Shadowing Practice: DEM SUPERMAJORITY?: WILD Midterm Scenarios IN PLAY - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Good morning, everybody.
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Happy Tuesday.
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I have an amazing show for everybody today.
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What do we have, Crystal?
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Indeed, we do.
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Deep dive into the midterm elections from a variety of angles.
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Logan Phillips is going to join us momentarily to take a look at the numbers.
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And OK, let's say we had a polling miss the size of 2016.
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What would that look like?
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What about 2025 where actually
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Democrats were underestimated?
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What would that look like?
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We will go through all of that with him.
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Then we're also going to take a look at the impact specifically of Trump in this election cycle.
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Some new numbers are out that show
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Republicans are not running ads with his name in it whatsoever.
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He's virtually disappeared from the Republican side in terms of their ad campaigns.
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Democrats on the other side are talking about him nonstop, so it tells you quite a bit.
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At the same time, one of the major issues
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that has emerged in the midterm elections is concerns over Trump and Trump family corruption.
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J .D.
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Vance once again in the hot seat over this as new
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revelations have come out alleging a major pay -for -play scheme involving the Kennedy Center.
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We'll get into all of that.
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We got a soccer special here taking a look at the way that boomers are organizing nationwide against paying property taxes,
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having a lot of success in a wide variety of states.
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We're also going to take a look at Michigan specifically, where Abdul Al -Sayed seems to have had the most viral clip of the entire campaign.
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Some interesting media commentary around that as well.
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And then we're going to be rejoined by Daniel Lidd.
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He's the mathematician that we had on before to talk about the AI revolution in math
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and whether or not he is feeling existential dread over the state of his profession.
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Actually, he seems to have a more hopeful outlook.
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So excited to dig into that with him.
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Yes, that's exactly right.
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Before we get to that, though, we had some interesting exchanges.
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So we've received some interesting emails over the last couple of weeks.
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Let's put this up here on the screen.
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These are from our producer, Griffin.
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Both of these are from two separate firms who purport to represent CalShea.
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And they have emailed us.
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This is my personal favorite one.
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We hope you're doing well.
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We're reaching out to discuss a Q4 partnership between
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Breaking Points and CalShea, a federally regulated U .S exchange.
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They say Breaking Points is a strong fit for this campaign based on your content and audience.
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So it appears that these people think that they can just hire these firms and just blast creators, YouTubers, et cetera.
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First of all, they're obviously wasting their money because they've never listened to our show.
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But we just wanted to deliver our official response of not only no, but fuck no. We do not want your blood money.
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And that is why we have premium subscriptions.
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Not now.
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Not ever.
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Yeah.
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Not now.
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Not ever.
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The business will go under.
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Literally.
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Yeah.
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I'd rather go bankrupt before we take your disgusting money.
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And I hope that you people get thrown into prison.
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And if I have anything to do with it, that's how we will end up.
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So because of all of you, breakingpoints .com, premium subscribers, we are in a position where we can say, no, fuck you.
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And so that is our official response to Kalshi.
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So yeah, there you go.
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And this isn't just a Kalshi thing.
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This is for anybody who wants us to do an ad read, be it Manscaped or any of these people,
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but in particular, these literal scum of the earth over at these gambling companies.
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And then, so with that, we also have, we need your help.
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So I don't game.
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I've never played GTA.
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I hear it's big.
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Let's put this up here on the screen.
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So this advertisement was placed in Miami.
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And apparently in this universe, there is something called Weasel News.
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And - It like played, this is according to Griffin.
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This is according to Griffin.
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It like plays in the cars that you steal.
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Right, it plays in the cars that you steal.
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Anyway, so they have apparently for the first time, these hosts of Weasel News.
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Now, a lot of people, many friends, people who don't watch the show, like any of that, they're like, dude, this is literally you.
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So what do you guys think?
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I personally, I don't see it.
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I see it in Crystal's case.
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You see it in my case?
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Oh, I see it so much more in your case.
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I don't see it.
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I just don't see it.
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So a few things.
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First of all, they would have been doing the graphics a number of years ago.
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There's a point that Griffin made.
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And I used to have that haircut.
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You did have it.
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And I used to wear the big earrings like that as well.
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And I know that you have that dress.
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Now my earrings are a little more tame.
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I do have a little bit of a bigger pair on today, but my earrings are typically a little more restrained these days.
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That's true.
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The outfits are totally as, you literally have that tie.
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I do own that exact tie.
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And you used to wear it.
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And I used to wear it all the time.
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A lot.
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Five years ago.
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That's true.
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Talk to me about the glasses.
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Okay, but everybody, a lot of people wear these.
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Well, obviously, number one, I'm not black.
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That seems to be like the biggest ever.
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It's not right.
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Like, obviously, they wouldn't do exactly us.
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I'm also not, I don't know if that, if she's like Asian or Latino, some sort of like racially ambiguous.
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I don't know but they you know it's drawing inspirate
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that like it very much looks like the pocket square
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and the tie and that shade of blue i i do actually own that exact outfit so i i I don't know.
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I don't know.
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All right.
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So when the game comes out, we'll take a listen.
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We'll let us know.
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You let us know.
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You guys let us know what you think.
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Is it us or not?
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I truly, like I said, I've never played this video game in my entire life.
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I'm not going to play it.
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I guess I wish you guys all the best.
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But yeah, let us know.
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Let us know in the comment section.
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If it is, I at least know enough to know that it's a great honor.
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So thank you.
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And for increasing the profile.
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Even if it's, yeah, like caricature, ish or mockery, whatever.
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Yeah, whatever.
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It's in the culture.
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Yeah, it's one of the biggest cultural,
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you know, I know enough to know that every guy who I know is going to take work off or whatever.
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There's already an estimate
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that the U .S is going to lose like hundreds of billions of dollars in productivity on a day
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or the week or whatever after the game comes out.
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OK, so with all that preamble, with our screw you to Calci, with our plea for whether that is us or not,
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according to you guys, let's get to our interview with the great Logan Phillips.
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We're very excited now to be joined by our great friend, Logan Phillips of racetothewhitehouse .com.
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It's good to see you, Logan.
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Thanks for joining us, man.
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Hey, great to be on as always.
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All right.
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So our weekly check -in, let's go ahead and put a three up here on the screen.
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Here's what we've got now so far from Logan's website.
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Tell us a little bit about where things look in your current forecast, Senate, House, and governor's races.
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Well, this is a really unique election in that it's kind of battlefield America.
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We're seeing places in play all across the map, ranging from Maine to Nebraska and Kansas.
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And so we have both a chance for historic election for Democrats where they can sweep the map.
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And there's also a chance here where they don't gain that much in the Senate.
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And they only pick up a little bit in governor races.
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So that's what kind of makes this race interesting, is because they're overperforming so much in red areas, boy, does that increase their maximum potential.
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But you could come up short, gaining a lot of ground,
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as Hillary Clinton did in places like Arizona and Texas if you don't win doesn't get you much.
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Right.
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Makes sense.
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So we wanted to dig into this question of a potential polling miss at this point
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because we've touched on this with you before, but we wanted to do it in a bit of a more systematic way and say,
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OK, if we had the polling miss of 2016, what would that look like if we had one like 2022 or 2025?
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What would that look like?
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Let me go and start with a New York Times analysis.
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This is from Nate Cohn.
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I can put this up on the screen and we can get your sort of overall view here.
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He says polls show Democrats ahead.
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Are they quote, right this time.
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And, you know, he has proper level of skepticism, as we all should.
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The polls are not going to be exactly correct.
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They will likely be off in one direction or the other.
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He does, however, point out that the polls have been closer in midterm elections.
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And in fact, at times they have underestimated
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Democrats in midterm elections, and they dramatically underestimated
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Democrats in the 2025 gubernatorial elections, both in Virginia and New Jersey.
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So what is your sort of overall view of your level of confidence in the polls right now
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and some of the things that you're paying attention to before we get into the specific numbers?
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I would say that you can't just look at the polls here.
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All of the indicators to me look really good for Democrats.
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First, they did an outstanding job in these special elections.
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And I think that's true also if you combine that with what happened in California and Washington.
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They were outperforming expectations if it were like a neutral cycle by like eight points.
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Wow.
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And since then, the environment has moved in their direction by like a point or two.
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So you have that and you also have the fundraising.
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Now, I know that's not going to sound right at first because if you're talking about the super PACs, then Republicans have a big advantage.
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But the actual donations to candidates from individuals, which is a better indicator and more predictive of candidate success, Democrats have been swamping
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Republicans in race after race.
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You mean like small dollar donations?
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Just regular donations that exclude PAC money or self -funding.
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And why is that?
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Just like that it's voter enthusiasm, it's grassroots?
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I think it's a combination of two things.
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One, frankly, I think
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Democrats, that is their bread and butter these days.
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And Republicans have gotten a little less active on campaigning on fundraising
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because they know they're going to get it from the PACs.
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But it's also separate from that.
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I think it's a sign of enthusiasm.
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And this does make my personal forecast a lot more accurate when you take this into account.
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So maybe that's not true anymore with the era of PAC money, but I still think it says something about the quality of the candidates
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and the quality of their operation and the base enthusiasm that
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Democrats have, which I think is still higher.
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Yeah, well, we were talking before we turned the cameras on about Kansas and Roger Marshall.
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And, you know, this is a race that, going into the cycle, no one,
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including Roger Marshall, would have thought that this seat would have been in play.
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He's barely raising any money at all to his Senate campaign at this late date after you very much know
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that he has a real race on his hands.
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Yeah, this isn't even like Nebraska last year where people weren't taking it seriously to the end.
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And maybe you guys were on it.
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Yeah, no way.
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Most people weren't uh everyone's been talking about kansas for months except it seems roger marshall
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because i don't know what he's doing i don't know how he's raised
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that little it's baffling to me like you'd think someone would come in
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and just rescue him and bring him along to fundraisers
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and more than the pitiful amount he's gotten
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so yeah he's relying on outside money
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and to some degree like we see this every cycle that
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when there's a huge wave the people
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that loses them the most on the very far fringes are candidates
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that um have been saved their whole career
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that have never tried to have to actually win swing voters yes maybe
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they did their first time yeah that's why when you go that's why
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when you're like oh how does he not raise any money he's never had to yeah
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you just you win the primary
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and that's it it's over you need a few token million dollars and you get the r next to your name,
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everybody checks the box and you get to move on, right?
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You buy your house in Washington, you don't think about it.
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You put your kids in a Washington high school because you're never going to leave, right?
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Like that's literally the mindset of these people.
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One important part of the Nate Cohn thing before we move on is the big question to me is these red states.
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Like it's the Kansas, it's the South Carolinas, and it's the others where you had the similar kind of enthusiasm going into 2018,
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but at the end of the day, the Republicans come home.
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What meaningfully makes today's race different than that race at the time?
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Yeah, I think it's definitely different.
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I just don't know if it's different enough for Democrats to win.
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I think they're going to win Texas.
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And I think Kansas is a toss up.
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But voters are really frustrated with the Republican Party.
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And this includes some genuine
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Republicans and a lot of our leaning independents.
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This does not mean that everyone's turn would often be framed as such.
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That's not true.
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But a sizable portion in a coalition in elections that are as competitive as America, which might be the most competitive in the world that's massive
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and so uh it's you know this is the problem for Republicans
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that they're rallying call for Donald Trump that everyone
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and most voters in the party buy into is
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that the system is not working for them they already felt
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that in their lives but it's been doubled down on messaging time
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and time again that politicians are corrupt that people are not putting them first
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and then now they're seeing those same things being done by the president that thought was going to change things.
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I think that has gotten more people to start to question things.
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And the thing about Trump is once you start to question him, a lot of the things that you just dismiss because they're
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Trump being Trump start to really get on your nerves.
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Yeah, it's true.
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All right, let's dig now into the numbers.
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Let's put this first graphic up on the screen.
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Okay, so what we asked you to do here is to take the current polling average in all of the Senate races.
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That's the column that you see here on the left for Alaska, Florida, Georgia, et cetera, on down the line.
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And these are all of the races that are even colorably interesting in the Senate.
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And then to apply to it, what if the pollsters are off by the average amount they were off in 2016?
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Now, 2016 and 2020, there was a very similar polling miss.
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They underestimated Republicans by, what was it?
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It was about, what, three points?
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Yeah, roughly right about three points.
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So what do we see if we have a similar polling miss as what we saw in 2016 and in 2020?
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Yeah, what would happen is the Senate would become a battleground of a different nature.
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It kind of flips.
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Democrats would have about a 30 percent chance instead of about a 70 percent chance in the Senate
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because Republicans would be on track for basically keeping everything the same.
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They would lose
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North Carolina, still reasonably cleanly, but they would pick up Michigan, Ohio.
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And when I say pick up, I want to be clear.
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This would be so close that it basically isn't really even picking up.
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It just means it's a straight down the middle race.
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Michigan would be separated by 0 .01%.
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Wow.
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Oh, my gosh.
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God forbid.
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That's like a horrible situation.
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And Ohio, you have by 0 .1%.
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So if the 0 .01 and the 0 .1 holds, you end up with Republicans holding onto the Senate, narrowly holding onto the Senate,
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even in the realm where you have that level of miss that, you know, where
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Republicans are underestimated.
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Yeah, and that's on paper, right?
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So you have those two races, which I think are basically tied, right?
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So they could go either way.
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And then you have Alaska and Texas, which would be around a percent difference or less.
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So the thing is, this miss never happens across the same, almost every one of these years.
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Even when there's a huge polling miss, there's gonna be a race where there's an exception that goes the other way and someone's underrated.
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So Republicans would be clearly favored to win the Senate in this scenario, but Democrats would still have a fighting chance.
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Yeah.
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Interesting.
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Okay.
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So let's steel man this, too.
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So 2016, why were the polls wrong?
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You know, a lot of our audience is young.
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They may not even know they were in high school or something like that.
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Why were they wrong?
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Give us a reach into my 2016 brain here.
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I know, especially for those of us who had to sit through those long
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New York Times profiles about white people in Ohio or whatever at a diner.
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But yeah, go ahead.
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Yeah.
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Well, the reason they won is that people under people miss what was happening in 2016 going into the election,
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which is that trump brought a ton of new voters
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that were disproportionately white didn't vote too often uh didn't have college degrees who felt they were left behind
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and trump's whole campaign was you're getting screwed and i'm going to change things and it motivated a lot of new people
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You know, they figured that out in 2008
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because maybe the first black president made it a little more obvious
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that black voters were going to turn out at high levels.
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But they completely missed the ball in 16.
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And then in 2020, which was also a big miss, you had, I think a lot of this came down to COVID.
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Some of the same problems repeated themselves, but also Democrats were home way more than Republicans in a way
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that might not ever repeat itself in that type of dynamic.
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And so what do you mean by that?
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Like how?
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Who was more likely to answer the phone?
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The person that was worried about the pandemic.
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Right, right.
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Right.
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The white collar worker at home.
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Right.
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Democrats, core base, excited to tell pollsters how much they hate Donald Trump.
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Yes.
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And so even though Biden ends up winning when we were covering that together, I mean, it was looking like,
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oh, it's going to be a bloodbath.
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Right.
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And it's not going to be anywhere close.
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And then it was very close.
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OK, so let's bring our minds forward a little bit in time now to 2022 too.
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Economic numbers, Biden's in the presidency, economic numbers are not looking great.
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People are dissatisfied.
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Everyone's thinking, oh, it's going to be a red wave.
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Now, the polls never showed a blowout for Republicans, but we were all kind of applying our 2016 -2020 mind saying,
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oh, well, if the polls show
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Republicans leading, it's going to be Republicans by even more than that.
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So the general consensus was a red wave is coming, and then it did not arrive.
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And in fact, the polls underestimated
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Democrats by a bit in that particular cycle, by about three and a half points in that cycle.
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So here we have the numbers for 2022.
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What you see here is that if you have that level of a polling miss underestimating
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Democrats, it becomes quite a blowout on the Democratic side.
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You have states that are flipping that you never would have imagined before obviously you've got Iowa flipping.
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You've got Kansas going.
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And not by really that narrow of a margin.
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You have the Democrat winning by four points in Kansas.
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You have South Carolina going blue by two and a half points.
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And of course, Texas, James Tallarico would prevail by almost six points.
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So that is another possibility that is on the table here.
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Yeah.
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And that's why this is honestly, when you guys messaged me about this last night,
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it was a brilliant idea because it shows exactly what we're dealing with the map is
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so broad we haven't experienced this before at least i haven't
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because i wasn't paying that much attention in 2006
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when i was 13
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so this is definitely an election where uh these races could be in play
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because they're over performing so much in these red areas and
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if they just do a little better than with the poll
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so just a little better they can cash in on a historic level uh
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that would change the next six years of our politics yeah so let's talk through the structural things again, what happened with that miss?
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So with that miss, I mean, generally I remember I used to say like,
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you know, the breaking points rule is you take a Republican number and you add five to it or something like that.
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You know, I was like, Jesus, you know, you'd seen too much at this point.
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Yeah.
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It's like, oh, well, and then of course that was the one year the rule completely falls apart.
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Structurally what happened?
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Because I've actually seen some people say, hey, if you paid attention to the special elections, the ingredients were all there.
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You should have just if you just looked at that you could have predicted democratic overperformance.
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That's kind of what I did Yeah, okay.
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So all right.
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So but then what did everybody else miss?
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What were the structural ingredients for what went wrong in that race?
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I think they missed that the change had happened and look this is just part of the human condition
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We always overlearn the lessons from the last big thing that happened I mean, you know, I'm bringing a little broad here,
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but Mistakes followed from World War one caused
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World War two.
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Sure.
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Sure, right America always goes from excessively
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interventionalist to completely losing sight of the world to getting too confident that now we're in Iraq, now we're in Iran, et cetera, right?
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So this is the same thing that happens with people talking about politics.
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And if you want to be better than the conventional wisdom, that's literally all you need to do.
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Well, it's not all you need to do,
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but it will help, is just recognize that everyone else is over -indexing for what they literally just saw yesterday.
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And that's what happened in 22, because there were really big signs in that
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Republicans are doing quite well special elections
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and they were doing a lot better in the polling
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and then the bottom started to fall out after row
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and they started nominating candidates like doug mastriano in pennsylvania right
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that were talking about kicking voters off the rolls as a central campaign message
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and banning abortion in places where voters disagreed with that and
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so that conjecture that wasn't every candidate
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but we had a lot of those candidates disproportionately in swing races
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i feel like even more than in just red races and
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so republicans weren't able to take advantage i also think
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and this is a huge contrast with this year joe biden
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did not force democrats to stick with him all the time a lot of them separated themselves oh yeah
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now we're probably literally complained to them on the phone in leaked audio
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but yeah yeah but he didn't say it you know he did it in a normal way right
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which is the president grumbles and is doesn't take it is not happy
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that all these people especially if this is their second term that they personally recruited to run and we're
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in theory inspired by him or her
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and then now they're like running for the hills trying to avoid them like crazy yeah
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that probably drives all presidents crazy because they all have egos
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but they're at the end of the day
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they want to win the senate they put it aside trump's made it way harder
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and you see ashley henson in iowa for example toss a brace
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but she was losing earlier and now it's basically tied
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and that's because i think in part she's done a really good job of
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saying she wants to be bipartisan creating her own brand
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that's separate from the party michelle Tafoya is doing the same thing in Minnesota.
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It's a very tough year to run, but she's way over performing the rest of her party.
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Susan Collins does that.
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That's not what most
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Republicans are doing.
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And so that could be the thing that sinks a lot of these people.
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Interesting.
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All right.
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So now let's talk 2025.
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Now this may surprise people because, well, first of all, there were just fewer elections.
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It's just basically Virginia and New Jersey have their gubernatorial elections.
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And because the polls were directionally correct, they showed a victory for the Democrats in both cases.
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I don't think people really processed how much of a miss it was, but let's put this up on the screen.
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This of the years we're focused on here was actually the largest polling miss.
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It was about 8 .1 % of a miss, underestimating Democrats.
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Okay, so now we're getting really wild.
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Okay, if we had a polling miss in 2026 that was the same as the polling miss in 2025,
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so just last year with Virginia and New Jersey, you would end up with Democrats having a super majority in the Senate,
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something that seems impossible, I think is probably very unlikely.
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But if you did apply that same polling miss from just last year, that is what you would end up with.
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Yeah.
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Now, this type of miss is more likely to happen when it's a special, it's an off -year election.
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It's sort of like halfway to a special election because the turnout gap can be bigger.
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And so that's harder to estimate.
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Is that what's going on there? yeah it's harder to estimate
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and you're more likely just to have a big miss with
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two races than you are with like 35 right um
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that being said I mean look this is like the best case scenario for Democrats
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it's unlikely this would be a historic miss
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but there's like a five to you know somewhere between a
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five to ten percent chance of this type of thing happening uh
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and in this scenario look we've incredibly limited polling in this admittedly
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but based off the small polling we have Mrs. Hippie in Louisiana would I believe flip in this map
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so that's crazy that's totally nuts really wild yeah i'm not
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i'm not there yet it's like you said it's a five
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but but like again structural ingredients i think that's what we got to try to look at like
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when i look at your map for example
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and you have toss up in kansas toss up in iowa
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and toss up in alaska already these are such dramatic problems
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and a lot of things have to go right
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so i think bigger question is how much of this is uh local
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or national like you've talked previously here candidate quality how it
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really matters in particular for texas like talarico right like i feel i i personally think
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if cornyn was the nominee he would probably win but
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and i don't think he would win by a lot to be clear
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it would be maybe even less than ted cruz
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and beto it might be one
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or 0 .5 i'm just like yeah i feel like enough of the traditional people are just going to come home.
456
But I opened the paper this morning and I'm looking at the Dallas Morning News, who my whole life endorses John Cornyn,
457
is like, where would James tell him?
458
Now, is that going to swing a ton of people?
459
No. But it's indicative of, I know these are upper crust rich people who send their kids to SMU.
460
They're holding their nose and they're like, I'm going to Tallarico.
461
That doesn't happen with John Cornyn, in my opinion.
462
So that's my question, is how much of this is local candidate quality and then how much of it is national?
463
Because for a lot of years, it didn't really matter who the candidates were by plus or minus two, something like that.
464
Because at the end of the day, whoever's in the Senate, you're voting for Trump or you're not.
465
And that really matters, right?
466
In terms of who that person is.
467
What have you seen in your analysis?
468
Yeah, I think it's both.
469
I mean, you're not talking about Alaska being in play, even with Paltola running, if this environment was tepidly bad for Republicans, but not terrible.
470
Interesting.
471
That being said, look, this is my hot take, and maybe I'm going to look dumb for this,
472
But I genuinely believe that we're getting a little less polarized after a sprinting in the other direction.
473
What I mean by that, to put in English, is voters have been less willing to break with their party.
474
And so red states vote redder, blue states vote bluer.
475
And we feel like we're long past the era where you saw
476
Democrats representing places like Missouri and South Dakota and Republicans winning a lot of blue places as well.
477
And so maybe that's going to change a little bit.
478
Yeah.
479
Because people don't like either party.
480
They think the whole system is wrong.
481
That is like the consensus across America.
482
And candidate quality might mean a little bit more.
483
Yeah, I mean, I could see it.
484
Look, the one thing
485
that you have to accept in politics is whenever you get sort of like a mental frame of what's going on, things shift.
486
So I could definitely see that.
487
You know, I want to talk a little bit more about all of the polling misses
488
and try if we can to put some theories together.
489
So it certainly seems like there is something about when Trump is on the ballot, pollsters underestimate his support, his support specifically.
490
Whereas the midterm elections, it's been more of a mixed bag.
491
And in fact, I mean, these two midterm elections, the most recent, the 2022 midterm and the 2025 off -year election, they underestimated Democrats.
492
And look, pollsters are human beings.
493
They want to try to adjust things.
494
They have gotten a lot more shit for underestimating
495
Republicans than they have for underestimating Democrats ultimately.
496
So do you think
497
that part of the reason why the midterm polls have been wrong in the opposite direction is because of pollster overcorrection,
498
trying to make sure this time we don't underestimate Republicans?
499
Yeah, I think that could be part of it.
500
And also, like, I just want to say on the 2022 map, I forgot to say this before.
501
Part of this is because we're using real clear politics, which does tend to have a Republican bias.
502
I don't know if that's because they were embarrassed about 2020
503
and trying to overcorrect because they didn't include some like very good polling in New Hampshire.
504
The poll they called, the pollster they called the best
505
that released the poll two days before the election
506
because it would have moved their average to showing Maggie Hassan winning the race.
507
And like, so their miss was a lot bigger than other people that year, to be fair.
508
That makes sense.
509
Isn't that the year all these random
510
Republican pollsters came out of the woodwork?
511
Yeah, if you can make adjustments for that and start instituting bias checks, like that's the downside of RCP versus, you know, myself and Nate Silver,
512
is that they don't correct for partisan pollsters and they do like three
513
or four and it's kind of open for interpretation of the most recent polls.
514
And so, like, if you're just including all of them and two of them are Republican pollsters, you're more at risk of making a sudden mess.
515
That being said, like, I think part of this is
516
that pollsters' job has gotten way harder because I think the answer rate for polls by phone is,
517
like, less than 10 % of what it was in 2016.
518
It was surging down at that point, too.
519
Because people, when you get a ring and call, like, we remember when we were younger, you usually answered it.
520
Now it's, well, five years ago, it used to be a scammer now it's AI, you know, pretending to be your grandma asking for money.
521
I've got six layers before I answer a phone call.
522
Like, I went to the carrier to block unknown numbers.
523
I have a screener.
524
Like, if I'm answering your phone call, it's, you're a real person.
525
I can't be the only person who's like, I've paid money for apps that will block robocalls.
526
I answer the random numbers because I need someone to so that these polls are better.
527
Oh, fair.
528
You're part of the polling bias.
529
Yeah.
530
Let me ask you this, Logan.
531
And so if we understand the limitations of the polls, we understand that we've had a variety of misses in a variety of directions.
532
What other things are you looking at?
533
What are when you say the fundamentals?
534
What do we mean here?
535
And is there anything you're looking at?
536
People are starting to parse through the early vote data, which I always think is a little bit of a dicey proposition,
537
especially if you don't know what.
538
I mean, I'm not I'm looking at it.
539
I'm an early vote crack addict.
540
I just I can't get it.
541
And we are going to try to do a segment.
542
Anyway, putting that aside, what are you seeing right now that you think people should be paying attention to?
543
I'll tell you, I'll put my cards on the table.
544
I was saying yesterday in our planning call that we need to get a graphic that's just like the gas prices,
545
the average today, what it was a week ago, what it was a year ago, what it is for diesel,
546
because I don't know that there's any better indicator of the mood of the country
547
and where we're likely to end up on Election Day.
548
So that's my, you know, simple heuristic.
549
What are the sorts of things that you're specifically looking at?
550
Yeah, I actually haven't looked at the early vote this year.
551
And I'll be honest, I'm a little scarred for life from it because in 2016,
552
my friend that worked at the DNC was giving me all this information.
553
He was so confident about how amazing Clinton was going to do after the strong numbers in Miami, which actually went amazing for Democrats.
554
They just did everywhere.
555
They did horrible literally everywhere else in the state.
556
Right.
557
Or at least in the northern parts of the state, I should say.
558
But like, I think it's so easy to see what you want to see voting patterns change.
559
Democrats might even be scared about the mail -in ballots after
560
Trump was up to some stuff trying to change the rules and it wasn't successful.
561
Like this could all change the way people vote cycle to cycle.
562
And so drawing these big conclusions from it, it literally might be a signal that
563
Democrats have decided how much they're going to spend in early GOTV, right?
564
And trying to bank in some votes in mail
565
or how much Donald Trump has decided to encourage or discourage people from the mail -in ballots.
566
Well, I remember for Democrats, 2024, the lines were out the door in Northern Virginia.
567
They were like, oh my God, look at those Democrats.
568
Trump wins all states.
569
Including, by the way, like his margin in Virginia is like higher than that.
570
Oh, well, even worse than looking at the early vote data is like,
571
looking at like, oh, there's a long line in Fairfax County at this point.
572
You know, I mean, that's really, not that I won't do that.
573
I was going to say, I'm still, I'm still there but because we're just so desperate for anything.
574
Okay, so early vote, you're like, just don't even look at it.
575
Yeah, but I will so I can answer your question better next time.
576
But I will say, anecdotally, looking on Twitter, you see people cherry picking,
577
you know, I'll see the same state analyzed in totally polar opposite directions.
578
So putting aside early vote, what else are you looking at?
579
Yeah, honestly, I like doing a combination of quantitative and qualitative.
580
and they're just between personal conversations focus groups i've listened to there is
581
so much frustration with a lot of trump voters
582
and i don't necessarily like some of this has actually died in the wool republicans
583
but especially soft trump voters yeah they just are not happy with what's being delivered
584
it's sort of a crisis for them about who they're going to vote for
585
and so these conversations are very much reflecting what i'm seeing in all these other indicators
586
and i genuinely think that means something i think you got to combine
587
that with the data because you're not going to talk to everyone you're just not
588
so you're no person in america unless they're traveling all over
589
is going to have a proper read of the whole country yeah
590
but i'm also really hearing this from folks that um both first
591
and second hand they're in places like southern texas in the rio grande valley whose family always votes for republicans
592
but this year like they are just so frustrated with what they've seen from ICE, what they've dealt with with prices,
593
that they're going to flip for Tallarico.
594
And so like, and some for Hina Josa, like this is definitely happening.
595
Again, it's a question of how much and how much decides who actually is going to win these races.
596
But I think it's really clear that the movement is real.
597
Interesting.
598
Well, if you want another data point, off our YouTube analytics alone, I thought Trump was going to win.
599
And now off of our YouTube analytics, I'm like, it's going to be 60 seats for the Democrats.
600
What do you mean when you say that?
601
Well, you can just tell, like general like what people are looking at like oh what's getting the click rate what generally uh
602
you know people are into what oh yeah you know things like
603
that don't read them we don't read them
604
but it's uh in general you know in terms of the reports
605
that we get back and then also the shareable the like ratio all
606
that other stuff i'm like yeah i mean look people call it the podcast election
607
so it's like take it for something right yeah in terms of how that looks
608
so anyway yeah a little peek behind the curtain for everybody okay uh let's get to the next part with the gop
609
Hey, if you liked that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below.
610
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611
And if you'd like to get the full show ad -free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at breakingpoints .com.
612
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613
Get the full show.
614
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “DEM SUPERMAJORITY?: WILD Midterm Scenarios IN PLAY”. This video has 614 sentences and 6771 words to shadow. The speech runs for 31:59. The speaker talks fast, about 212 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| poll noun | /poʊl/ | A survey of people, usually statistically analyzed to gauge wider public opinion. |
| underestimate verb | /ʌndɚˈɛs.tɪ.meɪt/ | To estimate too low; to perceive (someone or something) as having a lower value, quantity, worth, etc., than what he/she/it actually has. |
| voter noun | /ˈvoʊtɚ/ | Someone who votes or is entitled to vote. |
| toss verb | /tɔs/ | To throw with an initial upward direction. |
| flip verb | /flɪp/ | To throw so as to turn over. |
| enthusiasm noun | /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/ | An intensity of feeling; an excited interest or eagerness. |
| indicator noun | /ˈɪn.dɪˌkeɪ.tə(ɹ)/ | A pointer or index that indicates something. |
| swing verb | /ˈswɪŋ/ | To rotate about an off-centre fixed point. |
| estimate noun | /ˈɛs.tɪ.mət/ | A rough calculation or assessment of the value, size, or cost of something. |
| scenario noun | /sɪˈnɛəɹioʊ/ | An outline or model of an expected or supposed sequence of events. |
| bias noun | /ˈbaɪ.əs/ | Inclination towards something. |
| structural adjective | /ˈstɹʌk(t͡)ʃəɹəl/ | Of, relating to, or having structure. |
| ballot noun | /ˈbælət/ | A small ball placed in a container to cast a vote; now, by extension, a piece of paper or card used for this purpose, or some other means used to signify a… |
| donation noun | /doʊˈneɪʃən/ | A voluntary gift or contribution for a specific cause. |
| ingredient noun | /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/ | One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| fall apart verb | To disintegrate, to break into pieces. | |
| fall out verb | To come out of something by falling. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You see it in my case?
- Is it us or not?
- You mean like small dollar donations?
- What have you seen in your analysis?
- What other things are you looking at?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to have · used to wear · used to say |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been swamping · everyone's been talking |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if cornyn was the nominee he would probably |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has emerged · have come · we've received |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 161 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: structural /ˈstɹʌk(t͡)ʃəɹəl/, donation /doʊˈneɪʃən/, partnership /ˈpɑɹtnɚʃɪp/, contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/
- Long words — get the stress right: underestimate /ʌndɚˈɛs.tɪ.meɪt/, enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, indicator /ˈɪn.dɪˌkeɪ.tə(ɹ)/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like poll, underestimate, voter.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.