Episode 53
ITM 4: Debates, Dog Food, and Taylor Swift, Reaction to Harris vs Trump
If June 27th is remembered as the night that ended the Biden re-election campaign, then September 10th may just be remembered as the night that derailed Trump's.
It was memorable, it was full of talking points, and it may have just put the momentum firmly back in Harris' camp. So what exactly went down at the debate?
With reaction and insight to everything that happened, this is America: A History in the Making.
Special guest for this episode:
- Andrew Wroe, a Senior Lecturer in American Politics at the University of Kent
Additional Resources:
FiveThirtyEight National Polls
And if you like this episode, you might also love:
Will America Ever Elect a Woman for President?
Should Donald Trump Be Allowed to Run for President?
What is a Primary and a Caucus?
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Transcript
with reaction and insights to the biggest stories and breaking news from the USA and a little
Speaker:bit of history thrown in. This is America, a history in the making.
Speaker:Hello and welcome to another America, a history in the making with me, Liam Heffernan. Also,
Speaker:you may well hear my dog in the background because it is dinner time, so excuse that. But more
Speaker:importantly, joining me today is Andrew Rowe, Senior Lecturer in American Politics at the
Speaker:University of Kent. Hello, Andrew. Hi, Liam. Good to be with you. Yeah, really good to have
Speaker:you on the podcast. You know, I usually do a bit of an introduction, this is what we're
Speaker:going to be talking about today. I think everyone knows what we're going to be talking about
Speaker:today. Obviously, the Harris-Trump debate happened last night or for us in the UK, early hours
Speaker:of this morning. There was a lot of anticipation about it. There's been a lot of reaction to
Speaker:it. What are your initial thoughts? Who won? I think this is a win for Kamala Harris. I
Speaker:think most commentators. in the center saying that, obviously some on the right are suggesting
Speaker:that Trump might have won it. Trump himself is suggesting that he won it apparently. Of
Speaker:course he is. Apparently he came into the spin room after the event, which itself is highly
Speaker:unusual. Usually their candidates rely on their surrogates to do the spinning, but Trump came
Speaker:into the spin room and apparently according to the New York Times said it was the best
Speaker:debate he'd ever had. He probably wasn't paying much attention if that was the case. He said,
Speaker:well, if Kamala wants another debate, that's because she knows she's lost. What proportion
Speaker:of that is actually, Trump believes and what proportion of that is just spinny, is difficult
Speaker:to pin down. Most commentators from the mainstream media and probably most Americans think that
Speaker:Kamala Harris. won this debate. I agree. And I mean, this guy, Trump is, I mean, love him
Speaker:or hate him. He gives entertainment value, doesn't he? And I saw a clip of him in that spin room
Speaker:and he was reeling off these numbers, like these polls that he was given saying that 90% of
Speaker:people thought he won the debate. Like it's madness. He just like these are just bare faced
Speaker:lies. Absolutely. There's no evidence for these assertions at all. And I think, you know, Kamala
Speaker:Harris picked up on this in the debate and said that he's often, I think she said he's confused
Speaker:by facts. And, you know, the stuff he was saying in this room just confirms that, you know,
Speaker:there's sort of an alternate reality thing going on here. Yeah. But, you know, that's always
Speaker:the way that Trump has been. You know, he has his own reality, has his own facts. He has
Speaker:his own alternative facts. And to be fair to him, he's done pretty well by that approach.
Speaker:He has. And, you know, I guess to his credit, maybe that's the wrong word, but it worked
Speaker:very well against Biden and it did against Clinton as well. It didn't so much against Harris and
Speaker:we'll get on to that. But I just want to clear up the numbers a little bit before we dive
Speaker:into the specifics. So there was a sort of snap poll from CNN after. the debate. You've got
Speaker:some of those numbers in front of you. What are the highlights from that? Yeah, okay. Yeah,
Speaker:so CNN did a snap poll and they were polling registered voters who watched the debate live.
Speaker:And of Harris supporters, acknowledged Harris supporters, 96% of those thought that their
Speaker:candidate, Kamala Harris, had done the better job. Interestingly, Trump supporters, so these
Speaker:are registered Trump supporters. Only 69% of those thought that their candidate, Donald
Speaker:Trump, had done the best job. So you can see that straight away, even though sort of, you
Speaker:know, Trump idealists, those ideologues, recognize that their candidate, some of those recognize
Speaker:that their candidate had not had the best night. Overall, 63%. said Harris had performed better
Speaker:than Trump, and 37% thought that Trump had performed better. But I think what's important is, this
Speaker:election is gonna be decided by a few percentage points in a few swing states. And there's large
Speaker:proportions of Americans are in one camp or the other. They're not shifting. It's what's
Speaker:happening to the moderates, to the independent voters in the middle. And interestingly, what
Speaker:this CNN poll showed was that amongst independents, Harris's favorability rating went up from just
Speaker:30% to 48% Wow. Over the course of the debate. And that is quite a significant shift. Because
Speaker:those are the people who are not yet aligned to one candidate or the other. And this debate
Speaker:therefore may have shifted them one way or the other. But we've got to remember. those are
Speaker:very small proportion of the electorate. But even saying that, there are small portion of
Speaker:the electorate, but it's going to be those very small shifts that actually determine the outcome.
Speaker:This election is on a razor wire, and it's going to be determined by a few tens of thousands
Speaker:of votes in the key three or four swing states. Yeah, this is the thing. And, you know, as
Speaker:you say, these snap polls only give us part of the story, but, you know, it's going to
Speaker:be very, very promising sort of... numbers for the Harris camp for sure. I think what's really
Speaker:most interesting about those polls is the low numbers of Trump supporters that thought he
Speaker:won the debate because you'd expect that to be the other way around because Trump supporters
Speaker:are loyal to an ignorant degree sometimes I would say. What they're willing to believe
Speaker:from Trump and the lengths that they go to support Trump are other political candidates. The fact
Speaker:that only 60% of them believe that he won says to me that maybe there's a growing apathy now
Speaker:towards Trump. Maybe those people that he could rely on to go out and vote, maybe that's a
Speaker:harder sell than it was four years ago and that could be a real problem for him. I mean, 69%
Speaker:of Trump supporters thought that he did a better job. We can't infer from that the 31% who didn't
Speaker:think he did a better job are going to abandon him. I don't see that happening. It might diminish
Speaker:turnout a little. He probably didn't do anything in this debate, didn't do anything for him
Speaker:in winning over independence. He was focused very much on his base, hitting all the old
Speaker:golden oldies that he does at every single rally. That's really not what he should have been
Speaker:doing in this debate. Who do I need to win over to win this election? And he's got to be thinking
Speaker:about those people in the middle, those few uncommitted voters that remain. And this performance
Speaker:didn't do anything to attract that demographic. That's the thing though. Like if that 31% of
Speaker:the Trump fan base can't even pretend that he won the debate, it doesn't say a lot about
Speaker:how many of that undecided sort of electorate going to be energized enough to go out and
Speaker:vote for him. And I just think maybe there's a bit of fatigue now creeping in over the whole
Speaker:Trump game and this playground bully tactic that he goes in hard with. It's not working
Speaker:against Harris. So that became really clear in the debate as well, the way she just picked
Speaker:him apart and just she knew how to bait him and she made him look really silly. I mean,
Speaker:she prepared really well for this debate. You know, you could see that. You could see that
Speaker:in her answers. She had a clear strategy and part of that strategy was to wind him up. Yeah.
Speaker:As you said, it was to needle him and she was very effective at that. She really... He really
Speaker:tried to get under his skin and it worked. Yeah. I don't really know what Trump's strategy was.
Speaker:Whatever it was, it didn't work. I mean, I did see a very interesting tweet after the debate,
Speaker:which was that as much as we sort of criticised Trump for having no real sort of strategy during
Speaker:the debate,
Speaker:As soon as he talked about the Haitians eating dogs in Springfield, there was probably a hell
Speaker:of a lot of people that suddenly went onto Google and were searching for that rather than paying
Speaker:attention to what Harris said afterwards. So actually, there is a bit of a game plan there
Speaker:in that Trump was just resorting to distraction. Like, look over here, don't pay attention to
Speaker:what she's saying over there. Yeah. Yes. Trump's very good at that. at distracting people. I
Speaker:mean, I think if he did have a strategy, thinking about this, it was possibly to try and create
Speaker:an image of Harris as a radical. He was referring to her as a far left radical. I think he might
Speaker:have even called her a Marxist at one point, linking her... to her father who taught Marx
Speaker:at Stanford, and that therefore made her a Marxist. I mean, it's ludicrous. But the problem is
Speaker:that if he's trying to portray her as a Marxist, she was first of all, she didn't take the bait.
Speaker:And secondly, nothing she said confirmed what Trump was trying to portray. The argument just
Speaker:looked silly on its own terms, given the nature of the debate and given Kamala Harris's answers
Speaker:to both the moderators and her responses to Trump. I mean, if that was his game plan to
Speaker:portray her as a radical Marxist, that didn't work either. Yeah. Do you think that Trump
Speaker:just grossly underestimated Harris going into this? Because I think one of the concerns towards
Speaker:Harris going into this debate was that, you know, she's a prosecutor. So yeah, she can
Speaker:talk to a crowd, but she's used to being the one interviewing rather than being interviewed
Speaker:and her sort of slight discomfort around that has become quite clear. Not only four years
Speaker:ago when she just really failed to win over crowds when she was fighting for the candidacy
Speaker:then, but she's been very reluctant to do these sit down interviews with the media. And I just
Speaker:wonder if Trump just really naively and with a lot of his own narcissism fueling it just
Speaker:thought, ah. If I can take down Biden, I can take down Harris. I think there's also deep
Speaker:seated misogyny there as well. Yeah. Thinking this is a woman. I'm a man. I'm better than
Speaker:her. You know, he underestimated her perhaps because she was a woman. You know, he has called
Speaker:her dumb, stupid, low IQ on so many occasions going into this debate. I mean, you know, that's
Speaker:a... one of his standard insults he throws off against many of his opponents. But he could
Speaker:have actually internalized that, as you suggest, and convinced himself that she genuinely is
Speaker:a low IQ individual, which of course she's not. She's highly intelligent. And actually, as
Speaker:we saw last night, very articulate. And also had the good sense to prepare really thoroughly
Speaker:for this encounter. I was reading in the American newspapers that she was locked up for nearly
Speaker:a week preparing for this debate. And you could see by her answers, she was highly informed.
Speaker:She was very well prepared. And also when she had questions which were really difficult,
Speaker:she had a pivot. She pivoted to a set of talking points, which flummoxed Trump and also got
Speaker:her out of a sticky spot on some really, really difficult issues. So she was intelligent. She's
Speaker:articulate. And she was well prepared. And yeah, and as you suggest, Trump probably wasn't expecting
Speaker:that. He expected to be able to bamboozle her. Uh, and he, he couldn't. In fact, it was the
Speaker:other way around if anything. I agree, but I actually think to, um, and I don't do this
Speaker:very often, but to just ever so slightly come to Trump's defense for the past, you know,
Speaker:eight years that he's been running for president, uh, he's been able to employ those tactics
Speaker:very successfully. And. and not with inexperienced adversaries like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden.
Speaker:You don't get many more experienced and qualified Democrats than them two. He lost to Biden in
Speaker:2020, but he turned the tables on Clinton in an election that he was expected to lose. He's
Speaker:ended Biden's candidacy in the debate back in June. So what is it that Harris has done that's
Speaker:so different? Well, I mean, I'm not sure that Trump ended Biden's presidency. I think Biden
Speaker:ended Biden's presidency. Trump didn't do much in that debate. This was an act of self-destruction
Speaker:by a sitting president. Trump sort of sat on the sidelines and had the good sense to let
Speaker:Biden unravel by himself. He didn't interject. He just let Biden go on. And if we go back
Speaker:to the debates between Clinton and Trump in 2016, I don't think Trump bested Clinton in
Speaker:those debates. So I think over the course of them, I think probably Clinton was the overall
Speaker:winner. And if you think about the popular vote, Clinton won 3 million more votes than Trump
Speaker:did in 2016. He just happened to win the votes where it mattered and that allowed him to win.
Speaker:He got a small narrow victory in the electoral, fairly narrow victory in the electoral college.
Speaker:I just think it's Trump, it's Trump's character, isn't it? I mean, you know, I don't think there's
Speaker:like a sophisticated political strategy driving Trump's behavior. I think, you know, as he
Speaker:said on many times, he goes on his gut, he's got, I've got a gut, he says, I've got a gut.
Speaker:And he just goes with it. But it's also an arrogance and an narcissism there, as you say, where
Speaker:he thinks he doesn't have to prepare. that he is better than everybody else. Actually, I
Speaker:think that he's actually born ultimately if he's a deeply insecure individual. He talks
Speaker:about strength and all this other stuff. But I think at core, he's a deeply insecure individual
Speaker:who masks that with this image of being very strong, a very strong individual. But in terms
Speaker:of strategy, he's not deeply thought through. Always advisors were saying before this debate,
Speaker:focus on policy, focus on policy. That's where you beat. Kamala Harris on immigration, on
Speaker:the economy. This is where you beat her. And he couldn't help himself. No. He couldn't stop
Speaker:the personal attacks. He would just, and he let, as we said before, he let Kamala Harris
Speaker:needle him. And he would just go off on these mad tangents, for example, about eating dogs
Speaker:and cats. And he was just, he was absolutely bonkers. But he was saying that because she
Speaker:got under his skin. Yeah, I agree. And the baits were so... obvious as well. Of course, she
Speaker:was trying to throw him off on immigration because he could talk directly to his base. So when
Speaker:she talks about the rally crowds and has little digs, I don't think any politician would really
Speaker:expect the other person to take the bait as much as Trump did. But man, did he buy it.
Speaker:He couldn't help himself. No. I'm sure. His advisors were saying to him, you know, in the
Speaker:run up to the debate, or trying to prep him not to get drawn in, not to be needled. But
Speaker:you could see, you know, as soon as she mentioned that it was brilliant, that was a brilliant
Speaker:line from Harris. As soon as she started talking about his crowd sizes and their stamina and
Speaker:how they were bored and they were leaving, he couldn't help himself. And he had to go in
Speaker:on the attack. But that wasn't the only line, you know, she attacked him. on Project 2025.
Speaker:She said other world leaders were laughing at him. I mean, that's probably the thing that
Speaker:Trump hates the most is the thought that people are laughing at him because it speaks to this
Speaker:insecurity which I just spoke about before. So he hates that, but she knows that and she
Speaker:was needling him on world leaders laughing at him. She was needling him on his six bankruptcies.
Speaker:Yeah, she brought that up. She was needling him about former staff who were bad mouthing
Speaker:him. She was intimating very... John Kelly, who was his former chief, he didn't use his
Speaker:name, but she was intimating John Kelly, his former chief of staff who disowned him. She
Speaker:was talking about his criminal indictments. Then she had that great line where she said,
Speaker:and you were fired by 81 million people, which is brilliant because it just goes back to Trump's
Speaker:thing about the apprentice and his celebrities that you were fired by 81 million people. Then
Speaker:she went on and said, clearly you're having trouble processing that. He hated it. Yeah,
Speaker:I think because there's this, she knew, she knew that there were little conversations happening
Speaker:and circling around Trump, around his competency now, the same sort of conversations that were
Speaker:happening around Biden. And okay, not to the same degree. I'm not going to even try and
Speaker:suggest that Trump's going to be forced to step down. But you know, Trump now has to deal with
Speaker:being the old candidate. one who has to justify his age and his, you know, competency and he
Speaker:can't do it. He was, he, I mean, you know, considering his age, considering, what is it, 78? 78, yeah.
Speaker:He's still, you know, he's still dynamic. He's still a presence. He's still charismatic in
Speaker:a way that Biden certainly was not in that, in that debate with him. He's, you know, he's
Speaker:still there. He's still sort of got that, that. that presence. But his words, I mean, he's
Speaker:always been a rambler. He's always gone off on huge tangents and digressions. That's just
Speaker:the way that he speaks. The question is, is he getting worse? It's difficult to quantify.
Speaker:I don't know. If he'd been more disciplined, then... know, if he hadn't taken the debate,
Speaker:then maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation about his age. Maybe it's because, you know,
Speaker:Kamala Harris was able to needle him, she was riling him, and that led to this sort of outburst,
Speaker:these digressions, these sort of mad responses, which then lead us to question his mental faculties.
Speaker:Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I think one of the criticisms I did notice in after the debate,
Speaker:particularly and probably predictably coming from the Republican side, is that he wasn't
Speaker:really given a very fair chance. ABC have come under some criticism because of the fairness
Speaker:of the moderators. There's definitely pockets of criticism saying that they were fact checking
Speaker:Trump a lot more than they were Kamala, that they were sort of letting things slide a lot
Speaker:more with Kamala. I mean... I've looked at the numbers since and actually Trump had about
Speaker:four minutes more speaking time. I think he was allowed to interject a lot more and they
Speaker:really did give him a lot of license to keep talking even over his allotted time. So I'm
Speaker:not really buying that criticism and it just kind of feels like Republicans are clutching
Speaker:at straws a bit, if I'm honest. Yeah, sounds like sour grapes a little bit. The format was
Speaker:each candidate had two minutes. to make their point and then the opposite candidate got two-minute
Speaker:rebuttal time and then the moderators could give candidates an extra minute if they deemed
Speaker:that it was worth it. And if you add all that together, Kamala Harris spoke for 38 minutes
Speaker:and Donald Trump spoke for 43 minutes. Yeah, so there was a five-minute difference there.
Speaker:Trump definitely had more floor time than Harris. But if you look at how they used that floor
Speaker:time, that's what's interesting. of Kamala Harris's 38 minutes, she spent 17 minutes attacking
Speaker:Trump, putting him on the defensive, riling him. Of Trump's 43 minutes, he only spent 13
Speaker:minutes attacking Kamala Harris. He had more time and he also used it less effectively,
Speaker:largely because Kamala Harris was putting him on the defensive and also because he was rambling
Speaker:as well. But this idea that the moderators did a poor job, I mean, I just didn't see it that
Speaker:way. I think they did a decent job. They didn't get, often when Trump's in these sorts of debates,
Speaker:he often ends up attacking the moderators there and then. He's done that overtly in the past.
Speaker:He didn't do that. He never questioned the moderators because I think he probably thought they were
Speaker:doing a fair job. Of course, now this is over. will, as he always does, he will pivot and
Speaker:he will blame the moderators. I don't know whether he's already done this, but I have no question
Speaker:that he will now say something along the lines of they were very biased and very unfair, very
Speaker:anti-Trump. I'm sure that's rang the corner. That's his go-to line. It is. And I think he
Speaker:has actually done an interview on Fox News since the debate and basically said that. That's
Speaker:what he always says. Yeah, I mean, no great insights on my part. It's just a classic Trump
Speaker:line to blame. Yeah. But this is the thing, people just getting a bit bored with hearing
Speaker:the same things and the same comebacks. And, you know, it's just, he's doing exactly what
Speaker:he did in 2016 and it just feels like now people are wise to it. Yeah. He hasn't progressed
Speaker:very much as a politician, you could say. He's still hitting all the old golden oldies, all
Speaker:the same issues. in the same way, attacking people. But as we know, he's been president
Speaker:of the United States for four years. So not exactly a failure. He's had the top job. He's
Speaker:been the most important person in the world for four years. And he still dominates the
Speaker:Republican party. He's still one of the big beasts of American politics and maybe will
Speaker:carry on for the next few years. It's worked for him. Yeah, and you know, I guess it's important
Speaker:to note that, you know, Kamala Harris didn't win a
Speaker:primary election to become the candidate for the Democrats. Trump has been through that
Speaker:process twice and then, you know, as an incumbent as well, which is essentially just a no contest,
Speaker:right? But I guess you can say he's been there, he's done it, he's proven he can win elections
Speaker:and Kamala still has that to prove. I mean, she won a senatorial election in California,
Speaker:she won various local state elections, but yes, she's not taken the top job and she hasn't
Speaker:won a democratic primary either. I mean, also, to give some credit to Trump. He is the Republican,
Speaker:he's changed the Republican Party. The Republican Party has fundamentally shifted in character
Speaker:over the past, well, since 2016. It is a very, very different beast than it was not even 10
Speaker:years ago. So he is the dominant character on the right of American politics. Yeah. And that
Speaker:takes some doing, you know, you can think about maybe Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, you know,
Speaker:being such a force and Republican Party sort of coalescing around his political ideology.
Speaker:He didn't do that in the same way with either Bush, with Bush senior or Bush junior, but
Speaker:he's done it with Trump. He is the dominant character. And it'd be interesting to see,
Speaker:you know, when he leaves the stage, where the Republican Party goes, does it go back to its
Speaker:old? Is the old Republican Party of Reagan or does it carry on being a Trumpy type Republican
Speaker:Party? We don't know. But at the moment, he's the person. He's the big beast. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker:I agree. And I think the Republican Party in a post-Trump world is going to look very, very
Speaker:different and it'll be interesting to see how that sort of shapes up. But as you said earlier,
Speaker:Harris, we talked about Clinton in 2016, she won the popular vote by three million. Democrats
Speaker:typically do win the popular vote nationally, but it's not about the popular vote. And there
Speaker:are seven states that don't represent an awful lot of electoral college votes, but they hold
Speaker:the keys to the election because they're the ones who are generally swayed either way. How
Speaker:do you think the debate helped or maybe hindered either candidate's ability to win over? those
Speaker:swing states? That's a really tough question. I mean, the effect will probably be very small
Speaker:in terms of, you know, moving voters one way or the other, or, you know, encouraging voters
Speaker:to come out and vote. But those small shifts are going to make all the difference in those
Speaker:swing states. So marginal effects can actually have significant consequences. Yeah. You know,
Speaker:it's It's really hard to know. Political scientists have tried to estimate the effect of debates
Speaker:on vote choices and election outcomes. It's just really hard. It's really, really difficult
Speaker:to do so. In part because debates are just one of many, many things happening in a very dynamic
Speaker:political space. I think Kamala Harris will get a small bang from this. Some of the national
Speaker:polling might change by a percentage point, perhaps. In the swing states, we might get
Speaker:a similar movement. But I think whatever movement we see from this, it will be within the polls
Speaker:margin of error. We just can't be confident about the effects it will have. One thing I
Speaker:am confident about is it won't have hurt Kamala Harris. Yeah, I think we can say it was a good
Speaker:night for her. And we can say it probably hasn't helped Trump and it was a bad night for him.
Speaker:Yeah. So, you know, Kamala Harris can put this down as a win. Yeah. And it's not just about
Speaker:the effect on votes, you know, on people directly, you know, changing their... their vote choice,
Speaker:it has an effect on money coming into the campaign. Yeah. Right. It has an effect on the enthusiasm
Speaker:of your campaign workers. It has an effect on the enthusiasm of people who attend your rallies.
Speaker:And a lot of it is about momentum. And we saw from the moment that Joe Biden stepped back
Speaker:and Kamala Harris stood up, we saw this sort of momentum, which was in her favor. that seemed
Speaker:to have stalled a little bit before the debate. She seemed to have sort of plateaued. She was
Speaker:right, I mean, there were small changes. She was rising in the polls and it just seemed
Speaker:to have stalled before the debate. This might be the sort of event that gives her a little
Speaker:bit of momentum, yeah? That just gives her campaign that edge that takes her forward as we approach,
Speaker:you know, that we go into the sort of... the critical end of this campaign. So it definitely
Speaker:hasn't done any harm and it might do her campaign as a whole a lot of good. Yeah, I agree with
Speaker:you completely. And actually, yeah, when you do look at those numbers and look at such,
Speaker:you know, the narrow margins that are in the swing states, actually, you know, yeah, you
Speaker:start with like 150 million votes across the country. But in reality, the winner... of the
Speaker:presidency only actually has to talk to this undecided kind of $50,000 or less that make
Speaker:the difference in those swing states. And it's crazy to think that that's really what gets
Speaker:you to the White House, but that's how the Electoral College works. That is, the Electoral College
Speaker:is a very, very strange institution. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker:college since 2004. That was the last time they won, but they've won lots of presidential elections.
Speaker:George W. Bush won in 2000 on a minority of the vote. Al Gore won more popular votes, but
Speaker:George Bush became president. 2016, Trump winning many, many fewer votes than his opponent. Hillary
Speaker:Clinton but clinching the Electoral College. There's an institutional bias at the moment
Speaker:in the Electoral College that favors Republicans and you know Kamala Harris, it doesn't matter
Speaker:if she piles up millions of votes in California or New York, that's not going to make the difference.
Speaker:It's what happens in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in Wisconsin, in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada,
Speaker:and so on. That's absolutely critical. There's about 100 electoral, it's 538 electoral college
Speaker:votes in total. There's about 100 electoral college votes which are going to decide this
Speaker:election. So about 435, 440 electoral college votes, we know where they're going. And they're
Speaker:going equally to both candidates. They've both got about 220 of those 440 electoral college.
Speaker:votes, it's the other 100, where are they going? That's how this election is going to be decided.
Speaker:And I'm bringing back to that, to the debate last night. I think the debate has given Kamala
Speaker:Harris some momentum that she was perhaps just starting to lose. I think it's going to be
Speaker:really good for her campaign over the next few weeks. But then, you know, there's still, I
Speaker:don't know how many days, there is 50 plus days to go. 55 days. 55 days, there's lots that
Speaker:can happen in the meantime. When it's this close, little things can determine the act. Many,
Speaker:many little things can determine which way this goes. Absolutely. But it's not a bad time to
Speaker:get the front foot. So I think Harris and her campaign are going to be going to have had
Speaker:a very good night's sleep last night following that debate. And also, we haven't even touched
Speaker:on the fact that Taylor Swift promptly then publicly endorsed Kamala Harris. And I'm not
Speaker:one for celebrity endorsements, but... You've got to acknowledge the influence that Taylor
Speaker:Swift can have on the vote. Liam, I even watched a Taylor Swift video today on the back of this.
Speaker:I've never done that in my life. And I, for some reason, there was a link on a New York
Speaker:Times webpage and I watched a video. about her adopting her cat, Benjamin Buttons or something.
Speaker:I don't know. I mean, sort of, yes, I mean, you know, I surprise myself. But yeah, but
Speaker:I mean, I found out today that she has nearly 300 million followers. I mean, it's extraordinary.
Speaker:Yeah, so it was certainly, and you know, and Kamala Harris, you know, she, key for her.
Speaker:one of the keys is mobilizing young people to vote. Young people are overwhelmingly democratic,
Speaker:but the problem is they don't turn out and vote. So if this swift endorsement just encourages
Speaker:a few hundred thousand more young people to go out and vote, especially in those key states,
Speaker:again, it's these little incremental differences that could affect the result in November. Absolutely.
Speaker:And as you say, 55 days is a long time, longer than a UK general election cycle. So who knows,
Speaker:anything can still happen. But for now, Andrew, thank you so much for joining me on this. It's
Speaker:been great chatting with you. And for anyone who does want to connect with you after listening
Speaker:to this, where can they find you? I think just put in Andrew Roe, University of Kent. and
Speaker:they'll get my details at my institution happily, send me an email or such. Awesome. Thank you
Speaker:very much, Andrew. And for anyone listening, thank you for listening. But also make sure
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Speaker:we do more of these leading up to the election. It's an exciting time. Thank you very much
Speaker:for listening and goodbye.
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