A Presidential Forecast

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Just another Tuesday in America. How many of you had trouble sleeping last night? How many of you have already checked your phone at least 10 times this morning to see if anything happened yet? How many of you are right now painting a count every vote sign or don't count every vote sign depending on which side you're on, to carry to a protest just in case.

Later this morning, we'll talk to Jim Newell from Slate, who notes that despite Joe Biden's stable lead in the polls for many months, Republicans are full of confidence and swagger. While Democrats are teaming with anxiety and panic. By the way, Newell says he is pro panic. Jim Newell coming up later in the show with a combination of political analysis and comic relief I suspect. For you non-chronic phone checkers there's a little news here and there.

Dixville Notch, the little town way up in New Hampshire that votes at midnight, every presidential election and immediately reports their results. Biden won Dixville Notch, unanimously six to nothing. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Dixville Notch, but it was only four to two, a very reliable poll because the votes were actually cast, but the sample size kind of small, but for all the uniqueness of today we will do what we usually do.

Here on election day, we will have our informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific, Brian Lehrer Show Exit Poll. We have a variety of questions lined up for different segments of the show. It'll mostly be you on the phones today with the main goal being to make two hours of your day go by without actually overeating, drinking before noon or calling your therapist to see if they had a cancellation for an 11 o'clock telehealth session.

We will sprinkle in guests with New York, New Jersey, and national takes on what's happening out there and last-minute voting information, if there's actual news we will bring it to you if not we'll hang out. Here's our first call in question for our informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific election day exit poll. If you're voting today, why did you wait till today? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280.

If you're voting today, why did you wait till today? Just about no matter where you are, you had weeks and weeks of mail-in voting days. Days and days or even weeks and weeks of early in-person voting days, you could have split the difference and shown up at a Dropbox, but here you are just having voted or just about to. Are you a procrastinator in general? Is it a strategy because you're gambling that with so few early voting sites and so many places open today, the lines will actually be shorter on election day this year 646-435-7280.

Are you a Trump supporter for whom only election day is real? That's a serious question, by the way, that's supposed to be a real thing today. After a surge of Democrats voting early, today comes the red wave. They say because you consider everything else illegitimate, even if your state has had those other options for years. If you're a Trump supporter voting on election day itself to make a statement, give us a call.

Did anybody try the Trump trick that he asked people to try? You know what I'm talking about? Where he told people-- This was in North Carolina, but I assume he was addressing all his supporters, vote early and vote on election day, vote mail-in and vote on election day, if for no other reason to test the system and see if there's fraud and you can get away with that.

Any true confessions. We won't tell anybody if you tried that trick, who could we tell? You along with anybody else voting today for any reason at all, if you're voting today why did you wait till today? 646-435-7280. The first question this morning in our informal unofficial thoroughly scientific election day exit poll. As your calls are coming in with us now for a few minutes is Washington Post columnist, Henry Olson. Who's latest piece is his predictions for the house, Senate, and presidency today. Hi Henry, thanks for some election day time. Welcome back to WNYC.

Henry Olson: Thanks for having me back, Brian.

Brian: We do very little with polls and predictions on this show. Generally, we do mostly issues, but on election day itself we can indulge a little and you're predicting a Biden landslide with 350 electoral votes to Trump's 188. Really, you're going that big?

Henry: I am, I think the national polls indicate that. I might be a little bit optimistic for Biden in the sense that some of the southeastern states might be a little more Republican, but I think all the polls make it pretty clear unless we're having the biggest polling failure in modern history. Biden's going to win and it's not going to be really that close.

Brian: By the way, I should give you your other credit besides being a Washington Post columnist. You're a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. I know so now I've said that out loud. I guess I have a little Dixville Notch correction. It wasn't as big a-- You're predicting a landslide.

I don't know if you predicted Dixville Notch. I said it was six to nothing and it actually wasn't that big a landslide. It was five to nothing. Correction, two things you argue for your position, incumbent presidents re-election votes tend to track their approval ratings and also no small thing. The relative collapse of interest in third parties this year. Can you talk about each of those from a data standpoint?

Henry: Yes, it goes back to 1972. Every time a president runs for re-election he gets very close to what his final job approval rating is. Since I wrote that piece President Trump's job approval rating has ticked up a little to 46%. The Real Clear Politics average which would-- If that comes true Biden would win by closer to six or six and a half, but that's still a pretty solid electoral college vote lead.

Trump would have to defy 48 years of history in order to have a chance at winning. With respect to the collapse in third-party interests, back in 2016, a little over 6% of Americans voted right in or third party. All the polls suggest that there'll be less than half that somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% to 2.5% this time. Those votes were largely swinging over to Joe Biden, that people who threw their votes away in 2016 are deciding that they would rather see Trump out of office than are worried about Biden if he gets into office.

Brian: You predict the Democrats will not only win the presidency and hold the house, but also take the Senate and have control of the White House and both houses of Congress for only the third time since Reagan, why do you think they'll win the Senate?

Henry: Well, all the polls show that the senatorial candidates are tracking the presidential candidates. Biden will win, should win Arizona, will win Colorado, will win Maine, all Republican house seats, lose Alabama which means they need one more seat in order to have 50-50 tie in the Senate, which Kamala Harris would break the tie itself. All the polls suggest that he will win North Carolina.

With that, I expect Cal Cunningham the Democratic candidate to come home. That's the state to watch for Senate control tonight. If for some reason, the polls are a little bit off and Trump wins, then Tom Tillis the Republican incumbent has a chance, but he's been running behind Trump in the polls by half a point to a point. There's still a decent shot that Cunningham will bring control, narrow control, but control nonetheless to the Democrats.

Brian: Let's indulge your prediction a little bit and assume for a minute that the Democrats do take control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Think about history. Clinton had it in '92 after the big backlash after 12 years of Reagan and the first Bush. Clinton had White House, both houses of Congress and overreached with his health reform and tax hikes and lost control of Congress in his first midterm election after just two years and never got it back and couldn't get much else done from the Democratic playbook.

The next time was Barack Obama who had the presidency with both houses of Congress after 2008. He lost Congress in his first midterm in 2010 with the tea party backlash to Obamacare and the stimulus bill from that decades financial crisis. He was stuck with gridlock for the next six years. If your prediction is right about Democrats sweeping, what can the Democrats do in your opinion to keep that control without laying down and not trying anything big?

Henry: Well, but that's the tension, is that Democrats have tended to overreach when they have control and enact things from their playbook, which were not the reasons why voters in the middle had swung to them and so those voters swung back. It's quite clear that the voters aren't interested in the median voter as opposed to the democratic leader. Doesn't see climate change as an existential crisis. They want to deal with COVID. They want to deal with the economy. They want normalcy and they want the political book temperature dial down a lot.

If Biden can deliver on that, as well as give a few concessions to the democratic playbook he could easily be rewarded in 2022, but if he bows to pressure from the democratic constituencies and uses a crisis to-- As Rahm Emanuel said, never let a crisis go to waste. If they use our current crisis to do what previous democratic control congresses have done, which is push the party playbook through a divided country, they shouldn't be surprised if they get their hat handed to them in the midterm.

Brian: Of course, Obama's position was, "You have political capital for a reason it's worth spending it on something even if then you have spent it." That's a conversation we may have a lot more after January 20th of next year we will see. Henry Olson before you go and before we go to our callers asking people why they waited until today to vote those who did, what state do you live in and which way did you choose to vote this year?

Henry: I live in Virginia and I did in-person early voting a few days ago.

Brian: Why'd you choose that out of the various options?

Henry: I live two and a half blocks away from the polling place, so I could just walk over there. I could be guaranteed that I wouldn't have something lost in the mail and my signature has changed over the years and I don't want to have my vote disqualified because when they do a signature check on the absentee they find, "This isn't Henry Olson because look how different it is." It was very easy for me and I always vote early because as a columnist and an elections analyst I work on Election Day from dawn to dusk and well past dusk.

Brian: All right. Our voiceprint machine has verified you as the actual Henry Olson, Washington post columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center. Thank you for giving us a few minutes on Election Day.

Henry: Thank you very much, Brian.

Brian: Now to your calls if you're voting today, why did you wait till today with all the other options out there leading up to today? 646-435-7280. Natasha in Ossining you're on WNYC happy Election Day, Natasha.

Natasha: Happy Election Day, Brian. Thanks for having me. I'm actually sitting outside my polling place right now about to go cast my vote.

Brian: What's the scene? Be our eyes and ears. Where's your polling place and what's it like there right now?

Natasha: My polling place is up in Ossining. It's at Claremont school and it's actually not that busy. There's people coming in and out, but it doesn't seem like there's a long line. That idea played into why I waited for today. Voting by mail is making me a little anxious. I just decided to stick with the classic Election Day tradition going in person today.

Brian: Is it partly the tradition? Is it besides the lines? Is it, "Hey, it's Election Day. I want to be out there. I want to be with people. I want to feel it physically?"

Natasha: Yes, I would say that that's definitely the vibe I was looking for. Early voting would have been nice too, but, I don't know, still it's Election Day.

Brian: Natasha, thank you for starting us off. Elizabeth in Chelsea you're on WNYC. Hi, Elizabeth. Happy Election Day.

Elizabeth: Good morning. Thank you. I figured, first of all, it was the day after the clocks changed so that I would be able to wake up really early and I vote in my building. I got on the elevator and there were actually people in the elevator on the way down to vote. We lined up at a quarter to six and there was a line at a quarter to six and the minute the doors opened, it went really quickly. I was freezing cold. I was out of there by 6:15, but I want to read you an email that I-- It's not an email, it's a Facebook post that I just found, the building that I voted has its own Facebook page and one of the people wrote this.

"I wasn't registered in time so I went to the polling station at 10 South, which is where I live showed them my New York ID and filled out an affidavit and I voted. Yay, absolutely no line. This was half an hour ago, no line. In and out. This is a community that has 2,800 apartments and almost every-- 70% of the people here are over the age of 60. I know that a lot of them went up to Madison Square Garden to vote early, but there seems to be a fairly insistent clamor to vote downstairs.

Brian: Elizabeth, thank you so much. Thank you for that report. I think I know what building you live in from that description, but I will maintain your privacy. Hamid in Old Bridge, New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hello, Hamid?

Hamid: Hey, Brian, good morning.

Brian: Happy Election Day.

Hamid: Happy Election Day to you. I'm registered in New Jersey, but I live in Brooklyn. I'm registered for an automatic absentee ballot every election, this year it didn't show up or this election cycle it didn't show up, either in Jersey or at my place in Brooklyn. I filled out a new absentee ballot request form, no response. I reached out to the County clerk's office in Middlesex County three or four times, left voicemails wasn't able to get through. I am fortunate enough to have a car and I'm on the tail end of a 90-minute drive to the local polling place out here to do a provisional ballot.

Brian: Wow. That's the way it works. For people not in New Jersey, that's the way it works in New Jersey. Everybody got sent a mail-in ballot and for whatever reason like a [unintelligible 00:16:38] reason or any other reason, you did not return it you can go to a polling place, "Today," and fill out what they call a provisional ballot. It's the opposite of most states where the votes they cast on Election Day are counted last and are considered the provisional ones rather than the ones that come in by mail. Do you have any reason to believe that this happened to a lot of people because if they're going to mail a ballot to every registered voter in New Jersey, they better reach almost all of them?

Hamid: It's funny. There's four other people in that household in Jersey, or three others that are registered to vote and the other three showed up. My hope, because I have to have some confidence in this new system, is that it was a fluke. My concern though is I'm sure there's others in my same position who don't have a car and can hop in the car early morning to go vote, I mean, God knows where people live. I do think it's a thing of concern my hope is that there is a look back on this election cycle to see what can be done better.

Brian: By the way, my producers are all speculating why you vote in New Jersey if you live in Brooklyn, as you said at the beginning of the call. You want to explain it before the voter fraud conspiracists have their way with you?

Hamid: Right, that's why I'm not giving you my last name. I'm driving through a neighborhood now where I see-- I think I counted about 30 Trump banners over the course of the last five blocks and I'm rounding a corner right now. A bit more impact with the vote here than in my district in Brooklyn.

Brian: Hamid, thank you very much. We appreciate your call. Let's go next to Luna somewhere in New York City. I don't have the location. Hi, Luna. You're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in happy Election Day.

Luna: Hi, happy Election Day.

Brian: Why'd you wait till today?

Luna: I'm 19 so this is my first time voting in a presidential election and I'm lucky enough to have my voting site in my lobby. I live in Manhattan and there's never been any line. I thought that I would rather vote on Election Day and give people who have not the same opportunity as me, a chance to vote early. I also didn't get my absentee ballot.

Brian: Did you send away for an absentee ballot and it never arrived. That's two calls in a row. People who never got their absentee ballots, but this is your first presidential election. How does it feel?

Luna: It feels great. It's an interesting first time voting, but I'm happy to be a part of history. It feels good.

Brian: What's the scene at your polling place, anything you can say?

Luna: Like I said, it's in my lobby. I live in a pretty progressive neighborhood. There's not any line. It's really calm. I walked right up. I didn't have to wait one second. So very lucky.

Brian: Luna, thanks, and may you have many presidential elections to vote in our democracy if we can keep it. Luna, thank you. Zack, in Ridgewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Zack. Happy Election Day.

Zack: How are you? I didn't want to trust any other system besides coming in today after everything Trump has said. After all the defunding of the USPS, after everything I just wanted to go in and make sure my vote was counted. I went as far as to check and ask if the ballot reader was connected to the internet because I don't want to sound conspiracy theorist, but I don't know. The internet goes two ways, I don't know whose-- They could be in there changing votes, so I just wanted to go and make sure my vote counted on Election Day.

Brian: Zach, thank you very much. Very straightforward and very common. Laura in Far Hills. Far Hills? Hi, Laurie on WNYC.

Laura: Hi, there. How are you?

Brian: Good. Are you on speakerphone? Can you pick up a handset if you're on a speakerphone? Can you hear me, Laura?

Laura: Hello?

Brian: I think she's on a speakerphone and doesn't work very well. Laura will try to get back to you. Maria in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Maria.

Maria: Hi, happy Election Day. This is so thrilling. In my one little vote kind of way, I'm 63 years old. I love voting. It's absolutely thrilling. I love my little sticker. I love seeing all my neighbors. With all due respect to the postal system, I didn't have the confidence and I agree what the last caller-- Everything in the last caller was saying. I just wanted to be there. It's like a block party almost, but we'll be socially distanced. It's great fun and I take tremendous pride and it's truly, truly thrilling. This is such an historic part of time that I'm happy and just so honored to be actually voting on the actual Election Day.

Brian: Do you feel safe in person since you mentioned social distancing?

Maria: Very funny that you should say that because I live near Madison Square Park and there have been a lot of protests and my entire neighborhood is boarded up and a lot of protests begin in Madison Square Park. I am a little bit nervous but they're saying they're having people watching the polls as people in line-- I don't anticipate a huge line because there was so much pre-voting, my poll is I've never really waited that much in line.

Yes, I am a little bit nervous. Again, I'm 63. I can't run if something should happen. It's really hard to say. I'm more nervous about the next and upcoming days to see what happens and I don't anticipate us really knowing this evening, of course, who the new president will be, but still, again, it just that thrill of voting. I don't know if anyone else experiences that. It's such an honor and I've worked my entire life for that honor and one little vote, yes, it does count.

Brian: Your answer is so revealing. I think when I asked if you feel safe voting there in person, on election day, I meant COVID-safe and you took it as is somebody's going to stage a terrorist attack or something at your polling place? Which of course, is the overlay of this year that people have more or less not had before in their lifetimes in this country.

Maria: Well, interesting. I didn't even think of COVID-safe because I'm so hysterically careful about social distancing and being messed up and everything. Actually, my brother died of COVID in April.

Brian: Oh, my. I'm so sorry.

Maria: Yes, I'm really hyper careful of everything that I do. I'm not afraid of it, really, because I do take all the precautions and people will social distance and the line outside will-- You'll be socially distanced. Oh, by the way, PS, tomorrow, and the next couple of days, I'll go to one of my CityMD locations and get tested for my fourth time for COVID just in case.

Brian: Because you went out to vote. Since you're worried about the other kind of security, did you see a police officer? I know the mayor says they're going to be, I think 1,200 police officers or 1,200 polling places. Did you see anything like that or any attempted voter intimidation by anybody? Anything?

Maria: No, because I actually haven't gone out yet. I'm planning to go around 2:00 in the afternoon. There is something going around on social media this chart of if you're intimidated at the polls, you can call these certain numbers. I just took a screenshot of it. I don't anticipate being intimidated because if someone tries I won't respond because they just want to poke at about something. I'm going to exercise my freedom and my rights and nothing's going to stop me unless they're [unintelligible 00:25:34]

Brian: Maria, thank you so much. Thank you for the citizen that you are. I'm sorry about your loss with respect to COVID in your family and thank you so much for your Election Day call. Good luck out there when you go later today. Indira, in Tarrytown, you're on WNYC. Hi, Indira, happy Election Day.

Indira: Hi, Brian. Happy Election Day. I called because I actually voted a few days ago. I told the person who answered the phone, the reason I wanted to call is because one of the reasons I voted a few days ago is because there have been so many informal Trump rallies in our town. I live right next to the Mario Cuomo formerly Tappan Zee Bridge. Sunday, there was a caravan blocking the bridge and they all congregated at the DoubleTree Hotel.

I have to tell you I'm a five-foot-three Indian woman, I was with my kids. It was infuriating and I drove through that rally playing a song I can't quote on here, but it's by Nipsey Hussle, and I'll just give you the three letters, FDT. It's so infuriating that they think they can intimidate us and I know friends of mine are intimidated.

They're scared to go to the polls, I wasn't. It was really important to me to physically cast that ballot, even though I received an absentee ballot. In justice, our basic right and privilege here to vote, don't take that away from me. Don't try to scare me not to do that. We've been having an issue in our town with these Trump rallies where people have been bringing trucks and we've had BLM protests and they've tried to outshout us with radios and huge speakers on trucks.

No, it's not okay, and it's not fair to people who may get intimidated. I'm actually getting my dog neutered today and I feel like that may be a metaphor for what I want to happen right now to this administration.

Brian: Wow. All bite no bark, or the other way around. Oh, I know, I know. It's back to those initials. Don't do that to the country. Right, I get it. The scene on the Tappan Zee, the Mario, I saw the video of it on the news the other day when it happened. What do you think that was about for you as someone who lives right there and, obviously, had a strong reaction to it? Do you think they were just-- I mean, people can express themselves, or do you think they were actually trying to intimidate people in some way?

Indira: If it had just been that alone, I might have said, "Okay, this is obnoxious, it's not intimidation, but this was the final buildup to something that's been going on for months." It started September, I believe 12 in Tarrytown. We're actually talking to the village of the administrators about this right now trying to change our village code. It was a Saturday, September 12 and this informal Trump rally run by a very-- Well, an open Trump supporter in our town who runs a towing business. They organize people from Rockland County, Harrison, all over Westchester, Rockland, Putnam County, there weren't local people except for the person organizing it.

They did the same up our main street. If you've ever been up in Main Street in Tarrytown, it's used for a lot of movies as Norman Rockwell Main Street. It's very small street, our restaurants and merchants there have been suffering from the revenue because of COVID. Saturdays and Sundays are huge days for them where people come from out of town and spend money. People were not walking the streets. You could walk the sidewalk. A number of us went to picnic barbecue which is a black run business and silently protested.

They were screaming all sorts of obscenities at us. My kids and I went up the entire BLM movement in town and people who were like-minded went to support against this rally. They had horses, Brian, walking up main street. It was scary. I'm going to bring my Briggs big trucks and speakers to shout you, out shout peaceful protestors and that is not okay.

Brian: Two things before you go about FTP that people may be wondering. One I do have a correction from the trusted source who I just checked and he's right. It's actually by YG not Nipsey Hussle.

Indira: Oh, no it's FDT.

Brian: FDT, Oh, FDT. It's not FTP. My error I guess.

Indira: FDT by Nipsey Hussle.

Brian: Right, which makes more sense. Now, I get it. Now, I totally get it. Then I don't have to ask you the follow-up question about why that, but I was going to ask you so we're going to leave it there. Indira, thank you so much for that report from Tarrytown from the Westchester foot of the Tappan Zee Bridge, Mario Cuomo bridge. Folks that ends our first call out for today. Thank you very much for all your calls on why you waited until election day itself to vote. Good luck out there. If you haven't voted yet.

 

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