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Athan Koutsiouroumbas Analyzes Pennsylvania Polling
I'm Jean-Marie Laskis. I'm a journalist. I spend my career helping Americans understand the lives of other Americans, coal miners, gun shop clerks, staffers in the White House mailroom. In my new podcast, Cement City, I tell the story of an entire town, a dying town that you've absolutely no reason to care about. But trust me, you will. Listen to and follow Cement City, an Odyssey original podcast in partnership with Cement City Productions, available now for free on the Odyssey app, and wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC] Caitlin, company week, day, morning, six till ten. How you doing, buddy? Good to have you back on the show. Nick, it is great to be back. Good to have you. So tell us right now, what's the polling trend here with Trump in Pennsylvania that nobody is talking about that you've uncovered? Nick, for the past couple of weeks, I've been hearing about coconuts and brat summer. And I've got to be honest with you, I have no idea what coconuts or brat summer means, so I just figured, let me just dig into the polling and see what's really going on here in Pennsylvania. At this point eight years ago, Hillary Clinton led Pennsylvania polling by nine points. And at this point four years ago, Joe Biden led Pennsylvania polling by an average of nearly six points. Now, we all know Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania. But heading into the convention last week, Donald Trump was actually leading polls in Pennsylvania, which is remarkable. And there's nobody talking about this trend. So I went further back in history and looked at some of the prior polling for presidential cycles here in PA. So back in 2016, there were 59 public polls released. President Trump only led in two of those 59 Pennsylvania polls. Then I looked at 2020. There were 84 public polls released in Pennsylvania. The president only led in five of them. Then I took a look at this cycle. There have been 17 public polls released so far. President Trump is winning 13 of them, Nick, 13 of the 17 polls that have come out this year. President Trump is winning. He's winning more polls this year than he did in the prior two presidential cycles combined. And nobody's talking about it. It's actually double. I mean, you think about it. Two and five is seven. He's got 13 this time around. So again, 57 out of 59 favored Hillary in 16, 79 out of 84 favored Joe four years ago. And now Trump is leading in 13 of those 17. So what has Trump done to kind of up end the polling here in the Keystone State? Yeah, you know, that's the question for victory, right? What exactly is driving this and what's confounding to me? And I think a lot of people that study this stuff is that it doesn't seem to be a single factor that is driving it. So I just, I kind of walk through what are the potential reasons for why this is happening. So one that people point too often is the effect of what are known as shy Trump voters, people who were hesitant to say publicly that they supported the president in 2016, knowing particularly in the suburbs, how much pushback there was against the president, they may have been hesitant back then in 2020 to say that I support the president. But I think after the assassination attempt in Butler, I just think that there are no more shy Trump voters. They feel like President Trump almost took a board for them and they feel like they owe it to the president to tell people that they support him. So I think that that's probably a good factor here. Another factor is that President Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Scranton, Joe. And there are a lot of swing voters in northeastern Pennsylvania. And I think that they stuck with him being the Northeast guy. I just don't see that in polling now. Donald Trump is beating the numbers that he had in the past in Northeast P.I. against both Hillary Clinton and President Biden. That affinity is now gone. And then when you go west to the state, you go over to Erie. Erie is a working class kind of place. It is your quintessential swing voter. It doesn't seem like Vice President Harris with her San Francisco roots. It just doesn't feel like she's getting a lot of traction there based on the polling that we're seeing. Another factor is that President Biden represented the state of Delaware as the United States Center. And as you folks know, we're in the same media market. And for nearly 40 years, the Philadelphia media covered then Senator Biden, almost like a Pennsylvania Senator. So he had that affinity here in the suburbs. He had that affinity here in Pennsylvania. Yeah, I just don't see Vice President Harris having that same kind of affinity and make something that you've talked about a lot on your show and elsewhere is that the support of African American males, you know, make no mistake about it. There is going to be an African American turnout surge in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, probably akin to what we saw in 2008. But it looks like the anecdotes we're seeing of African American males questioning whether or not President Trump is a viable option for them is reopening. We've all seen the barbershop video, but it's also reflected in the polling where President Trump got 15 percent, I'm sorry, 12 percent of the African American vote in the past. What if he gets 15 percent this time? What if he gets 18 percent this time? That would negate any kind of turnout surge that would come out of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but there's some other stuff that's happening. In 2008, there were 1.1 more million Democrats in Pennsylvania than Republicans. That is now whittled down to a deficit of only 350,000 voters. And then if you look at the active versus inactive voters, inactive voters are those that haven't voted in over 10 years, that deficit is now down to 150,000 voters. So the state has fundamentally changed in who lives here, who's registered to vote and their propensity for voting. That's a really, really big deal. And then finally, we've got the mail-in ballots. So mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania were unveiled during the lockdowns in 2020. And it was clear that Democrats are going to have much greater adoption of mail-in ballots than Republicans. At this point in 2020, nearly 1.7 million Democrats applied for mail-in ballot. And half of the mail-in ballot for Democrats came after this week, meaning that they were about halfway through the applications they were going to get. Then if you look at the 2022 midterm, more than 900,000 Democrats applied to vote by mail, but a third of them came after this week four years ago. Now you look at today's numbers. 650,000 Democrats have applied to vote by mail, which is a lot. But if their goal is to keep their pace for what they did in 2020, which again, pandemic year likely won't happen again, but even to get close to that number of 1.7 million mail-in ballot applicants on behalf of Democrats, there just might not be enough time. So I think all of these things taken together might help to explain why President Trump is overperforming in the polls compared to what he did in the past. I think it's a rumbus real clear politics joining us here on talk radio 1210. I know Sean and Don might want to jump in here. Last one for me for you, Athan. All of these numbers sound encouraging from Trump being under polled to the deficit reduced from a million to 300,000. But I think we've seen the last couple of years. We see polls, we get excited, and they let us down. What does this all really mean in the grand scheme of things between, let's say, September 16th when early voting starts through November 5th here in the state? Nick, it means people have to go vote. These polls mean nothing if Republicans don't go vote. Back in 2022, a lot of us felt incredibly bullish about the election, particularly after the debacle in Afghanistan, everything happening with the economy. But about 200,000 Republicans who were anticipated to vote didn't come to vote. And that's water on the bridge history, why they came out, didn't come out to vote. We can debate, but people have to come and vote. Sean, if you want to jump in, go right ahead. Yeah, Athan, thanks for joining us today. I'm a polling geek as well. And I was able to read your article last night. We were getting ready for this. You mentioned that 1.7 million Democrats applied for a mail-in ballot. By this point, is that or is that in total? That's the first question. And second is, when is the cut-off for mail-in ballot applications? Because if that's the case, then the Democrats are really going to need to drum up a huge amount of enthusiasm. I think the Trump factor on the ballot will get people out to vote. But was 1.7 million Democrats? Was that the application by this time in August? Or is that the total application in 2020? 1.7 million was the total number of applications in 2020. And they got half of that 1.7 million by this week in 2020. The deadline is, I believe it's Tuesday, October 29th. This is Jean Marie Laskis with the podcast Cement City. So there's this election coming up, a big one. And one guy's been indicted. People are talking voter fraud. Democracy itself is on the line. Sound familiar? Well, this isn't that election. This one is in Donora, Pennsylvania, a dying town in the middle of nowhere where I bought a house and stayed for three years. Listen to and follow Cement City, an Odyssey original podcast in partnership with Cement City Productions, available now for free on the Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. So they have some time, but it's a lot of time. There's not as much time and they have a lot of ground left to cover. Yeah. Hey, Athan. Good morning. Two questions. One is about the all the headlines saying that Harris leads Trump by quite a margin among Hispanic voters. And in Pennsylvania, we've seen Trump force 47 opening different centers in Hispanic, Hispanic, Hispanic neighborhoods here in Philadelphia in the the Reading area as well as across the state. That's the number one to ask you about Hispanic voters in particular, especially since RFK, then drops out of the race. How does that impact with Catholic Hispanic voters? And number two, one of the headlines in the Philadelphia Inquirer is saying that in Bucks County, I know that Governor Shapiro was campaigning with Senator Casey, Democrat, longtime Democrat, obviously running on his father's legacy, but saying that this election as far as the Senate is up to Bucks County. And so they were saying that essentially they were worried yesterday as they were campaigning in Bucks against Republican Dave McCormick. Don, in terms of the first question with the Latino vote, what I think a lot of folks misunderstand about the Latino vote is that it's not monolithic. And it's contingent on what ethnicity of Latino somebody is. So for example, a Latino that's Cuban, they tend to be hardcore Republicans because of their history with Cuba, and what Ronald Reagan did to support them and all that kind of stuff. What we have here in Pennsylvania is a little bit different. We have a lot of Latinos that are of Mexican descent, Ecuadorian, various South American, but we also have a large Puerto Rican contingent and Puerto Rican tend to be part of a voting bloc that is Democratic. So while in other places of the country like Texas or Florida or North Carolina or Ohio, where the president might win Latinos outright, what is different about Pennsylvania is that we have a larger continuum of Puerto Rican voters who tend to vote Democratic. Now, whether or not the president can break through that vote and block of Latinos this time is to be determined, but it's pretty clear that they've had success in other states. And Don, for the second question about Bucks County, it's where I live. Here where I live in Northwestern Bucks County, there are probably three times more Trump signs than there were in 2016 and 2020. In fact, I could probably walk to Wawa on Trump signs without getting my feet wet. And that's how fired up people here are to vote for the president. But we are the quintessential swing county. And again, something else that's underreported is that Bucks County has flipped Republican in terms of registration. That was something nobody had anticipated happening with cycle and it happened pretty quickly. Yeah, I think just a couple of questions here as we close things out here in the final few minutes. And I do want to stay in Pennsylvania. You alluded to Bucks County. I let you know, I'm in Montgomery County. I know it's blue. But I know the history of Northampton County. And that's where I grew up in the East and Bethlehem area. And it seems like as Northampton County votes, that's the way it falls for the state of Pennsylvania. Based on recent results, 2016, 2020, does that still hold merit? And how do you, this is, I guess, just a forecast and a projection. Any idea on how you see Northampton County falling in 2024? You know, Nick, you hit her on the hand regard in Northampton County, Northampton is growing. And the Lehigh Valley as a whole is growing. And one of the things driving the growth of the Lehigh Valley are refugees from New York and New Jersey who have said I've had enough taxes. I've had enough with the liberal policies that I don't like. So they're coming here as a refuge. But the big question that we that is unresolved is, are they bringing those policies with them from the states that they left? We're going to find out in the selection, whether or not they, they came for a change of pace or whether or not they want to stick with some of those policies, but they just aren't willing to cut the court yet. You've been doing this a long time. Big endorsement last Friday, Bobby Kennedy backing Donald Trump. What type of impact do you think that'll have here in Pennsylvania? Nick, I think it's substantial. The reason being is that the polling that I've seen of late indicated that the support that RFK Jr. had as of today was mostly from Republicans at this point who were disaffected with the president. So at this point, you would presume that RFK endorsed in the president would then bring those voters over. And in Pennsylvania, the percentage of those voters was three to four points. Well, the past two elections were decided by under a point. So that's kind of a big deal. Last one for me, Ethan. And I'm curious because I've heard Laura Trump say this. I've heard the platform of the RNC about embracing the broken system that we have, early voting mail in ballots. We know that the election is technically on November 5th. But the election in Pennsylvania starts on September 16th. And it ends on November 5th. And I'll never get this sound bite of you out of my head back in mid November after the midterms of 2022. You said in regards to Federman winning and Shapiro winning that Republicans just stopped showing up at the ballot box on election day after five o'clock. It was like a ghost town after dinner. If you say that again to me in about nine or 10 weeks, I'm hoping it's because yeah, Republicans embraced early voting and got things in early and didn't try to show up on election day and overcome a major deficit. Your gut instinct on whether or not Republicans will embrace early voting starting September 16th. How do you feel about that? Yeah, Nick, we're already seeing it. And it is due we're seeing positive developments. And it's due to a lot of hard work. So for example, in Lebanon County, Republicans make up 43% of those who are replied to vote by mail. And in Lancaster County, Republicans make up, I think it was 33% or 34% as of last night. So those are two red counties in Pennsylvania where Republicans are adopting mail-in ballots en masse. That is fantastic news. But the challenge is in Philadelphia and in the suburban collar counties, Republicans are not. And it's a function of would they rather just vote in person that's how they're going to vote? Or is it that it's so hard to get a message to suburban voters that they just haven't adopted yet? But outside of southeastern Pennsylvania, Republicans have started to adopt using mail-in ballots. And again, as you had said, Nick, you know, work in the polls, a sea change happened when President Trump was on the ballot. You know, traditionally Republican voter would come first thing in the morning or would come during the day. When President Trump was on the ballot, that changed. You would see a surge of voters coming after five o'clock. It would be guys in F-150s and working-class people who came to vote after work. And we didn't see that in 2022. Those guys didn't show up and they need to show up in 2024. There needs to be a line outside of polls of people coming to vote. The website realclearpensylvania.com, his latest column under reported polling suggests Trump poised to win in PA. Afton Kutzarumbus, great stuff as always, pal. We appreciate the insight and the knowledge. Thanks, Nick. Talk to you, sir. Start your day with Kaelin Company, weekday morning, six till 10. I'm Tark Radio 1210, WPHT, and the free Odyssey app. I'm Jean Marie Laskis. I'm a journalist. I spend my career helping Americans understand the lives of other Americans, coal miners, gun shop clerks, staffers in the White House mailroom. In my new podcast, Cement City, I tell the story of an entire town, a dying town that you've absolutely no reason to care about. But trust me, you will. Listen to and follow Cement City, an Odyssey original podcast in partnership with Cement City Productions, available now for free on the Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.
Athan Koutsiouroumbas of RealClearPolitics joins the program to discuss the voter polling favoring Trump in Pennsylvania and compares the numbers to previous elections.