WTH is going on in the 2020 polls? Election predictions with RealClearPolitics’ Tom Bevan

Episode #75 | October 19, 2020 | Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and Tom Bevan

Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka.

Marc Thiessen: I'm Marc Thiessen.

Danielle Pletka: Welcome to our podcast, all the more apt for 2020, “What the Hell Is Going On?” Marc, what the hell is going on now?

Marc Thiessen: We are weeks away from the most important election in American history and none of us know what the hell is going to happen. That's what's going on, Dany.

Danielle Pletka: Really, it's true. I mean even with all of my Democratic friends who feel really solid and my Republican friends who are biting their nails, I’ve got to say nobody feels like this is going to be an election that reflects well on our country.

Marc Thiessen: Well, that's an understatement. No doubt. I mean look, you would think that as we got closer to the election, that things would get less weird and less bizarre, and more normal, and it hasn't. I mean on the Trump side, we had that debate performance a few weeks ago. That was just … If you were a swing voter, one of these 20% of Trump's 2016 voters who said, “I voted for him, but I don't like him,” you basically just looked at that and said, “I'm done.” No effort at all to win over these persuadable or marginal voters at all.

Marc Thiessen: In fact, pushing them away. But then you've got, on the other hand, . We've had a long episode on this topic. Court-packing is on the ballot right now and Joe Biden basically refuses to tell the American people what he's going to do.

Danielle Pletka: I think that's right. Look, I have been actually surprised and gratified because this is one of the things to me that is most important about what's on the ballot this year, and that is our institutions. I feel like our institutions are what helped us survive the Trump years. For me, the notion that our institutions would be upended is what is frightening about a Democratic across-the-board victory here. Notwithstanding the fact that Trump has challenged our institutions, I think they've actually remained quite resilient. But it is really interesting to see that this court-packing issue is something that has hit a nerve for the Dems.

Danielle Pletka: What we've seen is that … I saw Chris Coons, he is a senator from Delaware, he's

2 a man whose intellect I have no doubt. A smart guy, a thoughtful guy. He's a very big partisan, but he's got some intellectual integrity, I thought. He said, “The real court-packing is the nomination and soon to be confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.” I was just like, “Dude, what? That's how worried you are? You're willing to use that pretzel logic?” That's incredible.

Marc Thiessen: The reality is, look, filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court is not court-packing. Court-packing has a very clear definition that originated with FDR in the 1930s, which is adding seats to the Supreme Court. They may not like the way the Republicans handled the vacancies of Scalia's seat and now Ginsburg's seat. They may not have thought it was fair that Republicans didn't give Merrick Garland an up or down vote. They may think it's unfair that they're now giving Amy Coney Barrett the vote that they didn't give Merrick Garland. All of that is legitimate, but it ain’t court-packing. It's using the powers that you have been given by the voters in a constitutional way to fulfill your constitutional duties.

Marc Thiessen: It's unfortunate for Democrats that Justice Ginsburg passed away when she did. Anthony Kennedy was 81 when he retired and he decided that he was going to retire when there was a Republican president who was going to pick somebody who he approved of for his seat. Well, in 2009, Ginsburg got her cancer diagnosis at the start of the Obama presidency, and she could have retired during Obama's presidency and be replaced by somebody she approved of. But she decided to continue serving until she was 87, and roll the dice that she would outlive , and it didn't work out.

Marc Thiessen: She could have had a say in her successor. The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves. The left has no one to blame but themselves for this situation. The idea that you would then turn around in a huff and do something that has not been done in 150 years and literally politicize the institution of the Supreme Court, and not even be honest with the voters about the fact that you're doing it, that you're planning to do it, everybody knows they're planning to do it. It’s just bizarre to me.

Danielle Pletka: Well, it's not really bizarre. It's just politics, and the state that politics have come to, but coming back to the election. I mean just watching this ... we keep talking about the headlines we saw. And, of course, there's almost nothing happening in the world that isn't dominated by the election. But I saw this headline that said, “If Donald Trump wanted to lose the election, would he be doing anything differently?” I thought that really encapsulated 2020 for me because he has literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at every turn, whether it was with his COVID diagnosis and leaping out and saying, “I'm cured” like some sort of third world freaking dictator, or his behavior at that first debate, or his decision to punt on the second debate. I mean we could take the rest of the podcast and just talk about Donald Trump's missed opportunities.

Marc Thiessen: Oh, no doubt. He's either a madman or a genius. We're going to find out on Election Day.

Danielle Pletka: I don't doubt that. I've got a bet, if anyone wants to reach out to us, on whether he is a madman or a genius.

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3 Marc Thiessen: Or maybe both. He could turn out to be both. But I mean if he wins the election, he's a genius because what it means is that he knew that this was going to be a base election and that his entire campaign was built on turning out his base, energizing his base. Those people are going to walk over broken glass to vote for him, come hell or high water. If he wins, we were all wrong in terms of the advice we were giving him about, “Moderate your tone,” and “Be more presidential.” Those things have just exhausted a lot of voters. Those are votes he could have won. Those are votes for the taking that he drove away. Maybe he'll win anyway, but I think that that was just a big mistake.

Danielle Pletka: Listen, you and I agree wholeheartedly about this. The other thing that Donald Trump has done … I mean look who we're talking about. We're only talking about Donald Trump. The fact of the matter is that Joe Biden is, I think questionably competent. A lot of my Democratic friends have gotten very angry with me for saying so, but I've seen it. I've watched it. And because I've known the man for as long as I've known the man, I see it all the more. I know people don't want to believe it, but let me tell you, folks. When people say to me, people who I like, I respect, and I trust, say to me, “I'd rather vote for senile Joe Biden, and wasn't Ronald Reagan senile too?” That's when I know people know that man is no longer all there, and yet Donald Trump has managed to make even that a non-factor-

Marc Thiessen: Yes.

Danielle Pletka: In his absolute circus. Because it's true, Trump has all of the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, that you just said now. But the reality is he is not running against a mainstream Democrat, Joe Biden, 1995. He is running against the Joe Biden who is hanging there as the facade for AOC, , Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Party. Donald Trump has managed to drown that out.

Marc Thiessen: It's fascinating. If you look at what's happened in 2020, and every week you think nothing more can happen and it happens.

Marc Thiessen: It's true. We've had the worst pandemic since 1918, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst racial unrest since the 1960s. Donald Trump shouldn't even be in range, a normal president wouldn't even be in range of winning an election with all that happening on his watch. Then you find, the Gallup Poll comes out, and despite the worst pandemic since 1918, despite the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, despite the worst racial unrest since the 1960s, 56% of Americans say, “Yes. I'm better off now than I was four years ago.” Fifty-six percent of Americans. With that number, I don't know that there's ever been an election where a majority of Americans say they're better off than they were four years ago and yet the incumbent will lose. He should be running the election.

Danielle Pletka: Only this guy could lose in that circumstance.

Marc Thiessen: He's only got 41.7% of the vote in the RealClearPolitics, so 56% of Americans say they're better off under Donald Trump, but only 41.7 are going to vote for him. That is a gap of voters that is inexcusable.

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4 Danielle Pletka: Among the questions that really are on people's minds are, are the polls wrong? Is everybody going to turn out? Is Donald Trump the winner he thinks he is, that Ivanka knows he is? Or is he in fact going to go down to ignominious defeat? We have the perfect person on with us today to talk about the polls and what's likely to happen. We really hope he brought his crystal ball. Tom Bevan is the co- founder and the president of RealClearPolitics. That's the site that everybody looks at for every single poll. In addition to overseeing the editorial staff, he also writes for RCP and for a number of other publications. You see him on TV all the time. He hosts a weekly radio show in Chicago. He is a huge resource and is with us today.

Marc Thiessen: Well, Tom, welcome to the podcast.

Tom Bevan: Great to be with you.

Marc Thiessen: You had an interesting point that you made on Twitter and on Bret Baier’s podcast. You said that it's interesting that Biden has widened his lead nationally over Trump. How's he doing in the battleground states? What do you think that means for Election Day?

Tom Bevan: This is shaping up to be a really weird election. That's one of the reasons. There are a couple of others, and we can talk about those in more detail, but I mean he's right where he was before. In fact, Trump is about a half a percentage point better on average in these battleground states than he was four years ago. Biden has seen his leads go up in some of these battleground states.

Tom Bevan: Now there are a lot of similarities to 2016, but there are a lot of differences. The race in 2016 bounced back and forth between seven or eight points nationally and then closed down to two or three. We haven't seen that. It's been a much more stable race this time around, particularly at the national level. So, it's interesting to see how this race is shaping up, but definitely, I think Trump is still competitive in those battleground states.

Danielle Pletka: I have a question I want to ask you about something you tweeted about a few weeks ago, but first, let me follow up on Marc's questions. I mean, isn't the mitigating circumstance now that the polls were so badly sampled during the Clinton versus Trump election and that now the argument, at least that pollsters are making to us, is that they have a much better grip on the population than they did then?

Tom Bevan: I mean yes and no. I'm not so sure. I mean, first of all, the national polls weren't bad at all in 2016 and even some of the state numbers weren't … I've talked about this repeatedly over time. I mean, my contention is the polls in 2016 weren't nearly as bad as the pundits. You had a situation where we had Trump winning Florida. We had Trump winning North Carolina in our final RealClearPolitics Electoral Map, which is based on our averages. The last poll we put in Pennsylvania had Trump leading. The average there was under 2%. The last poll we put in Michigan had Trump leading by one point. Obviously, Wisconsin is the one everybody talks about. That was a situation where I think, the Marquette University Law School poll, which is the “gold standard,” they wrapped up that poll, I think almost a week before the election took place, but it

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5 was really the pundits in 2016.

Tom Bevan: You literally couldn't turn on your TV or your computer or your radio without hearing someone say with this faux statistical certainty, “It's a 92.46% chance that has this race in the bag.” I mean these were not just cranks on the internet. This was David Plouffe who was on ABC News in September, saying, “There's 100% chance that she's going to win this election.” This is Sam Wang of Princeton University, et cetera, et cetera. I think the problem in 2016 … There's definitely data to suggest that Hillary Clinton did have that race well in hand, but I think if that was your preconceived narrative, you filtered that data through, but the reality is that there were other data points that suggested that that race was very competitive. Very competitive. That's why I think a lot of the pundits missed that.

Tom Bevan: Now, to your point, Danielle, yes, there was … I think one of the big misses that pollsters did not account for education. They did not account for the rural swing in some of those upper Midwestern states and that's why Trump over performed particularly in a place like Wisconsin. Do they have it in hand this time? Some are waiting by education. Some are not. There's still some indication that there might be some shy Trump votes out there. We'll have to see, but the problem for Donald Trump is right now, it would have to be a very significant amount

Marc Thiessen: There was a Gallup Poll that came out, that said, “56% of Americans say they're better off now than they were four years ago. 49% say they agree with Trump on the issues, as compared to 46% for Biden” yet in your RCP average, he's basically only getting 42% of the vote. That means there is a significant number of people and Americans who agree with Donald Trump, like his stewardship of the economy, think he's done a good job on policy, but just don't like him and don't plan to vote for him again. I mean is the problem his personality? I get the sense that that debate could have been the end for him in the sense that a lot of people just looked at his performance, all the interrupting, and just said, “I can't take four more years of this.” Is that possible?

Tom Bevan: Sure. Absolutely. I think that's why Trump missed an opportunity, even in a virtual setting, to get back on the debate stage with Joe Biden. We've seen presidents have bad debates initially. Obama had one in 2012. Ronald Reagan had one. They bounced back in the next debate and so over the course of the three debates, there wasn't a whole lot of change overall. I think that was an opportunity for Trump to show back up and be a different Trump, perhaps a better Trump, talking to voters instead of talking directly to Joe Biden, but he's going to have to wait. Assuming that third debate even happens now, which I think it's maybe a 50/50 proposition that even happens, he's going to have to wait until the very end to get that chance. It's quite possible, I mean, but that's another interesting thing.

Tom Bevan: Sean Trende was just talking about this the other day on our podcast. His job approval rating is back up to 44.7%, but he's at 42%. So, who are these voters who approve of Donald Trump, approve of the job he's doing, but are not going to vote for him? Are they just lying? Are they saying they're undecided, when in fact maybe they already have decided that they're going to vote for him? Or is it a situation where, like you said, Marc, they like his policies and they like the job he

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6 does on those policies, but they just don't like his style and the way he does it, and they're so turned off by it and exhausted by it after four years, they're willing to change horses? We're not going to know the answer to that question until November 4th, or maybe longer, actually, but it is one of those interesting things.

Tom Bevan: The other thing that Trump has in his favor clearly is that the economy is still the number one issue in most polls, in the minds of voters. In the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, a couple of weeks ago, it was far and away the number one issue. In some of the polls, it's closer to coronavirus and healthcare and on that issue, Trump has a still fairly sizable advantage. In that Wall Street Journal poll, I think it was 12 or 14 points. But the problem is on everything else, he's losing by 20 or 25 points on the issue of his handling of coronavirus or his stance on healthcare. So, there's a lot of different things that are cut in different ways in this election. I think we have to be careful to suggest … I keep reading these stories like, “It's over. It's done.” I don't think it's done just yet.

Marc Thiessen: You point out that he still has a lead on the economy, but it's shrunk a lot over the past year. I mean he had a plus 16 net rating on the economy in March before COVID fully hit. Now it's almost within the margin of error. How has Biden closed the gap on the economy, which is the key issue in this election?

Tom Bevan: I think what Biden has done very shrewdly is basically plagiarized Trump. He's in Ohio. He's in Pennsylvania. He's in Michigan. He's talking about building American, buying American, incentivizing companies. I mean it's very much … In fact, the speeches he's giving could be Trump's speeches and he's really muddied the waters, I think on that issue to a point where, despite his long history in Washington and his tenure as vice president, I think voters find him credible when he talks like that.

Tom Bevan: But going back to Trump, in our RealClearPolitics average, we track his job approval. His job approval on the economy is still over 50. Then his job approval on coronavirus, which is the other main issue in this election, is at 42. He's underwater by about 14 points on that. Again, you've got a lot of different cross- currents of what voters think are important in the election and who they think would do a better job of handling it.

Danielle Pletka: Tom, there are these ineffable things that we've been talking about, these unknowables. People like to talk about shy Trump voters, people who are embarrassed to admit that they're supporting Donald Trump. Believe me, I know plenty of them. You and I talked a little bit briefly about this piece that I wrote, where I said that I hadn't voted for Trump last time and was actually considering this time because I think the Democrats have been radicalized. There are really people on both sides of that camp. My brother-in-law voted for Trump last time and thinks he's too unpresidential and isn't going to vote for him again. How do we begin to get a grip on these kinds of things? Or is this just a wait-and-see challenge?

Tom Bevan: I think it is in some sense wait and see. I mean that's one of the perhaps underrated pieces of the 2016 election and maybe one of the biggest differences between 2016 and 2020, is that Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. I mean she was really, really unlikeable and there were just a whole host of voters,

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7 particularly in those upper Midwest states that ... Trump's favorability ratings were in the toilet as well, but they just could not pull the lever for her. They could not stomach it. Joe Biden has a much longer history.

Tom Bevan: He's much more of a known quantity. He's not … I think the Trump campaign's efforts to paint him as this puppet of the radical left have been largely unsuccessful. I think they may have made a little bit of headway in that regard. I think Biden, quite frankly, has probably helped them along the way, just in the past week, with his refusal to answer the court-packing question, but voters know Joe Biden and they just don't have the same reaction to him that they had to Hillary Clinton.

Marc Thiessen: How does the Supreme Court affect the election? Because in 2016, Trump won voters for whom the Supreme Court was the top issue by 15 points. And a quarter of his voters said that was the most important issue. It was shaping up to be less important, partly because of his success because he had put two Supreme Court justices on, he had filled the federal courts. People thought mission accomplished. Now all of a sudden, you've got this big Supreme Court fight right on the eve of the election. How do you see that playing in the final vote?

Tom Bevan: I mean you can argue this round or square. I mean there was an interesting piece in The Week saying basically, “Amy Coney Barrett is going to get confirmed and the transaction with Trump is done and now voters are free to vote with their conscience because he's already fulfilled his promises.” I don't know if I buy that argument.

Tom Bevan: Again, I'll go back to the Supreme Court, stacking of the court question that a lot of these folks are now facing. Steve Bullock basically said he was open to that, having that discussion. That could be a potential boost in a close race out in Montana. All of these, I think it's a real factor, perhaps more of a factor in the Senate races than in the presidential race. But look, to your point, Marc, a lot of people held their nose and voted for Trump for this specific reason and he's delivered on it twice. It'll be three times by the time Election Day rolls around, most likely. I mean it's got to be a positive for him. I don't know how to see it really any other way. How much of the positive? It's really hard to say.

Danielle Pletka: Let's talk about the Senate. The presidential election is like the monster that swallowed everything, and the reality is that it's an interesting conversation to have. When you talk to a lot of people, very few people are hyper-enthused about Biden. They're just hyper-enthused about defeating Trump. Similarly, very few people, well, very few people we know are hyper-enthused about voting for Trump. They're more enthused about defeating what they think of as the radical left, but a lot of people feel really comfortable with the idea that if Biden became president, as long as the Senate was still in Republican hands, everything could be okay in the republic. Is the Senate going to be in Republican hands?

Tom Bevan: I don't know. It's really, really close.

Danielle Pletka: Damn it, Tom.

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8 Tom Bevan: I know. Sorry. The crystal ball says, “Cloudy.”

Marc Thiessen: Can she avoided voting for Trump?

Tom Bevan: Look, we have a feature on RealClearPolitics called the “No Toss Up Map.” We have that for the Electoral College and we have it for the Senate map. It allocates these states based on where our averages are right now. If you look at that as of today, and it's been this way for some time, Democrats would pick up four seats, a net gain of four seats, which is what they would need to take control of the Senate. They'd win Arizona. They'd win Colorado. They would win Iowa. They would win Maine and they would win North Carolina. I'll say a couple of things. Number one, North Carolina … I mean we're waiting to see more data on that. I tweeted earlier, I said, “I did not have COVID versus adultery on my bingo card there.”

Tom Bevan: That is looking like a situation where we'll have to see, it's going to test the proposition of whether voters, in the era of Donald Trump, whether voters care about that sort of thing. I tend to think in North Carolina, they do, especially in a state that's got a decent veteran population, and this guy cheated on his wife with a mistress who was married to a veteran.

Marc Thiessen: And an officer cheating with the wife of an enlisted officer, which doesn't play well with the military.

Tom Bevan: Which sparked a probe, if I'm correct. The Army Reserve is now looking into that, so not a good situation for Cal Cunningham or the Democrats. However, there's some polls showing the race is pretty close in Georgia. There's some polls showing 's race and $57 million that Jamie Harrison's raised.

Tom Bevan: It's just a jaw-dropping number. Joni Ernst is in a close tight race in Iowa, as I mentioned, in Montana. I think somebody is going to have a good night, one party or the other, right? If Democrats turn out and Joe Biden wins the presidency, he's going to win probably Arizona. He's going to win Colorado. He's going to win Maine and Iowa. He's going to bring a lot of these Senate candidates along with him, and if he does win the presidency, they only need three seats. I think it's very likely if Joe Biden wins the election, Democrats are going to take the Senate. And vice versa, that if Donald Trump wins, there's a good chance that a lot of these Republicans, he'll pull them along. A lot of these Republicans are actually running worse than Trump in these states, which again is a head-scratcher.

Tom Bevan: We're trying to figure out, what might be in play there. I mean the only scenario really that seems super, super unlikely is that Trump wins the election and Democrats gain four Senate seats because if Trump's going to win the election, he's going to have to win Iowa and North Carolina, and a bunch of these states. For Democrats to oust incumbents in those states, in that environment, it would seem to be the least likely outcome possible. But there is a chance, Danielle, to your question, which is could Biden win the presidency and Republicans hold onto the Senate? Sure. That's a possibility.

Danielle Pletka: What about the House? While we're talking about lost causes, it looks Kevin

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9 McCarthy is going to be presiding over an even the slimmer minority in the court of Queen Nancy.

Tom Bevan: I think the Cook Political Report, they changed their projections, Democrats now pick up anywhere from five to 15, I think is what they're saying. It's going to be … A few months ago, there was the idea that Republicans would gain a few seats, but not get what they needed to win back the majority. They'd fall a little bit short of where they needed to be, which I think is about 20 seats, but now, it's looking like, it might go in the other direction. That could lead to … Again, it's one of the things in 2018 that was sort of weird. We had the blue wave in the House and that mini red wave in the Senate where Republicans picked up two seats in the Senate. It's not looking good for Republicans in terms of winning back the House.

Marc Thiessen: Let's talk a little bit about another role reversal that's happening in this election, which is that in 2016, Trump won seniors pretty overwhelmingly and now he's trailing with seniors. Whereas he didn't do so well with Hispanics, but now in Florida, he's got 50% of the Hispanic vote. It's a huge increase from last time around. The Democrats spent four years, five years saying, “Trump is an anti- Hispanic bigot who wants to lock people up and deport them” and Hispanic support has increased. Then the seniors … I don't know. Is it because he's making fun of Joe Biden's cognitive decline and people get offended by that? Is it because they're worried about COVID? How are these reversals taking place?

Tom Bevan: That's a good question. Look, I think Trump's going to win more of the African- American vote. He won, I think 8% in 2016. It was more than . I think he's going to win more than that this time around and I think he's going to win more Hispanic support. We're seeing that shown up, as you mentioned, particularly in Florida, among the Cuban-American vote in Miami-Dade County. I think a lot of that has to do with the whole issue of socialism that this campaign was framed around for a long period of time. But you're right. I mean seniors, that's a group that Trump won by, I think seven points. Now he's trailing anywhere from 10 to 15 to 20 points, depending on the polls.

Tom Bevan: Again, it absolutely has something to do with their view of how he's handled the COVID crisis, which has disproportionately impacted that group in a negative way. I'm not sure they feel like Trump has done a good job of handling it. It's been a very interesting shift. Now, can he win some of those voters back because they, again, were inclined to vote for him in 2016? We'll have to see. I mean a lot of people are … We're keeping a close eye on that number because if he doesn't, it's going to be really hard for him, I think, to win in a lot of these states because those are the voters that turn out. At least they typically do, although it's a different environment this time around.

Danielle Pletka: One of the things that you're talking about and that we shall see, is especially interesting in this COVID year because, of course, a lot of people have already decided, I mean tell us your take on this, early voting, the mail-in voting, voting by carrier pigeon, voting by semaphore. I'm just channeling Monty Python here, but what do you think of the whole controversy?

Tom Bevan: I still think we're going to see record turnout this year. I just think people are

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10 going to find their way to the polls, one way or the other. Setting aside the issue of fraud and abuse with the Trump campaign ... I mean, I think both sides have been actively, actively undermining the process, the legitimacy of the process. Trump does it often, but Democrats … I mean Joe Biden just said, “The only way I can lose is through chicanery at the polls.” He said that the other day. A couple of weeks ago, they were talking about Republicans taking post office boxes off the streets, I mean this crazy conspiracy theory. Both sides are doing it, but even setting aside whether you believe that or don't believe it, just the idea that a lot of these states and these poor county clerks are going to be dealing with five, ten, fifteen times the number of absentee and mail-in ballots we've ever handled before.

Tom Bevan: We've seen the naked ballot controversy in Pennsylvania. I mean it is going to be … A train wreck is too kind of a description. I think this is going to be awful. I think we're going to see a rejection rate on these ballots. It's going to be astronomical. I think we're going to see a close election, which means there'll be legal challenges. I mean, I think it's going to be … I hate to sound dark and pessimistic about it, but and especially in this heightened environment, we're going to have stories zipping around the Internet about ballots found in closets, in rivers. We're already seeing that, right? In a post-election environment where a lot of these states, they can't even start opening the ballots until Election Day or even when the polls close on Election night, so we're going to be counting for days and days.

Tom Bevan: It just strikes me as almost an unavoidable fact that it's going to be just hellish. The only way that it's not is if it is a blowout. If Donald Trump loses Texas or Georgia and some of these other states so 10,000 votes in Wisconsin don't matter, then fine. That would be a situation where … but I don't think it's going to be like that. I think we're down to the same states. It's going to be close, close enough where some of this stuff is going to matter, but we'll see. I mean if the election were held today, the polls suggest it wouldn't be that close in some of those states. Again, even if Donald Trump over performed, he'd probably lose by enough in some of these states where it wouldn't trigger recounts and things of that nature, but if it does tighten, we could be in for a really rough ride.

Marc Thiessen: Just putting aside, as you said, chicanery and fraud, which I think for both candidates, that's not the main issue, I mean just absentee ballots generally have a very high failure rate, just for non-nefarious reasons.

Tom Bevan: Correct.

Marc Thiessen: People fill them up incorrectly. There's no election poll worker there to explain to them how to fill out the ballot properly. They don't get the signature right. I think there was an MIT study that in the 2008 election that absentee ballots had a failure rate of up to 21%. Democrats are using them a lot, a higher rate than Republicans, so I would think that that might've been a really bad bet on their part. It could be very well that Trump could win on election night and then they could be making a surge in the absentee ballots, but then a lot of their ballots start getting discounted and all of a sudden, they're the ones who are not supporting a peaceful transition of power. Do you see that as a problem?

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11 Tom Bevan: Totally. I think that's exactly right. We've seen the stories about, the Biden team has lawyered up. They are lawyered up. They're going to go in there. Hillary advised him to not concede under any circumstances. Obviously, Trump's urging his supporters to go in and be poll watchers. I think it's going to be bad. I really do because, you're right, I mean in addition to the absentee ballots, the rejection rate … I mean we saw in 2000, democracy is not pretty when we get up close and look at hanging chads and stuff like that. We could potentially be doing that in multiple states and arguing over things like, as you mentioned, you didn't get a witness. You didn't sign it correctly. You filled this out wrong. You didn't put it in the right envelope. I mean there are hundreds of ways that these ballots could go wrong and be rejected. You can bet that neither side is going to want to give an inch on this stuff. Like I said, I don't know where it goes from there. I mean hopefully, the institutions, and the leadership, and the parties are able to withstand whatever is coming our way because I think both sides … Half the country, basically, is going to feel like the election was stolen from them, regardless of who wins, so I think it's not going to be good.

Danielle Pletka: Well, that was depressing.

Tom Bevan: Sorry.

Danielle Pletka: No kidding. Well, I think what we need to do is we need to have you on after the election for a post-mortem, about where we went wrong this time.

Tom Bevan: Well, hopefully, it'll be about how wrong I was about the aftermath and how peaceful and loving the transition was. We're living in a kumbaya world on November 10th.

Danielle Pletka: Yes, indeed. That's certainly what it's going to be like. Listen, Tom, first of all, we didn't say this and I'll say it in the introduction when we introduce you, but your site is so indispensable to all of us. I know very few people who don't start their morning looking on RealClearPolitics and hitting refresh throughout the day. Thank you for that and for this intensely depressing and dispiriting conversation about our presidential election.

Tom Bevan: Well, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to join you. Thanks for the kind words about RCP. Click early and click often.

Danielle Pletka: We will.

Marc Thiessen: We do every day.

Tom Bevan: Great.

Danielle Pletka: Take care. Talk to you soon.

Tom Bevan: Thanks.

Danielle Pletka: Bye.

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12 Tom Bevan: Bye-Bye.

Marc Thiessen: All right, let's talk a little bit about these polls in closing, Dany. You and I both worked for Jesse Helms for many years. Helms always used to have a saying, he said, “I've never won a poll or lost an election.” There were a lot of people in North Carolina who would not say to a pollster, “I'm voting for Jesse Helms,” but they did. He won by increasing margins every single time. There's this phrase that has come out now, “the shy Trump voter.” Maybe the polls are wrong this time because a lot of people aren't saying … I don't think Trump voters are shy, I think it's more of the middle finger Trump voter that's like, “Yeah, I'm voting for him and I'm not telling you. By the way, I'm not even answering my phone when the pollster calls right now.” The question is, I mean the polls were obviously very off in 2016, how off are they now? Is that shy Trump effect, that middle finger Trump effect, whatever you want to call it, big enough to make up for the gaps in the polling that we're seeing right now?

Danielle Pletka: Just based on the conversation we just had with Tom, I've got to say there's got to be some facts that change because there aren't enough shy voters to overcome his deficit at this point, in my humble opinion. He's got to make some smarter decisions. I don't know if the man has it in him because every time I think he can listen to the wise suggestions of Marc Thiessen, he comes out and listens to the unwise suggestions of, I have no idea, that little devil on his left shoulder. I find it very hard to believe that if he continues on the course he has been on over the last weeks, that he will be able to surprise us as indeed ... I heard someone … I think I quoted this already on the podcast, but it was so perfect, I'm going to quote it again. Chuck Todd said it to me, he loved it so much. He said, “Even Jesus only walked on water once.”

Marc Thiessen: Well, I'll tell you, it's just so many lost opportunities in the last few weeks. He obviously recognized at some point late in the process, with COVID, that his briefings were hurting and so he went out and started giving these briefings that were very factual, very restrained. Wasn't getting into fights with reporters and all the rest of it, and so you thought he's getting it. He realizes he's got to win over these reluctant Trump voters, this 20% of voters who voted for him, that said they didn't like him, these voters who now say they approve of his policies, but they don't approve of him and they're not voting for him.

Marc Thiessen: Those are gettable votes. I think I started getting hope that he realized that he was going to win those people over and then the debate happened. I mean somebody had given him the idea, or maybe he did it himself, that the key to winning the debate was to get Joe Biden to stumble, so you just keep attacking him and attacking him and throwing him off his game, and he'll eventually say something. It was just a terrible mistake, a strategic mistake.

Danielle Pletka: He didn't have a chance to get a word in. Where the hell was Joe Biden going to stumble?

Marc Thiessen: You got to let him talk to stumble, right?

Danielle Pletka: Exactly.

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13 Marc Thiessen: You see the polls show that. I can't remember whether it was , but there was a poll of Florida and Pennsylvania voters. Even a third of Trump supporters didn't like his behavior in the debate. Eleven percent strongly disapproved of it, so that was a huge lost opportunity. Then he gets COVID, a moment of sympathy, a moment where the whole country was rallying around him. People who didn't even want to vote for him, normal Americans, not the ones in Washington who are just Trump derangement, but the normal Americans who are not Trump supporters were praying for him and wanting him to come through. An opportunity to come out and be a uniting figure, and use his diagnosis as a chance to turn the COVID issue around, and didn't seize it.

Marc Thiessen: Then he has another chance to redo the debate and just walks away from it. I don't see him making the course corrections that he needs to. And Donald Trump is going to be Donald Trump. This is how it is. He's not going to change. As I said, on Election Day, he may win this election and we may look at it and say, “You know what? He knew what he was doing.” I mean none of us thought he was going to win in 2016 and had lots of advice for him. He didn't take it and he won. If he wins, he's a genius. If he loses, he is responsible for literally handing the republic over to its destroyers. It's so high stakes it's just terrifying.

Danielle Pletka: On that cheery, uplifting note, everyone, remember you have just about three weeks in which to cast your ballots, make your decision, and respect the rights that have been granted to you as a citizen of the United States. Not everybody in the world gets to vote. Get out there and do it.

Marc Thiessen: Amen.

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org