Erick Erickson on the Midterms, Georgia's Runoff, and 2024
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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Morin. I'm Sam Stone. Another great program for you folks this weekend. On the line with us today, first guest, returning guest, friend of the program, Eric Erickson, radio host and pundit provocateur. As I like to say, he's good. He's good at riling up Trump fans and Democrats alike. Yes. Eric, welcome to the program.

Thanks for having me. Thanks, Eric. We're going to play a little clip here from the movie called Deadpool. This is Dirty Harry, as he's known, but really named Harry Callahan, talking to a villain in the movie. Jeremy, go ahead. Maybe I'll start my own Deadpool and put you on it. You threatening me? You want to play the game. You better know the rules, love.

Eric, isn't it strange that all of a sudden Republicans seem to have this awakening that turning out voters via mail, turning them out to early voting is really a key to winning elections? Like this is something Democrats just came up with last 10 years.

You know, I've got to tell you, it is one of my frustrations about this moment in history where everyone is online and you have a lot of young guys coming in who have – they're out of college. They haven't really done anything before, and they discover this thing called water, and they're like, wow, if you drink this, it keeps you healthy. Who knew? There's nothing new under the sun. Eric, hang on. Hang on. That's understandable, though, because –

The water systems at most colleges, it's akin to the old west. You've just got to stick with the whiskey. That's true. That is true. You know, I got started in the late 90s. I was in the College of Republicans. And then by 2004 was an attorney for the Bush campaign. And they lost the popular vote in 2000. They were just hell-bent on winning it in 2004.

So they started this absentee ballot program, this early voting program, knocking on doors, standing there while people filled out their forms. And suddenly like, oh, we have no idea you can do this. You used to do it. Well, and what's amazing about – and this has really been a creation since Trump that they go and they have these rallies and there's a lot of people attending. There's a lot of energy, right? And if you're a believer, it's fantastic. Right.

But it's not like there's a bunch of nonbelievers there. There's not a bunch of undecided that are going to a rally. And so what they've done is we've created a class of activists now that really live in an echo chamber. And I made a comment to a friend the other day. If you know someone who doesn't know a person who voted for Biden, you really need to get out more. Right. And so I hear this all the time and you see it on social media, which these are the people that go to the rallies and like, well, I don't know anybody voted for Biden.

Well, you need to get out, get out the house. Some of these folks, Chuck and Eric, I've talked to, and they truly believe that voter fraud is the reason that Democrats win New York and California. I mean, have you ever been to those states? Have you talked to anybody in those states? Talk to people.

Yeah, and here's the problem. Just look at Arizona. You had Republicans maintain the House and the Senate there. They thought they were going to lose. You've got the state superintendent. The state treasurer might just get the attorney general's race. There is a path forward for people to win if they get their head in the game instead of saying, well, they're going to steal it.

Can't go vote. No problem. Democrats, by the way, here in Georgia for our runoff are already text messaging Republicans saying, eh, Democrats already got the Senate. No reason for you to even vote.

Oh, my gosh. Well, OK, so we have now we've taken a slim we're going to have a slim majority in the House. It's going to be about 220 or 221 people when all is said and done. Very slim. Right. And then Republicans come out yesterday and their big thing is we're going to investigate Hunter Biden to get to Joe Biden. I just look Hunter Biden is scum. I mean, any objective person would realize that. Right. He needs help.

And, you know, there's nothing wrong with investigations, but we should be looking at things like the border, this crypto trading, things of that FBI, things of that nature. But that's what they come out with. I mean, why can't they focus on what people – I mean, I had a guy – well, for example, Eli Crane of Arizona called me, asked for a donation. And I said, so what's your focus going to be? And he just said, crime, border, economy. And I said, that's all I want to hear. That's all you need to focus on. Right. Right.

It's so frustrating. And by the way, pay attention, base, to the shiny object Hunter Biden, Joe Biden investigation. Please don't look over here when we rapidly pass a continuing resolution to raise the debt ceiling. This is the mind-numbing –

game of distracting the base with shiny objects as opposed to doing things. You just had, you lost 13% of Republicans nationwide, 11% in Arizona. You lost a majority of independents for the first time in five years. They went with the incumbent party of the White House.

And your first big thing is, let's do a Hunter Biden investigation, not FTX, not Joe Biden colluding with environmentalists to shut down oil and gas in this country, raising prices, not dealing with inflation. We're going to investigate the Bidens. That'll play great in segments of conservative media. But you already have those people and you lost independents.

Sam and I have often said, so for example, when all is said and done right now, the Republicans on the popular vote nationwide in the House got 51.4 percent of the vote. It'll probably get down to 50 percent, 0.6 or something.

I am convinced that this nation is center right just by the fact that Republicans do win and the people running them. I'm not being cruel about it. It just tells you how right of center it is. I mean, look, we're going to win the popular vote on the House by four million votes. And we just you just made the point that we lost 13 percent of Republican votes. Think about that.

Right. Yeah, it really is a silver lining for us. Now, granted, it's a midterm, so election turnout is down. But consider 2020 when you had the biggest presidential election turnout, if you don't go with stolen election nonsense. And Republicans came within five seats of taking back the House of Representatives, something no one actually saw in any of the polling data. There is clearly – and it came after Democrats went far left with –

defund the police and stuff. There's clearly a craving in this country for some common sense center-right politics. You don't have to go to the far right, but clearly go right, you win. Talk about, because you're out there, how Governor Kemp won re-election. I mean, it seems to be he and DeSantis are models of sort of why you want to win an election. Yeah, Abbott too. What did you see out there that's different that people don't realize?

One was actually significant ground game. In fact, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution came out with the data today that with the exception of four counties in the state, the Republican turnout increased more. Republicans in Georgia, like in Florida, actually did the early vote absentee ballot game and won it.

But also, he prioritized good governance. He made the case, our economy is doing well. I reopened the state sooner than anyone, including Rob DeSantis in Florida, who incidentally didn't campaign. He was like the only Republican governor not to campaign with Kemp, which was interesting. He just made it about his record and said, look at my record, look at the economy, and look at all the things Stacey Abrams wants to do that wouldn't be possible except for the fact I created a $20 billion budget for the plus.

Now, that's a great point because you saw the press conference, I'm sure, yesterday with DeSantis where people were already asking him about the matchup with Trump. And he told people, chill out. We just finished this election. We've got this Georgia runoff. But, you know, the reason we had this red wave in Florida was because we governed. We delivered. We had people's backs. He said that specifically. And I really like that line, you know, obviously referring to the hurricane. But

You know, this DeSantis camp, these are guys who have prioritized actually delivering in the governor's office rather than grandstanding. Look, records speak for themselves. And when you're headed into the House of Representatives.

i know you realize well we've got we're divided with that we're not going to be able to get much done we should use the power of investigation uh but to make it a personal gotcha against biden as opposed to going after his actual policies that the voters are rebelling against i mean here's the dirty little secret uh independent voters think everybody in washington's corrupt and plays the system uh you're going after biden for doing that well they went after trump it's a tit-for-tat

The voters really actually despise both parties and are just looking for some adults to say, we understand your problem with the economy. If Republicans investigated in that area, they would mollify the independents and those Republicans who rejected them. And they're just they've forgotten good governance. They're in the tit for tat mode of politics right now. Well, to lead to that, that's a perfect segue into this. So Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster.

said, you know, tweeted this morning, Democrats won voters who said the economy was not so good by 62 percent to 35 percent, despite being the party in power. That's 25 point difference. I mean, that is a failure of messaging.

Oh, absolutely. And you know what's so crazy here is when you look at the exit pulley, you've got people out there saying, yeah, I hate the economy. I hate the Democrats. I hate Joe Biden. But I would rather go with the status quo I've already figured out how to navigate.

then possibly get something more chaotic from the GOP. And that should be the big red flag for the Republicans, that you've got to figure out how to elevate the same conservative voices instead of handing everything over to the interest of your base. Let's talk briefly. OK, so 2024 is

Sadly, we shouldn't really be talking about it because we have they just had an election. But 2024 is on people's minds. It's what you chill out, Chuck. Chill out. What what what what do Republicans need to do to win in 2024?

You know, honestly, look at how the House Republicans are behaving. I think this – immediately coming out of the gate, they were going to investigate the Bidens. It opens the door for a Republican governor to say, look at my state, look at what I've done.

None of these guys in Washington are serious on either side of the aisle. I'm serious, and you can see my state record. You have somebody who runs on the state-level accomplishments, says I can do this at the national level, and by the way, make my own side focus. You've got an open door there.

And, you know, Donald Trump ran against both sides in Washington, but really wasn't that much of an anti-establishmentarian. You can have a guy like DeSantis, for example, who actually was in the House Freedom Caucus, was an instrumental vote in getting rid of John Boehner, saying, look, I've disrupted Washington. I've disrupted Florida. Let's disrupt this whole thing. Herschel Walker campaign. Does he win or lose?

I am not optimistic. Look, there were 200,000 Republicans in Georgia who voted for Brian Kemp and refused to vote for Herschel Walker. That's kind of a telling statistic there. Now, it is a numbers game, and Republicans, if they don't talk themselves out of it, tend to turn out more in runoffs. The first time they've never done that in the last 20 years was in 2021.

If they get their head in the game and show up, they still have a way to win. It's just way more difficult than it should be. Is Brian Kemp stepping in and really going to put his machine to work on this?

Yes, as a matter of fact, he handed over his ground game operation to the Senate Leadership Fund run by Mitch McConnell. They're keeping the same staff, same salaries, keeping them on the ground. And then Kemp is actually launching a bus tour starting tomorrow, going to gun stores around the state with Herschel Walker, rallying local Republican voters around the state at venues favorable for Republicans.

Fantastic. Eric, we're going to bring you back here for the next segment in just a moment. But before we do that, folks, you can follow Eric Erickson on Twitter at E.W. Erickson. You can also follow his fantastic radio show at Eric Erickson show dot com. Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be back in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, Eric Erickson, host of the nationally syndicated Eric Erickson Show. We are pleased to have him on, talking a little bit about Georgia, a little bit about 2024.

All sorts of fun up in the air. Not a great week for Republicans. How do we make it a better one going forward? Exactly. Eric, I want to talk about a tweet you put out this morning, which is so spot on. You said the press is more upset about Elon Musk taking over Twitter than about China using TikTok as an intelligence operation against Americans. The press is more upset about Twitter than FTX, which sponsored their conferences. Yeah.

There really is a lot of hypocrisy on the Elon Musk taking over Twitter versus these two humongous, you know, one's a security breach and one took lots of people's money. Look, Twitter gave journalists some level of elite status with blue check marks. It set them apart from the heathen and it drove their egos. And suddenly everybody gets a blue check mark. They're furious about that. Yeah.

They hate the idea that they are not set apart. Remember, a lot of these people just the last few years were very open on social media that the freedom of the press was a constitutional guarantee to them, not you and me. And it's driven their egos. And you have this coming down. So they hate it.

Every major news story in America today is about the egos of the press, even their coverage of Trump, a man who did not like them. The reason they cover him the way they do is because he doesn't like them. They ignored every problem with FTX. In fact, several investigative reporters have come out and said, you know, we flagged this for CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, for Bloomberg. No one would fight while FTX was subsidizing their conferences. It's a thoroughly corrupt enterprise that is now being revealed as such.

Well, and we've seen across the country, you know, this outrage from the press when we would Trump called them enemies of the people and all this kind of thing. That may be hyperbole. But at the end of the day, the criticisms of the media are fully legitimate. They're being reflected in their readership, which has declined their viewership, which is declining.

And yet they seem totally unaware of this. What does it take to break through that wall and bring some self-awareness to the industry? Because I miss a free press that actually did its job in delivering the news.

You know, I say we do not have a free press. They are captured by their fears of the right and held hostage by the Democrats. And everything they do now advances the Democratic narrative. I don't know that there's a fix until they hit rock bottom. When more of these industries go bankrupt...

and have to rebuild i think it helps i will think this i actually hope i really do hope the chris licht is able to fix c_n_n_ by going back to a street news path and that's a way forward for everyone else if you see steven rebound after all the turmoil and by the way much of journalism is despises film for firing people at the event in g_d_ rid of the partisans uh... if it works and they're able to get back to straight news that i'm not optimistic but if they do

That should be a wake-up call for the rest of the media. Let's talk briefly here about your career a little bit. So I know you viewed Rush Limbaugh as a mentor. What did he mean to you, and how has talk radio changed since you first started today?

Oh, you know, he actually, we were friends before I was in radio. I've known him since 2004, and he got me into radio. I was offered a job. I wasn't sure I wanted it, and he told me, you're going to take it, or I'll never speak to you again. He found me my agent. He helped me develop my own national show. He got me into cigars, bought my wife iPhones when I wouldn't. He was a dear friend.

In fact, a couple of months before he died, he texted me and said he wanted me to know I was failing my husbandly duties. I was like, what the heck? Turns out I hadn't upgraded my wife sufficiently on iPhone. He wanted to send her a new iPhone again. That's just the sort of guy he was. Talk radio has changed, I'm afraid, forever.

because a lot of it is catering to an older base of voter and listener without any interest in trying to bring younger people in. It's like people have abandoned talk radio, saying, ah, young people are listening to streaming, so let's not bring them in. Actually,

They love spoken word content, and if you give them real current breaking news that they can't get in their podcast next week, they will tune in. My listenership is actually – I'm now in Russia's spot, noon to 3, and the listenership has gotten larger and younger in the last –

in the last year since I've been there and it's part of what Rush told me when I got started. Your job is not to save the world. Your job is not to tell people what to think. Your job is to keep people entertained who are stuck in their car on their way to or from work or at work and if you can keep people entertained, you

You could do all those other things, but your job is to just be a friend to someone who needs one right now. And people in talk radio have decided I'm going to do a bad impression of Rush Limbaugh instead of build a meaningful relationship with someone through my voice. Do you feel your listeners are more angry now than they were five, six, eight years ago?

Some of them are. And, you know, I changed the way I did talk radio a number of years ago and a lot of it again from talking to Rush, where instead of just throwing the chum in the water for my listeners to be angry at stuff, I took the approach of my job should be in a world where everybody has my truth and your truth. Here's the actual truth of what is actually happening with this story that actually does matter.

Let's get through all the facts of it, and now I'll tell you what I think about it and try to be as entertaining in that as way to try to calm the anger down and make sure people understand, you know, Washington doesn't affect your life on a daily basis as much as your local school board. Maybe instead of being upset every day with Washington, go to your local school board and learn who the members are and see what's going on in your local community.

By the way, how did Georgia handle school boards? I know we had some wins here in Arizona, Florida. DeSantis made it an effort. Was there that type of focus on school boards in Georgia? Yeah, actually, there was. In the North Atlanta area, conservatives did very well in those school board elections as well. There might be finally some momentum to get Republicans in Georgia to embrace school choice, something the Republicans themselves have been opposed to.

Why is that in Georgia? Because you have a lot of members of the state legislature who are Republicans whose spouses work in the public school system. They've always had a great working relationship with public schools in Georgia. And frankly, I do think they won't say it out loud, but there's an undercurrent of we don't want those kids in our kids' schools.

Georgia has, for people who don't know, I think if I remember right, Georgia has a really extensive system of private, mostly religious schools.

It does. And some of it did come from segregation, but a lot of it came from Christian schools after – I mean the no prayer in school decision came out the same year as desegregation. A lot of people say, oh, they split because of desegregation. Actually, it was because of prayer in school, but let's not let facts stand in the way of a good democratic narrative. One of the things Georgia has is that I can give a dollar to…

something called an opportunity fund and get that as a tax credit. So I can give, I think, up to $3,000 in my taxes to a scholarship fund that then pays for underprivileged kids to go to private schools. Gotcha. Eric, I apologize. I'm going to have to cut you off. We're heading to the end of our program here and I have to get in a sponsor read. But thank you so much for joining us this morning. You're welcome. Take care.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line with us right now, George Califf, president of Data Orbital, managing partner of the Resolute Group, one of the top pollsters in the state of Arizona and in the West. George, boy, we got to start out with the big question. What the heck happened?

Yeah, I feel like I've gotten that question a thousand times in the last seven days. You know, someone has asked me, I think it's best summarized by this question someone asked me, what was the most surprising thing that occurred? And my answer was that turnout was lower, far lower than what I had expected. That was more surprising than any one loss that occurred.

Because I believe that the lack of turnout, particularly in Republican areas, is the reason that contributed to the majority of the losses, particularly that we saw statewide. So you mean probably having a GOTV plan where you push people to go vote early or mail in their ballot probably would have been helpful?

Mojave County saw lower turnout, right? So we know Mojave County is rock-ribbed Republican country. Saw lower turnout by about 4 or 5 percent compared to 2018, which was already not a high turnout number. Yavapai County, 2 or 3 percent lower. It was a big problem all across rural Arizona. The votes that needed to be made up for any potential losses in Maricopa County just did not come to fruition.

And I really believe, George, and you know that that was not a messaging thing, but that when you're talking about rural Arizona, that's Trump country. That wasn't a messaging issue on the top of the part part of the top candidates. That really was a structural issue in what we're doing to turn out the vote.

Yeah. I mean, look, we saw a tremendous, as you all know, our firm tracks early ballot returns and Republicans were lagging. I just did, you know, when I saw the lag, I said, look, they're going to vote on Election Day. These are likely voters. And a lot of them did, but not enough of them did. Our Election Day vote was not enough to make up and counteract the lack of early ballots that were returned because of the hesitancy that our voters now have to vote by mail. It just was not enough in rural Arizona or, frankly, in Maricopa County.

What percentage of four or four Republican voters, three or four Republican voters, do you think did not vote? So we won't know exactly until we get the full voted file. I think it's a lot. I don't think it's too high with four or four. Those that are very likely to vote, they voted in all four of the last four elections. I do think it was higher than we wanted at three or fours, for sure, because I'll just tell you an example. In Maricopa County, we only had about 50% of our three or four voters that voted. So, okay, sure, a number of them voted on Election Day.

A number of them dropped off their ballots, but not enough. I mean, there's no way you have – we're going to hit maybe 62 percent turnout statewide. In 2018, we were at 64 and a half. I was predicting in our modeling 70 percent. That was the – not just the attitude on the ground. That was the feedback we were getting from our polls, and we didn't even come close. And that was – most polling was showing about that number. George, explain to our listeners what is a 3 or 4 voter, a 4 or 4 voter, just so they know.

Sure. Sure. So the three or four or four or four voter are voters that have voted in three out of the last four general elections or four out of the last four general elections. So a voter like me and Chuck and Sam, right, we vote in every election, primary and general. You can expect us to vote, whether it's early in person, you name it. But the lower number of elections that you voted in, you're a lot more unpredictable if you vote or not. So we just want you to vote. And traditionally in Arizona,

We have motivated people to vote via mail, and this year we did not. And so we were relying on them to vote on Election Day, right? So our get-out-the-vote strategy went from three weeks to largely one day. And one thing I think that we underestimated, that people on our side underestimated, is that voting on Election Day is a habit. I mean, voting is a habit, right? For whether it's three of fours, four of fours, you develop certain rhythms to how you cast a ballot. And for over a decade now,

Republicans have been pushed to cast a ballot via mail until the last three years.

Yeah, 100%. And look, rural Arizona, one of the complicating factors, though, is that rural Arizona has traditionally voted way more on Election Day. But even the small number of people, maybe 40%, 50% of folks that did mail back their ballots traditionally, a lot less of them did. And so, again, I'll give Pima County as an example. Pima County is going to have lower turnout. While we know Pima County is a Democratic stronghold, there's a significant number of people that voted day of in Pima County, three times as many people.

voted day of in person than did in the presidential election, which had a lot more people who voted. And yet Carrie Lake and Katie Hobbs

had the same margin percentage on Election Day, Kerry Lake winning that Election Day voters as Donald Trump did. So what that tells us is we didn't gain anything extra with the Election Day voters. We held our own and we lost ground with early voters. And so you can't lose ground with one category and not gain ground with the other to counteract it. That's just obviously not how math works. And, you know, we had a math problem and we didn't have enough voters show up.

We have just one minute before we go to break here. George, how do folks follow you and keep up with your work and with Data Orbital?

Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate that question. Folks can go to dataorbital.com. You can sign up for our email list. We put out very consistent emails unpacking this. We're going to be doing a lot of unpacking on the results. And of course, unless Twitter shuts down, which I hear that Twitter may shut down, you can follow us on Twitter at data underscore orbital. We were tracking the results and giving commentary pretty regularly throughout this entire process. Fantastic. George Califf going to be back with us for our final segment coming up.

Breaking Battlegrounds, coming right back. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, pollster George Califf, president of Data Orbital, managing partner of the Resolute Group. Yes. So, folks, inflation is 7-8%.

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R-E-F-Y dot com or call 855-316-3087. Tell them Chuck and Sam sent you and put your money in a secure investment. Yeah. Inflation isn't over 10 percent yet, so you can still actually get a return on it. Exactly right. Exactly right. All right, George. Sam and I tell this to candidates a lot, especially Republican ones. You cannot win in Arizona without McCain, Doocy, Romney type voters. Right.

Are we wrong on that? You're not wrong on that. You aren't wrong on that. Look, those types of voters, whatever label you want to give them, don't make up maybe even a plurality of the Republican Party, but they make up enough of a percentage that in a state like Arizona, and look, a lot of our national friends

misunderstood Arizona all these years. We've never been a Wyoming. We've never had that large of a registration margin, right? We're talking 3-4% advantage for Republicans. The state is pretty, you know, it's, again, I still push back on the purple label, but it's purple, purplish red. It's magenta. If you want to give it a color, it's magenta.

Sure. Let's give it magenta. So those 15% of Republicans, let's say 20% of Republicans, a very small percentage of the party, which is why their voice in the primary is not really a measure of strength. They carry an oversized influence.

impact in the general election. And then you lump with them the McCain independents, and then they have even more sort of punching power, so to speak. And so, of course, they matter. And I would say in this election cycle, there was a precarious dynamic in relationship between those voters and some of our Republicans, not just at the top of the ticket, but in some legislative races and on down. That's why you saw some folks

win the way that they did. Some folks lose the way that they did. And even in those some of those very close losses, some people outperformed with those types of voters, but still by not enough to to end up prevailing. Yeah. In those voters traditionally are, you know, when people like to talk about Arizona doing ticket splitting, Arizona voters ticket splitting, that's the segment of voters that are ticket splitting. It's not the Democrats. It's not the base Republicans.

It's those McCain Republicans and independents. So I had an epiphany this year filling out my ballot. OK, so the ballot takes 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes. There's just no way around it. Right. Not even all of us here on the show don't know all the candidates. I mean, you had the judges, the propositions, blah, blah, blah. And I'll tell you why they have an outsized influence.

Because when you take 10 or 15 minutes, you're not voting on Election Day. You can get up, answer the phone. You can call a friend about a particular race. And it gives you an opportunity to really reconsider if you really like the person or not. And I would be interested, George, if you did something like that for your company, Data Orbital. Ask the question, how long does it take you to fill out a ballot?

And do you change your mind when you're filling out the ballot on certain races? I think that's a real factor here when you get a ballot that's as big as the Arizona ballot is. And by the way, I think that may shorten with the pass of the single subject and the 60 percent to pass tax increases. We may see that shorten a little bit. But I really believe it's human nature to look at that and say, hmm, I just can't go there with this person because you just have time to think about it instead of going in and just punching straight are like some states allow you to do.

Yes, I think that that is a major factor. And then that also gets into another question people always ask me, well, is money the most important thing in politics? And I've started now giving, because I think this dovetails into your question. You know, is money an important thing in politics? Look, money in politics is like money in marriage. Money can't make your marriage good, but the lack of it can make your marriage bad. And it can make your life very difficult. Why I say that is because then if people have an ex...

extra amount of time to research all these candidates. If candidates are getting out spent 15 to one or 10 to one, which some of these state-wise were and some of these legislative candidates were in terms of Democratic forces spending against Republican forces, it matters because you have to really dig and try

to find commentary on the Republicans versus you can find lots of stuff on the Democrats or you've gotten these quote unquote voter guides or you drove on the street and you saw a sign that said for LD4voterguide.com or whatever it may be. Right. So then I think that

That puts money as a major factor, too, because now you've got an extra amount of time. And then, yeah, money is going to speak in a different volume if you're ticket splitting, because then you're going to be much more discerning in terms of who you're voting for. Well, I tend to think that's actually a little bit more important for Republicans. And it's difficult for us here in Arizona now because we're

state number three in the blueprint where they are pouring money from the coast into these races. And Arizona donors have no hope of keeping up with that kind of cash flowing into our state. It's how Democrats turned Colorado. It's how they turn Nevada. It's how they're trying to turn Arizona. And that's not going to change. And then you add in a very oppressed that is very hostile to Republicans who

I think it's critical what you hit on there, that Republicans not only get their messaging out, have enough money to do it, but you have to be, as a Republican candidate, you have to be really effective with your messaging. You have to be really focused and targeted. 100 percent. And then to bring this entire conversation kind of full circle, you bring up Colorado, and it's a very important state to compare us to. There was a study that was done. I think it goes, there's no question that the

the education level of a voter is a major indicator of how they're going to vote. So if you're a white college-educated man or woman, you're much likelier to vote for the Democrats than the Republicans. The state of Colorado now has, I believe, five or six counties that have either a majority or a very strong plurality of white college-educated voters, which is very interesting. They have more than almost any other state in the union, which is why Colorado was able to turn as quickly as it turned.

Arizona, amazingly, has no county that is that way because, of course, Maricopa County is really large. Maybe if it was broken up, it would have one of the five counties that came out of it. But I bring this up to say the reason why Arizona and Republicans can still more than hold their own in Arizona is because of what happens in the 40 percent of our state that's not in Maricopa County, that's in rural Arizona, which gets back to our first point about turnout. So if Republicans want to win, we can't have 50 percent of voters in Pinal County, one of our fastest growing counties.

That is really exurban Phoenix. We can't have 51, 53 percent of those voters vote and still make it across the line when turnout in Scottsdale hit a record high, I think, of like in the high 70s. Amazingly, Scottsdale and the two legislative districts that make up Scottsdale. Ahwatukee, 73 percent. So my district, my council district, 74 percent. That's Arcadia Ahwatukee. That is white college educated voters. George, you probably don't know this answer.

But how much does having and saying the 2020 elections were rigged and stolen have an effect on suppressing Republican turnout this cycle? So we don't have math, of course, but I have been grappling. I should say not math. We don't have data on this yet, but I've been grappling with why would a voter in Mojave County? And I don't want to pick on Mojave County. I've actually spent a lot of time in Mojave County, oddly enough, you know, most summers growing up. But anyway, conversation for another day.

Why would a voter in Mojave County, who's a Republican, who's a Trump Republican, why would they not vote? The only thing I can think of is that they have heard for a couple of years that these elections were rigged, that the elections didn't work. And materially, and I don't mean this as a criticism to our legislative bodies, not a lot was fixed. And so not at least to the degree that they had been saying the election was rigged. And so

both of those two things are true in their minds, why would they show up and vote? And so I do think it had an effect because I don't know why else a Republican voter in Mojave County wouldn't have voted for someone like Carrie Lake, who was exceptionally dynamic, had an amazing conservative message and had a lot of energy behind her. I see no other reason. Well, we seem to have a segment of the conservative make American a great base.

That just feels like elections are just completely fraudulent now. You know, for example, they're going to deal with this in Georgia, you know, and you see right now saying, well, Democrats have a majority. Folks, there is a difference between one party having 51 and the other having just tied 50-50 just based on committee assignments alone.

And I, our folks like to have these emphatic, aggressive talking points. They're all stolen versus the reality is, okay, now you get Katie Hobbs for four years and she is going to be a train wreck.

Yeah, yeah, she is going to be a train wreck. And the best thing for Republicans is that there's no way Katie Hobbs is going to govern like the last Democratic governor that we had in the state of Arizona, Janet Napolitano. First off, the Democrats of that era are very different than Democrats of today. Katie Hobbs is going to govern like a left-wing progressive. And then when she does do that, and she's already talking about how she's already...

How she, you know, she's going to call a special session on abortion rights and you name it. Oh, yeah. No, she she has made it clear that every word she said in that election is a lie.

And she hasn't even taken office yet. That's how she's going to govern. Yeah. Yeah, that's how she's going to govern. And the other thing people have to remember, look, no matter who ended up winning, no one has a mandate for anything right now. I mean, she won by 17,000 votes. Statistically, you're talking about a fraction of a percent. So everyone's got to hold their horses, so to speak. No one has a mandate. But very clearly, we know that Republicans don't have a mandate. Sorry, Democrats don't have a mandate. This isn't some sort of like –

and they flipped both, you know, chambers and all that. I mean, there's Midwestern states like Michigan that I think the Democrats have more of a mandate than Katie Hobbs can even contemplate in Arizona. Uh,

She has to work with Republicans in the legislature, and I just don't know how well her base is going to let her do that. She's not smart enough to push back on her staff when they're directing her to the crazy hot lab. We're with George Califf, founder, principal at Data Orbital, one of the premier pollsters and consultants in the state. Okay, George, you know many of our legislators. Republicans have a majority in the Senate and the House. One vote, maybe two. How are they going to work as a unified committee?

or as Sam stakes his head here at me, or are they just going to be splintered and it's like herding feral cats? Look, maybe

Maybe I'm being Pollyanna. My personality is such that when you feel like your back's up against the wall, you feel like you've had some losses. You turn inward. And what I mean by turn inward, you turn to people that you trust, people in your party. So as much fracturing as we have in the Republican Party, and we do, I do believe and I do have hope that leadership in both chambers, Speaker Toma and President Peterson, can hold the caucuses. Because, look, at the end of the day, we are a two-team sport in the United States of America.

Are you going to give a win to the other team, which is essentially like kicking a goal? All right, Pollyanna, we got to let Chuck get in another question here because that – No, I mean – but, George, I think that's – you have – look, I know you're a conservative, right? You're a rock-red conservative. But I also know you have a personality like Sam and I. If you can get 70%, 80% on something, you're going to take it.

My fear is we have several legislatures in both the House and Senate who do not view the world that way. Well, I was going to be the cat herder for Carrie Lake if she had won this election. So I got to tell you, I don't know.

I mean, look, then if we don't, then we're going to have some bruising losses and those individuals that pay the price in their primaries. And so, you know, I guess my answer also predicates off of human instinct and human nature is survival. And so if they want to survive the two team sport, they have to get in line with a two team sport. And if they don't, then they won't survive. And some people who knows, maybe some people don't want to be legislators anymore. And so they'll say, you know, screw it. I'm going to do what I want.

But that's sort of one part of my answer. It's not going to be easy. There's no doubt about it. But I will say I think the Democrats are going to make it easier because I think they're going to ask for stuff that's so outlandish that it will be it will supersede the infighting on our side because of how crazy the demands are from the left. I mean, imagine what Republican is Katie Hobbs are going to pick off on anti-school choice or on abortion rights because they're not going to take a little bit.

They're going to ask for a lot. Right. You know, maybe she picks them off on a tax increase or two or the transportation tax. But the big stuff, I don't know. I don't know who's left in the caucus, frankly, after these primaries. It's not interestingly, it's a much more conservative caucus, but it's just the same size as it was prior.

Yeah, I think that's a great point, George. I think you are going to have a fairly united front. I'm joking a little bit about the herding of cats here. I'm not. But at the same time, there are a handful in there that are really focused on a personal agenda that is far, far right that you're never going to be able to enact with Katie Hobbs. And my concern is that we end up spending four years spinning our wheels in the House and Senate here, or two years.

And that really hammers us going forward.

That is true. That is true. Look, if the worst case after these four years is that we've spun our wheels and that we've gotten nothing advanced, I suppose I'll take it compared to the alternative of the worst case being Katie Abza was able to compromise two Republicans in both chambers and shove stuff down our throats that would have a cataclysmic effect on our state. Again, I think in a best-case scenario, we can get some stuff done. But look, we haven't faced this in a long time. I don't think there's a single member of the legislature –

Yeah, there you go. That's the final word. Be sure to tune in for the podcast-only segment, Breaking Battlegrounds, back on the air next week. Welcome to the podcast-only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds for this week.

Boy, lots of stuff going on, Chuck. Prices are going through the roof. FTX is going through the ground. Twitter is completely up in the air.

Well, look, Twitter's not going down. I mean, I just I just think people are so stupid. Twitter's not going away. Elon Musk ego alone is not going to allow Twitter to go dark. So I actually read a very good thread and we'll post this over on Breaking Battlegrounds. On Twitter? Yeah, on Twitter. So it's still functioning. But one of them, the guy talked about this is wailing and culling.

So Elon Musk is going in there and what he's doing is figuring out who the actual whales, who the 10 percent who perform the 90 percent of work, which is true in almost every organization are. And he's calling the rest. And then he'll probably end up having to hire a bunch of people afterwards because they'll get too thin from this. But he clearly walked into a corporate culture that was bloated, inflated and non-driven. I mean, they just –

That product has been stagnant for a decade. Well, $13 million a year on lunch. Right. For people who don't go into the office. Right. $500 per person. Look, there's a lot of bright 20-somethings out there. I don't want to say they're not in 30-somethings. But they have really come to a point.

That my needs are the most important. So I think the tech world has tried everything in the world to keep these people engaged, to keep them from hopping over to the next tech or the next big thing. And I think that's been a part of just simply catering or, as our parents would say, kissing butt so they stick around. And I think what you're going to see at the end of this, Twitter's not going dark. Anybody who thinks that needs to stop smoking whatever you're smoking, butt.

I do think you'll see this at the end of the day, Twitter, about half the size employee wise is that when he took it over and that is going to be anything what you're going to see. Other companies are going to because, you know, we look, they're all innovators, but they're not in a lot of ways. And they're going to say, oh, good grief, I could cut costs by a third here. Well, the big disconnect in the tech industry is that it's not led by executives who are

brought up in an executive world where efficiency is the goal. These are programmers. They're designers. Well, that's why Google brought in the gentleman from Pepsi. I forget his name right now. He came in, provided adult mentorship. Adult supervision. Yeah, adult supervision. And so it's been a very...

It's going to be interesting to watch. I think just based on his ego alone that Twitter is not going down. It's not going down. No. No. If he has to sit there himself 24, 23 and a half hours a day and do the coding himself, he'll do it.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about that. We talked about with Eric Erickson, his tweet this morning that is so spot on talking about the press. The press is more upset about Elon Musk and Twitter than they are TikTok or they are about FTX. FTX was a scam. It's a multilevel marketing Ponzi scheme that took people with crypto. I mean,

You and I have talked about crypto before. It's an interesting monetary adventure. I have a few dollars in crypto, but I've never been willing to put a significant portion of my portfolio in it because of this kind of stuff. But the press seems to want to spend more time on Musk, who, by the way—

Right. Right. I mean, does anybody think the EV has its prominence right now without Elon Musk? No, absolutely not. Yeah. And not admitting it, you're stupid. Right. Okay. Yeah.

But SpaceX, I mean, he's done things to make humanity better. Look at the satellites he's providing Ukraine, right? The tunnel metro lines in Miami. You're talking about the most visionary, forward-thinking business person of this era. But because he supports sort of unfettered free speech in a lot of ways, he is now the enemy. And look, and I like Elon Musk, but I don't think he's conservative. No. I think he's a visionary guy.

who I would probably disagree a lot on personal things 50% of the time, but they are so inclined now, corporate media, it's our way or the highway. There can be no disagreement, and that's why they hate what he's doing to Twitter. And to that point, to Eric's tweet,

For folks who don't understand this, TikTok is using your children to spy on this country and they're spying on your children and everything around your phone that your kids do is going to the Chinese government. Does that sound like a big story, like maybe a bigger story than than Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and a bunch of people leaving? Yeah. How about the Sam Bankman freed FTX you brought up, Chuck?

You're talking a multibillion dollar Ponzi, not even a Ponzi scheme. It's a money laundering operation for Sam Bankman freed his friends in the Democratic Party.

Who do you think does the best limited series on FTX? Is it Netflix? Is it Hulu? It's not Netflix because they're not going to touch this because they're just, you know, I mean, the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, has been very clear that his networks and Netflix is a vehicle for progressivism. Yeah. So they're not going to touch it. So probably Hulu. Hulu. Hulu.

Hulu or FX. I guess it'd be an FX series, right? Amazon, maybe. Maybe Showtime. Showtime takes on these type of things. Showtime took on the Uber guy. Right. So I can see something like that. But that would be a great limited series. Now we understand they have polyamorous relationships there. I mean, it's just so much fun. I mean, they've got to hurry and get this done for us, right? No, they do. I want to know all the details. Folks, let's talk about Thanksgiving. So we talked about it. Frank Luntz retweeted a stat that Republicans...

Those who think the economy is not doing great. 25 points. So this is what you got for Thanksgiving. OK, the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 is up 20 or 20 percent from last year. For example, a 16 pound turkey is up a buck. Eighty one a pound.

Two frozen pie crusts, up 26%. A half pint of whipped cream is up 224, so 26%. One pound frozen peas, up 23%. 30-ounce can of pumpkin pie mix, up 18%. One gallon milk, up 16%. I mean, it goes on and on and on. And Republicans fail to have a message.

With these people who know the economy is not doing – here's the hard part about this part. People have jobs. Right. So they're not going to do it. But you are going to start seeing people go to food kitchens next year, right? Well – They have jobs, so they're working, so it doesn't seem like it. But the costs are just from a mortgage to gas to groceries. Astronomical. Yeah, it's affecting people. You know, I think Republicans –

I mean, it's one of the things we dealt with on Kerry's campaign, right? Like, how do you talk about and how do you go after inflation? We came up with cut the food tax, you know, get rid of rental tax, these type of things. But in a state level, you're very limited because you don't you're not the one that controls the printing press in D.C., right? I mean, the federal government really dictates this.

And I never felt at any point this year, each governor or candidate in each state, you're going to run a race that's unique to your state. Correct. To the issues of your state. But I never felt like our national candidates for the U.S. Senate, for the U.S. House got any sort of unified message together on this stuff.

No, no, no. I think we talked about this before. I mean, in fact, it was this summer when I talked to chief of staff of a prominent Republican and I said and I said, it seems like our messaging is Joe Biden bad. And remember, his comment was, is it that complicated? Are we that complicated with it? Right. Is it that detailed? Right. Right.

Look, you're not going to win unless you provide an alternative. So, for example, on abortion, why do people who think the economy is bad make abortion a paramount policy point for them? I have a little bit of a theory here. I believe that, first of all—

It was seen as a right being taken away. Yes. Whether you're – only 23 percent of women have abortion, but it's a right being taken away. And I've always said that the Supreme Court erred in the original ruling. It should never have come down. But because it's been there for, what, 50, 60 years. 50 years. 50 years. So my point is – my thought on that is – so what you had here is you had two groups –

They knew one thing for sure. This was being taken away, and if you have this group of people there, it's probably gone in many states. But the other group who may take this fundamental right of way they viewed it is saying, well, we'll do things better. But they never expressed how. So when you look, Congress is at the bottom of the total poll ratings. Politicians are at the bottom of the total approval ratings. So I can make this choice of electing people who deny an election,

and for sure take away a right that I think I should have.

Or I can get people who really – I know they're not going to accomplish what they're saying they're going to accomplish. I really think it came down to that fundamental in some things. I think that's valid, Chuck. I do think that's valid. I think Republicans failed to offer a better vision for the future. But at the end of the day, these states with these early ballot programs, the difference in these states is that our people – and George just said it. If you – make sure you tune into the whole program, folks –

And George Califf from Data Orbital said, you know, look, our turnout was down. Why was it down? Well, we didn't go out and get the ballots. We didn't go out and get the early ballots. We didn't get those voters. And there's too many reasons for someone not to vote on Election Day just because of circumstances.

To risk that in a state where the other party is not risking it and is going after every one of those votes. Saks Media Group came out with a poll today that has in Florida just Republican primary voters.

In Florida, Ron DeSantis, 66 percent. Donald Trump, 21 percent. I saw that. Now, I don't know how – I've got to look at crosstabs and so forth. But there was an interesting quote today in The Wall Street Journal. It said, while Republicans in Washington have certainly decided that it is the wisest to turn the page, it is too soon to say whether Republican primary voters will be ready to do the same. One thing that is certain is that GOP primary voters want someone who can win the presidency.

If they think another candidate has a better recipe for how to do moving forward, you can bet they'll get a serious look. And one thing I've noticed always about when people focus on this,

If you can show that you can win a general – and I think that is going to be a big thing in 24 and Arizona in 26. I think they're just going to say, look, I can win. You may not love everything about me, but I can win this seat. And Katie Hobbs and if that disaster mains gets elected AG, they're going to prove them right. They're saying, look, you better have someone that's 70%, 80% with you better than 100% lose, right? Yeah.

So I will be interested which of these candidates running. Tim Scott's looking at it. Pence, DeSantis and DeSantis would seem to be the one that can do it. But again, running for governor is different than running for president.

Who can go and say, I can win and here's why, and the message is compelling enough that people say, yes, you can win? I mean, I think there's a couple of them who can make that argument, but here's what I would add to it. The two people who are – and I love Tim Scott. I think he's fantastic. I do too. And anybody who doesn't go tap him for VP is making a mistake. But the Washington Republicans are at a disadvantage because they have failed even when they had power to get things done.

And governors like DeSantis and Brian Kemp are proving that you can get things done in a very positive way in their states. And they're doing it with rock rib conservative values, which I'm sure has to be part of the deliberation of Kemp.

And DeSantis running for higher office. Yeah. Because they're saying like, you got a pretty good gig now and I'm able to make a difference. Right. You know, and I think that's a problem here. Folks, as we end up here today in this podcast portion, we're going to play, we'll be exiting off, but listen to this video from Cynthia Mulligan of City News of Canada. It's called Choosing Death Over Poverty. And...

What it's about is Canada now has allowed assisted suicide for those with disabilities, and they're trying to lower it to the age of 12. And they're trying to add an economic element where simply if you're poor, you can choose. Well, and this clip talks about this gentleman who's disabled, going to lose his housing, and so it basically is an economic factor. He has to have one more doctor sign on.

If you look at Canada to be your mortal, shiny city on the hill, don't. They're not. They have not been for a while. Listen to this. Follow this issue carefully because you can guarantee there are some knuckleheads in D.C. and New York and L.A. who think this would be a good idea.

It's going to be funded by some hedge fund guy or some third generation trust fund baby. But folks, this is coming to America and you just got to stomp it out now. And if you're in Canada and you're listening to this or Australia, get out. Flee. New Zealand. Get out. Pay attention to this issue. You talk about being pro-life. This is a pro-life issue. It's coming to the United States. Make no mistake about it.

Listen to this clip. We hope you have a fantastic weekend, and we think you'll look forward to our Thanksgiving show next week. Have a great week. He is not ready to die, and he doesn't want to. And yet, he has passed the first hurdle for medically assisted dying. Tonight, City News speaks with a man who feels he has no choice but to end his life because of a broken social safety net. How would you describe the quality of your life? Um...

awful, non-existent, terrible. I do nothing other than sort of manage symptoms, manage pain. There we go. Amir Farsoud lives with never-ending agony from a back injury. How bad does it get? At worst, it gets bad enough that I'm crying like a five-year-old and not sleeping for two days in a row.

But that's not why he has applied for medically assisted dying, otherwise known as MAID. Nor is it the depression he lives with. Farsud has applied because he is in danger of losing his housing. He lives in this St. Catherine's rooming house, sharing this space with two other people. But it is up for sale. Farsud lives on social assistance and says he can't find anywhere else he can afford. I don't want to die, but I don't want to be homeless more than I don't want to die.

Medically assisted dying in Canada was expanded this past March to include people with disabilities or those suffering in pain, even if they are not close to death. That means Farsud likely qualifies. This checkmark on his form signed by his doctor indicates where he meets the MAID criteria. Physical suffering due to disability that is intolerable and cannot be relieved. He needs one more doctor to sign off. Farsud.

Farsud is not the first person with a disability to consider MAID. They don't want to live this way anymore. You know, there's no safety net at all. For the last two years, City News has documented how people with disabilities on Ontario Disability Support Payments or ODSP are struggling to survive and would consider MAID when it was expanded. Sometimes it's a choice between burning to death and jumping out of an high-rise building.

Life on ODSP is a life well below the poverty line. Farsud makes a little over $1,200 a month on ODSP. Rent is $690 a month. After bills and expenses are paid, he has about $7 a day left for food. What do you buy to survive? A lot of beans.

That's why he can't pay more for rent. Farsud has been told the wait list for affordable housing is seven years. Maid is his out.

That's definitely not what MAID was designed for, but cases like that are emerging with increasing frequency across the country. Dr. Kerry Bowman is a bioethicist at U of T. These are a minority of cases, but ethically it doesn't matter that they're a minority, they're there. We were unbelievably naive as a nation to think that...

that vulnerability, disability, poverty, that we could just somehow parcel that off and it wasn't going to be a problem. It's a huge problem. There is a 90-day waiting period after applying for MAID. Farsud believes he could technically be eligible next month. Are you afraid to die? Who isn't? Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a tough guy not to do this, but yeah, at three in the morning I am. I wouldn't be.

Assisted dying is available in some seven countries, including several states in the U.S. Now, it's difficult to compare because guidelines vary from country to country. But some argue Canada is the most lenient when it comes to the criteria. Tomorrow, I'll tell you how the number of made cases is rising and the federal government's response to stories like Farsoon's.

The political field is all about reputation, so don't let someone squash yours online. Secure your name and political future with a yourname.vote web address from godaddy.com. Your political career depends on it.