Midco supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, your calls and comments live.
And then a discussion on campaign 2024, including the presidential race, plus key House and Senate races.
First, with Jacob Rubashkin from Inside Elections.
And later, we'll talk with former Wall Street Journal executive Washington editor Gerald Seib, now a visiting fellow at the Dole Institute for Politics.
Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Good morning.
It's Sunday, November 3rd, 2024.
We're in the closing days of the presidential election campaign, and both of the major candidates are making their final swings through the swing states, delivering their last appeals to voters.
Many of those voters are more than ready for the campaign to end.
To get some political closure, yes, but also because of the strain the election is putting on some relationships with friends, work colleagues, family.
So this morning, we want to hear from you.
Is the election affecting your relationships?
If you're supporting the Harris Walls campaign, please call in at 202-748-8000.
If you're supporting the Trump Vance campaign, 202-748-8001.
If you're neither decided nor undecided, 202-748-8002.
If you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8003.
Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from.
And if you'd like to find us on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
Now for some data on just how this election has been affecting people's relationships, there's a story here in Fox News.
Election strain pushes one of three Americans to limit time with family and friends.
The presidential election is already stressful for most Americans, and these stressors can trickle down into relationships.
A new poll from the American Psychological Association found that 77% of Americans believe the future of our nation is a quote, significant source of stress, along with the economy, 73%, and the upcoming election, 69%.
A bit more detail from that American Psychological Association survey.
32% of adults say the political climate has caused a strain between themselves and family members.
30% have limited their time spent with family members who don't share the same values.
Half of adults admitted that tensions around social and political topics make them want to connect less with others.
And 28% say they have nothing in common with people who have different political opinions.
Now, American Psychological Association CEO Author Evans joined us on Washington Journal yesterday and discussed how people can repair some of those frayed relationships after the election.
A couple of things that I would say to really think about what matters and where you agree as opposed to where you don't agree.
What I have found over my career, particularly I've worked in political environments quite a bit, actually 20 years I've spent in political environments.
And most of the time we come into those kinds of situations thinking about where our differences are and starting the conversation there.
And if you step back and think about where are we similar and how can we start the conversation on the things that we agree on, you actually get a lot further.
Most people are probably going to agree on maybe 80% of the things.
Again, people may not agree on how to approach those things, but there are a lot of things that people will agree on.
The other thing is to approach those conversations, not trying to convince the other person, but really trying to listen and try to understand.
If you think about it, most people have pretty set political views.
You know, I've heard some of the powers right before this segment.
They're probably not going to change their viewpoints around who they're supporting politically.
But they can step back some and try to understand why people who think differently than them have those positions.
So I think it really is about trying to understand, try to listen, and then trying to find common ground where there is agreement.
Let's get right to your calls.
John is in New York and is undecided.
Good morning, John.
Hi, thank you, and thank you for taking my call.
Yeah, basically I'm kind of undecided.
You know, I'm looking, I try to make a sheet and list the positive points of view and the negative points of view of each candidate.
And, you know, I look at it, and I'm looking at Kamala Harris, and I like the fact that she's focusing on health care.
I think that's extremely important.
And other populist issues, you know, concerning maybe childcare and looking at affordability.
But on the other hand, I look at Trump and his record on the economy and his record on immigration are very distinct and powerful points of view that I have with him.
And one of the things that really disturbs me is the lack of scrutiny that they apply to each side.
For example, with Trump, they're constantly criticizing him, the law affair, the attempted assassination, the rhetoric, the vitriol, and things like that, and the latest comments by Joe Biden.
So, John, I wonder, though, how this election has affected your personal relationships as you've been kind of going through this and trying to make that decision.
Well, thank you for asking that question because it has.
I find myself at odds from time to time with close friends and members of my own family.
They don't like Trump because of his bombast.
They don't like him because, you know, his overall demeanor.
And what bothers me in that, and maybe some of your viewers can comment on it, is I think you've got to separate the noise from everything else.
Trump has made definite gains.
And, you know, I'm trying to look at it from a neutral point of view and giving deference to the Biden-Harris side.
And sometimes when you look at the facts, you know, objectively, one side comes out ahead.
And that's very hard to do because people are obstructed with emotions and they react accordingly.
So, again, you know, with close friends and even family members, you know, the best solution I found is that when we're having two holiday dinners, nobody talks politics.
It's a written rule.
And we're able to get along.
But not to digress, I'm really kind of concerned and worried about the direction that we're going because, you know, this election can have long-lasting implications.
So again, I mean, I urge people to be objective, and that's what I'm trying to do.
And when I look at it in this manner, I'll hopefully vote the right way.
But I think that we all.
Let's hear now from Ernest in Bristol, Florida, who is supporting Trump.
Good morning, Ernest.
Yeah, I just want to say most people vote for someone because they like them.
They don't vote for the policies.
I vote for the policies that the candidates have.
And how have you found this affecting your personal relationships over the course of the campaign?
Well, the last four years have been real hard on me and my family because the prices of everything has went up since Biden and Harris got into the White House.
And I just think Trump's policies is a lot better.
The economy was a lot better.
The border was secure.
I think the whole country is more safe.
Now, Ernest, is most of your family also supporting former President Trump?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And is there anybody in your life who doesn't support Trump where you've had any kind of challenges with those relationships?
No.
Everybody I know supports Trump on account of his policies.
And especially like in Pennsylvania, I don't know how anybody could vote for her.
I mean, I'm not saying I don't like her, but her policies.
Can you imagine yourself being friends or starting a new kind of friendship or relationship with someone who maybe doesn't support former President Trump?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Great.
Let's look at a comment from Facebook.
Mark Freeman says, unfortunately, I have not remained friends with anyone who thinks the 2020 election was stolen.
I can only maintain friendships with people who live in reality.
I still have Trump supporting friends and relatives, but we must agree on that one fact.
Melvin is in Richmond, Virginia, and is supporting Vice President Harris.
Good morning, Melvin.
Good morning, Kimberly.
Thank you for taking my call.
Kimberly, I am a person who generally does not deal with the opposition.
You know, I don't really have any family members who are not supporters of the Kamala Harris, maybe one or two, but we don't talk to that person, you know, just because we feel they're just ridiculous.
You know, so in my environment, in my little circle of life, like social media friends, they know that I'm going to post what I like.
And if they challenge it, I will just take them off my friends list.
And of course, my friends are mostly supporters of Kamala and Mr. Wall.
So, you know, you have to be staunch sometime because we're living in a dangerous time if Trump gets elected.
You know, you can't have anybody poisoning your thoughts because it's just too dangerous.
I do wonder, do you think that after the election, you'll be able to restore some of those friendships, some of those people who you've removed from your friends list?
No, because it's a mindset.
You know, people who support Trump really are racist at heart.
They're either racist or they are, um, they just don't understand.
You know, there's a reason why Project 2025 wants to remove the Department of Education, because people who are not educated fall for Trump's bank.
If you look at all the polls, there's always a sharp difference between people who have a college degree or better education and people who don't.
The more education you have, the more likely you are to be a Democrat.
And the less education you have, the more likely you are to vote for Trump.
That is why they want to get rid of the Department of Education, because if you keep people ignorant, they will vote for Donald Trump.
All right, so let's hear from John in Nampa, Idaho, who is supporting Trump.
Good morning, John.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I have to just wholeheartedly disagree.
Unless Trump lives forever, there's no way you can continue to vote for Trump.
He can't run again for office anymore after this is over.
If he wins, then he would be president for four years, and that's it.
He can't do anymore.
So that negates that last caller's conclusion is what he had about Trump abolishing the educational system.
If you want to talk about the educational system, it's been a complete failure.
It's been a money pit for the unions, and one doesn't have to look far to see that.
So, John, I wonder, though, if you can share how you think this election has affected your personal relationships, people in your life.
The people in my life, the ones that are Kamala supporters, I have not left them, and they have not left me.
We have an unwritten agreement that when something comes up between the two of us that we want to discuss, but we know it's a hot-button issue, it's kind of like two boxers.
We go to each one of our own corners and we think about it, and then we talk about it the next day by phone or in person.
And by doing so, we give ourselves enough time to cool off.
We never blow up, and we don't ruin a friendship that we've had for some time.
And that's the most important thing.
We can't let politics ruin our relationships that we have in this life.
If we do, we're not going to have any friends.
So it takes a little bit of patience.
It takes a little bit of love to know that the other person has a belief and an understanding the way they're going to believe and understand.
The thing that I do disagree with Kamala the most is when she was addressing the African-American males and how she was going to take care of them, and that was to help them to get started in the marijuana business.
Last time I checked, marijuana is still a drug.
It may have been declassified a little bit by the United States government, but it's still a drug.
And I don't want to see my brothers and sisters go down being addicted to another drug.
I disagree with it, and I think it's evil by the way that it's been done.
That's it.
We have a text message from James in Troy, Michigan, who says, I live in Michigan.
I think that 75% of people don't associate with people of the other party.
The division will never be repaired.
Sean is in Houston, Texas, and is a Harris supporter.
Good morning, Sean.
Good morning.
How has this election been affecting your relationships?
So it's definitely been affecting my relationship as far as coworkers go.
In the past, people would assume that I voted for Barack Obama because I am African American.
And now I do have coworkers who are Trump supporters.
I don't discuss those type of things at work.
However, it's always discussed.
How do you navigate that to maintain a good relationship with your coworkers?
To me, I just don't talk about it.
If we are talking about it, I change the subject right away.
I found it to be very problematic.
I am a Harris supporter.
And, you know, through the Trump administration, it's total chaos lies.
And I find it very problematic.
Okay.
Sean is in Baltimore, Maryland, and is a Trump supporter.
Good morning, Sean.
Good day to you.
How has this election affected your relationships?
All right, I just want to say this real quick.
That guy talking about Trump supporters are uneducated.
That's an as and I statement and it's ignorant.
I have a college degree, four-year bachelor's degree in science, and I am a Trump supporter.
So that negates his statement.
As far as my relationships, you better believe it does affect a lot of them.
Being a black American, I'm a foundational black American, and you already know supporting Trump is a problem because a lot of people in our community are brainwashed by the Democrats.
I will say it's better.
A lot more black people are supporting Trump this election versus 2016, 2020, but it's still an issue.
A lot of my family, they're Harris supporters.
So some of them I could talk to, like my mom and dad, we get along.
They support Harris.
They know how I feel.
But then I got some cousins.
I'm like, I just want to keep it to myself.
And I mean, it's not, it doesn't get out of hand, but you know, I just kind of keep it to myself.
And same with my in-laws.
Some of my in-laws are Harris supporters.
So, and my wife is a Trump supporter.
So what we do is, you know, we just, we just kind of keep it to ourselves.
As far as coworkers, it's 50-50.
Some of them I could talk to about Trump.
Some of them who are HARE supporters, we can have a civil conversation, even with friends.
But at the end of the day, I think it's a good idea that I just keep it to myself and I don't talk about politics because the ones who are HARA supporters, HARA supporters, they get delusional light like that guy talking about, you know, you're uneducated.
And then, you know, I'm supposed to.
Sean, just because, and I want you to finish up your point, but just because several folks have referenced this, I went ahead and looked up the data from Pew Research on the connection between party affiliation and education.
And so I'll just give some of those data points.
The relationship between education and partisanship has shifted significantly since the early years of the 21st century.
The Republican Party now holds a six percentage point advantage over the Democratic Party among voters who do not have a bachelor's degree.
Voters who do not have a four-year degree make up 60% of all registered voters.
By comparison, the Democratic Party has a 13-point advantage among those with a bachelor's degree or more formal education.
This pattern is relatively recent.
In fact, until about two decades ago, the Republican Party fared better among college graduates and worse among those without a college degree.
So just because several folks have brought up those numbers.
Go ahead, Sean.
All right.
So it's not all.
No, of course not.
All people who have degrees don't support Democrats.
And then number two, there is a secret Trump supporter.
Like I said, I can't go around saying I support Trump because of the backlash I would get.
And I will be honest, some people will just straight up get so angry, you think they're about to commit violence.
And you better believe I know how to fight, but I'm 43 and I got two kids.
I'm married, so I'm not trying to even deal with that.
So I just keep it to myself just to keep the peace.
So those polls, I mean, they might be somewhat true, but you better believe people just keep to themselves to avoid trouble and avoid violence.
And I just wrapping my point real quick.
Just at the end of the day, I just keep it to myself because a lot of people in my community, if you are not voting a Democrat, then they get angry.
And those key words, I said, now vote a Democrat.
I didn't even say vote Republican because at first I wasn't supporting Trump or him.
So, Sean, I do want to give a little bit more data from that American Psychological Association survey that I mentioned at the beginning of the show that actually breaks down the strain on relationships that politics is causing people based on race.
And so as we mentioned earlier, politics strains relationships for nearly one-third of U.S. adults.
That's 32% overall.
When you break it down by gender, it strains more relationships for men, 36% compared to 28% of women.
And then if you break it down by race, 39% of Latino adults feel like politics is straining their relationships compared to 30% of black and white adults versus 27% of Asian adults.
There's also a difference depending on your gender orientation or sexual orientation with LGBTQIA plus folks feeling 41% of them feeling like politics is straining their relationships versus 30% for heterosexual cisgender adults.
Willie is in Annapolis, Maryland, and is a Harris supporter.
Good morning, Willie.
Good morning.
And how is this election affecting your relationships?
Well, it's not having any effect on me because I was for a Democratic and a Harris supporter from the get-go.
And I think some of this place of the polls telling about who this and that, I think it's just a lot of dramatics on the side of the pollsters and the people who make this publicity.
And I was kind of scared about the gentleman who said that about Harris trying to appeal to black men and that the I don't know where this misinformation comes from that because if she's appealing to black men, that's going to cause cocaine of marijuana to go up.
I think that's a whole lot of brainwashing and things put out by the media and by the posters.
But as far as my relationships are going, I don't have one way or the other.
I have pretty good relationship regardless of what side people are voting on.
But I just think how anybody could vote for a man that didn't apply for this kind of violence we had at the Capitol.
And that scares me what's going to happen if he gets in.
So I am definitely a supporter for Harris.
Okay, let's go to Ryan in Orange, Massachusetts, who is a Trump supporter.
Good morning, Ryan.
Hi, the question was about how has it affected your relationships?
Well, I can tell you in Mount Watchesa Community College in Gardner, I've been alienated, downgraded for being a Trump supporter, and actually being threatened to have been thrown off campus.
I filed a civil rights claim against them and won.
Okay, I've had people who I went to high school and college with on my Facebook that have unfriended me because obviously they're cyber Nazis and can't handle different opinions.
So what I do is I make different accounts, log back on, and then I say it again.
I get a high school reunion coming up, and I can't wait.
If Trump wins, I am going to rub it in so bad it's not even funny.
Now, the whole comment about people being uneducated voted for Trump, totally wrong.
I have degrees in paralegal studies and business administration.
I've been a former Democrat, turned independent, now unenrolled.
I voted for Trump, and I voted for Republican all-down ballot.
So this whole as for affecting personal relationships, I just dumped a girlfriend over the summer who tried to push LGBTQ nonsense on me.
It doesn't bother me whatsoever because people should be able to express their opinion without having to be alienated.
If you don't mind, Ryan, can I ask you how old you are?
I'm 37.
You're 37.
The reason I was asking is because that American Psychological Association survey that I was mentioning earlier found that 46% of adults would not date someone with different political opinions, and half of Gen Z respondents in a life stance survey said they considered political compatibility to be an important factor in dating compared to 42% of millennials, 31% of Gen X,
and 29% of baby boomers.
One-third of all respondents claimed they would not date someone who disagreed with their political views, while 28% would consider it a deal-breaker.
And it says almost a quarter of Gen Z and millennials have ended a romantic relationship due to at least one political disagreement.
So that sounds like you, Ryan.
Yeah, because she tried to push the genderbender pretender politics on me.
And I said that I told her the biological facts.
And they can't handle the fact that, frankly, believing in more than two genders is delusional fantasy.
And that's what it is.
Okay.
Let's hear from Diana in Livingston, New Jersey, who is a Harris supporter.
Good morning, Diana.
Hi, good morning.
Yes, it definitely has affected almost all my relationships.
My husband and I are childhood sweethearts, so we have the same socioeconomic friends who are blue-collar workers.
My husband was a sheet metal union worker.
He's retired now.
His family is a large Irish family.
I'm Italian.
We're both Catholics.
His nephews, who came out of the military, they're in their 40s about 10 years ago, they couldn't find life readjusting to get a job.
We got them into the union with some contacts, also.
They applied and went through the requirements.
So their union was supposed to be union workers.
And I come to the conclusion, I have friends too, that's about 50-50 more women support Harris because of the abortion issue.
But what I find is it can't be about just his, when they say that we don't agree with them, that they love Trump's policies.
But when you examine Trump's policies, they were anti-worker, anti-union, anti-freedom, right?
It was supposed to be your conservative, you're less government, your freedom of religion or not, because you respect the First Amendment.
So, Diana, you laid out some of the demographics and background of your family, your husband and relatives.
How many of them are aligned with you in supporting Vice President Harris?
Okay, my sister and her family is, but they're in Florida.
She finds it very difficult to, again, her relationships.
But the way we get along when you ask how it's affected is we either don't associate with them anymore, like I don't attend any family functions with my husband's family.
Because as soon as you, you know, even if you try to avoid politics, it seems like politics, though, is your life.
Like when you discuss the economy, that's not politics.
That's real, you know, it's either real or not.
Is it a good economy or not?
I was set at a confirmation party, and I was seated next to one of my brother-in-laws, and he insisted about a year and a half ago that we were in recession.
And I just said, no, we're not.
And I start spouting facts by the BLS, by the, you know, I watch a lot of Bloomberg news and CNBC.
I manage my money, so I'm definitely aware of what, you know, what's up, what's down, where to go, their interest rate.
So, but he insisted.
And I said, well, what is it?
He said that he didn't agree with the economists.
And I said, well, you're smarter than the economists.
It's your feelings.
We should go by your feelings.
And he stood up and threatened to stab me in the neck with a butter knife.
And then people intervened.
Yeah, I was shocked.
So since then, I don't associate with any of them because they took it like as if, you know, that I shouldn't bother people with facts.
Like I was by, you know, we don't know what other people are going through and, you know, that type.
So since then, I don't.
And with my friends, it's like, well, how I we went to the racetrack for a reunion in the summer.
And again, as long as I didn't mention anything, it was just, you know, casual talk, then we could get along.
So that's what has happened in my family.
But I became what he did.
I feel bad for him because he's definitely a Harris supporter and he's a union man and he realizes that Biden's policies with the bailing out the Teamster's pension and everything.
And we follow, like I say, the policies.
The Republicans who back Trump, they're kind of using him because the rich were the Republican Party was notoriously about big business and wealth.
I want to actually play an interesting ad because there was an ad that came out in the last week or so from the Harris Walls campaign put out by Vote for Common Good that has many conservatives upset.
Here's a story about it in The Hill.
Conservatives in Furor over Julia Roberts' ad because Julia Roberts voiced this ad, which encourages women to vote for Vice President Harris in the presidential election, even if their husbands are backing former President Trump.
Let's play that ad.
Your turn, honey.
In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want.
And no one will ever know.
Did you make the right choice?
Sure did, honey.
Remember, what happens in the booth stays in the booth.
Vote Harris Wall.
Vote Common Good is responsible for the contents of this ad.
Reading more from that article in The Hill about this, Republicans have responded to the video with outrage, with some claiming that a wife lying about her vote is as bad as an affair.
Let's now go to Frank in Silver Creek, Georgia, who is supporting former President Trump.
Good morning, Frank.
Hi, good morning.
Yeah, I'm a longtime Republican vot voter.
I'm all about small government.
And only thing they need to do is provide for the sovereignty and the protection of this country.
That's it.
None of this education.
Now, let me tell you, there is a divide between the generations, the younger generation, especially, because they seem to equate the Republicans with George Bush and his little 20-year fiasco in the Middle East that cost 10,000 lives and $3 trillion, and we got nothing to show for it.
Now, that is what the younger generation sees, and that's the reason they're so against it.
But what they don't see is the whole picture of the Democratic Party, and everything they touch, they screw up.
You know, number of things.
Maya Pigs invasion, big mistake.
Now, then, Frank, you were talking about sort of the differences between the younger generations and how they view the Republican Party.
Have you seen that show up kind of in your personal relationships with younger folks in your life?
Oh, yeah.
The younger people are, I mean, the Democrats are basically buying the younger vote.
They're going to crash the economy of this country, and then we're going to have a real war.
Okay?
Because you guys don't know what a real war is.
But when Kamala gets done, you'll see what a real war is.
Okay.
Frank, I was just hoping to hear from you.
Please say something about your education system.
Please, let me say something.
We were number one until Jimmy Carter became president in education.
Our education is kaput.
We need to do away with this national department of education.
All right.
So this topic is about personal relationships.
Let's hear from Anthony in Baltimore, Maryland, who's a Harris supporter.
Good morning, Anthony.
Good morning.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you fine.
Oh, okay.
I just wanted to say that the problem with the relationships is that the white Republicans are not telling the truth.
These people are racist.
That's why the relationships are going, but they're not telling the truth.
Race is not about black people.
It's about white people.
White people are the ones who have a problem with race.
They will not accept people of color as human beings.
The man who called from Baltimore, there's no black, the black vote for Trump is going to be less than 5%.
Black people are not voting for Donald Trump, okay?
Race is about white people.
Race is about white people.
With that kind of perspective, Anthony, how have you seen this campaign affecting your relationship with white people or other folks in your life?
For the most part, I'm pretty civil with white people because they don't want to have an honest conversation.
It goes back to my main point.
We don't talk about it.
We know that an honest conversation about race is going to be explosive and maybe even violent because white people, like white Republicans, don't want to admit that they're racist.
They're racist.
This is about race.
White people.
That feels like a pretty sweeping judgment of a big group of people.
Look, the history of this country is the truth, that the history of this country tells us this is about race.
Just read your history.
I'm not making these things up.
People are not making these things up.
This is the ugly reality of what this country is.
All right.
Let's hear from Rick in Cottkill, New York, who is undecided.
Good morning, Rick.
Hi.
I think what the gentleman was getting at goes even further back.
When you look at all the different presidents that we had, each of them had an issue and a problem.
The Gulf of Tompkin, when the Democrats found out that it was our problem that we created Vietnam, the Democrats were angry.
When Kennedy had an affair with Maryland Monroe, the Republicans were angry.
When Nixon had Watergate, the Democrats were angry primarily.
Clinton with Lewinsky, the Republicans.
It kept going and going until now we've got Congress and the Supreme Court who are both corrupt.
So it's.
Rick, I was just wondering if you could bring that to how this is affecting your personal relationships since the election.
Well, yeah, when I talk about these things with people, they do agree with me.
So I have, right now I'm voting for the lady, and I will continue to support her because what I've seen come out from Trump is, well, he's a felon, a rapist, a liar.
So I couldn't possibly vote for him.
It hasn't been available in my relationships.
Why do you think that is?
Why hasn't it affected most of your relationships?
Because folks agree with you or something else.
Yeah, because when we talk through the issues calmly, people are agreeing with each other.
They bring out points that I agree with.
You know, Trump has a, you know, he's a celebrity.
He knows how to work a crowd.
Kamala really doesn't.
So, you know, there's a reason people like him.
There's a reason people like her.
She stands more on policy and what she's going to do for people.
And Trump is a showman and appeals to those types of people.
All right.
Let's hear from Jim in Highland, Indiana, who is a Trump supporter.
Good morning, Jim.
Yes, I'm a Trump supporter.
I'm in the red state of Indiana, and I have a family.
I was a staunch Democrat until that Baukey decision came about.
I have two daughters.
They're college grads, and they both have master's degrees from IU Bloomington.
And my youngest daughter is a rebel.
That's it, point blank.
Do we have arguments?
No, we're a family.
As far as it goes with Harris and Trump, you've got to realize we didn't get a good selection this year.
And a lot of people just don't understand.
Who do you take the worst of?
If you vote for Harris, you can bet everything we own that the Chinese are going to invade Taiwan and we're going to get stuck with a war.
For all you mothers that have sons that are worried, you should be worried.
Because as soon as Biden got in, what happened?
The Russians invaded Ukraine a couple months later.
And if you don't think the Chinese are waiting for this opportunity, then you've got to be crazy.
But you're stereotyping.
This one guy said, oh, educated people are going to vote for Democrats.
That's not true.
My family ranges from the, like I said, the master's degree to people that are in political power.
I'm a union member myself of 1010.
And like I said, I changed.
I vote for what they do.
Yeah, Trump's a character.
Harris is over her head.
I wish you people would realize it.
The Arab community in some of these third worlds, it's a man's power.
It's yes, it's president.
Hey, Jim, you mentioned that one of your daughters disagrees with you politically, but that you're still able to maintain your relationship.
What are some of the things that you do as a family to make sure that you're able to still maintain that relationship?
Well, when I, and you're not going to believe this, I was in a Chicago hospital, and I actually died 14 minutes, according to the doctors.
And my family went there, and the doctors called them back and said, look, you got to come back because he's dying.
So my family is unified because of the love we have for each other.
We're there for holidays.
Do we talk about politics?
No.
We're a family.
That is unity.
That will never split up.
Now, ironically, my best man for my wedding, since I voted for Trump the first time, he doesn't talk to me anymore.
We're done.
He hates me, in fact.
His wife hates me.
She's a staunch Democrat from Illinois.
So, you know, what can I do?
I tried to make amends, and it just didn't, I just, the glue wasn't there.
This guy was my best man.
My two best friends changed when I went for Trump.
And I told him, look, it's about unity for the country.
And that's what we're lacking.
We just had a big fight in my area yesterday over somebody that was a Trump supporter.
It got all like a hand fist deal, like the Wild West.
Jim, that sounds so hard to lose your friends like that.
Do you think there's any chance after the election of maybe salvaging some of those relationships?
This happened on the first time.
Yes, I tried.
I went to his mother's house.
I even told him.
And I called him, and it was like, well, you know, like I had the plague.
My best college buddy, the same thing.
And my best friend who used to be with me like Alasse was with Jeff.
They just are in their own world.
They don't realize the reality of the situation.
We're headed, if nothing gets put back together, into a civil war.
That's how bad it is.
All right.
Let's move on to Mike in Valley Center, California, who's a Harris supporter.
Good morning, Mike.
Hi, thank you for being there.
And how has this election been affecting your relationships?
Well, me and my best friend, we don't talk anymore.
And I plan on mending the fences after the election's over.
But, you know, he's a Trump supporter, and he believes all the conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately, he is racist, and he even didn't like Obama.
But, you know, hopefully after this is over and things settle down, we can get back together.
Do you think that the outcome of the election will determine whether or not you can mend fences?
Like, do you think there will be a difference in whether or not you're able to repair that relationship, depending on whether Trump or Harris wins?
Well, I really think that Trump has a campaign of lies, and I think that he's running to avoid prosecution and to enrich himself and his family.
I think that he is going to, his economic policies are terrible.
They're going to cause our country to balloon the national debt.
And it's going to end Social Security sooner than it would be under Harris.
And because of that, we may not be able to get back together if Trump is elected.
But I have a joke for you guys.
It's clean and everything.
If I can give it to you.
Quickly, yes.
Okay.
McDonald's is making a new burger in honor of Trump's photo op.
They're calling it McFellan.
Next up, we have Crissaw in Houston, Texas, who is undecided.
Good morning, Crissa.
How are you?
Yes.
Hi.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good, thank you.
You are doing a wonderful job.
You look beautiful today, by the way.
Thank you.
Happy weekend.
I just wanted to say, as far as relationships go, I am a single mom in this economy raising two young daughters.
And I can tell you the divide in the relationships with my friends have really, it's been such a struggle.
And when you're a single mom living in a world that is so scary right now, it's crazy to see all of the infighting.
You know, we'll just be so glad when this is over with.
And I listened to your caller a few calls back.
You know, if he thinks that Trump supporters or Kamala supporters are racist, how are you going to go back and mend those fences?
You know, it's just, you know, you think about relationships.
Nobody's really mentioning a lot about that.
But it is really hurting relationships.
And I will be so glad when it's back over so our children can, you know, even in their young teenage years, it has really affected their relationships at school, you know, because it flows over from the household into the schools.
Are you hearing a lot about that with teenagers?
Not so much, but tell me more about what you're hearing.
Well, they come home and, you know, school, junior high is hard enough as it is.
My daughters are, one just turned 12, one will be 14.
I have one that's actually a very gifted child, which makes life incredibly difficult, believe it or not.
But, you know, they come home and it's been very heavy on their hearts.
You know, their friends' parents talk about who they're supporting.
They know who their dad, which, you know, we're not together, but they know who their dad is supporting, who their family is supporting.
And it's just a lot of back and forth.
And I don't think people realize what this is doing to the Gen Z generation, to the generations of these younger kids that already have so much conflict in their life with school, you know, with bullying, with everything else that's going on.
So I really hope that everybody just really stops and thinks about what they're doing before they, quote unquote, pull that lever.
And, you know, as far as Julia Roberts, the whole Julia Roberts thing, I mean, what if she's been married like 20 times?
God love her.
But the whole ad that she is doing, we have enough division in this country.
Let's not do that.
Thank you so much for everything you do.
I really appreciate you.
God bless.
Speaking of ads, the Harris and Trump campaigns released their final ads of the campaign in the recent days with Harris's final campaign ad focusing on unity with the concept of neighbors, not enemies.
Let's play that ad.
Good.
It'd bring everybody back together.
And that's exactly how I feel.
That's how I'm doing.
Okay, you have to stay in touch with me, okay?
I'm very serious about this.
Okay.
Throughout this campaign, I've seen the best of America, and I've seen what is holding you back and weighing you down.
High costs, fundamental rights taken away, and politics that have driven fear and division.
You deserve better.
As president, I'll bring a new generation of leadership.
I'll take on price gouging and bring down the cost of groceries and housing and prescriptions.
I'll fight for your freedom to make your own choices, and I will protect your health care and your benefits, not take them away.
The vast majority of people in our country have so much more in common than what separates them.
Good people, hardworking people.
We see in our fellow Americans neighbors, not enemies.
We believe in each other.
We believe in our country.
We're not falling for these folks who are trying to divide us.
Together, we'll build a brighter future for our nation, where we stand for freedom.
We stand for justice.
We stand for the dignity of work.
We haven't yet quite reached all of those ideals, but we will die trying because we love our country.
And then there is the most recent ad from the Trump campaign, which came out yesterday.
Let's have a look at that one.
Four years ago, we took a wrong turn and lost our purpose.
We lost the strength that makes Americans who we are.
If we dared to speak the truth, it was called hate speech.
And our values were labeled shameful.
That's when everything we care about fell apart.
We surrendered our borders, our paychecks, and our courage.
Our patriotism was called toxic.
Men could beat up women and win medals.
But there was no prize for the guy who got up every day to do his job.
Now we're being asked to settle for the way things are.
And we're wondering if America can make a comeback.
We can.
Because we've done it before.
When we get knocked down, we don't stay down.
We get up again.
We fight.
I'm Donald J. Trump, and I approve this message.
Let's get back to your calls on how the election is affecting your personal relationships.
Next up is Roy in Texas, who is a Trump supporter.
Good morning, Roy.
Good morning.
How y'all doing this morning?
Doing well.
Thank you.
Yeah, I just wanted to chime in and say that I do support Trump and Vance.
And the main reason being is because, one, when Kamala Harris was asked point blank what she would do differently than Joe Biden, who gave us a horrible economy, she said nothing comes to mind after she has been saying that she's going to do all this stuff different.
So, again, I just don't think she's fit for the office.
I have a problem with Walls who has stolen valor.
And the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party, I sat there and listened to people talk about how they just hate Donald Trump's tax breaks.
They only helped the rich.
Well, part of the rich people are Democrats.
They benefited from those tax cuts.
Roy, I wonder how many of them affected your personal relationships.
Are the folks in your life mainly Trump supporters or is it a mix?
Most of the people I deal with think the same way I do, though it's not really affecting my relationships.
But I just wanted to be like other people that have called in and give my opinion and just say, again, the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party is pathetic.
They'll take money from people that benefit from Donald Trump's tax cuts and then condemn Donald Trump for the tax cut.
Have a great day.
Okay.
Joe is in Dudley, Massachusetts, and is a Harris supporter.
Good morning, Joe.
Good morning.
First of all, I'd like to state I'm a 60-year-old white male.
I'm a retired New York City police officer.
And a couple of calls back mentioned something about this race, this election being about race.
And I can't agree with him more.
And I just want to give a shout-out to all the women that are going to say about democracy, like they always do, especially the black community.
Now, about the race thing, I've seen a lot of races.
Well, actually, Joe, I'm wondering if you can talk about how this election has affected your personal relationships.
Oh, well, it's affected it a lot.
I have three brothers that are Trump supporters.
And we grew up in our neighborhood with, you know, with Spanish people, black people, those were our friends.
And all of a sudden, how can you be a Trump supporter and not say that you're not racist?
I just don't understand it.
I mean, everything that he's done over the years has shown that he's a racist.
And I don't support that.
I have a son, and I've taught him that we're all equal.
And I'm fine with being a minority today.
I mean, the white community today, yes, we are the minority, but I'm fine with that.
The United States is built on migrants.
I'm an immigrant.
My grandparents come from Italy.
So they migrated here many years ago.
So all this nonsense, I just, this was like my personal thing.
It's heartbreaking to see that my brothers are the way they are.
And how's that affected your relationship with them?
Yes, we have no relationship because I refuse to associate myself with anyone that is a racist.
I just don't have time for it.
I'm too old.
I'm too old for the BS.
They come up with excuses about the economy and everything.
Listen, Trump did nothing for the middle class.
I'm middle class.
If you're a rich person, yes, I can see you voting for Trump because you're going to benefit.
But if you're middle class or you're poor, the Republicans have nothing to offer you.
I mean, all the benefits are coming from the Democratic Party.
And I'm a little biased with that because I'm middle class.
I'm going to be relying on my Social Security.
So, Joe, I do want to get to a couple more folks before we have to end the segment.
Let's hear from Daryl in East Point, Michigan, who is a Trump supporter.
Good morning, Darrell.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
I want to get right into my relationship with my eldest daughter, who is a nurse, three children, and have been married for three years.
She works over at the University of Michigan Medical Center, of course, which is known as a river school.
When she found out that I was voting for Trump, she told me how disappointed I was, how disappointed she was that I would make such a decision.
Of course, she didn't take into consideration that I am an independent at the time, and I wanted to vote for Robert Kennedy, but because of the situation with the Democratic Party in our Michigan ballot, which prevents me from checking Robert Kennedy's name, I have to vote for Trump if I want Robert Kennedy to have any influence on my children's health in the future, grandchildren, et cetera.
So anyways, my daughter just came back from Europe.
She had a passport, and we talked about all the places she visited.
And she visited about seven or eight countries in Europe.
She has many staffs.
And I asked her, I said, Tracy, how many staffs you have of China, Communist China?
She said, no, why would I have that?
That's a question I have to ask about the vice president candidate works.
Thank you very much.
Well, Daryl, before I let you go, I wonder how the relationship with your daughter, you said that she's disappointed in you, but if you're able to still maintain that relationship and how you think it's going to go after the election.
Well, I'll tell you this.
You know, we had bumps all during our life, false starts and bumps and things like that, and we managed to work it out.
And I'm sure after the election and after whoever wins, I have no idea, but after your election, we'll find some common ground because our common ground right now is our grandchildren, her children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren have come.
I think they'll surpass all his arguments about politics.
I'm confident of that.
That's good to hear.
Last up, let's hear from Randall in North Dakota, who is a Harris supporter.
Good morning, Randall.
Good morning.
The Constitution declares that the Commander-in-Chief is the most important job the president has.
I've asked C-SPAN three months ago, and this is my second call to C-SPAN about this, to have a morning question show about why you're supporting Donald Trump every time a Republican calls in asking them how you support a man who degrades and demeans and disrespects our.
I understand you want us to do that question, Randall, but for our question today, can you talk a little bit about how much today is like Ex-Elon Musk asking about this?
So we're going to go to a couple of text messages to finish up.
Rob in Fairfax, Virginia says, Trump, who identifies as a Trump supporter, says, relationship with family members became troubled in the lead up to the 2020 election.
Colleagues at work are overly partisan.
I have learned to be silent on the subject.
The point I would like to make is that I do not care if you supported Joe Biden and now Kamala Harris, but I do care that I support, the people do care that I support Trump.
It is as if I have revealed some fundamental moral failing.
And then Greg in Cleveland, Ohio says, it's night and day about those most recent political ads.
One is positive, one is negative.
And then Terry in Illinois says, yes, the election causes conflict and stress in my personal relationships.
I avoid talking politics with many of my friends and family.
If Trump wins or loses, Americans will experience chaos for years to come.
Sorry to say this, but that is where we are.
Thanks for your show.
And that's all the time that we have for this segment.
But coming up, we're going to hear from Jacob Rubashkin, who's the deputy editor of Inside Elections.
And he's going to join us to talk about the presidential contest as well as House and Senate races to watch on Tuesday night.
And then later, veteran political reporter Jerry Seeb is going to join us to discuss his piece in the Wall Street Journal, detailing what he says are some bright spots in the doom and gloom of our politics right now.
We'll be right back.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
We're joined now by Jacob Rubashkin, who is the deputy editor of Inside Elections.
Good morning.
Good morning.
In Inside Elections, you wrote back in mid-October that the elections were coming right down to the wire.
How much has changed since you wrote that?
Well, a lot has changed, but that assessment has not.
These elections are still incredibly close, and there are ample opportunities for both Democrats and Republicans to win control of the White House, of the House of Representatives.
And we're even seeing some late shifts in the United States Senate.
So there are a lot of moving pieces in this election, but the top-line assessment that either party could come away from Tuesday with a pretty good night remains exactly the same.
What is the blue wall?
And can you talk a bit about the likelihood that Harris is going to gain some victories in those states?
The blue wall is a term coined by the legendary Ron Brownstein to talk about the set of states that voted consistently for Democratic presidential candidates from 1988 onwards to all the way up until 2016.
Now, originally, that meant it included traditionally Democratic states like California, New York, Maryland, as well as some of the swing states that always seemed to break for Democrats.
But in 2016, what we saw was the blue wall begin to crack.
So Donald Trump carried Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and that was enough for him to defeat Hillary Clinton.
Now, when people talk about the blue wall path to victory for Kamala Harris, that's essentially what they're talking about is winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and getting to 270 electoral votes for the Democrat if you factor in those California, New York, Washington, Oregon, the states that we know are going to consistently vote for the Democratic nominee.
So the blue wall is one of the two main pathways, the two main theaters of this presidential election, along with, of course, the Sunbelt states in the South that have become more increasingly competitive.
Now then, how much impact do you expect Vice President Harris and former President Trump and people's decisions whether or not to support them to affect some of the down ballot races, especially with the House and Senate so competitive?
The presidential has a lot of effects on the down ballot races because we were at a historical low in the practice of ticket splitting.
It used to be that how you voted for president only had a minimal bearing on how you voted for a race down ballot.
People were more than happy to vote one party for president, a different party for Senate and House.
In fact, a lot of people did that.
And we saw Democrats continue to do very well in Republican-leaning states up until about 2010, Democratic senators in Montana and North Dakota and Louisiana, places that were not electing Democrats at the top of the ticket.
And the same thing in the House.
We used to see broad swaths of each party's coalition in the House coming from districts that were carried by the other party's presidential nominee.
But over the last two decades, we've seen a steep decline in that practice.
And now how a district, how a person votes for president is probably the best predictor for how they're going to vote for Senate, for House, and for other races down the ballot.
So if Kamala Harris has a good night on Tuesday, she is probably going to bring a lot of down ballot Democrats with her.
And the same goes for Donald Trump, because if you're voting for Trump, you're just so much less likely to vote for a Democrat in the House or Senate.
If you're voting for Harris, you're really going to not probably want to vote for a Republican for any of those down ballot races either.
Can you talk about some of the key races to watch in the House in particular?
We have eight toss-ups in our final estimation of the House of Representatives.
So we sat down, we crunched all the numbers, we looked at the trends, interviewed the candidates in a whole swath of districts across the country.
And in our final assessment, or at least our assessment from last Thursday, excuse me, we saw Democrats favored in 214 seats, Republicans favored in 213 seats, and eight pure toss-ups, four of them held by Democrats, four of them held by Republicans.
So a very evenly divided chamber.
Some of the races that we're looking at most specifically, there are a couple in California, in California's 27th district, which is in Los Angeles.
Republican Mike Garcia is looking to hold on to his seat despite it leaning somewhat Democratic.
He's a former fighter pilot.
He's won some tough elections before.
He's facing a Democrat named George Whitesides, who is a personally wealthy entrepreneur who is Democrats' first new candidate in this district in three elections.
They nominated the same person three times.
She lost every time, but trying something new.
So we're watching that one.
Next door in California's 45th district, where Republican Michelle Steele is running for reelection.
That's a very interesting race against Democratic attorney Derek Tran.
Both of those are toss-ups.
On the Democratic side, Washington's third congressional district, Marie Glusenkamp Perez, faces a rematch with her opponent, Joe Kent.
That was one of the closest races in 2022 and one of the biggest upsets of the night in 2022 when the Democrat won that seat in southwestern Washington.
And finally, the last one I want to mention, of course, is Colorado's eighth congressional district, which is just all tied up in all of the polling that's out there.
Yadira Caraveo, freshman Democratic congresswoman running in a relatively new district against Republican Gabe Evans.
This one will be a really good bellwether for how the cycle is going for either party, depending on who wins.
Can you talk to me a little bit about the race for the House seat in Alaska?
This is one of the most interesting races on the map.
It is the seat held by a Democrat that is the most Republican.
So Mary Peltola, the Democrat, is the incumbent there.
Trump won Alaska by 10 points in 2020.
There's no Democrat who holds a seat that's as Republican as that.
There are really only a couple of Republicans who hold seats that are as Democratic as that would be on the other side.
So this is a pretty rare instance for any House member in this day and age.
And it speaks to Peltola's ability to win votes from across the aisle in a state that is notoriously anti-partisan.
Alaskans really don't like political labels.
She's been able to take advantage of that independent streak, but she faces a really tough reelection campaign.
And that's because in her first two runs, Republicans were very divided in the state.
They were choosing between two different candidates, Sarah Palin, who you may remember as the former governor, and Nick Begich, who is the grandson of a former congressman there.
And with two Republicans on the ballot, it made it difficult because Alaska uses a pretty unique rank choice voting system no other state uses that actually allows four candidates to be on the ballot from any party in November.
And that means you could have two Republicans versus one Democrat.
And that, of course, splits the vote in a way that made it difficult for them to beat Peltola in the past.
What they did this cycle was they started out with two Republicans versus one Democrat, but they were successful in getting one of those Republicans to drop out.
So they have a clear shot against Peltola for the first time since she got to Congress.
Meanwhile, she's taking a lot of incoming negative ads that she never had to deal with before because the Republicans were fighting amongst themselves.
So, this is her most challenging election yet.
We actually see her as a very slight underdog at this point, just because Alaska is so Republican a state.
But it's going to be very close, and we won't know the outcome until November 20th.
So, several weeks after Election Day, when they actually run the ranked choice voting tabulation, and we can figure out when all the second and third choice votes are allocated, who the next member of Congress is going to be.
Let's actually look at some ads from that race, the Alaska House race, from Representative Mary Paltola and Nick Begich.
And I should say that Patola's ad is called Vote, actually, and it's riffing off of a scene from the movie Love Actually, and doesn't have any spoken words.
So let's go ahead and play those.
What is Nick like?
Goodness.
Nick is a good husband.
He's a conservative family man.
He uses the land responsibly, and he's loyal to Alaskans.
Nick will make for a good congressman because he is one of the most caring individuals that I know, and he cares about Alaska.
We have one representative in this state, and that representative has to have a strong voice, and he has a strong voice.
He will do what is right for this state.
I do want to move on to the Senate, but just really quickly, following up on the Alaska race, with that decision coming so late after Election Day, and we are looking at such a tight race for control of the House, that might make things a little bit contentious there.
Oh, absolutely.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that this race determines control of the House of Representatives.
It's not the likeliest outcome because there are so many moving pieces.
But in a universe where the two parties are deadlocked at 217 seats apiece, heading into that ranked choice tabulation, there is going to be a tremendous amount of attention, a massive spotlight on that November 20th ranked choice tabulation.
All the things that can go wrong with ranked choice or make it a little bit more of a complex system are going to get a lot of scrutiny, no matter what, but especially if this race has something to do with who controls the majority of the House next year.
We'll be going to callers in just a moment.
Republicans can reach us at 202-748-8001.
Democrats at 202-748-8000.
And Independents at 202-748-8002.
Now, Jacob, can you walk over to the other side of Capitol Hill?
Talk us through the big races in the Senate that you're watching.
The Senate is much more favorable territory to Republicans this year than either the fight for the White House or the fight for the House.
That's just a function of the seats that are up, because, of course, not every Senate race is up every cycle.
Only a third of the chamber is up for reelection.
And this is a slate of states that pretty clearly favor Republicans.
So Republicans have an advantage in the overall chamber, and they're on offense in deep red states like Montana and West Virginia, in the presidential battlegrounds, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, even in some blue states like a New Mexico or a Maryland.
And Democrats only have a few offensive opportunities to try and offset losses.
So a pretty good map for Republicans.
And of course, they only need one seat plus the White House or two seats overall to take back the majority.
So not a big hill to climb for them.
What we're watching right now is a couple of seats that seem to be right in the middle of the battlefield.
Montana is the seat that Republicans feel the best about taking from an incumbent Democrat.
Senator John Tester is struggling in his race for a fourth term against Republican Tim Sheehey.
The polls have him down.
We see him as a slight underdog.
If Republicans win that race, plus the West Virginia race, which we expect them to win, that's plus two right off the bat.
And both of them are.
Let me pause you there, Jacob.
I want to play a couple of those ads from that Montana race and then get you to finish up your comment.
Yeah.
So I'm not going to comment.
All I can say is.
Can you hear them?
They talk about using lies.
Well, that's not surprising.
I see right through them.
They have no shield, no secrets to reveal.
It doesn't matter what they say.
In the jealous games, people play Alexa Seal.
Pay no matter what they say.
It doesn't matter anyway.
Alexa see you.
Alexa Seal.
Alexa Seal.
Just to confirm, you don't have any comment on this matter.
Edney, I am radical.
I do believe that we need to get radical about what we are doing.
Edney, I am a radical.
Kamala Harris supported eliminating private health insurance and giving taxpayer-funded health care to illegal aliens.
Edney, I am a radical.
John Tester voted to give taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrants.
And he supported amnesty for illegals, making them eligible for Medicare.
John Tester votes like a radical Democrat.
I'm Tim Sheehy, and I prove this message.
So those are ads from that Montana race.
And what were some of the other races that you were saying we should keep an eye on?
Ohio is the only pure toss-up on the map at this point.
Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, trying to outperform the partisanship of the state against his Republican opponent, Bernie Marino.
That's a race that Democrats absolutely have to hold on to.
It's crucial if they want to keep control of the chamber.
And that one is coming down to the wire.
Both parties feeling cautiously optimistic in the last couple of days, but absolutely the closest race on the map.
And then Democrats trying to pull off some major upsets in Texas, where Congressman Colin Allred is challenging Senator Ted Cruz.
This is a state that Democrats have been trying to win for decades.
They haven't won a statewide race since 1994.
But Cruz is trying to, excuse me, Allred is trying to be the first Democrat to do so in 30 years.
And Ted Cruz, because of some of his unique vulnerabilities, may actually be in a bit of danger.
And then the quirkiest race on the map for sure is in Nebraska, where Republican Senator Deb Fisher faces a really tough challenge from an independent candidate named Dan Osborne.
There's no Democrat on the ballot.
So Osborne is running with support from Democrats.
He is running a very aggressive populist campaign against Fisher.
And Fisher didn't take this race seriously for most of the year.
And that put her behind the eight ball with just a couple of weeks left to go before Election Day when she woke up and realized that she was probably losing that race in September and early October.
And since then, we've seen Republicans try and rush to her rescue.
She's stepped up her campaigning, but an odd race and one that is going to be a lot closer than it has any business being in a state as Republican as Nebraska.
All right, let's go to your calls.
Rachel is in Maryland on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Rachel.
Hi there.
First of all, I just want to say I commend your memory recall because I just could never.
I wanted to ask what your thoughts are on the third congressional race and on the race between Larry Hogan and Angela Olson Brooks.
Very interesting races.
The third congressional race in Maryland was actually just in Annapolis the other day.
This race was essentially decided in the primary.
So Congressman John Sarbanes, the incumbent Democrat in that seat, is retiring after about 20 years in Congress.
There was a really brutal primary to succeed him.
A whole bunch of Democrats ran a lot of local office holders.
In addition to former police officer Harry Dunn, who defended the Capitol at the January 6th insurrection, he raised a lot of money, but he was ultimately defeated by a state legislator named Sarah Elfrith, who got some significant support from outside groups, including UDP, the APAC-affiliated super PAC.
So Sarah Elfrith will almost certainly be the next member of Congress from Maryland's third district, just because it is a pretty Democratic seat.
She will replace John Sarbanes.
In the Senate race in Maryland, this is one of the more contentious races on the map for sure.
Former Governor Larry Hogan put this contest on the map when he jumped in the race and became the Republican nominee.
It was not a race that Democrats were paying a lot of attention to in terms of the fight for the majority before he was involved.
But because he was so popular, still is popular after his two terms as governor, it meant that Democrats really had to step up their game in Maryland when Angela Olson Brooks won the party's nomination over the summer.
She had spent all of her money to beat Congressman David Trone, and she needed a lot of outside assistance from the National Party to regain her footing against this very popular, very well-funded former governor and Larry Hogan.
And she seems to have done just that.
It's taken Democrats about $15 or $20 million to get this race to where it needs to be.
But at this point, her polling lead is approaching double digits.
And given how Democratic Maryland is, you know, we talk a little bit about how Republican Montana is, and that makes it tough for John Tester.
Maryland is so Democratic, it's just not going to vote for a Republican senator.
Maryland is as Democratic a state as Idaho is Republican a state.
We wouldn't talk about a Democrat winning Idaho.
It's almost certainly going to be the case that a Republican can't win a Senate race in Maryland this year.
Let's hear from Louise now in Fredericksburg, Virginia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Louise.
Good morning.
I noticed on your channels that you have a lot of, you know, anti-death penalty, pro-whatever it is on AIDS and things like that.
Lots of comments.
You even revived presidential candidate Governor Duklakis, for God's sake.
So, Louise, did you have a question for Jacob about any of these House and Senate races that are so close this cycle?
I do.
I really believe that America is going to, I hope that they absolutely see what's going on with wars.
I haven't heard any discussion about wars hardly at all.
And here, I know for sure that Vindeman won't win.
He doesn't, there's Trump signs everywhere.
And so I'm really hoping that we don't vote blue no matter who.
So Louise raises an interesting point, Jacob.
I wonder how much you're seeing the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza showing up in some of these House and Senate races.
Well, in Louise's district in Virginia's seventh congressional district, which includes Fredericksburg, she mentioned Vindman, the Democratic candidate.
If that name sounds familiar, it's because Vindman, Eugene Vindman, and his twin brother, Alexander Vinman, were the two whistleblowers during the Trump-Ukraine saga way back in 2019.
So in that race, particularly, I think there is more attention than usual being placed on the conflict in Ukraine.
Vindman's opponent, Derek Anderson, the Republican, is a retired Green Beret, so he also has a lot of military experience he's leaning on.
And in Northern Virginia, foreign policy issues are probably going to play a larger role than they would in your typical congressional district.
But that's a very hard-fought race down there.
It's a very swing district.
And Vinman has raised a lot of money because of his celebrity status in the wake of those first Trump impeachment hearings.
That's helped him eke out a small lead in the polls over Anderson.
But this is a really great example of a district that who wins the presidential is going to have a big effect on who wins the down ballot contest.
Because if Harris wins that district by as much as Joe Biden did in 2020, about five or six points, it's going to be very tough for Derek Anderson to get over that roadblock in order to win and beat Vinman.
But speaking more generally, foreign policy is just not typically at the top of most American voters' minds.
They care more about the economy, about abortion, about immigration, about democracy than they do about what's going on on a different continent.
And it's really only in certain pockets of the country and among certain voters that we see foreign policy issues take a much more front and center stage.
So if you're looking at a state like Michigan, which has a significant Muslim American population, a significant Arab American population, that is a real problem spot for the Harris campaign at the presidential level.
Trump went to Dearborn, Michigan just a couple days ago to try and win some votes in the Muslim community there.
That's clearly an avenue that he sees as a potential advantage in a state as evenly divided as Michigan is.
And so the war in Gaza and frustration over America's policy there and America's continued support for Israel is playing a role in the election there in Michigan.
But broadly speaking, when you ask voters what the most important issues are that they're making their minds up about, anything foreign policy is just going to rank toward the bottom of the list.
We have a text from James in Newburgh, New York, who says, what's your assessment on NY17's congressional race?
New York 17, when this cycle began, we thought that this was going to be the biggest battleground and one of Democrats' best flip opportunities.
This is a Westchester Hudson Valley seat that was held by Democrats until 2022.
Sean Patrick Maloney, who was the head of the Democratic Campaign Committee, lost his reelection by a couple thousand votes to Republican Mike Lawler in a bit of an upset.
And Democrats really wanted that seat back.
But it has morphed into a bit of a problem spot for New York Democrats.
Their nominee, Mondair Jones, is a former congressman, and he is one of the party's best fundraisers.
But he does have some weak spots that Lawler has effectively exploited.
So, you know, he is on camera expressing support for defunding the police.
He has a close relationship to AOC, and that's shown up in a lot of campaign ads.
And he also left the district two years ago to try and run for a totally different seat in Brooklyn, where he said that he was going to move to and make his new home before losing that race and moving back up into the Hudson Valley to run for Congress again in the 17th district.
So this is a seat that we see Republicans slightly favored in, even though the district on the whole leans a little bit more Democratic.
And it's an example of how even as a lot of things have gone right for House Democrats over the last couple of months, there are still some trouble spots that can prevent the party, especially when it comes to issues of candidate quality, can prevent the party from getting even greater gains and winning back the House.
Keith is in Waldwick, New Jersey on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Keith.
Hi, I have some questions about a few congressional races.
You mentioned the New York City.
What about New York 19?
New York 4, Pennsylvania 1.
So that was New York 19, New York 4, and Pennsylvania won.
Well, take them as they come.
New York 19, my personal favorite district.
It's an upstate seat.
It's kind of a kludge of a whole bunch of different areas of the state.
It's got a little Hudson Valley, a little southern tier, a little Syracuse capital region.
Republican Mark Molinaro is the incumbent there.
We see him as a very slight underdog against Josh Riley, the Democratic challenger.
They faced off in 2022.
Riley lost by a little over 2,000 votes, but he's running a much better funded campaign now.
And Democrats have been pretty effective in picking apart Molinaro's record since he got to Congress.
It's going to be a close race.
It'll be close at the top of the ticket, but we actually see Riley as a slight favorite in that race at this point.
New York 4, out on Long Island, southern Nassau County, the town of Hempstead, if you want to be real specific here.
Republican Anthony Diesposito is trying to hold on to a district that is the most Democratic seat held by a Republican.
So we talked about Mary Peltola.
That was the most Republican seat held by a Democrat.
This is the inverse.
Biden would have carried Diasposito's district by about 14 points.
And so it's an uphill climb for the freshman Republican.
He's a former NYPD officer.
He's a former local politician, and he's got some strengths there, but he's also had some embarrassing stories come out about some personal relationships and campaign finance spending.
So he's faced his challenges.
We see him as a slight underdog against Laura Gillen, who also ran against him last time and lost very narrowly, but is running a better funded, more supported campaign this time around.
So that's New York 4.
And then finally, Pennsylvania won.
This is a seat that has bedeviled Democrats for a decade or more.
It's a Democratic-leaning seat in the Philly suburbs, and yet Republican Brian Fitzpatrick has been able to hold on to it.
And before then, his brother, Mike Fitzpatrick, was able to hold on to it despite it being a Democratic-leaning territory.
So we see Brian Fitzpatrick as the clear favorite in that race.
He faces a Democrat named Ashley Ehaas, who stop me if you've heard this before, also ran in 2022 and is running a better funded, sharper campaign, but still likely to come up a bit short.
Don is in Missouri on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Don.
Hi.
I wish you'd let me finish my statement before you interject with any kind of question.
I'll just finish my statement and let Jacob respond.
I am really concerned about the Democrats adding in votes after midnight.
If your state, if you listen to me, your state does not report out their final tally before midnight, you should storm your state capital.
All right, we're not going to call for violence on here.
Let's hear from Gabriel in Apex, North Carolina, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Gabriel.
Oh, thank you so much.
So I live in a district that was previously District 13, that now the Republicans who have a super majority in the House, the General Assembly, for the state, have redrawn and our Supreme Court is upheld, which is very sad because it disenfranchises a lot of us.
And what used to be quite a swing district is now not at all.
And I'm just curious if you can talk a little bit about the specifics of North Carolina.
And then on the larger spectrum of this, it sort of seems, and correct me if I'm wrong, and you're somebody who really knows the cards on this in every district, but you know, it looks like the big blue states that have certain independent boards that look at redistricting that sort of prevent against that are actually the ones that where Republicans are able to pick up seats.
And then in the red states, you know, where you have super majority control, that gerrymandering is getting worse.
Now, I know they do it in like Pennsylvania, but can you just talk about how there's sort of a double standard in that regard?
And then just give us the large totality of what you think North Carolina's overall trend will be on Tuesday.
Thank you so much.
North Carolina is one of the most contentiously gerrymandered states and has been for quite some time.
I think over the last six House elections, North Carolina has had five different maps at this point.
They are always redrawing their maps.
So in 2020, it was a new map drawn by the courts that allowed Democrats to pick up a handful of seats in that election.
In 2022, it was also a map drawn by the courts because they tossed out the map drawn by the state legislature.
That allowed Democrats to pick up a few more seats.
So, for instance, your Congressman Wiley Nicol in North Carolina's 13th district was a seat drawn to be highly competitive.
He won a very close race against Bo Hines in 2022.
But what happened in between 2022 and now is that the state Supreme Court flipped from being a Democratic majority to a Republican majority.
And as soon as that happened, Republicans re-filed a lawsuit against the districts and got the new Republican majority to say, actually, the map that we implemented in 2022, that's the bad map.
Republicans in the state legislature, you get a new chance to draw a fresh map for 2024.
The map that they drew there went from being an evenly divided 7-7 map.
So North Carolina has 14 districts.
There are currently seven Democrats, seven Republicans, to a map that has at least a guaranteed 10 seats for Republicans, three seats for Democrats, and then one toss-up district in that North Carolina's first seat where Democrat Don Davis faces a tough reelection.
So that's the story in North Carolina.
Republicans are going to pick up at least three seats in that state.
And if they hold the majority, that's going to be a big part of why they do it, because they're probably only going to get a pretty narrow majority next year if they do get a majority.
So North Carolina playing a crucial role there.
The new map playing a big part of Republicans' resilience this cycle.
To your other point about the commissions, I think that that is generally true, but it extends beyond blue states.
So probably the most notable versions of that are in a place like California, where there is an independent redistricting commission that draws the map.
And Republicans have had some success in the last two cycles.
But swing states like Michigan have independent redistricting commissions that have created maps where both parties have flipped competitive seats over the last couple of years.
Colorado, a blue-leaning state that has a commission that created a map with some competitive districts, but also a state like Iowa, which is a pretty Republican state.
They have probably one of the best and well-credentialed redistricting commissions, and they do a very good job of making at least three of the four districts in that state into highly competitive seats, despite the fact that overall Republicans tend to do pretty well.
So I think what you're picking up on is absolutely correct: that states with independent redistricting commissions are going to have more competitive districts, more opportunities for one party to win seats.
States that are still being drawn by the state legislatures, like a North Carolina, like a Texas, like a Florida, are not going to have any competitive districts.
They're going to lock in those majorities for their favorite party.
Celeste is in Wisconsin on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Celeste.
Hello.
Yes.
Thank you for taking my call.
And now, at the beginning of the show, when it was talked about, if you tend to vote Democrat, well, then you'll vote Democrat for the other seats also, or the other elections, Senate, Congress, et cetera.
And that's what I do.
I voted Democrat, and I voted Democrat down the line only because I want to see things getting done.
It seems like with Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other side, that we're not working together.
So I want as many Democrats in there just to see things get done.
And then with the races going on in Wisconsin, I had a few questions about, well, what's important and what's not important.
How come I don't hear about climate change with what's going on in the world and in the United States here?
Flooding, tornadoes, fires.
I can't believe that not more is being said about climate change.
Yes.
I just want to let Jacob respond to some of those points that you raised, including, you know, we talked about how important foreign policy is on the campaign trail for the House and Senate.
What about issues like climate change?
It is rare that you see candidates make a point of centering climate change on the issues that they talk about most.
And typically, when we do see that, it's younger candidates because we know that young voters care a lot more about climate change than older voters do.
And so on average, of course, obviously, it's not a hard and fast rule, but I do think that there is a big age disparity there.
And some of the most vocal voices in the Democratic Party about climate change are coming from the youngest members of the conference and the Republicans, too.
I think to the extent that there are Republicans who are concerned about climate change, it typically is coming from some of the younger folks as well.
But certainly in Wisconsin, it is not an issue that seems to have risen to the top of that campaign.
We've got a lot of interesting races in the Badger state.
The presidential race at the top of the ticket, incredibly, incredibly close.
10 electoral votes that are very much up for grabs.
Both parties making a clear play for that.
And Wisconsin was one of the closest states in the 2020 election.
Biden only won it by a fraction of a percent.
So a lot of investment going in there.
That Senate race between Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovedy, the Republican, is also a top-tier contest.
Baldwin has held on before, but Hovede is very personally wealthy and has spent a lot of his own money, gotten a lot of outside support to try and paint Baldwin as somebody who's gone Washington, who doesn't look out for Wisconsinites anymore.
Democrats have been trying to make Hovedy's residence in Southern California and his ownership of a big bank a real issue for him.
And then even at the House level, there are some interesting races on either side of the state.
You've got the first congressional district, which is in southeastern Wisconsin.
Brian Steil, the Republican, faces a challenge from former Congressman Peter Barca in a seat that will probably go Republican, but has been a little interesting.
And then on the western side of the state, Derek Van Orden, the freshman Republican, is facing a pretty stiff challenge from Democrat Rebecca Cook, again, a seat that probably will go Republican.
But two races that we're watching pretty closely.
I got to say, though, I watch a lot of campaign advertisements.
I've seen probably dozens of campaign ads from Tammy Baldwin, Eric Hovety, Cook Style, Van Orden, and Barca.
I struggle to recall any of them that touched on climate change.
So it's not an issue that is breaking into the commercials at least.
And I think that's a reflection of where the campaigns feel that they can win votes.
And unfortunately, it's just not an issue that they're willing to put time and attention on.
Mike is in Nassau, New York on our line for independence.
Good morning, Mike.
How are you?
I'm from Nassau, New York, and upstate New York.
We're part of that Molinaro Riley race, the 19th district.
I don't think people realize how strange it is.
My backyard is five minutes from Massachusetts, and the 19th goes all the way down to the Pennsylvania border.
It's a very, very strange district.
Where I am by the Massachusetts-Albany border, we're more with Paul Tomco.
What the Albany area brings to us is more economically viable for us.
And it's funny.
You see all the ads from down in the southern tier.
That's three and a half, four hours away.
The district is so strange.
I was wondering if he could speak about that.
I was calling on the independent line because I watched the Democrats move this district around for years and years.
I was wondering if he could speak to that.
Thank you.
Yeah, this district kind of fits into the space left by the other districts is the way that I think about it is that, you know, you have your Buffalo district, you have your Syracuse district, your, you know, the Southern Tier District out represented by Nick Langworthy, your Great North District, your capital region, then you've got your, you know, Hudson Valley.
And there's a space in the middle that kind of takes pieces from all of that.
And that's New York's 19th district.
So obviously, you right by the Massachusetts border, district goes all the way west to Ithaca, Tompkins County.
It goes south, you know, Sullivan County.
It really does touch a whole bunch of different parts to the state.
It has five different media markets in it, which is a lot.
I mean, we really don't see that outside of some of those big states out west that cover a lot of ground, but not a lot of people.
And so it is an interesting district to campaign in.
You're able to tailor messages depending on which TV stations you're running ads on.
But it does take a lot of effort and resources to speak to the entire district.
And Riley, Josh Riley, the Democrat, is one of his party's best fundraisers.
He's raised almost $10 million this year, which puts him at the very top tier of fundraisers in either party in the House.
And that has allowed him to really get his message out against Molinaro and potentially get himself in position to go to Congress.
So it's absolutely a fascinating district.
It pulls from all different regions of the state, and it requires a pretty comprehensive message by each candidate, but one we're watching very closely on election night.
Philip is in Evansville, Indiana, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Philip.
Yes, I would like a rundown of Indiana.
I know it's a bright red state.
We got Mike Braun running for governor.
And in Evansville, we elected a black lady for mayor for the first time.
And she's done a pretty good job.
And I just wondered if he could give us a rundown of Indiana in the southern district also and the governor.
Yeah, so Indiana has a couple of interesting races, a lot of open seats that were up for grabs on the Republican side across the board in House races due to some retirements or Jim Banks up in Northeast Indiana leaving his seat to run for Senate, the seat being vacated by Mike Braun.
Like you said, a couple Southern seats that also were back up for grabs, had some very contentious primaries.
But the most competitive race at this point probably looks like the governor's race, in fact, which is not something any of us really expected to be talking about this late in the game.
But for a couple of reasons, Mike Braun is not an absolute lock for the Indiana governor's mansion this Tuesday.
He faces a challenge from Jennifer McCormick.
She is the former state superintendent of instruction.
She ran the schools, and she is a former Republican herself.
She was elected statewide as a Republican before switching parties to become a Democrat.
And there's a third party candidate in that race, a libertarian named Donald Rainwater, who is making life difficult for Mike Braun.
In 2020, Rainwater ran for governor.
He won 12% of the vote.
That's a lot of vote for a libertarian, and a lot of that could come from the Republican side of the aisle.
So it drops his support, drops Braun's support, and might allow Jennifer McCormick to win with less than 50% of the vote because it's just very tough for a Democrat to get anywhere near 50 in Indiana.
The other thing that's going on, of course, is that Mike Braun's running mate, Micah Beckwith, his lieutenant governor candidate, is a pretty controversial guy.
He said some controversial things.
He was not Braun's pick to be his running mate.
He got nominated by the Republican convention in the state, and he has made some missteps that have cost Braun some support.
So that governor's race, still Republicans favored, but one to keep an eye on.
And then the only congressional race in the state that's even mildly competitive is up in Gary, the first congressional district.
Frank Mervan, the Democrat, is running in a seat that leans Democratic but is trending toward Republicans.
Randy Niemeyer is the Republican opponent there.
He doesn't look like he's going to win this time, but that's a district that through the rest of the decade is going to be quite competitive for both parties if those trends hold.
All right, last caller for now will go to Walter in Cleveland, Ohio on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Walter.
Good morning.
Leading up to the 2020 election, I heard a lot that the more votes that were going to be cast, the better it would be for Democrats.
I haven't heard that so much leading up to this election.
Does the same hold true?
Maybe not.
And that's one of the most interesting things about this election cycle: Trump is showing a surprising degree of strength among the lowest propensity voters.
So the voters who are least likely to show up, voters who didn't vote in either 2020 or 2022, but might vote in 2024, those people are actually the most favorable to Trump.
And it's the voters who consistently vote, who voted in 2020 with 2022 in the primaries.
Those voters are most favorable to Kamala Harris.
So that's what the data shows us.
And that's why we aren't hearing nearly as much about how a high turnout scenario might help Democrats.
But ultimately, it all comes down to who's turning out because there's a lot of flex in the electorate.
And just because we're talking about high turnout, there's not one high turnout universe.
It really does matter who is actually showing up, which of the lower propensity voters are coming to cast their ballots.
So you're absolutely hitting on something that a lot of folks in the political world are talking about.
But until we know who exactly is going to show up to the polls, it's hard to say whether high turnout or low turnout really does hurt the Democrats in a way that it hasn't before.
Well, thank you so much for sharing your expertise.
Jacob Rubashkin is the deputy editor of Inside Elections.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
And thanks to everyone who called in this segment.
We're going to go to more of your calls after the break in open forum.
You can start calling in now.
And later, veteran political reporter Jerry Seib will be joining us to discuss his piece in the Wall Street Journal detailing what he calls some bright spots in the doom and gloom of our politics right now.
We'll be right back.
Discover the heartbeat of democracy with C-SPAN Voices 2024 as we engage voters ahead of Election Day asking, why is it important to vote?
Hi, my name is Paula.
And the reason why I think we all should vote is because we think that our voices are not never heard.
And we see a lot of things that we need to make changes of.
And I think it's important for us to vote considering what's going on in the world today.
It's our only opportunity to express individually how we feel about the issues that are important to us.
Even though they say every election is an important election, but this one in particular, I think you should exercise your right to vote.
One, if you see how this country is going truly in the wrong direction, then you should get out and vote.
And don't base it on personality.
Base it on policy.
Things that will help your life.
It's important to vote because elsewhere in the world, people don't have the right to vote or their votes really don't count.
So here you can definitely make a change.
And it's very important as far as what kind of country you want to be.
And the two rival candidates have definitely different opinions about what kind of America they want.
I'm voting this year because I care about my women's rights.
I care about my rights as a black woman.
And I'm also in the military.
So I care about how I'm getting deployed or where I'm going and the reasons why.
And I feel like that's a big reason to fight and you guys should fight too.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
We're in open forum ready to take your calls.
Our line for Republicans is 202-748-8001.
For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
We'll start with Rich in Marion, Ohio on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Rich.
Yeah, well, great conversations.
We're talking about some things that are really important.
We have neighbors asking to do a crime and want us to pay for it and actually insisting we pay for it to do a crime.
I think if they're going to do a crime, that's bad enough, but to ask us to pay for it.
It comes to the Hyde Amendment that we don't pay for other abortions that other people want to do or doctors that may be against it and are forced to do them.
It's a very difficult question.
It's a very important question.
The most precious things we have in our country are children trying to do that the right way and to stop the millions.
You just look at the number of millions of abortions that have been done right, wrong, or indifferent.
But one thing we do know, we should not be asked to pay for some crime that's going to happen.
And it's a very difficult question to try to handle it right because there's grandparents, everyone involved in it when someone doesn't show up.
And I don't know how we resolve it.
There are really tough problems, but to put it in the election is just shameful.
Just shameful.
I'll hang up.
Listen to your answer.
Well, actually, Rich, I was wondering, is there a ballot initiative in Ohio on this this year?
Well, there are some things that go to God that I don't know what the right answers are that you pray for them.
I realize these kids are precious.
Just look at any kid you see, you know, young little kids, how precious they are.
It's just amazing.
And I don't think we have all the power in the world, but sometimes we do get forced into have to make godly decisions about this stuff and life and death.
I think we have to do all the wisdom in the world if we are going to step in the place where we think we have to make a decision on that.
We need the best blessings and everything.
But there are lives going.
And just look at the big numbers of millions that do show up.
And there's got to be someone that deserves to live.
I know there's some tough decisions in there, but on the other hand, like in lifetime punishments, if there's one that you're going to save, it's so important to save that one.
I'll hang up with your answer.
Thanks.
So, Rich brings up the issue of abortion, which many voters are going to be deciding on when they go to their polling places or if they voted already.
Here's a story from ABC News.
In 2024, abortion rights initiatives are on the ballot in 10 states.
Most would restore pre-Dobbs protections, but some advocates want to go further.
In 2022, protecting abortion rights was a winning issue in the six states that saw ballot initiatives related to abortion.
Next week, 11 more abortion-related initiatives will be on voters' ballots.
Nine of them focused on restoring the right to abortion in individual states, one rival measure in Nebraska that would prohibit that right, and one in New York that would expand the state's anti-discrimination laws to include reproductive health protections.
And those 11 states, if we look here at Ballotpedia, here are the states that have abortion-related state ballot measures.
I'll bring up that map here, and you can see that they're scattered all over the country.
These are states with ballot initiatives related to abortion on the ballot this year.
Now, let's go to Shirley in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Shirley.
Good morning, Kimley.
I would just like to say I lived in New York for 40 years.
I'm 90 years old myself.
So, I know I remember when Donald Trump came to New York with his father and everything.
I just want to say, I don't understand how anybody can vote for Donald Trump.
I mean, he had three wives and he never could get along with any of them.
This one that he's with right now, I guess she just stayed there because she can't leave him.
He doesn't think about poor people.
I don't call myself poor people.
Shirley, can I ask you to turn down the volume on your TV and then you can finish your point?
My volume is turned down.
Oh, okay.
Well, please.
I don't know why you're getting feedback because it's down.
You know.
But anyway, getting back to Donald Trump, I don't know why anybody can vote for this man.
Kamala Harris, she has the education.
She has everything that, you know, she's supposed to have to be in a president as far as I'm concerned.
So I want somebody to come on this station and tell me what in the world they see in Donald Trump that they don't see in Kamala and why they are voting for him.
Because he is definitely not fit to be in that White House.
Let's go to David in Bloomington, Illinois on our line for independence.
Good morning, David.
Morning.
I'm trying to make this quick.
America is being duped by Donald Trump.
It's called, I'm calling him the crypto five.
Donald Trump, if he gets elected, he's going to devalue the dollar.
His son, Donald Trump Jr., Elon Musk, Vivek Rafsaswami, and another individual, they're going to devalue the dollar, make the crypto dollar more valuable than the American U.S. dollar.
Two, the polls are all wrong.
Kamala Harris is tied with Donald Trump at 47%, 47%.
That shouldn't be because Harris has been only in the running for 15 weeks.
Donald Trump has been in the running for 10 years or a year with a vantage point, and he's still at 4.
So this will be a blowout for Kamala Harris.
Promise you.
The numbers, the polls are wrong.
They're doing it for media today.
Two, why doesn't Donald Trump?
Three, why doesn't Donald Trump have any type of animal?
Animals are a characteristic of the person.
Kamala Harris has a dog.
Donald Trump doesn't.
And the last point is Vivek Ramaswamy, what are they trying to hide?
Wives and JD Vance's wives are related.
They're cousins.
Both of them come from the two richest families in India.
So, America, we're being duped by Donald Trump, and we're just going for it.
Stop the madness.
Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.
Kathy is in Pennsylvania on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Kathy.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for taking my call, C-SPAN.
And good morning to America.
One thing I want to say to C-SPAN, it seems like I was on hold and you went three rounds before taking a Republican call, but that's not why I called in.
I called in about the abortion issue.
I think what hurt the abortion issue was late term and birth abortions.
I think that had a big detriment on the abortion issue.
And the other fact that I want to bring up about the abortion issue is Roe versus Wade was overturned in 2022 in June.
Who was in office?
It was the Democrats.
Thank you for taking my call.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
One of the issues that has come up quite a bit in this election is the risk of mis and disinformation.
And that came up this past week.
Here's a story about it in Fox News, that a video of Haitian migrants saying they plan to vote multiple times in Georgia is Russian-made, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.
A video of Haitian migrants voting in Georgia's elections is fake and the work of Russian influence actors, according to U.S. intelligence.
In the clip, two people claiming to be Haitian migrants say they are planning to vote multiple times in two different Georgia counties for Vice President Kamala Harris.
And then it said that video was amplified by right-wing accounts on social media.
The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Russian influence actors manufactured a recent video that falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia, read a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI, and Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency.
This judgment is based on information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities.
The Georgia Secretary of State has already refuted the video's claims as false.
That is just one of the misinformation efforts that has been going on.
NBC News also has an article pointing out a new ad that celebrities are doing.
Can you spot the celebrity deep fakes in a new ad warning against election disinformation?
A public service campaign comes amid growing concern that AI, artificial intelligence, could be used to confuse Americans about the time, place, or manner of voting at their local polling places.
Let's have a look at that ad.
Artificial intelligence has gotten so advanced.
You probably can't tell that some of us aren't real.
I'm definitely real.
That's a problem.
Because this election, bad actors are going to use AI to trick you into not voting.
Not voting.
Luckily, we already know what they're going to do.
They'll use fake phone calls, videos, or messages to try to change when, how, or where you vote.
For example, a fake message saying voting has been extended.
Or your polling location has closed or changed due to an emergency.
Or you need new documentation to vote.
These are all scams.
Designed to trick you into not voting.
Don't fall for it.
Do not fall for it.
This threat is very real.
If something seems off, it probably is.
Always double check your stakes official website.
Or go to represent.us/slash vote safe.
Voting is your right.
Voting is your right.
Don't let anyone take it from you.
Don't let anyone take you.
Take, take, take, take, take.
You want to take you.
I love you, Amy.
I'm so sorry.
I am not even American.
So sorry.
No, I'm really here, actually.
Well, yeah, here.
All right, let's get back to your calls.
Alan is in Brooklyn, New York on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Alan.
Good morning.
Thanks very much.
I'm totally in favor of Democrats conducting themselves in a legal way, and I would never support storming the Capitol or the Supreme Court over my anger at the effect of the Electoral College.
But I think there needs to be more discussion of the merits of Electoral College if and when Trump again takes only an electoral small victory when losing the popular vote.
If he does lose the popular vote, it would be the third time a president takes office in that way in only 24 years, more than in the prior 200 years.
It would also be the first time that someone who previously had incumbency and the advantages of incumbency would have won with an electoral vote only and no popular vote.
It would also be at a time when, based on population change, the ratio of voting power per person in the Electoral College between the smallest and biggest states would be 10 times greater than it was at the time of our founding.
And these are facts that deserve to be taken into consideration by any sane Supreme Court.
Of course, our Supreme Court has been skewed by a president who took office with only Electoral College win and kept out one of the nominees from the Obama administration, Merritt Garland, to increase their count by one.
So this may be a time when peaceful civil disobedience and more information about changes that make the Electoral College more unjust than ever should be focused on.
If I can make one more point, I'm a grandparent of two children.
One's going to become one year old the day before Election Day, one is six years old.
They never voted to allow the unequal voting power in the Electoral College.
This is a rule that was over 200 years old when they were born.
And I think we have to blink at the situation and say this is inherently unfair.
All children born into this world deserve the same per capita voting power at all levels.
And they didn't decide that they didn't take it on.
They didn't consent to it.
And it should not continue to be.
People need to protest this peacefully and strenuously if there is another repeat of what happened in the past two electoral-only wins since 2000.
Okay.
Jimmy is in Hollis Center, Maine, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Jimmy.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
You know, I'm just voting with my pocketbook and my wallet, and it's not very full right now.
And I voted for Joe Biden.
And, you know, I'm disappointed.
I just have to say, you know, my daughter was old.
I'm on fixed income.
I'm 70 years old.
I'm a Social Security, and we put all our bills out.
Like my car insurance is going up almost $1,200 in a year.
She's helping me take care of some of my bills.
We're heading into a winner now.
I'm worried about the heating oil that's going in my house.
I know a lot of people are calling in and making names and everything, but I really never wanted to vote for Republican.
But I remember, I like steak.
I haven't had steak in three or four years.
I go to the store and they're on sale.
Once in a while, I might be able to pick up a sword wine or something for $8 or $9.
But if you go on a regular basis, we're talking $15, $18 for one piece of steak.
And I'm having a rough time.
And, you know, we spend all this money in all these foreign wars, and we're letting all these poor people.
I'd like someone to explain to me how our poor people benefit by bringing in millions of more poor people.
And the thing that scares me is now you see this unemployment where they only hired 12,000 jobs.
What's going to happen when we got our poor people looking for jobs?
And now we've got all these other poor people looking for jobs.
And now, I mean, this could be turning into a disaster.
I'm just, you know, you can play all these games and talk about personalities and everything.
I'm just going on with reality.
And I love this country.
I hope everybody of every race is succeeding, but we've got to start taking care of America.
That's all I got to say.
Thank you for taking my call.
Jimmy raised the recent jobs report.
Fox News also has an article about that jobs report, calling it a November surprise that the dismal jobs report gives Trump last-minute political ammunition to fire at Harris.
And the jobs created last month were far below estimates of up to 120,000 because only 12,000 jobs were created in October.
And this was the lowest in four years.
Fueling the nosedives were disruptions from devastating hurricanes Helene and Milton, the crippling Boeing strike, and other labor disputes.
However, regardless of the contributing factors, the figures offer the Trump campaign instant ammunition to fire at Harris as two major party presidential nominees remain locked in a margin of error race in both the national polls and surveys in the crucial seven battleground states that will likely determine the White House winner.
Yesterday at his rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump referenced that jobs report while focusing on the economy.
And it's a terrible thing is happening.
They're coming in and they're taking jobs held by black people.
They've had that job, those jobs for 10, 15, 20 years.
They have a house.
They have a little mortgage or something.
And their jobs are going to be gone by illegal migrants coming into the country.
And you should show those numbers.
You should take those numbers and you should announce them before the election.
Because if you see those numbers, everybody's going to be.
And by the way, Hispanic Americans are next.
They're being very, very badly and severely hurt.
If Kamala wins, you're three days away from the start of a 1929-style economic depression.
That's what a lot of people think.
And a lot of the genius, the real brilliant people like Scott Besant and others, I call them the 184 people.
You know what that is, 184 IQ, as opposed to about a 70 IQ for our person that we're fighting on the other side.
They have 184 IQ.
No, the geniuses on Wall Street, a lot of them, you know what they're saying?
The only reason the stock market's doing good, doing okay, but it's doing actually good, because everyone thinks that Trump is going to win the presidency.
That's the only reason.
I can see.
If I win, you're three days away from the best jobs, the biggest paychecks, and the brightest economic future that the world has ever seen.
Kamala's inflation nightmare has cost the typical American family $30,000 in higher prices, and now she wants to impose the largest tax hike in American history on you, on everybody in this room.
Back to your calls.
Joe is in Tampa, Florida on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Joe.
Yeah, thanks for taking my call.
I guess what I want to mention is that I'm just disappointed with the American electorate.
To me, there's too much focus on personality.
I had heard the gentleman just a minute ago talk about we should look away from personality, but boy, listening to a couple of previous callers, they were really certainly focused on that.
I mean, to me, you know, the unfortunate in this country that you really have to look past the American media to get your information to kind of lean away from, you know, their focus on personalities, too.
I know you mentioned misinformation, but the American media has really abrogated its responsibility.
I mean, if you look over time, going back to Dan Rather, who basically missed cast information in the middle of election when he was on 60 Minutes with CBS, he was fired for that.
He and his editor.
Today, CBS would probably be pinning a medal on him.
You've seen the situation with ABC and their moderators in the debate with Trump and Kamala Harris.
They basically broke their own commitment not to fact check.
I mean, you know, I think people have to go a long way to look past the American media because it's basically become an arm of the Democratic Party.
You know, the other fact that I would mention to you is the fact you have to keep in mind, again, as this more recent gentleman mentioned, the facts really matter here.
I mean, obviously with Harris, she's seen the disabilities of Joe Biden.
She's seen the situation with Joe Biden.
So she misled the American people.
I mean, you just can't get past that.
It's ridiculous.
Then she's further turned around and said, well, you know, everything I've said in the past, I've supported fracking, defunding the police.
I've supported reparations.
Oh, forget all of that.
Forget it.
All that I'm being elected.
I just, I'm amazed that this election is this close because Ms. Harris really, I mean, exhibits all of the traits of someone that is just, you know, wanting to perpetuate, wanting to have a focus on herself and her own benefits.
Disappointed the American people can't see past that.
Maybe like I think you've mentioned here, you need to definitely be careful in listening to the American media.
You've got to work hard to find these facts and these issues dating all the way back to Rather.
You know, looking at the other facts surrounding this administration, even Biden himself, who funnels money to his grandkids, and that's okay.
I mean, we're not in this guy who brags about going and influencing events in Ukraine by saying, oh, you know, I withheld all this money when the folks were looking into his own son's company's wrongdoings.
Unbelievable.
Okay.
Molly is in North Carolina on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Molly.
Good morning.
I'm 94 years old.
And I've lived a long life in many countries with the military.
And I am praying to God that President Trump will get into, will get the presidency.
He loves this country genuinely.
And what I'm against mainly is all these people walking in by the millions down into our beloved America.
We don't know who they are, what they are, and we've already proven that they are murderers.
I am petrified that when they come down here to North Carolina, I've got grandchildren, little girls, 12 years old, my granddaughters, my daughters.
I'm petrified that this, these one of these people will get hold of one of them and murder them.
And people don't think it can't happen to you.
These ladies who lost a loved one, to these monsters coming in.
So, Molly, whatever happened to theirs.
You're a Democrat who's planning to vote for Trump.
I wonder how you made that decision.
I've made that decision because to me, Camela has absolutely no clue of how to run this beloved America.
Absolutely none.
Okay.
And she is one that wants the borders open.
And I already saw the television where she said the borders would be open to these people because this is a kindly country.
All right.
That's all the time we have for open forum for today.
But up next, veteran political reporter Jerry Saib is going to join us to discuss his piece in the Wall Street Journal detailing some bright spots in the doom and gloom of American politics.
We'll be right back.
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Tonight, on Q ⁇ A, Attorney and Innocence Project Executive Director Christina Swarns joins us to talk about the history of the organization and some of the clients they've successfully represented over the years, including the two men convicted of killing Malcolm X in 1965.
At the original trials in the late 1960s, another gentleman took the witness stand and said that he was the person that was the shooter and that he committed the crime with two other people he refused to name.
The jury rejected that information.
But what we know is that the law enforcement actually had evidence that corroborated his statement and corroborated his assertion that he was the shooter and these other two people, not Mr. Islam or Mr. Aziz, who were our clients, you know, had committed this crime.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to move on a bit from some of the doom and gloom of American politics.
We are joined now by Jerry Seib, who is the former Executive Washington editor for the Wall Street Journal, now a visiting fellow at the Dole Institute of Politics.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Happy to be with you.
You do have this essay in the journal, The Bright Spots in the Doom and Gloom of Our Politics.
Voter engagement is high, split ticket voting is on the rise, and legal institutions are holding both parties accountable.
You're giving us some optimism heading into the weekend.
Well, you know, somebody has to, right?
What happened really was I spent a month back in Kansas doing some work for the Dole Institute, and Kansas is my native state.
And people kept asking me the same two questions.
Who's going to win?
And are we going to be okay?
And my answer to the first was and is this morning, I don't know.
But my answer to the second is, we'll be okay.
We'll get through this.
And there's a lot of anxiety and a lot of tension, but I had to decide why would I think we'll be okay.
And as I thought about things that are going well in the system, there are some out there, and that's what I tried to highlight.
In particular, too, I think, as you said, institutions are holding.
Our election system continues to work.
The courts have done their jobs.
They've upheld the integrity of the vote.
And there's no reason to think that's going to change.
And secondly, citizen engagement is huge.
In a healthy democracy, you want an engaged citizenry.
And we certainly have that.
Turnout in 2020 was the highest it's been in a century.
It's probably going to be bigger this year.
I was looking at the early vote numbers this morning.
72 million people have already voted.
In Georgia, 4 million people have voted.
That's 80% of the total vote from 2020 already registered and voted in Georgia.
So, you know, if you think apathy would be bad for democracy, well, we have the opposite of that.
Let's tick through some of the other things that you mentioned.
So you've talked about how citizens are very deeply engaged.
More campaign funding is coming from ordinary Americans.
Split ticket voting is coming back.
Courts and elections are still holding officials accountable, as you just mentioned.
Let's talk about those two middle ones.
More campaign funding coming from ordinary Americans and split ticket voting.
Yeah, and I think the campaign finance one is big and underappreciated.
It's a huge change in the way our elections work, and it's because of the internet and social media.
And there's been, you know, for years and years, there were complaints that I heard and wrote about that politics was being financed by big dark forces, big organizations, unions, corporations, big donors, and that was pushing politics in ways that regular people didn't like potentially.
Well, now you have citizens stepping up and funding campaigns on their own because of small dollar donations via the internet in particular.
And they about match big donor monies.
And as a result, I think you have another element of citizen engagement.
You know, that doesn't mean that everything is healthy in the way the money is spent.
A lot of it goes to people on the far left or the far right, but I think citizens are figuring out that they can have a voice not just by voting, but by sending small dollar donations in as well.
And in the long run, I think that's healthy for democracy.
Split ticket voting is an interesting thing, and we'll see whether I'm right about that or not in a couple of days.
But there have been some signs that people have started, rather than simply mindlessly casting their votes for all D or all R candidates, they're maybe more discerning.
Right now you have some Senate candidates on the Democratic side in swing states who are polling better than the national ticket, than the Harris-Walls ticket, which suggests there are some people out there who are going to go one way in the Senate race and one way in the presidential race.
In Maryland, which is my home state, you have the possibility of Larry Hogan, a Republican, winning a Senate seat in a very blue state.
We'll see the same in Montana and Ohio.
So it may be that people are going to come back home at the end and vote straight tickets because that's what you do in a country where everybody is aligned politically.
But it also may be that we see a more discerning vote.
I'm going to be watching with interest.
So obviously you wrote this piece because of these experiences you had of people wondering if they're going to be okay.
Why do you think people are emotionally feeling the toll of this election so much?
And how does it compare to the past?
I think it's, well, certainly it's more fraught.
There's more anxiety than I can remember.
I've been doing elections since 1980 and I can't remember this much anxiety, not just the weekend before the election, but I think for a prolonged period leading up to the election.
And I think there are a couple of reasons for that.
One is that the election has become not just a way to pick leaders or to vote about economic policies, but it's become kind of a referendum on cultural issues.
And those are very emotional issues.
They're gut-level issues.
And I think that the choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris has come to be seen as a choice between two different versions of what American culture is.
And those are very emotional issues.
And I think that's one reason why.
The second and I think obvious one is that the aftermath of the 2020 election in January 6th and all the unrest and division that that election sowed has continued.
And there is a lot of fear, not just about what will happen in the election, but will people believe the results?
Will they accept the results?
Will we have a peaceful transition of power?
These are not questions that in our lived experience we've spent a lot of time thinking about, but they're really foremost on the minds of people right now.
And that creates a lot of anxiety just on questions that didn't really matter or didn't even occur to people before.
Speaking of things that are a bit of a new trend this time around, we're seeing several major news organizations not give political endorsements when they have in the past.
You've been doing this for quite some time.
What do you make of this?
Well, first of all, the news organization I've been with for 45 years and still associated with the Wall Street Journal has never endorsed candidates.
So there's nothing radical about choosing not to endorse a presidential candidate.
In fact, it may be a good idea because people question more than ever, if the polls are right, the objectivity and accuracy of media outlets.
And so I think you can make an argument that endorsing a candidate calls into question the objectivity of the news organization, even though the endorsement is done by an opinion section that's totally separate in all these organizations from the news department.
I think the problem, and the reason this is controversial, is that some of these organizations, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, in particular, made this decision very late in the game not to endorse a candidate, and they had endorsed previously.
And that led to an appearance that they were responding to pressure, particularly pressure from former President Trump, and that they didn't want to insert themselves in a way that would attract more controversy and more attacks from the Trump forces.
And so therefore, it looked to a lot of people as if it was a kind of a bow to the Trump forces.
And that's what made it controversial.
I think that these organizations, the Washington Post and the LA Times and the Post's owner, Dan Bezos, has said specifically that he wishes that he had made this decision much earlier so that it wouldn't look like it was done in the face of pressure.
Right.
Jeff Bezos said there's he said in a statement in an op-ed he wrote for the Washington Post, no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here.
Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision.
It was made entirely internally.
Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former President Donald Trump on the day of our announcement.
I sighed when I found out because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision.
But the fact is, I don't know about, I didn't know about the meeting beforehand.
Even Limp didn't know about it in advance.
The meeting was scheduled quickly that morning.
There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.
Nevertheless, as David Fulcomplick over at NPR reports, more than 250,000 subscribers have left the Washington Post over that withheld endorsement.
Do you see this as sort of the beginning of a broader trend of how media handles these things?
Well, first of all, I have no reason to doubt Jeff Bezos when he says that.
And he also said in the same piece, as I indicated before, that he wishes he had made this decision earlier so that it would not have been in the hot house of the last couple of weeks of the campaign.
I have no reason to doubt that he's telling us the truth on both those counts.
Is this a trend?
It's hard to know for sure.
I think the idea that news organizations both report on political activity and then endorse candidates, it may be that that's just a phenomenon that has run its course.
You certainly have two great leading indicators here.
I think the undercurrent that you suggest when people are canceling their subscriptions because of this suggests that readers have and viewers have certain expectations of their news organization in an era of polarized politics and polarized news media, and that if they're disappointed, they'll react in the marketplace.
You know, I think in the end, news organizations that provide fair balance and objective information will still be what people want.
And I think that will be the trend that wins out in the long run.
But in the meantime, you have a lot of turbulence, let's say.
And I think this is just one more indication of that.
While we're on the topic of trust in media, I want to point to a report from the International Women's Media Foundation that found journalists are under threat in the United States.
The survey data reveals high levels of harassment and physical violence against reporters nationally.
They found that 36% of respondents reported being threatened with or experiencing physical violence while working as a journalist.
Another 33% reported digital violence.
28% reported legal threats or action against them while working as a journalist.
And 24% experienced sexual harassment and some even sexual violence.
What does this say about the relationship between the public and the media?
Well, certainly for starters, I think that's a very real phenomenon.
I mean, reporters who are out on the campaign trail certainly experience this.
They feel it.
They will tell you about it.
And, you know, it happens mostly at Trump events because There's been a concerted effort to basically create a backlash against the mainstream media by the Trump campaign and Trump forces, and it has some consequences.
But I also think it's kind of a broader phenomenon in which, again, people expect to hear news that makes them happy, that makes them feel better, that validates their feelings.
And when they don't, they're reacting to that much the way people are reacting to a lot of things in society, not with disappointment, but with anger.
And I think it is an outgrowth of a broader trend.
And the news media happen to find themselves right in the middle of those crosshairs.
Again, one hopes that when we get through this election, that on this front and more generally in the country, people might calm down a bit.
The anger might subside, that people will decide to have conversations rather than arguments or shouting matches.
But it's a hard ask the weekend before an election that's this emotional.
Well, hopefully we will have nice, calm conversations coming up.
Republicans can call in at 202-748-8001.
Democrats at 202-748-8000.
Independents at 202-748-8002.
Before we get to the calls, I want to look at a bit more polling.
This one from the New York Times Sienna poll that found voters are deeply skeptical about the health of the American democracy.
In this, a majority, a core group, roughly one-third of voters, believe the country's problems are so bad that it's on the verge of failure.
A majority of Republicans and 16% of Democrats hold a fatalistic attitude about the future of the nation.
Another nearly half of voters are skeptical that the American experiment in self-governance is working.
45% believe the nation's democracy does not do a good job representing ordinary people.
Those are some pretty stark assessments by the American people.
They are, and there's a host of factors behind those.
I'll cite a couple.
One is that I think people do have a feeling the government hasn't worked for them well over the last 10 or 20 years.
I mean, it's failure to do things about getting its arms around the deficit, for example, or dealing with the immigration problem on the border, or managing a financial crisis in 2008, in which a lot of people feel like their interests weren't taken care of while Wall Street's and big finances' interests were taken care of.
So that's, I think, one factor that's there.
I also think, though, that there's a ⁇ I wrote a piece about this earlier this year for the journal.
One of the things that happens is if you spend billions and billions of dollars in negative political advertising that is designed to tell people the system is broken, everybody is corrupt, particularly in Washington, they don't care about you.
It turns out people start to believe that over time.
And I think that just the avalanche of negative political advertising over the last 10 to 20 years has taken a toll as well.
And I think finally you have, I think, a situation in which people also have been told, and some people think they've experienced, elections that they don't trust.
And again, that's a new phenomenon in America.
So it calls into question in some people's minds the foundations of democracy, which is an election that is free and fair and in which the outcome is decided honestly and you can believe the results.
Well, people have been told for five years now that for four years at least that that's not the case.
And so some of that seeps in.
My hope would be that we get through this election, that it goes relatively smoothly, that most people accept the results, and maybe we'll be past this phase.
Again, I'm trying to be an optimist for you here.
Well, let's get more of those optimistic takes from our callers, perhaps.
Henry is in Fort Gratchett, Michigan, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Henry.
Good morning.
Just want to piggyback a little bit off of those no endorsements of candidates.
I think a tidbit that the American people should know about is about the media and the media's ownership.
Elon Musk, he owns X. He's from South Africa.
The Murdochs, whom this Mr. Seib works for, they own the Wall Street Journal and Fox.
So I should say that Mr. Seib now works for the Dole Institute.
I'm retired from the journal, but I still write and consult with the journal.
Okay, well, let me finish my point, please.
Thanks.
Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
He's a South African.
Soon Xiong owns the L.A. Times.
He is a South African.
Elon Musk, obviously.
I don't think that's accurate about the South African origin of Jeff Bezos or the owner of the L.A. Times.
But I do want to hear your point, Henry, and we'll give Jerry a chance to respond.
Okay.
Well, I think America is under the influence of a lot of foreign ownership of the media, which has done a terrible job of letting the people know just how, you know, the economy is doing very well.
President Biden and Vice President Harris have done a great job.
We have Peter Thiel, who is the benefactor of Vance and the tech bro billionaires.
Now, they support Vance, obviously, because they want to see Trump get into the office, and then they know Trump is not going to last this whole four years.
They're going to invoke the 25th, I believe.
And then Vance becomes the president.
I think that's the major plan.
Now, the last point I want to make is about karma.
People talk about this immigration issue and people coming across the border.
Well, Americans, you need to think about years and years and years, when American criminals commit crimes, where is the first place they head to?
They head to the border of Mexico.
As a matter of fact, we can't even go into Mexico to retrieve criminals because we don't have an extradition treaty.
So, Henry, you've raised a bunch of points.
I want to let Jerry respond to some of those at least.
Yeah, I mean, look, first of all, I don't think in the way big news organizations operate, I don't think owners dictate what happens in coverage of news on a day-to-day basis.
I can tell you that as a fact.
And, you know, in the end, news organizations are responsive to readers, and that's the reason they stay in business.
And I think that's important to keep in mind.
And look, I think the underlying a lot of the concerns the reader asks me, the caller raised, is the question of why an economy that looks very good on the surface is not translating into more support for the economic policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
And I think that's one of the great mysteries of the campaign.
But I think that because if you look at the unemployment rate, if you look at the current rate of inflation, if you look at the stock market, you would say this, and if you look at the U.S. economic performance compared to countries around the world, you would say this is an economy that's doing great.
Why isn't that a net plus for her?
And I think there's a simple one-word answer to that.
It's inflation.
Inflation still is being felt by people.
It's felt by, unlike other economic conditions, it's felt by everybody every day.
And it's been hard to get past that problem.
This is not a new phenomenon in American politics.
Look at what happened to Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter in the 70s, the last time we had meaningful high inflation over a prolonged period.
It's very tough on an incumbent party.
So I think that it's not that people are being misled.
I think they feel forces that are different from some of the economic forces that suggest the economy is doing just fine.
Carol is in Elgin, Texas, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Carol.
Good morning, Kimberly.
And good morning, Mr. Gerald.
How are you?
Hope y'all are having a good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
It's difficult not to be an independent here in Texas where I'm calling from.
I live in Bastrop County, and Elon Musk owns a bunch of Bassdrop County.
So, you know, we're used to immigrants.
It's funny to watch people like Ted Cruz, who was born in another country, had to renounce his citizenship from that country when he ran in 2016.
It's funny to watch him hate immigrants.
I wonder if he hates himself.
I know everybody here in Texas can't stand him.
So it's a wonder that he might win against Colin Allred because nobody here in Texas can stand him.
And we have a lot of problem in Texas with the media, which Mr. Gerald here has been a part of for a long time.
And the problem we have is we don't have any viable newspapers in central Texas.
The Austin American statesman is gone.
It's a shadow of itself.
It barely has any reporters.
You can't, I live 27 miles outside Austin.
I can't get a paper out here.
You can't get a Sunday paper out here.
They won't deliver it.
You can pay for it, and they won't deliver it.
It doesn't happen.
So we don't really have any valid news media.
And then you turn to your phone, and you look at the phone, and the phone isn't run by algorithm.
So they only feed you what you click on.
They feed you more of it.
And then you turn to the news.
We have Spectrum News, which is a cable organization.
And they're, you know, this has been a Republican state for 20 years.
For 20 years, we've had nothing but Republicans.
And they'll sit there on the news and tell you, oh, there's something wrong with Texas because of Democrats.
It's just nonsense.
It's just nonsense.
There hasn't been a statewide elected Democrat in two decades.
But yet they'll sit there and say, oh, Kamala this and Kamala that.
I want to tell you all about inflation.
And this is the biggest lie I see in inflation.
Everybody talk about inflation in the economy.
I'm still working full-time.
I'm past retirement age.
I'm still working full-time.
I'm making more money than I ever made in my life.
And yesterday, I went to the gas pump and I paid $2.35 a gallon for gas.
Everybody sit here and say, inflation, inflation, inflation.
Prices have come down below where the inflation started.
A lot of it is profiteering that's taken place because we've turned our food production over to big companies.
Look at how many millions of pounds of meat and stuff has had to been recalled because all the things are ternal.
Yeah, you're raising a bunch of really interesting points about the decline of local media, about consolidation in various industries.
Go ahead, Jerry.
Well, I think it's a very perceptive call because the caller's absolutely right.
The decline of local press, particularly local newspapers, but also affiliate news organizations and network affiliates around the country is really marketed.
And I think it's had a much bigger impact than people realize.
You know, I think local media tended to be kind of a more of a stabilizing influence in communities.
People knew the folks who ran their local newspaper.
They trusted them.
They provided balanced coverage by and large.
And it was a good antidote to national press, which and the national media conversation, which tends to be much more, right, in the current environment, much more partisan and much more kind of fraught, if you will.
And I think that the decline of local press has not only made people have a harder time understanding what's going on in their community, it's kind of forced them to do what the reader suggested, which is to rely on a kind of a fractured media landscape nationally, which has become much more partisan and much more polarized.
And not surprisingly, the result is people themselves are much more partisan and much more polarized than they used to be.
So I think you can draw a direct line from the decline of local news media outlets to the increased polarization in the country.
And I think it's regrettable, and I don't know how we turn that around.
I would just add that the Senate race in Texas is interesting.
Democrats have been thinking for several cycles.
Well, we're close to Texas.
We're close to breaking through in Texas.
And it's never been the case.
The Texas Senate race between Colin Allred and Ted Cruz looks to be close.
I think it would still be a huge surprise if Ted Cruz lost.
But it's interesting that we're talking about the race at this stage of the game, which tells you that maybe things have evened up some in Texas.
Rudy is in San Diego, California on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Rudy.
Hi, how are you?
Look at I am a Republican, but I'm not going to vote Republican.
It hurts me so much.
I am 71 years old, and it hurts me because I only live seven miles from the border.
I live in a Thai ranch, and I could see the border.
And it hurts me that Trump is saying the illegals are coming in, millions crossing the border.
The immigration can do anything.
They have their hands crossed.
They're just wide open.
It's a lie.
It's a lie.
And he's doing all these lies.
I ask myself, and we're in a country and he's saying all this stuff.
He's going to cause violence.
You know, I mean, so much people hate other people because of him.
He's been lying so much.
And it hurts me that he's continuing lying so much.
And it hurts me that some of these Republican people don't open their eyes.
They don't see that.
You know, I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris because she has her mindset right.
She is not ignorant and stupid like he is.
And it hurts me.
And I hope all the Republicans open their eyes and look at the reality that you are voting for this guy that is going to cause violence and hate.
He just wants to dodge the jail because he deserves to be locked up.
He has done so much breaking laws himself and he doesn't want to admit it.
He's scared to go to prison.
Well, you know, it's one of the things that's interesting about this election cycle is that a lot of the polling has actually been very stable.
And one of the things it's been very stable about is what are people's top issues?
And the top issues have been the economy and immigration and abortion not far behind.
And so I think that this is in many ways this election is turning on what people think about immigration.
Not just in border states like California, but I think in states where immigration wasn't an issue for years and years, but it is now.
So we'll see how we'll see how that plays out.
I think there are a lot of people who are voting for Donald Trump on immigration.
You had an interesting case there of somebody who's voting against Donald Trump because of the way he's portrayed the immigration issue.
One of the other factors that's interesting is that abortion emerges as the issue in which people are most likely to say, I cannot vote for a candidate who disagrees with me on this issue.
It is the one issue in which people are most likely to say, there may be other important issues, but the one in which I can't support somebody who disagrees with me on abortion is that issue.
So the issue mix is important here, and it's pretty clear the Trump campaign thinks that immigration is the ticket that they can use to ride to victory.
But in another respect, it's not really about issues.
It's about attitude and culture, as I said at the outset.
So we'll see how those things all play out, but it's interesting to have a Republican who comes out on the other side of the immigration debate.
Bob is in New York, New York, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Bob.
Yes.
Hi.
I was reading the Wall Street Journal.
This is an article that had been mentioned on Thursday, and yet Wall Street since this program never talked about it.
It was saying that the next president will inherit a remarkable economy.
Now, you did mention that most people are feeling the inflation part of it.
Now I want to ask a policy question.
What will tariffs do to the public's understanding of inflation?
Who's going to pay really for this tariffs that will be placed by the Trump administration that they are proposing, a 20% increase?
And what will that do to the economy moving forward?
Will it make it worse or is it going to be better?
And does the public realize that this is going to happen under the Trump administration?
So could you please answer who's going to pay for the tariffs and how that's going to affect the inflation in this country?
Thank you.
Well, I mean, the history of tariffs tells you that the cost of tariffs ultimately is borne by consumers.
Tariffs, if imposed as the way former President Trump suggests, would be imposed on every import that comes into the country.
The cost of the tariff is borne initially by the company that imports the product, but they pass that along to consumers.
And as Democrats are suggesting, there are a lot of economists who say that is basically an inflationary practice.
The Republican response to that is that it's only inflationary to the extent that imports continue on the same path there are now.
We think the net result in the long run will be a shift of manufacturing away from foreign manufacturers to U.S. manufacturers.
That is the real impact that we're looking for, and that's not inflationary.
I think an interesting phenomenon here is that the financial markets seem to be betting that a Trump win would actually, at least in the short term, make inflation worse, not better.
The financial markets are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
But I think there is an expectation that his economic policies, which involve tax cuts and tariffs, might be inflationary and that there might be an overall stimulus to the economy as a result of all those things that adds to inflationary pressures.
We'll see.
I think the tariff question is one that's difficult to sort of parse out because the country's not gone down that path for 100 years or so.
Scott is in Erie, Pennsylvania, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Scott.
Good morning.
Really good to go today.
I'm glad I watched your show today.
A lot of good things talked about from the beginning to this guy on here.
I'm a little nervous.
I'll just get right to the point and make it quick.
There's just so much anger, a lot of lies.
Does the truth matter?
This is a question.
Does the truth matter in politics anymore?
It really has gone far, right?
How will it go away?
How will all the anger go away no matter who gets elected?
The Republicans were angry and never gave it up that Biden wasn't the true president for four years.
Now, if Trump gets elected, the people that know the truth, are they supposed to just forget about it?
I just don't understand how it will go away.
A couple of quick points.
I was watching this show on Tupperville.
He was being interviewed in his basement, and what he thought about maybe the American people holding the House accountable for holding the bills up.
And he said the American people don't remember three days ago.
That's just a quick point.
Another quick point.
My brother and I are a lot alike.
I'm an independent, he's a Republican, but we disagree on two things.
He believes it's okay to lie to the American people and his family, and he believes it's okay to brainwash the American people and his family because the blacks and the whites are good, or the women are going to take over.
And then the very beginning after Trump was elected, when he's having his hate rallies, which he should have never done, he told the fans, his fans, to punch a reporter in the face in front of little kids.
And he still has terrible, terrible mouth in front of little kids now.
So, Steph, I want to give Jerry a chance to respond to some of these points.
I mean, the caller asks two questions that I get asked a lot.
When will the anger and the divisiveness subside?
And does truth matter?
I'll take the second one first.
I still think truth does matter.
I think it matters more when voters are really discerning and when they make it matter.
So I think one of the things here is that's necessary is for voters to hold politicians and their campaigns responsible for what they say.
And I think voters have to make clear that there is a price to be paid for dishonesty.
And until that happens, I think we probably will see more, not less.
But I also think it may be a cycle.
And I think in the end, I do believe truth matters, and I think it will win out.
We're in a very convoluted media environment right now in which it's harder to find the truth.
But I think that in the long run, it does still matter.
Secondly, when will the anger go away?
Well, I'm not sure I know the answer to that, but I think it will go away when people decide they've had enough of this.
And frankly, when we find more leaders who are willing to soothe passions rather than stoke passions, and when they are rewarded for doing that.
Right now, I think there's too much reward on the side of stoking passions and exacerbating divisions.
And when politicians figure out that that's not a successful tactic anymore, then they won't do it.
And so I think, again, it is up to voters to make sure that the risk-reward ratio in politics tends toward truthfulness and calm rather than dishonesty and anger.
Dominique is in Nooksville, Virginia, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Dominique.
Hey, good morning.
I've listened to a few of the callers, and I try and listen every Sunday morning.
I have a couple of disagreements with some of your assertions.
Anger, for one.
I'm not as angry as you might believe.
And I'd be considered, you know, I'm a 71-year-old heterosexual white guy, veteran, engineer retired.
And I don't think the general public understands the negative impact of what the politicians have done to the economy because of things like the focus on climate change and getting rid of energy production and then turning around and buying goods from Iran and Venezuela.
Counterproductive.
That's my opinion.
And I think if you focus on the economic decisions made by this administration, you'd find that they're pathetic.
I don't find anything coming out of Kamala Harris's mouth credible.
The fixation with this 2025 project, they continuously talk about Trump's going to do this, Trump's going to do this.
You can't get a straight fact from anybody.
And sometimes that's on both sides of the aisle and the press.
This is a bifurcated nation because of this.
And that's the hard right and the hard left.
Trump, I think, is a populist.
The recent spat of discussions juxtaposing him with Hitler, it's disgusting.
Everybody knows he's not Hitler.
I'd like to hear your comment on that, and I'll go off the air.
You know, I think the caller actually framed the election in a way I think traditionally would have been the case, and which I think more people perhaps ought to think about it, which is an actual assessment of the economic impact of the two candidates.
And there are some people making a decision based on those questions.
I think there are at least as many people who are making decisions based on the more emotional aspects of the conversation that the caller also referred to.
And I think the rhetoric has gotten out of hand and is not helpful toward a kind of a more sober decision by the American public.
I honestly think that we may, at some point, I think people will get tired of the tone of politics and will react accordingly.
I mean, certainly the caller suggests he's reacted to the tone of politics.
And I think that, you know, again, we need some leaders who will kind of project optimism rather than pessimism, and that will basically convince people that they should look, that America has more going for it in the positive sense than going against it in the negative sense.
But that's just kind of not where the national conversation is right now.
I do think it would be better if there were a more serious conversation about the actual real, I think, impact of the economy, of the economic policies of the two candidates, because that's where there could be some reasonable conversation.
Unfortunately, we only had one presidential debate and one vice presidential debate.
So there's been, I think, relatively less conversation about that than one might have hoped.
James is in Akron, Ohio, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, James.
Yes.
I'm sorry.
I'm trying to jump to speak.
James, your line is breaking up.
Yeah, can you hear me now?
Yes, we can.
Go ahead.
Okay.
I'm sorry, I had you on speakerphone.
There's a few things.
I think Texas and Florida would be purple states if it wasn't that Texas have about 2 million people that's purged from the voting rolls, and Florida has over a million.
That's one item.
And another thing, people tend to hire like people.
You know, you say, well, this guy's not racist yet.
If everybody that you hire around you is a racist, then you're a racist because for whatever reason, you tend to hire that type of a person.
And I see it in sports teams and things like that.
If you look at the people that's employed and how they make decisions, you can find out if they're racist or if they're good business people.
And Donald Trump is not a good business person because he's bankrupt everything that he's touched.
And he stole everybody that he dealt with, he steals from them.
And they tend to follow him for the only reason that it could be is for racism.
Thank you.
Okay.
Well, look, I think race is the great force that lurks in the background of American politics and has for years and years and years.
It's not new to this campaign.
The fact that we have a woman of color, the first woman of color ever to be a nominee of a major party, kind of brings it to the surface a little bit more.
But race relations are basically the inescapable reality of American politics.
They're there.
They're in the background, if not the forefront, every conversation, every time we have an election.
And that's still the case.
And I think the question of whether Donald Trump is a racist is one that Democrats are raising here at the end.
I mean, LeBron James has raised it explicitly in the last few days.
At the same time, Donald Trump is actually doing relatively better among black voters and Hispanic voters, voters of color, than he did four years ago or eight years ago.
So this is a very complex picture.
I think the reality is that it's part of the equation.
It is going to be part of the equation.
It has been every general election.
Sometimes it's more on the surface, like right now, and sometimes it's below the surface.
Race relations are on the ballot in a strange way, even if not explicitly so.
Just about out of time, but we'll get in one more call.
Art is in Chicago, Illinois, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Art.
Hello.
I'd like to give a few opinions about what's going on here.
So we're just about out of time, so just please make them quickly.
The economy has been up and down forever.
In the last 50 years, we've had recessions.
In fact, under President Ford, it was over 16%.
Seek immigration, everyone in this country is a descendant of an immigrant.
Thirdly, abortion rights are women's rights.
And by taking them away, it makes them second-class citizens in this country where they are the glue in the background of the fabric of this country really is.
Thank you.
Pretty succinct summary of some of the top issues of the campaign.
I just would note that it's really interesting that the voters, at least based on these calls today at other data points, obviously, the voters' views of the economy really can be starkly different.
People can look at the macroeconomy, look at gas prices going down, look at hiring going up and say the economy is in great shape.
Other people can look at the exact same economy and say inflation is killing me.
The Biden-Harris economic policies are a failure.
It's really an interesting Roshak test, and it's the one that's at the heart of the voting patterns that we're going to see in the next couple of days.
Jerry Seid, who's a visiting fellow at the Dole Institute of Politics and a former Executive Washington editor for the Wall Street Journal.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
My pleasure.
And thank you to everyone who called in and shared your thoughts for Washington Journal today.
We will be back with another edition tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern.
And have a great day.
This morning,
our campaign 2024 coverage continues, starting with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at a rally in Lidditz, Pennsylvania.
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