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Welcome to The Horse Race. This week, I'll be talking about New Hampshire's primary with Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, Donald J. Trump with Julie Ponzi, editor at American Greatness, and the state of the Democratic race with Sean Trendy, senior elections analyst at Real Clear Politics. All that, plus looking at the state of play in the U.S. Senate control battle. The horses are at their starting gates. They're off.
And now we're turning to Trump Talk, the part of the show where we talk all things Donald John Trump. Joining me this week is Julie Ponzi, senior editor of American Greatness, a wonderful website for which I used to write. Julie, welcome to The Horse Race. Thank you for having me.
Well, you are known as—and your site is known for one of the sites that will, from time to time, say good things about the president of the United States. So tell me what you thought about last night's speech. Well, as I was saying before we started the program, I think it's not an exaggeration to say that that was the single best State of the Union address I have heard in my
And I didn't really listen to them when I was a child. So I would say it's the best one I've ever heard. Well, I'm glad that you weren't listening to them when you were a child because that means you're normal. Exactly.
But so why is it the best? I mean, I listened to it and I thought it was extremely effective that he combined pathos with, I think, more people in the gallery than I've ever seen before. You know, Ronald Reagan started this with Lenny Skutnik when he saved people after an airline disaster on the Potomac.
And now it's turned into reality TV of its own. But I think we had 12, count them, 12 different people in the audience. Every single one of them carried on well. It was machine gun. It was just nonstop. Yeah, I mean, the thing about his use of the gallery and the...
The pathos you mentioned, that's the exact word that I was using with a friend when we were chatting about it during the speech. Trump is the first president I have seen who fully and completely embraces the nature of what the State of the Union is. Whether that was the original intention of the State of the Union is a different question, but since Woodrow Wilson, it has become—
you know, a different kind of thing, a very partisan thing. It really exists to glorify the president in a way, in a way that often I've found distasteful. But, you know, if you're going to go, if you're going to have to do this, go big or go home. And Trump went big.
Yeah. I mean, I think I heard the word I or my more times than I've ever heard in the State of the Union address. I heard partisanship. I've never heard...
division in Republican versus Democrat. He didn't use the D word, but he used the R word. And he had the three or four times when he distinguished socialism and the radical left from his viewpoint. And he didn't have to say who was on one side and who was on the other. I've never heard a State of the Union read like a convention acceptance speech for a nominating convention. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I mean, look, he came ready to do battle and he didn't, you know, the thing that Trump supporters always like about Trump is that he doesn't pussyfoot around what's actually happening. He doesn't pretend like he didn't shake Nancy Pelosi's hand. Why? Why should he?
I mean, the behavior of the Speaker of the House has been appalling. So why pretend? People have no taste for that anymore. It's very clear what's going on in the country. So let's have it out. Yeah, as you said to me earlier, this is WWE. Only in one case, it's not like WWE. I mean, there's the feuds, there's the fighting. Yeah, except it's real. I watched it.
Yeah, well, it's real and it's not scripted in the outcome, you know, which is we don't know whether or not we don't. First of all, people disagree who's the face and who's the heel. And secondly, we don't know who's going to pin who. We know who was last night.
Well, yes, but we didn't know beforehand. You know, it's gotten to the point on Friday nights when I'm watching my son is, you know, I've watched enough of these fights that I can say kick out before somebody is going to get out of the pen and time for the reversal and stuff because there's a rhythm to it. But politics isn't quite like that. But it is.
It really was a show last night and a show which he was masterful. Oh, I mean, look, they picked the wrong enemy in a way. I mean, in many ways, I think that you and I would agree about it. First of all, they're totally outclassed. They don't even know what sport they're playing. But in addition to that, it didn't.
It's so weird in a way, because it really didn't have to be that way. I know that when Trump was running in the primaries before I had become convinced that I would need to support him, part of my hesitation was that I thought he would be too much like a Democrat. And, you know, I think it's possible that he might have been.
And things may have gone very differently had their reaction to him been differently, had been different. But I think Trump has always been serious about his core issues, and it's a mistake for people to disregard all of that. But
Trump would have worked with them. They could have, if they really cared about the questions that they say they care about, and if they really cared about the people who they say they care about, they should have conducted themselves in a different way for the last four years. And now...
We've got the odd spectacle of a president last night saying that I will protect your Medicare and Social Security. And no one on the Democratic side stood up and applauded. I mean, the whole point of the Democratic Party, if I believe their rhetoric, is we brought you these things and we're the only ones that you can trust to protect them. And they can't even.
when he bows in their direction. It was a remarkable moment when he was talking about lowering the cost of drug prices and the Democrats sat on their hands. Well, and some of them started chanting the obscure name of their bill that nobody in the audience knows about and that even people in Washington had to say, huh, what's HR? Yeah. So it was just very weird.
But so where do we go from here? I've seen I think this was his best set speech, you know, but my column on Wednesday talked about teleprompter Trump versus Twitter Trump.
that teleprompter Trump delivers these sorts of speeches where he can both, you know, use the shiv and hold out your heart, the pathos and the sheer knife-fighting ability simultaneously. And then within 96 hours, he seems to go back to, let's forget the good side, let's forget the pathos, let's just get back to the knife fight. Yeah.
My question to you, though, is who on Twitter does anything but shiv people? I mean, Twitter is, again, this is going back to embracing the medium. Trump embraced the medium of the State of the Union speech, and Trump embraces the medium of Twitter. And why shouldn't he? Because this is the world we live in, and you have to use the forms as they actually exist.
And you can't do that if you don't understand what they are. And I guess the thing that I appreciate about Trump is that he understands things as they are.
So you're in line—Victor Davis Hanson, a mutual friend of ours who also writes for American Greatness, has said in the past that Trump is kind of like the unsavory gunfighter that the town on the Western frontier calls in to get rid of the bad guys. You may not want to have him in your home, or you may not want to elect a mayor, but you're willing to back him while he gets rid of the people. Yeah, sort of the Liberty Valance guy.
metaphor that a lot of people use during the election. Yeah, only Liberty Valens being, in this case, the John Wayne character. Yeah. Do you subscribe to that? Or do you, because even that kind of says, hey, you know, there's something about this guy that's not quite
my cup of tea. Are you in the Victor Davis Hanson camp or are you more, and have you come over or have you always been somebody who says, actually this guy's, you know, to borrow Harvey Mansfield phrase, this guy's manliness personified. I mean, I think Trump is the man we need and, and also the man we deserve. So, and that, and I mean that in every, every sense, but,
And I do think he is a sincere patriot. So...
I don't know if that was part of the script, but I think that was 100% true. Yes, that's 100% true. Yeah, I mean, he's been talking the same line on trade for 30 years. Nothing has changed in his opinions about that. So great speech.
Good, you know, contrast with the Democrats. And it's going to be followed by today's impeachment vote where I take it from my critical view. I just want to say one thing. What president takes the week during which there will be a vote on his impeachment and turns it into, whether by serendipity or by sheer force of will, one of the best weeks of his presidency?
Well, maybe we should call it providence and place causation. I believe that. But so today impeachment, which started, you know, it's going to be kind of like a March in like a lion out like a lamb. And Romney, I guess, announced an hour or so ago that he was. Yeah. Which is, of course, a myth thing to do.
What do you think happens from here? Is impeachment going to be something that just rolls off everyone's back, or is it going to be something that Trump can use to his advantage? So far, he's used it to his very great advantage, it seems to me. You know, comments I was getting from people last night in social media, people who are friends of mine from high school, not necessarily, you know, really particular people,
type of people saying things like Trump broke the Democrats. You know, I don't see going forward their behavior has been exposed as petulant, petty, irrational, frightening are words I've heard describing it. I think he's opening people's eyes to...
Perhaps through his outrageous behavior, causing them to behave even more outrageously than he said to be acting. He's unmasking the tyranny that lurks in their souls. That's what I think. So...
And I'm trying to remember which character on Thrasymachus. That's what I was saying. So basically, you're saying that the Democratic Party was amassed Thrasymachus. Yes. And Trump is our. In fact, we have a piece right now up at American Greatness called Nancy Pelosi Tyrant, written by one of our great writers, Jay Wigg. And it argues exactly that it starts with the opening lines of the republic. What if I refuse to listen?
which is exactly what Nancy Pelosi did. Interesting. Of course, what if I refused to listen to what Socrates says to the slave boy sent to command? No, Socrates says, what if I try to persuade you that you shouldn't take me off? And his interlocutors say, what if we refuse to listen? That's tyranny. Okay.
Back to book one. So, last thoughts. A week from now, what will we be talking about with respect to President Trump? How he's going to stave off the next attack. Which they've already telegraphed. Yes, I mean, they have no other playbook. I mean, it's the same playbook, whether it's Trump, whether it's Brett Kavanaugh, whether
whether it's Neil Gorsuch, whether it's, you know, any one of Trump's people, whether it's just ordinary Americans whom they despise. It's attack after attack after attack. We are in a battle for the regime. It's a regime question level at this point. And that's why the divisions are so acrimonious and
Because we aren't just talking about policy. We're talking about what kind of country we're going to be. And what kind of people we are. Well, on that cheery, hopefully cheery, but possibly depressing note, Julie, thank you for joining me on the horse race. Thanks for having me.
Welcome to State of Play, the portion of the podcast where we go deep into one of the key states in the Union and try and explain what's going on and why people are doing well or why they're not. And joining me today is Dante Scala. Dante is a longtime friend and co-author of a book called
the four faces of the Republican Party. He is a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire and the author of his own book, Stormy Weather, a guide to the New Hampshire primary and the indispensable book for anyone who wants to know the ins and outs of the Granite State's first in the nation full voter event. He has studied the New Hampshire primary since 2000, and I can think of no better person in the entire country to have to talk about next Tuesday's race. Dante, welcome to The Horse Race. Thanks very much, Henry.
Well, so you're up there, you know, here in Washington, we're worried about the State of the Union and Nancy Pelosi ripping pieces of paper on national television. What's going up where it matters? What do the polls say about candidates who's doing well among in the Democratic race and who's gaining or who's losing? Well, over the last two weeks prior to the Iowa caucuses,
we saw Bernie Sanders take a narrow but consistent lead in the polls over, say, nine or ten different polls. And that was true going into Iowa. So it was Bernie and then Joe Biden mostly, and then Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, a little bit from Amy Klobuchar. Now, after Iowa—
Sanders still leads. But what I think is happening is that if you're not with Bernie in New Hampshire at this point, that is, if you're not a very progressive voter, if you're not under the age of 35, if you don't live along the Vermont border in the state's Connecticut River Valley,
If you're a moderate or moderately liberal voter, you're out shopping and you're looking for an alternative to Bernie Sanders, whom you might like personally. You think he's too extreme. You think he's unelectable. You know, there are a number of reasons, but you're out shopping for an alternative. So in other words, Sanders ends in front, but we shouldn't at all be surprised if Sanders isn't in front on election night.
That, I think, is possible. Sanders is ahead, but he is catchable given a candidate with a momentum surge. So I think he doesn't have what we would describe as a firewall, even in New Hampshire. But
he likely has the strongest base of any candidate out there. So his floor is solid, but he didn't appear to achieve a victory in Iowa that's so convincing that a lot of New Hampshire voters will follow suit. And we also saw in Iowa that his base—like,
Not only did he not bring a lot of new voters to the polls, apparently, but his base is solid but narrow. There are restrictions, and those restrictions could come into play in New Hampshire as well. So he's potentially vulnerable.
Yes. In other words, Bernie is the chai latte of the drink. Some people love it, but most people may not ever want to order it. Right. And that was one of the questions that I was wondering about coming into New Hampshire was, is that overblown somewhat that Bernie is either your first choice or your last choice? And maybe he actually is—
someone who could build a coalition across the various factions of the Democratic Party, you know, and then maybe he's more like Joe Biden than we thought. At least so far, the results from Iowa suggest, no, he is that, you know, that latte that you spoke of. And now we'll see in New Hampshire in his backyard whether that happens here as well.
So tell me, a lot of people hypothesize about momentum and bounces. Tell me about the history, the data, you know, not the made-up stories and anecdata, but what do the data tell us about Iowa bounces in Democratic primary contests? Is there one, or is it kind of a hit or miss, depending on the circumstances? I would say you think about recent
Democratic primaries, it's a bit hit or miss. You think back to 2000, Al Gore versus Bill Bradley. Gore wins Iowa convincingly. But then Bill Bradley comes to New Hampshire, a state with an awful lot of what Ron Brownstein used to call—I don't know if he still does—Volvo Democrats, well-educated, affluent. Bradley made a comeback in
in between Iowa and New Hampshire, despite the fact that he had lost Iowa. Al Gore hung on, but it was Bradley who built between Iowa and New Hampshire. You go forward to 2004, that's the best example I can think of of
and Iowa bounce. And that was when there were two New England candidates in the race, Vermont Governor Howard Dean versus Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Kerry basically is losing and losing again and again to Howard Dean all year long in 2003. He winds up decamping to Iowa, leaving his New Hampshire campaign behind,
wins Iowa in something of a surprise, and then comes to New Hampshire, wins in a walk. Howard Dean spins out of control, and then Kerry proceeds to the nomination easily. 2008, Barack Obama wins Iowa.
comes to New Hampshire. And remember, that year, Iowa and New Hampshire were less than a week apart. Iowa took place later in the week. I think it was Wednesday or even Thursday. And everyone expected, myself included, that Obama would carry momentum through. He had been very competitive in New Hampshire all year long. But it was Hillary Clinton who
who wound up surging over that weekend, perhaps, or even the Monday, and winning in a pretty close race. And then, of course, we go to 2016. Clinton wins Iowa narrowly. Doesn't help her at all, really, in New Hampshire, where Sanders wins by 20-some points. So it is, as you say, it's hit or miss. But
I will say that I think there are more similarities between Iowa Democrats and New Hampshire Democrats than there are between Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans. The latter differ quite a bit in terms of their social conservatism, for example, in terms of their religiosity. So I think Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats tend to have more in common, despite their separate geography, than on the other side of the aisle.
So tell me about the geography of New Hampshire. Tell me about what is the Democratic votership?
voter blocs in New Hampshire? And if you're looking on election night, where would you expect different types of candidates to do better? You can think of New Hampshire in kind of three or four sections. The first one is basically the outer ring of the Boston suburbs. That's in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, which are on the Massachusetts border. And about half
About half of the Democratic primary electorate will come from those two relatively densely populated counties, relatively, you know, for New Hampshire. Then you can throw in the Merrimack County, where the state capital of Concord is, and Stratford County, where I am, which is where the state university is, UNH, and that's another 20 percent of the vote.
Then go west to the Vermont border and up and down the Connecticut River Valley, there's another 20% of the Democratic primary electorate. And it's very rural out there, but it also tilts very much Democratic. And then kind of throw in the northern part of the state, that's another roughly 10% of the electorate.
So if Bernie's going to win New Hampshire, he's going to roll up margins in university towns and along the border with Vermont.
If Buttigieg is going to win, he's going to have a significant margin in the suburban counties and not get killed elsewhere. Where's the path to victory for somebody like a Warren or a Biden recovery or, you know, God forbid, Clomentum finally shows up? I think for Joe Biden, I think you would have to think it would come, be led by white working class wards in California.
New Hampshire's two major cities, which are Manchester, which is about 100,000 people, give or take, and Nashua, which is a bit smaller. And then go to other smaller cities. And sometimes in New Hampshire, cities are smaller than towns. But the cities of Claremont,
Summersworth, Rochester, you would think those white working class areas would lead a Biden resurgence. For Warren, I think, yes, she would cut into
Sanders margins in college towns in the Connecticut River Valley on the Vermont border. But I also suspect that she would need to do well in some of those suburban areas of Hillsborough, Rockingham counties, where you do find affluent, college-educated people.
Democrats who are liberal, but they're somewhat liberal, Henry. They're like the somewhat conservatives that you and I talked about in our book. They're in the mainstream of the party. They're somewhat liberal. And it's interesting, Warren has been running an ad here that talks about bringing people together. It features, among others, someone who said she was a Republican, but she came to the
And Warren has been trying unsuccessfully so far to present herself as the person who can unite the Bernie and Joe Biden wings of the party and be the so-called unity candidate. And this commercial, to me, you know, tries to sell voters on the fact that Warren can bring unity. So I do think she would need to do well, certainly among areas with
filled with voters with a college degree. Because what's striking is, despite all the talk about Elizabeth Warren being a populist, she is a college professor's idea of a populist candidate. And it shows in the crosstabs of polling that she really struggles among working class voters. Here in New Hampshire, her best
niche is among those not just with a college degree, but those with a graduate degree? Well, you know, people are what they are. And she is a college, a law school professor at the school that holds itself out to be the best law school in the country. And it's hard to overcome who you are when you are under exposure 24/7/365.
So walk me through. It's election night. You really want to be a super geek like you and I are. Walk me through the top four candidates and tell me what one or two towns are you going to be looking at to say this person's running ahead, behind, or even with projection. Let's see. For Sanders, I would look at the city of Keene.
Along, again, in the Cheshire County, along the Connecticut River Valley. For Pete Buttigieg, I would look at the town of Bow, which is right outside of the capital of Concord. Again, lots of well-educated, affluent voters there.
For Elizabeth Warren, I would look at the city of Portsmouth, a liberal bastion along the seacoast. And for Joe Biden, I would look at the city of Manchester, especially on—here's especially geeky—the west side of the city of Manchester, where you can still find people speaking—or
In foreign languages, French Canadians going to diners,
On that West side, very working class, there's a state senator there named Lou D'Alessandro, who's been a senator for a very long time. And it's kind of a throwback to he once was a liberal Republican and he converted to become a moderate to conservative Democrat, big Biden supporter. So for Biden, I would say the West side of Manchester and then the town of Goffstown, which is adjoining it, kind of more of a working class white area.
Well, Dante, as always, I know you will be extremely busy on election night. And where can listeners who want to follow your detailed analysis find you? On election night, starting at 8 Eastern time, you can find me at New Hampshire Public Radio. And I'm sure they will have a live stream online of our election coverage, which will be wall to wall until 11 o'clock or midnight, whenever it's over.
Whenever it's over. Well, isn't Iowa proving that it's never over? It's as Yogi said, it's over when it's over or it's not over until it's over. So many. I want to, I want to, I want to stress Henry that we have seven degrees, 700 degrees of separation between New Hampshire and Iowa. 700 degrees of separation. Okay. Well, on that note, thank you for joining me on the horse race Dante and good luck next Tuesday night.
You're very welcome, Henry.
On this week's Undercard, I'm going to be talking about the U.S. Senate. We know from this Kavanaugh hearings and impeachment that the Senate is much more powerful in many ways than the House. And we also know that it's controlled by the Republican Party, not the Democrats. So are Republicans likely to stay in control? Well, that in part depends on the states that are in play. See, unlike the House, all 100 senators are not elected every two years.
They are elected to six-year terms, and so consequently, only about a third of the senators are up at any one time. That played into Republican hands last year because it was a year when Democrats were defending the vast majority of seats, many of which in states that Donald Trump had carried. That's why even as Republicans were losing governorships, hundreds of state legislative seats, and control of the U.S. House, they picked up seats in the U.S. Senate.
This year, it won't be quite as favorable for them, however. There are 35 seats in play this year, and 23 of them are held by Republicans. Many of them are in safe, deep red states, but a number of them are in states that Democrats can win, and that gives Democrats hope.
The states that most people look at as most competitive are Arizona, where Martha McSally, who lost to Kyrsten Sinema in 2018 but was appointed to John McCain's vacant seat by Republican Governor Doug Ducey, is up 4%.
for election, and she is going to be facing, likely, Mark Kelly, the former astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords, an Arizona congresswoman who was considered a rising star before she was grievously wounded in a crazed gun attack in Tucson in 2010.
Kelly has been raising millions and millions of dollars. Like many Democratic challengers, he is gaining support, financial support, from lots of small-dollar donors nationwide as progressives mobilize to defeat anything Republican. But Arizona remains a Republican-leaning state. And while polls show roughly a toss-up, this is a race that's likely to go down to the wire.
Colorado is another state that Democrats have their target on, and this one looks like it might be a stronger bet for them. Cory Gardner, the Republican incumbent, won the Republican landslide year of 2014, but his is the only statewide victory for a governor, president, or senatorial candidate for the Republican Party this decade.
Donald Trump looks to be unpopular in a state that's dominated by Denver's growing suburbs and the Boulder area community. And Gardner looks to be a difficult shot for reelection. If there's any seat that most people think is going to be picked up by the Democrats, it's going to be Colorado. But after this, it gets a little harder for the Democrats. North Carolina is considered in play, but North Carolina still leans slightly red, even though population growth is occurring in largely blue areas of Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham.
Tom Tillis is the Republican incumbent, and he doesn't look to be in any particularly weak shape. This is another race that will go down to the wire, but where the demographics slightly favor the Republican.
Then we get into states where the candidates are stronger on the Republican side. Maine, which we discussed last week, is a state that on paper should go Democratic, but Susan Collins has managed to make a different image for herself, casting herself in her votes and in her demeanor as a moderate person who represents Maine first and her party second. Again, this is a race that's likely to go down in the wire, but the respected inside elections
analyst Nathan Gonzalez has the race as tilt Republican right now.
And then we get into decidedly more red territory. Iowa used to be a swing state, but most people are saying it's now turned pretty solidly red. The Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, won last year by about four points, even though all the polls showed her running behind. And most people think Donald Trump will win this state. The only question is the margin. That makes Joni Ernst a theoretical target, much less likely to be picked off by the Democrats in anything but a solid red, blue year.
And then we have what can only be called reaches. Kansas hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate since the Great Depression. But the prospect of running against a weak nominee who lost the governor's race for Republicans in 2018, Chris Kobach, has some people thinking that the open Kansas Senate seat could turn blue. It won't unless Kobach's the nominee. And even then, it'll be an uphill fight.
The Republicans don't have many target opportunities this year, but there is one that's considered almost a chip shock for them, and that's Alabama. Alabama is about as deep red as they come these days. And Doug Jones, the embattled Democratic incumbent, is somebody who won his seat only because of the massive unpopularity of the Republican nominee, Judge Roy Moore.
Moore's running again, but he's not running well. He's not coming anywhere close in the polls. And former senator and former attorney general Jeff Sessions looks to be the inside track for the nominee of the Republicans. It'll be almost impossible for Jones to pick off a popular senator returning to a red state to call it home and reclaim his seat. So that's almost a guaranteed pickup for the Republicans. And then you have the state of Michigan.
Republican John James ran a surprisingly strong race against multi-term incumbent Debbie Stabenow in 2018, and he's back. He's challenging the person considered to be the weaker of the state's two senators, Senator Gary Peter. And while Democrats...
have an advantage demographically in Michigan. This is also a classic example of the Obama-Trump blue-wall state where blue-collar voters have been moving to the Republican Party during the Trump administration. If James, who's been able to raise quite a bit of money, manages to catch fire and Trump manages to pick up steam, this could be the surprise upset of the campaign as an African-American man takes the state of Michigan on the back of white working-class votes.
However, we have to say it leans Democrat at this time. This is for the Republicans what Iowa or North Carolina are for the Democrats, the sort of seat that can be picked up only if there's a big mistake by the incumbent or if the party who's seeking the seat is picking up steam as they go to Election Day.
The odds are that the Democrats will not take control of the Senate, but there are enough seats in play and things could develop that it's still much more possible to think of a Democratic Senate at this stage than there is a Republican House. And if that happens, if the Democrats were able to take control of the Senate, it would likely be at a time when they're also taking control of the presidency and would have an opportunity to see what unified Democratic Party control of Washington would bring after four years of Donald Trump.
Joining me this week on Round the Horn is Sean Trendy, the Senior Elections Analyst at RealClearPolitics.com. Sean, welcome to the horse race. Oh, thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Well, there were a lot of people who were excited to be in Iowa until somewhere around 11 p.m. on Monday night when it became clear that the only thing worse than the Iowa Democratic Caucus debacle is the Poseidon adventure, where a few people made it out okay. Yeah.
But we now have some results. They have 75 percent of the vote in as we are recording this. So and Pete Buttigieg has a 28 delegate lead among these all important state delegate equivalent vote, even though Bernie Sanders has more votes than Sanders, than Buttigieg in actual votes cast. Tell me what to make about of this.
Other than it's a complete and total mess. I'm not exactly sure. Mess is the true version for a lot of things. Yeah. I think the honest answer is we're not going to know what to make of it for quite some time. It's one of those times when the – sorry about that. It's one of the times when the –
are going to be a lot more useful than the contemporaneous takes on things. I think right now it's a good night for Buttigieg, right? Like it was looking for a while, like he was probably going to have to close up shop after coming in third or fourth in Iowa. And now he probably makes it through to Super Tuesday.
If Sanders had to not win, this is probably the way he wanted to not win, you know, kind of in a muddled split decision. And there's just no way, no two ways around it. It's a disaster for Biden. Yeah.
Well, do you think, you know, so far nobody's dropped out of the race. Even Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer are gamely hanging in there. That's kind of unusual. Usually somebody wakes up, smells the coffee, and goes home. But everyone's going into New Hampshire. And what do you think? You know, where does the race stand at this moment, knowing that Iowa, instead of providing clarity, simply clouded the –
the glass. Well, I think, excuse me, that's, I think that's why everyone is going forward is that, you know, Joe Biden just had this massive face plant, uh,
And no one knows how it's going to shake up. Like, does he just, does Biden just collapse? In which case, you know, half the vote is up for grabs. Does, you know, so why wouldn't you stick it out and see if maybe you can gobble up something? I mean, Michael Bennett, I'm not sure exactly what he's still doing in the race. But, you know, the idea is if Biden does disappear,
the establishment is going to want someone they can turn to. They're not just going to swallow Bernie Sanders or to a lesser degree, Warren as the nominee. So why not stick around and hope you're the person? I mean, don't you think? I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, no, I think I've always thought that there's a very good chance that we'll have five serious or four serious candidates plus Mike Bloomberg on Super Tuesday because I
if nobody's breaking clear and you're trading marginal victories with the Democrats, a poor proportional representation rules, uh,
Why not just stick it out, accumulate delegates and see where the chips fall? Because it's not like the Republican Party where you lose three races and suddenly the opposition has a insurmountable delegate lead and you might as well call it a shot. And so many delegates are up on Super Tuesday and you only have to get 15 percent in any particular region to
or state to get delegates. So why not? This is your only chance at the brass ring for a lot of these people. Why not grab it when you can? Yeah, exactly. I mean, Bernie Sanders isn't getting any younger. Elizabeth Warren isn't getting any younger. You know, maybe, and someone like Michael Bennett, even if he's not going to be the nominee, he's on the younger side, if he can put in a decent showing, or Klobuchar. Yeah.
you know, maybe it's worth it for 2024 or 2028, depending how this goes. I don't know, you kind of allude to this too, but the other thing I think is there's a reasonable possibility no one has close to a delegate majority by the end of this. And so if you have a delegate or two, you're in play, right? For the convention. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
One of my favorite political history nuggets is Lincoln's description of how he lost the 1856 Senate slot in Illinois, not the one that he ran against Douglas, but the one before that, where he comes in with the Republicans and it's less than a majority. Democrats come in, it's less than a majority. And it's like seven Illinois state legislators behind this
free-soil Democrat, and the free-soil Democrat is the one who wins. Goes to the Senate.
You know, I'm looking at this and thinking, you know, as long as you're in the game, it's very easy to say, hey, this is an old style convention. I'm the candidate who's the least defensive among all of the party factions, even though I'm fifth in delegate strength. Let's cut the deals. So what do you think? Like how I kind of think a brokered convention is very much on the table this time.
Given like Iowa was a major necessary precondition, it's not sufficient, but the way Iowa shook out, it could not have shaken out any better for a brokered convention.
I agree 100%. I've thought for a long time that the brokered convention was a real possibility because of the – it's a strong field, but every strong candidate has weaknesses, and that means no breakout. And that's exactly what Iowa provided was no breakout for anybody. Yeah.
And all you have to do is get through St. Patrick's Day with three or four serious candidates in the race because 62% of the delegates will have been locked up by them. You know, if somebody doesn't have a clear knockout or technical knockout by that time, it's almost impossible for somebody to start lapping up enough delegates to win. And then it's the most exciting convention since at least 1976, if not 1952. Yeah, I think that's...
That's 100% right. I think people who dismiss, and a lot of political scientists dismiss it because they read the party decides one time too many. But which, you know, I'm preaching to the choir here. Your rejoinder is probably, well, one time is too many. But, you know,
Well, I understand the thesis, but I never agree. It's a good book. I think I've always thought it was incorrect, but it's a good book. But, you know, people kind of poo-poo the idea. But, you know, in 2008, if John Edwards stays in through Super Tuesday, one more race, probably have a contested convention.
In 2012, if like 20,000 voters in Michigan and Ohio changed their minds, it's not clear Romney wins. In 2016, if the RNC doesn't arbitrarily set a bunch of rules at the end so that the last few contests are winner-take-all, there's a very good chance that Trump doesn't have a delegate majority. So—
You know, these things are not outside the realm of possibility. No, not at all. And then you've got the New York centibillionaire who has just decided to spend some pocket change, maybe a billion or two on TV ads. What do you think about Michael Bloomberg? All over my – I write for The Washington Post, and so I'm on the website all the time.
After Iowa, I saw something I hadn't seen before, which is ads blanketing it. Stop the chaos. Mike will get it done. Can Mike get it done? Can he win a primary? Can he take advantage of this and say, I'm the unifying candidate? So I think this is a story, again, like the brokered convention. If you're talking about necessary preconditions for Bloomberg to win, I think Iowa is
basically wasn't like the way it's shaken out is a necessary precondition. Uh, Bloomberg's gamble has been all along been, I'm going to let these smos fight it out in the first four States, let them tear each other apart on the debate stage, uh,
I'm going to just, you know, wait in the wings, try to get my image up in the Super Tuesday states and beyond. And hopefully Joe Biden doesn't win Iowa and then roll. You know, hopefully he emerges from South Carolina bloodied and battered and the establishment has to figure out where it's going to go. Not a crazy gamble on his part. And, you
I think there's a lot more that has to happen, but he is as well positioned as he could hope to be. Yeah. And then you've got a couple of debates coming up. You're going to have a debate before New Hampshire. Yeah.
Does this matter? You know, we know in 2016 that Marco Rubio had momentum, not enough momentum to win New Hampshire, but it looked like he might be the establishment choice. And then he royally screws up in the debate before New Hampshire loses the momentum and never recovers.
Does somebody – and Wednesday, Joe Biden starts attacking Buttigieg and Sanders in a way he hasn't so far, which of course if you're being knocked out and getting ready to be kicked out of the ring, you got to start fighting back.
Do we see a debate that instead of the last few, which have been effectively choreographed snooze fest, do we see feisiness and some explosive moments and maybe some unscripted conflict at the next debate? I mean, I think so. At a certain point, you know, these candidates have to decide, do you want to be president?
And do you want to be president involves in this situation where everyone's kind of bunched up at 25% or below, going after your opponents. And Biden has kind of been running a Rose Garden strategy. You know, I'm Barack Obama's third term. You know, I'm the nice guy. People like me. And it's not working. So if he wants to be president—
he's going to have to throw haymakers and people have not wanted to really go after Buddha judge that hard because, you know, he's likable and he was in fourth place in Iowa, third place in Iowa, but you know, no one really thought he had a shot at the nomination, but I mean, he, he is a legitimate threat now. So you have to go after him. So, yeah, I think, I think,
I think it's going to be ugly. Yeah. Woo-hoo! I mean, look, it's great for clicks.
I think it's great for President Trump. Yeah. Not so much for the Democrats, but... No, but this is the thing, is that for the last, at least the last six months, there's been so many establishment left Democrats. So much unites us rather than divides us. Why don't, you know, let's concentrate on Trump, completely ignoring the fact that, A, about a third of the Democratic Party actually dislikes the...
establishment Democrats only slightly last and they dislike Republicans. And B, you've got ego on the line. Somebody who wants to be president of the United States isn't going to suddenly wake up one day and say, you know, I ought to be nice because it's okay for me to give up my one chance at the White House because I dislike Donald Trump. That's just not the way these people think. And now we're going to get to see it all on display. And my question is,
Sometimes it's good, you know, it's like NASCAR. Sometimes you want to challenge for the lead. Sometimes you want to bump somebody into the wall. And sometimes you want to draft. And when somebody else is using their gas, you want to pop out. Do you see any candidate...
who's in their interest to, you know, in a political sense, draft behind the fight, you know, let, you know, let somebody, two or three people duke it out and kind of position yourself that you're going to be the person who's going to say, I'm the unifier. You know, I'm the person who's got all the, you know, covers all the weakness. Yes, Joe, you're right about Pete. And I'm, you know, I've got this, that,
you know, experience or you're right about Sanders. I've been a Democrat all my life and he doesn't even have the decency to join the party he wants to lead. Do you see anyone who would play that or is this just going to be a five on five smash mouth debate? That's a good question. I would say.
So, you've seen this before, right? Like, 2004 Democrats, Gephardt and Dean do kind of the murder-suicide, and it allows Kerry to come up. And actually, back in 1988, Gephardt went after Simon, and it knocked them both down and kind of opened the door for Dukakis.
If I were going to advise candidates, so I think Buttigieg is, you know, going to take it from all sides. Maybe Warren tries that. You know, Biden has to fight. Right.
He has to show he really wants to be president. Sanders, I think, has to fight. He's going to get it no matter what because he's a frontrunner. Maybe Warren, maybe—I think the strongest argument would be for Klobuchar, right? Like, she's at death's door politically, and her problem is, you know, she doesn't have a clear lane like everyone else. Like, there's no core identity for Amy Klobuchar, right?
And so if she wants like the one that might be left for her is kind of what you say, the unifying conciliator that can satisfy all party factions. And so it's actually it might actually be good for her if the other three or four tear each other apart. And she's just kind of presenting herself as a reasonable, sane alternative who can beat Trump.
Trump gave what I call in my column on Wednesday, teleprompter Trump rather than Twitter Trump came out last night and delivered not only a hard-hitting partisan speech, the most partisan State of the Union that I've ever heard, but also a State of the Union filled with emotion and pathos. More people in the audience getting, you know, basically gifts from Grandpa Santa Trump. Hey, your husband's home. Guess what?
that appeals to moderates and minorities. What a great 72 hours for him. Are we looking at a Trump who, instead of maybe being at best a toss-up, is moving into being a slight favorite for re-election? Or is this just, you know, the usual Washington overreaction to the recent stimuli? Yeah, I mean, there have been so many times that, you know, people have said, okay, this is the moment Trump became the president. Right.
And then he goes out and does something nuts. So, look, I think if Trump just was reasonably quiet, touted his accomplishments—
um, you know, he would roll, especially given how the democratic primary is, is coming about. I just don't think he's capable of it. Uh, he, he likes to be the center. It's not even just that he likes to be the center of attention. He thinks being the center of the story is how you remain relevant, right? Like he grew up in media and it's a little different being president. There is such thing as bad publicity. Um, so, but, but look, this, this is,
The only way the last 72 hours could have gone better for him would have been if Mitt Romney voted to acquit. And it was – and a couple of Democrats crossed over. Like it was – it's been a very – and his – I mean Gallup has his job approval at 49 percent. So, yeah, I kind of like his odds. Does he need to –
If you were going to ask poll people who do election analysis for a living a month ago, I think the majority view would have been Trump needs a favorable Democratic opponent to be the favorite.
Is that still the case? I'm not saying whether you ever subscribe to that, but if it were at one time the case, is it still the case or is he moving to the point where, hey, you know, there isn't anyone who really looks like they can, A, win the Democratic nomination and, B, position against this guy? Has he, you know, does he depend on weakness anymore?
Yeah, you're like, I think you've always been more bullish on Trump's reelection than a lot of people, in part because of how this thing is playing out. You know, he's got the good economy on his side. He's kind of right now, at least he's able to hover above the fray. I don't know what most other people would think, because it's kind of like in 2016, you and I,
were probably the most bullish on Trump. And I still thought he was going to lose. I can't remember if you thought he was going to lose or not.
I thought he was going to lose extremely narrowly. But as I wrote in my pre-election memo, I said it is likelier that he wins and that Hillary Sanders wins the popular vote by three. Hillary Sanders, isn't that a... Hillary Clinton wins the popular vote by three percent. Yeah. You were the least wrong of all of us. But, yeah. But, you know, I think it was frustrating, you know,
Because I was saying like, yeah, there's a real chance. I didn't think it was quite as good, but people just didn't want to hear it. Right. Like,
No, they did not. Trust me from my Twitter feed the day before and the day of the election. Yeah, I mean, even in like the summertime when Trump was down like two points, I would say, hey, guys, look, Trump's down by two points. That's a bad fact. And this isn't supposed to be happening. People, oh, you know, it's clearly just that the Democrats are having their fight. And after the convention's over, they're going to rally and Trump's going to lose by 20s. I don't think so. Yeah.
So I think there's some of that still going on, that people just, you know, who, to his credit, is progressive, but from the outset has said that he thought Trump should be the favorite as Eric McGee out in California. But yeah, I think right now most people still would consider Trump an underdog, but I don't right now. I don't consider him a strong favorite yet.
But if I had to place a bet, I'd bet on him right now. So let's look ahead for the next couple of weeks.
It's in that wonderful world of chaotic politics where anyone who tells you what's going to happen is clearly somebody who's not to be trusted because too much can happen. But what's your best educated guess for where the race looks after South Carolina and we head into all important supertube news?
I mean, I, so I was actually discussing this with my boss on the way to school for me to teach. And I really think like any honest answer is I have no clue.
So, I think Sanders probably wins New Hampshire. And so, there's a question of whether Buttigieg comes in second. If Biden finishes third or fourth in New Hampshire and doesn't win Nevada, then we really get to see how strong his support among African-Americans is, right? Because South Carolina's primary electorate is like 67% African-American. If they're strongly for Joe, he'll still win, but-
I think the main thing is after South Carolina, you'll definitely have Bloomberg. You'll definitely have Sanders. You'll probably still have Buttigieg and probably one of Warren and Biden, if not both. Yeah. And,
And that means a very messy Super Tuesday where nobody racks up delegates. Exactly. You don't – it would be better if you like the idea of a brokered convention. It would be better if it were three or four. If it gets up to five, then you start getting people missing the 15% threshold and not getting delegates. Whereas if it's three or four, people get delegates in every state. But that's kind of where I think it's headed. It's just going to be – it's going to be such a mess. Yeah.
Well, it sounds to me like my 50-year love affair with Milwaukee is going to continue and that I ought to head to Mater's in June and grab myself a bratwurst beer because it's going to be wild. Sean, thank you for joining me on The Horse Race. Thanks for having me. That's all for this week.
Next week, I'll be diving deep into Nevada and South Carolina, the final two Democratic contests before Super Tuesday, and Minnesota 7, the most Republican seat held by a House Democrat. This has been The Horse Race. I'm Henry Olson, and I'll see you next week in the Winner's Circle. Ricochet. Join the conversation.