Elijah Norton on Putting Congress to Work for You
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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone.

Another fantastic program for you this week. Up first, Elijah Norton running for Congress in Arizona's first congressional district. We're going to follow him up with Dan McLaughlin, senior writer for National Review Online and a fellow at the National Review Institute. But first, Elijah Norton, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me on.

Thanks, hey Elijah, this is Chuck. So tell us how you got here. I know you're not originally from Arizona, so tell us how you ended up in Arizona. What you do for business and tell our people since we've had redistricting, what are the boundaries of your new congressional district?

Sure. So the story of me getting to Arizona is actually kind of an interesting one. I'm born and raised in Kansas City. I was flying in a business trip to Orange County. And I don't know if you've ever taken off from Orange County's airport, but your plane kind of takes off like a rocket ship at a really high angle because of the noise regulations they have there.

And as soon as my plane took off, we started encountering severe turbulence. There was a massive storm. I've been on hundreds of plane flights, and this was the worst flight I'd ever been on in my life. People were crying and screaming and praying. I mean, we thought the plane was going to go down. Luckily, it didn't, but we landed. The connection was at Phoenix, and

I found out there was a snowstorm in Kansas City, and after that time, it lasted an hour longer than it should have because they put it in a holding pattern. I said, you know what? I'm not going to Kansas City tonight. I stayed at Phoenix. I had always thought great things about Arizona, but I never actually made it here. So I spent the night in Arizona and stayed in Scottsdale, and I just kind of fell in love with it. One of my business partners and his wife,

actually went to ASU and they lived in California at the time. And actually, interestingly enough, they now moved back out to Arizona now currently, but him and his wife offered to take me around and we spent a weekend here. I just kind of fell in love with it. At the time I was looking for a second office, second home. And,

just fell in love with Arizona and I moved out here in 2015 and, you know, Scottville is my first home here and I've never kind of looked back and what was supposed to be a second home became my primary home. So that's kind of the story of how I got here. As close to crash landing in Arizona as we ever want anyone to come.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, you know, the story of my business, so I own a company called Veritas Global Protection. It's a F&I insurance and administrative company. So if you go into a car dealership and you buy a, they take you to the F&I office and they try to sell you a

service contract, which is commonly called an extended warranty, a gap contract or tire and wheel. We're the ones that ensure and administer the claims. We're not the ones that call you on the phone like my opponents going around buying. It's only at dealerships. Actually, we do business not only in the U.S., but Canada, Chile, and the EU. It's truly an American success story. I started the company with a

a thousand dollars and turned it into a business that generates over a hundred million dollars a year in revenue and employs over a hundred people. And, you know, I think we need more business people in office. And that's. Elijah, Elijah, Elijah, let me ask you a question that you brought up a very important point. You know, Sam and I have businesses, which people don't understand. People don't understand what it's like to lay awake at night and try to figure out how you're going to do payroll. Right. I mean, it's a, it's a very unique thing.

pressure point that most people don't go through. And I mean, most people at once in their life, unless there's some, you know, debitant worry about bills at one time of their life or another, but they don't realize about the payroll. How did you manage that? And when was a point in your business that you said, you know what, we're going to make it.

You know, there was, so when my uncle, I'll never forget 2012, actually, I was 22 years old, 23 years old. And I, you know, I just started my business. I was a year into it. And I said, you know what? I'm going to start making a lot of money in one year. It was a Christmas Eve. My uncle owned a plumbing company and he said, Elijah,

you're not going to make money until you've been in business at least three to five years. And you know what? He was right, because I struggled. I mean, my business wasn't struggling. For the first few years of my company, we struggled to make payroll. We went through some very hard times. But in about 2014, 15, that's when things broke and things took a turn. It just literally right at the three-year mark, opportunities arose. I think

people started to respect me it was easier to do business with other vendors and customers partners and the business kind of took off and uh i would say actually more like 2014 is when it really happened but uh you know then it just kind of took off and and it never stopped it

We've been blessed to have been continually successful year over year. And, you know, I attribute a lot of that to very conservative with our company's money and making sure that we're financially stable and not making risky deals and things like that. And so but that's the kind of, in my opinion, the kind of acumen and skill that we need in Congress. I think that too many people in Congress are these people that start out in the state legislature right out of their 20s and then they go into the county board of supervisors and they go to Congress. Right.

We need more people who have started a business, who've lived in the real world, who've been successful in the real world, and then go and try to make a difference in public service. Elijah, when you did your business, what's a mistake you did when you started out that you learned from? That's something that you think applies to being a member of Congress.

You know, one of the biggest things I'll say is this. I'm throwing two things. The first thing, when I first started, you know, I thought, okay, I need an office. I need all this infrastructure. And the number one thing I really need to focus on was sales. How do I get customers and build relationships? And so once I reoriented my thinking, that's when the business really started to take off. But another thing, and this is something, that's not really something you can apply to Congress. It's something you can apply to Congress.

We had a really huge spurt of growth a few years back. We had money and we were in a good liquid position. My solution was to just throw money at the problem instead of actually digging in to the problem, figuring it out. We just hired a bunch of people and we didn't figure out the real root of the problem. We actually figured out the real root of the problem

the solution with a lot less expensive uh... beneath the meat and then the military of the story money out so i think one of the things that i've learned over the years businesses you have to figure out what the problem is first and then you decide to find the solution and i think you are what congress that what our government does if you may see a probably just throw a bunch of money at it but but and you know billions of dollars here let's hope that that the position well

if you spend a billion dollars and you have a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats that are going to implement that policy, it doesn't matter how much money you spend. I think we need to get into the weeds of our, all these different issues we face, figure out what the details of the problems are, and then, and then decide what we need to fund it, what funding we need to fix it. And so that's a huge thing for me. And as a Republican, I'm a believer in limited government, cutting expenses as much as possible. But I think that that,

If we can bring more of a business mindset to Congress, kind of like President Trump had, and a business mindset to our government, we can reduce the size of our bloated federal government and make it more efficient and work better for the American people.

Elijah, one of the things that you've been talking about, and I think this is kind of a perfect segue into this. One of the things you've been talking about is conservative health insurance reform. Right now, we have a plan that kind of fits the description you just gave, Obamacare, where they just kept throwing money at the problem. What you've gotten is much more expensive health care. Insurance costs are up.

The profit margin on Obamacare government subsidized tax subsidized plans is higher than it is on private plans and on group plans in the market. This thing is a disaster, even if a lot of people now don't realize it. What does conservative health care reform look like?

You know, I have a really unique perspective on this because I actually own a licensed casualty insurance company here in Arizona, and my stepmother actually happens to be a health insurance broker. And, you know, she was around when the Obamacare thing was being implemented. So I have a very unique perspective on this.

And I think the problem is kind of the age-old conservative formula. The more the government regulates and the more the government intervenes in something, the worse the outcome typically is. And so I think what we need to do, what it looks like is we need to reduce regulations, make it easier for insurance companies to start. One thing that...

The two biggest things that Obamacare did is they, and this gets really into the weeds, but I'll go there, is age banding. So, you know, insurance companies used to be able to rate their health insurance plans based on how, you know, they didn't really have, it was more open. They didn't have restrictions on how they could

decide to calculate a rate. Now it's based on age. And so I think the first thing we need to do is we need to allow insurance companies to maybe come up with some creative risk-banning. So saying, okay, maybe you allow a group of runners to start their own insurance cooperative where they can pool their risk together and their policies aren't going to be as much because they're healthy. So I think we need to allow for more insurance companies to start up. And another thing that we need to do as well

is we need to allow insurance to operate across state lines. I don't know if you know this, but starting an insurance company is one of the most difficult types of businesses you can start. In order to start, you have to first form in what's called your state of domicile, so here in Arizona. Then you have to be seasoned. You have to be in business for typically five to seven years. And then you have to go file your rates and your forms in all of these different states, dealing with all of these different bureaucrats. And by the time someone who's an entrepreneur that says, okay, I want to invest $100 million in starting a health insurance company,

uh, goes through the motions. So like, I'd rather do this, do something else. Uh, because not only is it going to take me a lot of time and energy, it's a lot of heartache and a lot of guns. So one of the things that I think we should do, and this happened in the eighties, Reagan signed this thing called the risk retention act into law doctors at the time were having difficulty getting medical malpractice insurance or malpractice insurance, not medical malpractice insurance, but well, the medical malpractice insurance. Um,

So we need to find a – I think we can find a federal bill of law that says if you form a health insurance company in one state, you can operate in every other state in the United States. And I think that would increase competition, that would reduce regulations, and that would really fix – that would make it easier for health insurance companies to start. And it would also allow the states to start being competitive.

and saying, OK, we have better regulations in Arizona, so maybe more companies are going to domicile here. So I think that's one of the many solutions, and I could talk about this for hours, that would really help start the trend to making our health insurance system better, more affordable, and more competitive. Nice. So some of the other things you've been talking about on the campaign trail, one that is close to Chuck and I's heart here, is the rising threat of China.

I think a lot of people still are blind to what China is doing, what they are trying to do around the globe, and the risk if they supplant the United States as the world's leading nation. What do we need to do to start fighting back?

You know, you just hit the nail there on the head. China, to me, is the biggest threat that we've faced probably in our history. I think it's a bigger threat arguably than the Soviet Union was or will be if we don't do something about it. So the first thing we need to do is we need to continue to decouple the US and

China. About a year and a half ago, Congress actually bipartisan in a bipartisan fashion passed a law that started to put some restrictions on China, but it didn't go far enough. I think we need to ban Chinese companies from owning American assets and American land. I think we need to ban Chinese citizens from owning American farmland. And I think we need to do more to incentivize American companies

to bring their manufacturing out of China and back into the U.S. for other places, preferably the U.S., but if necessary, other places that are more friendly to the United States in our policy. I can say this. A world dominated by China would be a very scary place to live.

China has proven that they are an international bully, that they are an authoritarian regime. You know, the policy that we've had for years. Elijah, I'm going to I'm going to cut you off right now. We've got to go to break. We're going to come back with you here in just a moment and talk more about this, because I think this is the issue of the day for Congress that they need to be looking forward to. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line with us right now, Elijah Norton, candidate for the U.S. Congress, running in Arizona's first congressional district. Chuck, interesting interview so far. And, you know, obviously I think China is a massive issue on the agenda for us coming up. Exactly.

Well, Elijah, I have two questions for you. I'm going to turn it over to Sam after that. First of all, we have redistricting. So tell people what area you're trying to represent in Arizona. What's your congressional district cover? Sure. So the first congressional district is the northeast part of the Phoenix metro area. So that includes essentially all of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Carefree, Cave Creek, Fountain Hills, North Phoenix, North Central Phoenix,

and Biltmore and Arcadia. And it's really a successor district to the old 6th Congressional District, which was the majority of those areas minus Biltmore, Arcadia, and parts of Central Phoenix, largely, and parts of Paradise Valley.

And so what's different, though, about the first versus the sixth, the old sixth, is this is now a swing district. So the old sixth congressional district was rated a Republican plus nine. The Republicans had a nine-point advantage. It's now considered a swing district, so it's a Republican plus one or two. And the voter makeup, there's a very large number of independents in the district.

I think about 32% of the voters are registered independents. So it's a very unique district. But it's a great district, and I'm very blessed to be able to represent it if I'm elected.

Let me ask you a question. So when Mitt Romney ran for the Senate, I was a bundler for Romney. And people, please don't send hate mail to Sam because of that. But I was a bundler for Mitt Romney. And I remember Romney stood up and a question was asked of him. What do you see the priorities to be of Congress? And he was very specific. Number one was China. Right.

I mean, he just says they are a threat. We need to take it seriously. Number two, he was freaking out about the deficit and the national debt, which you would expect from a private equity guy, right? And number three, he was really concerned about AI, was basically going to put about a third of our population, if a little bit less, just in a position where they can never really earn a living wage, right? Just because of a skill set, right?

What do you think going to Congress? And I'm sure you've thought a lot about this. What are the three pressing issues you would say, Chuck, Sam, voters of my CD? These are the three things that we have got to attack. We've got to resolve for there. So they're still in America, as we know it, 200 years from now.

Yeah. And, and there, you know, I go around the district every day talking to people at all different levels. And I can tell you right off the bat, the first issue is our border. I've been down to the Southern border. It is a disaster. I think we need to make Biden enforce our immigration laws, which right now they've literally told our customs and border control agents to stand down. I think we need to finish the wall and I think we need to invest in technologies to secure our border. So that's the number one issue that I hear. The

The second issue, obviously, as you said, is China. I think I'm in agreement there that China is the biggest threat, as I said, to the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And we need to go further in decoupling the U.S. from China and doing it fast and also protecting, building up our military to make sure that we can anticipate any threats that they might pose. And I think the third issue, this is an issue that's unfortunately recent due to the failures of the Biden administration, is inflation.

I think it's a huge issue. I mean, we now have the highest inflation rate at 9% since the 1970s and early 80s. And we've got to get our inflation under control. And that's going to be accomplished by balancing our budget and by making America energy independent. I think that going to Iran and Venezuela for oil like Biden has been trying to do is just an absolute disgrace when we can drill and we can produce energy right here in the United States.

Yeah, Elijah, I think you make a good point about the Soviet Union versus China. I had a chance to visit the Soviet Union when it was still the Soviet Union. And the first thing that jumped out at me when we got there is

This is incompetence. They were not capable of producing almost anything. Their economy was essentially a lie. It was a total shambles. That is not the case with China. They may not be entirely honest with the world about their rate of economic growth or things like that, but this is an economic powerhouse with tentacles around the globe. Absolutely. And you know what the real interesting thing is?

China has, in a sense, learned from the failures of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a total 100% socialist command economy. And China is an authoritarian communist state. But they've also embraced some free market principles. And that is, I think, what's allowed them to be even more of a threat than the Soviet Union. So they have some free enterprise there. And that's very, very threatening. And they, as a country, are just authoritarian, authoritarian.

the social credit system they have there. Some of the things that they're doing are things that not even George Orwell thought about when he wrote 1984. And to have a country like that dominate the world would just be a dark day for humanity. So we as Americans, the leader of the free world, we have to stand up and fight and make sure that that never happens.

It shocks me, Chuck, that American companies who go and manufacture in China are required to turn over all their technologies and patents to the Chinese government. So you have Apple, all these other companies that are over there. They're handing over the technologies they've spent billions of dollars developing to

in giving them to the Chinese who are using them for military purposes and economic purposes. It is it is pretty terrifying regime. Well, it's not only terrifying, it's really whorish of American corporations to do that. Now, again, people forget corporations are a business to make money. Right. I mean, I know it's a purpose people forget about, but that's what they are. But it's still it's really disappointing that.

that they do that. And, you know, long-term, they're going to get bit in the bottom by it. That's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's an example of, unfortunately, corporations stepping over a dime to make it, stepping over a dollar to make it dime. Yes. Whatever the reverse is. Yes. It's very short-sighted thinking, and companies really need to think about the long-term impact of what they're doing. Yeah.

Elijah, we have only a couple of minutes left here. Before we go, I want you to give folks ways to stay in touch with you, follow your campaign, and support you. Because obviously I think it's important we get more people with your type of perspective in Congress. How can they do that?

Very easy. So we actually have a campaign office in Scottsdale. It's off of Shea and the 101. We also, it's open from 9 to 5. I'm actually sitting in it right now. We have a really good team of people that are trying to help get our message out. We also have a website, nortonforarizona.com.

If you go to that website, you can sign up. We'll put a yard sign. We'll come out and put a yard sign in your yard. We can schedule these things called the Family Town Hall, which is where I can come to your neighborhood, meet with whoever and their neighbors. And, you know, we're trying to be as accessible as possible. If I'm going to represent people in Congress, that's something that I think I need to be. I need to be accessible in every work. So that's what we're trying to do. Fantastic.

Last word here, Elijah. What do you want people to take away from your campaign and why should they pull the trigger and get you in there?

I think we need more business leaders in office. I think career politicians have gotten us into the mess that we're in. And the way we get out of this is by electing more people that have actually done something first and are running to really try to help people make a difference, not just trying to serve themselves. That's why I'm running, and that's why I hope I can get everyone's vote.

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate having you on the program today. Elijah Norton, give us the website address again. Sure. Norton4, S-O-R, Norton4Arizona.com. Perfect. Fantastic. Elijah Norton, thank you for being on the program today. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line with us, our second guest, a returning guest to the program, Dan McLaughlin, senior writer for National Review Online and a fellow at the National Review Institute, also one of the people with the coolest Twitter handles on the Twitterverse. He is at Baseball Crank on Twitter. Definitely follow him there for some very good stuff. Dan, thank you and welcome to the program. Glad to be here.

- Dan, you wrote an article this week after the primary elections, and specifically I wanna talk about Georgia. You had a great line at the end, which I think for all writers, you're always trying to figure out how to conclude something you write. And I just love what you wrote. You said, "David Perdue was a good Senator. He didn't have to end his career this way, but he chose his path and he richly deserved this ending."

What was Perdue thinking? Was he thinking just the endorsement would get him everything he needed or he quickly realized that you actually have to run a campaign and do all those other things?

Yeah, I mean, I think he I mean, it was foolish because, you know, he could have he could have tried to, you know, make a comeback in the Senate races or something at some point. I don't know. I don't know if he actually was genuinely mad at Kemp. But I think he just he really seems to have believed. You know, I think we saw a few of these candidates who just bought into the idea that.

you know, a Trump endorsement and the fired up Trump kind of Trump loyalist based is all you need. And, you know, we've seen a lot of Trump endorsed candidates win this year, but it's very clear that the Trump endorsement alone does not get you victory. Well, especially and especially in a crowded primary. I mean, I was having this conversation with the Reuters reporter last week and she goes, what does a Trump endorsement mean? And I said, it means about 30 percent.

I mean, just it's a guaranteed 30%. And then if you have a tough campaign, it's just two people that makes it really hard versus a multi-candidate primary.

Yeah, and I mean, we saw another example of this in Alabama where Mo Brooks was endorsed by Trump and he basically was dead in the water. He wasn't going anywhere. And in part, I think because he was kind of sitting back just expecting the votes to roll in. And it was only after Trump said, I'm unendorsing Mo Brooks that Brooks actually got his campaign in gear. He ended up finishing second and he's going to a runoff. Amazing. Yeah.

Dan, how much have we seen sort of the Trump influence on the party? I think there's two narratives out there. There's a narrative that says the Trump influence is still as strong as ever. But if you really dig into these primaries, that doesn't appear to be the case. How much have we seen the waning of that and the reassertion of people who view themselves as primarily Republican versus Trump Republican? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we've seen I mean, that's a direct question that's been asked in the polls. And there's been a very decided shift to where, you know, from where during the Trump presidency, well over half would say, I identify more as a Trump candidate.

you know, supporter than a Republican. And now it's down to, like, it's down to around a third, and it's, you know, closing in on 55, 60 percent who say they identify themselves as Republicans. I mean, don't forget that Trump, you know, Trump had his...

There were people who were always about Trump. But, you know, a good deal of Trump support also was people who had kind of, you know, people who supported Huckabee and Santorum and some of the previous primaries, people who were already on board with kind of the ideas that Trump ran on before Trump. And so those people are, you know, they're responding to the same ideas from other candidates now.

You know, as as we go forward in and sort of head back into a less personality Trump driven party. The one thing I worry about is that the the traditional Republican Party, if you will, has not seemed to have an agenda. It's always opposition to what the Democrats are doing.

What can Republicans do, especially right now with some of the issues that are out there with guns, with China, with the economy, with inflation? What do Republicans need to do to retake control of a national narrative? I mean, I do think that, look, when you're, you know, at the national level, when you're in the minority, it's hard to do very much besides oppose, right? Because there's zero chance right now that Republicans could pass anything at the federal level.

On the other hand, Republicans are in complete control of state government in about half the states, including some very big ones. And so, you know, if you look down at Florida, Texas, if you look at Georgia, Arizona, there's an awful lot of states where Republican governors have been pursuing their own agenda. You know, what?

what puts that on the national radar sometimes is getting a lot of publicity. Uh, you know, I think DeSantis in Florida has been particularly effective at kind of getting publicity. Um,

And some others. I mean, I think Glenn Youngkin got a lot during his campaign. But I think you do, at the end of the day, you do need a leader. It is always hard for a congressional party to really set an agenda. Absolutely. Dan, we're going to come right back with you. Folks, follow him at Baseball Crank on Twitter. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line with us today, Dan McLaughlin at Baseball Crank on Twitter, senior writer for the National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute. Dan, again, thank you for joining us on the program. I can't tell if we lost Chuck. Chuck, are you still there? No, I'm here. No, I'm here. Perfect. I'm here. Dan, let's start off. We had another...

School shooting. It seems like it just seems like it happens all the time. And I think it's because it's kids. It just really sticks in your craw. It's an evil act. What do Republicans need to do? I just don't think they can just sit on their hands and react. They've got to take some proactive measures here. Would you agree with that?

I mean, first of all, these things aren't actually as common as they seem. But it is true at the same time that, you know, it doesn't you don't need a whole lot of them for it to make a big public impact because especially kids, especially kids. Right. I mean, we're talking to exactly. Exactly. You know, I mean, look, I think the in terms of policy, there's always a question of policy and politics. Right. In terms of policy, you know, they're.

what politicians shouldn't be doing is going off and doing things that aren't going to matter. Right. Um,

I really think that you have to treat these things as a three-sided problem, right? You've got the shooter, the weapon, and the target. You know, and I think there are too many people who just focus on, well, we'll just get rid of the weapons, or, well, we'll just harden the targets, you know, hire more guards, close the entrances. And I think you have to realize that, you know, you kind of have to chip away from all three directions. I mean, I think the shooter at

The shooter is the biggest problem, ultimately. And there's over and over again, we've seen all sorts of signs. I mean, first of all, they are kind of a downstream problem of, you know, certain social pathologies, you know, an awful lot of them, broken homes, you know, various other things. But they also tend to give off a lot of warning signs. Wow.

Almost all these guys give off a huge number of warning signs. And, you know, it's obviously there's a needle in a haystack problem because there are so few of these shootings as a number that, you know, you've got to find every one of them. But.

We need to get better nationally, really, at, you know, at identifying these guys ahead of time. And, you know, that actually is the problem on the weapons side as well, right? Because just saying, well, you know, we'll do background checks better. Well, you know, if you've never been arrested, if nobody's ever caught you, nobody's ever noticed your problems in a way that puts them in the system, a background check's not going to do any good. Yeah, a background check wouldn't have stopped this guy.

He had no priors. And I always want to add in one thing, because being here in Arizona, you see this up close. Any guns that you ban, you're simply adding that to the cartel's portfolio to import from Mexico. And they're not going to be doing background checks.

No. And I mean, look, Florida took some steps after Parkland. You know, some of it is to secure the buildings, but it's easier to secure new buildings or buildings that are easier secured than, you know, some of these older schools that have multiple buildings that are just very, very hard to protect. But, you know, Florida took some steps. I mean, I think they did raise the age for buying a long gun in Florida. They did.

institute a red flag law. The red flag laws are controversial because you really need to win people's trust to show that, look, we're going to have due process of law. We're not just going to have some bureaucrat saying, hey, let's just red flag all the people who say things on social media that I disagree with, right? You can't have that. But you can, you know, if those laws are properly drawn, I think that there's certainly something worth looking at and looking at the experience in Florida of how that's worked.

Yeah. I mean, I think those are a really slippery slope right now because everything the Democrats have been involved with is kind of a slippery slope. Right. And that's the fear for a lot of Republicans and Second Amendment supporters is if you put red flag laws in place, it's like you said, you're going to end up with people who.

you know, tweet something that whatever liberal authorities don't like. And now all of a sudden they're they're attacked. Right. So Florida's Florida's employed the red flag law. Six thousand six thousand times since 2018. And you can only do it there, I believe, with police. It can't be a family member recommends or something of that nature.

It sounds like something that Lindsey Graham is working on to grant money to the states to work on red flag laws. But, you know, I think we're at a point now where Republicans are start looking more closely at those things. And the one problem with this past two years is there's been so much government overreach that there's understandable opposition to red flag laws.

Would you agree with that, Dan? I mean, yeah. I mean, look at, you know, you look at the January 6th prosecutions and stuff, which, you know, I've been a strong supporter of those prosecutions. They're necessary. But I think there's also, you know, there's more than a little whiff there of let's just drag in anybody who had, you know, bad Facebook posts. You know, I mean, look, the Democrats would take, like, you know, Tucker Carlson's guns if they could, right? They're not... Exactly. Like...

at dangerous nutcases. So you need to have rigorous due process of law protection so that this stuff gets in front of a judge. - Agree. - Yeah, absolutely. - What would you do? If you were the speak, if you were the Republican minority, how would you handle this crisis right now and dealing with all the clickbait, cheap talking points the Democrats are doing? What would you propose?

Honestly, I mean, if I was like Mitch McConnell here, I would just keep my head down and let the states take the lead on it. Because I think that state governors, you know, state governors, particularly, you know, somebody like Greg Abbott in Texas, you know, I mean, state governors have a lot of power and a lot of influence in their own legislatures, and they can actually get things done. And so, you know, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world for congressional leaders to say, you know what?

we're going to let the states handle this, and here's the proof that they're doing something. You know, I think it's a much harder position politically to be in to say we're not going to do anything and leave it to the states, and the states don't want to do anything either. But, you know, in terms of having practical solutions, now they certainly can promote things, like you said, like, you know, spending grants too. I mean, one thing that may well be a good idea is to take some of the

the leftover COVID money that has been shoveled towards the schools and not spent and say, you know what, we're going to direct you instead to spend some of this money on things like improving school security, including the physical layout of the schools, which is sort of a capital expenditure. That's a hard thing for schools to find in their budget.

um since we had you on last time we were talking about what if the supreme court overturns roe v wade and then we had the famous alito wake leak um what do you see happening if it actually gets overturned well yeah i mean we're in suspended animation now because we've read the opinion and we don't know if it's going to be issued so um

Yeah, look, I think there's I think there is going to be a very big movement by, you know, on the one hand, I think you will see more more Republican states, Republican run states, you know, passing more heartbeat bills.

I don't think there will be more than a handful of states that really have the political juice to pass a complete abortion ban, however you define complete. But I think you'll see a lot more pushing the date back on at least on when an abortion can be obtained, and that at least is a start. But I think you will see massive resistance from...

you know, sort of deep blue states and the federal government to try to find ways not only to protect legal abortion in their own states, but to undermine any effort by, you know, Republican-run states to have any restrictions. I mean, here in New York, they're talking about

more or less laying out taxpayer money to kind of chauffeur people from other states to come here and have abortions. You know, it won't surprise me if Biden figures out ways to do executive orders to say we're going to find, you know, federal facilities where you can come and have an abortion so that the state law is meaningless. I actually hadn't heard that before. That's interesting. Dan, I'm wondering, based on what we're seeing with the polling on this issue and everything else that's going on right now,

If Democrats, in a sense, wouldn't rather slow play this issue through 22 when the environment is very, very poor for them and really try to focus it on 24 and that next presidential election and the upcoming cycle, not the current one.

You mean the abortion issue? Yeah. You know, I think that's... I think they have far too much of a reflex action to do that. I don't think they can hold their fire. I mean, Josh Shapiro is talking about making it

the centerpiece of his campaign for governor. Kathy Hochul is running ads here in New York. And I think the idea of if Biden can come up with any sort of executive action that he thinks is appropriate, he's going to do it. He's not going to wait. So because he's going to be under too much pressure from people who see this as the most important of all things to do something about right now. So I don't think that they I don't think the Democrats have the capacity to restrain themselves.

Discipline is not there. It's not a theme you put to Democrats at all. I mean, I think, you know, I think under Obama, you might have seen a little more capacity or particularly under Bill Clinton. You might have seen more capacity for restraint. But I don't think Biden is that kind of leader. And I don't think that they have that kind of coalition anymore.

Fair enough. What do you see happening in November now that we've – has your outlook changed at all based upon the two mass shootings we've experienced this past couple weeks? If Roe v. Wade is overturned, do you see less seats being picked up by Republicans, or do you think there's just too many other things from the border to inflation, things of those nature that are just going to overwhelm those other issues?

Yeah, I think the cake is too baked already, and I think you're going to see – I mean, the other thing is, you know, I think that this will – look, what the Democrats hope is, most of all, is that they can fire up their base, people who are not fired up yet. And I think they'll be able to do some of that. But, you know, you have to balance against that the risk that Democrats are also going to overreach on some of these issues. You know, even some people who may not be thrilled with the Republican position

positions on issues like abortion and guns may be repelled by what the Democrats do. And I think, you know, you want to work, you know. Oh, yeah. What a fool. Well, here's a perfect example. So I have a poll from me from Data Orbital in Arizona. Arizona is clearly a swing state. And, you know, with Republican primary voters, we have election concerns are at three point nine percent their number one priority.

In statewide election, Democrats, independents, et cetera, abortion is the number one concern for 6.8%. So if you follow social media, you think these two things are the number one issue for most people. And 90, 95% say, man, I got real issues to deal with here.

Yeah. And on top of that, you know, the people who say that abortion or guns is their number one issue, a huge proportion of those are people who were already going to vote and they already know what they're going to vote for. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. Nothing's changed on that. Just gives them more of a megaphone to yell on Twitter. Well, and with both of those issues, the constituency that you're counting on shifting and making an impact with them are essentially soccer moms. Right now, soccer moms are getting hit at the gas pump. They're getting hit at the grocery store. It's hard to make those their number one issue when they're struggling to pay the bills. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, again, these things these things hit a lot harder back in the 90s. Right. You had you had a lot of, you know, suburbanites who were part of the Cold War anti-crime Republican coalition who turned against the party on some of these issues. You had a lot more kind of rural, you know, white, rural Democrats who were, you know, very much loyal Democrats, but they were pro-gun. They were anti-abortion. And, you know, a lot of those folks have switched parties. Mm hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, as we're running out of time here, let's get to a more pleasant subject, baseball crank. What have been your big surprises in the baseball season so far besides the Arizona Diamondbacks being 23-23? What have been your big surprises so far? I mean, you know, here in New York, it's certainly been a big surprise how good both the Mets and the Yankees have

particularly the Mets, given the number of pitching injuries they have. I mean, having to play the season without DeGrom so far, and now you've got Max Scherzer and McGill on the injured list. I mean, the Yankees, I don't think anybody saw the Yankees

sort of exploding the way they did. Nestor Cortez has been pitching unbelievably. Nobody saw that coming. So I really think, you know, the New York teams have been a pretty big surprise. I think the Red Sox have been terrible.

Yeah, let's stop right there. I don't need to hear any more about that at all. Sam just wants to skip that topic. Just skip that topic. Yeah, with that, we may never invite him back on again. At Baseball Crank, Dan McLaughlin on Twitter. Really, Dan, thank you so much for joining us once again. Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming back next week. Tune in for the podcast-only segment if you're listening online right after this.

Welcome back to the podcast-only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. Fantastic guests on today, Elijah Norton. I think he needs to tell that crash landing in Arizona story more. Yes. Guy with a great background. Signed the front of a lot of checks. Like that a lot. And then, as always, Dan McLaughlin at Baseball Crank on Twitter. Folks, if you're not following him, you definitely should be. He was fantastic. But, Chuck, we've got some new polling out here in Arizona today.

Obviously, Arizona is one of those states that everyone's going to be paying attention to, just like Florida in this upcoming election.

Yeah, this this came out last night from Data Orbital, our friend George Taylor, quite well known in Arizona. I thought there were some interesting issues here. George was the most accurate pollster in Arizona last cycle. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, so, you know, if you if you follow your politics on Twitter, you would think abortion dominant issue. They're just not. I mean, abortion, six point eight percent. And as you can imagine, those people are going to vote.

They've already know who they're voting for. Yeah, absolutely. It's not persuading anybody. Election concerns and voting, it's only 4.7%. If you read the Arizona Republic or you hear activists talk, you act like this is the number one issue in the world. It's clearly not. The issues are statewide in Arizona, border immigration, 30.3%. The economy inflation, 20.7%. And then education, school choice, critical race theory, 12.7%.

Those are the top three issues. And then the fourth one is government spending. COVID is 2.2 now. I would not be surprised, and that's a big shift in the last few months, but I would not be surprised if the inflation and economy numbers went up a great deal in the coming months because the data we're seeing shows that a lot of people who've been living off their savings have been dipping into savings that they built up through some of the government handouts and things during COVID. That money's

running out for people? Well, I will give you a perfect example. I was talking to a friend in Las Vegas yesterday. He has a marijuana dispensary and he said in the shopping mall, they're at two businesses of clothes, one being a great harvest, uh,

Closing next to him, which is surprising. We all know Great Harvest does great business. They're always busy. The owner told him the inflation and the price of everything was just too much. And he made the comment to my friend, look, you're going to see a lot more places like Migrated Harvest or restaurants closed down because they just simply been living on this PPP money. The inflation's really going to be a problem. People don't realize it. And

And I think as that hits more, as you were discussing, I think it quickly becomes even a higher issue for people. So it's something to really watch for. And inflation is just a

tax and there's no other name for it. It's a tax that no one voted on in a lot of ways. Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, I can say from my personal perspective, this is the second time in my life and I'm 46 where I have had to make decisions based on the state of the overall economy. The first was 08 and 09 when my business went down in that recession. And

But as you know, I mean, I'm a bachelor. I eat. I am normally I would be eating out at least one meal a day somewhere, whether with people or not. I don't do that anymore unless there's I'm joining someone else. I am not paying for a restaurant meal and I'm not even driving to the office unless I have to, because that's six bucks. Exactly. No, it's a big deal. Let's go more in this poll. So George did head to head.

This I thought was interesting. With the three major Republicans against Democrat Katie Hobbs. And so the question was, if the general election for Arizona governor were held today and the following individuals were on the ballot, who would you vote for? So the first question was Republican Karen Taylor Robson versus Democrat Katie Hobbs. Katie Hobbs is at 41.3. Karen's at 43%.

The next one, Republican Carrie Lake. She was at 44 percent. Democrat Katie Hobbs, 40 percent. Both her and Karen, there's 15 percent undecided. And then the last one, Republican Matt Salmon, 40.9 percent. Democrat Katie Hobbs, 41.4 percent. So basically, I mean, that's a flip of the coin, right? Right. Right. Right.

A real interesting I think Katie Hobbs does not know what's coming her way because I think her record is atrocious. Her comments are atrocious. And just wait to the RGA just starts pounding her. Well, and not just the RGA, but there is a woman who won twice in court against Katie Hobbs for being a racist.

Right. For I mean, you know, that in and I think it's Tamika Adams. But pardon me if I get her name wrong. But she has, from what I understand, said, you know, look, Katie Hobbs did this. This wasn't someone else in her office or in this. This was Katie Hobbs committing a crime, you know, a race crime and convicted twice by a federal jury. How the heck do you get away from that in an election?

You can't. You can't. Another interesting question he asked here was the general election of U.S. Congress. He just asked the generic party ballot. Republican candidate, 46.3 percent. Democrat candidate, 39.8 percent. Undecided, 13.8 percent.

That's really interesting. Arizona could see a switch of two Democrats seats to Republican. What do you think, Sam? Yeah, absolutely. I really expect at least one or two flips this year here. But, you know, what's interesting, too, in those numbers to me is how much closer the governor's race is versus the generic congressional ballot. And I wonder if that's where you're not seeing a little bit of the impact from the Roe v. Wade thing.

Because people are looking at it and saying, well, if Roe v. Wade goes down, Arizona reverts to a 1907 law that bans all abortion, then it comes down to the question about the legislature and the governor here. And Congress doesn't have much of an impact on that. So that may be an area where people are splitting votes somewhat.

That's a good that's a good point. He also asked the attorney general race. Of course, he just did generic Republican candidate versus Democrat Chris Mays, who I understand was a former Republican. Is that true? I think she was a former Republican. So that's what I've seen. Anyway, in that race, 42.3 percent would pick the Republican candidate for H.E.

40.1%, the Democrat and 17.4 undecided. Um, this in the set. Now this is the one that really surprising me for Arizona secretary of state, which is a race wide open. Yes. Right. I mean, I mean, it's, I mean, there are a million people running for that office. Yeah. And no one, and the undecided is huge on that race. Um, and Republicans, I think it's 60 some odd percent among Republican primary voters, just who the candidate is. Um,

In this, which was interesting, the Republican AG candidates at 45.6 percent, the Democrat candidate, 39.3 percent. That's a pretty good margin. That's a very good secretary of state race. Yeah. And that was a big margin as a big margin. And then the last races were the U.S. Senate. I think the thing that really stood out for me on it here is.

basically against Blake masters, layman and the AG, uh, Mark Democrat, Mark Kelly, who's been already spending millions, spent a hundred million last time is at 46%. He's not cracking 50. I think that is a race that can be one with a disciplined methodical Republican campaign. I think that is a pickup. If these Republicans can get out of the primary, have the resources and not to favor anyone candidate here, but I got to say, if you're talking about a disciplined campaign, uh,

There's only one of those contenders who's displaying anything like that on the Republican side right now. Because Brnovich is disciplined in messaging but isn't actually raising money or doing the other campaign disciplines he needs. Jim Lehman has had a bunch of statements that are flat kooky. Blake Masters, frankly, is the only one I've seen that is holding up that end of the bargain and running an actual disciplined campaign and doing everything he needs to do.

That's going to be a really interesting race.

Yeah. Big time. There was an art as we wrap up here. There was U.S. news came out of an article this week about the U.S. Census Bureau. Big city losses early in COVID pandemic. The top 10 cities in the country all lost population except Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah. Phoenix, Arizona. No, look, you know, and that's despite the Phoenix mayor and city council who are desperate to copy their left and left and right coast colleagues. But

It is a credit, frankly, to someone who has taken far too much flack in the Republican Party here, which is Doug Ducey. Exactly. His leadership in COVID was not nearly as bad as some people on either side seem to think. And his stewardship of the economy during his eight years in office has frankly been outstanding. And you can't really say otherwise. No, I agree 100 percent. Well, folks, as we close off this week and we're in Memorial Weekend, a little challenge. Let's all.

Stop talking politics for three days. Give yourself a break. Realizing when you love your country, you also love your neighbor and your fellow citizens. And let's reach out and help other people and enjoy for who they are. And one thing I'm going to ask Kylie, Jamie, if you will get together and repost links to all the charities that have been on with us the last few years this year.

Let's go out and get those up on our website. Let's get those up on Twitter and Facebook because, Chuck, I'd like to add another challenge. Don't talk politics and give 50 bucks, just a small amount of money, whatever you can give. Give it to a good cause this weekend. It's a great idea. Folks, thanks for visiting us. We appreciate our guests today. Have a great Memorial weekend.

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