 Welcome to Talk Story with John Waihe'e. And have we got a show for you today? Today we're going to jump the gun. See, I'm fortunate enough to have all the leading pundits of the political scene in the state of Hawaii with us before any other news outlet has their attention. So are you gonna see them tomorrow night on the various television channels and other sources of information, but they're gonna be with us tonight. And I'm gonna try and push the envelope as far as I can. We are going to, well, the word is predict, but prognosticate. I like that word better, prognosticate, pontificate and prognosticate what the elections results may be. So here we are, topic of discussion, what's going to happen tomorrow night and as a result of tomorrow night, not possibly in the future. So we have with us today Chad Blair, who has become very famous for being an editor of Civil Bee, one of the true newspapers left in, news sources left in Hawaii. And we have with us Colin Moore, who heads the, what's that I keep forgetting, policy studies. Policy center, yeah. Policy center at the University of Hawaii, they are turning young minds into activists and someday his students may be occupying his office. You never know what happens at the University of Hawaii, but we have him here today. I have also an all the long time friend, my former communications director, also is who worked with the mayor of the, I guess with Kurt Cardwell, when he was in the legislature and helped him communicate, he needs your help, help him communicate with the people, with his constituents. And also Senator Brian Schatz, who learned a lot from Chuck. So I don't know if I can find a better panel than the three of you today. So let's get started with the easy stuff first. Who's going to win the mayor's race tomorrow? That's the first question. Who wants to take a crack at that? All right, I'll do it. I thought it would come from the right. I just suspected it. Oh, no, that's a, and speaking of the right, I hope we got it right. But both the old beat and the Honolulu Star Advertiser say it's not a close race. We have both of us, Rick Blanchiarty, former general manager at Hawaii News Now, former football, great iron star, winning fairly handily over Keith Amamia, the business executive, high school sports leader. I don't see that changing dramatically. There still was a lot of undecided in both of those polls, but at least in our poll, I can tell you that, and actually I think the Star Advertiser too, Rick Blanchiarty was winning across nearly every single demographic, old, young, educated, less so, with money, without gender. The only area where Keith Amamia had a clear edge was among Democrats and liberals, and who knows? We'll see if that turns them out. As you know, Keith was running on, I'm a Democrat, even though it's a non-partisan race. So I'll go out on the limb and predict that our next mayor will be Rick Blanchiarty. I agree with Chad that Blanchiarty will probably win, but there was a little bit of an October surprise in this race, which Chad was actually involved in, because he asked Rick Blanchiarty this question directly. Did you vote for Donald Trump in 2016? And Blanchiarty answered, honestly, yes. Amamia has made quite a bit out of that in campaign ads. I mean, in some campaign ads, really, that's mainly what it is, just Rick Blanchiarty answers this question. Chad, did you ask him also whether he intends to vote for Trump again? No, he indicated that that would not be the case. I don't remember if he was explicitly saying Biden-Harris, but he made clear that he regretted his vote for Donald Trump. He made it clear he didn't vote for Hillary Clinton four years ago. Now, Keith Amamia, his campaign, didn't mention that part about disavowing that vote, but Rick Blanchiarty sounded like, I think a lot of people four years later, regretting what they did, thought it was gonna turn out differently and turn out to be much worse than expected. By the way, I received no commission from the Amamia campaign for asking that question. That's all right. It wasn't freebie, though. It was a freebie for them, and I'm sure they appreciated it. Well, what do you think, Chuck? You think pretty much... Well, let me ask you another question, Chuck. If I'm assuming that there's going to be a pretty fierce election on the national level, so do you think that this whole issue with Biden and Trump is gonna affect any of the downstream races, like the Amamia campaign, obviously wanted it to do? I think in Hawaii, no. Not really. I think across the country, it's beyond our imagination just what the down tickets will, what the implication of all that will be, but it'll be heavy and meaningful historically to the country and to Hawaii because the decision-making that goes on in Washington affects us so much. Well, I'm gonna use that to step into other races locally so we can do it. I'm thinking that it may have an impact, maybe not on the Mayor Ariel race where people may have their own way of choosing who they see as the leader. And it's not necessarily to do with their stands on a particular policy, but more than that. But I was wondering whether or not the Trump-Biden race on the national level will affect some of the house races where we have a limited number of Republicans now running. Have you, what's your feeling on that? Governor, the larger question to me is, I don't think there's a strong Republican representation in our races now and not like years ago when there seemed to be more able Republicans from Scotchie Henderson to Pat Psyche, you name it. The pickings are slim. The question is after this election in whatever way the Republican party will rebuild the self nationally, will there be an avenue for local Republicans to become more viable? And even as an active Democrat, the answer for me is I hope so because a legitimate Republican, not a Trumpian Republican party, but a legitimate Republican GOP Hawaii style used to be important and should be tomorrow. Yeah, well, Colin, one of the more interesting races is the comeback of Sam Sloan in Hawaii and he's running against Stanley Chang. And Sam has made no, yes, he's never tried to hide the fact that he is a conservative Republican. I don't know if he's a Trump Republican. What I'm curious about, and this kind of goes back to your previous question, is in these somewhat more conservative districts that have elected Republicans in the past, like Hawaii Kai, is there gonna be this because of a big outpouring of support for Trump, even here just from general enthusiasm, are there gonna be more Republicans voting than normally would in that race? There's another one that looks a little bit like this, which actually could be a loss for the Republicans in the House, which is the House District 50 race, which is Cynthia Thielen seat right now. They're running a really competitive candidate Kanani Sousa, who is a lawyer, really well respected in the community against Patrick Bronco. He's a good Democrat, don't get me wrong, but it's interesting to me that the Republicans in some of the down ticket legislative races have some really strong candidates, but then they weren't able to field a legitimate candidate, for example, for the CD1 district running against Ed Case. And that, maybe I wasn't surprised, but I thought that was sort of interesting, but I think that would be another one, this District 50 race, like the Stanley Chang, Sam Sloan race, where- What about the Mililani race, where you have a chisholored chick running against Kelly? Boy, that's, you're thinking of a Valochimodo, right? Yeah, Valochimodo. Yeah, that's gonna be an interesting one, because she's only a first termer. I suspect she's gonna win re-election. She has a lot of endorsements. She seems to be a real moderate. You know, the one, there's the other one, which is the only Senate seat the Republicans have right now, right? Which is Kurt Fevella's seat. And Rhea Cabanella was the house rep there. I don't have a good read on that. Maybe Chad or Chuck does. I think- Yeah, Chad, what do you think of that, Rhea? So have you given any thought to it? Well, Rita is back in the house. Remember, she lost to Matt LaPresti a while ago. It's kind of incestuous. Matt LaPresti ran against- Yeah, yeah, it sure is. Ran against Fevella two years ago. And of course, that was the case. That was the, one of the races. Well, it was marked by Matt LaPresti taking someone's flyer down from a house. Remember that? It was caught on tape and, yeah, to apologize. And then that was one of the closer races, but there was no recount between Fevella and LaPresti, unlike Tommy Waters and Trevor Ozawa. So now you have Matt LaPresti running to get his old seat back that Rita is vacating. I think Fevella is nervous. I don't think the president is as popular, but remember about 28 to 30% of the vote in Hawaii, at least the last couple of elections, has gone for President Trump, gone Republican. Let me just say something about Slum and Chang. Remember, Sam Slum in a lot of ways, he's a really more libertarian than he is Republican. I mean, that has been, you know, it's a different value, even though he has run as a Republican, but he has worked cooperatively with the other side of the aisle and he's actually signed on to a lot of legislation. It's interesting. Stanley Chang actually promoted the fact, here's a guy running for state Senate that he got Elizabeth Warren to endorse him and he got Pete Butt-Edge Edge to endorse him. And I think even Andrew Yang, if I'm not mistaken. So why does a guy running for state Senate in Hawaii, Kai, need to have three prominent Democrats endorse him? Well, I think he's a little bit nervous. Sounds like it. Okay, let's, you know, one of the interesting things about this election is the fact that Kai Kaheli can basically walk into the congressional seat. No opposition. And you know what? That says something about the opposition. I mean, as you said, Joplin- Yeah, that's not how it's going to go. Oh, go ahead, Cole. Oh, no, go. I was going to say, Joe Akana is not a bad candidate on paper. I don't think he's going to be competitive, but when you look at the amount of money they raised, I think Kai raised more than a million dollars for this race. And I think Akana raised about 35,000 or something. So it's really not even close. Yeah, you know, it's surprising. It's surprising that when you're in politics and speaking from experience, when you look like you're going to win anyway, you got a lot of money. People want to make a donation to you. When you look like you're in a tough race, it's a little tougher to get people to contribute. And you feel sorry for somebody who's in that situation. I do anyway. We'll go quickly over to the, I guess any other interesting races, mayors race on Big Island seems to be pretty settled. Chuck, you- No, I think it's somewhat, as a former Big Islander, you know, they, Big Island folks have a way of, once every 10 to 15 years, just deciding to get out the old broom and sweep, you know, and they do it, you know, and they've been lots of surprises. I just asked Dante Carpenter, who lost his mayorship in a flash. So I think that there are two very, very different kinds of candidates. That is an island that has a lot of big problems, much as I love it, and we could talk about it for a long time, but just the emergencies that they've gone through, the problems they're really having with COVID now, their revenue stream as a county. I don't think that's a settled race. Well, I tell you, we, so, so we are gonna be looking forward to that tomorrow. You wanna make a prediction? I mean, I just like to encourage predictions, just so, you know. Me personally, no, maybe one of the real pundits. If, okay, I'll make a prediction. I think it's probably gonna go to Mitch Roth, although Kaika Marzo is a really competitive candidate. You know, they actually agree on a lot of things and compared to the Honolulu race, which was pretty nasty. This was a very friendly race, as far as I can understand. They were joking with each other. I mean, one of the big differences, interestingly enough, in that race is something that actually doesn't even fall necessarily under the control of the county, which is the TMT, and Marzo and Roth are split on that, but there's not big differences really, other than that. So I think, you know, it'll probably come down to turnout and it could go either way there too. I mean, if we get a lot of new voters, which we know we have from turnout, those might be a Kaika Marzo voters. I mean, people who are less establishment, but I still think if you look at the money raised and you kind of wonder who where the Harry Kim vote's gonna go, it's probably gonna go to Roth. Yeah, well, okay, let me move real quickly and go through the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Anything interesting happening there? You think the incumbents are gonna still prevail? We got, you know, Colette Machado, who is the current chair, and she's up against Luana Pana, I guess. Alapa. Alapa, Alapa. And I'm sorry for correcting you, but I had to learn the name myself, Governor, and I did end up interviewing her, as well as Colette and others. I think what's so fascinating about this race is I think Colette Machado is a little nervous right now. She did not do terribly well in the primary. Mind you, a lot of people leave Oha votes blank, right? We know that that's been a historic problem, even though everyone in the state can vote for all the Oha races. But Colette Machado, for the first time since ever being in Oha, 1996, she bought TV advertising. That shows you that she's worried. And Luana Alapa, who's a, I think a former Miss Hawaii, she's an event planner now, has a charismatic presence and has got some TV ads up there as well. And let me just say this about Kili Akina, another incumbent. He has run TV commercials in the past, but it took him a while to get elected, remember? And then he's finally in, but he's worried because he's running against Keone Sousa, who I think is a real estate agent. If I'm not mistaken, I'm actually going to have to tell you. Pretty much he is a real estate business. He's got labor endorsed when he got, he's got HGEA behind him. And Akina, as you know, has been a major critic of Oha, even as he sits on the board. And then that other seat is wide open. That's another seat that's pretty amazing. I finally learned how to pronounce his last name, Monakia Manuel. It was a difficult name for me to get, but I got it down. Talk about TMT, a very big critic of the telescope project. He's up against Keola Lindsay, who's Bob Lindsay's nephew. And Bob Lindsay, of course, is vacating that big island seat. So I think all three are very interesting in the fact that three of those candidates are spending money statewide to try and get those votes is telling to me. That is, that's very, very interesting. Real quick before we leave Hawaii, I got a question that popped up on the chat box. And I don't know whether it's a question we should take on for this particular session, but why not? Anybody on the horizon out there in the political scene that looks like a possible candidate for governor in two years, besides the, you know, I guess the obvious, the mayor and the lieutenant governor. And does either one of you, can either one of you come across anybody? Well, there's any of you. So obviously Josh Green is pretty, Josh Green and Kirk called well, but I would say Derek Kawakami, the mayor of Kauai too, might make a run. He's the other name I've heard. That's the only other credible candidate I've heard so far, but Chad probably has heard some others. Well, I think Derek would be crazy to leave Kauai, but he's the one politician really that's come out smelling good out of the COVID crisis. I think everybody couldn't agree. His actions were firm. He had that TikTok video. He did some other things, but you know this governor, the only neighbor island mayor to ever, and correct me if I'm wrong, whoever got elected governor was Linda Lingle and she lost the first time around and second time, but it's very, very tough. Chuck, I know you know this history probably better than anybody, really tough for a neighbor island, particularly a small island like Kauai, but in terms of future stars, he's got something about him with some integrity and like Colin, I'm having troubles deciding who else, but you know what? Two white guys that we're seeing in the news all the time right now, I think people are gonna be hungry. I say that as a white guy. I think they're gonna be hungry for a female candidate, for a person of color. So that's still two years away, which is a lifetime and a lifetime. In politics, in politics. Well, okay, so that wraps up Hawaii. Chuck, you got anything to add up on that? I think Derek is a good candidate, but he's gonna have to make up his mind that he really wants to do it. And I think there's some ambivalence there about whether he wants to leave Kauai and whether a young family wants to go through all that Chad just described as a steeple chase in order to become a governor from a neighbor island. It's a lot of work. So let's get to tomorrow and the big race. There's gonna be an election for the president of the, there is an election, I should say, given the way we do things these days. There is an election now going on and it will come to its final, voting conclusion tomorrow across the country. And what I'm interested in is, okay, this is America right after Donald Trump wanted. And so you can see why he wanted, which is what's interesting about the last election was that the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, actually received about three million more votes. But Donald Trump was able to win because he barely won a number of states. And the way this electoral map works or the way the electoral process works is that whoever is the winner of the plurality, whoever is the plurality winner, meaning the person with the most votes and on the presidential primaries in the states, generally is that takes all of the electoral votes. And each state is allocated the electoral votes based on the size of their congressional delegations. So everybody gets two to start with and then you get one for each congressman. That, so most of the states and the District of Columbia, and the other besides the states, the District of Columbia gets three votes. So they are 538 votes available, you need 270. There are two states who can allocate the votes and that is Nebraska and Maine. So if you win in one of the congressional districts, you could end up with one of the votes. Anyway, looking at all of this, let's start off with an easy question for the professor. Oh no. Yeah, so tell me, I guess right now, well, first of all, tell me who's going to win and then tell me why Donald Trump didn't, what he would have to do to win. Okay, let's go. I'll do my best, all right. So here it is. So to win, Biden needs to win three of the states that Clinton barely lost last time. These are Northern states, former industrial states, heavily white, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Biden gets those three states, he wins the election. And remember that Hillary barely won those and that's what was so unexpected. This was the so-called blue wall that collapsed. It created a crisis for the polling industry because although the national polls were pretty close, they really messed up these state-level polls, particularly in those states. So that's all Biden needs to do. But the thing is Biden could lose one of those and he could still win by picking up some of the other states in the Sun Belt. So those are the states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina that we're looking at. And he is leading in all of these states right now, depending on the poll. But I think the most accurate poll of polls shows him with either a really solid lead like in Wisconsin to kind of a very close lead in Florida. And then the state that's received the most attention recently is Pennsylvania, which was a long time considered a solid democratic state, a good blue union state. But those voters, these voters that formed the core of Trump's support, the white voters without college degrees, there's a lot of them in Pennsylvania. I used to live in Pennsylvania, I know that for sure. And there's a lot of Trump support there. And so they've been putting a lot of money in Pennsylvania. And I think that's gonna be one state to watch although we probably won't know Pennsylvania right away because they're gonna be a little slow to count their votes. But if Trump- Okay, let's say Trump wins Pennsylvania. What else does he have to do to win the election tomorrow? If Trump wins Pennsylvania, then he, let's see, he would also have to win Florida. He needs to win Florida. He needs to win Georgia. He needs to win North Carolina. He needs to win- He needs to keep his states. He needs to keep his states, yeah. And so there's not, he doesn't have as many paths to victory as Biden does. But if he does end up winning Pennsylvania, it's gonna mean that these other states are probably gonna trend in similar ways. I don't think he's gonna win Michigan, although if he wins Pennsylvania, that's possible. So it's, I mean, he's only, so that's, I think that's the state to look at most closely because if Biden doesn't win Pennsylvania, then he can still win, but his paths to victory become a little more narrow. And it probably means that the polling has been off if he loses Pennsylvania, that these other states that looked like Pennsylvania, which are these other Northern states like Michigan, it might be off there too. What about you, Chad? Matt, when I was hoping you were gonna ask me about the Charter Amendment questions, but that's okay, we can talk. Well, we'll come back to it, we'll come back to it. No, I'm kidding. I mean, it really is, it's a cliche, but it really is the election of a lifetime. And it's so unpredictable, but Poland's right on the numbers, although I would just add that some of those states are within the margin of error, and that includes Florida. And I don't know anybody that actually trusts the polling in Florida, given what happened 20 years ago, or even more recently, but here's what I'm noticing is that there's a reason why Biden is spending so much time in Pennsylvania. One, it's close to Delaware, his home. Two, he was from Pennsylvania originally. It is the state that kills Trump. If he can't take Pennsylvania, it's gonna be really, really hard to do that. But Biden's also doing something else. He went to Iowa. I mean, who would have thought taking some time to go to Iowa? Kamala Harris went to Texas, another state that, in theory, is actually in play. I believe Biden also went to Atlanta, to Georgia, which is another state. So those are states that were not blue four years ago. Trump, on the other hand, has to go back to the states that were not only red, but the ones that he barely lost, or barely won, rather, the upper Northern states that Colin mentioned before, Michigan and Pennsylvania, of course, and Wisconsin. So I think that's telltale, but look what Trump's doing. He's going to all those states. And right now, he's been flying five times a day. He's taking five different stops on Air Force One, and he's even talking about campaigning after election night, because that's when the next campaign starts, the legal challenge. So I think it doesn't look good for the president, but it is possible. But Chuck, I mean, how did you feel four years ago? What? Time. Yeah, yeah. Three quick things to add. One, I think Biden has used Obama well to go and make sure that nobody's taken for granted and that there is a real spirit to the campaign that really only Obama can give it. That's been good for the Democrats. That's number one. Number two, as we all know, an election, two, the election polls two weeks out, an election polls two days out, are different polls every time they compress. It just, it shrinks. And John White, he certainly knows that. Sometimes he was on the wrong side of things and they compressed it in his favor, but that's what's happened now. And it's made point three. When I talked to my, I guess you could say, operative friends on the mainland, strong Democrats who've been around for a while, there is not a one of them who feels confident at all about these poll numbers. They are very anxious people about what is going on and what could happen. So I don't think we can underscore the point that at this point, the polls be damned. It's about groundwork, fieldwork at who shows up and making sure all the votes are counted. And it could, I told somebody election night four years ago, Chad. I think Hillary Clinton will win by a lot or Trump will win by a little and both things turned out to be true. Okay, we're going to take a short break right now and we'll be back in a minute. So we want to join you, pick up where Chuck just left off. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihei and the political pundits of Hawaii May. Once again, we are prognosticating. And that's a fancy word for trying to predict what is going to happen as a result of tomorrow. So we are talking about the presidential race and I think all of us sort of reluctantly feel that the Democratic candidate ought to win but knowing our president, our current president, nobody wants to say absolutely that it will be out that way. And one of the reasons is that one of the good things about all of this in the presidential race is that it's made a lot of the down ticket races on the continent. And actually in Alaska as well, become much more competitive, which is something that wasn't happening over the last few years. When I was governor, we had out of the 50 states, we had 32 of them were Democrats. The number is a lot smaller now. So to begin with, it seems like the blue side of the equation, at least on the statewide level has been slipping in the last few years. And yet this election seems to offer an opportunity for the Democrats to gain the majority back in the United States Senate. So I'm gonna go to you any, Chad, any races that you particularly care about or? Well, I'm sure Colin and Chuck can add as well but there's four that come to mind. Gardner and Hink and Looper in Colorado, Gardner is the incumbent GOP. Hink and Looper is gonna win that race. I don't think there's any question about that. And McSally, Martha McSally and Mark Kelly in Arizona, that one's closer, but I think that's, McSally is in trouble and this is the former astronaut and the husband of Gaby Giffords, of course, who was shot in that terrible tragedy in South Carolina. Who would have thunk it that Lindsey Graham could possibly be in trouble against Jamie Harrison. I'm not completely confident that Graham's gonna lose that but with Lou Dobbs of all people, denouncing Lindsey Graham, one of the president's closest allies, really a remarkable turn of events. You kind of see Trump just throwing the guy out in the wind. Georgia with John Ossoff and Perdue, another race and there's at least one or two, I would think, Colin, maybe you could help me as well, but it is remarkable. Nobody forecasted the Senate was really gonna be able to flip some months ago and it is really, this would be, if Trump goes down, this is a textbook example of down ballot, going down with the ship and it's, those races are really quite dynamic and I think it's very much a reflection against President Trump. Susan Collins in Maine is in real trouble and has danced the jig and the horror and the war. Oh wait, there's one more now that I think about it, Cunningham and Tillis in North Carolina. Cunningham's the one who texted, he's having an affair with a woman and then it goes up by 10 points or something and so that's six races and Colin and Mike. Did you mention Arizona? Did you get Arizona? I did, I did. The only other one I would mention is that the Democrats are probably almost certainly gonna lose a seat in Alabama with Doug Jones and Tommy Tuberville's. They're gonna lose, they're probably basically, everyone's agreed they're gonna swap Colorado and Alabama and they're gonna have to fight out the others, yeah. By the way, if Doug Jones who is really respected and liked in the United States Senate by his Democratic peers and even by some Republicans but he's a terrific guy, if Biden wins the White House and Doug Jones loses, he's going to end up on that cabinet. That's a prediction. The thing with Jones, of course, is he's running against a football coach, right? In Alabama. In Alabama, you know, I mean, what do you get for that, you know? And what about McConnell? Anything gonna happen to him or is there still a long shot? I think it's a real long shot. I just don't see McConnell going down. I don't either. It would really be remarkable. I think he's running against a woman who I believe is a veteran, a combat veteran. Right. And any other state or against any other politician would be pretty amazing, but I think Mitch knows Kentucky, Kentucky, right? Oh my God, I'm right, not Tennessee. Yes. Yeah, but he's also looking at probably becoming the minority leader or maybe even losing that position to some more ambitious person in the Senate because it's gonna be a big, I don't seem to be McConnell losing, but it's, you know, he's a widely won that guy. You know, you never know what will happen. What about, you know, the strange thing about Georgia is you actually got two Senate races going on in Georgia, right? And there's one of the races which people, which they're saying maybe a toss up at the moment, but I want to- What's up in Purdue, what are you talking about? Yeah, well, no. The one with the reverend. I'm trying to remember his name, Raphael. Warnock. Warnock, because apparently there are two Republicans and one Democrat running or maybe another Democrat. And the two losers get thrown off until somebody gets 51%. No, I think you have that right. Is it Kelly Loeffler? Is she the one that- Yeah, Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins. And Collins, of course, helped lead the House GOP defense against impeachment. And he's really got Trump support. Loeffler was not the one that the president preferred to fill a Senate seat. She's had some troubles relinquishing her stock right before the stock market died and whatnot. Recently, she denied knowing what happened on the Hollywood access tape. Was President Trump at your right, Governor? That goes into a runoff. And I believe the opponent again is another African American. Yeah, it's Raphael Warnock. Raphael Warnock. And that's gonna be an interesting race. That race will go on for some time. You know, what's interesting about all of these competitive states are the number of people who have voted early. You know, like in Georgia, it's almost over three and a half million people who've already voted or more than that. And there's been a huge effort in Georgia backed by Stacy Abrams to register new voters. I think almost 800,000 new voters. So it's been massive. I mean, the number of new voters are gonna come into that Senate race. So I think that's what's making it harder to predict. But you're right, this special election where there's a bunch of candidates, that's the one that Warnock is in who has tremendous authority in the community. He is the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the legendary church in Atlanta. So it's gonna be tough for him, but he's gonna run a strong campaign in what I think is gonna go to the runoff, yeah. And if nothing else, all of this is diverting attention from, or is it from Trump's race? I have no idea. I don't think it's so much diverting it. And of course, this cocktail of registration and the change and modification in election procedures to accommodate COVID and also some of the changes that have been made in legislatures over the last two years since the last election is all a brew that the president of the United States is stirring right now with the idea of being able to challenge the results if he doesn't like them. And it will have to do with registration or have to do with when, you know, whether votes came in on time and there are lawyers all over the place they're ready to leap on this state by state. And they said there are 400 lawsuits already filed. So before even the election has come on. It's crazy. In Texas, they set up a system where you can, instead of getting out of your car and walking into a building and dropping ballots, you can do it from your car. And there is this lawsuit to try and disqualify 127,000 people. I believe the lawsuit was just today. Dismissed, it has come to this. And I think it was particularly Harris County around Houston, which of course is a huge. And that's where the lawsuits are being challenged. So it was dismissed. That lawsuit was dismissed by a Republican judge appointed by George Bush. Wow. And it was also, they filed before the Texas Supreme Court which is the Republican court and they have disregarded it or dismissed. But it goes before a federal judge appointed, I believe by our current president on Monday. So the drama never ceases to end, you know. And right across the country, I guess all of these voter suppression issues, including the idea of, well, one of the things the current President Trump has done is that he's tried to stop the census, which is being done in part for reapportionment. And on the state level, the state house level, you're also seeing change or movement occurring. So I don't know. I've been directly involved with the census issues and bless the United States Department of Census and the directors and the administrators within it have conducted a fair and appropriate census in what is a very difficult time. And their numbers are good. What remains to be seen is on this issue of whether a non-resident immigrant, an illegal immigrant, non-resident immigrant can be included in the count or not. They are included in the census count. It will be the objective of the administration to pull those numbers out so those people aren't represented as people even in states that have to serve them and in which they pay taxes. So that's what's in front of us. And the ultimate decision there will affect what happens with reapportionment. But the basic census that's been conducted, I can tell you has been sound and whether or not President and his attorney general try to monkey around with it by discounting the number of aliens that remains to be seen. But that will go to court, the Supreme Court. I believe it's at the very end of November. Okay, go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna follow up for a second and say that these other statehouse races which you mentioned, people should remember that of course in a lot of these states they control how you draw these redistricting lines and there's a real chance, I mean, we talked about Texas before. There's a real chance this year that the Texas house, not the Senate, not the governor could go to Democrats and that would go a long way in redrawing those districts in a way that's a little more favorable to Democrats who've really had a lot of gains in Texas recently. All of those well-heeled suburbs around Houston and Dallas and Austin have been going from traditional Republican seats to Democrats waiting and holding those seats it looks like. What do you think the majority of the Latino votes are gonna go? I'm assuming they're gonna go Democrat but is the Biden vote, the Biden campaign gonna receive the kind of support that... Well, it's wrong to talk about wrong but it's way too gentle to talk about a Latino vote, right? We all know that there. The Cuban vote will go one way, probably Republican in large measure. The Puerto Rican vote on the other hand after the way Puerto Ricans in America and Puerto Rico the way the way Trump administration kind of handled the hurricane issue and the whole just the notion of admission of Puerto Rico as a state will go another and then there's the Mexican American vote which is probably a little bit more split but my guess would be more Democrat than Republican but Latino vote it's like talking about the Hawaiian vote or the Jewish vote. I mean, who are these people anyway? They are a bunch of different kinds of diverse, wonderful... We have something right here. But you Governor, I think you are on to something because I mean to Chuck's point, I agree it's not a good idea to group everybody together and think just because they're gonna that they're white or they're female or they're educated, they're gonna vote this way or that. And yet that's what we do. That's what political scientists do. And the trend line it's there. The data does reflect that broadly you can capture and make guesses on which way certain groups, demographics you're gonna vote. And when you bring up the Latino vote I think the big question that has not been talked about much and there are concerns in the Democratic Party that Biden has not reached out enough to this group because that group in many ways is open to conservatives, open to being appealing to the Republican Party. And I think certainly I'm not gonna disagree with Cuba and Miami and so forth, Cubans and Miami but there hasn't been a big play and that vote is only gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger as including it stays like California where it's almost the majority. So... It seems like I remember when the basically the blue collar Catholic vote was an automatic democratic vote. You couldn't get it any better than that. And that was a lot of Michigan, for example were blue collar Catholics. And then all of a sudden who's ever since Ronald Reagan the blue collar Catholics are starting to slip over because of the abortion issue and other things over. Same-sex marriage and other issues. Same-sex marriage and also abortion slip over into the Republican vote. So it seems to me like what we call the Latino vote is cannot be taken for granted that because they're a minority they're automatically gonna vote for the party that espouses a minority right. I completely agree. And actually a lot of Biden support has come from these white voters who went over to Trump coming back home to the party to Biden who they can relate to a little better. That explains his strength in the Midwest and in the Southwest with a lot of Latino voters. I mean, one of the most interesting statistics I've seen to come out of this race is we often talk about the gender gap in politics and it's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. We know that women for the most part really don't like Donald Trump. I mean, he's lost a lot of support among white women. But if you look at the Latino vote that's one of the biggest gaps between the Latino women who are very opposed to Donald Trump to Latino men where he's barely losing them. I think maybe just under seven points are for Biden. So that's a huge gap. And I think it goes and I would agree with that criticism that he may not have reached out enough to those voters because he was so concerned about bringing these classic blue collar Catholic voters to who he knows, because he is one back into the fold. How much impact do you think the protest marches are gonna have on this election? See, I think that's the sleeper cart. And I think that the Republicans kind of knew that. And in a way, they wanted to pull a bush, you know, like they did with Dukakis and Willie Horton. Yeah, the Willie Horton ads. I saw a ad on television here in Hawaii just last night where you had the picture of, you know and it was an interesting ad because I wasn't sure what it was supposed to do but it was Biden sponsoring the stricter laws to put people in jail. And it was being and the pictures that were running of those that were going to be put in jail were all black men. And I was wondering, these guys is sort of a real juxtaposition because on one hand you have a president talking law and order trying to be, do the Horton thing. And then on the other hand, trying to do the opposite by saying, I'm the guy you guys should vote for. And, you know, I'm with Ice Cube and JC and all the rest of these guys. I'd like to say something about that. There's no question why Trump is bringing up anti-fault and saying Black Lives Matter is an evil organization and talking about the rampaging through the cities and so forth. The problem is, is it's not backed by reality. Really, this is not Watts in the 1960s. This is not the Chicago Democratic Convention in 68. They've been largely very, very peaceful. In fact, some of the protesters where it's gone violent have actually been conservative, the proud boys and whatnot. But it goes to that Willie Horton thing, the fear. All you have to do is strike the fear. And so that's why Trump talks about, I've saved your suburbs. I got rid of the low income housing next to, you know, so I agree with you that he's making it a point I don't know if it's completely connected. Well, and then he's also making the opposite point or at least his campaign is and that is that Joe Biden's not a guy that really wants to help you. He's the guy that put you in jail. He and Camilla Harris actually busted more Black people than I ever did. You know, it's kind of interesting. I don't know, maybe it's a sign of desperation. We don't have that many minutes left but I do know there's another subgroup in this election that's sort of interesting and that's the Asian Americans and where they come out in all of this. Now, it seems like from what limited data I've seen that most Asian Americans who are, I guess, Americanized in a way, have become supporters of Biden. But they are the immigrant factor given, I couldn't believe this, but I was recently up in Seattle talking to some people who were Vietnamese, Cambodian, that group. And they actually were real pro-Trump. I mean, they were Trump up and one of the things they liked the best about Trump, well, there are two things they liked about Trump was, the first was his stand against China. Most of them I realized had sort of escaped from the Chinese influence and he hasn't actually make a stand against China but he talks about it. And the second which was really interesting to me was the wall. They seem to think that somehow having that wall and of course they were not at all in sympathy with the marches and so forth. It was so hard to picture all of this coming together and whether it would be interesting. I have some Vietnamese friends here in Honolulu and in a way they are kind of true Republicans in the sense they've worked very hard for what they have. They work all the time. They're very pull yourself up from your bootstraps people and don't have much aloha for anyone who doesn't know what that's all about. So it's not really Trump Republicanism. It's the old time Republicanism of, the best social program is a good job. They adhere to that and- Are they voting for Trump though? Are they voting for Trump? I think, I don't know who they're voting for but my guess is, but I think they are real Republicans. So I think they would likely move that way on the basis that as I say, they're self-made people. Yeah, they're definitely Republicans. I mean, that's the only group of Asian-Americans that's majority Republican, the Vietnamese. And I think it's a little bit like the Cubans where this partly is a legacy of the Cold War too. Right. I would just add though, we tend to forget, I think if Biden wins this election and all indications, most of them are that he will, we're actually gonna have elected an African-American Asian-American woman, the daughter of immigrants, the daughter of immigrants to be vice president. And that is an extremely historic occasion. And there is a sizable South Asian population in the United States. Like the Latino group, Chuck, would you agree, the Asian group, you can't put them all together. There's just too many, just too many different backgrounds. But I agree with both Colin and Charles, Chuck that a lot of them tend to be Republican. Well, okay. We only got a few more minutes left. And so to end this, and with my usual finesse, what I wanted to do today at the end, I saw a number of classmates from the big island that I went to high school with, set aside a little, they started a little contest among themselves. And they're asking all of us to, you know, to participate by guessing. And we're all supposed to submit this, guessing how many of electoral votes, we think that Donald Trump will get, see. And of course, a number of them won zero and everything else. And I sent you a piece of paper earlier. And that paper was something I did up for that contest. So I wanted to ask the three of you to just give me a number, you know, like, what do you think, I'm assuming all four of us hope at least that Biden will win, right? I mean, nobody's gonna stand. But at the same time, how many, I would suggest, what do you think Donald Trump's electoral votes might be? Who wants to go first? I can go, I think, because I figured this out earlier, 203. Okay. I got one. All right, Chad. Well, let me just first say, I am not officially endorsing Joe Biden. And- No, no, we're- As a journalist, I'm being totally impartial. I, you know, it's hard to give an exact number. I was watching Steve Kronacki on MSC last night and he did 20 different scenarios of how the electoral college could come out. My understanding is that, you know, Trump has about a 10% chance. That's what Nate Silver is saying and others. But I do think it will be in the low 200s. And I think Biden will be in the low than the 300s. Doc. Je me sais pas. I don't really know. I didn't do numbers on this. I didn't see your email on it. I wouldn't, at this point, hazard a guess because I really haven't calculated it. I think anything, but I do think that, unfortunately for me as a Democrat, I do think that Trump can win. Yeah, I do too. But that's not the mood I wanted to end the show on. So I'll give you my number. My number is 193. 193. Very bullish on Biden. I like it. I figured I'm very bullish on seeing whether good things can still happen in the country. But anyway, I want to thank you all for coming and for participating. As usual, I've enjoyed this. And I got you down for 203, 200, sort of, and 193. And Chuck, just give me a number. Two, two, one, two. All right, guys. Thank you very much and Aloha.