 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Aloha, and welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihei. Here we are just before the general election, and we have an opportunity to get some inside advice from two of Hawaii's most well-known political pundits. With us this afternoon is Mr. Chad Blair. That's right. And from Civil Beat and the pundit that watches all the politicians doing whatever they're going to do. I try. All right. And Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii. Happy to be here. Both of you have been here before. We've talked about local politics in the past, but I thought that today would be more interesting if just before the primary election we sought to scoop the national pundits. And take a look at the national races. See, this is a la NFL football. Right, right. All right. This is a la NFL football. So we're going to talk about the games out there and maybe make some predictions. Let's do it. All right. Well, let's start with Chad. So Chad, what's interesting out there? We're talking national politics. Yeah. All national politics. You know, with this general election, I think the one thing I would say starting off is think about how things went two years ago, and we were all sure Hillary was going to get in there, and it didn't happen. And so I'm a little nervous, very cautious. What's happened in the last couple of weeks has been astounding. What has happened in the last few days. But there's a couple of things that are really at play here, the Brett Kavanaugh nomination. Right. How's that going to affect particularly women voters, the pipe bombs from someone who was a sworn Trump supporter, and then this awful bombing of the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 Jewish people died. And just this week, as we're recording this today, the president is out there talking about immigration and the caravan and asylum. You know, what's interesting is the juxtaposition of all of that. Now, ordinarily the first three ought to wipe out this election. I mean, you know, in normal times. And yet, that hasn't... I think there's a reason why President Trump is so focused on immigration. He is playing up his base. He knows he's got 30, 40 percent of the vote. They need to turn it out. They don't know what happens historically. Colin, in particular, during a midterm election, you know, the incumbent party, particularly this one, which controls all of his government, is going to lose. Well, this is Trump's best bet, because he's looking at Bob Mueller down in the House of Representatives and potentially... And it seems like, Colin, he seems like he's getting some traction with all of these rallies that are going on. Well, he certainly is from his base. I mean, and I think Trump has taken the strategy of, you know, really throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. I think that's made some of the Republicans a little nervous. People in the Republican Congressional Campaign committees, but Chad is right. So you have this rhetoric from him tweeting out, as he does, you know, about the dangers of this caravan that's coming from Central America, ordering troops down there, just emphasizing immigration. You know, and I think, you know, playing up this, you know, kind of white ethnic identity as much as he can that worked very well for him. And I think that's one of some of these swing states in the general election. Well, one of the most interesting, well, frightening, statistic for me was the reports that just came out saying that Fox News had the highest viewership. Double, twice. MSNBC, CNN. Yeah, well, so something is very working. This is the mouthpiece for the president. He watches Fox and Friends. Remember where these swing voters are. Remember where this core base of the president is in states like Florida. Talk about a swing state. Well, let's get to Florida. You've got potentially the first African-American male governor in the state of Florida. Florida is as diverse a state as there is. I mean, California, obviously, in Hawaii, but you're looking at Andrew Gillam potentially defeating DeSantis, is that his name? Right, that's his name. Yeah, Ron, Ron. Ron DeSantis. Yeah. A real Trump party. And since that primary is over, right on that very first day, DeSantis is using words like monkeying around, but somehow raises the specter that Gillam is a monkey. It's clearly playing your racist card. But what about Trump going down there and calling him a thief? Well, that's exactly so. It's raising all the great stereotypes about African-Americans. Very unfortunate. But you've also got a critical Senate race between Bill Nelson, not exactly the most exciting US Senator, and Rick Scott, the governor who wants to be in the Senate. And both of those races, last time I checked, are pretty much too close to call. They are, yeah. Well, it seems like Bill Nelson is pulling ahead. That's what I saw in the last week. But it's still very close. I mean, for an incumbent, I mean, he is running in a swing state like Florida. Bill Nelson has been around for a long time. He's been in the Senate for many years. He was first elected to politics in Florida back in 1972. But he does sort of represent an older version of that Florida Democratic part. I mean, this was really back when Florida was mainly governed by white Democrats. Right. And he's seen this whole shift. And now I think he has to play in this more aggressive environment. And Rick Scott is, he has a lot of personal wealth. He's taken out a lot of ads. And I don't think Bill Nelson really is used to campaigning as hard as he's had to. Yeah, he's not exactly the most charismatic. No. No. Now, Governor, right next door, Georgia State that's usually reliably read, although it wasn't 30 or 40 years ago, the possibility of having the first female African-American governor anywhere in the country is astonishing. Stacey Abrams, where Oprah Winfrey, that's right, campaigning, can't do better than that. No. Well, you know, Mike Pence thinks he can't do that. He was hanging out there saying, I'm as important as it is. That's right. And he got laughs for that. But this is Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee, who is the Secretary of State who has oversight of the voter rolls. And he's kind of banned like 50,000 voters, mostly minority votes, mostly potentially Democratic votes. Right. So if President Trump, and now with this new ad that's running this television commercial, which is kind of the R version of the Willie Horton version. Remember, that was Mike DeCoccas and George W. Bush, the inmate who got let out of prison, killed somebody, and then somehow DeCoccas is soft on crime. In this case, the president is saying Democrats are soft on crime. And by the way, he's using a Latino looking type of person and saying, this is the people they're letting across the border. And I got a caravan full of people heading here. And this is what you're going to, you know, let my work. It could work. Although, I mean, I think one thing that's happening is a reaction to that in Georgia, where you're likely to get strong African-American turnout because you do have the first opportunity to elect a black female governor of Georgia of all places. I mean, and Stacey Abrams. She's proven herself. She has. She was, what, 10 years? She was Minority Leader in the Senate, you know? And she's worked with Republicans. I mean, she really is an effective politician. And so I think it's been tough to try to frame her as much as the Republicans have tried as kind of this radical liberal because it's really not who she is. One of the interesting things is that I read today that the registration numbers have really gone up, especially among young people. That's what the column's getting to. Remember, this is a state where Abrams did get attacked when she was in college for burning the Georgia flag back when the Stars and Bars were prominent. Remember, this is a state on, is it Stone Mountain? Is that the name of it? Right. Anyway, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis on a mountain. Yeah, on all the Black Hills. Exactly. So I think when, I mean, these are very vulnerable cases. Another border state, although this race looked very, it was difficult to call. We're starting to see Ted Cruz perhaps pull away against Beto or Rourke. But that's a really big race as well. And there you actually have a border state that borders Mexico and the real grass. See, that's an interesting race because it's actually attracted a lot of national involvement. And huge amounts of money. You went in there to back up Beto. Beto or Rourke in Beto. Is it Beto? It is. No, I've heard others make that mistake, but I was just in Texas a couple of months ago. In Austin, which of course is the capital, very blue, you'll see Beto, just Beto, that's all it says. You drive to Houston, you won't see many Betos. You'll see a few Ted Cruz signs, but a couple of months ago, even a few weeks ago, it looked like Beto or Rourke, who I believe was a congressman from El Paso, was going to give Ted Cruz a run for his money. And the last I checked, Cruz seems to be edging ahead. We'll see, but that race, again, young people coming out. They said that the absentee voting at the moment apparently favors the Republicans. But it's rather close. And that might not be so unexpected if you imagine the traditional Texas voters are. The traditional Democratic vote always needs to be dragged from the beaches. But the fact that Ted Cruz is even in danger at all, or almost loses, is a remarkable development. Well, you know what's... I just have this horrible fear that if by any stretch of, you know, by some wild imagination, Trump prevails this time. If it is close, it's not a matter to him. I mean, he's going to treat it like the Supreme Court victory. We want to kill the guys. You know, the same thing. Trump is all about winning. I mean, that's entirely his focus. No matter what happens, he's going to claim victory. What is the impact of the, do you think, or if any, of the massacre in Pennsylvania? Well, I think, and this is part of all of the things that Chad already mentioned together, it really has spooked suburban voters who are on the fence. I mean, that's when you look at the house districts and you look at the ones that are real competitive. They mainly are in suburban areas, you know, generally wealthy traditional Republican areas, but really object to Trump's rhetoric and his behavior. But it's more like the wrongly Republican. Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, you see in suburban Philadelphia, parts of upstate New York, suburban Detroit, these are house districts that are competitive, mainly because those voters who might like the tax cut really dislike Trump's rhetoric. What about Florida? Florida with a lot of retired people from New York and with Jewish background. Florida is an interesting state because you almost have four or five states in the same state, you have the Miami area, you have the, you know, what is really the south in North Florida and you have a bunch of retirees on the Gulf Coast. And you've got the Latins, which are often... Well, it's primarily Cubans who are around the Miami area. Who can go Republican. Yeah. Who generally go Republican. And, you know, that was sort of the deviation from most of the analysis regarding Latino voters. Right, right. The Cubans go a different direction. You know, usually when crime is the issue, it tends to favor Republicans. I mean, Nixon used that in the 68 campaign and very successfully. What was the famous phrase from Nixon's race in 68? He's going to keep things, say, oh, the quiet American. The quiet American. The quiet American because of the people. And our streets are going to be kept safe. And you're hearing the same thing with Trump. So when he brings up immigration... He's actually trying to... When he talks about having troops, our troops, shoot people on the border because of throwing rocks at us. I mean, that's a strong message. I'm going to be the anti-crime president. So how does a former Cuban refugee relate to that? Well, they're going to vote Republican for one thing in Miami for sure. I mean, that's going to be the case. At least the older Cubans for sure. Yeah, Rubio. That's his power base. Exactly. But I think if we're talking about the Senate... You know, he's sort of slipped out pretty lightly. Well, remember, he wasn't even going to run for the Senate. He hated the Senate. He was public about it. And then suddenly it's like, well, Trump beat me in my home state. I guess I'll run again. And you know, he's got to have his eye down the road. Not 2020 probably, but 2024. He's a young guy. He's very charismatic. We all thought it was going to be him. It was either going to be him or Jeb Bush. Boy, were we wrong. Well, yeah, he was Jeb. But I kind of liked him personally. That was the kind of mainstream Republican that we used to have. We used to get elected to office very much. So what about North Dakota with Heidi? So Heidi Heitkamp narrowly won when she won the last time. She wasn't expected to win six years ago. She won by 3,000 votes. And this is a really interesting race, really, for two reasons, I think. The first is that she did not support Brett Kavanaugh. She had a tremendous blowback in North Dakota as a result of that. She did get a ton of money from national donors. It's $1,000,000 in one week after Kavanaugh. The most of anyone, I think, in that short period of time. But she's, is it by double points behind Kramer, is that his name? And so that's a real concern. But you wonder if that Kavanaugh vote might actually help. And I'm sure she's spending all that money, as much as she can, trying to win two votes. But she is a lot more competitive, apparently, than people. Well, I think that's it. In a small state like North Dakota, sometimes it's unpredictable. Sometimes it's hard to poll. I mean, I think the real wild card here is our Native American voters going to turn out because they overwhelmingly supported her. North Dakota has a big Native American population, about 30,000 people. But it's controversial because the North Dakota State Legislature decided and the Supreme Court affirmed that you have to have a physical address to vote. And on the reservations, a lot of people didn't have physical addresses. So now the tribal governments are going around trying to find people to their physical address. Yeah, they're trying to purge it. Because they know that those are the voters that will put over the top. Well, you know what's interesting and very important in this election is all the gerrymandering that happened. Well, it's the entire reason why the House is controlled by Republicans. But gerrymandering has made that entirely the case. Even though there have been rulings rolling back, including in Pennsylvania, the way they gerrymandered. That's right. And actually, Pennsylvania, there's one Pennsylvania district that's competitive now because they did basically eliminate the gerrymandering. Well, we're going to have to take a break, guys, and we'll come right back and folks, join us. Come on, you know, stay with us. We are actually going to vote on this show. Come on back. You're not going to check her IDs, though, right? No, we're going to gerrymand it. I have Bill Sharp, host of the Asian Review here on Think Tech Hawaii. Join me every Monday afternoon from 5 to 5.30 Hawaii Standard Time for an insightful discussion of contemporary Asian affairs. There's so much to discuss and the guests that we have are very, very well informed. Just think we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. The possibility of Xi Jinping, the leader of China, remaining in power forever. We'll see you then. Aloha. My name is Andrew Lening. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that, you know, may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters. Aloha. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Y. Hei and the pundits. So, Sybil Beat and the University of Hawaii are here to give us their inside look at national politics. So what about, well, give me another race. What about Arizona? Well, do you want to do Arizona chat? I can do Nevada. I'll take Arizona then. You can do Nevada. I remember Arizona as a state that it's really kind of turning blue in a lot of ways. And you see John McCain coming from that state. Remember, he's the guy who famously upset Trump by his vote on health care, very outspoken. But you have this race to replace John McCain. John Kyle was appointed temporarily to take the seat. So it features McSally, two women, McSally and Sinema. McSally's a veteran and Sinema, the Democrat. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. He has sort of a fishy background. He may have been homeless for a while, very vulnerable. But in recent days, McSally has started to come on strong and take the lead. And in part because she has used her veteran status to attack Sinema for something she said a couple years ago, many years about the Taliban, employing off about how serious the Taliban is. But something just happened very recently. I think it was really in the last day or two. The Green Party candidate, a third party, dropped out and said, I'm going to back Sinema. And you got to wonder if those votes are going to drip over and help. The first thing about Sinema is that she is one of three Democrats who voted a great deal of the time with the Trump agenda. She actually didn't challenge her party more often than Trump in some respects. And McSally was doing the exact opposite for most of her political career. And all of a sudden we're in this race and they sort of switch sides now. Except Sinema is going out of her way to say that she's not involved in any kind of national thing. I'm not talking about that. I don't think Trump has actually gone to air. No, I don't think he has. There's a lot of states that don't want him to visit right now. And it may be that he might be being nice to her, actually. By not showing up. By not showing up. It's just that. Yeah. And I found that kind of interesting because they sort of switch party sides in the normal course of events. Now, doing the election, obviously. And a lot of the themes were seen nationally. These are old themes in Arizona politics. The sphere of immigrants. I mean, a lot of tension between basically white transplants from California and the Latino population. And the sheriff. That's right. Sheriff of Pio. He actually ran in that race. He did. He lost the primary. Sorry, Joe. Sheriff Joe. He lost to this veteran. So right next to him, we have Nevada. Right. So Nevada. I mean, Nevada is always an interesting state because it's almost a city state. I mean, you have these big population centers in Las Vegas and Reno and then just very conservative. Very old Nevada. I mean, essentially nobody's out there. And it's become a purple state, more or less a blue state now. But Dean Heller, the incumbent, is pretty popular. He's managed to hang on. His support is still pretty robust. He even has pretty good support from the Latino voters. And his challenger, Jackie Rosen, is not a very talented politician. And so I think she's had trouble connecting with people, getting them excited about her candidacy. How important is the union vote out of the casino? I think essential. I mean, you have to get that vote certainly as a Democrat. And if you want to win the general election, you have to make sure those folks turn out. And remember, Hillary actually won that stage. She did. That's right. That probably helps. Gosh, I've already forgotten her name. Rosen. Rosen. Thank you. Jackie. Jackie Rosen, exactly. In fact, also helping her is Harry Reid. That's right. Democratic Majority Leader. And he actually reversed his position on birthright citizenship. This is basically reversed. Yeah, you remember Trump. The 14th Amendment is pretty clear. If you're born in this country, you're a citizen. But Harry Reid is coming out recognizing in particular the large immigrant population, a lot of them working in the casinos in Vegas. Well, a lot of people from Hawaii. That's right. Working in the casinos in Vegas. Playing the casinos. Yeah. Vacations in Hawaii. That's right. But over 10% of the population of Las Vegas originates from Hawaii. God, is it up to that? Yeah. So I remember in the last couple of elections, even I've gone up there and campaigned for some of the Nevada. I wonder where they would stand in all of this. I have just no idea. It's also possible they've kept their voting residency in Hawaii, too. I wonder. I don't think so. The real question is whether they are voting. Yeah, I think that's the question. Well, they're likely to be union voters, democratic voters. I think it's making differences in Montana. Yeah, we haven't talked about Montana. John Tester, he's the guy with the crew cut. Yeah, he's about six, five, 300 pounds, big-sky country. But he's got this guy, Rosendale. He's running against him. Who's not from Montana, which is an issue. Exactly. So Trump has actually gone out there several times. And they say Trump has a vendetta against Tester because he's the one who famously called out the president's doctor in the White House, Johnny. Oh, right. Oh, whatever. It'll come to me. I haven't written to my notes. Ronnie Jackson. That was his name. Saying he had a drinking problem. And essentially, you know, he lost his own. Well, Trump is going around to all these states. Yeah. Where they will take him. There are a lot of house races, which pretty much looks solid for the Democrats, but is not welcome where the candidates in the Republican Party are actually being very careful. You even have some of them talking about health care and saying maybe Obama care is not such a bad idea. Recognizing that that is a valid issue. They don't want to talk about immigration because their constituents don't want to. Well, you know, they're running two national ads. So the Republicans did two big national ad buys. And it sort of demonstrates the extreme. One is this, you know, be afraid of immigrants. It's very dark. It's about people from Central America coming over the border. The other is a very traditional Rockefeller Republican ad, which is about a woman looking after a daughter going to a music concert and then reminding everyone of the dark days of the economic crash and trying to link that to Obama and saying don't go back. I mean, it's sort of reminiscent of the classic Reagan ad. How effective has Obama been? I would say he's been fairly quiet. He has not appeared as much. Joe Biden has been much more visible. Even Michelle Obama, I think, was down in Georgia. That's right. She's actually more popular than Barack Obama. But the president has remained largely quiet, although he has warned that this election actually means more than two years ago or even when he was elected in 2008. He's doing a lot of fundraising. Yes, I think he's been effective on raising money. In fact, the Democrats as a party have taken in a lot more money than the Republicans. Well, that's if you count the contributions directly together. Sure. And Mike Bloomberg himself accounts for a lot of that money. Almost 100 million or something like that. He's spent an extraordinary amount of his own money. And of course, he's also looking ahead to 2020. Sure. Now he says he's a Democrat. He was a Republican. He was an independent. Now he's a Democrat. We can have two billionaires run against each other. Well, one of them were not quite sure. Yeah, that's right. He may not be. He may not be a billionaire. Okay, let's talk about, well, first of all, who's going to win the Senate race in Florida? I think Bill Nelson is going to win. That's pretty much. I think he is. What about the governor's race? That's top. Well, I think it's going to be Katherine Cruz from HBR calling to get a quote from the governor. We are live. This is not a fake news program. That's right. Andrew Gillam, I think the momentum is with him. It is. I think just the demographics that are changing in that state. You mentioned the strong Jewish communities that are there. Many of them retirees from the Northeast. And I give them the edge. But there's a reason why Trump has gone down to Florida a number of times, not just to play golf, but because he is really worried. How embarrassing should Nelson keep it? And a Democrat, African-American governor, run the most important swing state two years from now. Yeah, so Gillam, Gillam? I think Gillam as well. I agree with Chad that the momentum is with him. It's going to be close, but I think he's going to win. Okay, you heard it first here unanimously. You're not going to play this back, are you? We're going to play this back on Wednesday. So get to Georgia. Georgia, boy. I mean, I know we have to decide here. So I'm going to say Stacey Abrams. The polling is a tie, or maybe I saw one that was plus one Abrams. But again, I think there's a lot of momentum. And when the African-American community turns out in Georgia, I mean, they're big. Women voters. And women voters in particular. I think that could put her over the top. I think it's the higher bar in terms of an African-American getting into office because of the more diverse population in Florida for Gillam. But my God, what a significant thing that would be. Yeah, well, I'm going to go with my heart too. So we'll see. We'll have another triple vote. Abrams, Abrams. Okay, we're all there. Where are we going to go next? Texas. Texas. Ted Cruz is going to keep his seat. Beto O'Rourke had a lot of support, a lot of money, but he's not going to be able to seal the deal. I think a lot of the Texans are going to come home to the Republican Party, but they don't love Ted Cruz. I think he peaked too early, O'Rourke. I think he looked like the next Bobby Kennedy. And they were already talking about him as a presidential contender. And the dynamic changed. Ted Cruz woke up. Yeah, sometimes. And there's Ted Cruz with the president in Houston. This is the same guy that attacked his wife. His wife. His wife used his father being involved in the Kennedy assassination. There they are. Beautiful Ted, you know? And that's going to mean a lot. The president's support in Texas. Yeah. You know, I'm going to go the opposite way. All right. All right. That's good. I like it. And the reason why I'm going to go the opposite way is because I think that Texas has more progressive young people than people count. And they're going to have a registered job. And I think that they're going to go out and it's going to be real close. But maybe, is it Beto Beto? Beto. Beto. Beto. Beto. It's Beto. The thing about Ted Cruz is he's, nobody really likes him very much. Real quick. Well, that's it. Missouri. I think, I think, McCaskill's going to lose. McCaskill's going to lose, I agree. I think Josh Hawley was not a great candidate. But McCaskill's gotten really lucky a couple of times. Yeah. And she's not going to do it this time. And that's as swingy as state as Florida is too. It's right there on the border. But it's been trending Republican. Missouri's gotten more conservative. And what about North Dakota? I don't think, I think it's going to be Kramer. It's probably going to pull it out. And by the way, we're talking about the Senate. I don't think the Senate's going to flip. Real quick. Is the Senate going to flip? No. I don't think so. What do you think? It'll be 51, 50, 49? I think I'll think up two seats. I think there's a pretty good candidate. One of the things about this particular election is that there are a lot more Democrats running. That's right. They knew that going in. The next cycle. The House is pretty much going to be. It's going to be a big pickup. Nancy Pelosi is already measuring the curtain. Yeah, I wish she wouldn't do that. Her problem is she's got a young membership, a new membership that wants new leadership. And she's been there forever. Had Hillary Clinton been elected president, she said she would actually leave the house. But that's not the case. And I think even though she's kept the impeachment word quiet, she very much has a lot of things that she wants to do. Okay, so House, Democrats, Senate, McConnell is still there. I think so. The old fuck. I think so. Well, guys, look, we'll see. Wednesday's coming up real quick. We're doing this just before the election. And we'll see how accurate our pontificating may be. I hope we're right. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you in two weeks. Join us for another talk story with John Whitehead.