Election Special - Presidential Election Insights with John Couvillon

[00:00:10] Welcome to The Pelican Brief with your host, David Tatman.

[00:00:29] The Pelican Brief, I am your host, David Tatman. Thank you so much for tuning in to Season 3 of The Pelican Brief.

[00:00:37] We're kicking things back off with Episode 3.

[00:00:40] We've been focused so far in this season of The Pelican Brief on the fall tax session called by Governor Jeff Landry,

[00:00:50] a major tax reform effort that's going to be going on in Louisiana,

[00:00:55] and we'll continue to have guests that are reflective of that special session call.

[00:01:00] That special session is scheduled to begin on the 6th of November,

[00:01:05] and we'll be talking to experts and people who are very familiar with some of the changes

[00:01:12] and some of the history of tax structure, tax reform, tax policy, all those things, tax.

[00:01:23] So there's going to be a lot on the table, but we thought we'd take a little break today

[00:01:27] and have as a guest on our show, in light of all of the elections going on,

[00:01:34] particularly the presidential elections and the elections for Congress,

[00:01:37] as well as some local elections, to have John Cuvion with JMC Enterprises on our show.

[00:01:44] John is a regular guest on the show.

[00:01:46] He is an incredibly well-thought-of and well-respected pollster in the state of Louisiana.

[00:01:53] As John would tell you, he's a numbers nerd.

[00:01:55] He loves polling all of the numbers together from the various polls and from his own polling work.

[00:02:02] And to really dig down into it, he loves this stuff, and I think you'll hear that in his voice.

[00:02:09] We have a big election coming up right now.

[00:02:11] The presidential election is probably one of the most contentious certainly in my lifetime.

[00:02:16] That should be decided very soon.

[00:02:18] So welcome to the Pelican Brief, and thank you for joining us for our conversation with John Cuvion.

[00:02:27] Welcome, John. Appreciate you being here today.

[00:02:30] Glad to be here today. Thank you.

[00:02:31] It's a particularly good time to have you on the show because there's a—I hear there's a few elections going on.

[00:02:38] Right around the corner.

[00:02:39] Yeah, and I know you've been really busy.

[00:02:41] You actually were on—what was the network you were on recently?

[00:02:44] CBS News.

[00:02:45] They were doing a segment about early voting,

[00:02:47] and myself and a Democratic strategist were paired up to discuss what we're seeing with the early vote across the country.

[00:02:53] Well, that's great.

[00:02:54] That's some good national exposure for you.

[00:02:57] Absolutely.

[00:02:57] And it's got to be fun, right?

[00:03:00] Yeah.

[00:03:00] Doing that sort of stuff with your knowledge and background.

[00:03:03] It's got to be a lot of fun.

[00:03:04] The good news about that is with it being a five-minute segment,

[00:03:07] it's one of those things where basically you can be overprepared

[00:03:11] because there's only so much you can say in five minutes.

[00:03:13] So you're basically speaking at a very soundbite-ish level.

[00:03:16] Yeah.

[00:03:17] And that's the way they like it, right?

[00:03:19] Right.

[00:03:19] And they want the soundbites that are going to rile everybody up.

[00:03:21] Exactly.

[00:03:21] That's not really what we do in this show, but if it riles somebody up, well then—

[00:03:24] I've learned the value of the bullet point.

[00:03:27] Huh, that's right.

[00:03:28] Almost like legislative committee testimony.

[00:03:30] Well, it's funny you say that.

[00:03:31] I was on the phone with a legislator today, and he said that he was—I'm not going to say who it is—

[00:03:36] but he was asked to do election coverage the night of the election in his area, in his media area.

[00:03:43] And he and another gentleman—he's a Republican, and then there's a Democrat gentleman.

[00:03:48] They're both moderates.

[00:03:50] Right.

[00:03:51] There's not a right-winger or a left-winger.

[00:03:53] And the producer of the news show said, well, this might not be a very interesting show.

[00:03:58] We usually like there to be a lot more, you know, to be more contentious.

[00:04:02] And he goes, well, you got the wrong guy.

[00:04:03] Right.

[00:04:04] And—but I do think moderation's a good thing, you know, in so many ways in everything that we do.

[00:04:09] So he's going to—I know he and his Democratic counterpart are going to—are two really good choices to do that.

[00:04:15] But that's what the media wants.

[00:04:17] They want to stir it up.

[00:04:18] And I do kind of go after the media a little bit on this show because I read too many newspapers

[00:04:22] and watch too many stories about how things come out, and there just tends to be a skew that—

[00:04:27] Right.

[00:04:28] —we need to get back to the Walter Cronkite days.

[00:04:30] I'm sorry for all of you who don't know who that is, but, you know, Edward R. Murrow.

[00:04:35] Murrow, yeah.

[00:04:35] The people who, you know, reported the news and they didn't put a twist on it every single time.

[00:04:41] Right.

[00:04:42] And so—but we are kind of about getting information, getting good, accurate information out.

[00:04:47] And we do have a few races, and I was kind of teasing you a little bit.

[00:04:50] But let's start at the local level.

[00:04:53] We're here in Baton Rouge.

[00:04:54] Obviously, it's a pretty big mayor's race.

[00:04:58] And I know at times you're going to be limited in what you can say because you may be doing polling for—

[00:05:02] Yes.

[00:05:03] —an outside organization, not necessarily a candidate, but you have to be really careful about what you say.

[00:05:08] Yes.

[00:05:09] Everybody respects and appreciates that confidence.

[00:05:11] But what can you tell us about what you know about the mayor's race in Baton Rouge?

[00:05:15] So what you have to appreciate about the mayor's race is that ever since 2012, in the old days, the mayor's race and primaries were in October,

[00:05:24] and the runoff was held at the same time as the presidential race.

[00:05:27] Starting in 2012, the primary then became part of the presidential race with the possible runoff in December.

[00:05:34] So what has happened as a result of that change is that basically the presidential race drives the mayor's race in terms of the party vote.

[00:05:43] So you have to look through that lens when assessing the chances of the mayoral candidates.

[00:05:48] So what I'm getting at here is that East Baton Rouge Parish, unlike the rest of the rest of state Louisiana, except perhaps Orleans, has been steadily moving to the left while Louisiana has been moving to the right.

[00:06:01] More specifically, Barack Obama carried our parish with 50% in 2008, and then he increased that support in 2012.

[00:06:11] In 2016, Hillary carried our parish 52-43.

[00:06:16] Joe Biden carried it 56-42.

[00:06:19] Now I'm thinking that Kamala Harris is going to carry it but probably about 55%.

[00:06:25] Now what's so significant about the 55-45 split?

[00:06:28] Well, that's East Baton Rouge Parish.

[00:06:29] Correct, East Baton Rouge.

[00:06:30] The rest of the state, given what I've seen with early voting, I would not be surprised if Donald Trump cracked 60.

[00:06:35] But getting back to East Baton Rouge Parish, so you have the Trump vote and you have the Harris vote.

[00:06:42] Harris is almost certainly going to carry East Baton Rouge Parish.

[00:06:45] And so you figure that Mayor Sharon West and Broome will get the vast majority of that.

[00:06:49] However, is vast majority 40 of 55?

[00:06:52] Is it 30 of 55?

[00:06:53] Is it 35 of 55?

[00:06:55] In other words, she's going to get a percentage of that Democratic base.

[00:07:00] The remainder is going to go to Ted James.

[00:07:03] So now that we've segued from Mayor Broome, who I see as basically getting the Democratic base vote in the primary slash presidential,

[00:07:12] Ted James is going to have to build a coalition if he wants to make the runoff,

[00:07:16] which means getting an appreciable share of the black vote,

[00:07:20] which also means he has to get a decent share of Republicans.

[00:07:24] And the types of Republicans I'm thinking about are the more moderate variety who live basically between Airline Highway and City Park.

[00:07:32] And then along that Highland Perkins corridor, roughly from about the infamous Gissel Belt.

[00:07:38] Yes.

[00:07:38] In other words, this is a part of Baton Rouge.

[00:07:40] And I first coined this term back in 2016.

[00:07:43] This is a more affluent, well-educated area that has some conservative and liberal splotches in it,

[00:07:49] but it has more of an affluent tone and they're more independent in their thinking and less moored to a particular political party.

[00:07:57] So in other words, that's where Ted James has to do well.

[00:08:01] Then we get to the Donald Trump side of the spectrum.

[00:08:04] So even though he won't carry the parish, there'll be probably about 45% of the vote he gets.

[00:08:10] So Sid Edwards, in my opinion, will get most of it, but as most like 25 of 45, 30 of 45, 35,

[00:08:19] because Sid Edwards is going to have some competition for the Trump vote.

[00:08:24] The first, which it's embarrassing to say, but, well, I say such things in podcasts,

[00:08:28] is that technically the first Republican alphabetically on the ballot is Tammy Cook.

[00:08:35] And the dirty little secret that I can say that few will ever say to the public is that if you are alphabetically first in the ballot

[00:08:45] and you have a voter who perhaps may be befuddled after choosing president, Congress, and so forth,

[00:08:51] they're going to go for the first Democrat or first Republican they see alphabetically in the ballot.

[00:08:55] That is worth a couple percentage of the vote.

[00:08:57] I call that the Kyle Ardouin rule because Kyle, of course, was the first Republican in a very, very crowded Secretary of State's race.

[00:09:05] And I think that really helped him.

[00:09:07] He was a great Secretary of State in my opinion and probably was smart not to run again because public service can be challenging.

[00:09:13] But I absolutely agree with you.

[00:09:15] That is factual.

[00:09:16] If you're, you know, look at the legislature and elected officials, a lot of them have very early, they're very early in the alphabet.

[00:09:24] Yeah. That's why Tatman doesn't do that well on the ballot.

[00:09:27] But anyway, I'm sorry.

[00:09:28] Yeah. You have to hope that all your opponents are named like X, Y, and C.

[00:09:31] Yeah. But John, you would do real well.

[00:09:33] Cuvion, you'd be right up at the top, right?

[00:09:35] It's just a challenge of spelling my last name correctly.

[00:09:37] That's true.

[00:09:37] Yes. And then outside of Baton Rouge, pronouncing it correctly.

[00:09:39] But so you have this Trump vote.

[00:09:43] So the first thing that's going to draw away some vote is Tammy Cook, who technically withdrew from the race, but for whatever reasons did not file the proper paperwork to take herself out.

[00:09:53] So she's going to appear on the ballot.

[00:09:55] There's going to be a vote that goes to her.

[00:09:56] Then, of course, you have Steve Myers and Nathaniel Hearn.

[00:09:59] They're going to pull away some votes.

[00:10:00] Then that leaves Sid Edwards.

[00:10:02] And by the way, Sid has yet more competition for the Republican vote, and that is whatever Ted James is able to get in the Gissel Belt.

[00:10:09] Right.

[00:10:09] So I could make a plausible case for either combination or permutation of those three, two of those three making the runoff.

[00:10:20] Yeah.

[00:10:20] I guess Sid has such a great reputation as a coach and as a community leader.

[00:10:26] Right.

[00:10:26] If you know him, and I don't know him real well, but every interaction I've had, everybody who knows him just talks really highly about him.

[00:10:34] Right.

[00:10:35] Obviously, I worked very closely with Mayor Brum, Mayor President Brum, when she was in the Senate.

[00:10:41] And a little bit when I was president of the school board and she served as mayor.

[00:10:45] We worked on some things and worked really well with her.

[00:10:48] And, of course, Ted James and I are personal friends.

[00:10:50] We actually knew each other before both of us were elected.

[00:10:54] He was a staffer on the labor committee and worked for the workforce development.

[00:10:59] And, you know, he has quite a nice resume.

[00:11:00] And he's a very charming young man.

[00:11:03] Right.

[00:11:03] And at my age, everybody's a young man, but he's a very charming young man.

[00:11:06] And so I think you're right.

[00:11:08] I, as you know, I was rumored to be in that race.

[00:11:12] I did not see a path where I would actually be able to win.

[00:11:16] I felt like I could make a runoff, but I wouldn't be able to win.

[00:11:19] And I thought, if you can't win, why run?

[00:11:22] Right.

[00:11:22] And so I think that's all really viable.

[00:11:26] You know, one of the things that I remember, and you can correct me, I may have my data wrong,

[00:11:32] but when Steve Carter ran against Sharon last time, the vote in places like Central and Zachary

[00:11:41] in the Republican ranks were atrocious.

[00:11:43] Like people just didn't show up to the polls.

[00:11:46] A lot of the thought was that they didn't care who was the mayor of Baton Rouge, right?

[00:11:52] Because it's not their mayor.

[00:11:53] They have their own mayor.

[00:11:55] When you think of mayor president, I don't think anybody really looks at that as being like parish president.

[00:12:00] Right.

[00:12:01] Because it doesn't really work that way.

[00:12:03] Do you feel like, I mean, we know Trump's going to pretty easily win Louisiana.

[00:12:08] There's not a lot of ground game money from either party nationally.

[00:12:13] Do you think that there's enough of a Trump surge in voting on November the 5th to push Sid into a runoff?

[00:12:26] I'm not asking you to make that call, but is there enough of a surge to make that happen?

[00:12:30] I mean, nothing's impossible, but my attitude is you want to be sitting at 30% or above if you want to have that golden runoff ticket.

[00:12:37] Right.

[00:12:37] Yeah.

[00:12:38] So, and of course you're in polls, so we're not going to ask you anymore about that.

[00:12:41] But yeah, it's gotten just another point.

[00:12:45] And for those of you who are not in Baton Rouge, you may not be interested in this at all, but it's gotten really ugly.

[00:12:52] Yes.

[00:12:53] And the thing that's so crazy to me is that Sharon and Ted were like that.

[00:12:58] I mean, they were so close.

[00:13:00] Yes.

[00:13:00] You know, they were almost inseparable.

[00:13:02] I think Ted might have been our campaign manager or was involved in some sort of a way with her originally, but it's gotten pretty ugly.

[00:13:10] It's gotten to be a pretty ugly race.

[00:13:12] And so that's disappointing.

[00:13:14] Yeah.

[00:13:14] Everybody could run on resume, but I can't.

[00:13:17] I was in a race that got very ugly, which I chose not to get ugly.

[00:13:22] And of course I lost.

[00:13:23] Yeah.

[00:13:23] So people say they don't like negative campaigning.

[00:13:26] I don't know if that's true because it works.

[00:13:28] There's a time and a place to do negative ads.

[00:13:31] To me, voters' minds are most open and formative before early voting.

[00:13:36] But the thing about it is, and this is what a lot of people miss the boat on with regards to negative campaigning.

[00:13:42] Number one, close to half the vote is going to be cast early.

[00:13:45] So in other words, you have 90 something thousand votes in East Baton Rouge Parish.

[00:13:49] They're spoken for.

[00:13:50] You cannot do a thing about them.

[00:13:51] They're locked away until 8.01 PM on Tuesday night.

[00:13:55] So any kind of advertising on them is a waste of time.

[00:13:57] But the other half, and this drives political consultants crazy, but I'll happily say it.

[00:14:02] Maybe you might make a dent with that other half.

[00:14:05] But number one, you have to assume that everybody is paying attention to you.

[00:14:09] And number two, that they're receptive to your last minute attack.

[00:14:13] Because people do get cynical, in my opinion, once we get to that last week.

[00:14:17] Yeah.

[00:14:17] No, I get it.

[00:14:18] And the question is, do you really change anybody's mind or do you really just drive your vote to the polls?

[00:14:24] Right.

[00:14:25] It becomes sort of that game.

[00:14:26] And in this case, because you have a presidential race, there's really not much with regards to driving voters to the polls because that's going to be the turnout driver.

[00:14:34] Yeah.

[00:14:35] It's always the highest turnout.

[00:14:37] Yes.

[00:14:37] Of the elections.

[00:14:38] Yeah.

[00:14:39] It's really, really important.

[00:14:40] So let's go to some other races that are relevant.

[00:14:43] I mean, really across the state.

[00:14:46] But in this area, the Public Service Commission race.

[00:14:49] Yeah.

[00:14:49] You want to talk a little bit about that?

[00:14:50] Yeah.

[00:14:50] So PSC or Public Service Commission districts are interesting in that because there's five of them as opposed to six congressmen, a PSC race is really a congressional race and then some.

[00:15:00] And so you're talking about 930 or so thousand people per district.

[00:15:04] So in the PSC district we have, you have to think of it as a triangle where you have Baton Rouge and Lafayette at opposite ends of the corner.

[00:15:12] And it goes all the way down to home of Thibodeau, minus, of course, the black inner city neighborhoods in Baton Rouge that are carved out in the district that Devontae Lewis represents.

[00:15:22] So you have a district that is mostly but not entirely Republican.

[00:15:25] And so that, to me, is the framework for how to look at this race.

[00:15:29] So you have like a consistently 30 percent Democratic race, Democratic vote, my bad.

[00:15:35] And I'm of the opinion that when you're talking about a presidential race being a turnout driver, you're going to have Democrats go to the polls, you know, their fingers wander down the ballot.

[00:15:46] Oh, look, here's a Democrat.

[00:15:47] Boom.

[00:15:48] So they vote for Nick Laborde.

[00:15:49] I don't even think he's running the ads.

[00:15:51] No, I haven't seen anything.

[00:15:52] But I think he'll get an easy 25 to 30 percent of the vote because that is the Democratic percentage in that district as evidenced by previous presidential elections.

[00:16:02] And so Nick Laborde will get that.

[00:16:04] So for the remaining 70 or so percent of the vote, the question becomes the split between Julie Quinn, a former state senator from Metairie who moved to Baton Rouge.

[00:16:13] Right.

[00:16:14] Versus Senator Jean-Paul Coussin, who's from Lafayette.

[00:16:17] Actually, he was once in the House.

[00:16:18] He literally just got elected to the Senate.

[00:16:21] And now the PSE is a new opportunity for him.

[00:16:24] But he's been running ads.

[00:16:26] And to my knowledge, Julie Quinn has not.

[00:16:28] And I've seen, you know, I see some Julie Quinn billboards like a long blue bonnet.

[00:16:32] But I mean, to me, for a PSC race, that is far beyond billboard territory.

[00:16:37] Yeah.

[00:16:38] So the only thing I've seen, and of course, I've worked with both of them when they were both senators.

[00:16:42] Julie Quinn a while back when, like you said, she lived in Metairie.

[00:16:46] And then John Paul with, you know, mostly in the House because he's new to the Senate.

[00:16:51] You know, and know most of them very well.

[00:16:54] It appears that Coussin has a very strong campaign.

[00:16:56] Yes.

[00:16:57] Lots of ads on television, billboards all over.

[00:17:01] He is not given, he is not ceded to Baton Rouge in any way.

[00:17:05] Correct. Nor should he.

[00:17:06] And I go down to, you know, my wife's from Thibodeau.

[00:17:08] I go down to Thibodeau home.

[00:17:10] I see a lot of JP, but I don't see much of Julie.

[00:17:13] I have seen a few things pop up digitally for Julie, like on, you know, like a Google.

[00:17:19] I don't even know what it was, but it just came across.

[00:17:21] It could have been social media or what have you, but not much.

[00:17:24] Right.

[00:17:24] And the real question is, in my opinion, I mean, I don't know, you're the pollster, but could JP win this in the primary?

[00:17:30] I would say it's not impossible because in a race like this where you need lots of visibility and money, I mean, at the very minimum, you have to spend in the Baton Rouge and the Lafayette media markets.

[00:17:40] And then because of home at Thibodeau, you kind of have to have a footprint in the New Orleans media market.

[00:17:45] So we're talking about some more expensive media markets in the state.

[00:17:48] And so when one candidate is running everything and the other two are not, well, that does tend to kind of drive the vote.

[00:17:57] Yeah.

[00:17:58] So it's not impossible for him to win Tuesday, but we'll see.

[00:18:01] Well, it's interesting because I, as you do too, I have a lot of friends who really don't pay that much attention to elections.

[00:18:07] They're not junkies like you and I that live this stuff every day and know everything or even know all of the candidates personally.

[00:18:14] Right.

[00:18:14] But the funny thing about that race is it's one thing when they text me or call me about the mayor's race, but when they call me or text me about the PSC race, they're like, who should I vote for and what do they do?

[00:18:26] Right.

[00:18:26] And the only thing I can, you know, I've said, you know, it's your utility rates.

[00:18:29] It's lots of things.

[00:18:30] Actually, I regulate limousines.

[00:18:31] I mean, there's a lot of different things that they do, but I always remind them that this is the old railroad commission that you along came from when he was elected.

[00:18:39] So that gets a little bit of a historical click.

[00:18:42] So, yeah, we'll watch that race.

[00:18:44] I it'll be interesting to see if John Paul can win in the first.

[00:18:49] And if not, he's going to have a really strong move forward.

[00:18:53] He's got a lot of momentum moving for him.

[00:18:55] And then that's going to open up that seat that, you know, he had, which, by the way, was the former president of the Senate seat.

[00:19:01] Correct.

[00:19:02] And I think that that's probably I mean, there's a lot of talk about who might run for that.

[00:19:06] And that that'll be a separate show that we'll do because that could be a big deal.

[00:19:09] In fact, I could see this as a series of dominoes falling.

[00:19:12] You remember when Troy Carter got elected.

[00:19:14] I do.

[00:19:15] So it created a series of dominoes that wasn't resolved until the fall of 2021 because, you know, Cedric Richmond takes job with Biden administration.

[00:19:23] Troy Carter gets elected.

[00:19:25] Troy Carter Senate seats vacant.

[00:19:27] House member Gary Carter gets elected to Troy seat.

[00:19:30] Gary Carter seat.

[00:19:31] And so all these successive elections, I don't think we finished it until the fall of 2021.

[00:19:37] So a scenario like that could play out because you figure that was assuming Senator Cousin wins that, okay, now you're going to have whoever is in the Lafayette delegation from his Senate district.

[00:19:48] They're almost certainly going to run.

[00:19:50] Then if one of them wins, then you have vacant House seat.

[00:19:54] So you just have like the springboard of elections.

[00:19:56] And the only name I've heard about that Senate seat, I would imagine every House member that's in that district is looking.

[00:20:02] I've heard Brock Myers name.

[00:20:04] Yeah.

[00:20:04] Multiple times.

[00:20:05] That's what I've heard too.

[00:20:05] And so he may have some momentum moving into that.

[00:20:08] And he's been a really good, you know, he's still new as a freshman representative, but he's well respected.

[00:20:15] Right.

[00:20:15] And that's a big deal when you go to the Senate.

[00:20:17] So let's move on now.

[00:20:18] Sure.

[00:20:19] We'll keep climbing up the ladder.

[00:20:20] And there might not be really a whole lot to talk about, but I mean we do have congressional elections.

[00:20:24] Yes.

[00:20:25] Every single person has some opponent.

[00:20:29] But what's your take on it?

[00:20:30] Because it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot there.

[00:20:33] There really isn't.

[00:20:33] It's relatively low energy.

[00:20:35] Four of the six races, and I'm talking about Clay Higgins, Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise, Troy Carter, those are cinch wins.

[00:20:43] I mean I'm thinking 70% or above.

[00:20:45] Then we get to five and districts five and six.

[00:20:48] Julia Letlow should win easily.

[00:20:50] The only, the reason I'm saying should is that a large chunk of East Baton Rouge Parish as well as parts of Livingston and Ascension were added to her district.

[00:20:59] So even though her opponents are really nowhere to be seen, there is that risk of you haven't represented all this territory yet and you want to make sure that voters love you.

[00:21:08] So she'll probably win easily, but like I said, having to introduce herself to the Baton Rouge meaty market is a challenge.

[00:21:14] Then we go to the sixth district, and this is one it was subject of contentious lawsuits for the last couple years.

[00:21:22] It is actually quite reminiscent of the incarnation that Cleo Fields represented in 1994.

[00:21:29] Was it Zorro?

[00:21:30] Let's see, Zorro was 92.

[00:21:32] Okay.

[00:21:33] I'll take that back.

[00:21:35] Tomato Rot was 92.

[00:21:36] Okay.

[00:21:36] Zorro was 94 or Lightning Bolt.

[00:21:38] And that was the one that literally went from Baton Rouge up I-10 and 49 up to Shreveport.

[00:21:44] Yeah.

[00:21:44] So that's basically what this district does.

[00:21:48] So Cleo Fields has a few opponents, and none of them have really raised the money that he has.

[00:21:53] And given that he prides himself on his GOTV organization and the fact that this was a 59% Biden district, and Harris will get pretty close to that.

[00:22:03] Mm-hmm.

[00:22:04] Then I-10.

[00:22:05] Probably he'll win easily as well.

[00:22:07] So I would not be terribly surprised if we see all six races settled on Tuesday night.

[00:22:13] Wow.

[00:22:13] That's big.

[00:22:14] I will speak to Julia, though.

[00:22:16] Okay.

[00:22:17] Because, you know, living in Baton Rouge, she's really done a good job.

[00:22:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:22:21] I mean, her team, you know, obviously she picked her team.

[00:22:24] But her exposure here, like a lot of people I talk to, seem impressed with what she's put out.

[00:22:31] Mm-hmm.

[00:22:31] They seem to like her.

[00:22:32] She's a very attractive candidate.

[00:22:33] She's a very attractive woman.

[00:22:37] She is also very bright.

[00:22:39] Yes.

[00:22:39] Obviously, well-educated, professional, and she sits on appropriations.

[00:22:45] Yes.

[00:22:45] I mean, she's really done a lot in a short period of time, and her fundraising efforts have been, I mean, as a former fundraiser, just looking at it from a holistic standpoint, she's really doing good work.

[00:22:58] So I expect she'll do just fine in Baton Rouge.

[00:23:02] She will.

[00:23:02] Because I can't even tell you who she's running against.

[00:23:04] One of them, I think, is a perennial candidate from Ponchatoula, and I forgot the name of the other one.

[00:23:09] Mm-hmm.

[00:23:09] But, well, one thing, too, you know, the required disclosures.

[00:23:12] So actually, I have been involved going all the way back to 2014 with every winning race there, which started with Ralph, Dr. Ralph Abraham.

[00:23:20] Okay.

[00:23:20] At the time, Luke Letlow was his campaign manager.

[00:23:24] That's right.

[00:23:24] So when Luke ran for Congress, I worked on that campaign.

[00:23:27] And then when the unfortunate incident happened upon his runoff victory, then the campaign barely had a chance to wind down because, of course, Julia was running in his place.

[00:23:40] And then I worked on her campaign.

[00:23:43] And so it was an interesting race because, I mean, it was literally like barely had the December runoff concluded.

[00:23:49] And then already I was jumping onto a spring congressional race.

[00:23:52] So, you know, the required disclosure there.

[00:23:54] Yeah.

[00:23:55] No, no, I get it.

[00:23:56] And look, for those that don't know, it's surprising how much people don't know.

[00:24:01] But obviously, Luke Letlow won that seat but never actually was sworn in to serve in it because he passed away.

[00:24:07] He had as complications from COVID, I believe.

[00:24:10] And what a sad thing for he and his family, young children.

[00:24:15] But Julia stepped in and has done a great job.

[00:24:19] And God bless her and her family.

[00:24:21] Yes.

[00:24:21] I know she and Luke are good people.

[00:24:25] Yes.

[00:24:26] So I think they are good representatives of the state of Louisiana.

[00:24:29] And she's my new congressperson.

[00:24:31] It's pretty exciting.

[00:24:31] So she's up in northeast Louisiana, but I live in South Baton Rouge and she's my congressional person.

[00:24:38] So it's kind of, but I'm happy I don't need anyone from Baton Rouge as long as I have a good member, I'm good, you know?

[00:24:44] Right.

[00:24:44] So let's get into the real meat of it, which is what really I think most people want to talk about, which is the national elections.

[00:24:50] The really, really good stuff.

[00:24:51] The really good stuff.

[00:24:52] And if I could, I would like to, everybody goes right to president.

[00:24:55] Right.

[00:24:55] But the makeup of Congress, right, the makeup of the House and the Senate are going to be really important to whoever it is that actually does become president.

[00:25:08] The question is, I don't, there's going to be no mandate because both the House and the Senate are going to be very close, obviously.

[00:25:15] It's not, and with cloture in the Senate, you know, you need 60 votes to really dominate there.

[00:25:20] And you get an extra vote if the vice president is in your party because they serve as president of the Senate.

[00:25:26] But let's go to the House first.

[00:25:27] Right.

[00:25:27] How do you see the House of Representatives, United States House of Representatives working out?

[00:25:32] The way I look at that is it will stay in Republican hands, give or take a few seats.

[00:25:37] Because anytime these pundits say, oh, the Republicans will lose the House, the first question I'll ask is, okay, which seats?

[00:25:42] And then they like, uh, uh, uh.

[00:25:44] Because the thing about the House is that the road to 218 is actually through the big states like California, New York, and so forth.

[00:25:54] And so Democrats are actually overrepresented in those seats, in those states.

[00:26:01] And what Republicans there are in the California and New York delegations, they should do just fine.

[00:26:06] Especially since, as we will talk later, there has been elevated Republican enthusiasm this presidential year that has really borne itself out through impersonally voting.

[00:26:15] Hmm.

[00:26:16] Yeah.

[00:26:16] Yeah.

[00:26:18] So, a couple of things I want to kick around with that.

[00:26:21] So, if the House, and I know you, we're just, we're being speculative here.

[00:26:26] Absolutely.

[00:26:26] But if the House stays Republican, picks up maybe, let's just say they stay Republican or they pick up a seat, do you believe Mike Johnson retains his speakership?

[00:26:35] I think so.

[00:26:36] I do too.

[00:26:36] I do too.

[00:26:36] Because the thing about it is, you, when you have a thin majority that the Republicans have right now, it makes it much easier for a couple of attention getters to disrupt the proceedings.

[00:26:49] Mike Johnson is really about the only people who's acceptable to all factions of the party.

[00:26:53] Mm-hmm.

[00:26:54] And so, you know, the old thing about, well, I don't like my, you know, I don't like, you know, congressmen or Speaker X, Y, Z, and my first thought is compared to what?

[00:27:02] Yeah.

[00:27:03] Because, I mean, Paul McCarthy, or, oh gosh, getting, mental, mental.

[00:27:08] Kevin.

[00:27:08] Kevin, my bad.

[00:27:09] I know.

[00:27:10] It's okay.

[00:27:10] He's been going for so long.

[00:27:11] Paul McCarthy was the artist.

[00:27:12] Right, right.

[00:27:12] He played the songs.

[00:27:13] But yeah, I do that all the time, but I'm a lot older than you.

[00:27:16] But yeah, Kevin.

[00:27:17] But anyway, the part about former Speaker McCarthy is that he was a very able person politically, but because of the factions in the Republican Party, I think that they created a list of demands for him that was probably too much for him to ever be able to keep.

[00:27:34] And we have a narrow Republican majority.

[00:27:36] It's very easy for five people to, you know, the proverbial holding your mouth until your face turns blue kind of things.

[00:27:43] Whereas Mike Johnson, I think, is broadly acceptable to all factions of the party, and he has a pretty bold mannered personality, so I can't see them trying to depose him.

[00:27:54] Yeah, he's a great guy.

[00:27:55] Yes.

[00:27:55] Like, you know, I was at a national conference this week in New York with one of my clients, and they asked me, they said, you know, what is, how is Mike Johnson?

[00:28:04] What is he like?

[00:28:05] I said, what you see is what you get.

[00:28:07] Right.

[00:28:08] There's no facade there.

[00:28:09] He is like he is there in his whole life.

[00:28:12] He was like that when he was a state representative.

[00:28:15] When he ran for Congress, he is who he is.

[00:28:17] And there's no – you have to respect that.

[00:28:21] Right.

[00:28:21] He's a good family man.

[00:28:23] He believes in what he believes in, but he never makes it personal.

[00:28:26] And I think that's a big part of trying to get through politics today.

[00:28:30] Right.

[00:28:31] So let's talk a little bit about the Senate.

[00:28:35] Obviously, that is an opportunity, I think, for the Republicans to pick up.

[00:28:38] What are your thoughts?

[00:28:39] Moderate to massive gains.

[00:28:41] And so this is one of those I kind of have to lay it out in pieces.

[00:28:45] So the gimme seats for the Republicans, there's West Virginia, where you have a popular –

[00:28:50] Manchin's old seat.

[00:28:51] Mm-hmm.

[00:28:51] We have a popular governor, Jim Justice, who he's famous for his bulldog baby dog.

[00:28:57] And so that should be an almost guaranteed pickup for the Republicans, which puts them to 50.

[00:29:04] Now, theoretically, the Republicans are vulnerable in Florida and Texas, but my attitude is the

[00:29:10] Republicans in there are basically going to be carried along to the finish line by Trump.

[00:29:14] So we're 50 Republicans.

[00:29:16] The 51st Republican is almost certainly going to be Montana, where a three-term incumbent, a crew-cut farmer named John Tester, is almost certainly going to go down to his Republican challenger.

[00:29:29] His name is Tim Sheehy, and he made a big joke about the pronouns that she and he.

[00:29:35] So that gets us to 51.

[00:29:37] Then the next seats are what define modest gains to big gains.

[00:29:42] So the next three seats are the blue wall states.

[00:29:45] In other words, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan not only have tightly contested presidential races, the Senate races are tightly contested as well,

[00:29:53] and the Republicans are picking up late momentum in those three states.

[00:29:56] I'm of the attitude that whatever Trump does in those states, he's either going to bring those three senators in or not, because all three of those are Democratic held.

[00:30:06] Pennsylvania, you have a Democratic incumbent who's been there since 06.

[00:30:10] Wisconsin, she's been there since 12.

[00:30:12] That's Tammy Baldwin.

[00:30:13] And then Michigan, that is actually an open seat.

[00:30:17] And so I'm of the opinion that if Trump can carry those states by one or two or three points, he'll bring those three Republicans in with them.

[00:30:26] So we're talking about possibly going from 51 to 54.

[00:30:30] The 55th seat is Ohio, where you have a three-term incumbent, a gentleman named Sherrod Brown.

[00:30:36] Pretty liberal guy, but he's a very feisty person, which what Ohioans like.

[00:30:41] But Trump is going to win by Ohio by a big enough margin to where I think he'll carry the Republican in with him.

[00:30:48] So then that leaves us with two possible pickups, which I think are very long shots for the Republicans.

[00:30:54] That is Arizona and that is Nevada.

[00:30:58] In my opinion, if the Republicans want to pick up either or both of those seats, Trump needs to win those states by probably three or more points,

[00:31:06] because they're not top-notch Republican candidates.

[00:31:10] So that's how the scenario I see of anywhere from 51 to 56 Republicans in the Senate.

[00:31:16] Yeah.

[00:31:17] That'd be – 56 is a lot.

[00:31:18] Oh, yeah.

[00:31:19] You almost – you're closing in on cloture.

[00:31:21] Now, I just wanted to cover this.

[00:31:24] The Senate map, this election, lined up better for the Republicans than the next time.

[00:31:30] Yes.

[00:31:30] Because in the next election, it will be more Republicans that will be up for re-election,

[00:31:35] and they'll be more vulnerable to potentially lose some seats.

[00:31:39] Right.

[00:31:39] Yeah.

[00:31:40] And what's interesting, a little historical footnote for you about this, this is the lucky Democratic class.

[00:31:44] In other words, they were swept into power in a landslide in 58, and in 64, that was a Democratic landslide, so they stayed.

[00:31:51] In 70, it was a midterm year that was slightly favorable to the Democrats, so they stayed.

[00:31:57] Jimmy Carter got elected in 76, they stayed.

[00:31:59] The Reagan recession in 82, they stayed.

[00:32:02] In 88, the Bush-Dukakis year, they stayed.

[00:32:05] Even though they got swept out in 94, you had a lot of weak Republicans.

[00:32:10] They came back in 2000.

[00:32:12] So point being is you have this super large, like 75% Democratic class that has its genesis back in 1958.

[00:32:20] And perhaps it will be broken this year, perhaps not.

[00:32:23] But point being is that's the biggest group of Senate Democrats is that one class of 33, 34.

[00:32:29] Yeah.

[00:32:29] Yeah, it's going to be interesting.

[00:32:31] I've been watching a lot of the individual states, and when we were in New York this week, we had some people come in from the states themselves and actually talk to us about what's going on in the ground.

[00:32:42] And what's so amazing is it's not much different than what you would read on 270 to win or real clear politics.

[00:32:50] And we'll go through some of that, which are some of the sites that collect polling and aggregate, and we'll talk a little bit about that.

[00:32:56] But now we get to the sort of the icing on the cake.

[00:33:00] I hear there's a presidential election going on.

[00:33:03] The creme de la creme, yes.

[00:33:04] Yeah.

[00:33:05] Tell us about what you know or what you think and how things are going.

[00:33:10] So my little soundbite is people just aren't into this election.

[00:33:15] Now, there's four parts of how I believe people aren't into this election.

[00:33:19] So the first is, and I'll try to rapid fire them because we could make this easily a three-hour podcast.

[00:33:24] Right, that's right.

[00:33:25] Your poor listeners would be never wanting me to be on another show again.

[00:33:28] That's right.

[00:33:28] But –

[00:33:29] No, they love you.

[00:33:30] Yeah.

[00:33:31] They love me, but they don't want me to, you know –

[00:33:33] Yeah.

[00:33:33] This would be like the gong show, you know, bang.

[00:33:35] Yes.

[00:33:35] But anyway, so the four things which to me are kind of data evidence of people aren't into this election.

[00:33:42] Number one, primary turnout has been substantially down relative to 2020.

[00:33:47] Okay.

[00:33:47] Okay.

[00:33:47] Number two, voter registration.

[00:33:50] That – in other words, September is normally when you have voter registration drives that kind of load up the voter rolls.

[00:33:55] Because if you want to get someone registered to vote for the presidential election, you don't sign them up in January.

[00:34:00] You sign them up in September when there's all kinds of news coverage and ads and so forth.

[00:34:05] That's down.

[00:34:07] Number three, early voting is down.

[00:34:10] Louisiana, I'll give you a quick example and then it quickly extrapolate to the national.

[00:34:15] Our early voting was actually pretty good, but it had a strong Republican tilt to it.

[00:34:20] I saw that.

[00:34:20] We finished just short of a million.

[00:34:22] We have about 15 to 20 more thousand mail-in ballots, in my opinion, that will come in throughout the weekend and Monday.

[00:34:29] But we stopped short of a million.

[00:34:31] But the big difference between our early voting in this year and 2020, this year was the first time in my life I've ever seen Republicans lead in early voting for all 10 days.

[00:34:41] And it was plus nine percentage points.

[00:34:44] Last time it was plus seven Democrat for the Democrats.

[00:34:48] Right.

[00:34:49] The electorate – so blacks represent 31% of registered voters in Louisiana.

[00:34:54] Anytime I see a voting electorate of 30 or above, I conclude that's strong for the Democrats.

[00:34:59] John Bel Edwards was re-elected with a 31% black electorate in November of 2019, as you'll recall.

[00:35:06] So in 2020, the early vote was 30% black.

[00:35:09] It was 25% black this year.

[00:35:14] Big drop off in turnout.

[00:35:15] And by the way, I saw that happen in Georgia and North Carolina as well, which has presidential implications.

[00:35:21] So Louisiana, the early voting was pretty good.

[00:35:23] Now we get to the rest of the nation, and that's where things get a lot worse.

[00:35:26] More specifically, at this point in time in 2020, 85 million had early voted.

[00:35:33] And by the way, it is kind of a hobby of mine for those who ever follow me on social media.

[00:35:38] I'm very particular about following early voting across the country.

[00:35:41] It requires a lot of data collection, but it tells a story.

[00:35:45] So 85 million had early voted at this point in time four years ago, and Democrats had a plus 12 lead.

[00:35:50] As of this morning, we're at 68 million and a plus three Democratic lead.

[00:35:56] So what I'm getting at here is that big drop off in Democratic intensity, which kind of leads me to I think the trade winds are much more favorable for Donald Trump this time than they were in 2020.

[00:36:09] So let me ask you.

[00:36:11] One of the things that has been pretty clear is both in 16 and 2020, Trump—

[00:36:19] Underperformed.

[00:36:20] Yeah.

[00:36:21] Like a lot, right?

[00:36:23] He did.

[00:36:23] Like it was like four percentage points or something.

[00:36:26] Can you talk about that a little bit?

[00:36:27] Absolutely.

[00:36:28] So one of the things that's important to appreciate is whenever polling is flashed up on the TV screen, the tendency is to want to take polls literally.

[00:36:39] Well, the truth is I always look at polls with the capital S as opposed to an individual poll because the truth is somewhere in the middle because each pollster has his or her own style.

[00:36:50] But as pertained to Donald Trump, in 2016, actually they got the national popular vote right, which was the last week polling, which is what counts, showed Hillary Clinton up two, which in fact is what happened.

[00:37:02] And where the polling got the bad name from 2016 was in several swing states.

[00:37:08] In each case, they underestimated Trump's vote.

[00:37:13] 2020 came along.

[00:37:15] In some ways, polling was better.

[00:37:16] In some ways, it was worse.

[00:37:18] One of the ways it was worse was they kept showing Biden up by about seven to nine points the whole time, like from September on.

[00:37:26] Well, he ended up winning by four points by the popular vote.

[00:37:29] But even worse were the extent of the misses in the swing states.

[00:37:33] You'll remember the infamous ABC News Washington Post poll of Wisconsin that showed Biden up by 17 when, in fact, he only carried the state by one.

[00:37:42] Yeah, it's pretty bad.

[00:37:43] Yeah.

[00:37:44] So you have that dynamic going on.

[00:37:46] And for fun, I compiled the last week misses.

[00:37:51] And just to give you kind of some examples of what's happening in polling land, right now, as of this morning, and by the way, I use seven-day averages.

[00:38:00] And I'm probably jumping ahead to the next segment.

[00:38:02] No, it's okay.

[00:38:03] Your listeners are an understanding group of people.

[00:38:05] Yeah.

[00:38:06] They're sophisticated.

[00:38:07] They are.

[00:38:07] Yeah.

[00:38:07] Good bunch.

[00:38:09] So as of this morning, Kamala Harris is sitting on a four-tenths of a percentage point lead in the national popular vote.

[00:38:17] Well, on the surface, that would sound that she's leading, but there's a couple of very strong buts to it.

[00:38:23] The first very strong but is given how Democrats run up super large margins in New York, California, Illinois, places like that, Republicans do not run up corresponding large margins in Florida and Texas.

[00:38:36] So what I've calculated is a Democrat has to be up by three points in the national popular vote to win the electoral college, which, of course, is what elects the president.

[00:38:46] So when you, Kamala Harris, are up by four-tenths of a percentage point, I calculate that that gives Trump anywhere from 291 to 316 electoral votes.

[00:38:57] And it gets better.

[00:38:58] That's assuming you quite take – you take that .4 lead literally.

[00:39:03] I showed that in 2020, in the last weeks of polling, Trump's margin was understated by two points nationally.

[00:39:10] So basically that translates to me to a one-and-a-half to two-point lead for Trump in the national popular vote.

[00:39:17] In other words, I'm going way out on a limb here, but I think it is permissible discussion to address that possibility that I'm a professional skeptic about polling suddenly getting better relative to 2020 until, of course, proven otherwise.

[00:39:31] Right.

[00:39:32] But where it gets really interesting with regards to some of these polling misses – and I'll just give you a couple of kind of brief examples.

[00:39:39] I don't want to go through every single one because then we, you know, three-hour show.

[00:39:42] Yeah, well, yeah.

[00:39:43] I'll cut it up into two.

[00:39:44] Yeah.

[00:39:44] No, I'm just kidding.

[00:39:45] I'll never be able to show my face at the Capitol again, that kind of thing.

[00:39:47] Oh, God.

[00:39:48] Or even worse, give committee a legislative testimony.

[00:39:50] They'll be like, all right, John, five minutes, and that's it.

[00:39:52] That's it.

[00:39:52] Yeah, but just to give an example of some of the egregious polling misses – and by the way, this is an average of 2016 and 2020 in the last week of the campaign, which to me are the polls that really count.

[00:40:03] Right.

[00:40:05] Wisconsin.

[00:40:05] The average of polls shows Harris up by one.

[00:40:08] They missed Trump's lead by seven.

[00:40:12] Last time.

[00:40:13] Correct.

[00:40:13] In 20.

[00:40:13] The average between 16 and 20, they missed it by an average of seven points.

[00:40:17] Wow.

[00:40:17] Wow.

[00:40:17] So theoretically, Trump could be up by six in Wisconsin.

[00:40:20] Right.

[00:40:20] Michigan, Harris up by one, five-point miss.

[00:40:25] Pennsylvania, Trump is up by half a point, four-point miss.

[00:40:29] North Carolina – oh, this is one where the pollsters have consistently understated Trump support.

[00:40:34] Trump's up by one, three-point miss.

[00:40:37] Nevada – actually, Nevada's an interesting one.

[00:40:40] That's one where there's actually a bit of an overstatement in the Republican support, like with what happens on Election Day.

[00:40:45] Trump's up by one, one-point overstatement of Trump.

[00:40:49] So Nevada's going to be the wild card on election night, although Democratic early vote is way, way down there, but that's another story from another time.

[00:40:57] Georgia, Trump's up by three.

[00:40:59] They've typically understated Trump support by one.

[00:41:02] So he could be up by four.

[00:41:04] Arizona, Trump's up by two.

[00:41:06] One-point miss.

[00:41:07] So what I'm getting at is Trump is already sitting on a base, in my opinion.

[00:41:11] I think it's like 235 electoral votes.

[00:41:14] I think Arizona and Georgia are gimmies.

[00:41:16] That puts them up to 262.

[00:41:18] All he literally needs is one of the blue-wall states.

[00:41:21] But the blue-wall states typically move in tandem, meaning either Harris will carry all three or Trump will carry all three.

[00:41:28] So that's kind of the parameters by which I see the presidential race.

[00:41:32] And by the way, if Harris is either up a half a point to trailing 1.5 points in the national popular vote,

[00:41:40] it is within the permissible range of discussion to where all of a sudden states like New Hampshire and Virginia and New Mexico could be a little closer than we're thinking.

[00:41:50] Right.

[00:41:50] Now, I don't think Trump will carry them.

[00:41:52] Yeah.

[00:41:52] I mean, if he were, that would be like 350 to 400 electoral vote blowout.

[00:41:56] So just on a little bit of a – I find that you've heard the conversation about the bro vote.

[00:42:02] You've heard that about men and supporting Trump and particularly black men.

[00:42:09] But I'm always interested because in my early days in politics, when you were a young lad running around elementary school,

[00:42:18] the black community always underpolled, right?

[00:42:22] They always came out – because they didn't trust pollsters.

[00:42:26] Right.

[00:42:26] They didn't know who was calling them.

[00:42:27] Yes.

[00:42:27] You know, all that kind of stuff.

[00:42:29] But is it that the Republicans are underpolling for that reason?

[00:42:35] Why is it – because – okay.

[00:42:37] So in 2016, it was big, right?

[00:42:41] I want to say it was like they underpolled – he underpolled by like maybe, I don't know,

[00:42:46] in the national average six to seven points.

[00:42:48] There was an adjustment, as I understand it, appreciated in the polls where they actually went in and, I guess,

[00:42:54] through a formula and all that great stuff that you guys do with actuarial science,

[00:42:58] tried to mitigate that.

[00:43:00] But it didn't work, right?

[00:43:00] Because I think nationally it was like he underpolled by even – you know, like four or three or something like that nationally.

[00:43:07] And so why is it that he's underpolling?

[00:43:11] Is it – what is it?

[00:43:12] So I think there's a couple things going on.

[00:43:14] I think that one could make the argument about if college-educated people are more likely to answer the polls,

[00:43:21] that since they've become more democratic in recent years,

[00:43:25] that perhaps that underestimates what working-class individuals are thinking.

[00:43:30] Right.

[00:43:30] But the other is I think with Trump, I do believe that the term the shy Trump voter is a relevant one.

[00:43:39] In other words, people may not want to admit to the pollsters they're supporting Trump.

[00:43:43] Good point.

[00:43:43] But they agree with what he says, and they're quietly going to go vote for him on Election Day.

[00:43:48] When they get behind the curtain, they can do what they want.

[00:43:50] Nobody knows.

[00:43:51] The privacy of the voting booth, yes.

[00:43:52] That's right.

[00:43:53] Well, that's really interesting.

[00:43:55] Do you have any predictions?

[00:43:57] I mean, you know, like either Electoral College, National – you have any – or can you do that?

[00:44:03] I don't know if you can.

[00:44:04] Well, I'll kind of hedge my bets here.

[00:44:06] I know that it's cool to play it safe and say, oh, well, you know, too close to call.

[00:44:11] It's going to be two weeks before we elect a president, blah, blah, blah.

[00:44:14] I don't believe that.

[00:44:15] I mean, every signal I'm seeing is favorable for Trump.

[00:44:20] Whether we're talking about he's rapidly closing in the polls, both nationally and with the swing states.

[00:44:56] Polling that's closing and elevated Republican enthusiasm with early voting and so forth.

[00:45:02] But I just think the signs are much more favorable for Trump victory.

[00:45:06] I think you make a good point about the garbage piece because obviously it was a comedian on the show who made the joke.

[00:45:14] But I believe – and again, I'm not that smart, but I believe that the deplorable comment –

[00:45:23] Oh, that was bad.

[00:45:24] It was – I believe it changed the race, right?

[00:45:26] Because all of a sudden you're not really talking about a candidate anymore.

[00:45:30] You're talking about everyone who's even considering voting for him.

[00:45:33] Right.

[00:45:34] And you're attacking a voter base.

[00:45:36] I just – I don't know, you know – I just don't know about, you know, judging people by who they voted for.

[00:45:42] They are – and because, you know, there are people who vote for personalities.

[00:45:45] There are people who vote for policies.

[00:45:47] There are one-issue voters who vote on abortion or vote on immigration or what have you.

[00:45:53] But when you start broadly saying that if you vote for this person, you're –

[00:45:59] You're garbage or deplorable.

[00:46:01] And that word changed dramatically for me in that election because I saw a lot of people that were, you know, incredibly –

[00:46:08] I don't know how – I mean, I don't know how she lost the race because she was up by so much.

[00:46:14] But in the end, I think it was things like that that made the difference.

[00:46:17] Well, first of all, I know you're a busy man, and I appreciate you being here.

[00:46:22] And you're the best pollster I know in the state of Louisiana.

[00:46:24] Thank you.

[00:46:25] And for all full disclosure, whenever I do polling, I use JMC Strategies.

[00:46:30] Tell us – tell the audience a little bit about your firm and what you do just briefly so that they understand who you are.

[00:46:37] So I'm – I like to think of myself as a numbers guy, but polling is basically kind of front and center what I do.

[00:46:43] And I'm a firm believer that not just polling but all the little peripheral things like understanding voter registration, early voting, and things like that helps me have an additional perspective for my job.

[00:46:53] I've been in business for 14 years, and I have done all races, big and small, across the country, all the way from presidential down to local races.

[00:47:03] And the thing I enjoy most about what I do is basically the chance to make recommendations to clients and not just throw a poll on their doorstep and say, have a nice day.

[00:47:14] But, you know, if they are sufficiently interested, I'll say these are the things I notice.

[00:47:19] And by the way, I make every effort whenever I do a poll release not to bore my clients.

[00:47:23] In other words, I'll pick like three or four things I think are relevant, and that's what I'll tell them.

[00:47:28] Now, when you're polling, half the clients are going to hate you.

[00:47:31] But the way I look at it is I can sleep at night because I know that I tell my clients what I see.

[00:47:36] If they don't like it, well, okay.

[00:47:37] You pay me to do a job, and I do a job.

[00:47:39] But I do enjoy polling, and so to me, going across the country and, of course, within our great state of Louisiana is one of the best challenges of doing polling because you learn a new thing every day.

[00:47:51] Yeah, and you and I were on an airplane together a couple of weeks ago.

[00:47:55] And both on the way up to Washington, D.C. and on the way back.

[00:47:58] And I had a chance to hear from and visit with Scott Jennings, who is the Republican person on the CNN panel that gets beat up all the time for his opinions.

[00:48:12] And much of what you say he has said, again, he is more of a political strategist, but he gets to see that polling data.

[00:48:23] And there's a lot of syncing up of what's being said.

[00:48:28] So I just want to touch briefly.

[00:48:31] Well, first off, how do people get in touch with you or tell them a little bit about your website?

[00:48:34] Because John's always public.

[00:48:36] First off, you need to follow him on social media.

[00:48:38] You need to get his website as a bookmark because he's always got great and interesting articles.

[00:48:44] I love reading them.

[00:48:46] I am a junkie of this stuff.

[00:48:47] When I'm retired, I'm still going to be following it because it's, like, better than the NFL.

[00:48:53] But tell them a little bit about how to get in touch with you.

[00:48:55] Certainly.

[00:48:56] So there's two primary ways.

[00:48:57] My website, winwithjmc.com.

[00:48:59] I have a presence on social media.

[00:49:01] And my favorite platform is the platform for me known as Twitter, or X, where I'm at winwithjmc.

[00:49:11] And then finally, John at winwithjmc.com.

[00:49:14] Yeah.

[00:49:15] So we'll post those up in the show notes so everybody has that.

[00:49:18] One other thing I wanted to just touch briefly on before we wrap up is there are, right now, if anybody's looking to go and see what's going on, there are a bunch of websites out there.

[00:49:29] Yes.

[00:49:29] And some of them, you know, I actually, John, I go to RealClearPolitics.

[00:49:35] Yes.

[00:49:35] We talked about that.

[00:49:36] I don't think I made that clear to you, but that's always been my go-to.

[00:49:39] But more recently, there are a bunch of other ones.

[00:49:41] Talk a little bit about that.

[00:49:43] So it is interesting.

[00:49:45] You know, sometimes you get overwhelmed with too much information.

[00:49:47] But you have RealClearPolitics.

[00:49:49] What I like about them is they do their averages, and then they'll list the polls out, which I grab those and, you know, do my little database analysis.

[00:49:56] But there's also 538.

[00:49:58] There's also, I think it's 270, 270 to win.

[00:50:02] And then you have all these other little, I guess, niche markets of people who they're constantly doing the type of stuff that perhaps I might do, which is like decision desk, DDHQ, decision desk headquarters.

[00:50:15] They're split ticket.

[00:50:16] There's all those kinds of kind of political wonky kind of sites, which are also worth a read.

[00:50:22] Yeah, it is.

[00:50:23] So last question for you.

[00:50:27] When will we know who the president is?

[00:50:30] I think midnight.

[00:50:31] You think that night?

[00:50:32] Yeah.

[00:50:33] Because, I mean, the thing that's a lot different, and look, it's easy to, you know, seem cool by not making any hard predictions and just going with the crowd and say, oh, yeah, yeah, it'll take a week or two.

[00:50:42] And then we'll have our president, you know, we'll know the president with our Thanksgiving turkey.

[00:50:45] But there's a couple of things that are a lot different from 2020.

[00:50:48] Number one, several states, Georgia immediately comes to mind, tightened up the rules about mail-in voting.

[00:50:54] Mail-in voting takes a lot more work to process, particularly if the election clerks are not allowed to touch it and start verifying eligibility until election day.

[00:51:03] So here they are trying to run an election, and meanwhile, they're opening up all these envelopes, checking to see if they're registered voters.

[00:51:09] So that's being scaled back.

[00:51:12] And the other thing, too, is I'm of the opinion that when you have an election debacle that the various elections professionals do try to do things to make things better the next time.

[00:51:22] And so between law changes and lessons learned and things like that, I think that you're going to have a more rapid and competent count.

[00:51:33] And then there's some states, by the way, like Florida and North Carolina, they have a culture of the vast majority of the vote is cast early, and they allow this preprocessing of mail.

[00:51:43] Well, typically, like within 15 minutes after the polls close, if you've ever seen Florida, you'll notice like several million votes immediately drop.

[00:51:50] That's because they have that voting data ready to go.

[00:51:53] Right.

[00:51:54] So I don't think it'll be a particularly long evening.

[00:51:57] I mean, the big question is going to be the blue wall states.

[00:52:00] Yeah.

[00:52:00] Yeah.

[00:52:00] I hope it happens quickly because the longer it takes, the more unstable it seems.

[00:52:07] And for our nation and for our republic, I think it's really important to get that data in quickly and then to continue to work to try to find ways to get that data in quickly.

[00:52:18] Yes.

[00:52:18] Exactly so.

[00:52:19] And I mean, I'm of the opinion, too, you know, brief plug for our Secretary of State.

[00:52:22] We have a very, very good way that we do ours because, number one, I think probably about 45 to 47 percent of the vote will be cast early.

[00:52:31] So that takes half the volume off the polling places Tuesday.

[00:52:35] Right.

[00:52:35] Number two, we have strict rules about the mail and ballots have to be in by day before unless, of course, you know, it's overseas, military or whatnot.

[00:52:44] So point being is a lot of the prep work is already done by the time we get to Election Day, and we do a pretty good job.

[00:52:50] All of our stuff is typically almost all in by 10 o'clock.

[00:52:53] Well, yeah.

[00:52:53] And look, you know, Kyle did a great job with that.

[00:52:56] Look, Tom Shetler did a great job.

[00:52:57] Yes.

[00:52:57] It was a lot of good work.

[00:52:59] We had some really good Secretary of State.

[00:53:00] And, you know, I think the big move was when we sold all of our old election machines, you know, our voting machines to New Jersey.

[00:53:07] Oh, yeah.

[00:53:07] You know, because then we got the good machines in.

[00:53:09] And then when the next election happened in New Jersey, Edwin Edwards was elected governor.

[00:53:13] Exactly.

[00:53:13] So I'm sorry I had to put that little joke in.

[00:53:15] Well, look, I appreciate you being here.

[00:53:17] I know you're a busy man.

[00:53:19] This is going to be very valuable to our listeners because this will, you know, be relevant to the conversations.

[00:53:25] I'm sure people will be up watching it.

[00:53:26] I appreciate you and respect the work you do so much.

[00:53:29] Thank you for coming on the show.

[00:53:31] My pleasure.

[00:53:31] He is John Cuvion.

[00:53:32] I am David Tattman.

[00:53:33] And we are the Pelican Brief.

[00:53:37] Well, that was a great show with John.

[00:53:39] We'll see how his projections on the elections come out.

[00:53:44] We always love having John on the show.

[00:53:46] And we'll have him to come back as a follow-up after the election.

[00:53:49] So we want to thank you all for joining us.

[00:53:52] If you want to follow John, he is really big on Twitter.

[00:53:59] And so his handle at Twitter is at winwithjmc.

[00:54:05] He also has a website, winwithjmc.com.

[00:54:11] You can reach him also by emailing him, john at winwithjmc.com.

[00:54:16] That is our show for today as well.

[00:54:19] If you would like to stay up to date on what's going on, please like, subscribe, and share.

[00:54:24] All of our social media platforms are at pelicanbrief225.

[00:54:30] That's at pelicanbrief225.

[00:54:32] You can find us on YouTube if you'd prefer to watch the show.

[00:54:36] And on YouTube, the handle is at thepelicanbrief225.

[00:54:40] We also have a website, pelicanbriefpodcast.

[00:54:43] You can reach me directly by email, david at pelicanbriefpodcast.com.

[00:54:49] And until the next time we're together, thank you so much for joining us.

[00:54:52] And we look forward to seeing you next time on The Pelican Brief.

[00:55:04] The Pelican Brief is an Offscript production.