Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
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Welcome to this week's horse race. Today, we examine the upcoming Nevada caucus and South Carolina primary, talk all things Trump with the New York Times White House correspondent, Peter Baker, and go over the muddled state of the Democratic race with MSNBC's Steve Kornacki. The horses are at the starting gate. They're off!

Joining me this week on Trump Talk is Peter Baker, the White House correspondent for The New York Times and co-author with Susan Glasser of a wonderful forthcoming biography of a man who any of us who followed the George Herbert Walker Bush and Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford years would love to read. And that's James A. Baker, the third. Peter, welcome to The Horse Race.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Well, you know, the Donald never lacks for copy and certainly has been. He uses Twitter so much I'm waiting for him to claim that he invented it. So what do you think in the last week in particular has stood out for you as things that have attracted attention and or really mattered?

Well, one of the things about Trump world is that a week ago feels like a century ago. It thinks that so much happens in any good 24-hour period that something that happened only a couple days ago feels like it was a long time ago. Clearly, I think his –

Just even the last couple of days, his comments with regard to Attorney General Barr and the Roger Stone case and, you know, his feelings about the justice system are, you know, pretty important moments. I think something that we've been debating, I think, for three years at this presidency is what's the proper role for a president when it comes to law enforcement matters? And is this president being, you know, subjected to unfair treatment?

law enforcement matters. Certainly that's his point of view. So this last couple of days, I think it really kind of crystallized that dynamic and that debate in a really powerful way. Now, I don't know that that means that it will end up with Attorney General Barr leaving or not, but you can tell that there is some frustration and tension there between the two, even though I think they share a larger point of view about things.

I mean, with respect to Barr, there's the reports from unnamed sources that say he considered resigning. He's clearly somebody who, prior to taking the attorney general's job here, had, I'd say, a pretty good bipartisan reputation. But now, as anyone who works close to Donald Trump has made it more partisan or has made

undergone a partisan reassessment. What do you think is going through his mind and the mind of people close to him as he considers his legacy and how it is or is not intertwined with Donald Trump's?

Yeah, it's a good question. You're right. He, of course, had been Attorney General before under George H.W. Bush's administration you mentioned earlier, and he came out of that with a pretty good reputation, although not among James Baker, by the way, and his people didn't like him for reasons that aren't really important today. It was a passport. Independent counsel of the bar was responsible for pointing that Baker never liked him.

But broadly speaking, as you say, kind of a feeling of good reputation, a feeling of an established Republican, not necessarily a Trump-style Republican, although obviously very conservative. And he understood, I think, when he took this job that he would be, of course, taking the risk that he would be taking a lot of flack as a result, that you can't join this president's cabinet without setting yourself up for…

for you know a good deal of heat either from inside or outside either from the president on the one side or his enemies on the other side and I think he's now he spent a lot of time in his first year in office getting it from the outside now he's getting a little bit from the inside I think that's uncomfortable but probably not unpredictable

So, you know, you live and work in and around Trump world, as you said. What happens if Barr decides to resign? Clearly, if he resigned under these circumstances, it would be viewed as –

No matter how gentlemanly he left, it would be reviewed as a decision that he could not work with the president on the terms that the president set. Can the president find a responsible, respectable lawyer to take the attorney general's job if that's what happens?

Yeah, I think it would be a problem for the president because Barr has been both, as you say, a respected person coming in and a pretty good heat shield while he's been there so far. And losing him would be a blow. And I think you're right. It's eight months before an election.

It might be hard to find somebody of his caliber and somebody who's willing to put his own or her own reputation on the line with only so little time left in a confirmation process that would almost certainly be pretty brutal. So I think we would probably end up with some sort of an acting situation until the election, my guess is. Will Bill Barr do it? I don't know. I think he clearly has expressed his irritation to his associates and friends and colleagues in the last few days.

They have interpreted that to mean that he's thinking about whether he could last or not. That doesn't necessarily mean he will. I took some of this reporting to be a message to the White House in effect, sort of, if you don't be careful, there's a consequence here, and the bar might think about leaving, which might make the president back down or might make the president get his back up. We don't know, right? He doesn't tend to like –

you know, confrontation from people and he might get annoyed by that. But he also understands that he doesn't want to lose Bill Barr if he can help it. He's not the same as Jeff Sessions in the president's mind. And so there is some motivation on the president's part to try to keep him happy.

Speaking of former Attorney General, former Senator Sessions, the former senator part is coming into play with a primary coming up in Alabama as Sessions tries to regain his old seat. Is there any indication from Trump world that he might get involved in that race or is everything being kept at arm's length?

Yeah, it's a great question. So far, the president has mostly stayed out of it. Doesn't like Jeff Sessions, doesn't particularly want him, I think, to be in the Senate. It feels very strongly and very viscerally about Sessions in a way that he doesn't about a lot of people in Washington. So it's interesting to watch then Jeff Sessions.

pitch his appeal to the voters, Republican primary voters who are going to decide the nominee as an unabashed Trump supporter. His ads show him bragging about being the first senator to endorse Trump, putting the MAGA hat on, all that kind of thing. He's really tied himself to Trump, even though Trump

basically fired him in November of 2018. That may be enough to keep Trump on the sidelines. That might be Jeff Sessions' gamble here, just to at least keep the president from weighing in too strongly and giving Sessions a chance to win on his own. All things being equal, you'd think that a popular former Republican senator from Alabama would have a good chance at winning that nomination again. And the one thing that could upset that is if President Trump weighed in in a big way on behalf of somebody else.

And of course, then you'd have to choose presumably which person to weigh in on. And there are at least two serious contenders, Bradley Byrne and Tommy Tuberville, who are not named Roy Moore. We know that...

that Donald Trump would not endorse Roy Moore again. Right. That's exactly right. Well, and the congressman you mentioned was in the box with him at the game in Tuscaloosa last fall. I was there covering that between Alabama, Crimson Tide, and LSU, a tough game for the Crimson Tide. But he was the only Senate candidate

in the box with the president during that game which was seen as something of a possible message doesn't necessarily mean that much if the president leaves it at that. But you're right, I mean he has a choice to make if he were to dive in or is it simply an anti-Sessions kind of thing. At any moment he could simply tweet, you know, Republicans pick somebody other than Sessions and leave it at that. But so far he hasn't. So far he's stayed out of it despite his personal feelings.

Although, of course, I might be wrong, but I think if Sessions doesn't get 50%, doesn't he have to go to a runoff? Or is this a primary where it's whoever gets past it goes on to November?

That's a good question. I should know the answer, and I don't, so I should be careful not to say something I don't know. There's no question that whoever wins a Republican nomination starts with a real head up over Doug Jones, a Democrat. This is a state that President Trump won by, I think, 25 or so points. So it's a built-in – it's a Republican estate, as it should be, a Republican seat, all things being equal. Now, whether Doug Jones has done enough to

to try to hold on to it or not. I don't know. Obviously, his vote against the president on impeachment will be an issue in the fall. And I think that he is probably the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate these days.

Well, Trump seems to like to troll the Democrats these days. They hold a race and they hold a contest and Trump goes out to the state and he either puts a rally on in the state or, you know, this week he's going to put on a rally in the neighboring state of Arizona on the night of the debate. Do you think this trolling helps the president even or is it meant? Why does he do this? This is kind of.

unusual that a sitting president goes out during an opponent party's nomination contest and tries to distract on crucial days from the other party's discussion. Yeah, it is pretty unusual. And you're right, it is a pattern now. And in addition to the Arizona rally, you'll have one on Friday in Nevada itself. As long as they go through with it, that would be literally the day before the caucus.

And I think you're right. He wants to be in the spotlight, and he wants to at least take away some of it from the Democrats. It kind of reminds you of what Alice Roosevelt Longworth said about her father, Teddy Roosevelt. She said he wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. And I think that President Trump doesn't like –

You know, a news cycle that doesn't involve him, right, doesn't like a big story that he's not part of and he wants to be part of that story. And, you know, it probably does take away at least a little bit of the spotlight and the attention from the Democrats at a time they need to build up momentum to find a nominee. Mm-hmm.

So looking forward to the next week or so, there's another contest in South Carolina. Do you think the president's going to be down in South Carolina? Is he going to double troll them and have it a African-American focus? Because he certainly has a campaign that is talking about and actively trying to attract African-American support in South Carolina's Democratic electorate will be 61 percent or more African-American. Is there any indication that the president's going to try a double troll and really get under their skin?

It would not surprise me if he does go to South Carolina. Now, the logistical problem with that is he's going in between this Western trip and the South Carolina primary. He's going to India, and that's a long trip, and he'll have been on the road a long time. So it's possible he decides not to go to South Carolina. But there is talk I've heard among White House people about an event in South Carolina before the primary, as you say, trying to get into the space of the Democrats and into their face and try to set the terms of the debate.

So you'll be going with the president to India, I believe. What do you expect is what's the trip for and what do you expect is going to come out of that? Obviously, the president doesn't commit his time to an overseas trip unless he's expecting domestic headlines.

Well, it's interesting. It doesn't seem like an obvious domestic political gainer at this point, and the trade deal that he wanted to sign with India for a while doesn't seem to be anywhere near ready. So it's kind of a curious situation.

trip and a curious timing. One thing, of course, is that he had hosted Prime Minister Modi, who he likes, in Texas for what they call a Howdy Modi event at a big stadium. And Prime Minister Modi plans to reciprocate by having the president at a cricket stadium, which has, I think, 100,000 or more people at it. The president just last night, I think, was talking about how the prime minister told him there would be 7 million people lining the streets in

in India to greet him when he comes. Obviously, the president loves a good crowd. And it may just be as simple as that. The other speculation, of course, though, is he's going to be in the neighborhood of Afghanistan at a time when the Afghanistan peace talks seem to be reaching a pretty critical moment. This is supposed to be a seven-day

ceasefire, a cessation of hostilities to get the two sides to move on to the next stage, that might end up concluding right around the time he's leaving India. So there's a lot of speculation as to whether or not, since he was in the region anyway, he might try to do something there to highlight his efforts to bring a peace deal with the Taliban. Well, that would be something if he and his aides managed to pull off a sudden trip to

to Peshawar or some neutral place to sign a permanent peace treaty with the Taliban. Yeah. Would not put it past the president to arrange for that made-for-TV moment.

Well, as you know, of course, he's a showman. He likes a good show, and that is something that he would enjoy doing. Remember, he originally wanted to have a piece of a deal signed with the Taliban at Camp David last fall until that kind of fell apart at the last minute. So you're right. He does look for big, showy ways of kind of highlighting accomplishments. Ending the war in Afghanistan, at least for the American side, would be a big deal, but

And I think that he's willing to pull troops out whether he has a deal or not. But obviously, it's better if you have something in place that would seem to leave the country in a better place than it was before he left. Well, last question for you, Peter. You've been covering the White House for a number of years. Is there any one anecdote, a moment that sticks in your mind that kind of epitomizes the yin and the yang, the good, the bad and the ugly of covering Trump world?

Oh, goodness. That's a good question. It's unlike any of the previous White Houses I've covered. So I've covered four now. This is my fourth. I covered President Clinton, President Bush, and President Obama. The second President Bush.

This second President Bush, exactly. And, you know, obviously all three of those... Get to Smoothie King today and try the new blueberry, raspberry, or watermelon lemonade smoothies. They're all made with real fruit, real juice, and no bad stuff. Just check out the no-no list at SmoothieKing.com. Try the new lemonade smoothies at Smoothie King today.

very different in their own ways, but there were things that were pretty familiar and pretty consistent across administrations, regardless of the specific president. There are certain rules of the game, certain ways things are done, certain things are unthinkable, certain things were normal. This president's thrown the rule book out. Everything that we once thought was the way things worked is different. For a journalist, of course, covering it, that makes it, you know,

dynamic and always unpredictable story, right? Just yesterday, right, with these pardons, it kind of got dribbled out. It didn't have like a big announcement or anything. The president kind of, they sent out a press spokesman to announce one of the 11 acts of clemency in front of the

reporters on the driveway and the president mentioned a couple others when he was at Andrews Air Force Base about to get on the plane and then a statement came out and mentioned some others. It was very kind of, you know, everything was like a surprise with him and he likes that. He enjoys keeping us off balance. He enjoys the limelight, obviously. The old Nostrum that you could possibly

you know, being in the spotlight too much doesn't apply to him. And, um, and it's, you know, it's an interesting dynamic. Obviously he enjoys the,

attention. He enjoys the media. He actually reads the papers at times. He looks at the TV a lot. As you know, he can also be quite hostile toward us, the people and all the fake news and all that. And it's an odd dynamic. And I think of one anecdote you mentioned, looking for an anecdote. I remember going with him to a rally one time early on where he went after us, the press. These guys are evil. These guys are dishonest. These guys are corrupt. Pretty tough stuff. I mean, most presidents don't like us, but they don't usually...

go to that level, right? And, you know, people at the rally turn and they're screaming at you and chanting against you and it feels pretty hostile. You get on the plane. I remember getting on the plane with him afterwards, Air Force One. I was in the pool that day and he comes back during the flight back and says, hey, everybody comes in the back. How's everybody doing? Everybody having a good time? Everybody enjoying themselves? And it's like,

And it's like a dichotomy, right? He had just been telling these people that we were evil incarnate, and then he comes back like a hotel manager to make sure our rooms are okay. Right? And somebody said to him, you know, well, Mr. President, you kind of really gave it to us there at the rally. He said, oh, I could have been much worse. I could have been much worse. And so –

What I took from that is not – the hostility toward us is both real and stick at the same time. There's no question that on his part there's an authentic, genuine feeling of grievance toward the press. He feels we have been unfair. He is mad at us for various stories and so forth. That's real. That's not made up. But there's also stick to it too. It's a good thing for a rally. You get people going. And when it comes to actually –

interacting with individual reporters on Air Force One, for instance, he wants to be friendly. He wants to charm you. He wants to convince you he's right. And so there's a very yin and yang kind of experience there, to use your phrase. Hmm.

Well, Peter, it's always wonderful to chat, and I always learn from you. And that whole image now of enemy and friend, the hit and the hug on the rally is something that will stick with me. Love to have you back on the horse race, and good luck on your trip to India. Oh, thanks very much. It's great talking to you. I always enjoy it, and good luck with the podcast. It seems like a fun and terrific project. Thanks, Peter.

First up this week on State of Play is the politics and government editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Steve Sibelius. He's here to talk to us about this weekend's caucus and all things Nevada. Steve, seems odd saying this to a state known for its casino gambling, but welcome to the horse race. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Well, you guys have been ground zero of the American political universe for a few days. Democrats just completed four days of early voting for Saturday's caucuses. What's your sense of how the race stands and what do we know, if anything, from the early voting statistics?

Well, we know from the early voting statistics it turned out to be a pretty popular option, which probably wasn't too big of a mystery. Early voting in regular elections in Nevada has proven itself to be pretty popular, so early voting in the caucus, I think,

even more popular because there are a lot of people in Nevada who just don't feel comfortable with the caucus process, going, standing there, talking to strangers about politics and getting involved in that sometimes chaotic scene. So early voting turned out to be pretty popular. It looks like around 70,000 voters cast early ballots.

And so we'll see, you know, on caucus day, which is Saturday, how many more votes that we get. And maybe we'll get up over 100,000. The record is 117,000. I don't think we'll surpass that. But, you know, who knows? It remains to be seen. Rain is forecasted for caucus day. So that may have an effect on turnout as well.

Well, is there anything that's been standing out to you as everybody and their mother and brother and surrogates and ads are all over the place over the last few days? Is there anything that jumps out at you that says, hey, this person's been making more of an impact than I thought or this person seems to be slipping up? Yeah.

I have noticed the increase in ads from Amy Klobuchar. I think after her debate performance in New Hampshire, she had a real surge. And I think the Klobuchar, I guess they're calling it, and she has been airing ads here in Nevada.

She braved the Review Journal editorial board meeting. That's a traditionally very conservative editorial board, but she came in and braved it, took every question, everything from gun rights to everything else we could think of to ask her. And so she's, I think, standing out in terms of her campaign in a way that she didn't before. I think

Before New Hampshire, Nevada was a question mark for her, but once she did so well there, I think she's really trying to make a stand here. Now, whether or not it'll push her up in the polls, we'll see. She came in, I think, really tied for fourth place in the Review-Journals poll, which was published on Friday. So we'll see if she's surging there. And, of course, Tom Steyer, who was...

you know, known to us through the need to impeach ads, has now become known to us through a whole series of political ads. Tom Steyer is literally everywhere in Nevada on billboards, on your television, on your mobile phone.

Literally anywhere you turn, there's a Tom Steyer ad. And so he has essentially raised his name recognition from virtually none to coming in in third place in that RJ poll I mentioned. So he's doing fairly well in Nevada as well.

Now, Nevada is like other states, which is that you need 15 percent either statewide or in any one of your states for congressional districts to get those coveted national convention delegates. What does the Review-Journal poll tell us about candidates' ability to do that right now?

Well, I think, and this is no surprise either, Bernie Sanders is way ahead. He got 25% in the RJ poll, and it's not surprising. He virtually split the state with Hillary Clinton in 2016. He got 47% to her.

53. She got, I think, 20 delegates. He got 15 out of Nevada. So very close. People know Bernie here. His organization remained strong here. So I think it's not a surprise that he's doing so well. Nevada has been touted as the first test of diversity in the race, the first state that has a diverse population.

And so all eyes are on us to see how that might stack up a little bit differently than the first two states, Iowa and New Hampshire, which are fairly overwhelmingly white. And Joe Biden, who came in second in the Review Journal poll, 18%.

is doing well with African-American community, with Latino community, and with the culinary union, which is something that Bernie Sanders cannot say. But up until now, though, it's interesting, until the Review Journal poll, Joe Biden was leading in every poll except for one. And there was a second one in which he tied with Bernie Sanders.

So now he's down, and I think for Joe Biden, he's got to look at coming in second or nothing. If he doesn't finish at least in second place, then I think he is going to face some strong headwinds that he may not be able to overcome, although I think he's still going to stay in the race until Super Tuesday.

So you mentioned the Culinary Union. Tell my listeners what the Culinary Union is and why it matters in a caucus state like Nevada. Yeah, the Culinary Union is probably the most powerful union in Nevada. It is a private sector union of hotel workers, maids, bartenders, and other service workers.

in Nevada, and they are known for not only their tenacity. There was once a strike on the Las Vegas Strip that lasted for six and a half years, and it wasn't a lackluster strike with a couple of people out there at a folding table and a sign. We're talking about tens and sometimes hundreds of people on the picket line for six and a half years. So these guys...

are in it for the long haul. They put out, they officially endorsed no candidate. In fact, they held a news conference to announce they were officially endorsing no candidate. But days before they did that, they put out a flyer contrasting the candidates' positions on health care.

And when it came to Bernie Sanders' little listing on health care, they basically said he wanted to end the culinary's health care plan, which he would with Medicare for All. And Sanders admits he would end all private insurance, and that's including the culinary's.

Now, the culinary is very proud of their insurance, and they have reason to be. It's the greatest insurance that exists, I think, in Nevada. I wish I could get into the culinary plan. And so that was kind of a devastating hit for Bernie because his labor support is pretty strong, but so is Joe Biden's. And when Bernie Sanders showed up at the culinary and talked about Medicare for All, he was heckled when

When Joe Biden showed up at the culinary and said, I will let you keep your private plan. We're going to build on Obamacare to cover the people who aren't covered. He was cheered. So I think although they did not endorse a candidate, if they had endorsed a candidate, I think they would have endorsed Bernie Sanders. I'm sorry, Joe Biden, because of their contrasting positions on health care. So they also clearly disendorsed Bernie Sanders, which.

brings me to the question of if there's 100,000 or 110,000 people who are voting, how many of these people might be members or family members associated with the Culinary Union? Three, five, ten?

I don't have the exact percentage, but I think it would be a significant chunk. And we should note that there are caucus sites on the Strip specifically to accommodate culinary workers. Now, these caucus sites have been very controversial in the past. In 2016, they were thought to benefit Hillary Clinton.

I'm sorry, they were thought to benefit Bernie Sanders at the time, even though their position on health care was essentially the same. And there were lawsuits filed to try to stop the culinary from being able to organize and have caucus votes on the strip.

Well, that lawsuit was dismissed because, as you know, the caucuses are privately run, run by a political party, not by the government. And so long as the rules are nondiscriminatory and don't violate federal law, whatever they say goes.

Now these sites are not in question. Nobody is suing over them, but there are still a number of them, and they will make it very easy for culinary members to vote and make their voices heard. And I would imagine whatever their percentage overall, I think the percentage of turnout among culinary members is going to be extremely high.

And, of course, since caucuses are not primaries, early voting has taken place. And those people came in, filled out a ballot, maybe got some pamphlets on there while they were standing in line. But when you're physically at the caucus, you hear speeches from people.

supporters of various candidates. And it could very well be that somebody stands up and says, I'm your local rep from culinary local, blah, blah, blah. And I'm voting for Joe Biden and you should too. How much of an influence would that have if that happens? Is that the sort of thing where people say, I guess that's the union position or

Is that just something that is they'll listen to people who might say that just like they might listen to anybody else who stands up and makes those discussions?

Well, I think if you're a member of the culinary union and you hear that, I think you probably pay a little bit more attention to it than the average person would. And it's because you've got a stake in the outcome there. The reason that the culinary, I won't say endorsed because they did not endorse specifically, but the reason they rated Bernie poorly on health care and rated Biden well on health care

is very particular to the union and they have a strong stake in the outcome of the election on that basis. Now, if I'm just a regular Joe, I may or may not share their position on preserving or getting rid of private health insurance. And

And so I may not care as much. But if you're a culinary union member, you first, you know, you're going to stand up and say, well, why is the union telling me this? And when you find out more about that, I think culinary members, not universally, but almost universally, are going to vote to preserve their own interests.

So this is the first diverse state that both Iowa and New Hampshire were, you know, over 90, the electorates were over 90 percent white. Here, the entrance poll from 2016 said that 13 percent were African-American, over 20 percent were Latino, another 10 percent were Asian or of mixed race. And if anything, the Democratic Party in Nevada has probably gotten less white.

white over the last few years. Is there any indication people have said that Pete Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar are particularly weak among persons of color? Are you seeing any of that on the ground?

Well, if the poll is any indication, they didn't do as well as some of the leading candidates, such as Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden and Tom Steyer, who I think are a little bit more appeal in those communities. But those candidates are not ignoring the

the the uh... various at the communities in the battle they have all campaigned in our chinatown area of las vegas they've all campaigned at the uh... east las vegas community center which is in the heart of the hispanic area of las vegas

uh... they have uh... they've campaigned in west las vegas uh... so they're not that they're they're courting votes uh... for sure and i think the voting populations in nevada although we have not had an early caucus spot on the calendar for very long it's only been since two thousand eight that we've had that spot i think the voters are quickly becoming very sophisticated

knowing that these candidates are coming to solicit their votes and sort of quizzing them, well, what's in it for me? What do you want to do for our community? What do you want to do for the issues that we care about? And there are forums and there are other town halls specifically to address those issues.

So I think all the candidates are trying to pay attention to that. But as you might expect, the candidates who have the highest name recognition but also have the biggest appeal in ethnic communities are doing well and probably doing better than some of those other candidates. Again, that is a key part.

of Joe Biden's calculus to either winning or coming in very high in the caucus. If he's wrong about that, if his appeal is not what he hopes it is, then I think he's in real trouble. I know I've already identified where the African-American precinct, dominated precincts are in North Las Vegas and surrounding areas. And on Saturday afternoon, if the results are reported by precinct, I'll be looking at those very carefully.

So, uh...

Last question here. Las Vegas dominates Nevada. Reno is the other – Washoe County is the other big county. So it's effectively a two-county state despite the big map that you've got. On Election Day, this will be a caucus. So it will be just like Iowa. People listen to speeches. They have to vote twice. If somebody doesn't get 15 percent in the first go-around, they can join what's called viable candidates.

Walk us through what caucus afternoon might look like for people who are trying to follow what's happening and how to find the results.

sure uh... well first of all we can tell you that we can't even find the results are website lost a computer or what com if your print subscriber god bless you we hope you are uh... you will get those thrown on your doorstep we hope on sunday morning uh... as far as what the caucus i to look like you will you will go to uh... your assigned location and and the uh... about a democratic party on their website in the dams dot com has a uh... locator there you just enter your address and

It'll tell you where you go. You will then meet with people in your same voting precinct and then subdivide into preference groups for your particular candidates, your Bernie Sanders, your Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg.

And then a count will be taken during which the number of people physically present on caucus day is counted and recorded. And then added to that total are the number of people who early voted from that particular precinct.

And that will arrive at a number. If you don't have 15 percent of the turnout in your precinct, you're non-viable. And there's a brief period of time when you can realign and go for another candidate, your second choice, if you will. And for the people who early voted, they were asked to rank choice their candidates. Yeah. So those votes will simply be applied. Right.

Yeah, the highest name on your ballot who is viable will receive your vote. So if you voted for Tom Steyer and he turns out in your particular precinct, by way of example, not to be viable, and you voted in the second position for Elizabeth Warren and her supporters turned out and she is viable, your vote would then count for Elizabeth Warren.

So the second alignment, otherwise known as the final alignment, happens about 15 minutes later, in which all the candidates reform into groups now hopefully for viable candidates. A second count is made, and that is the count that will determine the delegates that go on to the county convention and also contribute to calculating the national delegates.

And then the whole thing supposedly will be over by 2 p.m. We're keeping our fingers crossed. We were going to use an app like the one that they used in Iowa. We abandoned the idea of using that app after Iowa. And so that is now something that, you know, is not going to be done here.

So there may be a lot of manual counting, although there is some electronic assistance for calculating the caucus math. So we will see how it goes. We're crossing our fingers that it's going to go okay. The party is doing training up until the very end, up until Friday. There are still about 55, according to the party this morning, 55 training sessions for volunteers today.

doing now, and caucus day. And so that's going on as we speak. So we're hoping it's going to be a smooth caucus and that we don't have another Iowa on our hands.

Well, I'm going to trust it in the ingenuity and stick-to-itiveness of Nevadans to ensure that all the hopes and dreams of political geeks who love caucuses rest on Nevada getting it right. Well, Steve, thank you very much for joining me. I'm looking forward to having you back on The Horse Race. Sounds great. Thank you for having me.

And now joining me to talk about the all-important South Carolina primary is Skyler Croft, political editor at the Charleston Post and Courier. He's been covering the Palmetto State since 1988 and is like the man who knows what's what in South Carolina politics. Skyler, thanks for joining me on the horse race. It's good to be here.

So tell me, what's your state of play with the race as it stands right now? It's about a week or so beforehand and people are concentrating on Nevada, but they've been campaigning there on and off. And soon they will descend like locusts to eat you politically out of house and home. Where does it stand right now from your viewpoint?

Well, I don't remember Nevada being this important before. So the difference there is we're not seeing them. I know after New Hampshire in the past, everyone came to South Carolina right away. But the only visits we've had so far is Biden, of course, who ditched New Hampshire early and came down here for a rally. And then Tulsi Gabbard came a day and had it to herself, the entire state.

And then Steyer's made some visits, too. So, you know, there is a distraction by what's going on that happened in Nevada. But, you know, South Carolina is it. It's the primary. It's reflective of the black vote in the country. The black turnout in the state will probably be

be upwards of 60% of that. So that's where you're going to see the appeal coming. And especially we're all getting notices that everyone is calling to find out, you know, what are the most active black churches on Sunday. So I think there's going to be a lot of religion being mixed together with politics. Well, that's, yeah, that's one of the thing is that so far, the first two states have been pretty lily white over 90% of the electorate has been white in both Iowa and

So New Hampshire, Nevada is going to be a state with 10 or 15 percent African-American turnout, 20 percent or so Latino turnout. And then you're going to get South Carolina, where, as you say, over 60 percent of the Democrats voting are likely to be African-American. And the African-American community is just different than the communities that they've been campaigning. So.

far with who seems to be doing well. I mean, we hear a lot in Washington about Biden and his black vote firewall. How true is that? And how have candidates been trying to talk with African-American voters in South Carolina? Well, I think what you're seeing now is Biden is doing well, largely based on his past associations. He comes in as Barack Obama's vice president.

He's friendly with Jim Clyburn, our senior member of Congress. He goes back with Senator Hollings, and so he's playing on those associations. It seems almost like his name is leaving him more than actually any of his positions. Mm-hmm.

So that's what he's working for. But trying to peel away some of that black vote has been Steyer, who has been sprinkling a lot of money around, doing a lot of events. We talked earlier. I mean, he's doing block parties and just dumping money on mail and TV. And again, it's all targeted mostly towards the black vote in the state.

How much is his stance on reparations helping him with African-American voters? He is kind of, I think Elizabeth Warren has also come out for it, but it seems to be more of a staple of Steyer's appeal. Is he mentioning that a lot in South Carolina when he's trying to speak with black voters? Well, he is, but I think it's getting lost as another position point. It's not front and center for any of the candidates right now, largely because I don't know the people full

fully understand what reparations would mean or are, that kind of thing too. So it's not that detailed. I think it's more, you know, what are the economics that you're talking when you come in and, you know, is your money where your mouth is in terms of the message you're trying to sell in your past history with these folks?

So one of the things that you've written about and talked about is how different this race is going to be than the past. And by the time it gets to South Carolina, pretty much everyone will have dropped out. You know, it was Clinton versus Obama in 08 and Clinton versus Sanders in 2016. And this time it looks like, you know, the Bloomberg isn't competing, but everyone else who is in the race looks like they're trying to get votes in South Carolina. What is...

What does this mean for the possibility of rapid fluid changes in the final week?

Well, I think your point is right. The South Carolina Democrats just have never had choices before. By the time the races have gotten here in the past, it was Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton, and then four years ago it was Clinton versus Sanders. So you were picking one of two, and that's really not a choice. But now you've got seven or eight different candidates out there, which is just dividing the electorate. You know,

Makes the state up for grabs. I know everyone says this is Biden's firewall state, but the weakness of the firewall is the strength of the size of the field of people pursuing the nomination. It also tells me no matter what the results, I don't see anyone dropping out after this state except possibly Warren. I think the pressure is on to really produce something here. Mm-hmm.

So where would – we've talked about the African-American vote, and clearly Biden and Steyer are leading in the polls among them. Bernie Sanders gets his support, but it's below 20 percent of the black vote in most polls. But that still leaves like a third or so of – or a third to 40 percent of the vote that will be cast by white people.

What type of white Democrat, how does a white Democrat differ from like a white Republican or independent in South Carolina? And where might those voters, what might those voters be looking for as they're searching among these seven or eight people?

Well, the tough transition, a little bit of history here is, you know, the white Democrat in the state was the mill worker, was the World War II veteran. It was those folks. But, you know, that's transitioned, you know, the working class towards the Republican Party. So the person who's the most loud and active is.

in the democratic party here it was a white is is you know the white professional female uh... or even the college student young person the twitter user you know that's where the the campaigns are breaking up and that age group i don't think you're gonna see a lot of people sixteen above voting in in the democratic primary i think you're looking at people you know fifty five and below what better to be the dominant turnout among the white folks

So that sounds like this is where Elizabeth Warren and A.D. Klobuchar kind of have a death match over professional females and maybe Warren and Sanders go toe-to-toe for the progressive activist or the state government worker in Columbia.

Yeah, and I think that the clock is really ticking on both those two in that Klobuchar has really not been here all that much. Her last appearance was during the Martin Luther King Day March on the Dome in Columbia at the State House. But

Before that, it's just been a rarity. There's not much campaign here at all. Warren, it's just been a weird campaign. I don't know how she's doing this in other states, but she's preferred very low-key events, not a lot of media coverage, speaking to groups too. So she's going to almost have to come back and reintroduce herself to the state. So –

Nevada will vote on Saturday, February 22nd. And then it's a seven-day sprint plus a debate going into your vote on Saturday, February 29th. How would you game that week out? If somebody were doing the right things to win South Carolina, what would you be expecting their campaign to look like?

Well, Sunday is going to be the black church in the morning and the black church in the afternoon and the black church at night. That's really where you have to get your message out to. And Biden has to be out front and center, too. And, you know, a lot of the young Turks in the Democratic Party, too, are breaking with Steyer and others. So for Biden, it also means full of fighting the longer, older community activists, the

lawmakers and just saying, you know, he is the one who can take on Trump and stick with that message. And unfortunately, one thing that I'm seeing Biden's doing, he's doing a closed fundraiser on the Monday night before the debate. I don't know what the rest of his week is going to look like, but he needs to get out there with some energy and just go to events after events after events.

And again, no one can keep up with Bernie Sanders. All his rallies are like rock star level. He'll get thousands of people these things too. So you're going to be dividing yourself, looking for who's out there, who's uncommitted. And that's another issue is people who are uncommitted usually will break with a challenger. And in this case, the challenger is everyone facing Biden. Yeah.

So how what are you going to be looking for on election night? Are there particular regions of the state that kind of are indicative of how candidates are doing? So that if Y County or Z City comes this way in early returns, you'll have a good idea that a candidate doing well there will be winning the state.

I think the stretch you really want to look at is the returns around the state capital of Columbia. Richland County is a big Democratic county that should go Biden. And if it does, that's good news for him. But you also want to look down Interstate 26 to the Charleston Lowcountry region, highly populous area.

turning extremely blue in recent elections. Mark Sanford was our congressman up until 2018 when he was upset in the primary, and then Democrat Joe Cunningham was able to take the seat against Katie Arrington. Very blue now, a lot of medical workers, lawyers, and young progressives. So those are going to be the most telling areas of the state.

Is there anyone, you know, Jim Clyburn represents, is the one Democrat in the congressional delegation, has a gerrymandered supermajority African-American seat. Is there one rural African-American county or two or three, you know, in that seat that you would say, OK, you know, this is an indication of where the non-city vote is going to go?

Well, yeah, there's a couple. Again, there's an area up and down Interstate 95 called the Corridor of Shame where it's poverty-ridden, poor educations, poor schools, and several of the counties bordering that area would be like a Clarendon County and a Sumter County, those sort of places. At least they have populations there. A lot of the state is just so rural that the turnout is not going to matter a whole heck of a lot. Mm-hmm.

Well, Skyler, thanks for your thoughts, and I would love to have you back on the horse race. Sure, anytime. And now we come to the ad of the week. This week's ad is from the Michael Bloomberg campaign. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars creating lots of ads, but this one particularly stands out because it deals with a political problem that everyone knows he has. It's called Greenwood, and let's listen.

For hundreds of years, Americans systematically stole black lives, black freedom, and black labor. And I know my story would have turned out very differently if I had been black. So today I'm proposing a sweeping strategy to invest in black wealth creation. The wealth gap is inextricably linked to the racial inequalities of the past. And I'm determined to make breaking that link a centerpiece of my presidency.

I'm Mike Bloomberg, and I approve this message. This ad takes clear aim at one of Mike Bloomberg's biggest weaknesses, his lack of support among the African-American community. As mayor of New York, he was often opposed by leading members of the community, in part because of policies he pursued, such as the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk anti-crime policy.

This ad is one of a series of ads that puts Bloomberg in touch with black aspirations and places him at the forefront of leading blacks to a more equal place in America. Every picture that is presented in this ad includes Mike Bloomberg either meeting with or talking with African Americans. He's giving these words at the launch of the Greenwood Initiative, which

which is an initiative that is designed, as he said, to jumpstart black wealth creation. The ad includes a black and white photo of 1960s-era civil rights protesters, all of whom are African American, and the camera lingers on it while Bloomberg's words are turned into a voiceover. This, again, reminds the viewer of the African American past and the African American future and places Bloomberg in relation to that.

The ad ends with a smiling African-American woman who is listening to Bloomberg, and you can see that she approves of his message. And she's wearing a Mike Bloomberg sticker on her sweater. This is kind of a subliminal attempt to tell the expected viewer what to do, which is to vote for Mike Bloomberg.

over 60% of the African-American voters who cast votes on Super Tuesday and in most states around the country after that will be women. So to have a middle-aged African-American woman who is a

proving Mike Bloomberg and has already declared support, this is a really smart way to communicate the desired outcome to exactly who your target audience is. Between the words, the pictures, and the editing, this is really a solid ad that can only help Bloomberg address his weakness, and that's why it's this week's Ad of the Week. ♪

Joining me on this week's Round the Horn is Steve Kornacki, political correspondent for MSNBC and NBC News. Steve, welcome to the horse race. Thanks for having me. Excited to do this.

Well, you know, we both follow politics for a living and races can be boring or exciting. And then you've got the unique Democratic presidential race, which strikes me as snafu, situation normal, all fouled up. What's your take on the state of the race? Yeah, you know, I was saying to somebody the other day, it's kind of fun to get through Iowa and New Hampshire and to really not know what's going to happen.

Usually somebody's emerged, somebody's got a clear advantage coming out of those first two, and you can see a really clear path. And I think right now I could see a path for Sanders. I could see a path for Bloomberg. I could see a lot of different possibilities right now. And I think it's just very unusual to get through the first two and have this be the case. And I think it's interesting just given what we do. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we've still got, I guess, eight people who are still in the race and counting Tulsi Gabbard. If I look at the polls, I'd say seven have a shot to get delegates out of the one of the next two. You know, Gabbard isn't polling well enough, but everybody else you can see getting delegates. I can't remember a Democratic race where it's been that wide open.

Yeah, you know, I guess this is the kind of podcast where it's safe to make political junkie references. So I can. Oh, yeah, this is a safe space for that. See, usually when I'm on the air, they tell me to steer away from like the 1988 and 1992 talk. But I'll do it here because the one that's been in my mind is 1988. If folks remember the Democratic race that year, you had some.

you know, broadly speaking, similar dynamics. Dick Gephardt win Iowa that year. Then you had Michael Dukakis, uh,

When New Hampshire, then you went to the South for Super Tuesday and a new candidate came in and that was Al Gore. And he basically had skipped the first two and he won a bunch of primaries in the South. And Jesse Jackson won the overwhelming share of the black vote in the South. He won a bunch of primaries. And it's the last time you went through Super Tuesday where you had really, you know, three candidates on Super Tuesday, 1988, who each won at least five states.

And you haven't had a situation like that since where it's been that jumbled. And there was a moment in the 88 campaign where it seemed all but certain it was going to a brokered convention. And then it didn't. It reminds me a little bit of this, and it's a good cautionary note too because sometimes –

You know, we end up looking back in hindsight and saying, wow, that really straightened itself out a lot faster than I thought it would.

And then you had the leading candidate, though, outside of the South being Jesse Jackson. And Michael Dukakis was – if you were a Democrat outside the South, it was be more conservative than with Al Gore or suck it up and vote for Dukakis.

Do we have a candidate like Jesse Jackson? Is Bernie Sanders like Jesse Jackson, where he would be so disliked or fear? People would fear so much that they might rally around somebody who they didn't particularly care for just to stop him from being the nominee. See, that's that's where it gets really interesting, I think, because I think there's a lot of talk about.

that you hear about Sanders where, where he's sort of treated that way. He's treated as the Jesse Jackson equivalent in this race where the democratic establishment's terrified of him. He's the one who is an electoral risk in the fall and, you know, the socialist label and all of that. But huge difference between Jackson and Sanders is, um,

When you took polling in 88 of, you know, Jesse Jackson versus George H.W. Bush in the general election, he'd be 30 points behind. And then you take a poll of Michael Dukakis versus George H.W. Bush and Dukakis would be maybe a few points behind, maybe tied, maybe even ahead. Obviously, Dukakis did not work out as the Democratic candidate in 1988. But in that moment, it looked like there was just a clear difference.

and really massive difference when it came to electability that you could see in the polls between a Dukakis and a Jackson. And if you look at it right now, there's not a major discernible difference between

between Sanders and head-to-heads with Trump and Bloomberg and head-to-heads or Warren or Biden. Biden does seem to do a couple points better generally, but you don't have these massive swings that the sort of anti-Sanders crowd can point to and say, see, he definitely can't win. And instead, the Sanders people can say, here's a bunch of different polls showing he can win. And oh yeah, by the way, Donald Trump is president. Doesn't that kind of prove that anybody can win? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, there used to be a saying that there were such a thing as yellow dog Democrats in the era, pre-Egan era, that meant that they'd vote for a yellow dog if it was a Democrat. You kind of have a return of the yellow dog Democrat here, not because people are party loyal, but because they hate Trump so much that they'd vote for a yellow dog as long as it was on the ballot against Donald Trump.

George McGovern would do a lot better in the political world of 2020 than he did in 1972, I think. Well, I was reading – we both are Twitter hounds. And there's somebody on Twitter ironically posted, say we did George McGovern all over again this year and didn't change a thing. Well, he would do better. He wouldn't get 37 percent of the followers.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're locked in, you know, to win a major party nomination. I think you're locked into, you know, the mid 40s and 20 states, you know, 15, 20 states. So play this out for me. Is that one of the things I constantly remind people about in my Washington Post columns is.

This isn't the Republican Party. The Republican Party gives super majorities or 100 percent of the delegates to people with pluralities of the vote. And the Democratic Party, if you get 15 percent of the vote, you get 15, maybe a little bit more percent of the delegates. You get 40 percent of the vote, you get 40 percent of the delegates, which means, of course, this encourages people like Amy Klobuchar, who in a Republican primary would already have been out.

But she can say, hey, I can get 15 percent and maybe I'll stay in. And then Elizabeth Warren drops out and I pick up a little bit. And you can almost see this game of musical chairs as people hope that somebody else loses the chair first and they pick up votes as somebody's second choice.

Game out for me kind of like the best case scenario through Super Tuesday for Bernie. And then game out for me kind of the worst case scenario through Super Tuesday for Bernie. Take into account the different demographics and all of these variables as to whether somebody hits the 15 percent threshold.

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this. I think the best case for Sanders is, look, his campaign thinks he's very strong with Hispanic voters, significantly stronger than 2016. Like they can win it, they can win it big. So he gets a big win in Nevada. He doesn't just win the Nevada caucuses. He gets a big win in the Nevada caucuses. And Biden gets

It's another face plant for Joe Biden on top of Iowa and New Hampshire. And then all of a sudden, you go to South Carolina a week later, where you still hear a lot of people saying, oh, Biden can still win South Carolina. He's got a strong base of support with black voters there. Black voters are 60% of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina. But in a world where Joe Biden whiffs again,

in Nevada, where Sanders gets a big win out of Nevada and all the attention that comes with that momentum, if you still believe in that kind of thing, then okay, Sanders rolls it into South Carolina, is able to, let's say, fight Biden to a draw with black voters, maybe even win the black vote, a plurality of it, and win the white vote in South Carolina, and suddenly Bernie Sanders wins South Carolina.

And now you're looking at Sanders has won three of the first four contests. Arguably, his campaign would say four. However you want to talk about what happened in Iowa. And then we go a few days later into Super Tuesday. And you're in a world where Bernie Sanders has just shown he can win the Hispanic vote. He can win the black vote or be very competitive with black voters. He's, as I said, won three of the first four. And there is a there.

There is a sort of bandwagon effect that becomes evident on Super Tuesday. And he wins. If you start looking at the Super Tuesday states, the biggest one, California, a lot of the votes already been done in California. Again, if Sanders, if the idea of Sanders having really strong Hispanic Hispanic support is true, huge win.

for him in California, you know, double digit 15 point, when 20 point, when that, that kind of thing in California with a bunch of the candidates missing the 15% threshold, um, either statewide or, you know, again, a bunch of these delegates are given out, you know, at the congressional district level, you know, having a lot of districts where Sanders maybe is the only one, you know, cracking that 15% threshold. So just getting a massive, uh,

not just win, but a massive delegate haul out of California, Colorado, Texas, you know, states with large Hispanic populations. And, you know, the whole Bloomberg strategy of jumping in on Super Tuesday and winning a bunch of states, you know, I think a great scenario for Sanders. You know, maybe Bloomberg wins a couple of them, but Sanders is basically able to, you know, be very competitive with him where Bloomberg wins. It's only by a few points.

And Sanders just emerges from that day with a clear lead in the delegates and to the extent it matters at all, a clear lead in the cumulative popular vote.

So that's the Bloomberg – that's the Bernie fantasy scenario is that you look at that and he probably wins eight or nine of the Super Tuesday states. He's like won 60 percent of the state so far and is clearly under that scenario, got close to a majority of delegates already selected and nobody's left as a strong contender. Paint the other picture, which is somehow Bernie –

basically does comes out of super Tuesday, maybe as the leader, but not as the favorite. Yeah. I think it's the scenario where that, that notion of a ceiling, you know, with, with Sanders has more validity to it than we realize and, and takes on, you know, gathers more validity as, as the prospect of his nomination becomes more serious. So, you know, we go to Nevada, Sanders wins, but it's another, you know, New Hampshire like victory for him. It's close. Yeah.

You know, maybe Biden is only a few points behind him. Maybe Warren has moved up late and done surprisingly well. Something that, you know, where you're left saying, well, Sanders won, but, you know, he got 26% here. He got 27%, something like that. It's still not clear that the party outside of his base is starting to rally around him. And then they go to South Carolina and, you know, he's stuck there.

with, you know, maybe 20% of the black vote in South Carolina. He stuck with about what he got with black voters in South Carolina in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, obviously spread out with other candidates. Um, but he doesn't get the win in South Carolina. He doesn't show that he's made, you know, meaningful inroads, um, with black voters in South Carolina. And, you know, maybe that means Biden winning the state, you know, still, we,

it's weird to talk about this, but Steyer, Steyer spent a fortune in South Carolina and is getting, you know, it seems about a fifth of the black vote right now. So maybe Steyer is getting a big chunk of it. And we go to super Tuesday and, you know, Bloomberg is able to run up some big numbers, you know, put some, you know, some big ones on the board and in a place like Virginia, you know, Massachusetts doesn't go to Sanders. You know, I don't know if it's Elizabeth Warren because it's her home state, maybe it's Bloomberg, but,

You know, he gets a win in California, but it's another one of these, you know, he only wins it by four points. The delegate split is more of a draw. It's much more of a mushy scenario where you emerge from Super Tuesday saying, I'm not sure Sanders can really build outside this 25, 30 percent base that he seems to have.

So, you know, which scenario would you think if you had to choose one of those two scenarios, which scenario are we looking at on March 4th? My track record with predictions in politics and sports is terrible. So I tell everybody to bet against what I'm going to say here. But no, I mean, I just what I look at with Sanders, I think, and I'll put one, I'll check myself on this at the end. So it's not really a prediction, but I,

I see what I think are the ingredients to build a bandwagon here, a big one. And I say that because you look at his favorable, unfavorable score with Democrats, and it's like 75-15. It tends to be it is at least as good as anybody else in the field, and I think better than most of the candidates in the field. And it's been that way for a year now. Democratic voters, even if they're not for him, seem to like him.

he's moved up in this question that you have in polling about who do you think is best able to beat Donald Trump? And I saw, I think it's about 40% right now, Democrats saying Sanders. It's higher than his support level. So they're starting to see him, I think, as a plausible nominee, a plausible general election candidate. He's shown an ability in polling that

You know, really no one else besides maybe Bloomberg and clearly Biden has shown to make inroads with nonwhite voters, where it's not even clear when you look at like a Buttigieg or a Klobuchar that there's any realistic scenario for them to to get significant black support, significant nonwhite support. It seems there's a clear scenario where Sanders could. So I feel like.

I'm seeing some of the seeds of what Republicans saw with Trump in 2016, where you kept hearing about a 20, a 25, a 30, a 35% ceiling with him. And you found out that in the end, Republican voters always did just kind of like the guy. There was...

more breadth ideologically to the support than he was given credit for. And as he won these primaries, the ceiling just kept rising and rising and rising. And that whole idea of, you know, once you get to a one-on-one with Trump, you remember this in the spring of 16, you know, Ted Cruz pretty much got his one-on-one in Indiana and Trump cleaned his clock. And I'm seeing polling now, I saw this in our

our NBC Wall Street Journal poll, we did a, you know, Sanders one-on-one with Michael Bloomberg. You know, if you had to choose, push people, you know, and that whole theory that most of the party is scared of Sanders and will rally to the alternative, when you give them Bloomberg versus Sanders, you know, in our poll, it was 57-37 Sanders. So it makes me think we might be looking at, you know, what Republicans looked at with Trump. The one, when I said I'll check myself at the end here, the one thing I'll say is Trump did not have

a candidate running against him who could do what Bloomberg is doing. And that is spending literally any amount of money he wants to spend. And he seems willing to spend, you know, I mean, we're just talking, we're talking at a scale and a level no one has ever spent before in one of these things. And so I think that just, that's an element where we just,

There's nothing to compare it to, and we're going to find out what, I don't know, $500 million in advertising can do in Super Tuesday states, and maybe we'll find out it's enough to start winning them with 40%, 50% of the vote. This reminds me of that scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere comes in to buy Julia Roberts a bunch of dresses, and the store guy comes up and he says, are you planning to spend a large amount of money on a really obscene amount of money? Yeah.

I think we're beyond really obscene. Yeah, I was going to say, really obscene is the starting point, right? Yeah. But so this brings me to the general election. You know, I remember the 2016 race obviously very well. And the fact is, even when Trump was cleaning Ted Cruz's clock.

his favorables among Republicans. It's hard to think of it now that he's getting huge favorable and unfavorables among Republicans. But at the time, it was about 60-40, 65-35, which is substantially less popular among Republicans in 2016 than Sanders is among Democrats right now. So I think that comparison leads towards the

gee, maybe Sanders is stronger than we think. But that brings us to the general election, which is that, yes, Sanders has a lead now, but everyone and her brother looks at the Sanders record and says all of his policies that he's known for poll wildly unfavorable. You've got a guy who was so left wing, he was an elector for Socialist Workers Party in 1980 against Jimmy Carter. He wasn't even, he's never been a Democrat. And they've

frat about the general election. Meanwhile, Donald Trump hit a new high this morning on the RealClearPolitics job approval average. First time he's been at 46% since his inauguration day.

Tell me how how sticky is this 50 percent against Trump, the negative job approval rating? Or is there real legitimacy to Democratic establishments fear and Republican establishments hope that Sanders, despite the polling right now, really is a ship that's just waiting to get sunk? Yeah, this is I don't have a good answer on this because I'm truly of two minds on it. I can see both.

Both arguments really clearly. And I'm the one thing I'm confident is I don't think anybody knows, you know. Yeah. Well, let's lay out the two arguments for the listeners. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, so start with the argument, the argument for Sanders actually being, you know, an electable candidate and maybe even more electable than some of these other Democrats, I think would start at reminding everybody that at this point in 2016, every Democrat's dream Republican nominee was Donald Trump.

Yeah.

And in fact, I think you could look at that electoral map in 2016. And I mean, I ask myself a lot. We say, you know, Trump barely won, blah, blah, blah. Well, Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Would Jeb Bush have been the first Republican in three decades to win those states? You know, would Marco Rubio, would Ted Cruz? I mean, you can make an argument that Trump did something that no other Republican could actually have done. You know, that is the argument I regularly have with other Republicans where I take the position that I don't think anyone could have.

who was nominatable. I think Kasich could have won those states, but Kasich was not nominatable.

Right. Yeah. I mean, it just there's three decades of futility there with with the McCains and Romneys of the world and and Trump pulled it up. So so if you if you start with that and then you take a look at Sanders and you use the Trump example as sort of to guide your thinking, you would say, well, you know, maybe the things that we assumed were rules in American politics, rules in terms of how you do and don't get elected. Maybe they're more up for debate than we than we previously thought. And maybe the socialist label isn't as strong.

devastating in 2020 as perhaps it was in 1980. And maybe I think the question with Sanders to me becomes one of how do you balance the personality versus, um,

some of the policies. I think, first of all, some of the policies may prove to be more popular than, again, than you assume. But there is a clear, you know, with Sanders, there is a clear, you know, very liberal bet to the policies. And with Trump in 2016, when you took the rhetoric away, the policies were actually a little bit more moderate, I think, you know, when you, you know, candidate Trump saying, I'm not going to cut Social Security, Medicare, that kind of thing. But I think,

And with Sanders, there's also a personality there that I think it's – look, he has Larry David playing him on SNL. And I think Sanders comes across as a character that I think a lot of Americans kind of appreciate. And I think they see a – keep hearing that word authenticity with him, the idea that this guy, you may not agree with him, but he's going to give it to you straight. He's going to tell you what he's thinking. He's not trying to fudge it. He's not trying to focus group it, that sort of thing.

And, you know, to the extent that those are the things that come through with him, to the extent that you've got, you know, Democrats out there who don't like him saying he's not even a Democrat, he's not a member of the Democratic Party. To the extent that may actually help Sanders with voters who don't like the Democratic Party, who don't like either party, who don't like Washington, who like the idea of, you know, this guy being detached from the political system that they detest so much.

um, I think Lauren was saying, does it put into play, you know, those same voters we're talking about in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, you know, that Western Maine where Trump won a congressional district, maybe even Iowa and Ohio, you know, did those voters come back into play? Is he able to reach them in a way that no other Democrat, um, could and, and shake up the electoral map that way. Um, and the, and the flip side would be, um,

Maybe he isn't able to, and maybe simultaneously the policy side of things scares off those sort of –

you know, suburban, you know, higher income, culturally liberal voters who the Democrats have done so well with in the 2018 midterms. And they're hoping to, you know, to capture in places like Arizona, Texas, Georgia, even Florida, scares away the suburbanites and doesn't make the inroads with the, you know, in Trump country that you might think he would. So I see both sides of it. And I, you know, it's sort of like, you know, if you nominate him, you're running a real time experiment and we'll see.

That's one of the things that makes this election so fascinating is the degree of uncertainty that you look both in the primary and the general election. You know, generally, you know, we are in a world where the rules are being rewritten, the playing field is being redrawn, and even people who follow this all the time.

just can't keep up with everything and just have to throw up your hands sometimes and say, you know, there's just a degree of unknowableness, spontaneity that we haven't had in our politics in most of our lifetime. And I think, you know, to me, it makes watching it, you know, it makes it fun because I think to me, at least we'd reached a point or at least I'd reached a point in my life

in my thinking about this where, you know, it seemed like, you know, the basic procedures of a presidential election were kind of etched in stone. And, you know, these are the things that the Republican candidate was going to do. These are the things the Democratic candidate was going to do. These are the voters who would be deciding the election. These are the voters who were all kind of baked in. And it kind of felt like American politics in a way was on autopilot. And it doesn't feel that way anymore.

No, no. We basically had World War I trench-style warfare for five straight presidential elections. And now suddenly we've developed – both sides are developing new technologies.

So you and I both like political numbers. It's Nevada, Saturday afternoon, East Coast, early evening. What are you looking for when you're doing your work on MSNBC and NBC and trying to keep track of as the results come in? What are you going to look for that will tell you who's coming out, beating expectations or falling short? The first thing I'm looking for are actual results.

um yeah this is our first shot at a caucus uh since iowa and um i mean i say that flippantly but we're not sure if if nevada has um a learned the lessons of iowa and b effectively put in procedures um that will prevent those kinds of issues from emerging again um you know they have this um

iPad, you know, that they're, that they've got at the caucus sites and they've got this early vote they're processing. So, I mean, we'll see. I think there was a lot of attention in Iowa on, on the app, you know, the problems with the app. But I think one of the other issues in Iowa that worries me a little bit in terms of Nevada and other caucus states is there's this new mandate that the DNC put in place for 2020, you know, coming out of 2016 that, you know, with these caucuses, you got to show the initial preference.

People show up at the caucus site, I'm for Biden, I'm for Sanders, whatever. Take that count. Then you've got to show the reallocated preference when the people don't, when the candidates who don't hit 15% and their supporters become free agents. And then you've got to show the final preference. And I think one of the things that Iowa revealed is that for a half century of these caucuses, the state party was just spitting out that final number and we were all just kind of taking it.

You know, that state delegate number in Iowa, county delegates in Nevada. And what you saw in Iowa was the math. When they had to show the math, it didn't add up a lot. Yeah.

And so it raises the question to me about, you know, have the Iowa caucuses always had a much bigger margin of error than we always thought? Raises the same question for Nevada. And it raises a question to me about results and what we're going to get. But if we do get results, I think, you know, I'm hoping there's a question here, too, if we're going to get precinct results immediately. I'm hoping we do. And if we do get precinct results immediately, I want to look at.

In particular, the Hispanic areas in Clark County, Las Vegas, two thirds of the vote really is going to come out of Clark County, which is which is Las Vegas, Henderson, that area. Most of the rest is going to come from Reno. But I want to get a sense with Sanders and the potential the promises campaign has been touting of breaking through with Hispanic voters, you know, if that's real.

Yeah. I'm also looking at the black areas in North Las Vegas to see whether or not this is, you know, Biden's going to break the viability threshold. He's going to do it on the basis of 30 to 40 percent of the African-American vote. And there's about 20, 30 precincts up there that are pretty good representation of what that African-American vote does. Right. We forget that with Nevada, too. We talk so much about the Hispanic vote, but it is, you know, about 10, 12 percent black vote, too. So there's there's not nothing. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Steve, it's always wonderful talking to you, and I look forward to having you back in the future on The Horse Race. Thanks a lot, and thanks for indulging my 1988 talk. I always appreciate that. Thanks for joining me. Next week, I'll dive deep into the Super Tuesday states and talk about the general election with conservative journalist Selina Zito. I'm Henry Olson. This has been The Horse Race, and I'll see you in the Winter Circle.

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