomes a rally and june 26 that january 6 hearing started etc. Etc. What is that during . That is during the prime public primary season. All of these republicans in the primaries are trying to outdo themselves in the most extreme position on abortion and guns defending january 6 rioters and trump. They became part of the mainstream. You get masters in arizona and it gives us the opportunity that we never thought we would have. Again, circumstances change the political environment changed a little bit. Gas prices. But man, do we love would republicans give us and assist that get nominees that voters feel are outside the mainstream area as we sit here today they are eight weeks left before the election and in modern politics it is still a lifetime. But the imperative for your the narrative for your site would be to turn to the economic issue of that overall can you make that happen . Is it happening to mark to show you how long the is it happening . To show you how long eight weeks is, while inflation rate went up and while the stock markets take a big hit. You know, i was debating but my point being is that the same time when that is going on on a day where we should be laser focused on the economy and inflation and what is going on in the stock market Lindsey Graham goes and drops the bill on 15 week abortion bands which by the way, not only brings it back to the front of the conversation, but it is different from a lot of the candidates positions on abortion. So it makes them defend their position against his bill. So it is never missing an opportunity. I get what he is saying about some of our nominees but even in the races he is talking about, you do not have to win by 10 points. All you have to do is get one more vote than the other person. In every one of the state you are talking about whether it be georgia or ohio. We did not mention audit all. There are still places that are highly competitive and still have the ability to take see. This is a good time to say by no means is what i am talking about optimism. What i am talking about is democrats are in a competitive space that they never thought they would be in. Ok . The fact is, at some point they will show this chart. You can bring it up now. 47 of against 40 in the Senate Battleground states. This is not like me trying to be cheery. This is that we were about to get our lets kicked in may, and now we have tools in a toolkit to be competitive. Biden did that and they do not give him credit for that. Let me tell you, weve done this a long time. In 2014 august democrats were feeling pretty good about being competitive. I dont think it will happen but you will see a Straight Line in almost every ground state that we hold and we do National Polling for aarp and National States as well it is a tossup is a 5050 proposition. This is april 4 2022 this is 7269 the jayhawks at unc. It is true, that is let election nights i do you would bring that up. I do you work the jayhawks references. We dont know whether democrats are jayhawks for the wiccans jayhawks. X i know what they are. But, the one thing that is very true is that yes, if you look at this as the top of her. Youve got red stream for months, our team was just pulling to the other side on the other side of the box and redline. When this happened now both sides are struggling. The thing we do not know and we got a glimpse of it yesterday is what happens with you economy and what happens we saw even in the wall street journal whole while the base measures of economic wellbeing did not change the fact they got slightly worse what happened is the focus went away from that and went to issues like abortion and nonviolence. When that happened that change the dynamics and that Energize Voters that were not before and brought them out where than they were before in the wall street journal survey one of the things is interesting is almost exclusively all the movement that was made in the generic ballot made statements of biden in 2020 truck did not change. What is important is the narrative in d. C. Where joe bidens number started moving up and historically it is the Biggest Movement in our credit presidency im taking credit for that. And second, i forgot i was going to say. The democrats the narrative we see is the democrats are coming home. But no, independents were some of the biggest verse. The fact is whether we took the house back in 18 6r you guys took the house back in 2010 and 2014 it is more about independence moves. There is a myth that there is no swing voter but there really is. The fact is, democrats win in 2018 and republicans win in 2010 and they go back and forth. And they had 14 as well, but what you have right now is very interesting with independence. Because you have independent men who are focused on Economic Issues and indicated independent women who are focused more on abortion than economics by a doubledigit margin. And they vote for democrats and they are part of a margin group that flipped from our previous survey. Let me both ask you both to quantify this. How many are there in the election today . Yes how many are true independent . I was going to let you make another comment. But, i think, in registrations, you know how many independents there are, but, in states like alabama or states like illinois, there is no Party Registration. Like in missouri there is no Party Registration so you get a lot large number of people in surveys that will call themselves independent. What happens is, we take those people and we push them and say ok you say you are an independent but do you lean more towards the republican or democrat mark. When you push them you get a third they say they are independent and you usually wind up with about 15 that appear to be independent and do not been to one party or the other. It cap depends statebystate for people who leave one way or the other it used to be that they were soft in their support now, more and more refined they behave like the people who call themselves democrats for call themselves republican. Let me add a couple things that are important of independent. That independents in our polls do you consider yourself a democrat, republican, or independent. That changes. Think about this we take a look right now at the independents and there is a universe of disgruntled republicans nontrappers who do not anything to do with truck so it may do . They identify in our as an independent. So the universe of dependent right now ask a little more republican. I have states right now review democratic candidate is getting 57 of self identified republicans. That is high. I can tell you, it is because the candidate is a trump candidate and they are for, therefore, that is good for democrats. My point is universal independent changes. The second thing is, new registration is becoming more independent. And young people like young people 30 and under are registering as independent state do not want to commit to one house. That is true. One of the things and one of the ways that we do our surveys is we try to talk to these in a state like kansas, we call you on the phone we know who you are. Yes you know [laughter] i didnt mean to say it that way it is unsettling. But we know who the person is. But it used to be you say you are registered republican 90 would say that you are registered republican what we are noticing this year is that people who say they are dinner democrats for independence independents a lot of them this identify themselves some of them call themselves republicans and when you get that disparity it is because those people are most likely to be among the people dissatisfied with biden early on. That is changed as we go forward. Because of roe v. Wade. It change things. There are people who are kissed off about it people who are pissed off about it i think people and the universe of libertarian american taxpayers an independent, none of the above is actually on the ballot. My point is that there are disgruntled voters out there mostly disgruntled republican trout or because of road roe v. Wade because they do not want to vote democrat. But everywhere and who votes thirdparty is like a boat for a democrat. That is good for us that is one dynamic we need to watch out for. We see it in our polls we know that pulling in the third party is higher than actual vote and i believe the delta at this time they be smaller. This time it will be interesting post election to analyze this. Let me pick up on that and the abortion points in particular because there was a time in politics where i would have said prolife forces were more motivated by an abortion debate to vote against protesters but that is truly not the case here. Why is that why are they more automated now . They are not motivated. No i mean prochoice. Because they had a right taken away from them. So it is, one of the things that we talked about is that there is a difference between the hypothetical and the reality. And before the ruling came down, a candidates position on abortion was important but it did not matter as much because nothing is going to change. But now, in a state like michigan where i know there is literally a ballot measure that will decide whether or not abortion is illegal in the state because theres a trigger law that went into effect that no one knew about. 1913 1930. So now you got it on the ballot. It is impossible to extract that campaign that abortion now that campaign. And its not the only state that will be on the ballot. You saw kansas how that issue is an was. What tony said in the past in some ways the abortion was like a defibrillator for democrats and certain voters. What we found with Governor Gretchen Whitmer what we found the research in university of michigan is that most women felt like abortions would still be available year from now not realizing there was this constitutional line from 1931 that was going to ban abortions in michigan. That puts people on edge and action. We talked earlier about enthusiasm in may enthusiasm for republicans were here. Enthusiasm for africanamerican latinos were down here. It was for a lot of things. Again, our base voters can get disappointed in their own army because they cannot get things done and who has a major impact on patient esther mark young people starting out. There was a lot of reason for the disappointment and whatever you want to call it. And everything is this now. That is where enthusiasm is with democrats and republicans. It is a combination of things like road that put in action and we got a lot of things done for working families americans and seniors saying they are on our side. It is a ballgame do we have edge . No. Are we competitive . Yes. And that is what is waiting to happen. What will the media do . They already think if we do not have what they consider enough victories, we will have messed up the election even though this will be an election where republicans take 30 seats in the house. Because the expectations are swamped. Even though it is rational. It is expectations are irrational and one thing that is always true is the people in washington, what they think has very little to do with he was in florida and alabama. Yeah you want to be democrat live in a place like alabama if you want to be a republican it worked out well for us. But, let me ask you about the abortion effect in a different way. You both talked about what it did for changing the issue matrix and affecting incentive Motivation Development has it changed by getting new registrants on this . You saw the analysis in kansas and youve seen it in places like pennsylvania. New registries disproportionately mn registering democrat. It is motivating people to come out. This causes a problem because one of the things that has happened since truck and 16, 18, and 20 and now 2022 is that no one knows who is coming out and we are surprised every time. Oh you cannot get more truck voters guess what . Can area and now, we know there is a big restriction push and it is disproportionately women who are kissed off. This is the year of the pissed off woman and the fact is we will not know, because as pollsters and political people as well, we have not been good at coming out figuring out who is coming out. One of the things i will say, i think it will be a patchwork. I think there are states that abortion is settled in. I think in a state like pennsylvania where it is on the books it is so law, in the senate race it will have less impact the governors race. But in a state like nevada, it may have less of an impact. But, it is states where it is actively on the ballot or theres active measures being put forth by the governor or legislature by the law to make it more restrictive. I think he has a better chance because one of the things we know is that you hit inflation and Economic Issues against abortion and gun violence. Generally majorities pit the inflation and economic concerns over that. Depending on the stakes. The closer it is better to democrat does the margin the better the republican does. There is live at think the abortion issue is different this time. Again, it was overturned leaked and overturned during republican primary. You have tutored dixson which is the primary for governor. She had to be that she was the nine waiver public and primary when this happened. She is here on tv and a video with her words, with a conservative radio guy saying so, you are against abortion in the case of rape and incest . And the life of the mother . And she was like yeah. 14yearold girl and a perfect example. And she is so extreme that it is going to be a problem for her. My point is, not only is that a signal to voters that that is way out there and different than saying i am a life it is why religion whatever. No, she is against abortion in the case of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. But here is my bigger point. That is a signal for voters for what . If shes that extreme on that issue. She is that extreme on other issues. That is the problem that republicans have right now with these nominees. Maybe a person can respect at some level is that they are so extreme in the cases. Let me talk about the other x factor reaches the truck after the trump factor. It was a clear advantage for republican candidate to be protrump and a supporter of the movement. Is it clear that that is an advantage because its a motivator or is it a disadvantage because i think you are conflating two things that do not necessarily go together. One is that whether or not you agree that the 2020 election was stolen, it was not necessarily the driving force for the primary voters themselves. But it was something that was in contested with the former president. Obviously, he was more supportive of candidates who agreed with him on the 2020 election rather than not. So that led to him getting his endorsement and there was a lot of people that tried to get his endorsement. It was never ending. In fact, until the New Hampshire primary last night was begging for his endorsement until the last minute. He did not get it and he lost by a couple thousand votes. I do think however, it is clear that more often than not his candidates one those primaries. As for bear position on abortion, there was no position on his part. These are things they went out and took on themselves never expecting because they are going for this right of life endorsement for the organization. Like everything else, there is a race to see how far you can get to get that endorsement never imagining this would come back. In the past, it was is potentially going to a runoff. In georgia there is a state law saying you have to get faith 50. It may be deja vu all over again. But once again, i lost my train of thought. Where was i going . Oliver g guy heard you saying all i heard you saying is that your guys will wind the majority. They nominated ted budd in in North Carolina. And oz whose unfavorable rating is 60 in sylvania. Again, kelly, the reality is that would be but what im getting at is the classic question i am asking you a question. On the flipside of that is in fact herschel georgia but is in North Carolina does he get the victory . Absolutely. How you do an analysis right now if you are a order and say the truck one the primary and that trump won the primary the in the day, everyone i was trying to get a broader trend is truck a better motivator . Here is the thing, i did not like you guys leaving again and anyway the trump motivators are always motivated. We are motivated and because registration is going to be trusting and are we neutralizing something we not been able to do . In 2018, suburban women were text off ticked off. But that was about independent women but this is different. This is actually a model. This is like will there be new people coming out to mark because in the midterm is older, whiter, and more republican. So it is about will the midterm electorate actually change . One of the things we notice in 2018 we did many districts with clf maybe 40 districts or so. Again, i said, not to freak you all out but we know who we are talking to on the phone we try to talk to specific voters. So finding in each one of these surveys that anything between 15 and 25 of the in the surveys were not midterm voters and there was a significant gap between the regular midterm voters what they were saying they were going to vote as generically and the new votes. Youre looking at and we are seeing district after district after district. And if it is going up we have a real problem and guess what turnout went up. And the same thing happened in 20 but in reverse. I will never forget if you got 76 million votes you got in the bag. That is where the trouble started there. We got the and the chaos vote. That was what it was telling me. So let me ask you about voters that we have talked about a lot in recent months. Hispanic and to voters and lack voters. I will start with you john because we saw some back to the democrats amid among the voters but if you take a step back and look over time, lost ground over those two groups. Everybody assumed it was in the back for democrats no matter what. What happened . Wet i look at latino owners like a look at my parents and the next generation just want to be americans. I think we forget that in terms of john salazar for example, use to pull work who was in the four corners of colorado his family had been there for hundreds of years that is a different latino voter then a brandnew latino voter from haiti or mexico etc. It is not a monolithic group. It is not all tino. Latino voters are like in mexicanamerican or haitianamerican. And the fact is, there is a big universe of latinos 35 or 40 who will be varies persuaded. You have to treat latinos like persuadable voters. I would say the same thing africanamerican because there is a universe which is our new paradigm in which truck was attracted to younger africanamerican men and it is our job to give them a reason that we are the better party in 2020. Before we close down the country and marked for covid in every one of our target states, one of our tossup states, he was getting 20 or slightly higher of the africanamerican vote. And before that it was all based on the economic. That all evaporated. Not completely. No. But largely because of the concern about covid. It is one of the things we see is a phenomenon is a growing number of africanamericans registering as independent nondemocratic. Men and women . Both. In the same for hispanics. They both register as independent. And it resonates. I can tell you what else resonates you will not like this. Is that the republicans do, a tremendous job, i hate to say it, disinformation. There is not a group that is targeted more by disinformation then africanamericans and latinos. We saw in 2020. It is all personal stuff it is not policy is not about tax policy is about pedophilia and crazy stuff. This information is a big part of american politics but you very seldom think about it in terms of what is being targeted to very specific groups including white, rule Rural America furious with africanamericans and latinos. Next should we stop thinking about we being observers of the lyrical class stop thinking about workingclass hispanic voters and start thinking of them as workingclass voters absolutely. And a lot of it depends on how long they have been here. How long they have been here and the language they speak regularly. And where they live. Yeah. The ethnic base. It is change. Mexican is different than human, and marie can. First hispanic congressman from chicago if youre in chicago and tino you will tend to be more latino you will be more geographically culturally and really have to stop thinking about latinos is a monolithic group because they are not. I want to ask a question and open it all open it up for you all to take part. I do not want it to be about predicting outcomes. Ive quit predicting outcomes in 2016. We will hear what we will hear in the next coming to the, there will be millions and millions of dollars spent billions for ad makers. In tv stations. They make the most money. What will we be hearing most in campaign is Campaign Messaging on your side and your side. We have a positive message. One of the big mistakes of republicans was not having an economic agenda. We have something to say. We helped bring the supply chain back to america we lowered drug rises, we put together Energy Independence bill we have something positive to say. I think that is important. There will be two buckets of contrast. One will be the extreme position or components on row and roe v. Wade and abortion. Another big is all republicans voted against lowering drug prices for seniors so, again, we have the tools in the toolkit to do all of those and thats what we will be talking about. That is all well and good. The only way that all the positive things help you is that a the economy starts to improve and be, b talking to them about saving on their Prescription Drug prices many of you believe in politician, since. Raise your hand. That is number one. In number two is that we saw lips of this the other day. The economy, all the underlying measures still checked peoples dissatisfaction with the economy. And if we focus on that that will be a boon to the republicans. Because even with the bounce back because of the roe v. Wade ruling republicans still have a sizable advantage of which party is better to handle inflation. That benefits us going into voting. Next we have an advantage of scription drugs. If that is the most important thing they or voting on. And all of his spending, this is the saw underbelly. Before this occurred, voters are willing to believe that Government Spending was actually fueling inflation. If it gets back to that, now you see ads come out where you find out it was money for a ski resort or Opera Singers or the midnight Basketball Campaign of 1994 where republicans won because of all the reckless spending bills. That is the other thing. Lastly, yes, our guys have gotten number of candidates in the states but their candidates have defunded the lease. Mandela barnes, of my god. Absolutely. Absolutely. X this is a do not have a message. You talked about defunding the police seven times. Questions . [laughter] i think tony sent out a message to republican candidates across the state. I will open up to questions. First of all, i will remind you that a question is in fact a question it actually has a . In the end and it should not be as long as any of the answers you are expecting from the russian. Raise your hand there is a microphone up front and in the back if people watching on youtube want to send in a . You can raise your hand to send a question. This has a description of the right wing in the primaries. And we been talking a lot about the Michigan State in particular which is interesting because the candidate that came out of the primary was not one that anybody expected because one got arrested by the fbi and one got disqualified. It was quite a tumultuous campaign. And you also have things like the supporting ring. I will interrupt you very briefly. Not making you stop at making you stand up which i should have said at the beginning. I asked the other thing is the democrats reporting somebody for the right candidate such as got a lot of money from to fund his campaign. Do you think that sort of thing with these we were weird that was the best case in 2010. That could not have been better. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. Its just gay men ship. Politics gamemenship. Politics. You have mcconnell funneling money. To support morris. You had. Senator schumer funneling, so to translate, the democrats wanted more of the trumpet candidates to win. This one money for the candidate and he will and he won. Ive got one here in the front. Stand up. I will interrupt you, thats true. So, i someone who watches a lot of religious polls, they just came out there pulled today saying by 2070 they are considering that the christian population in this country will be down in the 30 . And so, as someone who was in a religious community who is not christian and who looks at laws like the passing of texas, in god we trust in our public schools, looking at the abortion update, not just because of the pissed off woman, but as a pissed off non christian. Im curious how you see those playing into these polls. Do you look at that factor . I know for one my religious community is scared as shit. Look at what the frequency of people going to church. We often also ask, i dont like the question because i dont forget gets to it, whether someone is evangelical or bornagain, but as a base for trump. We look at that by a demographic, clearly if your nonreligious or nonaffiliated or atheist, your vote for a democrat is much higher. If you are evangelical or bornagain, the numbers are for republicans. What i shouldve said about the latino vote, the biggest increase in evangelical is within the latino community. They are going from catholicism to a much more conservative evangelical these white denominations are very welcoming to the latino communities and those evangelical churches. That is why you are seeing a bigger portion of latinos voting republican. Religiosity is very much a factor in the republican primaries. How often you attend a church, whether you are whites, evangelical christian, i would venture to say if i recall correctly, to say there wasnt a lick of difference between the vote trump god got in 2016 from a 2020. Your question is, do you think we will see a diminution of that type of religiosity is a go forward . Hard to say. We dont look at it from that standpoint. We look at it there are so many stereotypes of religion. One of the things we found in the wall street journal poll, not to go back to abortion, people are led to believe that catholics are homogeneous in their attitudes about abortion. They are not. In fact, catholics are more liberal on certain aspects of abortion then protestants, because you have bornagain evangelicals in that set of protestant. I we look at it from the standpoint of how it is going to affect the vote, not necessarily what is going to happen in another 20 or 30 years of this group is going to be greater than that group were not. Again, we are very careful about that demographics destiny. The democrats are going to be great because africanamericans, latinos, etc. Its the same thing with nonreligious people. The numbers going up. I am done with demographics it doesnt work. We have some monolithic people who are republican. We have seen a complete flip. As the number of people who became College Educated group, that was a reliable reliably Republican Group for years. Now it is flipped to where the more Reliable Group is noneducated college voters. It changed so it no longer holds. It didnt really change church attendance. They havent really recovered. Democrats are killing it with episcopalians. Were doing great. [laughter] right here and we will go over there. This is a broader question. We talked about it earlier with the students. Poll numbers are inaccurate. Do you feel that the person conducting the polls affect the voter responses . Absolutely. Look, our job there are two types of pulse. You have the media poll which is done to generate headlines. Then he of the polls we do, for our clients that are done to actually determine strategy, like we talked about in majesty messaging, targeting. Our job in those surveys, we will at times, be more biased in terms of awarding on certain things, particularly messaging to get where we want to figure out things. But, in the public polls, there shouldnt be but there are. There are different ways you can bias. One you could do it plainly by wording. The others you could do it by questioning. There certain things you should never ask before you ask other things in a survey. But there are posters will do that. You dont know it because you dont see the order of the questions that the wall street journal survey they publish the whole thing. They put the entire thing so people can see, the first question to the last question. If someone has a gripe that we somehow bias the questions, we dont, that is why we put it out there. Yes, you can. The reality is holy is hard. Polling is hard. To get it right is harder. Its really expensive. Its not for amateurs. I dont say that an arrogance. Im just telling you, the fact is you just have to have a commitment to do it the right way. Its expensive. Most Media Companies will not do that. The wall street journal happens to be committed to doing it the right way. And it is expensive. But the fact is that that is the only way to do it. You just see so many crappy polls out there. So, the other thing is, i love the averages of pauls, 538 polls, 538 but it is still an average of mostly crappy polls. Theres a problem. Theres no polling police. And right now, any university with a professor and some students can doable. Thats a problem. I also think that even though we are in opposite sides of the aisle, and there are number of his democratic colleagues that i work with and he works with a number of my republican colleagues. Youre my favorite. Youre my favorite. [laughter] dont tell him when he is here. Tell him he is my favorite. If somebody said, oh, i saw paul say this or somebody say i saw a pulse a this, that would carry poll say this, that would carry more weight that that was a reliable well done, thought of, thought out poll. We know in our industry, who has high standards and sub standards. These pollsters out there are the bane of mine and johns existence. I would just add mild commentary to this. Someone involved in polling, i wish everyone in my profession would spend a lot less time obsessing over the course and look at polls that tell you much more valuable which is, where is the country, what is the psyche, what are people worried about, regardless of whether it is to takes up or down. That is probably at. They talk about one point movement. Its not. That means nothing. Everybody has become convinced it is meaningful. Thats the fault of people in my business. We will go there. Over that direction, next. There are now three black senators. In georgia, in South Carolina and booker in new jersey. Is it possible that that number will double after the selection . In florida, North Carolina, wisconsin . Of answers yes. All of those are tulsa braces. Toss up races. That will be the case. I would add, tony knows this more than i do, the number of africanamerican republican candidates in the primaries is just skyrocketing. So, again, it is not going to be at parity with the Democratic Party. But i think, again its a good thing for america. The number of hispanic and africanamerican candidates on the republican side has exploded in the last decade. I think the other thing is you are seeing secretary of state candidates. Democrats and republicans, nominees, that becomes very important as well. Right there. I am a former im a former registered republican, but now i think of white rage, misinformation and bad candidates. My question is, is the Republican Party gone . We are sitting here in the dole institute. I didnt say thank you, it is an honor. I remember sitting with doors mcgovern a month and a half before he George Mcgovern a month and a half before he passed. Talk about how he and bob dolan came together and talked about big issues. If those two came together and sponsored a bill, it was going to pass, with 70 or 80 votes in the senate. Democrat and republicans. Again, we can pick democrats who you dont like and who are caustic and you can pick republicans if you had someone like bob dole and even George Mcgovern, both veterans, and you can pick a lot of them right now around, theres just fewer and fewer. Hopefully, at some point we get back to that. Politics, elections have consequences. Voters have decisions they make in elections. And it is unfortunate, but the fact of the matter is that our politics have become polarized. Its part of the reason why our politics has become polarized, its because of the means and ways voters get information. We have a much more knowledgeable base of voters, not a more educated base of voters. Theres a difference between knowledgeable and educated. So, what is happening, i dont mean to pick on big tech, but i will, what happens is when you go online, and you look up something, you get an article. You read that article. Maybe the first time you read the article you are just reading the article. Theres an algorithm that says he read this, now im going to feed him more things like this. Pick the rest of them, whatever it may be. Now, your diet is nothing but that stuff. You no longer know what is real and what is not. The other night it was having a conversation with somebody and they said, oh, it says here that trump said in his true social, he said he was secretly knighted by the queen. [laughter] now, is it possible . But, i said what was the source . It took like seven levels to find out that Somebody Just posted this as a hoax and it made it all around the web and it became fact. That is probably problem part of the problem. People opinion shop. When you opinion shop, youre not getting any diversity of opinion. Youre getting the same opinion you had over and over again, just from a different point of view. Can i just add . Heres the irony in american politics. Its this myth and narrative you hear from d. C. You always hear about liberals, liberals, aoc. The reality is we win the house on the senate with moderates. Right now, if we get close in the house and keep the senate, all the frontline democrats are moderates. All most of the nominees they are. We won the house in 2006, with a lot of southern demographics. The fact is all of our frontline democrats are moderates. They are. I dont know where you are looking that way. We win the president s with moderates. You may say that there liberals eventually. Right now, your party, im not saying it is going to switch, the fact is that there are no moderates left in the Republican Party. They cant win a republican primary. That is true. The people financing your candidates, are the sources moderate or to the left . I dont know the answer. Im not sure. I think we dont ask the ideology of donors. They are billionaires. We have are billionaires. Thats right. They have the coax etc. Etc. , they have more than that we do. But honestly i am being sincere i dont know the answer to that question. I think are small donors are moderates our small donors are moderates. Online small donor fundraising, it will change. The biggest changes we are doing better. It used to be their domain and now it is ours. The only game on our side is trump. In terms of low dollar. If you look at oil fundraising that is done by the committees, 80 of it has his name somewhere in it. I think we have a question that came in from an online viewer. Is somebody watching . [laughter] we didnt put it up. Its one of my kids, telling me how much he likes me. [laughter] the question is how much what present what percent of maga voters and rnc voters, is how the question reads . First of all, to assume every republican is a maga voter is wrong. You can agree with donald trump. One of the things we used to do when trump was president , we stash the job approval and a threepart instead of a twopart. The reason we asked in a threepart is, we used to ask, if you like him and approve the job he is doing, you dislike him but approve of the job he is doing. We used to find 15 to 20 sit in the middle category of dislike him personally or his behavior but like to the job he was doing as president. Theres a group of republicans who support what he did, but would not necessarily call themselves maga. If i had to guess, looking at the party, i would say that about 40 , maybe a bit more, would literally run off a cliff for him if they wanted to. By the way, thats enough to control the party in the primaries. Heres the other thing. Its popularity. Heres the other thing. Does biden have 40 that would run off a cliff . [laughter] heres what i would think is important from your question. Theres a big difference between republicans who vote in a republican primary, versus people who just self identify as republicans. Republicans in democratic primaries are exclusive clubs. Its a small universe of the total general election universe. That is the penalty for not participating. The second half of the question was, progressives versus more traditional immigrants. Heres a problem with progressives, i consider myself a moderate, but also progressive. I feel that the ultra liberals have kind of shanghaied the word progressive. You can be progressive on prochoice, prolgbtq, but i might be more moderate on this or this. I still consider myself progressive. When we asked this question do you consider yourself progressive were not, we get this huge number who say yes. But when you do liberal, moderate, conservative, the myth and the Democratic Party is that the method super liberal. When in fact, half of the Democratic Party considers themselves moderate or conservative and half considers themselves liberal. By contrast, 75 of republicans defined themselves as conservative, of which almost half will say really conservative. In our professional lifetimes that is a huge change. We talked about this. Bob dole, in 1976, most people dont remember this, but he was literally the handpicked candidate of the reagan forces, to balance out jerry fords ticket. If that forward. 19 ed eight, bob dole 1988 is 1988 he ran and was torched by reagan. He is electing george w. Bush. Then he comes back in 1996 and runs in a crowded field where theres people more conservative than him, but some that were not. The parties just evolved so much the party has just evolved. Is there another online question . Who else has got a question . Right there. You get the last one over here. Is there much lying to pollsters, if there is it doesnt have a Significant Impact . Scientifically or statistically, they balance each other out. [laughter] really, you have to the just believe in the science and the statistics of it all. It would be silly for me to say no. You remember rush, who always encourage people to lie. Theres also lying that is a bit more pure. We call it social desirability. We talked about it with students. Your answering how you think people want you to think. The answer is yes. But in the science of it, it all balances itself out. We have ways. [laughter] one of the ways we have is we will have we will ask somebody, how will you vote . We will see a few questions later, howdy think your friends and neighbors vote how do you think your friends and neighbors vote . If theres a difference, you will see and youll try to determine why there is a difference, why do you think your neighbors are voting that way . No one will admit to being a racist but they will say their neighbors are racist. Absolutely. Last question come up here. Last question, appear. Hi, there is a lot of demographic information that has nothing to do with political party. Yet, it seems more and more that that is being used to describe political ideology. I can tell you i like sushi, drive a previous and live in lawrence. You can probably guess my party. My question is this, why did that happen . How has that occurred in american politics and where do we see the ideological divide, mixed with this kind of a theory of Cultural Divide . You forget, it goes to sequencing of questions. If you put things on top, male, female, binary. All of a sudden it is a trigger of the democratic pull. Theres these weird things that have to be careful about. So, the fact is we just went through a series in 2020 and 2021 where if you wear our mask, if you are inoculated, etc. , you are a democrat. Culturally, you can get away from cultural tags. The expression, the stereotypes, because their largely true. John and i could come up with five questions and ask each of you and 95 of the time guess what you are politically. Because, it just birdss of a feather flock together. Is this really a sign the country is divided itself along cultural lines . It could even be for example, parties perpetuated too. In georgia, if you are for solar tax credits in a republican primary, you are not there. There was legislation, its good for the state, the economy. Even things that should be good can be turned into a bad. That is where we are. Your point is all of that data. Actually what happened is, both parties do this, when we are talking about the analytics is we decided that we were going to employ the same techniques that the Big Marketing firm, corporate america, to help do what they do because what we wanted to do, was we want to find more voters that may be part of our coalition. The best way to do that was to try to find the birds of a feather that flock together. Listen, this happens in business. Theres a Company Called pacific science. They ask all of these questions, like political posters posters. They say the five things you need to know about Pumpkin Spice latte drinkers. Guess what theyve done all of these correlations on what that is. And it is pretty good for starbucks. Its a different type of tag. The one thing i say, the difference between what we do and what they do, i tell this to clients all the time when they want to hire the local corporate ad agency or strategist. I say, think about it. Your friend is like sears. Dont say sears. Target. If target wants to have a white sale. If it doesnt work, target has another white sale. With us we have one day, every year to prove ourselves. The white sale doesnt work we can have another one the next weekend. We are out. We are constantly in the business of having to prove ourselves and making right decisions and getting it right. Thank you guys for sharing, getting right. [applause] we will be back here next wednesday, same time same place with the two less exalted pollsters. Really great guys. We will talk specifically about political polarization, where it came from, why it is so entrenched . Thank you all again, thank you guys. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. 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Charter Communications Support cspan as a public service, along with these other Television Providers giving a front row seat to democracy. Next a discussion about u. S. Hostage policy and wrongful detention, with deputy secretary of state sherman, and iranian journalist, hosted by the Washington Post. Good morning and welcome to Washington Post live, im an opinion wroiter here at the Washington Post