Election Wire: Red Wave Rising

[0] With only two days remaining before the final votes are cast, which battleground states are still up for grabs.

[1] With millions of early ballots already in, which party has the upper hand?

[2] And today we hit the campaign trail with the woman looking to unseat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and we talk with our A -rated pollster and unveil our latest battleground poll.

[3] Hello and welcome to Election Wire.

[4] I'm John Bickley, Daily Wire editor -in -chief, and I'm joined by Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.

[5] Cabot, we're just two days away from finding out who's going to control balance of power in Washington.

[6] We've got some exclusive polling coming.

[7] We're going to look at some of the early voting.

[8] But first, what have we learned this last week?

[9] Well, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, we've learned that Republicans still have the momentum.

[10] It was a very good week for Republicans.

[11] Not only are they continuing to pull closer or even pull ahead, even more in battleground states in the polls, but for the first time since July, the political modeling site 538, has Republicans with more than a 50 % shot at taking the Senate.

[12] Remember, over the summer, they were at 29%.

[13] So you've got some of the analytics sites now starting to say...

[14] So it creep up all week, 50 to 51?

[15] It crept up all week, and now Republicans with 53 % chance.

[16] We've also seen political sites like the Cook Political Report, which in the past has actually exaggerated Democrats' support in election after election.

[17] They now shifted the state of 10 races in the House.

[18] All 10 of them, they shifted from Democrats closer to Republicans.

[19] That's a red wave, red tsunami shift right there.

[20] That's the kind of shift that you're seeing there.

[21] And you know I love bringing up the betting markets.

[22] Very fun to look at those.

[23] Oftentimes, they can be an even better indicator in the end than polls.

[24] And right now, the Republicans are now, after being two -to -one underdogs in the Senate earlier this summer, they're now at a 66 % chance to win the Senate on the markets, and 88 % to take over the House.

[25] So momentum in a lot of different anecdotal areas, as well as some of the more analytical areas as well.

[26] Yeah.

[27] Republicans, I'm sure, are hoping the money doesn't lie in that case.

[28] One reason for that increased optimism is the shift among suburban women voters.

[29] And that's been interesting.

[30] Can you tell us about that?

[31] Yeah, this was fascinating to look at.

[32] We all know that in 2020, one of the main keys to Democrat success was their performance with suburban women.

[33] They make about 20 % of the electorate.

[34] They showed out in droves for Democratic candidates.

[35] A lot of that was the poor performance of President Trump with those female voters.

[36] But we've seen a major shift taking place this summer.

[37] A new poll from the Wall Street Journal shows a 27 -point swing among suburban women since August alone.

[38] Back in August, this same Wall Street Journal poll had Democrats up 12 with that part of the voting block.

[39] Right now, Democrats are down 15 points with suburban women.

[40] 27 points might be the most significant shift we've ever seen in that short of period of time.

[41] Especially for a demographic this important.

[42] Again, 20 % of the elector is what they make up.

[43] And it's just more evidence that abortion is starting to fade from voters' minds.

[44] this was one of the main motivating factors for suburban women over the summer.

[45] As the economies continue to struggle, we now see Democrats starting to struggle.

[46] Right.

[47] We also see a shift this week as President Biden was more on the campaign trail a little bit more visible this week.

[48] We also saw Obama out there as well.

[49] Tell us what he was doing and where he was campaigning.

[50] Well, the White House had been promising all week that he was going to be making more appearances on the trail.

[51] We talked last week about how he kind of had been invisible, hadn't been making many appearances in these swing states.

[52] So it's not surprising that he's not surprising that he went on the trail.

[53] What's surprising is where he went.

[54] He didn't go to Pennsylvania or Georgia or Nevada.

[55] He went to Florida, where Republicans are really pulling ahead of those races.

[56] Marco Rubio is up big in the Senate.

[57] Ron DeSantis, the incumbent governor, is up big as well.

[58] And so for him to go to a state like that where it kind of seems out of reach, what's surprising to a lot of voters.

[59] Also, his message was interesting.

[60] He started off by focusing on Social Security and Medicare, which makes sense in a state like Florida with an older electorate.

[61] But then his message on the economy was far rosier than you might expect.

[62] Have a listen.

[63] The economy is in fact growing.

[64] In fact, the economy grew 2 .6 % last quarter.

[65] And although it may not feel that way, people's incomes went up the last quarter more than inflation.

[66] Economic growth is up.

[67] Price inflation is down.

[68] Real incomes are up and gas prices are down.

[69] So that gives you an idea of the closing message from President Biden and Democrats.

[70] And it's worth pointing out in that clip, most of those comments.

[71] are simply not true.

[72] He was fact -checked by a number of outlets that were saying, yes, technically gas is down, but it's still up more than $1 .30 since he took office.

[73] The claim that incomes are up over the pace of inflation is just flat out false.

[74] That is not accurate.

[75] And it's kind of a risky strategy that we're seeing from Democrats to, instead of saying, you know, the economy's not doing well, we empathize with you.

[76] We're going to work on it.

[77] The message is, well, actually, regardless of what you're feeling, the economy is not that bad.

[78] So that had people talking that that was the closing message that he chose.

[79] All right, so let's get to some of these early voting totals.

[80] This has been something we've really watched this year as early voting is really ticking up in a lot of states.

[81] What have we learned and what can we learn from early voting?

[82] Well, we'll start with the fact that voter turnout is up for early voting compared to 2018.

[83] Now, there seem to be two main reasons for that.

[84] One is just that enthusiasm is higher than we've seen past elections.

[85] Voters in the Democrat and Republican Party, they say they've been following races more closely.

[86] They're more excited to get out for this midterm than they were in 2018.

[87] But you can't only attribute this uptick and turnout to, you know, that enthusiasm.

[88] Also, that's due with COVID.

[89] During COVID, a number of states passed laws that made early voting permanent.

[90] And so now a lot of voters just who voted early for the first time in 2020 because the pandemic are now saying, well, I'll keep doing this.

[91] Now, a number of states do tell us which voters are coming from which party.

[92] So we can start to see who has the advantage there.

[93] This is interesting.

[94] Of the battleground states where we see party affiliation listed among those early voters.

[95] Four of them, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Florida have Republicans with a higher advantage at this point of early voting than they had back in 2018 midterms.

[96] And so those four states, Republicans are well outpacing where they were earlier.

[97] Florida, number one, they're five to eight percent higher than they were earlier.

[98] But in those other states, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, two to five percent, they're doing better than they were in the last midterm election.

[99] So Republicans are excited about that.

[100] Now, keep in mind, Democrats always perform better in early voting.

[101] So in every single state, Democrats are in the lead right now with early voting, but Republicans aren't too concerned about that because we have so much president for it.

[102] They're actually a little excited that Republicans are pulling ahead where they were in the past.

[103] The one state where we're seeing the opposite trend, where Democrats have a higher share of early votes than they did in the past is Pennsylvania.

[104] They're outpacing where they were in 2020 by about 2%.

[105] Democrats right now, 72 % of the early vote have been registered Democrats.

[106] So that is not good if you're Republicans.

[107] And it's also one more point that the Oz campaign was making about why it was so important to have that debate earlier.

[108] Keep in mind, early voters being going on all state in or all month in the state of Pennsylvania.

[109] That debate happened after hundreds of thousands of votes had already been cast.

[110] And the ALS campaign is not happy about that.

[111] They feel like those votes may have gone differently if the debate had happened earlier.

[112] But still a lot of undecided's in Pennsylvania.

[113] Yeah.

[114] What about young voters across the country?

[115] I definitely wanted to get to this.

[116] This is a really interesting note that is very concerning for Democrats right now.

[117] So in 2020, after all the early votes have been cast, 16 .5 % of those early voters were voters under the age of 30.

[118] That's big for Democrats.

[119] They do very well with younger voters.

[120] Right now in 2022, just 5 .4 % of early votes cast have been people under the age of 30.

[121] So almost three times fewer young people voting early than in 2020.

[122] Now, there could be some social reasons for that.

[123] Obviously, COVID was a big factor in 2020.

[124] But if Democrats are going to hold on to the Senate, they have to have strong turnout from young people.

[125] We're not seeing as much enthusiasm for young people as we saw in 2020, and we're definitely not seeing as much early voting from young people.

[126] That is good news for Republican candidates who typically perform better with slightly older voters.

[127] All right, so some very fascinating trends going on with early voting.

[128] We'll see how this all impacts the races in a couple of days.

[129] Now we're going to bring on a familiar voice for Morning Wire listeners, Georgia Howe, who recently joined Republican Tudor Dixon on the campaign trail in, Michigan, Dixon is facing off against incumbent governor Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.

[130] Hey, Georgia.

[131] Hey.

[132] Good to have you on.

[133] Good to be on.

[134] So you spent some time with Tudor Dixon on the campaign trail in Michigan.

[135] How did it go?

[136] You know, so we spent a few hours with her on her bus.

[137] We went to a few of her rallies.

[138] This was on Sunday.

[139] And I will say, having spent that time with her, I understand why she's become such a formidable opponent for Gretchen Whitmer.

[140] She has an impressive background.

[141] She is a mother of four.

[142] She spent most of her career in steel manufacturing.

[143] Then she went into political commentary.

[144] And she's now really addressing the issues that Michigan voters care about the most.

[145] So that's probably the biggest edge she has.

[146] That's something we've actually seen across the board is this idea that Republicans seem to be focusing on the priorities of voters more than Democrats.

[147] What were some of the issues that came up?

[148] So the three issues that she's focusing on in her campaign are crime, education, and the economy.

[149] Specifically, she talks a lot about jobs.

[150] Now, Whitmer is focusing, like a lot of Democrats, on the issue of abortion.

[151] How did Tudor Dixon address that issue?

[152] Right.

[153] So I did ask her about that.

[154] And I sense that she's being careful about her messaging around abortion because there is a proposition on the ballot this year in Michigan to make abortion a constitutional right.

[155] Here's what she told me. There's a ballot measure on the ballot this year in Michigan to add abortion as a constitutional right.

[156] I understand you are fiercely pro -life.

[157] How would you balance that if the people, of Michigan decided they want that constitutional right.

[158] Well, I've made it very clear.

[159] Unlike Gretchen Whitmer, there are no laws that I will decide not to follow.

[160] If that is what the people want, if that's what they vote in, then I will absolutely uphold that law.

[161] Okay, so Dixon, they're answering, like a lot of Republicans we've seen actually, saying that she will not violate or go against the will of the people if they choose to back a certain abortion measures.

[162] Yeah, that's the gist of what she was saying.

[163] And what about the issue of education?

[164] That's something that Dixon's focused on a lot, right?

[165] So she's making this a cornerstone of her campaign.

[166] One of the major topics is masks in schools, school lockdowns.

[167] So she knows a lot of parents are angry about that.

[168] And she has relentlessly tied Whitmer to those school closures because she knows that's a huge liability for Whitmer.

[169] Yeah, that came up in the debate.

[170] Yes.

[171] So from your time with her, do you feel like she's confident that she's going to win?

[172] You know, I did sense that she's pretty confident.

[173] You don't get the same Kerry Lake level of confidence.

[174] But, I mean, I think she has some energy behind her for a reason.

[175] and she brings it to her events every single time, I can tell.

[176] So she's in it to win it.

[177] Yeah, it's going to be a fascinating one to watch.

[178] It'll be an upset if she wins.

[179] For sure.

[180] Thanks, Georgia.

[181] Next we have our under the radar segment where we look at a race or two that is not getting enough national attention.

[182] Cabot, what race do you think we should keep an eye on Tuesday?

[183] I'm watching the mayor's race in Los Angeles, where billionaire businessman Rick Caruso is giving Democrat congresswoman Karen Bass a serious run for her money.

[184] Now, Caruso is technically running as a Democrat, but keep in mind, he's been a Republican throughout his life.

[185] He just recently changed party affiliation.

[186] And if you listen to his campaign, he sounds a lot like a Republican still, especially on the issue of crime.

[187] He's really gone law and order, whereas Bass has run on a more lenient, more progressive, kind of far -left strategy when it comes to crime.

[188] So far, he's outspent her with $80 million of his own dollars.

[189] $80 million for a mayor's race.

[190] It's the most expensive race in the history of the city.

[191] It's a big city.

[192] Bass has spent around $11 million, so the two are just blanketing the airwaves right now, especially Caruso.

[193] So if he wins, this would be a serious repudiation of the progressive movement in Los Angeles.

[194] And we could have a very moderate, you know, some people still consider him a Republican mayor of Los Angeles, a big about face.

[195] Yeah, and it falls in line with trends we've seen in some of the other major cities that have progressive DAs.

[196] Crime, crime, crime.

[197] Good choice.

[198] Now, every week we also look at what we call pivot points or moments we think could really shape or even redirect.

[199] a race.

[200] For mine this week, I'm looking at a moment with Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Federman, whose debate performance against Dr. Oz appears to have really heard him in the polls.

[201] So Federman had a chance to redeem his debate performance in an interview with CNN's down Lemon on Tuesday.

[202] Yet again, this did not go well for him.

[203] There was a viral moment, went viral for all the wrong reasons for the Federman campaign.

[204] Let's watch this.

[205] Well, let's talk about inflation because that's a big concern for voters.

[206] What do you think the biggest cause of inflation is?

[207] And should the Biden administration be doing more?

[208] No, I just do.

[209] I think that simply is also we have this talk about the trillions in massive tax cuts to the corporate tax structure as well true.

[210] You know, trillions of dollars that have added to the deficit and now they still want to support those as well true.

[211] I think in terms of being very serious about addressing inflation is making sure that those rates are brought back into a line with what they should have been where they're able to fight the deficit.

[212] So once again, Federman's struggling to answer and they're on a pretty friendly platform for him.

[213] That could prove to be another pivotal moment for Federman.

[214] Kevin, what are you looking at?

[215] I'm looking at a man named Mark Victor in Arizona.

[216] You're probably not familiar with Mark Victor.

[217] He was the Libertarian Party nominee in the Senate race there.

[218] This This week, he dropped out and endorsed the Republican Blake Masters.

[219] That's a big deal.

[220] Now, it is a big deal because he was polling around one to six percentage points throughout the state, which that's enough to shift a race as close as this one between Masters and Kelly.

[221] Now traditionally, third party candidates poll relatively evenly from Democrats and Republicans, but when you've got a libertarian candidate who, again, is more likely to align with Republicans, come out and say, hey, Masters is a good guy, he'd be a good senator, all of his supporters telling them, go vote for Blake Masters.

[222] That is a serious moment that could shift this race.

[223] So a lot of Republicans are very grateful for Mark Victor.

[224] Yeah, and our polling showed just a one point gap between the two of them.

[225] All right, it's time now for one final look at the polls before Tuesday's action.

[226] Cabot, what's the latest from the battleground races we've been tracking?

[227] Well, I want to start in New York with the governor's race that has quickly become one of the most discussed races in the entire country after not even being a race for much of the summer.

[228] now leads in the latest Trafalgar polling 48 .4 to 47 .6 within the margin of error.

[229] This one is going to be very, very close.

[230] Keep watching the New York governor's race.

[231] You heard that right.

[232] New York could have a Republican governor come Tuesday.

[233] Then we go out to Michigan, another governor's race that no one expected to be this close that is increasingly tight again within the margin of error.

[234] The latest American greatness insider advantage poll all tied up at 45.

[235] There are still 5 % of voters saying they're undecided.

[236] Keep an eye on how they break.

[237] But what?

[238] One reason that Tudor Dix and the Republican is even in this race is because of her performance with independence.

[239] The latest polling shows independence breaking by 20 points for Republicans.

[240] If we see a similar break going on with undecideds, it's going to be even closer than a lot of people predicted and could end up going for Republicans in Michigan.

[241] Heading now to the Senate, we'll go down to Georgia where Herschel Walker has pulled ahead in another poll.

[242] We've seen a growing number of polls where he's in the lead after a lot of people really wrote him off after some of those stories about his personal life over the summer.

[243] The latest polling has them up by one point, but keep in mind for this race, we very well could be looking at a runoff.

[244] If you don't get to 50%, the top two candidates head to a runoff, both campaigns hoping to avoid that.

[245] And so keep on that 50 % number as election night approaches, but things are looking very good right now for Herschel Walker.

[246] Then out to Nevada, the Senate race where Democrats had started to get some good news after a fall where things were really not looking good for them.

[247] Catherine Cortez, Master, the Democrat incumbent, is ahead in the latest USA to date.

[248] poll by one point.

[249] There was another New York Times poll that had her with an even larger lead than that.

[250] But since then, we've seen a number of polls now where Adam Laxalt, the Republican, is up five points and two of them, up three in another.

[251] So things are kind of all over the place, but keep in mind, the momentum clearly has been for Adam Laxalt and the Republicans.

[252] So those two polls where Cortez Mastro was leading seem to be outliers at this point.

[253] But the Nevada race, again, too close to call.

[254] Keep an eye there on election night.

[255] Pennsylvania, we go there now.

[256] where the Senate race between Dr. Oz and John Federman, if you've heard this, is a toss -up.

[257] The latest polling from Morning Call has both of them tied at 47.

[258] Some people thought that the clear advantage was going to Dr. Oz after that really tough debate performance for Federman.

[259] We haven't seen a huge break for Oz, but it is clear that he does still have the momentum.

[260] This race is still tight.

[261] Those betting markets that we talked about earlier do have Oz with a two -to -one advantage.

[262] So a stronger advantage there than we've seen in the polls.

[263] But again, odds with the momentum.

[264] Right now, though, it is within the margin of error.

[265] And we'll end with the Senate race in Washington State.

[266] That's right.

[267] There is a tight Senate race going on in Washington State where most people expected complete Democrat dominance.

[268] Because right now, Tiffany Smiley, the Republican, is within 1 .48, 49.

[269] She's trailing Democrat incumbent Patty Murray.

[270] The main issue there, as has been in the Oregon governor's race, which is also incredibly tight, is crime and its homelessness.

[271] Those two issues, Smiley has really capitalized on in states that have been ravaged by those two things.

[272] And the race is closer than anyone predicted.

[273] It's a toss up right now.

[274] So keep an eye on Washington State.

[275] It could be going red this year for the first time in a very long time.

[276] Joining us now to reveal the results of another Daily Wire exclusive poll is Robert Cahaley, founder of Trafalgar Group.

[277] Hey, Robert.

[278] That's great.

[279] They're here.

[280] Now, we polled New Hampshire this week where we have Democrat incumbent Maggie Hasson versus Republican challenger Don Bullock.

[281] And we got maybe a not -so -surprising result.

[282] Don Bulldick is now leading by over 1 .47 percent to Maggie Hassan's 45 .7 percent.

[283] So a 1 .3 percent lead.

[284] How does that align with other polls?

[285] Well, it's, you know, it's right in line with the other polls.

[286] What we've seen in the last few weeks is Emerson had one.

[287] I believe they had Bullock down by two.

[288] then there was Matt Towery with insider advantage.

[289] I always does exceptional polling.

[290] And I think he had Bulldoch only down by one.

[291] And then just a couple of days ago, Amsterdam College came out with one that had Bullock up by one.

[292] And so this is Bullock up by just a little over one.

[293] So it's very much in line with kind of what we felt like was going to happen all along with the Republican boats kind of consolidate because months before this race, when we had polled it, we saw both Bullock and his Republican challenger, Morse, were both winning against Hassan.

[294] So right after the primary, you'd have these hurt feelings that follow primary.

[295] And so people have to kind of come together.

[296] Now, what is noteworthy is because there's very little early voting in New Hampshire, I mean, virtually none.

[297] Everything is going to be election day.

[298] So the polls, more than almost any other state at the end, are more reflective of what the result will be than having to anticipate.

[299] where the polls were at the time of early book.

[300] And how many undecideds do we have in the state?

[301] I think it was 3 .2, maybe 3 .4, and they were decidedly anti -Joe Biden.

[302] Okay, so things looking favorably for Baldock there.

[303] Let's move over to New York.

[304] You guys had a couple of interesting polls and some fascinating questions you asked New Yorkers this week.

[305] We're seeing Republican Lee Zeldon now pulling even with Kathy Hochel.

[306] in fact, your group, Trafalgar group, found him with a slight edge.

[307] Tell us about that poll.

[308] That's very, very tight statistical tie, but Zeldon does have a 0 .8 % lead.

[309] And what we've seen, you know, months ago we started talking about this race because it looked very much like New Jersey did to us in 2021.

[310] So what we had been doing is we've seen it and it's tighten each time.

[311] And, you know, some of the mainstream polling that said it was, you know, two or three you know, huge margins, you know, 10 point, 20 points.

[312] They've all kind of come to where we are and realized this was close.

[313] What we've also noticed is during the course of doing the polling, a lot of people kept saying, well, you know, Cuomo would be doing better on crime or just volunteering Cuomo's name.

[314] And it occurred to me, there may be something to that, that, you know, the Cuomo, you know, Cuomo and his father both have run and been very successful over the years.

[315] And there's probably a little bit of a Cuomo machine still.

[316] in place in this state.

[317] And so we asked some additional questions.

[318] And one was, who do you think did a better job, Hokal or Cuomo?

[319] And Promo won that 60 -40.

[320] And then we asked if the election coming up were between Zeldon and Cuomo, how would you be voting?

[321] And Cuomo beats Zeldon 55 -45.

[322] So what that tells us is there are a lot of folks who say, I'm for Cuomo when it's Zelda versus hopeful.

[323] So part of Zelda's winning coalition at this point are people who, for whatever reason, which Cuomo was still there.

[324] Well, that's kind of countertuitive there.

[325] I think a lot of people would be surprised by that development.

[326] Fascinating stuff, Robert.

[327] We'll see you next time in just a couple of days on election night.

[328] Can't wait for it.

[329] You'll be in -house with us again.

[330] This is it for this episode of Election Wire.

[331] We'll be back Tuesday with all the election news you need to know.