"Voodoo" Polling Data Favors Republicans As Midterm Races Tighten

The midterm elections are just a few days away, and Democrats aren’t exactly enthusiastic about their prospects. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The midterm elections are just a few days away and Democrats, well, they're not exactly enthusiastic about their prospects. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins joins me to talk about this and many other topics. So, you know, if you read anything right now, it is just, it's the same message. The Democrats are in trouble, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's that message that keeps coming through. If I'm looking at it, I think the Democrats take, I think the Republicans take the House, Democrats hold onto the Senate, may be wrong. What's your take?

No, I agree with you. I think the House is a foregone conclusion. A couple weeks ago it really was looking like the Republicans would only have a couple seats advantage, you know, five, six is what the projections were. We're looking at over 20 now.

Yeah. I've heard as high as 30.

Yeah. Things have definitely shifted in the Republicans favor in the House. So I, I think that's almost a giveaway. It's the Senate really, where we're starting to see a lot of these races tighten. I mean, the polls are changing every day and that's what's getting so frustrated about what I do every day, is you can't talk about a poll, because by the time people watch that video, a whole new poll is out that shows the exact opposite. So we don't know.

Well, I mean, first of all, you believe the same thing I do about polling. I think it's basically useless.

Right.

I mean, all you can do is read tea leaves.

It's voodoo at this point.

Yeah, it's voodoo. You look at some numbers and you say, well, here's what it looks like. So I, you know, I'm, I'm hearing the Republicans already beating on their chest. We're, you know, gonna take the Senate, gonna take the House. They might, but guess work, you know, we've been reading tea leaves a long time. I don't think that's the situation.

And I think once it comes down to it, the Republicans just have so many bad candidates out there. Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz, obviously at the top of that list, those are the two everybody's focused on. And I don't know how those two candidates overcome all of the negatives. Even in deep red Republican territory, you still have those Democrats, Warnock and Fetterman polling above them. Not by as much as they, they were two months ago, but they're still ahead by enough where they might be able to have a pretty easy victory.

Problem is independents.

Yeah.

Right now you have independents sitting out there, what is it, 18% of them still haven't made.

Right.

I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a big number. They still haven't made a, actually the number of, the number of them that haven't made up their mind is higher than that.

Yeah.

But the independents are gonna drive this. And the, the only, here's the, here's the spoiler here. The independents are heavily buying into the idea that the economy sucks, which it does. That crime is outta control, which it is. You know, it's all of the talking points. That the border is a problem. They're buying, independents are buying into that. Independents in the past really have more favored Democrats than they have Republicans. That's, that's not what it looks like this time to me.

Right. The independents are the people who actually do go out there every day and they say, is my situation better today than it was two years ago?

Mm-hmm.

And almost every election, no matter who's in charge, the answer to that question is, no.

Yeah.

You're not better off than you were two years ago. So they're the ones who flip.

Yeah.

They say, okay, well, in 2020 I did vote for the Democrats. I thought my situation would get better.

Mm-hmm.

Things are not better. I'm looking at my bank account, I'm looking at my paychecks, they're not better. And y'all can get mad all you want about hearing that, but that's the way it is.

Well, you know, that's the problem.