 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. My name is Caroline Savage. I'm the director of the Foreign Press Centers. And I am really thrilled to see such a great crowd here in person, and I know we have really fantastic virtual audiences assembled as well for today's briefing, the State of Play for the 2020 U.S. elections, with our distinguished briefer, Mr. John Zogby. Thank you, Mr. Zogby, for coming back to the Foreign Press Centers to share your expertise and your perspective with members of the Foreign Press. I would like to remind everyone here and in our virtual audiences that those who are non-government guests and experts who address the Foreign Press Centers offer their views in a personal capacity and don't represent the official policy views of the U.S. government. This briefing, though, is on the record and is being livestreamed through our website, which is fpc.state.gov. And once the briefing is complete, we'll upload the video and the transcript to our website as well. I should mention this briefing is part of the multi-part series we kicked off last week. You can see one of our briefers from last week. We call the Elections 101 Briefing Series. It's part of really the Foreign Press Center's effort to ensure that international media have the broadest possible access and exposure to the U.S. presidential election process. And you, foreign journalists, in turn, play a really important role in accurately informing global audiences about the institutions and processes that are a core element of U.S. history and identity. In addition, I wanted to mention that we'll, as the FPC, we'll be supporting your efforts in getting your credentials and attending the major party conventions this summer, the Democratic National Convention in July in my hometown of Milwaukee, and also the Republican National Convention in August in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the conventions, we plan to facilitate interviews for foreign journalists with top political spokespeople, organize press filing and briefing centers, as well as other support. So please stay tuned for all of that, and I hope you've all registered for your credentials. I think the deadline is the 7th of February, coming right up. We also plan to offer our members and journalists from overseas as well the chance to participate in reporting tours that will be offered both to active FPC members in the U.S. as well as for journalists traveling from overseas. We plan to take tours both to the New Hampshire primaries coming up. I hope some of you have registered for that. But also to Virginia, to Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, as well as Election Day voting and campaign events in and around Washington, D.C., and New York. From overseas, if you're thinking of coming and interested in coming to the U.S. to cover the elections, please do see your public affairs colleagues to request to be nominated for a media co-op or an international reporting tour. I'd be happy to help facilitate. So without further ado, I'm sure he's well known already to many of you. Mr. John Zogby is a renowned pollster, author, trendspotter, and thought leader. He's spent the last four decades as one of the most accurate pollsters in the world conducting business in 80 countries and leading the way in finding meaning, story, direction, and usefulness of the data collected. Today we are honored to have him share his perspective on the upcoming presidential elections in the United States. With that and without further ado, Mr. Zogby. Thank you, Carol. So nice to be back here 22 years now. I've been briefing the Foreign Press Center and I must tell you elections are fun. At least they used to be, and this is an interesting one already. I'd like to do three things. First of all, I want to brief you on Iowa and give you an idea of how at least historically it works, how it's supposed to work, and what the polling is showing and very fluid situation. And also to underscore the fact that Iowa is in fact very important in this process. Secondly, I'm going to release a new poll that we have done in conjunction with Forbes and it's a series that we're launching actually today, this morning, about 18 to 29-year-olds. And where they stand, both in the Democratic primary caucus system nationwide, and where they stand as well against Donald Trump and their favorable ratings of all of the candidates to date. And then thirdly, I will just simply touch on it, but I know you will ask about impeachment. And I've been following the polls and doing a few myself on impeachment and so I'll be happy to talk about that. So let's start, first of all, with Iowa. And before I do that, hello, New York, and hello, U.S. spaces all over the world. I can't see you, but I know you're there. So Iowa, Iowa is a gatekeeper. It's a table setter. Only has been an extremely important part of the presidential process. Even though critics will suggest that Iowa as overwhelmingly white and rural is not representative of the nation as a whole, the fact is that it has carved out a position for itself. So much so that the voters in Iowa take this process seriously, and the candidates traditionally have taken the process very seriously. I have been to the Iowa caucuses a number of times, and the genius of the process I believe is that these candidates who seek the highest elected position in the United States are actually running for town council, are running for a local position. It is expected that they be present. It is expected that they go door to door. It's expected that they go to church basements where there are nine people. It's expected that they could be walking down one side of the street where there's no one, and across the street, and I mean this literally, there'll be five people and they will cross without any traffic light because there's five people. That's more than the number of people on their side of the street. And so it's a humbling experience for candidates. One could argue it's a humiliating experience for candidates. And it has also proven itself to be fairly unpredictable, certainly with a year to go or months to go in the process. What's important about it, it's a game of expectations. That's where we pollsters and the pundits enter into the picture. We are polling and what we'll do over the course of a year prior to the actual caucuses is get a measurement of where the candidates stand. Those are not, you know, a year in advance, six or three months in advance. Those are not predictive. Those are only a measurement at a moment in time. But what they help to do is define for us, is this a fluid situation? Who has a better chance than others? Who's doing well today? Who's not doing so well today? Who should be doing better? Who has momentum? Who is spiraling downward? Typically in the last few election cycles, over the course of a year before, we've seen the caucuses, we've seen leads change. Boy in 2012, on the Republican side, when it was Mitt Romney and actually a number of Republican candidates, every single other candidate took turns as the front runner in Iowa before the actual vote took place in January of that year. So what are we seeing this year? We've seen a bunching of the top four candidates. Vice President Biden, former Vice President Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Normally in fifth place, someone that I'm watching very closely as well, is Amy Klobuchar. Now, at this moment in time, the lead is changing place between Biden and Sanders. That in itself is interesting because they each represent two separate wings of the party. Sanders, the progressive wing, and Biden, the moderate establishment wing. And this is important because this split in the party has dominated Democratic party politics for 52 years, since 1968, when there was a challenge from the left to Lyndon Johnson. And it's continued pretty much every election cycle. So it's very significant that number one and number two, depending on which poll you're looking at, sometimes it's Sanders, sometimes it's Biden, that those two are at the top of the pack. In third and fourth place, taking turns, even at some points actually leading, Senator Warren from the progressive side, Mayor Buttigieg from the moderate side. And in fifth place, Amy Klobuchar. What do we see happening right now? Basically, we see that after the last, or should say the latest debate, one about 10 days ago, we've seen Sanders in the ascendancy. We've seen him actually picking up his numbers to the point where in a few polls he actually leads in Iowa. That is significant for a couple of reasons. He did extremely well in Iowa last time in 2016. It's significant because he has what we call in the business a very powerful ground game. He has a lot of offices, a lot of volunteers, a lot of supporters and contributors that they can reach electronically. And he is very high intensity. Bernie Sanders supporters love Bernie Sanders. It's significant if he is leading. It's enough to suggest that if he wins outright or wins becomes in the top two, Bernie Sanders actually has a chance to go all the way and win the nomination. What we see also, and I should point out, the little mix-up that he had with Senator Warren over whether or not he said he doesn't believe a woman can win, at least in so far as the polling numbers are concerned, suggests that Sanders was not hurt by that. He's gained a few points, whereas Warren appears to have been hurt by that as she has dropped a few points. Now, we are talking January 23rd, 2020. We'll see what happens. We've got a lot of time, believe it or not, the nine more days, ten more days before the caucuses, but that's where we seem to be at. Biden has been left for dead a number of times. There's all sorts of discussion about huge leads that he had a year ago and six months ago, and his leads have dissipated. But in the last month or so, we have seen a rebound by Biden. So a couple of Iowa polls have Biden actually in the lead by a couple of points or down in the second place by a couple of points. Whatever it is, Biden is still very much a player. What is it that voters credit for Biden? Number one is some nostalgia for the Obama years, when he was seen as a respected and loyal vice president. Two is that he's the moderate in the party. And Iowa Democrats split the way the rest of the Democratic Party splits between progressives and moderates. But there's a strong moderate tradition. And thirdly, Biden is given more credit than any other candidate for the potential to defeat Donald Trump. And that's what bolsters him. Now, there are some who will say about Biden. Yes, but he was polling in the high 30s and then down to the mid and low 30s, and now he's polling in the 20s. I would suggest the case that given the history of the Iowa caucuses, it's better for a candidate to meet expectations or exceed expectations than to come in below expectations. So in other words, Biden is probably better polling in the 20s that is achievable than if he were polling right now in the high 30s, which in a crowded field could be unachievable. Thirdly is Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren was the hottest candidate for months. In fact out, her debate performances had all been good and springboarded her into national lead as well as Iowa. Right now, she is in third place in Iowa. Polls are mixed. They have her in a solid third place, but the issue becomes whether she can hold on to that third place or regain what we call her C legs. And move back up to the position where she's in. She was in. Elizabeth Warren has a solid on the ground operation. She has slipped a little in her capacity to raise money, but she is still raising money. And even though she may have hurt herself a little bit in that debate, she's still very much a player. I'll say this about Senator Warren. She absolutely unequivocally has to win Iowa. A second or a third place showing may not be enough for her. And if she wins Iowa, she has to win New Hampshire shortly thereafter. And right now she's polling in fourth place in New Hampshire. And that's not a good position to be in. Mayor Pete is, has peaked. And perhaps has peaked a little too early. A good candidate, smart young man. But he's now polling in the low double digits in Iowa. And nationally, and his numbers have actually gone down dramatically into single digits. It's a campaign that I'm not going to say is spiraling out of control, but it seems to have lost its footing. Or the early charm offensive and the captivation of voters as the very bright young man and a very solid, moderate voice. That image seems to have dissipated a bit. So that means I'm watching the fifth place person, Amy Klobuchar. Right now, we have evidence of Amy Klobuchar polling in double digits in Iowa, which means an upward trend for her. We also see most recent polling in New Hampshire where she's polling 10 percent, which is also upward in terms of trajectory for her. What she has going for herself is the ultimate moderate, capacity to win elections in every election, capacity to win in districts that are traditionally Republican, as well as highly respected among Democrats and independents. And we also see in Amy Klobuchar someone who speaks Midwestern talk and Midwestern values in a very authentic way. She's also had a very good legislative record to run on. If for some reason Joe Biden seems to flag a little bit, the primary beneficiary of Biden falling apart would probably be Amy Klobuchar. So we're going to watch her. In her instance, if she gets in the top three, or if she's able to pull ahead of Elizabeth Warren and exceed far exceed expectations, she could have the capacity to go further in the process. Everybody asks us, so I might as well address it, even though he's not in Iowa. What about Mike Bloomberg? I polled for Mike Bloomberg back in the late 90s and early 2000 when he was thinking of running for mayor. And what I've discovered about him is that he will not take on a challenge unless he's absolutely convinced that he will win. So this isn't testing the waters or maybe I have a chance. This is Mike Bloomberg saying, I'm going to win this. It is a very unorthodox approach that he's taking. But after the complete lack of orthodoxy in 2016 where we used to say anything can happen, but now we say, well, anything did happen. Mike Bloomberg can go all the way. I don't think it's likely, but don't dismiss it. The perfect situation for him would be that there is no clarity after Iowa and New Hampshire and that Biden support is dissipating, questions being raised about whether he can win. Sander is doing extremely well, which is enough to get the establishment of the Democratic National Committee apoplectic and somebody's got to come in. And that's what Bloomberg is counting on. He's also a testimonial to the fact that if you have a dream and about $250 million over your own money to spend in two weeks, you can achieve great things. But let me just end. The State Department is looking at me. I'm sorry. These are my views. Don't count Mike Bloomberg out under any circumstances. So that's Iowa. And I'll be happy to answer questions when I'm done. Here's a new poll. This is a poll, it is a Forbes... Francesca, what are we calling it? The Forbes Young Under 30 poll powered by Zogby Strategies. This poll was actually done January 19th and 20th, so it is fresh. It's an in-depth look of over a thousand likely voters, 18 to 29 years of age, you are going to be getting a handout if you haven't already. The margin of error is plus or minus three on this. And what this poll clearly shows is nationwide is that 18 to 29 year old voters are wild about Bernie Sanders. In fact, it's not even close. So if we look at the Democratic race, Sanders comes in with 32% of support, one out of three nationwide. His closest rival is Joe Biden with 16%. And then no one else gets double digits. Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren are at 9%. Very interestingly, and I should talk about him, Andrew Yang, 8%. And then Tom Steyer, Amy Klobuchar, 3% and 4% each. Before I move on, let me, a word about Andrew Yang. He's the iconoclast in the race. He's neither really someone you define as either a progressive or a moderate. He's the outsider. He doesn't wear a tie. That makes him a little appealing to me. But the thing about Andrew Yang is that as that outsider status, his strength is with young men. He's scoring double digits among young men. Does he have a chance at the nomination? Probably not. What he does have a chance at doing is hurting Bernie Sanders. Now, not because he's a fellow progressive, but because as an iconoclast who draws from particularly young men, he could shave off some points from Bernie Sanders, particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire. And that could change the course of the results of both states or of the nomination. Now, that's not all where we see Bernie Sanders' strength in this poll among young people. We ask about are you favorable or unfavorable towards each of these candidates? Bernie Sanders by far wins that race. 64% are very or somewhat favorable to Sanders and 28% are very or somewhat unfavorable. That's followed by Biden, 55 favorable, 33 unfavorable. Warren, 49 favorable, 33 unfavorable. And then I'll skip, you'll get this anyway, Mike Bloomberg among young voters, 32 favorable, 29 unfavorable. And that's going to be a challenge. That's going to be a challenge. I should point out, we talk about young people, but and I have brought this up here, in fact, on many occasions, understand 18 to 29 year olds are younger millennials and they're also Gen Z and they are about 50-50 white, non-white. So this is suggesting that as we had anticipated, Bloomberg may in fact have a bigger problem among non-white young people. He's got an even one-to-one ratio at this point in time. Now, who would they vote for if the election at that point in time, the 19th and 20th, were against each of these candidates and Donald Trump? Sanders beats Trump among this demographic. 58 to 34, that is by far the widest margin among this group. And let me explain something else to you. 58 to 34, 8% undecided. Those are solid, respectable numbers for Sanders. Why? Because when Obama won the presidency in 2008 and 2012, he won by similar margin and he had 66% of 18 to 29 year olds and then 61% in 2012, 18 to 29 year olds. Bernie shows here that he has the capacity to attain those numbers among young voters. Biden leads 51% over Trump, 51 to 35, but there are 14% undecided. And what could be troublesome there is that when I see an undecided climb into double digits like this, it suggests to me that many of those may not even vote. And if young people don't vote, that will hurt the Democratic candidate badly. The numbers are a lot closer to Biden's when it comes to Warren versus Trump, 51 to 36, or Andrew Yang, who actually comes in fourth place among young people, 52 to 34. What do young people see as the major issue? Number one is the economy. Number two is healthcare. Number three is education. Number four, the environment, climate change. And number five, guns. The two most intense issues are climate change and guns. Impeachment, very quickly. Let's understand that while the discourse is about legal and illegal, corrupt, non-corrupt, abusing the system, not abusing the system, this is a political process first and foremost. When we have had impeachment in our history, in the late 1860s, the successor to Abraham Lincoln was impeached because the House of Representatives and the Senate were controlled by two-thirds of the new Republican Party, and the President was a Tennessee Democrat who opposed them. It was a political process, and Andrew Johnson, that 17th President of the United States, did not help himself by his public behavior. I think people forget that while under Nixon, and Nixon did not get to be impeached, but the House committee and Judiciary Committee voted three articles of impeachment, then Nixon resigned, but the key reason why Nixon resigned was that his polls were at 23 percent, and there was a famous walk from the Capitol to the White House where three Republican congressional leaders walked to the White House and said to Mr. Nixon, you're hurting the political party, you're hurting the Republicans, you have to go. In fact, when Nixon resigned, he said, it's clear that I've lost my political base. He did not apologize for anything that he was investigated on. When Bill Clinton was indeed impeached, he was posting some of the highest polling numbers that he had ever achieved. He was in the high 50s, low 60s in terms of approval rating, and there's no way you remove a president under peace and prosperity who's polling that high. And so here we are today. No matter what is said, what is done, what is revealed, or not revealed, the president's approval rating stays at the lowest 41 percent, the highest 46 percent. As we speak right now, he's averaging just about 45 percent in the polls. Should he be removed? It doesn't matter which poll you look at. Look at all of them. Some days, 47 to 51 percent say he should be removed. At the same time that 45 to 49 percent say he should not be removed. Bottom line, I'm a pollster and not an ethicist or a lawyer or any combination thereof. A president just doesn't get removed when half the nation supports the president. So headlines will say a majority today want him removed. Yeah, but almost as many don't want him removed. So there is no mandate on the part of Republicans, at least insofar as we know today, to remove the president from office. And I'm going to leave it at that. I promised about 25 minutes or so. And how do we want to handle the questions? Sure. Spaces around the globe. Also tuning in, we've already gotten quite a few questions in from overseas. And I'll try to get to as many of the questions in the room and there as we will start with a round robin. Also, I don't want to neglect New York. You can't see your smiling faces, but please don't hesitate to come to the podium and ask your questions. So when you ask your questions, please do state your name, your outlet, and your company. Very loudly. But maybe in the spirit of the innovation of the day, we'll start with Romania. Alina Engel from P1 TV is asking, Facebook again announced that they refused to ban political ads. Thank you. Facebook again announced that they refused to ban political ads, even false ones. How useful and predictable can polls in today's way be in today's way of running campaigns when the internet can transform even the most grotesque lie into an accepted reality? That is a very important question. And look, let's put this under the category we've never been here before. You know, all we know is that we can reach a random sampling of people and they can tell us what they see and what they believe. If it's based on good information or bad information, it still may very well influence how they vote. And all we really know is what they tell us about how they're going to vote. If it's based on no information whatsoever, that can tell us. Yeah, this is, you know, for us, this is like walking barefoot on hot charcoals. This is a real new and real dangerous territory, but it's also a level playing field. We are all subject to misinformation at the same level. How we sift through that misinformation or good information, this is the world we live in now. Please. Hey, David. We have mics. He can be reelected. He might very well be reelected. The nation split. And what compounds things for those who want to defeat him is that those who want to defeat him are split. And if anyone knows how to take advantage of a wedge and drive that wedge further, it's the incumbent in his capacity to use social media. And so we see the president in all of these races. Of course, I just read to you young people, you know, which is on course for the president not doing well enough. And then we see a recent spate of polls nationally in the battleground states suggesting that Democrats leading by four, five, seven points in some cases. But that's today that's not enough to sustain a Democratic victory. Democrats, as of this moment, lead in Pennsylvania and Michigan, Wisconsin, not Iowa and not Florida. So this is going to be a competitive one at the very least, but Democrats have not resolved their internal issues. And let's be frank, when the immediate past nominee says, I won't vote for Bernie Sanders, that's a signal that the establishment may very well not vote for Bernie Sanders, which can lead to a situation historically like George McGovern in 1972, where he won the nomination, but party establishment just sat on their hands. Trump can win. Overseas viewers and listeners to submit any questions that you have through interactive.america.gov via the chat space. Thanks, Alex, please. Thank you very much, Alex Raffhola of Turn News. Look, I see where you're coming from in terms of polls, you know, like it or not, those are the only games in town. But one question I keep hearing, look, polls have broken our hearts before. Why should we go back and trust them again? Thank you. Broken your heart? I'm sorry. It's a point I keep hearing from, you know. Yeah, no, let me apologize to the world. I never heard that one before. Oh my, no, honestly, we need lessons in how to cover polls and how to read them and what they tell us and what they don't tell us. And so in a nutshell, I have a much longer answer, but in a nutshell, the polls were good in 2016. If you knew how to read them, they captured the national popular vote right on the money. And in the States, you know, when you see Hillary Clinton leading by 10, 11, nine points, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Michigan, 10 days before the election, and then two days before the election, she's tied in New Hampshire, leading by only three in Pennsylvania. She's tied in Michigan. She's down a point or two in North Carolina. Boy, just watch the trajectory that suggests, you know, anything can happen here. And I found it very disconcerting that I think with all respect, there was too much pack journalism. Too many folks here in town having breakfast at the Mayflower and saying, you know, she's not going to, he's not going to win. There's no way he can win. And reporting that, when the truth is, they just didn't know how to read the polls accurately. Thank you. Please. Right here. Hi, I'm Carl Dürmans from German Newsrooms Network. Mrs. Ochbe, first, thank you for doing this. And then I've got two related questions in the May. Talking about Iowa, three of the front runners right now are stuck here in Washington in the impeachment trial. So how does that influence the caucus? And second, it may be very well that next week on Friday, the trial is over. And Mr. Trump is not convicted. So what do you think? Would this have any impact on the caucus? Okay. The second question first is impeachment is not the driving force for mainstream voters. Very few people are talking about it. Those who are talking about it already have their minds made up and nothing is one way or the other and nothing is going to change that. A failure to remove the president is going to be seen as, well, you know, we kind of knew that going in. But the first question is important. If history is relevant here, and I've been to Iowa, physical presence is extremely important. As I mentioned at the top, the voters expect to meet the candidates two and three times, meet them one on one, answer their questions, get a feel for the candidate. There's no question in my mind that being absent, particularly, you know, in the last two weeks before the caucuses, there's no question that that can have an impact. And in particular, on three candidates who are trending one way or another, anything that loses a couple of points here or there. Now, by the same token, you know, I've been pulling a long time and I have seen the impact of each new medium in each election and how much is social media driven, you know, the presence of Zoom and Skype and the ability to say to a cluster of voters, you know why I can't be there, but here, let's all talk. And that in a way is a commitment. In the old days, I don't think you could get away with it. Maybe you can this time, but let's just say I would still call that an unfortunate situation for the for the US senators. Go to Mexico City for one question. It's this, I would like to know your opinion or forecast of the 2020 scenario for Hispanic candidates and Hispanic voters and how they might influence the trajectory of the election. Okay, what we know about Hispanic voters is that since 1992, the trajectory of turnout and trajectory of the percentage of the total vote that comes from Hispanic voters has gone up dramatically from 4% in 1992 to 11% in 2016. In each instance, particularly when you get to Barack Obama, the trajectory of those who voted for the Democrat over the Republican was enormous, 75, 78%. Usually historically it was about 65% that would vote Democrat. What is complicating things this year? I think that there will be a substantial turnout. There are organizational efforts to bring Hispanics out to vote. There are, as the question suggests, record numbers of Hispanics who are running for office and that can have a push of turnout that can impact the top. However, one of the things we're seeing is in these matchups of the Democratic candidates against Donald Trump, there are more undecided Hispanics than one would be led to believe. Given the fact that it should be three to one Democrat over Republican, that suggests to me that maybe there may not be as high a turnout among Latinos, Hispanics as we anticipated. It also suggests to me that as we're hearing from young people, hey, I'm working, the economy is good, why change captains in the middle of all of this. So that's a dynamic vote. I wouldn't predict it yet. Ma'am. Thank you. Beatriz Navarro with La Vanguardia Spain. A couple of questions. First of all, about the divide between progressives and moderates. You said that it's been going on for 50 years in the Democratic Party. That's a lot. I wonder if you were seeing this trend that you see now that young people are trending more towards the left, candidates like Sanders. Is this something that was present before or something that may be a sign of that things are about to change in the Democratic Party? Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. And a second quick question about Trump's popularity or lack of popularity. Is this an indicator that we should be watching at like the last months before the election, like September, October? Does it become relevant the closer we go to the election? Thank you. Okay, sure. Historically over the 15 years, the 18 to 29-year-olds have gone either way, progressive or moderate. This time around, and last time around, we saw them leaning heavily towards Sanders and towards the left. In particular, it would be much less due to Sanders' ideological pitch, more so to his policy pitch and to his personality. He's direct and there is viewed an authenticity about him. I laugh when I hear people say, oh, he's been giving the same speech for 20 years. No, he's been giving the same speech for 50 years. What you see is what you get. So there's a stability that's there. In terms of barometric readings, the popularity of the president is important. So use this as a barometer. Number one, when he was elected, he was elected with 46% of the vote. If he goes into the election close to that, then he can't be ruled out. If he slides down to 40, 41% approval rating, that could spell trouble, in particular in those battleground states. The other thing, of course, is the economy. It is not to suggest any way that voters are one-dimensional, that the world can be going to hell, but I've got money in my pocket. No, but it is to suggest that voters may very well say, hey, let's not change things. Besides, you've got to give me an alternative. You've got to give me an alternative. Journalist in the New York Foreign Press Center, can you please introduce yourself? Not working. Not sure. President did. It's not impeachable. It seems to me that he seems to be in that camp that I get it. I get it. I know what he did, but I'm not going to vote to impeach him over it, and that seems to be a good part of the Senate, although they're not allowed to say it publicly because the president will get angry at them. So what he has to say is, we have enough, I think we have enough to make a final judgment. We're having 24 hours on one side, 24 hours on another, and he doesn't even have to deal with the issue of witnesses. But both. Can Biden recover? Can you envision a broken convention? Okay, that's a lot of questions. I'm going to deal with them one at a time. A few days ago, as long as Biden's close in Iowa and New Hampshire, he can ride that out until South Carolina and take advantage of his strong support among African Americans. I'm not so sure about that anymore. He can't lose both, Iowa and New Hampshire, and we do see Bernie making some inroads among African American voters, some inroads. He's not close to Biden, but in 2016, the African American vote was not friendly to Bernie Sanders. It's to some degree warming up to him now. And so if Biden loses both of those first states, the scenario is that the party establishment says, wow, this guy's got to go. And also, Bernie's got to go, too. We got to find somebody. And the heir apparent appears for now to be Bloomberg, but you can see what kind of challenges Bloomberg has. So the worst thing that could happen to the Democrats is a lack of clarity out of Iowa and New Hampshire. Once more. Problems have been resolved, please. We still can't hear you. Okay, well, we'll go back to it when she does. Please, ma'am. That's not saying there was no there or there, the folks I heard from yesterday. Yep, sure. I just wanted to jump in and sort of pan out on the first question, which mirrors something coming in from Bogota, Colombia about whether current U.S. foreign policy and international relations is something voters will likely take into consideration. Yeah. Now, the new polling data I shared with you was among young people. And so not surprisingly, unless it was an intimate crisis, which this could have been but dissipated, you know, would have shown up. Yeah, foreign policy certainly can be. And it obviously gets crowded out a little bit with the economy, health care, the environment, guns, immigration, and so on. But yeah, to be sure, if there's a hot spot, a global crisis, particularly one that either is seen to threaten the American interest or in any way jeopardize the lives and safety of Americans, it certainly can rise to the top. And the potentials are always Iran, always North Korea, always Russia. And so, yeah, foreign policy can indeed play. And there are two different worldviews here. You know, a Trumpian worldview, which, you know, I don't know, we can call isolationists, we can call populists, we can call America first, we could call disengagement versus a global foreign policy. What will not work for any candidate of any party is an interventionist foreign policy. The U.S. is, Americans are beyond that unless there is a physical attack. Now, conducting the polls nationwide and in states on that level, we conduct most, not all, but most of our polls online. Now, online we need to understand is that we're not saying click here and tell us, first of all, if you like hamburgers or hot dogs, and secondly, who you would vote for, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. And we're talking about 15 million emails that have been collected over the years, all with data points on them, all validated and revalidated as legitimate. And then already representative of the American population, then we do a random stratified sampling of those by taking a sub-sample of about 10,000 of those emails and inviting people to a secure link where they can take the survey. So there is indeed random sampling that's involved in this process. And then at the end, as was the case for years, and the telephone, we apply slight weights to make sure there's a representative sufficiently of younger and older people, middle age people, religious groups, race, and so on. The process does work. And it works in the United States because 94% of likely voters have online access. And so that's almost where the landline telephone was 25, 30 years ago. And we get a better response rate online than we do on the telephone. Yeah, it could, you know, in both ways. He's shoring up his base, to be sure. By the same token, he's shoring up the left base as well as a powerful reminder, which they probably don't even need, that Trump is not a candidate for feminist, modern, I would say in particular younger women. But the issue is that this Democratic base already is not going to vote for Donald Trump. But here's the impact it could have. 2012, Barack Obama was not doing as well among younger voters as he had done in 2008. There was a sense of disappointment there in his presidency. But over the weekend before the election, we saw his support rise dramatically among younger voters. In particular, it was young women who came out in record numbers, 73% of whom voted for Obama. And so this is the sort of thing that can help to ensure that younger voters, especially younger women, come out to vote. I'll go back quickly to the question long awaited from New York, from Xinhua, North America. Mr. Zogby talked about young voters. What are the tendencies of first-time young voters? And what issues are they concerned with? What is their best choice for a candidate? The second question was about social networks. Will they play a greater or lesser role in 2020 versus 2016? Okay. I have to tell you that when it comes to first-time voters, that's the next poll we're doing. And so we haven't drilled it down to that yet. The role of social media is the role of the marketplace, the village green, and the fitness gym. It is a way young people communicate with each other. It's the peer pressure. It's the what's cool and what's not cool. It's the sort of thing that can impact decisions, kind of wisdom of the crowd. Could I just take a moment and explain something about Iowa in particular? You know, in a typical primary or election, people go behind a curtain and they cast their vote, open up the curtain. It's secret. In Iowa, people gather in gymnasiums, fireplaces, living rooms for that matter. And if you're going to vote for Bernie Sanders, go to this corner. If you're going to vote for Joe Biden, that corner. And then if one candidate, a couple of candidates, do not achieve 15 percent of the total in the room, you cast the ballot again. Those candidates are eliminated. Who's your second choice? So now here is a hypothetical dynamic. I really like Bernie Sanders, but my friends and neighbors, the parent teacher organization, they're all going with Joe Biden, and they're going to hate my guts. If I walk over to the corner with Bernie Sanders, I'm never going to live it down. There is a different dynamic here in Iowa that gets multiplied when you're in a large gymnasium. And people are like, where are you going? Trish? Yeah. Try polling that one. That one's heartbreaking. Well, hi. I can hear you. Hi. My name is Alexey Bogdanovsky. I'm with RIA, the Russian New Agency. Could you please elaborate on the economic message by the Democrats? My understanding is that they could plausibly say a lot of things like the middle-class wages are stagnating and have been for years. The education is very expensive. The healthcare is expensive. Maybe the perils of automation, which was Andrew Young's favorite topic. But it would be maybe a little bit more difficult for them to state that economy in general is in a bad shape, which it isn't by most of the metrics. The unified economic message that all the candidates on the Democratic side agree with is that, yes, there's been economic growth, and that the major barometric readings show average unemployment is low, average growth is high, but that it disproportionately impacts those at the top, disproportionately impacts those at the middle and the bottom. And so there's, with certain nuances, an identification of expanding healthcare, expanding the minimum wage, general agreement on the $15 minimum wage, on the free college tuition of some sort, whether it be public colleges, community colleges, whatever. The issue becomes, how do you pay for it? And the skepticism, then, when we're looking at Middle America, who is already getting squeezed and certainly want free college tuition and want an expansion of healthcare, is, are we going to have to pay for this? Again, is this one more entitlement or social program we're going to have to pay for? That's one of the reasons I believe that Elizabeth Warren has kind of fallen off. Medicare for all was a good idea, but she was trying to finesse the issue by not answering the question for months. Well, how are you going to pay for estimates, what, $30 trillion, $40 trillion? Are middle class taxes going to go up? Well, her answer did not appear to be satisfactory. No, they're not going to go up. Nobody believed that. Bernie Sanders answer, not so satisfactory either. Yes, your taxes are going to go up, but your premiums are going to go down. These are treacherous waters that the Democrats are swimming on. And then the second row, please. Hi, I'm Jesper Steinman from CB2 Denmark. Some political pundits have already established that the field of Democratic candidates is really weak and that they don't stand a chance against Trump. Is there any polling on this whether voters feel the same way and compared to maybe 2008? I mean, does the field of candidates seem weaker than in 2008? Yeah, I'm baffled by that. Yeah, that I agree with that. Yeah, I understand your question. No, I don't know of anyone who has asked that question that always does get asked. Do you wish somebody else were running? And I think it's probably because it's too early. I mean, nobody has cast a vote yet. And so how can you really tell? But secondly, in those matchups, right now, the four major, five major Democratic candidates as of this moment are leading Donald Trump in the battleground states and nationally. That can change. It does change over the course. But one other piece of evidence is that you did have Mike Bloomberg jump in and spend 200 and some odd million. And a lot has been made that he's climbed to 10% in a national poll. But he has spent more money than candidates generally spend by October of the election year to get to 10%. So I don't know that voters yet are dissatisfied with candidates. Maybe it'll show as as the voting develops. Jump to US Embassy Ghana. Will an endorsement by Hillary Clinton hurt or help any candidate? And what should her role be, if any, during this national election? Thank you, Ghana. Under normal circumstances and endorsement by the previous nominee, especially one who can make and often does make the argument that she won the popular vote would matter, matter significantly. Significantly, I believe that Hillary Clinton has interjected herself into this campaign in a way that is not favorable to her and that could lend her some toxicity as being seen as partisan. When she says, I will not endorse, I don't like Bernie Sanders, she's taking a stand and taking a stand that Bernie Sanders supporters find really objectionable. And so it may very well be that her endorsement could hurt. Been up in the back for a while. Please, sir. And thank you. This is Tony from China News Service. I have a question about Andrew Yan and his kind of icon in Chinese Asia community. So did you see any changes in China news, China American voters or Asian American voters in the past decades? Thank you. Yeah. You know, first of all, Asian voters are going to take you all the way from the Philippines to Iran and then India, Pakistan, China, Japan, Korea. It's very eclectic. However, it's a fast growing population. It's a fast growing sector of the electorate. And in the last three, three election cycles, it has voted heavily, heavily Democrat to the tune of 75%, 78%. In that sense, then, a combination of just the sheer growth of the Asian vote, the sheer power of the Asian vote, particularly in key states. And the fact that, let's say that the very least, Mr. Yang is a credible Democratic candidate. You know, you can run and not get big numbers, but you can run and help yourself and your reputation, or you can run and maybe do good numbers, but hurt yourself by being a bad loser. Hey, we were just talking about that a couple of moments ago for those of you who catch that. I think Andrew Yang has helped himself and his, it can be a force for bridging, bridging a gap between the United States and parts of Asia, particularly China. More questions, please in the back, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Paula de Orto, Global Brazil. I would just like to understand a little better. You are talking about reading the polls correctly earlier. You were talking about reading the polls correctly earlier. And I've read in many places that we should look at numbers from states and not national numbers. So as regards the poll about the young people under 30s, does it matter? Because if you're not looking at under 30 people that are in particular states, does it matter in the end? Okay. First of all, let me clarify the premise of your question. No, do not ignore national polls at all. You have to read both, the national polls and the states, because obviously it is not only a national popular vote, but it is very much 50 states and territories that determine. And so, yeah, read them all. But secondly, in a typical poll, whether it's nationwide or state by state, you're going to get about 18, 20% of your total sample that are going to be 18 to 29 years of age. So that means nationwide 200 maybe, 18 to 29-year-olds, states much smaller than that, maybe 100 or 120 or so. The value of a poll like this is that it's a large sample. It's a thousand. It allows us to go granular and really assess different subgroups of young people. And then since we have barometers, how other candidates have done among younger voters, and we have a sense then that under certain scenarios, a Democrat has to get a certain percentage of young people. From polls like this, we're able to track monthly and see who's on target to do that or not do that. And also, I learn an awful lot from those who say they're undecided because I've learned that as many of those voters, even though they identify as likely voters, still may not turn out to vote. And in this instance, every young person that does not turn out to vote could hurt the Democratic party. Question, please, from the center here. Thank you. Nick Watkins of Tokyo Broadcasting System. It seems possible if not likely that if President Trump is re-elected, he will lose the popular vote again. Can you talk about what kind of margins would be imaginable if Democrats managed to gin up enthusiasm and solve blue states, but still lose those key battleground states with small margins? And I guess on the flip side, when you look at these national head to head polls, what do you think is a comfortable margin for a Democrat going up against Trump? Okay, so first of all, we do have to see the individual state polls, but I've seen, not done, but I've seen some analyses that suggest that whereas Donald Trump lost by about three million votes last time, he could lose by as much as four million votes this time, but still win some of those battleground states. It is very possible to do that. I don't believe for a minute that there will be a credible push to end the electoral college. I think it's too embedded in the system and maybe even needed more than ever. But there are so many differing scenarios that can happen. If there is a Democratic sweep, we could watch, for starters, Arizona and Georgia turn blue. We can see a number of key U.S. senators, especially on the Republican side, lose if there is a Democratic sweep. On the other hand, Democrats have got to show that they can unite not only those two factions, the progressive and the establishment, but there is also a very potent identity politics faction that crosses over establishment and progressive meaning. If we nominate a white man, then the ticket has to include a fill-in-the-blank. It has to be a woman. It has to be a woman of color. It has to be a gay, African American, whatever. That's the sort of thing that can also split the party irreparably. That is why I'm taking those comments by Hillary Clinton very seriously. There's a part of me that suggests it's sour grapes and let's say unbecoming of someone of her stature. On the other hand, if in fact her view is representative of the inner circles of the Democratic Party, that could be a disaster. Well, I can't thank you enough. This has been an incredible honor and a great treat for me personally and I know for all of us in the room and in New York. I also want to just thank you for entertaining the incredible global interest that for which there's been an incredible outpouring for participation in this discussion. A shout out to everyone who joined us on the Notre Dame University in Lebanon, American Center Algiers, US Embassy Accra, Ghana, American Space in San Salvador, the bi-national center in Yubaraba, Brazil, the American Center in Caracas, Venezuela, Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City, bi-national centers in Bogota, Medellin, and Pereira in Colombia, and the University of Zagreb, Croatia, as well as American Spaces in Narva, Cura-Sarae, and Villa Yande in Estonia, as well as the American Corner in Cape Town, South Africa, bi-national centers in Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina. A testament to the great interest and incredible global following that you certainly will deserve. Thank you so much for your time.