All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 8, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show
44:41
It’s Election Day! | Ep. 1606
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
We examine all the data as voters head to the polls for Election Day 2022.
We look forward to what Republicans could do with control of Congress and celebrities announce they will be leaving Twitter.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Bench Bureau Show.
Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
Do you like your web history being seen and sold to advertisers?
No?
Me neither.
Get ExpressVPN right now at expressvpn.com.
Slash Ben will get to all the news in just one moment.
First, Joe Biden's administration has taken to Twitter to go after Shell, ExxonMobil for posting their record profits.
They're evil.
But there are many companies that this administration seems to like a lot.
Some of those companies include Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
I wonder why this administration likes them.
Well, maybe it's because those companies are sort of aligned with this administration in terms of their politics.
Here's the thing.
You have choices when it comes to choosing a wireless company.
That's why you should check out PeerTalk.
Switching over to PeerTalk can save you 50% off your current bill every single month.
You could be paying $30 a month for talk, text, and data.
Your family could be saving almost $1,000 per year for the same coverage for the same service you have right now.
A veteran-owned, proudly American company, Pure Talk does not overcharge their customers to keep shareholders happy.
You can switch to their service today in as little as 10 minutes.
It's very easy.
I've done it myself.
Their service is great.
They use the same tower network as one of the big guys.
Go to puretalk.com.
Enter code SHAPIRO to save 50% off your very first month.
That's puretalk.com.
Promo code SHAPIRO for 50% off your very first month.
Puretalk.com.
Promo code SHAPIRO.
Get 50% off your first month.
Get started today.
Also, I've been struggling to reach those fitness goals.
We're nearing the end of the year, and you're going to be putting on weight around Thanksgiving, around Christmas, lots of eating coming up.
Well, you need to make sure you don't turn into a giant, and this is why you need Echelon Fitness.
The folks over at Echelon Fitness have it all worked out.
Echelon Fitness is the affordable way to get workout equipment, a workout community, and an instructor's motivation directly in the comfort and privacy of your very own home.
Echelon Fitness's Connected app provides thousands of live and on-demand classes with great music to keep you moving.
You can work out anytime, day or night.
I have.
The Echelon Fitness Bike.
I've been using it a lot, which is why I look so svelte and chic.
Their full range of affordable workout equipment includes stationary bikes, smart rovers, sleek fitness screens, and an auto-folding treadmill.
These are all connected to the Echelon Fitness app for the full experience.
Around-the-clock classes include full-body workout programs that'll keep you coming back.
One membership covers a family of five.
For a limited time, my audience can get a free bike or rowing machine with a 24-month membership.
To get your free bike or rower, text BEN to 818181.
That's BEN to 818181.
Claim your free bike or rowing machine today.
Text BEN to 818181.
Message and data rates may apply.
Claim at your free bike or rowing machine today.
Text BEN to 818181.
Message and data rates may apply.
See terms for details.
Well, Election Day is always the time where we just sit around waiting to find out what exactly is going to happen.
And all we can do is sort of speculate as to how this thing is going to come out.
There are a couple of different pollsters and analysts who have different analyses of how they think this thing is going to come down.
The general widespread perception is that Republicans will likely take both the House and the Senate.
The question is going to be the margins.
Will Republicans take the House with 30 seats or 25 seats?
Will Republicans take the Senate by gaining one seat or picking up four seats?
These are the big questions.
Henry Olsen over at the Washington Post is suggesting that he believes that the Republicans are going to end up taking 54 seats in the Senate and 246 seats in the House.
246 seats in the House would be like historic levels of Republican majority.
54 seats in the Senate would give them not only a solid majority, but the possibility of taking a super majority in 2024.
Remember that when it comes to the Senate, because only one third of the Senate is up for election every two years, this means that this particular election cycle actually has a bunch of races that do not favor Republicans.
There are Republican incumbents who are supposed to be vulnerable in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In Pennsylvania, there wasn't even an incumbent.
The incumbent is out, Pat Toomey.
And that's why that was an open race.
Next time around, there are a lot of vulnerable purple to blue Democratic seats.
And so if Republicans end up with 54, there is the possibility that in a 2024 wave election for a Republican for president, if Joe Biden is running again, for example, then this would mean that Republicans have the possibility of having a historically large majority in the Senate.
So when it comes to Senate elections, it's not just about this election.
It's also about the next election.
The same thing is true in the House of Republicans have a very large majority in the House.
Then even if they don't do amazing in 2024, they can still maintain their majority in the House.
So every election is about a little bit more than just that election.
Henry Olsen says that this election is essentially a referendum on President Biden.
He says, my predictions are more optimistic for Republicans than most of the other prognosticators.
The Cook Political Report, for example, predicts the GOP will win between 12 and 25 House seats.
FiveThirtyEight's model forecasts the Senate as a dead heat.
Those estimates and other underestimate the effects of a political truism.
Midterms are always a referendum on the president.
Biden is a historically unpopular president.
Compared with every other president since World War II, Biden's job approval rating at this point in his tenure is slightly ahead of the approval of only two presidents, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
Since Republicans lost 26 House seats in Reagan's first midterm and 40 in Trump's, that does not bode particularly well for Democrats.
He says another reliable predictor is the generic congressional ballot, which measures which party voters plan to support for House seats without mentioning specific candidates.
One prominent political science model shows that losing the generic House ballot by six points results in, on average, a loss of 26 seats.
These two indicators show Democrats are in a deep hole because RealClearPolitics' poll average puts Biden's job approval at 42.3%.
Even if we round that up to 43% and assume Democrats will exceed that number by two points, as presidential parties did in both 2006 and 2014, Democrats would take only 45% of the national House vote, which would be an awful outcome.
He says there are 56 House seats seriously in play.
How many seats are vulnerable to flip?
14 are Democratic-held seats that Trump won.
Republicans hold 12 seats that Biden won.
Democrats hold an additional 24 seats that Biden won by 10 points or less, yielding 50 seats below the line.
The parties are seriously contesting an additional six seats that Biden won by 10 or more.
So that means that if you're just looking at Biden plus 10 districts and everything less than that for Democrats, that's 50 seats.
Midterm history suggests Republicans will win the overwhelming share of these districts.
During the 2010 GOP wave and the 2018 Democratic tsunami, the party not in control of the White House captured between 70% and 80% of similarly vulnerable seats.
So Henry Olsen is very bullish on the Republican chances.
Meanwhile, Larry Sabato over at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia suggests that the Republicans are going to net one seat in the Senate.
They believe that for some reason they think that Raphael Warnock will go down to Herschel Walker in Georgia and that Dr. Oz will end up winning in Pennsylvania, but that Catherine Cortez Masto will pull out a close race in Nevada.
I think that is very unlikely to happen.
I think the Republicans will end up with at least 52.
I think 53 or 54.
Obviously, that means Blake Masters and Don Balduck in New Hampshire.
I'm going to go optimistic.
I'm going to say the Republicans win 53 to 54 seats here.
I'm a little more dicey on Balduck just because the polling there, it closed so suddenly and so fast that it's sort of hard to see what's going on in New Hampshire.
Arizona, I could see Kerry like dragging Blake Masters over the finish line in Arizona.
Bottom line here is that again, it seems betting markets are now suggesting at a 70% clip that Republicans are going to take the Senate.
And if you look at the RealClearPolitics poll averages, you can see why.
Right now in Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz is up 0.4.
Virtually all of the latest polls have Dr. Oz up in Pennsylvania.
The question is going to be how much the early voting hurt in Pennsylvania.
We'll get to that.
Voting tabulation procedures and what we can expect on actual election night in just a moment.
In New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan is up just 1.4 points according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Now, she is up in four of the last five polls, but virtually all of them are within the margin of error.
This is why, again, I'm not sanguine about taking New Hampshire for the Republicans when I say 53 as opposed to 54.
In Arizona, Blake Masters is actually now up in the RealClearPolitics polling average, which is a shocker.
The last three polls have masters either tied or up one.
Now, again, that does not make a huge difference.
Essentially, when you're within margin of error, it's a toss up.
But you can see that, you know, for example, Larry Sabato has Nevada going Democrat.
I don't see that at all.
The last four polls in Nevada are Laxalt plus five, Laxalt plus two, Laxalt plus six, Laxalt plus five.
I think Laxalt takes the Nevada Senate seat.
And then you see a bunch of seats that were supposed to be vulnerable for Republicans, and they are turning out not to be particularly vulnerable.
Ron Charlton in Wisconsin would be one of those seats.
Bud in North Carolina was supposed to be one of those seats.
Vance in Ohio was supposed to be one of those seats.
And those races have really, really opened up.
So right now, if you're a Democrat, you got to be freaking out a little bit.
And here's the big stat.
Hey, obviously when it comes to the approval rating for Joe Biden, which is very indicative of how parties do in midterm, they're not good.
It's 42, 43%.
But among independents, and remember, independents are the ones who are going to decide this election.
It's going to be you.
You have to get out to vote, regardless of your party.
You should get out.
You should vote today.
Whoever you want to see win, make sure that you vote today.
These elections are too close.
These are like, these are hair's breadth, extraordinarily close elections.
Again, if you look at that RealClearPolitics polling average, you are seeing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 races minimum in the Senate that are within margin of error in the polls.
So these are really, really tight races, and there are a bunch of House races that are also extremely close.
There are an extraordinary number of gubernatorial races that are really, really close.
Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan is up in the RealClearPolitics polling average by 1.1%.
Very close race in Arizona, where Carrie Lake is up in the Royal Club Politics polling average by three and a half.
Over in Wisconsin, it's a margin of error race for the Wisconsin governorship.
So, again, get out and vote.
But, one of the things that's important to mention here is that independents are going to be the deciders in a lot of these elections.
This is what happened in both 2016 and 2020 in the presidential.
In 2016, late deciding voters broke 2-1 for Trump.
In 2020, late deciding voters broke 2-1 for Joe Biden.
This time around, independents, who presumably would be the late deciding voters, they really don't like Joe Biden at all.
Chuck Todd over at NBC had to wipe away the tears as he announced this fact.
Biden's job approval rating sits at 44% in this final NBC News poll.
By the way, all-time low with independents, his approval rating is just 28%.
And let me put this in context for you.
What does a job rating mean?
Some people believe it's the single most important indicator to understand where a midterm election is going.
Bill Clinton's 44% job approval rating translated into a 54 seat loss for his party.
A 45% job approval rating for President Obama in 2010 translated to 63 lost House seats.
46% for President Trump, 40 House seat loss for his party.
So what will 44% give us?
Okay, so one of the big problems for Republicans in terms of defining a wave is the fact that Republicans are actually in very strong position in the House going into the election.
By the way, one way that you can tell that Republicans are about to do very well in a lot of these states is what Donald Trump has been doing at his rallies.
So remember, Donald Trump Tried to run David Perdue against Brian Kemp in the primaries for governor of Georgia and David Perdue just got walloped.
And then Donald Trump yelled at Brian Kemp for like several months there about how terrible Brian Kemp was because Donald Trump didn't win Georgia.
Last night, Donald Trump came out, endorsed Brian Kemp for re-election in Georgia.
Of course it's going to because Brian Kemp is going to win by a thousand points over Stacey Abrams.
Okay, so the question becomes what does a red wave look like?
So there are a few things that are worth noting about the red wave.
We'll get into the sort of red mirage of all this and how voting procedures work in just a second because there are a lot of people on the right who are very much afraid that they're going to go to bed tonight and it's going to look like a red wave and then tomorrow it's going to look like a red ripple or something because of voting procedures.
So we'll talk about realistically What voting tabulation looks like in places like Pennsylvania.
It is pathetic that many states do not count like Florida.
Florida is going to close and within an hour you're going to have solid results in Florida.
Because again, all the absentee ballots as they come in are being tabulated.
Everything is tabulated electronically.
That means that you get results incredibly fast.
There's no reason in a civilized country you cannot have results same night.
But there are procedures in place in these places and a lot of these procedures suck.
So that happens to be real.
However, one thing that you can watch from the media is that if Republicans come in anywhere below say 40 seats, If they come below 30 seats, then Democrats are going to suggest that it was not a good night for Republicans.
This is a lie.
Remember, when it comes to the House, Republicans currently hold 212 seats.
212 seats out of 435.
What this means is that if you look historically at the size of House majorities for Republicans, there have been only four times since World War II and three since 2010.
But four times since World War II, the Republicans have had over 240 seats in the House.
They would only have to win about 28 seats to get over 240 seats in the House.
So you could see Democrats easily saying, well, you only won 28 seats.
Is that really a wave?
I mean, normally, I mean, look at those stats.
Normally, when the president's approval rating is at 44%, you're losing 50 seats or 60 seats.
The answer is Republicans outperformed the president on the ballot in 2020, which means that Republicans have a very narrow minority in the House right now.
Republicans are not down by 40 seats.
Republicans are not down by 30 seats.
Republicans are down by 10 seats.
And that means the possibility of them picking up a lot of seats is a lot lower.
And that means also that it wouldn't take a whole hell of a lot for Republicans to have a historically large majority.
If the GOP adds 36 seats, which is less than all of those other quote unquote wave elections.
I remember in 2010, Republicans picked up like 60 seats, but that's because they went into that election in a horrible position in the House.
If you look historically at the House divisions and you look at 2010, going into the 2010 election, Democrats had 257 seats in the House.
So when Republicans picked up 60 seats, they ended up at 242.
In order for Republicans to end up at 242 tonight, all they have to do is pick up 30 seats.
So the question is not really how many seats you pick up.
The question is how many seats you end up with.
If Republicans won 36 seats, this would put them at over 247.
Republicans would have the largest House majority since 1928 if they pick up 36 seats.
So yes, that will be a red wave.
So when Kevin McCarthy says, and he was kind of mocked for it yesterday, that if the GOP wins 20 seats, it's a red wave, that's not historically inaccurate because that would put the Republicans at 232 seats, which is a very, very solid House majority.
Realistically, I think that if you want to call it a wave, you have to win over 30.
If Republicans win over 30, this puts them in like 242 position, which is back in the position they were after the 2010 elections, which was a wave election.
Here's Kevin McCarthy trying to explain what a red wave constitutes.
Last question.
Yes.
Can you give a prediction for how many seats do you think Republicans are going to pick up on Tuesday?
At least enough to win the majority.
We're going to fight for every single one possible.
What do you see as a red wave?
What will be a red wave on Tuesday night?
Well, I think anywhere over 20 is a red wave.
Okay, so he's giving you a low estimate so that he can claim that there's a red wave, but the real number is above 30 would be a red wave.
Above 25 would be like a red tide.
And a red wave would be, a red tsunami would be like 35 plus.
35 plus seats is a red tsunami.
30 seats plus is a red wave.
25 seats is sort of a tide, is the best way to think about all of this.
Okay, now again, one of the big issues here is going to be how the independents go.
It looks like the independents are going to show up and it looks like they are going to vote.
Turnout is going to be a big part of this.
So again, I urge everybody to go out and vote today.
One of the things that's really fascinating about this particular election is that if it is a red wave election, if Republicans do show really strong in this election, Democrats are going to do what they usually do.
They're going to blame White racism and the evils of white supremacy and all of the rest of this.
But that's not going to be the story.
Because as we talked about yesterday, the Wall Street Journal has a poll showing that the GOP is getting significant ground among black and Latino voters.
Basically, they're running almost dead even with Latinos, and they're picking up to 17% of the black vote, which is an insane number.
Democrats typically draw 92, 90 percent of the black vote.
If Republicans got to 11 percent of the black vote in prior elections, that was a massive win for them.
If Republicans start clocking in at 15 to 20 percent, Democrats are toast.
They have a serious problem on their hands.
And all of this is happening, by the way, amidst a simple fact.
America is getting more integrated.
So what the left would like to suggest is that the country is getting more Republican when it comes to the House and the Senate and maybe the presidency in 2024.
As America is getting more segregated, more racist, worse.
That's not true.
By census data, more Americans are living near people of other races.
And as that happens, what's actually happening is that more people are voting Republican.
According to the Washington Post, deep in the bowels of the nation's 2020 census lurks a quiet milestone.
For the first time in modern American history, most white people live in mixed-race neighborhoods.
So it's not that white people are separating themselves off from the rest of the population, then voting as a voter bloc.
That's not what's happening.
What's happening is that white voters are voting kind of typically how they always have, and a lot of minority voters are now living near white voters and not in segregated areas because racism, because white racism, and because of in-group cohesion.
A lot of these things have declined in the United States, and because of that, people are voting More homogeneously population-wide and more heterogeneously inside their own groups.
What that means is that you can now look at Latinos and they're voting more divided than they would have before.
They're not a voter bloc.
Hispanics are not a voter bloc.
Increasingly, if these stats are right, blacks may not be an ethnic voter bloc.
Ethnic voter blocs may become a thing of the past in the United States, which by the way would be a wonderful thing.
That'd be a great thing.
If people stopped voting based on race or ethnicity, and instead started voting based on which policies benefit themselves and their families, that'd be a great thing for the United States.
It'd be a great thing pretty much everywhere.
According to the Washington Post, this marks a tectonic shift from just a generation ago.
Back in 1990, 78% of white people lived in predominantly white neighborhoods, where at least 4 out of every 5 people were also white.
In the 2020 census that has plunged to 44% only 44% of white Americans live in an area where four out of every five people were also white.
Large pockets of segregation remain, but as America's white population shrinks for the first time, and Hispanic, Asian, Black, and Native Americans fuel the nation's growth, diverse neighborhoods have expanded from urban cores into suburbs that were once colored by a steady stream of white flight from inner cities.
Across the 9,700 neighborhoods that became mixed in 2020, white population dropped by about 300,000.
Meanwhile, the number of Hispanics jumped by 1.5 million, the largest part of a 4.3 million increase in non-whites in those neighborhoods.
What's amazing about all of this is that it's actually not having the impact that Democrats thought it would have.
Their suggestion was that as the white population declined in the United States, that the country would become ever more left-wing.
That is not what is happening.
Instead, it turns out that large swaths of minority voters don't like the woke, equity-based nonsense that Democrats are pushing.
The Washington Post acknowledges this demographic shift has scrambled the nation's politics, introducing new groups of often left-leaning voters into typically conservative-dominated, white-dominated enclaves, according to Chris Maggio, a sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice.
Now, he tries to claim that this is what's causing a backlash, but that's not what the stats are showing.
What it's actually showing is that more Hispanics are voting for Republicans than ever before.
It's showing that maybe more Blacks are voting for Republicans than at any time since the New Deal, depending on whether these stats come in.
So, that's kind of shocking.
And if you look at the share of the population living in mixed-race neighborhoods, it runs the gamut.
In Oklahoma, 93% of the population lives in mixed-race neighborhoods.
Oklahoma is a deep red state.
And again, it's not as though the deepest red states are the ones that are inherently segregated.
That's not right.
Some of the places that are the least segregated are the most Republicans, and some of the places that are the most segregated are the least Republican.
Rhode Island is a very democratic state.
Only 41% of the population lives in mixed-race neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, Alabama is deep red, and 58% of the population lives in mixed-race neighborhoods.
In Georgia, that number is 67%.
In other words, the lie that Democrats told, which is that as the country becomes more diverse and as everybody starts living together with one another, the country would get more Democrat.
That's not true.
That has not happened.
I mean, what has actually happened is that bad Democratic governance is now hitting everybody across the board to the point that Katy Perry is now endorsing billionaire Democrat Rick Caruso for mayor of L.A.
Rick Caruso is not a Democrat.
He is running as a Democrat.
He is not a Democrat.
He was historically a Republican.
She shared several photos and a clip on Instagram with her 178 million followers casting a vote for Rick Caruso.
Quote, I'm voting for a myriad of reasons, but in particular because Los Angeles is a hot mess.
Well, surprise, surprise, it turns out that bad governance has some consequences.
OK, so meanwhile, let's talk about what to watch for on election night.
So how are we going to know whether it's a ripple or a wave or a tsunami or a tide?
There are a few different races to watch.
So Politico has a good rundown on this.
They say that it's worth looking at, for example, Illinois' 17th district.
They say that's an open seat in blue territory in Northwest Illinois.
Biden won that seat by 8 points.
Cook Political puts that at D plus 2.
If that goes Republican, that would be an indicator of a red wave.
Nebraska's 2nd district would be another good district to watch.
That's a Biden 6.4 district.
Again, the GOP represents that area.
So if Representative Don Bacon, who is the Republican in that area, wins, then that would suggest that Republicans are holding even in somewhat strong Democratic areas.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
First, you know, it's Election Day.
We've got important things to do, but here's the reality.
No matter how you vote, you will die.
Not like right now, like later.
But here is the thing.
On that deathbed, you'll be thinking, why was Shapiro talking?
Oh yeah, I should have gotten life insurance.
This is where Policy Genius comes in.
Policy Genius gives you a smarter way to find and buy the right coverage for you and your family.
Policy Genius is built to modernize the life insurance industry.
Their technology makes it easy to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and find your lowest price.
With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $17 per month for $500,000 in coverage.
Policy Genius has licensed agents Who can help you find options that offer coverage in as little as a week and avoid those unnecessary medical exams.
These agents are not incentivized to recommend one insurer over another, so you can trust their guidance.
There are no added fees.
Your personal information is private.
No wonder they have thousands of five-star reviews on Google and Trustpilot.
Your loved ones deserve a financial safety net.
You deserve a smarter way to find and buy it.
Head on over to policygenius.com slash apparel or click the link in the description.
Get your free life insurance quotes.
See how much you could save.
It's really, really important to do this.
You got to make sure your family is taken care of in case God forbid you plots.
Go to policygenius.com slash Shapiro.
That's policygenius.com slash Shapiro.
Also, as an Orthodox Jew, Israel is obviously a very important topic to me.
It's important to millions of Christians who stand with Israel as well.
That's why I've partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
The fellowship was founded 40 years ago by a Jewish rabbi in Chicago to build bridges between Christians and Jews by serving the needs of impoverished elderly Jews, many of whom are Holocaust survivors.
Today, the organization is the largest humanitarian organization helping the poor, not only in Israel, But throughout the former Soviet Union, and especially in Ukraine, the Fellowship is doing incredible work inside Ukraine right now to provide food for the elderly, many of whom have nowhere else to turn as the war intensifies and winter closes in.
During the recent attack in Kiev, for example, bombs landed 600 feet from a vulnerable Jewish community that the Fellowship served.
For $25, you can rush a food box packed with highly nutritious food to Jewish people in need right now.
Thanks to the special partnership, every $25 you give will be matched.
So you're providing not one, but two food boxes that will save Jewish lives in Ukraine.
To donate, go to benforthefellowship.org.
Please donate today.
They do need your help.
That's benforthefellowship.org.
benforthefellowship.org.
Pennsylvania's 8th District.
is an area with an incumbent Democrat.
Trump won that area by three points.
It's R plus four, according to Cook Political.
And so if he loses that seat, then that would be an indicator of a red tide.
If Abigail Spanberger loses in Virginia 7th, and that one should come in fairly early because Virginia is on the East Coast, then that would be a good indicator that Democrats are about to have a terrible night if Abigail Spanberger gets kicked out.
Because Abigail Spanberger is considered a sort of moderate Democrat in a Biden plus six district.
And that means that that would be a disaster for the Democrats if Spanberger were to lose.
So those are a few early indicators.
Also watch for Florida.
Again, Florida results because we count our votes correctly in Florida.
It is worth watching what happens in Florida.
If Ron DeSantis walks away with a double-digit victory in Florida, it's going to be a super bad night for Democrats.
Marco Rubio, right now in the latest election polls, is up anywhere from 6 to 12 points.
If Marco Rubio comes back at plus 10 over Val Demings, bad night for Democrats is on its way.
In New York, there are several different races that would be early indicators of whether the Democrats are doing poorly or not, including the governor's race.
Now, one thing to watch for, the media are, of course, warning of the quote-unquote red mirage.
Now, some of that is exaggerated.
It's exaggerated because, again, not every state counts votes late or tabulates in the stupid fashion that Pennsylvania tabulates votes.
However, it is worth noting that in the 2020 election, Donald Trump declared victory on the night of.
The votes had not even been fully tallied yet, not even close.
And so you do have to worry about the late mail-in votes.
The idea of a red mirage is predicated on the notion that Democrats tend to outweigh Republicans in the mail-in balloting, and that tends to get counted later.
So it looks as though the early returns day of a Republican and then the mail-in ballots get counted.
And then that seems to turn things a little bit more Democrat.
And I think that's a little bit exaggerated this year because the mail-in ballots.
According to folks who are looking at the stats, the mail-in ballots are not heavily weighing in favor of the Democrats the same way that they did back in 2020.
A lot of mail-in ballots are being held Republican, so I don't think that the red mirage is going to be as much of a thing.
But it is worth noting how votes actually get tabulated in Pennsylvania so that you're not surprised by it and you're not taken in by either the left saying that the red mirage is coming or By people who say, election night results are in, it's 9 o'clock eastern time, we know who won, and any change from here on in is obviously voter fraud or people screwing around with the ballots.
Here is how the voting gets tabulated in Pennsylvania, as sort of an informational note.
So there's election night reporting in which teams of county election officials begin tabulating all the eligible votes, including mail-in and absentee ballots.
It's 8.01 p.m.
on election day.
Because of Act 88, most counties must begin canvassing mail-in and absentee ballots at this time.
So unlike the state of Florida, which actually starts to tabulate the mail-in and absentee ballots, like in the middle of the day, so that you can actually get the results right away, Pennsylvania has an incredibly dumb rule, which is that you're not allowed to even start tabulating the absentee and mail-in ballots until 8.01, until the polls actually close.
At 12.01, which is going to be tomorrow morning, counties that received Act 88 funds have to post the unofficial number of absentee ballots and mail-in ballots received.
That doesn't mean that all of them have to be counted by that time.
So it's four hours after the polls close in Pennsylvania, and the counties are still tabulating exactly how those ballots went down, but they're giving you a general number of ballots.
Then the official canvas doesn't happen until November 11th at 9 a.m.
That's when each county's board of elections has to begin the official canvas and compute the returns of votes cast.
The canvas has to continue through November 16th to ensure that the tally includes valid military and overseas ballots received by 5 p.m.
on November 15th.
So, as we will see, there's now controversy over exactly what to do with mail-in ballots that, for example, are wrongly dated.
How do you know if they're wrongly dated?
John Fetterman would like for ballots that have been wrongly dated to be counted.
Republicans are like, well, how do we know that those weren't sent after Election Day?
The unofficial returns don't happen until 5 p.m.
November 15th.
So, I'm laying all of this out to suggest that yes, there will be delays in the process, and yes, it will be annoying, and yes, this all has to get fixed.
It is not definitive evidence of quote-unquote voter fraud or screwing around with the vote.
If it takes a while to tabulate the ballots, that's literally how the system works in Pennsylvania.
Again, that doesn't mean there's no fraud, but you're going to have to show independent evidence of fraud other than it takes a long time to tabulate the ballots.
That's how their stupid process works in Pennsylvania, which is why they need to fix their dumbass process in Pennsylvania.
It is stupid.
There is no reason that any state should be running like this.
And there are similar problems, by the way.
In Michigan and in Wisconsin.
Those are the three states where you tend to have really dumb voting procedures.
In terms of tabulation, the same way that you do in Pennsylvania.
Speaking of which, Pennsylvania Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman's U.S.
Senate campaign filed a lawsuit on Monday against state election officials arguing mail ballots with either an incorrect or a blank date should in fact be counted in Tuesday's election.
Plaintiffs have now asked a federal judge, according to Daily Wire, to order all mail ballots to be counted regardless of the date voters pen on the envelope.
The lawsuit comes a week after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled officials should set aside and not count mail ballots with an incorrect or empty date.
The lawsuit says the date requirement imposes unnecessary hurdles that eligible Pennsylvanians must clear to exercise their most fundamental rights.
This is stupid.
If you can't write a date on a ballot, you shouldn't be voting.
It's not that hard.
Voting, it turns out, in this country is extraordinarily easy.
Is in Iraq circa 2005 where people are braving suicide bombers to go to the ballot box.
If you can't write a date on your ballot, you're an idiot and your vote shouldn't be counted.
Write a vote, write a date on your ballot.
Seriously, like just don't be stupid.
How about that?
Everyone should have their vote counted as long as it is a properly cast ballot.
Cast your ballot properly.
Don't be a moron.
Lawsuit alleges election officials are rejecting qualified voters who accidentally failed to write the date on their ballot envelope and more still will be rejected when voters enter an incorrect date such as their birth date instead of the date they completed or signed.
Why would you write your birthday instead of the date that you signed your ballot on the slot that says signed ballot date?
So the fact that the Democrats want to count a bunch of votes that are that are cast If not illegally, then at least incorrectly, is a sign of how Democrats wish to confuse the process.
Meanwhile, late voting changes in Philadelphia make this even more confusing.
This is why you have to have good vote procedures state by state, and it is ridiculous that Pennsylvania has not fixed this after 2020.
According to the Philadelphia Enquirer, counting Philadelphia's votes will take longer than expected this election.
Oh, good.
Because if you want to shore up everybody's worries about election integrity, definitely make it take longer in Philadelphia.
Excellent.
Again, you know everybody who has doubts about the election.
If it starts to materialize looking like an Oz victory and then all of a sudden, Philadelphia's ballots start coming in late, the accusation is going to be that there's somebody in the back room in Philadelphia who is shoveling ballots.
Now again, accusations are not tantamount to evidence.
I say this over and over and over.
Evidence is evidence.
Accusations and speculation are accusations and speculation.
If you wish to actually have people trust your election results, maybe you should shore up the process of how it's done.
The adults.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, city officials voted Tuesday morning as polling places opened and the vote count began for the midterm elections to reinstate a time-consuming and labor-intensive process for catching double votes that will slow how quickly they can report results.
If Pennsylvania's high-stakes U.S.
Senate race is as close as expected, a wait for results out of the state's largest city is sure to shine a national spotlight on Philadelphia just the way it did in 2020.
The city commissioners, the three-member elections board, voted 2-1 to reinstate what is known as poll book reconciliation.
That's a means of flagging mail ballots submitted by voters who also voted in person during an emergency 7am meeting.
It was a sudden reversal of a decision they made less than a week ago and came a day after a city judge, responding to a Republican lawsuit, said they could move forward without the process.
So, actually, the sole Republican commissioner voted in favor of the reconciliation, he said, I want to be clear that when there are conversations that occur later this evening about whether or not Philadelphia has counted all of their ballots, that the reason some ballots would not be counted is Republicans did target Philadelphia and only Philadelphia to force us to conduct a procedure no other county does. So this is worth noting also for Republicans who are like, why is it taking so long? Why can't they just count the ballots in Philadelphia? The answer is Republicans asked for it to take longer to count the ballots in Philadelphia.
They asked for it to take longer because they want to make sure that people aren't voting twice.
That you voted in person and you sent in a mail-in ballot and your ballot isn't getting out.
Again, they have procedures in place generally to catch that sort of thing, but they want to make sure that everything is counted twice before it's actually tabulated.
So, When it takes time to get some results from Pennsylvania, just understand that's part of the process.
It's a crappy process that needs to be fixed.
And meanwhile, the closing election pitch for Democrats again is that democracy is at stake.
As always, as always, democracy is at stake unless you vote for us and our friends.
That is what the New York Times editorial board says.
Midterm elections in the United States are often presented as a referent on the party in power.
That message appears to be resonating this fall, but voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power too.
And what each vote they cast will mean for the future of this country.
Eight Republican senators and 139 Republican representatives sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the basis of spurious allegations of voter fraud and other irregularities.
We're going to do the January 6th stuff again.
And their presence in Congress poses a danger to democracy.
OK, talk to Jamie Raskin, who voted against certification of the election in 2016.
There have been multiple Democrats who over the years, in 2004, in 2016, every time a Republican wins, vote against the certification.
Are those people a danger to democracy?
But, says the New York Times, the greatest danger to election integrity may in fact come from the results of state and local races that will determine who actually conducts the election and counts the votes in 2024.
In the weeks that followed the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and his supporters saw their efforts to deny the election results and prove rampant voter fraud thwarted by two things.
First, their inability to produce credible evidence that fraud occurred.
And second, an election infrastructure that was defended by honorable public servants who refused to accept specious claims of wrongdoing.
Over the past two years, Republicans in dozens of states have tried to dismantle that infrastructure piece by piece, particularly by filling key positions with Trump sympathizers.
Okay, but the argument that the New York Times editorial board is making is vote Democrat up and down the ballot in order to stop presumably a couple of people running for Arizona Secretary of State who aren't going to count the ballots properly.
That is a weak case.
That your local congressperson is a threat to democracy is an idea that people are just not going to buy.
The New York Times admits that Democrats have largely failed to connect with voters' concerns about inflation and public safety during the campaign season.
They've struggled to communicate their tangible achievements.
Well, yes.
Undoubtedly, there's more work to be done on these and other issues.
But the 2020 elections are an opportunity for Americans to do their part in defending the integrity of American elections.
Now, I would find this a lot more convincing if Democrats weren't simultaneously already attempting to warn about voter suppression.
The New York Times literally has a piece today Claiming that there will be voter suppression in Florida.
This is from, sorry, it's the Washington Post.
The Washington Post has an article, same day as the New York Times, claiming this is all about preserving democracy.
Quote, black voters in Florida express fear, confusion, as DeSantis' election laws kick in.
Oh, so you mean if Val Demings loses by a thousand points to Marco Rubio, it'll probably be because of voter suppression.
The same people who are lecturing you about threats to democracy are telling you that if the Democrats lose, not only will be that a threat to democracy in the future, it means that the election was not properly held today.
Says the Washington Post, Tuesday will mark the first major election changes in Florida since the legislature pushed through those changes affecting voters voting in the Sunshine State.
Voter advocates say the laws disproportionately affect black voters, making it harder for many to vote and have created an environment of confusion and fear.
Voters can deliver ballots for immediate family members, but there are new forms to fill out, and some worry that even a small mistake could result in a fine or an arrest.
It is now illegal to turn in more than two ballots that don't belong to a close relative.
Well, as it should be.
You shouldn't be able to go out and pick up ballots from everybody in the neighborhood.
That is an opportunity for voter fraud in action.
But, says the Washington Post, this is disincentivizing black voters to go to the polls, and therefore you have to worry about election threats.
Meanwhile, Politico has an entire article today titled, Six Election Security Threats to Watch for on Election Day.
So now we're worried about voting equipment.
I'm not kidding.
They say that we have to worry about myths and disinformation.
Lies and conspiracy theories about the security of election systems are what most worry election supervisors and federal cybersecurity and intelligence officials because those falsehoods can inflame mistrust.
Also, by the way, in the same article, they say that there could be serious worries about wireless modems enabling hacks of voting machines or vote tallies.
So Politico already warning about the possibility of actually like Diebold machines being hacked circa 2004.
At least seven states and Washington DC use wireless modems to transmit unofficial election night results to their central offices.
These modems use telecommunications networks that are vulnerable to hackers and malicious hackers could exploit them to tamper with unofficial vote data.
So, guys, you have to vote Democrats who preserve democracy.
Also, the vote might not be legit, voter suppression, and all of the rest.
This is the case that Charles Blow is making also.
He aptly named Charles Blow over at the New York Times because his columns routinely blow.
He says that democracy is a threat.
He says, modern presidential elections don't often end in landslides.
In fact, no president has won by a margin of the popular vote greater than 10 percentage points since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
These slim margins are obscured by the flaws and peculiarities of our electoral process.
But that same fluke means the country's last two Republican presidents were able to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.
This is all to say we are a cat's whisker away from calamity.
From calamity!
If the Republicans take the House and the Senate, then that means that we will never have a clean election again.
That it'll be the end of the country.
As Biden has pointed out, the country is perilously close to installing officials who want to undo and remake it, who want a partial democracy or none at all.
America is one bad election away from being a memory.
That's their closing pitch.
Also, if Republicans win, it's probably because they cheated.
So that's part of the Democratic closing pitch.
The other part of the Democratic closing pitch is, of course, that the Republicans are all evil, violent people who attack Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
Nancy Pelosi, in highly cynical fashion, actually suggested that last night.
We'll get to that in a moment.
First, this time of year, you're going to spend some time outside, right?
Autumn is coming.
The weather is getting nice outside.
And while you're outside, you need to make sure that your family, your home is taken care of.
This is why you need Ring.
I've had Ring devices all over my house for a very long time because my home security matters an awful lot to me.
With the Ring security products, you can rest easy knowing your home and family are safe when you're not there.
The Ring doorbell notifies you when guests or packages arrive.
Ring's indoor cameras let you keep an eye on kids and pets while you're away.
Ring Alarm will alert you of any motion detection while the house is empty.
Plus, if you add smart lighting around your home, you can turn lights on or off while you are away as well.
And I rely on Ring for my own family safety.
There is no higher endorsement than that because that's literally the thing I care about most in life.
If I trust Ring, you should too.
Head on over to ring.com slash collections slash offers.
Find out how you can live a little more stress-free this season with a Ring product that's right for you.
They have a whole variety of products that'll help you out.
That's ring.com slash collections slash offers.
Once more, ring.com slash collections slash offers.
Ring devices will help make you feel a lot better about your family's safety the same way they do for me.
Ring.com slash collections slash offers.
Well, folks, the day everyone has been waiting for is finally upon us, Election Day.
We're having one incredible event, Dailyware Election Night 2022.
Coverage begins 3 p.m.
Central today and runs all the way until 11 p.m.
Central, midnight Eastern Time.
It's going to be a big, big show.
We're going to be covering all the results as they come in, what it means for the country, starting at 6 p.m.
Central.
I will be joined by Matt Walsh, Michael Molls, Andrew Klavan.
Our God King with a lower G, Jeremy Boring, and others to give you the play-by-play.
Throughout the night, we'll be giving you live updates from the Morning Wire team, plus any pertinent social media meltdowns from the likes of AOC.
There will be tears.
There will be laughter.
There will also be some special guests dropping in for commentary as well.
Get the election news you need to know in real time with expert commentary.
Join us and celebrate the red wave.
Yes, I believe there will be a red wave tonight.
If you're not yet a member, go to dailywire.com.
Join us today.
Okay, so the Democratic closing pitch.
is yelling at voters and or saying that Republicans are violent attackers who hit people with hammers.
Nancy Pelosi was on CNN last night suggesting that basically Republicans are responsible for an insane nutcase who is a nudist drug abuser hitting her husband in the head with a hammer.
In our democracy, there is one party that is doubting the outcome of the election, feeding that flame, and mocking any violence that happens.
That has to stop.
The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, others have spread stories, casting doubt on what happened, fomenting conspiracy theories.
What do you have to say to them?
It's really sad for the country.
It's really sad for the country that people of that high visibility would separate themselves from the facts and the truth in such a blatant way.
It's really sad and it is traumatizing to those affected by it.
They don't care about that, obviously.
But it is...
destructive to the unity that we want to have in our country.
But I don't have anything to say to them.
I mean, we have nothing, there would be no common ground to have any conversation with them.
Okay, listen, I'm actually sympathetic to the idea that people who are putting out theories about how her husband was having gay sex with a crazy nudist who hit him in the head with a hammer, I'm sympathetic to her being upset about that.
They're talking about her husband who just got hit in the head with a hammer.
I'm sympathetic.
What I'm not sympathetic to is the idea that they are destroying unity in the country as though unity was something that Democrats are seeking, that Nancy Pelosi is seeking, that Joe Biden has been seeking.
That dog ain't gonna hunt.
That Republicans are all at fault for what happened with her husband is not an acceptable closing pitch.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is making his pitch.
He tweeted this out.
This is just, this is ridiculous.
So Joe Biden tweeted, quote, You don't get to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in pandemic loans and then attack my administration for helping working folks get some relief.
And then he fell asleep.
I've noticed there's not a lot of video available of Joe Biden over the last couple of days because he's not alive.
They just keep not putting him on the campaign trail because he's terrible.
Um, that is the stupidest argument in the entire world.
That we are not allowed to criticize you spending more money than has ever been spent by any human being in the history of planet Earth by a long shot.
We're not allowed to do that because the government forcibly shut down our businesses in 2020 and then had to compensate us for shutting down our businesses.
That is not the same thing.
I'm sorry, if the government forces me to shut down my business and then says, you must be compensated for that.
That is not the same thing as you took out a student loan.
You didn't repay it because you got your degree in lesbian dance theory.
And now I'm going to repay that loan.
It's so smearing and ridiculous.
And this is why Joe Biden is a failure.
It is why he is not going to have a good night tonight.
And it's also why Americans don't actually believe White House spokesperson Kate Bedingfield when she says that Joe Biden's top priority is working families and helping them create jobs.
That is not correct.
No one believes this.
In terms of the president's agenda, I would say look at what he has prioritized over the course of the first two years.
He has done everything that he can do to help working families.
He's going to continue to do that.
Significant bill to increase manufacturing here in the United States, the Chips and Science Act, which puts us on stronger footing competing with China and has helped contribute to the creation of 700,000 manufacturing jobs, up above the number of manufacturing jobs we had before the pandemic.
So he, if you're thinking about, if you're wondering what the president's going to do moving forward, look at what he's accomplished so far. You can see his priority, his working families, creating jobs, giving them breathing room, and that's what he'll do moving forward.
Yeah, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
And so then they revert to the sort of vague language.
Because whenever Joe Biden gets specific, it's a problem.
Like, Joe Biden, over the weekend, said that he was going to shut down basically all the coal plants in the country.
And Karine Jean-Pierre's like, oh, that was twisted.
It was very twisted.
It was twisted.
You know, it was twisted.
It wasn't true.
It was twisted.
It wasn't twisted, guys.
We played the clip of it yesterday.
Briefly to clarify something you mentioned here at the podium.
You mentioned about the President's statement or what the President said on Saturday regarding coal.
You mentioned a couple times or repeated a couple times today that those words were twisted.
So who twisted them?
Did Manchin twist them?
Did someone else twist them?
It's how it was reported out was being twisted.
So if you, and I want to be really clear because this is important, if you read the full transcript the president was very clear commenting on a fact of economics and technology as it has been from the its earliest days as an energy superpower.
America is once again in the midst of an energy transition and the president is determined to make sure that this transition helps all Americans and he's been very clear about that.
Um, so no, uh, he has not been clear about all of this and this is why you are going to lose.
I mean, Democrat after Democrat is running a final, a bad final closing pitch.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, for example, her closing pitch is to use the phrase people with a period.
You want to know why so many voters are ignoring whatever Republican weirdnesses and conspiracy theories there are?
Maybe the reason is because your mainstream party is saying that women are people with a period.
That would be the reason, guys.
People with a period.
You're all weird.
It's because you're weird.
You're being weird.
You keep saying weird crap.
Latinx.
People with a period.
That's why you're losing.
income Michiganders. Saving people with a period from paying taxes on up to $4,800 in spending people with a period.
Their lifetime. You're all weird. It's because you're weird.
You're being weird. You keep saying weird crap. Latinx people with a period. That's why you're losing. And then you're like, why don't people think that we're taking inflation seriously? You shut down all the schools for two years.
You amassed children.
You tried to force a Vax via OSHA on tens of millions of Americans.
You spent more money than God.
You put equity at the center of all government policy, meaning affirmative action and active discrimination.
You decided that transing the kids was a moral duty.
And then you're like, ah, but those guys, we can't trust them with governance.
Probably democracy's a threat if they win.
Solid closing pitch there.
Really, really solid.
Alrighty, guys, the rest of the show is continuing now.
You're not going to want to miss it.
We'll be getting into Hunter Biden's laptop, what Republicans are going to investigate if they win with Megyn Kelly, plus Sean Trendy of RealClearPolitics stops by.
We go through every single major Senate election.
▲
Export Selection