The Social Contract with Joe Walsh
The Guy On The Ground (Me) Thinks Trump Is Winning. The Polling Analyst (Him) Disagrees. So We Sat Down.
I sat down again with my favorite no bullshit polling analyst @realcarlallen because I'm on the ground in all the battleground states and it feels to me like Trump had the edge. Carl the pollster disagrees. So I pushed him hard to ease my fears. Have a listen.
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- Broadcast on:
- 11 Oct 2024
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These aren't your average orcas. These guys are organized. Marketing team, did you get those social media posts scheduled for the CO migration? Hi, I, Captain. We even have an automated notification for all pod managers when they go live. They use Monday.com to keep their teamwork sharp, their communication clear, and their goals in sight. Monday.com, for whatever you run, even orcas, go to Monday.com to dive deeper. America, we got to get back to doing what's expected of us as free citizens in this democracy. That means being tolerant, being respectful, staying informed, and being engaged. I'm former Congressman Joe Walsh. Follow me here and join the millions of Americans who are renewing their social contract with each other. The social contract, it's on us. Hey, former Congressman Joe Walsh, with you this Friday, another week coming to an end. Hope you are all well. Hope you've had a good week. I can't tell a lie. It's my fatal flaw. This former Congressman comes to you this Friday. Enormously concerned. I'm not going to say depressed. I'm going to say afraid and concerned because I feel like I fear right now that the man who I believe is utterly unfit to ever be President of the United States is winning. Is winning right now. Is winning right now electorally. And this just scares the living. You know what out of me. I've been out there damn near every day in battleground states talking to voters every day and I just, I worry. So when I worry about this, I always want to bring back someone who will maybe help alleviate my fears. Calm me down. That's my favorite polling analyst, poster analyst guru, polar polling guru. Carl Allen. There he is. Follow him on Twitter at real Carl Allen. My favorite poster in the country. My favorite polling analyst. My favorite contrarian polling guy around. Carl also author of the book that came out a couple weeks ago. The book is put it up there. You know I got it. I know you have it. Carl you sleep with it. The polls weren't wrong. The polls weren't wrong. There it is. The name go out and buy that book. It's a big book. It's a great book. You'll love it. The polls weren't wrong by Carl Allen. Yes. I know you've always got it. Carl and I know you probably do sleep. It just hit number three in political science. Fantastic. Yeah. Number one in statistics for a very, very, very long time. I'm proud of that. My goal with this book is not just to calm you down Joe, although that's a nice side effect. My goal is to educate people about how polls work and see past the nonsense of this daily onslaught that we're getting of misinformation about how polls work. Oh God. Partisan pollsters. We're going to talk about that today. I'm sure. I want to go so much. I want to get into this. The context, my friend, is this. I'm not you. I am no analyst and I'm no polling guy and I'm no expert on anything. I'm just a former Republican congressman who's out there every day campaigning for Kamala Harris. And in Carl, I've sensed in the last week or 10 days a shift toward Trump. I've sensed a stalling of Kamala Harris on the ground, purely on the ground. Okay. And I've sensed like, and this scares me like I think right now the elections held tomorrow, he wins electorally. Now, I have a feeling you disagree with all of that with your expertise for all. And so let's begin, but I want to give our listeners a context who did not listen to us a couple weeks ago. When I asked you to handicap the race two weeks ago, I think you handicapped it at 66% shot odds for Kamala Harris to get elected. That 34% odds for Trump to get elected. Let's start then with this question, Carl Allen. Where is that handicap number now for Kamala Harris? And do you agree with me or disagree with me that Trump is either winning or things have moved in his directions? Start there. Yeah, so the race in the past two weeks effectively has not moved. About a week ago, week and a half ago, things were looking slightly more favorable for Kamala Harris. In my forecast, you bumped above 66% close to 70. In the past week, she's kind of nudged back down to 66%. She still has edges in the blue wall states. She still has a very, very good chance of flipping North Carolina, holding Georgia, keeping Nevada. Arizona is still well, well in play. And we can talk about the numbers more if you want, because they are pretty interesting. But ultimately, whether you believe my forecast that has Kamala Harris at 66%, whether you prefer to look at 538 or Nate Silver, when I tell you that the race effectively hasn't changed in the past two to three weeks, my forecast, Silver's forecast, 538 forecast, all are basically flat in the past two to three weeks. And even though I am more bullish on Harris's chances than they are, for very good reasons, the vibes, the vibe shift is coming from this onslaught of partisan polling and misinformation. So, I think it's challenging that's being pushed out from the right. Stop there. Stop there. Let's stop there. So again, give me a yes or no answer on this. And then I want to get into what you just said. Yeah. I've felt a shift toward Trump in the polling. Do you agree or disagree with that? That there's been a shift toward him. I agree. Very slightly agree. I mean, we're talking tenths of a percent in the polling average. So remember, first lesson that I talked about two weeks ago and then I'll repeat it again this week. Individual polls tell us very, very little. It is always better to zoom out, look at the big picture, look at a polling average. And if you look at the polling averages, things really have not moved more than a couple tenths of a point that could be that could be a good sign for Trump that could be noise. But at the end of the day, we still have to look at that average and Kamala Harris is she's not doing as well as maybe we would hope 66% of my forecast 55% and 538. That's not as strong of a number as we would hope. Has she has she, Carl, has she has she stalled? If you sense a slight shift toward him, does that then mean that she's stalled? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't at all. Because remember, there's two games that these campaigns are playing. One is the media game. The other is the turnout game because we're inside of a month to the election. People are already voting. I live in Ohio. I requested my ballot. I have it upstairs. I'm going to mail it out on Monday. People are already starting to vote. And Republicans have a very strong messaging system through Trump, through Elon Musk, through their very, very strong base. They are messaging very effectively. The goal is to convert that into votes. Democrats, in my opinion, when they're holding rallies with Barack Obama and big net, even Liz Cheney, these people like yourself on the ground, we're trying to convert votes. We're not trying to change minds at this point. We're trying to get people to the polls and go vote. And there's two different strategies there. Both are important. But ultimately, we have to convert these likely voters into voters. So Carl, then again, just that one headline. Carl Allen, who two weeks ago pegged her number at, she's got a 66% chance to win. Two weeks later, you've got it right back to about that 66% chance. She crept up and then now she's back at 66% and I'm very comfortable with that number. Yeah. Let's get into this issue of the, and I'll push back a little and I'm pushing back with ignorance because I don't understand it. We talk about, you talk about the Republicans flooding the zone with very partisan polls that then change the aggregate polling averages that, you know, many of these analysts use. What is it? Is that a real thing that Republican poll, partisan pollers, pollsters are flooding the zone impacting the averages? It is a very, very real thing, Joe. And my book, so my book came out before the 2024 election, or my book was finalized before the 2024 election was really in full swing Joe Biden was still considered the favorite to be the nominee at that point. And I put in there, I said, partisan actors understand the impact that poll averages have on the psychology of folks like you and me in the general public. They know that they can manipulate public opinion. They can manipulate how people think about the election by influencing these numbers. I saw it in 2022. In 2022, more than half of the polls making up the 538 polling average in very many Senate races were partisan polls. Can I stop Carl, can I stop you? Yeah, let me ask the obvious stupid question. Isn't every poll a partisan poll? Not exactly. Not exactly. Not exactly. Yeah, so when pollsters contact the public to get their opinions. There are different strategies that they use to reach those people. But on the back end, when you wait the data, there are different likely voter models that they use to say, okay, from this sample. These are the people we think are going to vote, and this is how it would play out. And it in on the back end, numbers typically move two to three points, depending on that likely voter model. Partisan pollsters tend to nudge the numbers in favor of their preferred candidate. Republican partisan pollsters are extremely active. Through about 2016, 2018, there were a lot of Democratic partisan pollsters that were releasing polls publicly. Now there are very few. So the Republicans have this edge, but only in public opinion. They're not they're not actually generating an edge. They're just kind of nudging the numbers one or two points in their preferred candidate favor. Why do why do Nate Silver 538 anybody else? Why do they? Why don't they factor in partisan polls? Why don't why do they use them then? Yeah. So there are a few ways to account for it. One way to account for it, 538 and Nate Silver call it house effects. Basically, they take the poll for what it is, how the pollster reports it. They take the poll for what it is, and then they kind of nudge the numbers down one or two points to account for those house effects. Got it. Okay. That's one way to account for it. The problem with that is, if the partisan pollster is overstating by two or three, a candidate's number, and then you reduce it by one or two, you're still. You're still allowing these numbers to influence your averages. And in the case of 2022, like I said, more than half of the polls in some of the states were partisan pollsters. So there was this huge risk of allowing partisans to basically make your poll average. When in reality, they were they were boosting all the numbers for their preferred candidates. We saw it with eyes. We saw it in New Hampshire. We saw it in Arizona. Are these partisan polls as prevalent now as they were in 22? They are more prevalent. The only difference is now in 24, there are more independent pollsters who don't necessarily have a, they might have a partisan lean like internally. Everybody's biased, right? But when good pollsters wait their data, they do it according to a set of transparent standards and say, okay, these are the, this is the methodology we use. And they use that consistently, whereas partisan pollsters kind of fudge things over the election cycle to make the numbers look more favorable for their candidate. And just, I know you said this, but just to clarify, Carl, there are an inordinate number of Republican partisan polls out there, but there is not the equivalent of Democratic partisan polls out there. Correct. Correct. Not even close. Not even close. And in my analysis, I say that we have to account for that as analysts. Nate Silver believes that polling is a free market. And that the he thinks that the reason Democratic pollsters don't release numbers more often is because the numbers must not be favorable for their preferred candidates. Otherwise, they would release them. And that doesn't quite make sense to me. That doesn't really fly. But then we saw in 2022 what happened is a lot of Democratic candidates outperformed. I have to use quotes because to me it wasn't unexpected to him it was. But if half of your polls are Republican partisan pollsters, yeah, it might happen that Democrats appear to outperform their poll numbers. But in reality, if you had properly accounted for that partisan flooding effect, the polls were very accurate in 2022. And that's what I saw. And we have to be mindful of that and we have to account for that again. Then the last point on this before we get into the race. Yeah. What is the answer? Give me a short answer, Carl. What is the answer to this problem of partisan polls? Is it just to ignore them? What is the answer ultimately? What do we do with them? We have to account for them. That's the short answer. We have to account for them. When you're doing research on any topic, whether it's sports, whether it's a medical research, whatever you're doing, you have to account for all of these different variables that could influence your data. And when I see partisan data, I don't always discount it. Some partisan pollsters do good work in terms of contacting people and getting good responses. But sometimes on the back end, they nudge the numbers a couple points in a way that I wouldn't necessarily agree with. Whereas other partisan pollsters are legitimately just putting numbers out to flood the zone and influence these poll averages. So we just have to account for it. That voice belongs to my favorite pollster, Carl Allen. Find him. Follow him on Twitter at Real Carl Allen with a C. There it is at Real Carl Allen. There's the book. The polls weren't wrong by that book. It's a great book. It's a great study. It's a textbook of polling. Thank you, Keith. There it is. The polls weren't wrong by Carl Allen. All right, let's get into this, Carl. Let's do it. So I worry about a shift toward Trump. I worry that he's winning. You measure a slight trend toward him, a shift toward him. Let me ask you a series of questions here. Take away the horse race calculations. Is there anything about Harris specifically in your mind, in your work? Is there anything about her specifically that is trending negative, favorability, perceptions on immigration, the economy? Is there anything about her that's trending negative? Honestly, the only thing that I could see that is consistently or somewhat working against her is that she's a woman. I mean, not overwhelmingly, or not overwhelmingly, but in strong numbers are supporting Kamala Harris and where Joe Biden was very strong in 2020 in these kind of communities. And I'm from Ohio. So in Northeast Ohio, there are these manufacturing communities, union communities, a lot of white men voted for Joe Biden, who maybe would be a little less likely to vote for Kamala Harris. There's two ways. And actually, just to buttress that, Carl, correct me if you're wrong, I think Obama did pretty well with those voters too. Obama did extremely well, extremely well in those communities. And I live near one of the Obama, Trump, Biden, counties, Montgomery County, Ohio, and there are a lot in the Northeast as well. These are the counties that Sherrod Brown won very comfortably when he was reelected last time, and that Donald Trump won when he kind of flipped Ohio to from a swing state to a red state, relatively comfortably in 2020. So these are the swing counties that we're looking at. And for Kamala Harris to do well there, my recommendation to the, and I, you know, I'm nobody right Joe, maybe you can put a bug in someone's ear. Get Tim walls out there changing tires for people, and shaking hands in these diners, and to get to get more momentum for the campaign. Yeah, totally. You're so spot on. Like, this was when she picked walls. To me, I said, like, this is, this is the only value for that guy. He's a Midwest guy's a hunter. He's a fishery's a teacher. He ain't, he's a, he's a regular guy. Real guy? Yeah. Get him out in the Midwest. But like, they haven't done that. And he hasn't come across that way. It's weird that they haven't done that. Interesting. Yeah. So, so you're in your mind. Any thing trending against her may be her gender. She's a woman. And that's not so she's not at the same level with a lot of these working class guys that Biden and Obama was at. Yeah, that's, that's the only thing that I've seen. The two ways to account for that one. Hopefully do what you can policy wise to win back those voters to boost your numbers elsewhere. And I think there's a very, very good chance that she does. She would obviously abortion is on the ballot in very many states. That is a major, major issue for a lot of people. Ohio, for example, just in with issue one and I think it was 2023. It was a weird off year. But in huge numbers turned out to support the, to, to oppose the abortion ban. And I think the same thing is going to happen in Florida. And so if there's some hidden turnout within the Democratic Party among these voters who maybe aren't considered likely voters, there's a very, very good chance they lean Democratic. So there's a lot to this row effect where it's very hard to find these passionate, but people who don't always. This Halloween. Ghoul all out with Instacart. Whether you're hunting for the perfect costume, eyeing that giant bag of candy, or casting spells with eerie decor. We've got it all in one place. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Offer valid for a limited time, minimum $10 per order service fees, other fees and additional terms apply. Instacart, bringing the store to your door this Halloween. This message comes from BetterHelp. Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask at work and social settings around your family? BetterHelp online therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your authentic self so you can stop hiding because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. There's a huge gender gap in this race, right? I mean, trying to kick an ass in my man and she's kicking butt among women. But I worry, Carl, to your point, and I don't know if you see this in the data, she really seems to be losing male voters. Yeah, I mean, not in numbers that would be overly concerning to her chances to win, but yeah, I mean, obviously it would be preferable if she was doing better with men. That would make it kind of a blowout territory if she won men in the same numbers that say Barack Obama did. We would be entering blowout territory, and unfortunately we're not there. But the numbers that she is turning out, the numbers that she are turning out, I don't know, what she is doing, what she is doing, and what the campaign is doing, is making her very competitive. And to her credit, again, this media blitz that she's been doing in the past week or so, targeting a lot of younger people, targeting women, especially, going on these podcasts, going on the view, not just boosting her base, not just getting her base to turn out, but hopefully turning out a lot of these less likely voters as well. That's a similar question, Carl, about Trump. Can his favorability scores at this point even move? No, sir. No, sir. I just wrote an article recently about the MAGA ceiling. The MAGA ceiling is real. In 2016, when Trump won, he won at 48%. He won by getting 48, 48 and a half percent in all of these swing states, because third party turned out was so high, that kind of lowered the bar. In 2020, when he lost, his numbers actually went up to like 48.6, 48.8, 49 in Georgia and Arizona, but he lost, because you can't win with 49% if there aren't any third parties on the ballot. So going, looking at 2024, is there a chance that he gets to 50% in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan was constant? Yeah, there's a chance. But if you're a betting person, if you're looking at things probabilistically, who is more likely to get to 50% in these states, it's going to be very, very hard for Trump to continue to turn out his base 47, 48%. And then on top of that, convert enough new voters and not alienate voters that he's going to lose to get to that 50% number. So the election is going to be close. There's not going to be a six point victory in Pennsylvania, might not even be three points. But at the end of the day, if we're trying to, like what I do, handicapping, forecasting, and I'm saying, okay, who is more likely to get to 50%? That is kind of an easy calculation, because we have data from 2020, we have data from 2016, 2022 helps that to an extent. But we know MAGA has a ceiling. And so in order for Trump to win, he has to break through that ceiling, not impossible, not impossible. But I don't think it's even money. Yeah, you're right, 16, he was 47, 48%, 20, he was 47, 48%. Yes, sir. You could put your money on the fact that he can finally blow through the 50%, or to me, it's more likely he's at his ceiling. And you don't have, we had the third party in 16, we really didn't have a third party in 20, correct? I think Jorgensen got one or one and a half percent, maybe. We kind of don't, but we have more of a third party presence this year than we did in 20. When Kennedy was on the ballot, and I wrote about this when it was happening, I said, Kennedy is polling at 10%, he's not going to get 10%. But I said, if he gets 5%, and he lowers that bar, right, that finish line, 50%, you win. But if he lowers that bar to 48, Trump has a much better chance because his base is so strong, and he will turn out 48% in most swing states. But with no Kennedy on the ballot, we're looking at maybe Jill Stein as the strongest third party candidate, I would be shocked if third party's got 2% nationwide. It might not be 1%. You're right, Carl, except, and I don't know, I'm forgetting in what states in particular, he's still on, you know, in many of these states, he is still on because he tried to get off too late. In fact, I think he is in Michigan. Carl, has there been any information, new information in the last couple weeks, that would justify a substantial shift in preference? Not really. The Trump base, we know who they are, they're going to turn out in big numbers. The anti-Trump base, we know who they are, they're going to turn out in big numbers. And every single swing state is going to come down to that 5% to 10% swing voter, people who don't always vote, or people who always vote, but don't know who they're going to vote for yet. People who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump is a huge subset, and converting those votes is the key, but there's not been a significant shift in the race. There's not been any major events to cause a significant shift in the race, because Trump's going to get a ton of negative media, he's going to do a ton of bad things. I'm not going to change many people's minds. I keep beating you for an answer, and I'm not getting an answer. Well, I am getting an answer. I'm nervous, Carl, I'm nervous. I've sensed in the last two weeks a shift toward Trump. You have said, and I appreciate your conservatism on this, you have sensed a slight shift. What new information in the last two weeks would translate into any positive shift toward Trump? Not so much a positive shift towards Trump, just more voters stating that they're undecided. Trump's numbers have gone up tenths of a percent, and Kamala's have stayed basically flat. So again, she was already in a strong, or not, I wouldn't say a strong position, she was in a better position than Trump two weeks ago, and her position has not really changed, which isn't a concern necessarily, but now we're getting to the point where it's time, like I said, to turn out those voters. So there's not really been anything to shift the race. And here's what I've been seeing, Joe. Whenever I talk to people about poll data, I try to figure out how people think and how I can explain things better, and I think I've made a little bit of progress in this. So give me about 30 seconds, and I'll explain it. Whenever there's a new poll, whenever a new poll comes out, in the mind of a lot of people, that poll replaces whatever poll or polls had come before as the newest data as the most accurate data. That replaces all of this previous information that you had, and you say, "Oh, this new poll is good, this new poll is bad," and the vibe shift is extreme. The vibe shift is extreme, and what I have to remind people is an individual poll, and it can only tell you very little. So I'm trying to get people away from that mindset of this most recent poll that we looked at is the most important, because the bad polls that have come out recently for Kamala, the Quinnipiac poll, it was very good for her in Pennsylvania. She was at 49% in it, I believe, and Pennsylvania was her weakest of the Blue Wall States. So if you put these numbers in the average, her numbers get a little better in Pennsylvania, a little worse in Wisconsin and Michigan, and across the board, she's basically in the same position that she was a week ago, two weeks ago. So what I have to remind people is don't let an individual poll skew your perception of the race, whether it's an A+ pollster, whether it's a partisan pollster, because each individual poll is a very, very small part of a much bigger picture we have to zoom out. And don't, and don't be heavily influenced by the latest poll. Big time, big time. The latest poll, small piece of information, good, bad, small piece of information. I tell people this a couple of weeks ago when polls were coming out, having a Harris at 50-51 in various swing states, like guys, this feels nice. Remember, small piece of data. When polls are coming out with Harris at 47-48 in various swing states, guys, small piece of data, throw it in the average, relax, zoom out, because the bigger picture shows, yes, it's a close race, but we should expect a close race. Something very, very interesting, actually. Can I talk for about 30 more seconds about forecasting? Fuck yes. Very, very, very interesting thing that I started thinking about. I'm 34 years old. Joe, the first time I voted was in 2008 when Barack Obama ran for president. In my lifetime, I have not been eligible to vote in any election, any presidential election in which the Democratic candidate was not a strong favorite. Barack Obama 2008, Barack Obama 2012, Hillary Clinton 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, universally, these Democratic presidential candidates have been considered strong favorites at every single one. That recency bias is messing with a lot of people because Hillary lost in 2016 as a strong favorite, and people say, well, Hillary can lose, anybody can lose. Not necessarily. We have to have an understanding that these races are going to be close. I think historically, the past four presidential elections, as people who support the Democrats, we've been expecting a blowout. We've been expecting an easy election night. We've been expecting not a lot of drama. 2016 was very, very close. 2020 was very, very close. If we go into this with the mindset that it's going to be close, believe it or not, that will reduce our anxiety. Carl, that's a great point. Yeah, opposed to if we go into it expecting a blowout and then all crap, it's close. Two final questions for you, my friend. Frank Luns, who I'm no fan of, tweeted something yesterday that said something like, Oh, Kamala spent a billion dollars in it's a tie. What a waste. Is there any evidence that ads spending for either candidate is having an impact? Ads spending is extremely inefficient in terms of what we want it to do. And that's just my opinion. But let me tell you why. In every election, we know some million of people are going to vote for one candidate, some million people are going to vote for the other candidate. These hundreds of millions of dollars that they're spending in these swing states are targeted at a tiny, tiny sliver of the population. And we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to flip 2%. Yeah, we're targeting that close. In the old days before Citizens United and things like that, we were targeting or ads tended to boost turnout. We were trying to get people to turn out. We were targeting the base and we were targeting swing voters. Now it's almost all about swing voters. It's almost all about getting that marginal advantage. So two or three points in an election. I mean, imagine the difference between winning a state by three and losing it by one. That's only four points, but it makes all of the difference. So when one side is spending $100 million to target that 4%, then the other side has to counter it. There's a little bit of game theory and things involved with that. But both campaigns are spending a ton of money and how they allocate their resources and who they're targeting will ultimately make a big difference in the outcome. I skipped over this maybe 10 minutes ago, just quickly before I ask my last question. Did I hear you say that there are in this in this two weeks we're trying to explain the two weeks shift the blah, blah, blah. And you said there are actually more undecided voters now. Did I hear that? Yeah, there's a decent, there's a decent case that more voters state that they're undecided. There's various reasons for that. Number one is it could just be noise. It could be nonsense. It could just be a number that used to be 3% is now showing us 4%. It doesn't really mean anything. One or 2% in a poll is effectively nothing most of the time. So in my poll averages, 3.5% undecided to 4.2% undecided. I don't read too much into that, except that maybe the pollsters are better targeting likely voters. Or maybe they're not as good at targeting likely voters and they're getting more unlikely voters in their sample. I wouldn't look too much into that 1%. Just peg that number for me. What number would you put on undecided voters at this moment in time? Voters who state that they're undecided, somewhere around 4% depending on the state, not all voters who state that they're undecided are truly undecided. But when someone says that they're undecided, you have to take them at their word. Last question, Carl, and we'll start with Trump. Take Trump. Your biggest concern for Trump and if your team Trump, your biggest concern and your biggest cause for optimism go. Sir, biggest concern for Trump is going to have to be the lack of countering to the abortion initiatives. And a lot of these swing states abortion is on the ballot. In all of these swing states, the Senate candidates are running far ahead. The Senate races in many of these swing states do not look competitive. That is a huge red flag. If you're trying to figure out where that last 3% to 4% of undecideds are going to go. Huge red flag. If I were looking at the favorables for Trump, his base is enormous. His base is going to turn out. He's going to get 47, 48, maybe 49% in all of these swing states. So he has a very high floor. He has a very high floor. Can Kamala Harris turn out her base, the Democratic base, the anti-Trump base? And then on top of that, convert enough swing voters to swing the election. Having a high floor is a good thing for electorally. So Kamala Harris, your biggest, for team Harris, what's your biggest concern and your biggest cause for optimism at this point? The biggest concern, just looking at the numbers, she's running behind Senate candidates in these swing states. That's not good because you want your presidential candidate to be strong and you want them to pull those coat tails for the Senate candidates. When we see Slotkin and Cortez Masto and Gallego consistently polling 50 or above, and then Harris, 2 or 3 points under them, that's a little bit of a concern. But that's also the cause for optimism because when we see who these people are splitting tickets, we see these people splitting tickets, are they more likely to ultimately come home for Harris or to continue splitting their ticket? In Arizona, I'm a little bit concerned. But in Michigan, in Nevada, in Pennsylvania, Bob Casey is polling in the 52, 53 percent, I believe in my average. That's a very good sign for Harris if we're doing the job that I'm doing and I'm trying to forecast how these undecided voters will eventually split. That man, that voice, that man, that legend, and he's only 34 years old. You're so freaking young. Carl Allen, everybody, follow him. There's the book, the book. The polls weren't wrong by Carl Allen. The poll is out there by follow Carl on Twitter at real Carl Allen at real Carl Allen. That's Carl with us. See, Carl, we're going to talk at the end of next week. You're the best. Thank you, brother. Thanks again, Joe. Thanks for having me. Everybody else. Be brave. Be brave. Thank you for listening. Remember to listen, share, and follow the social contract with Joe Walsh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere great podcasts are found. And be sure to leave a five-star review. This has been the Social Contract with Joe Walsh. [music] At 1-800-Flowers.com, we know that connections are at the heart of being human. Whether celebrating life's joys or comforting during tough times, 1-800-Flowers helps you express what words can't. For nearly 50 years, millions have trusted 1-800-Flowers to deliver thoughtful gifts that help create lasting bonds. Because it's more than just a gift. It's your way of showing you care. Visit 1-800-Flowers.com/acast and connect today. That's 1-800-Flowers.com/acast. A message paid for by veterans for all voters. Listen to this message from Ted Delacath, former Army Infantryman and Ranger-qualified platoon leader active in the Army Reserves. When I enlist in the Army, I swore an oath to this country, not any political party. That's why I'm interested in citizens' ballot measures around the country to reduce the power of political parties. Colorado votes on 1-2. Right now, election rules allow political insiders to hand-pick party nominees. It's the reason we're usually stuck voting for the lesser of two evils. Colorado's plan creates an open primary where all candidates appear on one primary ballot. Every voter has the freedom to vote for any candidate, no matter which party. The Colorado plan advances four candidates to the general election, not two. That means more choices for voters in the primary and general election. Get the facts. Elections belong to the voters, not political parties. Paid for by veterans for all voters, Anthony Haas registered agent. The use of military rank and job titles does not imply endorsement by the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense of this ballot measure.