Breaking Battlegrounds Primary Election Night Coverage - Hour 1 featuring Matt Lewis
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Now on 960 The Patriot, you're listening to live primary coverage with Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Brought to you by Breaking Battlegrounds.

Welcome to the Breaking Battlegrounds breakdown of election results in Arizona and across the country. If you are wondering who these guys you've never heard on your radio before are, it means you don't tune in Saturdays at 3 p.m. here in Arizona. We are also on in Tampa at 10 a.m. on Saturdays. Expanding to some other markets, we're going to be calling all the races for you tonight. We have some early results from other states, Missouri, Michigan, Kansas, Georgia,

We have a very competitive set of races here in Arizona to talk about. Early results just pouring in here in Maricopa County. Chuck, the big take, the big race everyone's talking about, the governor's race. Karen Taylor Robeson, Carrie Lake. Early returns do not look good for Carrie Lake. And disclosure, I'm part of her team.

And her policy director have worked on this for over a year. So they don't look good in Maricopa County. Yeah. We also realize this is a big state. We have Pima. We have rural counties. We also have these these votes do not count today's people who voted today. So we could be in for a long week. We could. We could. Dear friends, we will not be here for that whole long week. But we want you to know this could be buckle up.

We're here for four hours with you tonight. So we're on until midnight. Early returns, really surprising, quite frankly, that that is that big a lead for Karen Taylor. None of the polling showed anything like that leading up to this. Well, it's funny. We...

Brad, as you know, one of our data guys, kept doing these IVRs and live calls every week, and he showed that. But we only did Maricopa and Pima, so we didn't take much to it, but it showed that all week. Well, and there actually are some issues in Pinal and Pima County tonight with the vote. Well, they ran out of Republican ballots. How do you do that? That is either malfeasance or incompetence of the highest level. It's incompetence. I don't think it's malfeasance. Oh, I don't know. Pima County, I have real questions about.

Penelope's incompetence. You're a Pima guy, so you would know. Oh, no, look, that place is a viper pit of not merely incompetence, but deliberate fraud of every type. Well, let's quickly get here to some other things. We have our guest Henry Olson on. In the U.S. Senate race in Maricopa County, Blake Masters at 107 and 76 votes.

Jim Lehman is next at 89,491. Our Attorney General is 62,718. General McGuire, 27,268. And Justin Olson, 17,513. And then in Arizona CD1 in Maricopa County, it looks like David Schweikert is going to return back to

be the nominee and probably head back to Washington. He has a solid 10-point lead, 44-34 over Elijah Norton with Josh Barnett at 22%.

Not really surprising there in a lot of ways. In CD4, you have Kelly Cooper at 30%, and then Tanya Willis at 25%. That's a bit of a surprise for early right now. The big surprise in that race is the numbers by Dave Giles at 19%, Renee Lopez at 15%, Jerome Davison at 11%.

I think you had a lot of voters who just didn't know who they were going for in that race. It's so hard in those congressional races because these statewide races have just sucked the oxygen out of everything. Advertising, talent, you know. So you've had between the Senate race and the governor's race, what, $50 million spent? At least, yeah. I mean, if you're a congressional race and you're spending $600,000 on TV, no one's seen you. No one's seen you.

And then in, let's see, I think that's it. There's some interesting races in legislature. There was a competitive one in State Senate District 3. John Kavanaugh is at 52% and Jan Dubaskis, who has put up a real, real fight, is at 48%. We'll see what Election Day totals were there. So it's going to be a great night. Stay tuned to us, folks. And I think we're going to have Henry Olson on here to talk about

other races across the nation as we get more results in from Arizona. Yeah, absolutely. One surprise I want to note, too, is the state rep district three, Joseph Chaplick, as expected, leading that 38 percent. But number two, a little bit counted out, Alexander Culloden at 21 percent, ahead of Darren Mitchell at 17 percent. And Alexander has been a big advocate and his attorney, who's a state Republican Party attorney, has been involved in the recount. So

We'll see how that goes. So I do believe, do we have Henry? All right, here we go. Henry. Hello. Hello. How are you? I'm doing fine. How about you? We're doing good. Thanks a lot for joining us tonight. So tell us, let's go first of all to Kansas. Tell us about the, um, the initiative out there regarding abortion. Did it, are you surprised by the results? Um,

Yeah, I am. I think it'll take a while for people to get in and unpack who voted. It looks like Democrats were a much larger share of the electorate than they would normally be in a Kansas race. But the fact is still that over 20% of the people who voted in the Republican primary voted no.

no on the proposed initiative. And that's a warning sign, I think, to Republicans that even people who are within their coalition don't see eye to eye with them on the question of abortion. We have Matt Lewis, our mutual friend here in the studio, Henry. Matt, what do you think about the Kansas results? What sticks out to you? I mean, what Henry just said, it's

It's so interesting, you know, about a year ago, last June, I wrote a piece for the Daily Beast saying, number one, much more likely that Roe versus Wade will be overturned than most people know. And number two,

People have no idea the impact this is going to have on the midterms. We forget everything, you know, about the midterms. This is going to rock your world. And then I kind of backtracked on that because we saw what happened in Texas where, you know, the Texas law goes through and MSNBC and CNN are up in arms about it for a week or two. And then it kind of went away and it didn't actually work.

really dramatically affect politics. And so I think I then underestimated the impact. So, wow. And Henry, let me ask you, obviously this is specific to Kansas, but can we extrapolate what this might do in November?

No, because what we know is that Democrats, independents, and some Republicans did not want to repeal the Kansas State bill.

constitutions of protection for abortion rights that doesn't tell us about the salience of that issue in a partisan race. Obviously, what we'll be hearing about from the progressive media over the next 72 hours will be that that does tell us something. What it tells us is there's a threat. It tells us that there's a lot of people whose votes that Republicans want who don't want abortion rights repealed.

and that there's an intensity about that. What it doesn't tell us yet is how that's going to factor into a partisan race, but it's certainly a huge warning sign flashing in front of the Republican Party at this point. Henry, what else are you seeing out there tonight in Michigan and other areas that you're seeing that would stand out to our listeners? Yeah, you know, what I'm seeing is a lot of establishment victory in the Republican side, and

You've got the people who kind of were the favorites, who aren't necessarily MAGA types, but are clearly conservatives, like Eric Schmidt or Tudor Dixon, winning pretty easily. Peter Meyer, the pro-impeachment representative in Grand Rapids, is narrowly ahead in his race. And as we speak, returns from Washington state were two more pro-impeachments.

are being, just looking at the first returns, Dan Newhouse is ahead in his race. He's another pro-impeachment Republican. And the Trump endorsed person is running third behind the Democrats. So, you know, I'm looking at this and saying, well, you know,

It kind of tells me what I've known for a while, which is that if you are a conservative in tune with the modern Republican Party, you don't have to be a Trump acolyte. Georgia showed that, right? Well, so did Virginia. Yeah, Virginia, Georgia. I mean, you're going to see it more and more, more and more. Henry, what do you think we should be looking at the rest of the night? What races stand out to you that people should pay real attention to?

you know outside of the races in arizona which i think are incredibly important because we talked about that i think we need to be looking at his my race in michigan working out of it he can survive uh... a trumpet pack and democrats dropping half a million dollars

against him to boost the uh... the trump endorsed candidate now that speaks uh... that that tells anybody in the republican party that you can stand up to trump and win and then you've got to the two people who also voted for impeachment in washington those results are just coming in now how did nan newhouse and jamie herrera butler come in and then the third thing that we won't know for about a week or so and that is how do republicans fare statewide in washington

Because the breakdown of the statewide vote in Washington adjusted for Washington's Democratic lean is actually a pretty good indicator of the nation. If Republicans outperform where they did in 2020 and 2018, that'll be an evidence of a Republican lean, despite what we've been hearing about the abortion issue. What do you think... Do you view these races as a America first versus establishment Republicans, or just simply...

people that Trump endorsed versus people Trump didn't endorse because most of them would agree 95% of the time on the issues. Is that fair to say?

Well, it depends on the race. Where you've got somebody who doesn't agree on the issue, like Liz Cheney, you're going to have what I expect would be a massive defeat. But if Republicans who are willing to adapt to the mood of the current party, like Karen Taylor-Wilson did, like a lot of these Republicans are, then I think what it shows is that you can win.

and that you're a strong candidate, both in the party and in the general election. Henry, let's put a fine point on that. If you're a Republican running in a primary and you're an establishment Republican, you're a Reagan Republican, you're not a Trump Republican, what do we know at this point? What can you get away with and what is the line you cannot cross if you want to win a primary?

What you have to do is you have to emphasize the sort of issues that Republicans are concerned about. You know, that the center of the Republican Party nationally, and it will differ from place to place, but the center of the Republican Party nationally wants somebody who will fight on culture, fight against the liberal media, fight against China, and fight for a more fair economy. They're not concerned.

old ideological things, even if they would still like to have smaller government. They're really passionate about something else. And so if you're able to echo that, then you can hold those other positions. But if you thumb your nose on them the way Liz Cheney has,

then you're just completely right out of the discussion and you're relegated to that 20 to 30 percent of the Republican Party that really doesn't want to change from the 1992. Henry, we have to go to break right now. We're going to be coming back in just a minute with more from Henry Olson, Matt Lewis and the Breaking Battlegrounds crew here on Election Night in Arizona.

Now, back to Chuck Warren and Sam Stone with your live primary election coverage brought to you by Breaking Battlegrounds.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Election night special here in Arizona. In the studio with us, Matt Lewis. On the line, sticking around for just one final question, Henry Olson. We are also going to have Greg Keller, Republican political operative and lifelong Missouri resident, coming up to talk about those results. But Henry, before we let you go tonight, what are you seeing in these early Arizona results? Because they seem to be tracking with the polling except in the governor's race.

That's right, and I think kudos to Emerson Bowling as being the only bolster that seems to have got it right. I think what you're seeing is a strong movement among independents for Taylor Robeson and resistance to Curry Lake's...

I would expect that the Election Day vote will break for late in most places, but in Maricopa, 26% of the Election Day vote today was independent. So you have to ask, is that a hidden Robeson vote, or is that the independency? Henry, what percentage was that again, was independent today?

That is a huge number in these elections. That is a remarkable number. I mean, normally, I'm not sure offhand, but normally I believe that number is in the 10% range.

It was about 12% in the early vote, according to data that was compiled by an independent person. But it's 26% in Maricopa on the election day. And most of the polls showed Taylor Robeson doing better with independents. There had been discussion that Blake publicized about a super PAC that was targeting independents on our behalf. If the election day vote does not break in Lake's favor,

in Maricopa County that's going to be huge and this independent turnout may be a big reason for it. Wow. Okay. Well, the independents rising up. They make up a third of the electorate here in Arizona. The electorate more or less split one-third, one-third, one-third, Chuck. And traditionally they haven't had a huge impact in primaries, but that may be changing. Well, as you see,

With the vote totals this year, you have a lot of people registered as non-affiliated independent. And I just think, you know, Tim Mooney, our friend, always calls these independents who are right of center as prodigal children. They're just tired of the party crap, but they're more your traditional mom and dad's Bush, Reagan Republicans. And, you know, he's called them for years, these these prodigal Republicans. Chuck, for someone who's not from Arizona. Yeah.

independents can vote in the Republican primary? How does it work? Yeah, you have to request a... You can go to the polls and request a ballot for either party if you're an independent and cast one ballot or the other. Likewise with the... And Democrats don't really have a competitive primary, so... So independents, the game is on the Republican side. Yeah. I mean, so we haven't talked about it, but we probably should.

You can call the Democrat primary for governor right now. Katie Hobbs, 73.78 percent. Marco Lopez, 21.55. Aaron Lieberman, 4.67 percent. That race is over.

Obviously, they have a sitting incumbent in the U.S. Senate race, so that one's been decided. A closer than expected race on the Secretary of State side for Dems, Adrian Fontes currently in the lead, 52.85%. Reginald Boulding running second, 47.15%. That's a solid margin. I would expect that to hold up. I would expect Fontes to pull that out. I do too. I do too.

On the Republican side, Secretary of State Mark Fincham, 35.62% in the lead over Bo Lane, 27.38%. Shauna Bullock running third at 20.19%. Michelle Ugenti-Rita running fourth at 16.81%. So, so far the races here in Arizona pretty much going well.

according to the polling, according to kind of the expected results. Right. Except that the governor's. And as our illustrious guest, Matt Lewis, just showed me, we still don't have votes from Pima.

And Pennell. So who knows what that means? You know more. I mean, how many votes are down there in Pima right now? If I if I am Carrie Lake or Karen Robson, how many votes are how many votes are down there in Pima? Well, for Karen Robson, the data we have suggests that that the more votes in Pima, the better, because her polling was showing her ahead in Pima County.

OK, so but Pima and Pinal both had pretty significant problems today running out of ballots. I don't know how you run out of ballots on Election Day. This is why people don't trust elections. You cannot make mistakes like that. Well, and I know that there was some talk of, you know, people chasing after an injunction. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, that kind of thing. That may actually be necessary. I mean, if you have people who were turned away, who were told that they could not get a ballot and turn it in, who went to the polls, I'm sorry, you're going to have to extend the deadline maybe through tomorrow and have another day of voting where you have those ballots there, because otherwise this is a...

And it's going to be a mess. I can't even imagine. Oh, no, look, this is going to be a huge mess. Oh, my gosh. There's no way around it. And I feel so bad for these candidates. This is just completely unfair to the candidates. Well, and frankly, you know, look, this is one of those cases when the recorders need to go. I mean, if that's really the case, those recorders, frankly, ought to resign tomorrow.

You know, obviously, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. These elections in and of themselves are are interesting. But the elephant in the room is always Donald Trump. And what we're seeing in places like Washington state and Michigan and now maybe in Arizona.

These are surrogate battles for the future of the party. And I mean, it just it feels like this entire election cycle has been schizophrenic. One election will happen like West Virginia, where I live right now. And you're like, hey, Donald Trump endorsed Alex Mooney. Alex Mooney won big. Donald Trump is the kingmaker. You know, and then you go to then you go to Georgia and it's like, well, I guess Donald Trump's endorsement doesn't matter. But I have a different theory on that. I think I think he is a 35 percent.

candidate a 35% endorsement, just like he was in the 2016 primaries. And so when you have a race, for instance, he endorsed Abe Hamadeh for attorney general here. Now,

The Attorney General results so far, Hameday in the lead 28.82%, Rodney Glassman running second 24.32%, Andy Gould 18% in third, Dawn Grove 14%, she's in fourth, Lacey Cooper right under 10% in fifth, and Tiffany Shedd in sixth at 5%.

Abe Hamadeh was well back in that field until the Trump endorsement. You see him shoot up to 28 percent. He'll probably get 30. Blake Masters, 35 percent. He gets the Trump endorsement. If you have three or four or five candidates. That's all you need. A Trump ticket is the ticket. But if you're going against, say, a Governor Kemp with one other person. Well, or here in, frankly, the governor's race here has come down to a two horse race.

Right. I mean, you do have some other people in the field, but a couple of them are fringe candidates and no result. Well, let me ask you, how much of that is due to Robeson being a good candidate versus how much of it is Ducey, Governor Ducey and Mike Pence saying, OK, this is going to be a two person race? I personally don't think Ducey and Pence had that big of an effect on this. I think it may have been almost a little bit.

I think 20 million in spending, which is more than double what anyone ever spent. Right. Right. Yeah. I think, you know, that's hard to say. I don't have any exit polling, but my guess is talking to people. It's more of the 20 million dollars versus Pence and Ducey. Yep. Breaking Battlegrounds election night special in Arizona. Coming back in just a moment.

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Now back to Chuck Warren and Sam Stone with your live primary election coverage brought to you by Breaking Battlegrounds.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds election night coverage. I'm Chuck Warren with our host, my co-host Sam Stone and our guest, Matt Lewis from the Daily Beast. We have on the line with us now a good friend, Greg Keller. He is a Republican political operative and a lifelong Missouri resident. If you want to know what's going on in Missouri, you talk to Greg. Greg, welcome to the show.

Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. So tell us about the Senate race tonight. We know you didn't like Greitens, so tell us what happened. I got to tell you guys, I thought that this one was going to be, you know, not a nail-biter by any means. I thought that Eric Schmidt was going to win this thing by about 10 points. I thought that Eric Greitens was maybe going to finish second and Vicki Hartzler third, but...

it totally ended up being, of course, Schmidt is going to win and is winning running away. But he is winning. I thought he was going to get 35, maybe 40% of the vote. Eric Schmidt is going to end up, as of now, he is at 46% of the vote. Vicky Hartzler, contrary to my prediction, is actually in second at 22%. And Eric Greitens, the

The failed former governor of our state who has been embroiled in so much controversy isn't even breaking 20%. He is currently at 19% of the vote. So what happened? Tell us what happened. Why these big gaps that you didn't predict?

So, first of all, because I'm human and I'm therefore imperfect. No, you're not. Don't say such a thing. Don't say such a thing. You're on Breaking Battlegrounds radio. You're supposed to be infallible. Guys, the $64,000 question in Missouri politics for the last year, year and a half has been, what is Eric Greitens' percentage for, in a U.S. Senate primary,

after a very expensive, nasty, multi-candidate primary. This is a man who started this primary in the mid to high 40s. I believe the first numbers we saw out of...

this primary for polling purposes, placed him around 48%. I would have guessed that his floor was 30 to 35%. And as he has gone down and down and down, further and further and further, and as more revelations have come out about further horrible things that he has done in his personal life, at some point,

the bottom got knocked out and that 30%, you know, that bottom got knocked out. Eventually he was pulling in the mid twenties. Then he was in the low twenties. And then we see the result tonight of him eventually ending up somewhere around 19%. So the story of this race is just the epic collapse of, of Eric Wrighton, who until, you know, about three to four weeks ago was, was leaving this race.

We're with Greg Keller, who the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called the Dark Prince of Secrecy. He's a political consultant. He knows all. We're going to Matt Lewis here from the Daily Beast has a question for you, Greg. Hey, man, I'm curious if that infamous advertisement or at least web ad the Greitens ran about rhino hunting, if that impacted this race as far as you could tell.

Yeah, you know what, Matt? It's funny because when I first saw that ad, I thought that it was a little much. And Matt, you know me. I'm about as conservative as they come, and I'm about as Trumpy as they come. But that ad to me seemed like a little bit much. But I, of course, don't always...

you know, trust my own counsel. But when I first started talking to some friends of mine in Missouri, you know, guys, big time, second amendment, you know, uh, law enforcement, former military type friends of mine in, in, in the St. Louis, Missouri area who said, I was getting texts when that ad first came out and the texts were from these guys for something to the effect of, wow, Gritens just jumped the shark.

And so I think that that kind of

nudged the door open for some of these voters who otherwise would have crawled over broken glass to vote for this guy. I think that nudged the door open, but I think what really made the difference was, you know, these revelations about, you know, Eric Greitens, you know, sworn affidavits from his former wife about, you know, him hitting her and their four-year-old son and stuff like that. But Matt, to your point, yeah, I do think that that ad was counterintuitive

considered even a little bit too much by his own strongest supporters. How much did the scandal play? I mean, that's actually kind of coming from the outside perspective, Greitens' history. How much was that really on voters' minds, and how much was it a bad run for office, which is what I saw looking at it from here? I thought it was both. You know, it's a good reminder in politics that

I remember the first campaign I ever worked on was for Jim Talent, my first two of my first three statewide campaigns. My first campaign, I was Jim Talent's body man who was running for Senate in 2002. And we finished an event after traveling every single day, 18 months in the state of Missouri. And we got in the car and he said, Greg, I think the voters, this is after 18 months, he said, Greg, I think the voters are just starting to...

to understand my message. And I said, really? Let's get more of that when we come back with Greg Keller here in just a moment. Now back to Chuck Warren and Sam Stone with your live primary election coverage brought to you by Breaking Battlegrounds.

Welcome back and still on the line with us. And thank you, Greg, for holding Greg Keller, Republican political operative and lifelong Missouri resident telling us about what's going on in the races there. When we're left, we're talking about how much is of Eric Greitens unbelievably poor showing tonight.

came courtesy of a bad campaign and how much came courtesy of kind of his history of scandal. And Greg, you were telling us a little bit of a story there. I'm sorry I cut you off. We had to go to break. Thank you for sticking with us. No, my pleasure. I was just saying that at the time, my first campaign working in politics with Jim Talent, we got back in the car. He said, Greg, I think...

think they're just starting to realize the story or the message that I'm trying to tell them. And I said, well, how'd you know that, Congressman? And he said, well, you always know that they're starting to get what you're talking about when you have said it so many times, you want to throw up on your shoes. And that

That, to me, is one of the most important lessons in politics. All these rumors, all these stories about the sworn affidavit, about Eric Greitens beating his wife, about beating his then-wife, beating his four-year-old son, that have been all over the media, didn't make a dent in

in any of his standings in the poll. It wasn't until the outside group came in and put $8 to $10 million into that message with highly effective commercials that it totally tanked his numbers. So it's a really important lesson, I think.

particularly for political operatives to remember, that unless and until you have sunk 1,000 points statewide in every media market into a message, it's just not sinking in with voters. That's what happened with Eric Greitens, and it's one of the big reasons that they lost. Greg, I wanted to get your take on what you thought of Trump's endorsement of, quote, Eric, and also just not specifically in Missouri, but

Generally speaking, the Trump effect has the power of his endorsements.

You know, I had a talk, Matt, early on with some of the Trump folks and this is about not early on, but a month or two ago, I had to talk with them. And they said and they had done an analysis of exactly what on a percentage basis a Donald Trump endorsement means in a congressional or Republican primary. And one of the takeaways that they took from it was that they.

Donald Trump endorsement in and of itself is worth, you know, it is still the most powerful thing in Republican primary policy. But campaigns who think that, oh, Donald Trump endorsed me, therefore I will win, they will find that they found that those campaigns are not nearly as successful as those campaigns who, again, actually put resources behind talking about that message publicly.

on the media. And I think, you know, when there was talk about... Pray as if it all depends on Trump, work as if it all depends on you. Exactly. So it's great if Donald Trump endorses you, but if you're not putting money behind that message, you're not going to make the most out of it. So even when, you know, the rumor came down that he was going to endorse, yesterday was going to endorse Greitens and Greitens only,

All the time had run out. Greitens' campaign was totally broke. Maybe it was worth a couple points at that point. And I think the president was smart to split his endorsement between, as you said, Matt, the two Erics. We're with Greg Keller, a political consultant, a lifelong Missouri resident, talking about the Senate race out there. Greg, what do you think about the Kansas results tonight regarding the abortion initiative?

Oh, you got me totally off guard on that. I totally apologize. I've been so in Missouri world the entire night. I have no idea what you're talking about. No worries. Tell us what else our listeners can be paying attention to in Missouri tonight. Any other surprises in Missouri tonight?

So we had two big congressional primaries that went on this year. One was for Vicki Hartzler, who ran for U.S. Senate. There's a guy who ran and won. Actually, a former newscaster by the name of Mark Alford ran as a typical outsider, raised a bunch of money. This guy won this race going away. He beat a couple state senators by all

almost two to one margin, total outsider, very much hugged the MAGA thing very closely. Down in the seventh, that's the district that Billy Long came out of, where he also ran for Senate, obviously lost. I think he's probably gonna end up with about four or 5% of the vote. But in that particular district, there was actually a district, there was a state senator by the name of Rick Bratton who won that going away. The big news out of that district was that

Rick Bratton was a guy that Club for Growth really believed in. Guys, they put $1.7 million into this congressional district in southwest Missouri. This is the old Roy Blunt district.

They decided that there was a state senator by the name of Jay Watson running who is just, you know, kind of your typical Chamber of Commerce Republican. And they put one point seven million dollars. And if you're going to give credit to the club for growth tonight, you got to look at Missouri seven because they got their guy and they got him by a big margin. Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, you know what? It does show. And I think, you know, to be fair, the results here in Arizona show the same thing. Money matters.

I mean, at the end of the day, it always it generally does in campaigns. Yeah. Greg, what can people. So do you see any roadblocks to Republicans keeping that Senate seat in Missouri?

We're going to have an interesting situation here, guys, because it looks like Trudy Bush Valentine is going to end up winning the Democrat nomination. She, of course, is a scion of the Anheuser-Busch fortune. Her personal net worth is estimated somewhere in the $100 million range.

She has money to burn. And also, Jack Danforth has decided that he is going to stand up and fund an independent former Republican candidate to run as an independent. His name is John Wood. He was the head of the January 6th committee. Greg, I apologize. I'm going to cut you off here because I have a guest waiting on the line here. I want to thank you. We may come back to you a little bit later tonight, but...

Really appreciate your insights. Right now I have John Gibbs from Michigan who is in a very close battle there, and we want to get him on because we really appreciate him giving us his time this evening. Mr. Gibbs, I know you are in it. You were endorsed by President Trump. You were endorsed by Ben Carson. And you are in a race that every time we look at the results tonight, it keeps flipping. What's going on there, and how are you feeling?

Well, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it has been quite a nail-biter. Things do seem to be pretty interesting in terms of how the lead is

is gone to mire a little bit, but it's been mostly with us. We believe that they're likely counting absentee ballots first and then counting Election Day after that, and we do much better with people on Election Day. So yeah, we're just keeping an eye on it and seeing how it goes, and I think we're guardedly optimistic. How much did President Trump's endorsement help in this primary?

You know, I think it obviously did make a difference. You know, our Republican Party for many years, long before Trump, has had to divide between the base and the establishment. And Trump was just the first guy smart enough to really step up and represent the base and win by doing it.

And people recognize his success in doing that. So that's why he's respected and that's why his endorsement means quite a bit. I have the endorsement of Dr. Ben Carson as well. But that being said, it's me who's on the ballot. Trump is not on the ballot. I am. So people are voting because they like my story. They like who I am. When I'm going out and visiting people, meeting with people, we've actually went to every single city and township in our district.

It's been a very positive reaction. So people are ultimately voting for me on the ballot. But the Trump endorsement definitely does help

Now, I know previously you had worked, you were appointed by President Trump, Acting Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at HUD under Secretary Carson. And one of the things that you were responsible for there was the federal fight against homelessness. How much is homelessness playing an issue in your campaign? Because we find here in Arizona and across the country, that's actually a much bigger issue than

in Republican primaries than it's been in the past? Well, you know, I would just say an issue of homelessness, the pattern that you see, a very clear pattern, is that federal and state spending on homelessness has been increasing over the past 20 years, but the problems will be getting worse.

So the politicians seem to be stuck on spending more and more money, throwing more money at the problem, but it's not actually solving the problem. So that's the first issue we've got to solve. And my role as Assistant Secretary at HUD under Dr. Carson, we did run into this issue quite a bit. And, you know, the establishment machinery likes to keep the money flowing. So whenever you propose solutions that are not about just throwing more money, but that are about self-sufficiency,

really getting to the heart of the issue and dealing with people in order to bring them up out of the situation they're in, and to really get them to the God-given dignity of work and in their life, that faces opposition because you're not keeping the money flowing. So that's what I would say about homelessness. The biggest problem is that there is this belief that just putting more money into it will solve the problem, which is clearly not the case. Yeah, I find it hard when people make that claim that if we just throw a few more dollars at this, it's going to

going to fix it when you have, you know, California, for instance, spends, I think, Los Angeles, something like 14 times what we do here in Phoenix, Arizona. And obviously their problem is worse than ours on a per person basis, 14 times what we do. So I appreciate hearing, you know, from someone like yourself that you need to look at other approaches to this problem.

Absolutely. I mean, this is a huge problem. And, you know, Americans are compassionate people. We care about others and we especially care about the poor. And people kind of instinctually might think that, you know, putting more money into something is how you help those people. But it just doesn't work the way people's intuition thinks it works. So, you know, this is an issue we have to continue to communicate to the American people and just to kind of get things in the right direction.

Well, really want to thank you for joining us tonight. I know you're busy. I want to let you get back to your election night. Hopefully what will be a victory party for you there. It sounds like you're in a pretty good position as results start coming in from the day of voting. And really thank you for coming on and joining us tonight. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Fantastic. John Gibbs running for president.

Congress, Michigan's third congressional district. Obviously, he has a pretty amazing background. And one of the things I think, Chuck and Matt, too, that frankly, Trump was a little underrated on was bringing in people like John Gibbs, right?

from outside of the normal political circles into some of those positions where, you know, they got some experience, they learned some things, they've had some successes. And not just this election, but we've a whole... Donald Trump has now been the dominant political figure in the Republican Party for seven years. So there are all sorts of people who have come of age,

Who are now Trump. He's our Ronald Reagan. I mean, you know, people of my age, Ronald Reagan was the guy. There are a lot of people now. You mean Ronald Reagan was your Ronald Reagan? Ronald Reagan was my Ronald Reagan. There's way too much gray hair in this studio tonight, folks. We're glad you brought your son with you because otherwise...

There's a very good possibility that at least one of us would have a heart attack. But it is something Donald Trump did and did well, is he recruited people like this, people who generally would not be in the Washington, D.C. area, minorities, and gave them positions of authority and management. And I think you're going to see them play an influence in Republican politics for 10, 20 years. And people who wouldn't have been, I mean, I'm not saying this specific case, but there are people who...

are not the establishment, and the gatekeepers would not have allowed them in in the olden days. And in some cases, maybe they shouldn't have been allowed in. In other cases, they may be the future. Well, the amazing thing is now John Gibbs, if he goes ahead and wins tonight and wins in November, in two years he'll be establishment.

Is that how it works? People don't seem to get that. Once you win and you're there a couple of years, you are now the establishment. Except for Donald Trump, who never became the establishment. Well, I think it speaks to something about Trump that influences his ongoing strength in the party. Is that he had a lot of people in there that were really focused on getting things done that weren't stuck to the establishment paradigm.

And some of those areas they had real successes in. Foreign policy, quite frankly, I think he did better than anyone could have expected and better than any recent president did. And this is another area I thought under Ben Carson that they really had an opportunity to do a lot of things at HUD. I think he understood some of the problems in a way maybe some other directors of HUD have not. It'll be interesting to see how far that carries. Now, we have to go to break here in just a moment.

Matt Lewis sticking with us. Really appreciate having you in the studio here tonight. Good to be here. And we got some more great guests coming up. Breaking Battlegrounds comes back. I want them to turn black. Stand there. Turn my head dark as gold.

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