Amy Walter on the Devils We Know Too Well
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Welcome back to Beyond the Polls. This week, we get to talk with one of Sophology's stars, Amy Walter, and we'll look at how one Democrat is handling the challenge of a competitive primary in a Trump-won congressional district. Let's dive in.

Well, when we take a look at polling, we always take a look at lots of different things. We take a look at head-to-heads, of course, who's up, who's down. We take a look at job approval rating or candidate name ID and approval rating, and all of these are very important. I want to talk, though, about one that tends to be more of a geeky number to look at, but I think has great predictive value, and that is the right direction, wrong track question. What is that, you might ask? Well, for a number of decades now, pollsters have

have tried to assess people's sense of where the country or the state or the community is going by asking them, do you think that X, insert area that you're polling about, is going in the right direction, or do you think it's pretty seriously off on the wrong track?

Typically, what you'll get is more negatives. The higher up you get, people will tend to be thinking that their state or their communities in the right direction and the countries in the wrong track. But the ratio is very important.

And I came across a number this morning that I want to share with you, and that is a multi-decadal time series of the same set of pollsters who have been asking this question at the national level. This is the Hart Public Opinion Strategies surveys that have been done for Wall Street Journal and NBC News for many years and other clients before that. This is a bipartisan cooperation.

The Hart firm is a Democratic firm. POS is a Republican firm. And they've been asking this question on their survey for decades. And what I found when I looked at this

is that it is uniformly true that every time the wrong track gets over 57% in a presidential year, the party that has the White House loses control. Start in 1980, Democrats had the White House. On the eve of election, it was 79% wrong track. Ronald Reagan comes in. Jump ahead to 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush, bad economy, 65% say wrong track. We get Bill Clinton.

2000, Bill Clinton has a good job approval rating, but 57% of Americans say that things are on the wrong track. And we get George W. Bush, even though he doesn't win the popular vote, he does win the electoral college. 2008, 70% at the end of the Bush era, we get Obama. 65% at the end of the Obama era, we get Trump. And it was 63% in 2020, and we got Joe Biden. So what is the number today?

73%. Yes, it is the highest wrong track number since Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980. The question is,

How does Joe Biden win when 73% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track? These are never predictive of vote shares. They're indicative of feelings and directions. But just simply do the math. You have to get 40% of the people who think that the country's going on the wrong track to vote for you to get a narrow victory. Nobody's been able to do that. Everybody runs ahead of that, but nobody's been able to do that.

And this, I think, is why he's got such low job approval ratings, is that even people who may approve of his job, somewhat approve of his job, still think the country's going in the wrong track. They may ascribe things to things beyond his control or think he's making it better, but they still think the country's going in the wrong track. And I think the combination of these things is why Trump continues to lead, despite historically high negatives. So,

What can Joe Biden do? Well, obviously, what he needs to do is make people think the country's actually going in the right direction. But of course, he's been trying to do that for the last year or so. He's been trying to talk about the good things about the economy. He's been trying to talk about the good things that he's doing to bring peace to the world. He's been trying to talk about social issues while highlighting the

the negatives that he ascribes to Trump and the Republicans, highlighting how he arguably stands in the consensus of a supermajority of Americans. But yet, you still have this massively, nearly historically high negative number. So then you've got the question, what does this auger? Well, unless it's turned around, it augers a particularly difficult path, something we already knew. Then the question is, what about a late break? Well,

In these preceding six examples, we don't have a clear pattern. In 1980 and in 2016, Reagan was tied a week or so ahead of the election. A late break propelled him to a 10-point victory. Trump was behind significantly a week or so before. A late break propelled him to a narrow loss and a significant electoral college victory.

But in 2000 and in 2020, we had a late break for the incumbent party. Trump was behind in most polls by 7 to 10 points. He only lost by 4. He almost carried it off in the Electoral College with that late break. In 2000, you had Al Gore, who was behind by 5 or so points. He ended up winning the popular vote as he had a late break. But in 1992 and in 2008, there wasn't a significant break. So

in either direction. So I think you look at this and say there's no clear pattern. But without turning this sense that the country is drifting away, without turning around the sense that you're not in command of the facts, the facts are in command of you, I think you've just got to continue to look and say Joe Biden can talk all he wants about the problems with Donald Trump

And many people believe all of those problems. But then they turn to Joe Biden and they say, but are you really better? Are you really better? And until he answers that question, which we'll start to see in things like job approval and the wrong track numbers, I think you've got to rate Trump the favorite, even though it's not a choice that most or at least as majority of Americans want to make.

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Well, our next guest is somebody I always enjoy talking politics with because she knows everything, or at least close to everything. And this is Amy Walter, the editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and one of Washington's most perspicacious political observers.

Well done, Henry. A lot of people are rushing to their dictionary right now. Yes. Well, I simply invite them to watch any episode of Firing Line on TBS and listen to Mr. Buckley. And the chorus is audio and visual. The Cook Political Report is one of the go-to places if people want fair and honest analysis of the races. But

It has been for decades since Charlie started it, and now you are the Mayer Domo-ess of the empire. But you've started something new. Can you tell my listeners about what I guess I'm calling your swing state polling project, but you might have a different name for what you're doing this time?

Henry, actually, you've got it exactly right. It is the Swing State Project. We have partnered with two firms, one a Republican firm, one a Democratic polling firm. They do a lot of work, not just...

In politics, obviously, they do work with corporations as well. But what I liked about both these groups, it's BSG, the Benenson survey group, and GS Strategies, which is Greg Strimple, who's the Republican group.

firm here, they're used to working in quote-unquote enemy territory. They work in purple states. They work in states where their party is not maybe the majority. So they can appreciate the challenge of what it means to run in a swing state and how to win in a swing state.

And so we polled in seven states, the obvious ones, of course, with the top six, the Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, the upper Midwest with Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. And then we have North Carolina in there as well.

It's also quite helpful, as you know, Henry, that there are a lot of statewide races going on in those places as well. And in North Carolina, you have a very competitive gubernatorial race. And, of course, you have Senate races in all those other states but for Georgia. So there's a lot to dig in there. And what we found in our survey overall, the takeaway was that

Not all that surprising, but it really is the economy that is driving this election more than anything else. And that is a problem for Joe Biden because he has such not just low ratings on how he's handling the economy.

But the degree to which people think he will be able to do something about it in a second term is also, people are very pessimistic about that. They are much more optimistic about Donald Trump being able to handle things like the cost of living. They have a much rosier view of Trump's first term than Biden's first term on handling things

pretty much all issues, not every single one, but most of the major issues aside from abortion. But certainly on the economy, they feel much more confident about the way Trump has handled the economy, how they think he will handle it in the future.

And the other thing that really struck me was the way in which people view the economy. I mean, one thing we're really trying to do in these surveys is not just get the head-to-head numbers, but to

really push at voters and asking how they are trying to balance the conflicting issues that are surrounding them, right? This is always what's so fun about politics is, especially in these swing states, there's a certain amount of

a push-pull for voters, right? What is the thing that is really, at the end of the day, driving their vote over something else that may be equally important or maybe today is important but may not be as important a few months from now? And so one of the questions we asked about the economy was not just who do you think will do a better job, but

When we say economy, what does that mean to you, right? How do you judge what the state of the economy is, good or bad? Is it the stock market? Is it how much money you're bringing into your household? Again, this is not all that surprising, but it just is nice to see it in real numbers that 54% of voters said it is the cost of stuff. It's not...

unemployment. It's not the stock market. And that is really gets to the heart of the challenge for Biden, right? Which is he can talk a lot about a good economy in terms of low unemployment, in terms of a very strong stock market, even in terms of, you know, GDP growth, things like that. But that's not how voters are measuring unemployment.

And so that was striking. Abortion is obviously the biggest liability right now for Trump, but I don't think it's as problematic for him today as it is today.

the economy is for Biden. But, and overall, Henry, you can appreciate this. You know, at the end of the day, you have two very flawed candidates with a significant number of people who don't want to vote for either one.

And, you know, you can look at this data and say, boy, Biden's in a whole lot of trouble. Look at this. His opponent is leading him on. Who do you think will do a better job on the economy by double digits? And yet Biden

Biden's or Trump's lead is not that significant. This is this is not like a blowout. This is not Ronald Reagan, Mondale. This is, you know, a couple of points. And that speaks to the to the real liabilities of Donald Trump, who comes into this race already with deep, deep, deep unfavorables. And this is one of the things that I wonder about. And that is, you know, I am I

62. And being a nerd, I remember politics going back to 1968, like when I'm six and I'm coming home from swimming lessons. Mommy, mommy, Nixon's being nominated. Most six-year-olds weren't into that. But I definitely remember 1980. And there you had a race where Carter was incredibly unpopular. They thought he was weak internationally. They thought

that the economy was objectively worse than it is now, but it was also something they didn't have confidence in him. And yet, going into that last week, it was a statistical tie between Reagan because they had a lot of misgivings about Reagan. And you had the late debate in the last week of October. Carter didn't want to debate, but he had to risk it. And you had a massive break to Reagan where basically they said, good enough to give him a try.

And so the question I've got is, is this a campaign of trench warfare where what we see is what we're going to get and it's going to be a game of inches? Was there the possibility that this 10 to 20 percent who basically would rather have anybody but this choice, that in the end, a fair number of them are going to make a Reagan like break and make that choice late and you'll see it?

be something that might confound people as they actually change their mind over the last weekend? Yeah, I mean, that is a really great question. And part of me thinks that, you know, I don't want to throw out any possibilities of anything, Henry, after watching these last few elections. But also after watching these few elections, it does seem to me that we have an electorate that is pretty well

ossified in its opinions about the parties, but certainly about these two candidates. And so you do wonder, even if it were, let's pretend it wasn't Donald Trump, that it was another Republican. I just don't know that we're going to get back to the Ronald Reagan type of blowouts that we had. I mean, I even think about 1998 and Bill Clinton coming out of impeachment,

with a 65% job approval rating. Not because people thought that what he did was okay, but because the economy was so good and you got a benefit of the doubt. There's no more benefit of the doubt. I think that is completely missing. And

And so the one way you would get a big swing like that is a whole bunch of people who haven't participated in politics, who don't really have an opinion as much about the candidates or the parties, decide at the last minute to jump in because they're just so fed up and they swing this thing dramatically. I mean, that would mean people who have never really participated in the process. But I just, I find that hard to...

believe that is going to happen given who these two people are, right? I think that's what happened in 2016, where voters were saying, I don't know that I definitely don't like Hillary Clinton. I don't think I like this Trump guy either. But, you know, I'll go with the devil I don't know rather than the devil I do know. And Trump's no longer the one they don't know. So,

That's, I don't know where I end up. So typically a, you know, going back in my lifetime with the exception of Ross Perot, um,

Candidates in races like this start with third party candidates doing well. And then the closer you get, the more they fade. We saw this in the Oregon governor's race in 2022, where the independent former Democrat started pretty high and by election time kept fading and fading and fading. And finally, even at the end, a lot of them said we can't risk having a Republican govern Oregon. And Tina Kotak won.

How do we now all the polls have five way races. We now have a libertarian. So polls should start having six way races. RFK, Cornel West, Jill Stein has clinched the Green Party nomination of her Twitter feeds to be believed in the libertarian Chase Oliver. How many of those do you think that it is so ossified that we won't see the erosion that we've traditionally seen that

that 15 to 18 percent who are right now putting in themselves and one of those four candidates are going to stay there? Or do you think we might see the erosion as people say, I really don't like these guys, but I dislike X more than Y. And so I'm going to put a nobody knows what a clothespin is anymore. So I'm not sure. I do. I'm old enough to know what a clothespin is. But you're right. We have to be very careful with the young people.

So, well, yeah, if I've got a if I've got a Gen Z person, you know, think of whatever would tightly connect your nose so you didn't have to smell anything. And and you'll go vote for the lesser of the lesser of the lesser of two evils.

What do you think? Are we going to see erosion like we've seen before? And if so, who might that benefit? Or are we really in this so ossified that you expect four months from now we're going to have the race be within two points of each other and all the swing states and the third party candidates are still drawing 15 percent? I do think that the third party candidate number is going to be enormous.

Much lower than it is today, in part because the number of people who are sitting in third party who are really, truly supporters of, say, let's look at RFK Jr. for a minute. He's the one that is getting the largest support. If this were just about people holding their nose, then we would see.

Third party candidates getting a higher percent across the board, right? Because if he weren't in this race, would we see third party candidates at that high of a number? Would they be at 15? It would probably be like six. And everybody else would be sitting in undecided.

Now, I think a lot of folks who are really undecided, they are undecided, but they're planting themselves in Kennedy now, not because they like him or even know anything about him, but he has a name that sounds familiar. And it seems like, well, that sounds like a better place.

to say then I'm not going to vote at all or I just don't know. So I think his challenge as we go forward is holding on to voters who

even might be sitting there as a protest, they may, at the end of the day, decide that it's just not worth it. I'm just not going to vote at all, rather than voting for somebody who I think we will see at the end of this campaign will be painted by both Democrats and Republicans in a

very negative light, right? So Democrats clearly trying to get any of those potential Biden voters or Democratic-leaning voters off of him by associating him with

Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and, you know, all of the vaccine denialism and things like that. And and you saw Donald Trump going after him, saying, actually, he's not so good on. He actually does like some vaccines. Not all. He hasn't always been against vaccines or whatever. He said trying to keep that group of voters with him. I just don't know. Henry, let me ask you this. Has there ever been a time

that you've seen such a coordinated effort. It's certainly going on on the Democratic side. I'm sure it's not just Trump, but I'm sure Republicans will also make a coordinated effort to this early in the game, go after a third party candidate. No.

No, I mean, even when John Anderson in 1980 was running at 20 percent or above at this time in the polls, I did not see Reagan or Carter start to attack John Anderson. Ross Perot led in some polls at this point. And I do not remember either Bush or Clinton going at Ross Perot this early. So, yes, I would say in my lifetime that I can remember, this is unprecedented.

Yeah, that's what it feels like, that number is... And it's actually remarkable that for all the frustration voters are feeling about the two candidates, those numbers aren't higher. You know what I mean? We're at 48, 46, 47, 45, whatever. That's a pretty low number of undecideds for two pretty disliked

um, people. And for it, even if they don't dislike them, they're not necessarily happy with the choice that it's in front of them. But those 48, 46 is in a forced two way race and people will have multiple choices, but you know, five 38 as of this morning had Trump 41 Biden 40 Kennedy 10 and the rest, you know, scattered. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is that, uh,

It may shock people. It usually does when people say, well, everybody doesn't like these people. Actually, depending on your poll, 75 to 80 percent like at least grudgingly one of these two people. Yeah, yeah. The frustrated people are more like 20 to 25.

And they'd prefer not to, you know, they'd probably prefer a colonoscopy to having to decide this race. I can't believe you use colonoscopy because that is my way of, that's how I'm describing these things.

double haters is that it's not just they would rather have a colonoscopy than do this, but that like a colonoscopy, sorry, listeners, but we're getting maybe too TMI here, but nobody is looking forward to colonoscopy, right? You put it on your calendar and

And you kind of ignore it until you can't ignore it anymore. And so I do think so many of these voters are, you know, this is sort of the Biden message or strategy. But I do think there is some validity to this idea that, you know, a lot of these folks just are not checked in. I mean, they are doing anything other than thinking about this election or following

the news, they are, you know, not only just living their lives, but they are actively scrolling past the kinds of news and information that maybe they would have clicked on four years ago or eight years ago, but they're not now. Yeah. Well, again, in a sense, this is kind of like,

a show that has passed its peak, you know, in the old days when people actually watched mainstream television, you know, you'd get 30 or 40 percent of an audience in season two and three and four and by season eight, you know, you're not watching. The Fonz isn't funny anymore. You're going to get so tagged on this. That's far. You've had

clothes pins and uh the fonts we are deep deep uh retro references in this we're we're definitely showing our age but i'm okay with that yeah well yeah this is the thing is i've got to own my age i'm not going to be one of these hip people who pretend they know what taylor swift sings you know i know she's um

But, yeah, my classes, I often use cultural references and I always try and go younger and younger until I get enough laughs. And then I know, OK, people here haven't seen Animal House, but they've seen Mean Girls. OK, there we go. There we go. Yeah. I want to close with a last question, as you talked about unprecedented stuff.

And if there's one thing you could bank on throughout my lifetime in politics, it's that on Election Day, 90 percent or more of black voters would back the Democrats. You can argue about turnout. When Obama ran, it got up to 95 and a high turnout. But, you know, if it dropped below 90, it would be like the national poll in 2004 said Bush got 11 percent of the black vote. That would be like a high every poll that I see.

Has Trump between 15 and 25 of the black vote? Has Biden below 70? And of course, we've been seeing Biden's campaign focusing on the black vote. They have been announcing speeches. They've been announcing ad campaigns. They've got new black voters. You know, I think it was yesterday when they announced black voters for Biden-Harris. Who knew? I mean, you only do those things with your most loyal demographic if you know that you're in trouble. I never thought...

that I would see this when Donald Trump is the man on the ballot. But yet we are. How do you make of that? Yeah, I think that is an excellent point. I am skeptical that you're going to see numbers like the 20s. In one poll, I saw 30 percent going to Trump. I just I just don't see that actually coming to pass.

But to your point, could it be 11, 12, 13? That would still be incredible numbers. And where it's coming from, right? If it's coming from New York State, it's not as significant as if it is coming from Wisconsin and Georgia. So to me, it feels like the biggest challenge for Democrats right now is that they spent...

Really, I think since 2008, under the belief that a diversifying America had only upsides for their political future.

and that they didn't really need to persuade those voters to keep voting for them because we already have them, right? We're the party that got you a Barack Obama. We're the party that got you all these other, right? We're the party of LBJ, et cetera, et cetera. Like, what more do we need to do? You're on our team. And now our goal is to make sure we don't lose. We've got to appeal to

Latino voters and Asian American voters, and of course, making sure we're getting those independent white women voters in our camp. And you've probably heard enough of these focus groups or sat in enough of conversations where you just have been hearing for the last few years, especially from younger Black voters, feel like we're being taken for granted.

I don't know what, what have you done for me? It was noticeable that one of the first ads that the Biden campaign ran where Biden is looking to camera and saying something to the point of, I know you may feel that democracy hasn't always delivered for you. It's basically trying to say, I get it that you're frustrated that

Politics hasn't necessarily worked the way you want it, but you have to understand how important democracy is. That's not something Democrats used to have to message to Black voters because they just had to say, remember the civil rights movement. Where were Republicans? Where were Democrats? You know exactly where those lines were. That is not a relevant conversation.

for a black voter under 40 at all, right? And they know that their parents tell them stories or their grandparents, but that's not their life. And so I think the question is whether or not those voters who are frustrated with Democrats are going to go and pull the ballot

for Trump once we get deep into the campaign. And it becomes less about how is he when it comes to his support for Black voters and just a whole host of other issues where Democrats can hope to, if not

keep them in the Democrats' camp, try to keep them from voting for Trump. But I do still think that the biggest worry that Democrats have right now is that there's just no energy and no enthusiasm in places that really matter, like Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.

Well, on that note, gloomy for Democrats and all the Trump people who are listening are saying, Amy Walters on our side. Oh, enthusiasm for Biden. We've got a long way to go. That's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing. Even if it's trench warfare, you need to keep shelling for five. You need to keep shelling and you need to keep focused. I mean, if there's one thing that if I'm the president,

Trump fan I'd be worried about is the better these polls look for Donald Trump, the more that it, you know, it looks like, oh, he's winning and people believe he's going to win, the less disciplined he becomes on focusing on the issue, which is it is not about anything other for these voters than the economy. Just make it about the economy. Don't make it about

Biden, you know, he's corrupt and Hunter Biden and all these other superflips issues around Biden. Don't make it about, you know, making sure that the January 6th hostages are freed. Don't make it about anything other than the economy. Don't make it essentially don't make it about yourself, Donald Trump. And that is a very hard thing.

for Donald Trump to do is to not make it about him. And so far, he's done better than I thought on that. Exactly. But he tends not to be able to help himself. Well, Amy, obviously, if people subscribe to the Cook Political Report, they can follow your work. Where else can they follow your work? Yes, indeed. At cookpolitical.com or I occasionally hang out on Twitter. It's getting less popular.

interesting these days, not as robust, but it's at Amy E. Walter. And I'm trying this whole LinkedIn thing. So yes, and the Cook Political Report has a pretty good presence there too. So I don't know, I have to be a little more deft in my social media game. But you can also watch PBS NewsHour every Monday night for Politics Monday, where Tamara Keith of NPR and me go through the politics of the week.

That sounds like a must watch. And it's fun. Yeah, good. Well, it's always fun talking with you. And I look forward to having you back during, you know, try and avoid the shells as you're going through the trenches of the front lines. But I look forward to having you back on Beyond the Pulse. Thank you, Henry.

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It's always hard to beat an incumbent from another party in a district that the other party's presidential candidate carried. It's especially hard to do it when you don't have a clear shot in your own party primary, because you can be pulled in one direction to win the primary and alienate the very voters that you need in order to unseat the incumbent in the general election.

John Avalon is running in New York's 1st Congressional District, which is the far tip of Long Island. And I think this ad does a pretty good job of threading the needle on those questions. Let's listen. I'm John Avalon, and I want you to meet the Hotsets. Trump Republicans raised their taxes by taking away their fair share of the state and local tax deductions.

I'll fight to expand the child tax credit and restore that deduction. So families like this get more than $10,000 back in their pocket. I'm John Avalon, and I approve this message because Washington could use a little more Suffolk County common sense. Get them held on. You got it.

Well, let's talk about some of the things that we can see and hear. As you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, I always like ads that use visuals that support the words. And this is the case here.

John Avalon's name is on the screen a lot. So you hear his name, but you also see his name identified with him, who is either speaking or oftentimes the name will be up when he is on camera. You also see the points that he's making. So when he talks about saving or expanding the child tax credit, you see that under his name. When he talks about

helping with the state and local tax deduction repeal, repeal of the limit on that. You see that as well. So again, the visual with respect to his name and the points that he is making.

are reinforced by the audio and the words that he is speaking. That helps make the point better. Some other things I particularly like. He is running in a competitive primary, but he's not falling for the typical thing that would engage party loyalists. He's not saying, I'm good on abortion rights. He's not saying, I'm good on democracy. He's not making the sorts of appeals that Democrats in safe districts are making.

And of course, the reason why is he needs people who voted for Donald Trump in 2020, and a lot of whom voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Trump carried the district by a larger margin in 16 than in 2020. He needs them to vote for him. So he cannot risk alienating them on things that will attract the hardcore Democrat. And he avoids that completely. But what does he do that reinforces Democratic loyalty? Well, a lot of times when his name is on the ad,

It also says Democrat for Congress. So you reinforce the partisanship through the visuals and occasionally from him saying that he's a Democrat. You also note that he blamed the problems that the Hodgsons have on Trump Republicans. So who is he appealing to? Obviously, somebody who considers himself a Trump Republican is not somebody who's going to vote for him. There are lots of Republicans, though, who voted for Trump reluctantly, but

in 2020 because they didn't like the Democrats. They don't think of themselves as Trump Republicans. They're just Republicans or they're independents who sometimes vote Republican. So he's making a partisan point

without making offensive, partisan points that can drive those people away. He's trying to create a unifying thing. And that's where the issues come in. Who are the Hodgsons? Well, if you take a look, they're clearly a relatively affluent family, as relatively many of the people in this district are. They have a very nice kitchen. They're two married couples, two children, one of whom's name is Maya and the other's name is Isaac. Now,

Little subtle there, but there are some Hispanic voters in this district. There are a lot of Jewish voters in this district. Even the names, even though that's not obvious, is something that can draw some people in. And they have the names of the couple up there.

But they also have their jobs. What are their jobs? The woman is a social worker. The man is a software engineer. Again, these are the sorts of professions that will tend to lean towards Democratic partisan identification or at least non-Trump Republican partisan identification. Everything about this ad is thought out carefully. Who knows how many people will grasp intellectually these points, but subliminally,

Or at least in a feeling gestalt sort of way, these points are being made. That's absolutely good. And one of the things he's talking about, child tax credit and state and local tax deduction, that before the Trump tax cuts, you could deduct an unlimited amount that you paid in state and local taxes on your federal tax return.

The Trump tax cuts limited that to $10,000 per return. For couples in high-tax New York who own a home, this costs them thousands of dollars. You have property taxes that on a home would often run $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 on top of New York's legendarily high income taxes. So what he's doing is he's running on an issue that speaks to a voter base that is

felt by both moderate Republicans and independents and Democrats. And then he talks about expanding the child tax credit. And this is, too, another thing that is going to appeal to that sort of voter. I don't know if John Avalon can win the primary. He certainly has a lot of money behind him. He's been a media commentator on CNN for a number of years, so he might have a little bit of name ID.

I don't know whether or not you can win a partisan primary without directly appealing to the red, or in this case, let's say the blue meat of your party's base. But if you do, you're going to run up against a problem when you're running against a Republican. John Avalon has a very thoughtful way of weaving his way through this very complicated morass. And that's why this is the ad of the week.

That's it for this week. Join me next week as we dive deep into the Silver State with Nevada Guru John Ralston. Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we journey beyond the poles.

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