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Sign up now for your free trial terms and conditions apply. 1:17 Introducing voices of VivGuard. VivGuard is also known as its generic name, 1:21 FGuard TIGAMOD Alpha F-CAM. And this new show features firsthand stories from people 1:26 living with a rare disease. Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life 1:31 is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, 1:37 but it does not define the voices of Vivgar. In these episodes, they share their stories, 1:41 from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to 1:45 voices of Vivgar on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 1:51 Hi, everybody. It's Chuck and I'm rolling through the year of COVID. This is October 6, 2020, 1:57 and it's got to be election season because we're talking about swing states. And it's 2:02 October before the election in November. What's the deal with swing states is the title 2:07 of this episode. And I know we did a few episodes that were slightly political leading 2:12 up to the election. And this is one of them. And it was a good one. Swing states 2:16 States are weird to me, but I think we get to the bottom of it. 2:20 Check it out right now. 2:27 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. 2:36 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 2:38 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and Jerry's over there 2:42 somewhere, I think, in our office. 2:44 And this is Stuff You Should Know, the Swinging Super Hip Cat Edition. 2:52 Swing states. 2:54 They're the swing and the states of all. 2:57 They like to sleep with each other. 3:00 Based on keys they took out of a fish ball. 3:04 I should say up front, thank you to HowStuffWorks.com for this article along with Politico NPR. 3:12 And I think 538 blog I got some stuff from. 3:15 You sound like you're giving an acceptance speech. 3:18 Yeah, for best election podcast episode. 3:22 That's right. 3:23 We are not going to win. 3:25 Yeah, so this is on swing states, which are all the rage, battleground states these days. 3:32 Everybody loves them. 3:33 And have been for a while, but some of this stuff I thought was even enlightened me, and 3:39 I thought I kind of knew most of this stuff. 3:41 Yeah. 3:41 It's one of those things that I found 3:45 that you can make a lot more difficult than it actually is, 3:48 at least just the general concept of swing states, 3:51 but there's a lot of detail and info and history to it 3:56 that makes the whole thing really interesting. 3:58 So to keep from making the whole thing 4:00 more difficult than it is, 4:02 let's just define swing states at the outset. 4:05 Okay, go ahead. 4:06 Swing states are states during presidential elections 4:10 in the United States here that are so closely 4:16 divided politically that they could go either way. 4:20 They could vote one way or the other. 4:23 And based on a lot of governmental ins and outs 4:27 that will go over, depending on which way they flip, 4:31 they could make or break a presidential campaign 4:34 and elect the president or deny somebody else 4:37 and presidency at the same time even they can do both. 4:41 That's right, and I'm glad you said that 4:42 because more than anything else in this episode 4:44 we wanna drive, or I wanna drive home at least, 4:46 I'm sure you're on board. 4:48 Okay. 4:49 A swing state is not just a state 4:52 that is very closely divided politically 4:55 among its constituents 4:57 and it just could go one way or the other. 4:59 It is a state where there are people 5:02 who, there are enough people in that state 5:04 who can be persuaded to change who they vote for that it can make a state go one way or 5:11 the other. 5:12 We're talking down to the thousands or even hundreds of votes. 5:17 And that is why it is so, so, so, so important that everybody votes, everybody votes. 5:24 But especially if you live in one of these swing states, because there are, believe 5:28 it or not, there are people that still haven't made up their mind in this country. 5:33 which is really surprising in this particular election 5:37 because things have gotten super partisan 5:40 and polarized in America. 5:41 And they had been going that way for many, many years now, 5:44 but I mean, it is, I don't want to say 5:46 has reached its apex. 5:48 I hope it's reached its apex. 5:50 I'm sure it could get way worse, 5:52 but things are real polarized here. 5:54 So it is very surprising that there's undecided voters. 5:56 And I remember from our election polling episode, 5:59 we were saying one of the reasons 6:00 that the state polling was so far off 6:02 is because there are so many undecided voters 6:04 at the end of 2016. 6:07 That in and of itself is pretty surprising 6:09 because the candidates were so different. 6:10 Things were so polarized then. 6:12 It's even more surprising now 6:13 that there's any undecided voters. 6:15 But they're out there. 6:17 There's not a ton of them, 6:18 but there's enough of them to swing an election 6:20 and swing a state. 6:24 Brookings Institution says 75% or more 6:28 of a presidential candidate's spending occurs 6:29 in these swing states. 6:31 and, you know, they're spending on ads. 6:34 A lot of it is ad buys and social media ad buys, 6:38 you know, robo calling, stuff like that. 6:40 But we should go over just, you know, 6:42 I know we did one on the Electoral College, 6:44 but just for our friends across the many ponds, 6:48 we should give kind of a quick overview 6:50 of the very odd way that we do things here. 6:53 Yeah, because everybody thinks in the United States 6:56 that everybody goes to the polls 6:58 and during a national election, 7:00 like the presidential election, 7:02 and elects the president. 7:04 That one person has one vote. 7:06 And that is definitely true. 7:07 Each person does have a vote. 7:09 But the thing is we have something called 7:11 the Electoral College. 7:13 And rather than directly elect the president 7:16 through a popular vote, 7:17 we have an indirect way of electing the president 7:21 where all those people who go to the polls 7:23 are going to the polls to cast a ballot, 7:26 whether they know it or not, for the the electors for each party. So if you voted for Donald Trump 7:34 in 2020, say what you're voting for is not necessarily Donald Trump. You're voting for 7:40 your state's Republican Party electors to go to the Electoral College to cast their vote for 7:46 Donald Trump, hopefully. That is the indirect way of electing the president that we have. 7:51 And under this situation, under this indirect electoral college setup that we have, 7:57 you can actually get elected president without winning the popular vote. 8:03 And that's what happened in 2016. 8:05 It's happened four times. 8:07 Yes, twice very recently. 8:09 It happened in the 2000 election where Al Gore, I think won the popular vote by half a million votes. 8:15 happened in 2016 where Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million votes like 2.9 million 8:21 Then it happened a couple of times in the I think the 19th century didn't yeah four times 8:26 Yeah, the other two were pretty far back and all four times 8:30 Republican candidates lost the popular vote and ended up being the winning the election 8:37 And we'll get into you know changes on the horizon as far as that goes 8:40 but to kind of put a pin in the electoral college, how it specifically works is each 8:47 senator from each state, which is two senators because each state has two, get a vote. 8:53 And then for each representative in the house, they get a vote and everywhere except for 8:59 Maine and Nebraska does what's called a win or take all. 9:02 So, if everyone in Georgia or, you know, if Georgia votes for, let's say, Joe Biden, 9:09 then everybody, all the electors would have to vote for Joe Biden and cast that vote. 9:15 In Maine and Nebraska, what they do is, I think they, and the goal here, by the 9:20 way, is 270 electoral votes if you want to win the presidency. 9:24 But they do the district system, which is they award two of those electoral votes 9:29 to the statewide popular vote winner. 9:31 And then they go, I think, just district by district, 9:35 don't they? 9:36 Yeah, they do. 9:37 And so you can win, you know, 9:40 if you win your statewide election in Maine or in Nebraska, 9:45 you get two electoral votes automatically, 9:49 and then you get one for each district that you won. 9:52 Yeah, which seems a little more fair. 9:55 It does seem a little more fair, 9:56 but I saw that on fairvote.org, they said, 10:00 if you do the math, it's actually way less fair 10:02 on a relational level, yeah. 10:04 Like maybe it works for Maine and Nebraska, 10:06 but if all states did that, you would be able to eke out 10:09 an even more imbalance between an electoral college win 10:14 and a loss of the popular vote. 10:16 I saw somebody put out that there is a path 10:21 to 270 electoral votes. 10:25 so you would win the presidency, 10:27 while also getting just like 23% of the popular vote. 10:32 Wow. 10:33 You like to think that that could never happen, 10:35 but apparently mathematically with this setup 10:37 of the electoral college, it could happen. 10:40 And the reason why is because one, 10:43 the electoral college exists like you said, 10:45 and then two, because of that winner take all system, 10:47 to where it doesn't matter whether you win a state 10:50 by one vote, you get all of the electoral votes 10:54 for that one state. 10:55 And so in creating swing states, 11:01 the Electoral College also creates 11:03 what are called safe states. 11:05 And a safe state is where so many people, 11:08 so reliably vote for the party 11:10 that that candidate is running for, 11:15 that you can just count on that state 11:17 giving, like winning their electoral votes. 11:20 And you actually start with a base of that, 11:23 that like let's say there's 170 solid electoral votes 11:29 among like 20 states for Democrats, right? 11:32 That is what you would rely on, 11:34 not just on election day, but throughout the campaign. 11:38 And so you're not spending much time or money 11:40 in those states because those are safe states. 11:42 You don't need to, it doesn't make any sense to do that. 11:44 It makes way more sense to spend all of your time 11:47 and money and attention on those swing states 11:50 because those are the ones that aren't necessarily safe, 11:53 But they're also not necessarily leaning the other way either and you could conceivably put those swing states together to create that 12:00 270 or more electoral votes which should lead you to the presidency, right? 12:05 But you know, it's gotten a little tricky here in recent years because 12:10 there are a few swing states that are kind of really solidly swingy and 12:15 Then there have been a few that are more swingy or less swingy 12:18 And you have to make a decision as a candidate where you're gonna spend your money in your time 12:23 And that's where polling comes in. 12:25 A lot of people say that perhaps Hillary Clinton didn't spend enough time in certain states 12:30 that ended up flipping to Donald Trump. 12:34 It's all strategy. 12:36 I think now we can maybe take a little extended sidebar here about this whole blue state, 12:41 red state thing. 12:42 I thought it was very interesting. 12:45 Because here in America, we have blue states and red states. 12:48 States. The blue states are the Democratic Leaning States. The red states are the Republican 12:53 Leaning States. If you are sort of in the mix, maybe a swing state, they might call 12:58 you purple in the news. If you hear that, that's what that means. But it didn't always 13:03 used to be these colors. And I got this from NPR. I found it interesting to know 13:07 that when the colors first started being assigned in the mid-1970s, the Democrats 13:16 were red and the Republicans were blue? 13:19 Yeah, so supposedly blue was traditionally 13:23 the Republicans color because it was the color 13:26 of the union during the Civil War 13:29 and the union was led by Abraham Lincoln, 13:31 who was Republican. 13:32 And then also apparently in Europe, 13:35 the conservative parties are typically 13:36 associated with the color blue. 13:38 So it made more sense at least at first 13:40 to have Republicans be blue and Democrats be red. 13:44 And supposedly that's where it debuted back in 1976 here in the United States on NBC 13:50 because NBC was the first network to have to go full color, right? 13:55 And so in election 1976, they said, check out our amazing interactive map. 14:01 Blue states are gonna be ones that Republicans have won, red states are gonna be ones that Democrats have won and 14:07 Have you, did you see a picture of the map? Yeah 14:10 It looks like a giant stained glass window for the United States. 14:14 It does not look super flashy or anything now, but at the time it was like knock your 14:19 socks off technologically advanced, I guess. 14:22 Yeah, but here's the thing is those colors weren't locked in. 14:25 Like there was never any, you know, vote about those colors or anything like that. 14:29 They just sort of went that way. 14:31 As more and more TV networks went color, they went with other colors and it got 14:37 a little bit confusing. 14:38 Depending on which network you are watching, you might see different colors representing 14:43 different parties. 14:44 I think always red and blue, but they were kind of flip-flopped. 14:47 And it wasn't until 2000, and the Washington Post, they credit Tim Russert, I think the 14:55 late Tim Russert, he passed away to me. 14:57 Unfortunately, yeah. 14:58 Yeah. 14:58 They credit Tim Russert with kind of locking in what we now know as blue states and 15:03 red states, blue being for Democrat, red for Republican during the 2000 election 15:07 between Gore and Bush. And these colors are important because it's, and one of these writers 15:14 in here, what's his name? Bill Bishop. He's from Texas. He wrote a book called The Big 15:19 Sort. And he kind of makes a really good point that it's become a shorthand of not just 15:24 a leaning of the state, but sort of a lifestyle. Like you hear things like, you know, it's 15:30 a really blue neighborhood or a red community. And you kind of know that shorthand for 15:36 for a certain thing in this country now. 15:37 Yeah, and part of the problem with, 15:40 especially designating entire states as like red or blue 15:44 is that it makes it seem like there's this homogenous group 15:47 that is, that the whole state thinks that way. 15:50 And that's not necessarily true. 15:52 I mean, there's plenty of states out there 15:53 that are considered red states, 15:55 but they were one by one and a half percent or 3%. 15:59 You know, it's like a very close call, 16:01 but it went Republican in the presidential election. 16:04 So it's a red state. 16:05 Or like you said, you know, you can get it down 16:08 to like community level, that kind of thing. 16:10 And in doing so, all you're doing is sowing 16:13 this division of tribalism that exists in the United States 16:17 to where it's just so easy to have this allegiance 16:20 to blue or red. 16:21 They don't even make it donkey or elephant any longer. 16:24 It's blue and red. 16:25 It's one of the most basic things you can sort by, 16:28 which is colors. 16:30 And it's a real problem in that it somehow, 16:35 Stokes, that mentality, that in-group, out-group mentality that is so problematic in the United 16:42 States right now and is drowning the country as we speak basically. 16:47 I hate to say it, but it's absolutely true. 16:49 It really is. 16:50 And it's especially annoying if you have political leanings like I do and live in a 16:54 state like Georgia that is for the past 20-plus years been solidly red. 17:01 And then, you know, you have, you know, you still live in California, 17:05 I have plenty of friends in California who say things about, you know, places like Georgia 17:09 with such disdain. 17:11 And it just bothers me so much because it is, you know, these, and this thing can 17:16 be said for people on the other side of the political spectrum. 17:19 It's not exclusive to me being a liberal in Georgia. 17:23 I'm sure the same frustrations happened for Republicans in Massachusetts. 17:28 Absolutely. 17:29 Yeah. 17:29 You know. 17:29 No, I'm quite sure. 17:31 And I think it was, I don't know what article that came from, 17:34 but they point out that those people 17:36 are some of the most diehard partisans you'll find. 17:40 People who are minority in their state 17:42 because they feel like they're really carrying the flag 17:45 for their party or whatever. 17:47 But yeah, it's a real problem. 17:49 It takes away all nuance. 17:50 And it also makes people think like, 17:52 oh, you're from a red state. 17:54 I can't work with you. 17:56 My constituents won't like it 17:57 if I work with you, red state person, 17:59 rather than you're from Wisconsin and I'm from California, 18:02 let's figure out how to make this highway bill 18:05 make more sense kind of thing, you know? 18:07 Yeah, Emily and I have a lot of conversations 18:09 about the lack of nuance in today's world. 18:13 And it's, I think that's one of the biggest problems 18:15 we have going on right now. 18:17 Nuance has been lost and everything has carved 18:19 very much into red and blue and black and white 18:22 and it's been sad. 18:23 And you know what is another thing that makes it sad too 18:27 It's not just like that's just appealing 18:30 to the lowest common denominator. 18:32 It activates in all people, 18:34 including brilliant, intelligent people 18:36 who are otherwise normally level-headed. 18:39 They still have that part of their brainstem 18:41 where they're like, on blue, on red. 18:44 I affiliate with that and I hate the opposite. 18:48 It is that when you lose nuance, 18:50 a lot of stuff goes out the window with it. 18:53 All right, well, let's take a break. 18:54 Like, that was our first soapbox of the day. 18:56 I didn't, I thought we started out on a soapbox. 18:59 I thought this whole episode was gonna be on. 19:01 I think pretty even-handed soapboxes, though, right? 19:04 Sure. 19:04 All right, well, we'll come back 19:06 and we'll build another soapbox in the next couple 19:08 of minutes and we'll be back right after this. 19:27 Hey everybody, YouTube Premium takes something 19:30 you already love, YouTube, and makes it even better. 19:33 The content, the creators, the feeling of finding 19:36 exactly what you're into for every mood 19:38 and moment of your day. 19:40 Like, for example, let's say you want to learn to cook, but you don't have time to go take 19:44 cooking classes across town. 19:46 Well, you can find tons of instructional cooking videos all without ads on YouTube Premium. 19:51 That's right. 19:52 Premium transforms that experience into a more supercharged, enhanced way to enjoy 19:56 YouTube. 19:56 A YouTube Premium subscription gives you access to exclusive YouTube features and 20:01 benefits, including, but not limited to, ad-free. 20:04 So we're talking about uninterrupted videos, background play, so background play 20:07 lets you keep listening with your screen locked and offline downloads so you can download 20:12 your videos to watch anywhere, even without Wi-Fi connection. 20:15 That's pretty awesome. 20:16 And smart downloads automatically downloads videos by your favorite creators. 20:20 So even if you forget to download it ahead of time, premium has you covered. 20:24 So if you like YouTube, you'll love premium. 20:26 Sign up now for your free trial. 20:28 Terms and conditions apply. 20:36 Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. 20:39 That's Toyota affordability and it all starts with a great deal on the truck from your local Toyota dealer 20:45 That's right 20:46 Make a smart buy on the off-road ready Tacoma or a half-ton tundra two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks built with the strength 20:53 For the tough jobs the tech to power your next big adventure and the rugged style for everything in between or 20:59 Discover Toyota's off-road lineup including the iconic forerunner and land cruiser designed to go beyond the everyday and with Toyota's proven 21:06 reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more 21:11 for every mile and drive for less along the way. 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His team made sure it all came together 22:10 and held up on game day. Through Allen's whole crew design we connected the event visitors to 22:17 the world. And after years of hard work and collaboration it was opening night. To actually 22:21 see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing. What the fans 22:26 experience. It's incredible. It gave me a lot of pride. AT&T, connecting fans to what they love. 22:32 Connecting changes everything. AT&T. Okay, 22:52 so we're back on swing states, right? 22:56 And I think we should kind of talk about how they swing or how they have swung. 23:01 Or swunged recently. Because with swing states, you kind of get this idea that they're the 23:09 the same all the time, and that's just not the case, 23:12 especially not lately. 23:14 It seems like 1992 and 2016 were both watershed years 23:20 as far as just completely recoloring the electoral map. 23:26 And in 1992, Bill Clinton did it, 23:28 and in 2016, Donald Trump did it, 23:30 and it just surprised everybody both times. 23:33 Yeah, 92, and if you're our age or younger, 23:38 year, you might not have been super hip to politics when you were in high school, let's 23:42 say, or early college. And you may not know that there was what was called a red wall. 23:48 They didn't call it a red wall back then, but it was a red wall where there was Republicans 23:54 had a pretty firm lock on the electoral college in that from 1966 to 1988, 21 states 24:03 voted Republican every single election and that included, you might be surprised 24:09 to hear, California, Illinois and New Jersey and Virginia. And here's the one 24:17 that's gonna really make your heart stop, Vermont. Yeah, traditionally Republican. 24:23 Voted 21 times in a row. Yeah. And that is 191 electoral votes. So they, the 24:30 The Democrats had a pretty big disadvantage going into 1992 historically, meaning that 24:35 they had to win more than three-quarters of the remaining electoral votes for these, 24:41 you know, quote-unquote competitive or up for grab states. 24:44 And that's not counting D.C., which Democrats have always got a lock on. 24:48 Yeah. 24:48 For the last 14 elections, D.C. has always gone Democrat, right? 24:52 So the common wisdom was that when George H.W. Bush went up for reelection, not 24:59 not only was he the incumbent president, 25:01 which means that you're supposed to be favored typically. 25:05 He also had this red wall, 25:07 which I don't know what they called it, 25:09 but this lock on the electoral college 25:11 and it was presumed that he was probably gonna win. 25:14 And then Bill Clinton came along 25:16 and he flipped nine states from that red wall. 25:21 Not just the swing states, 25:23 he flipped nine of those red wall states, 25:25 which was 118 electoral votes and ended up winning 370 to 168 for in the 25:34 electoral college votes. Somebody bring me a sledgehammer. That's basically what he 25:39 did though. I mean it was it was pretty unprecedented and like you said just 25:44 flipped the political thinking in this country on its ear. And flipped them so 25:50 hard that California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Vermont haven't voted 25:55 Republican since the 1992 election. 25:58 Yeah, really reshape the map. 26:00 Yeah, he flipped those Republican lock states into Democrat lock states. 26:06 That's right. And now they call it the blue wall, and they do call it the blue wall now, 26:11 because blue is firmly ensconced as Democrat. And there are 18 states supposedly among 26:17 this blue wall, along with DC, that have voted Democrat in each of the most recent 26:22 at six elections from 92 to, well, previously from 92 to 2012. 26:31 Right. 26:32 And that's when Trump came in 26:33 and flipped it on its ear once again. 26:35 Yeah, so he flipped some traditionally 26:38 Democrat strongholds like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. 26:43 And he did so by, first of all, energizing voters 26:48 that hadn't really been seen at the polls very much, 26:52 like voters without a higher education diploma, 26:56 a lot of rural workers, especially blue collar workers 26:59 who had been lifelong Democrats went out 27:02 and voted for Trump and ended up taking, 27:06 I think he flipped more than just those three. 27:09 Oh yeah, he flipped five, Maine and Minnesota, 27:13 no, no, no, I'm sorry, he flipped those three 27:15 and that's how he won the Electoral College, 27:17 but he almost won Maine and he almost won Minnesota. 27:20 and both of them were pretty strong democratic states. 27:25 Minnesota hadn't voted for a Republican in like 50 years 27:29 and he came close to flipping that. 27:31 And so here's the thing, 27:32 we're talking about all these states being flipped 27:34 because when a state gets flipped in an election, 27:38 especially if it's kind of close 27:40 or narrowly held rather than flipped, 27:43 that state is probably going to be a battleground 27:47 or swing state in the next election. 27:49 Yeah, so if you're wondering, I mean we'll list out the swing states and sort of in that 27:53 drama right here, but if you're wondering if you might be in a swing state, it has to 27:57 do with quite a few things. 28:00 Obviously the voting history there being predictable, if you voted for a long, long time for a 28:07 specific party, you're probably not a swing state. 28:10 If your demographics in that state are traditionally really support the same candidate 28:19 then you're probably not gonna be a swing state. 28:21 The fact is that most voters in most regions 28:25 of the country, or most regions of the states 28:27 in this country, they vote based on, 28:31 they have really different opinions 28:33 based on the experience of just literally 28:35 the physical place where they live. 28:37 Right, so like the rural voters typically go GOP 28:42 or Republican, whereas people in metropolitan areas, 28:46 major metropolitan areas frequently go toward the Democrats 28:50 and they have different experiences based on their geography 28:54 and depending on how balanced that is, 28:58 how big the metropolis is, 29:00 how big the rural area is in a state 29:02 compared to whatever metropolis or capital is there, 29:05 that can make that state a swing state. 29:07 Like North Carolina is a really good example of that. 29:10 There's a lot of highly educated tech types, 29:13 scientific researchers who live in the research triangle 29:17 in North Carolina. 29:19 But there's also a ton of rural voters too 29:21 who are active in politics 29:24 and those two balance each other out. 29:26 And so North Carolina is very frequently 29:28 a swing state in presidential elections because of that. 29:32 Yeah, and you know, I wanna be clear. 29:34 We're not like disparaging people 29:36 who don't have college diplomas. 29:38 There are all kinds of ways to be smart. 29:41 There are a lot of people with college diplomas 29:42 is that can't change their oil on their car or, you know, 29:47 or build a fence and those are other types of smarts 29:51 and they're all different ways to be smart. 29:53 Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying that at all. 29:55 No, of course not. 29:55 I think if you listen to our election polling episode, 29:59 a divide between college educated 30:02 and non-college educated voters was created in 2016 30:07 where it hadn't been there before. 30:08 Exactly. 30:09 And now that is a major part of American politics. 30:11 Right. So along with North Carolina this year, and again, you know, this is what they expect 30:17 to see. It could be turned on its year once again, and states could be in the mix that 30:21 we didn't even forecast. You never know. But right now they're saying that North Carolina, 30:26 Arizona, Florida, always Florida is so important. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Some people 30:34 say New Hampshire. Some people say Georgia. That's a big one. That's a big one. Georgia 30:39 Georgia hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, I think, I mean, has it been since 30:44 Clinton? 30:46 Yeah, that's what I would say. 30:47 Since 92. 30:48 And I think Texas, remarkably, and Georgia have both drifted left by four points with 30:57 each of the last couple of elections, and they're saying that, you know, it's going 31:01 to be very tight in Georgia. 31:03 And I don't think anyone is anticipating that it will flip, but it's purple and in 31:08 in the mix for the first time in a long time. 31:10 Yeah, which is really saying something 31:12 because I mean, in Georgia for many years, 31:16 if you were a Democrat, it just did not matter. 31:19 Like you just didn't need to bother to vote. 31:21 And that's a big problem with swing states 31:23 and the electoral college that we'll talk about. 31:25 And you mean that metaphorically, by the way. 31:27 Right, exactly. 31:28 But I mean, there's this whole concept 31:30 of a wasted vote in a safe state 31:32 for the opposition party, their votes wasted. 31:35 But we'll talk about that later. 31:36 but just like there's some surprising states 31:40 that are now considered swing states 31:43 or battleground states in 2020, 31:45 there's also some that have customarily been swing states 31:48 that aren't necessarily, 31:50 and the big standout one for that is Ohio. 31:53 Ohio has voted for the president correctly, 31:58 or I should say they went, 32:01 they, the nominee or the candidate 32:04 that Ohio voted for has been the president, 32:08 the one who won the presidential race 32:10 in like dozens of elections, maybe not dozens, 32:16 but they've been voting correctly for the president, 32:19 correctly picking the president. 32:21 I feel like I'm digging myself deeper into a hole here. 32:24 Anyway, what that says about Ohio is that, wow, 32:27 Ohio is like really a thinking group politically speaking 32:31 because we have had Republican presidents 32:34 and we have had Democrat presidents 32:36 throughout the last few decades. 32:39 And Ohio has voted differently just about every time. 32:44 And that says that Ohio is a long-standing swing state. 32:47 Well, Ohio was flipped in 2016 32:48 and there's a lot of political observers 32:50 who are like Ohio is now lean's conservative. 32:53 It's now a red state. 32:54 And that's a really surprising turn of events for 2020. 32:58 Yeah, I think Colorado, Ohio and Virginia 33:00 are three of the traditional swing states 33:02 that have been taken off that list. Arizona and Georgia, I don't think Texas is officially 33:08 on the list at all, but I think because Texas has always been so solidly conservative for 33:15 it to eke towards the Democrats at all, just makes a lot of hay. So there's a lot more 33:21 talk about it on the news and stuff like that because there's so much media influence 33:26 and I think that the liberal media probably thinks that, you know, like, oh, Texas 33:29 this is leaning, maybe we can help push him over the edge 33:32 if we talk about it all the time. 33:33 Yeah, probably. 33:35 Because that's how things work 33:36 if you listen to the polling podcast. 33:38 And like you mentioned earlier, 33:39 Minnesota hasn't voted for a Republican in about 50 years. 33:45 And they are, you know, 33:47 they have inched a little bit right. 33:49 Yeah, I think Trump just missed Minnesota 33:53 and Clinton just barely won Minnesota by like 3% 33:56 and Maine by one and a half percent. 33:58 So those two are definitely in play like they haven't been in a while. 34:02 Should we take another break? 34:03 Let's take another break and then we're going to come back and talk about get this swing states. 34:25 Hey everybody, YouTube premium takes something you already love, 34:29 YouTube, and makes it even better. 34:31 The content, the creators, the feeling of finding exactly what you're into 34:34 for every mood and moment of your day. 34:37 Like, for example, let's say you want to learn to cook, 34:40 but you don't have time to go take cooking classes across town. 34:43 Well, you can find tons of instructional cooking videos all without ads on YouTube premium. 34:48 That's right. 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Mm-hmm. I feel like there are more versions of Florida 38:40 than almost any other state has versions of itself. 38:44 Absolutely. 38:45 And it's not, I mean, Florida's not small. 38:48 It's not the size of California, 38:49 but you know, you think about the Gulf Coast 38:52 and then inland from the Gulf Coast. 38:55 Very different people. 38:56 Yeah, the people inland wouldn't be caught 38:58 dead in Florida, Obama. 39:00 Yeah, you think about Miami Beach and that area 39:04 and Key West and Fort Lauderdale. 39:07 And then you've got the interior 39:08 area of like the Tampa Clearwater area, which is really different. 39:12 And then let's not forget about the most magical place on earth, Orlando. 39:15 Well, you've got Orlando. 39:17 And then you've also got up in the north, you know, borderline Georgia, you have places 39:21 like Jacksonville and St. Augustine and just Florida has so many different kinds of places 39:27 within its own state. 39:28 It doesn't surprise me that it's really hard to pin down politically because it's 39:32 hard to pin down just sort of culturally, I think. 39:34 Right. 39:35 And because you have so many different places 39:37 that geographically inform the voters 39:40 that are so demographically diverse, all in one state, 39:45 then that of course is going to be a swing state. 39:47 And Florida probably always will be a swing state 39:51 just for those reasons. 39:52 Yeah, the retirees are a big, 39:54 they always point to retirees in Florida, 39:57 traditional conservatives, 39:58 but apparently the youngest three generations 40:02 amount to 54% of registered voters there now. 40:04 So that's surprising. Yeah, I mean, I guess the the sad way to say it is is that many of these people are dying 40:13 Yeah, I mean that surely I mean the an elderly population is going to eventually die off 40:18 Then you got a younger population. That's right. We're gonna age into it 40:21 But it seems like right now there the elderly population in Florida has been losing ground 40:28 Numbers wise while the younger populations have been gaining ground. That's right 40:32 They're coming after you for a state because you need all those young people to work to take care of all those old people sure 40:37 so 40:38 Florida gets a tremendous amount of attention a lot of money a lot of campaign visits all that stuff and 40:46 Because it's a swing state all swing states get that kind of stuff in in presidential elections 40:52 But people in other states, especially in solid states that have gone one way for many many election cycles 41:01 those people say, well, hey, what about us? 41:03 We want attention. 41:04 We want these campaign stops. 41:05 We have things that are important to us 41:07 that we wanna talk to you about and hear from you about. 41:09 We don't care about Florida. 41:12 We care about Idaho. 41:15 So come to Idaho and talk to us in Idaho. 41:18 And the candidate usually says like, 41:19 I don't even know where Idaho is. 41:21 Please leave me alone. 41:22 I'm trying to pay attention to Florida 41:24 and you're being very distracting right now. 41:26 Yeah, and here's the thing like in my mind. I say 41:29 Who cares if a presidential candidate comes and talks to people at a dumb rally like yeah, like does that really matter? 41:36 But what they do is you know, it's not just a broad sort of let me make a stop there 41:41 It's very pinpointed and calculated like they might be going after a really specific 41:47 constituency there like 41:49 Because how close some of these swing states are 41:52 And they might say you know what if we can get 41:56 auto workers to vote for you will be set. 42:01 Or if we can get people that work on public roads 42:05 and infrastructure flipped our way, 42:08 then we can win by 1,000 votes. 42:11 And so they may make pit stops in these states 42:14 to go to the factory. 42:16 I mean, that's why they do that stuff. 42:17 It's not just to, you know, I mean, 42:20 it's all just very calculated and very specific. 42:22 Right, because the viewer on TV is like, 42:24 Hey, I work in a factory and they're in a factory right now. 42:27 They must mean that they really identify 42:29 with my needs and wants. 42:31 Well true, and that's someone from another state 42:32 that also just happens to work in a factory, 42:34 but the people in that state feel like, wow, 42:37 they're here to talk to the coal miners. 42:40 Right, I can't believe they came to Michigan. 42:42 No one ever comes to Michigan on purpose. 42:45 Hey, we went to Michigan on purpose. 42:47 Once. 42:49 Are we, we haven't ragged on Detroit in a long time. 42:52 No, it's been a while, 42:53 but that's really what we're talking about. Michigan is code for Detroit when you're talking about not 42:57 going to Michigan. But it's just interesting how pinpointed and how just like razor sharp and focused 43:04 and laser focus campaigns are these days with talking to very specific groups of people if 43:09 they think they can win a thousand votes out of a state. That could make a difference. 43:13 It can, because again, here's why. 43:17 Literally a thousand votes could make the president 43:23 in a state because of that winner-take-all electoral votes. 43:28 Whereas if those states use the district system 43:30 like Maine and Nebraska, 43:33 if you won 51% to 49%, 43:36 you might get half of the delegates 43:38 and they get the other half basically. 43:40 But the fact that it's winner-take-all is that, 43:42 But yeah, those extra thousand votes really count 43:44 in a good sized state for 10 electoral votes, 43:47 20 electoral votes. 43:49 So it's definitely worth spending that much time 43:52 and focus on one single state. 43:54 And a lot of other states resent, 43:56 a lot of non-swing states, 43:57 so safe states resent swing states 43:59 because they say basically it's up to Ohio and Virginia 44:03 to decide who gets to be president. 44:05 The rest of us are gonna go vote as we're expected to 44:08 because if you're in a safe state, 44:10 it doesn't matter if you win by a thousand votes 44:12 or win by a million votes, 44:15 it's winner take all again too. 44:16 So you're not gonna pay that much attention 44:18 and really you're not, 44:19 in a way you're not producing the president. 44:22 That's a little cynical in my opinion 44:24 because without that solid safe state, 44:27 you wouldn't have that foundation 44:28 that the candidate is building 44:31 these swing state electoral votes off of. 44:35 I don't think that's fully accurate, 44:37 but there does seem to be like some sour grapes 44:39 among safe state people, that makes sense to me most of all, Chuck, when you're talking 44:45 about people who feel like their vote is wasted because they're voting for the party that's 44:52 the opposite of how the state traditionally goes. 44:54 So if you're a Georgia voter and you're a Democrat for the last several elections, 44:59 you could very easily feel like your vote was so wasted, you might not even bother 45:03 going to the polls because your vote in this sense of electoral college, this 45:08 This is a really good reason to do away with the Electoral College. 45:12 As far as the Electoral College is concerned, your vote didn't count. 45:16 You had no reason to go vote as far as electing the president goes, because it was washed 45:23 away and drowned out by all the other votes that went toward the other candidate, since 45:27 it's a winner-take-all system of electoral votes, that your vote didn't matter, because 45:32 they were always going to win all those delegates because you were going to get 45:35 out-voted. 45:36 Right. And I'm glad you said president specifically, you should always vote for the president, 45:43 of course, but there are so many ballot measures and local considerations on the ballot, local 45:50 elections that really have such an impact that you always, always, always vote. But 45:56 it's almost like filling out your census form in a way. It's the only information 46:02 that we have of where a state is politically is you casting your vote. So if you cast your vote 46:09 in Georgia like I do and Donald Trump wins Georgia again, it's not a wasted vote because the Democratic 46:16 Party will look up the numbers and say, wow, you know, like they're doing now. Look how many, 46:21 you know, Stacey Abrams almost got elected. The first African-American female governor 46:25 in the United States almost won in Georgia in an election that many people thought was 46:30 is undermined by the Republican candidate 46:32 with voter suppression and that was a big deal. 46:35 So now that's why so much attention is on Georgia 46:37 because it's like you're filling out 46:39 your little census thing, you're casting that vote 46:41 and they're saying, okay, well, Georgia's in the mix now. 46:44 We're gonna campaign in Georgia more. 46:46 Plus also there's another really good reason 46:48 to vote in those situations as well. 46:51 Like I'm sure other voters in Vermont 46:53 who felt like they were probably wasting their vote in 1992 46:56 but they went dutifully to the polls 46:58 and exercised their real basic important right 47:02 as a citizen, their right to vote. 47:04 And Bill Clinton ended up flipping the state. 47:07 Had those people been like, 47:08 it's just a waste to vote anyway and stayed home, 47:10 that state wouldn't have been flipped. 47:13 And the same goes for Wisconsin or Michigan 47:15 for Trump in 2016. 47:18 So there's a lot of good reasons to go out and vote, 47:22 even if you feel like your vote is wasted. 47:24 That's just, it's just too cynical. 47:26 And I understand, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, 47:32 things are definitely different. 47:34 But under normal circumstances, especially, 47:37 the idea of just staying home and not voting, 47:39 unless you're protesting against your party's candidate, 47:42 that's different. 47:43 But- 47:44 We'll go right in a candidate.
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