Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Engaging With Nonvoters 20240713

You for all of you are watching by live stream. As the 2020 Campaign Ramps up, both democrats and republicans are working very hard to rally their base. They are also trying to win over swing voters but i think we all know and we will specially see today, that it is by far the largest bloc of voters out there, 100 million voters are the voting age adults who dont go to the polls. I cant say enough, that the balance of power in the United States rest in those voters. These nonvoters span every demographic. Every racial demographic, age demographic, education demographic. Today we are going to have, a very enlightening panel discussion, discussing with Party Leaders themselves, how they plan to appeal to this group and get some of these people to come to the polls. Were also also going to discuss the very interesting results of this night study that is being studied today. And we have all been anticipating for a long time. I want to encourage you all, as you follow our discussion to also join the conversation on social media, thats politico elections, and to begin the sponsored segment heres a quick video from our sponsor, the Knight Foundation. Thank you very much. Theres a crisis facing our democracy. Who has the power to solve it . Is it americas voters . Or perhaps its americas nonvoters . In 2016, we witnessed one of our countrys most contentious president ial elections. Donald trump won the presidency and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. But who did most american support . Nobody. I am not registered to vote. I did not vote. I do not vote. I dont think im going to vote. Nearly 100 million eligible voters did not vote. This is a story perhaps the most important voice in america yet to be heard. The 100 million project is a landmark study of 12000 nonvoters, done at unprecedented scale. So who are these 100 million americans . They are as diverse as this country. As different as 100 Million People can be. Many nonvoters lack basic faith in our democratic system. 38 of nonvoters say they are not confident that elections represent the will of the people. Many believe the system is rigged. Mean my sister always think theres a conspiracy theory. I think the whole thing is predetermined. I think its rigged. Nonvoters engage less with news and feel underinformed on politics. And yet many nonvoters are College Graduates and over one third our middle class who are wealthier. Democrats, republicans, and independents each make up one third of nonvoters. Half of respondents reported an unfavorable view of President Trump. 40 favorable, and the rest undecided. The emerging electric, 18 to 24 yearolds, are less informed, less interested in politics, less likely to vote in 2020 then nonvoters overall. Are we losing a generation of voters . I am not informed on anything, feeling my vote is going to be wasted. Effect being young and voting, people will judge you for because you are not educated enough about the whole voting process. So increasing voter turnout isnt just about politics, its about the future of democracy. To start the most important conversation of 2020, visit the 100 million. Org. Police welcome to the stage, Senior Vice President and chief Program Officer of the Knight Foundation, sam gill. [applause] good morning, thank you all for coming out, think you politico for organizing this important conversation, thank you ed harris from working to record that direction. The Knight Foundation is focused on supporting a stronger democracy through more and formed engage communities. So led by our director comic alexanders here today we commissioned the survey to understand the health of our democracy to time when our political conversation is really focused on the narrowest slice of voters. While elections may be ultimately about convincing a few, are viewed as democracy is engaging the many. To kick things off today, im really delighted to be able to lead a conversation, with fernand amonte who led the project to runs then dixon ahmadi which is a legendary south florida base survey for firm. Shes a leading voice on how information influences choices and decisions within democracy. She helped design the survey, helped to lead the statistical analysis. We are going to talk a bit about what was surprising or not about what we learned regarding this large voting block. So i like to start with you, ferdinand what is the biggest thing that jumps out to you who the nonvoters is or isnt . Based on the survey. The amazing thing about this, myself included have these preconceived notions about who nonvoters are. Theres always conventional wisdom that suggest well, they tend to bid this group and mobile in this. But we found in the study, with the data revealed, as they are like everyone in america. In the sense that you run the full breadth of what the american body politic looks like. Yes, there are some deviations from voters and perhaps a little bit more minority, little bit more undereducated, but nonetheless these are groups of people that feel this same way voters do. They take the voter consumption piece. 82 of voters say that they are following news and information about politics very closely. One would think from the hypothesis that the nonvoters are probably the 20 percentile range. Granted, they are lower than voters but 62 in our study say they are as versed in political issues and political news as many of the people in this room, those watching on Live Streaming into see that come live in the data and understand the reasons why so may those feel the way they do, it was very eyeopening, illuminating, and opens a lot of questions about what it means but what it means for democracy. Steam acts as a political scientist thinking about this group were the largest studies ever, what is the mythbusters. Your political scientist have been talking for decades about why people do or dont engage in industrialized democracy. So what conventional wisdom was upended by the survey . One of the tremendous benefits of the survey, often will be talked to people, we ask them to selfreport. Whether they are voters nonvoters, and people have a great incentive, the great benefit of the study is we knew in advance how often these people had voted, we know exactly what they are bringing to the survey. One of the things that emerges from the study, is about how to get information. A longstanding theory and Political Sciences as logs build information, nate from the news but from a friend or someone in their network, they are probably going to be okay. But one of the most robust results across the modeling, cross allow the data is one of the greatest differences in who votes and who doesnt vote is whether you get your information directly from the news or whether you just try to bump into it from somebody else. And that as a result that holds, regardless of your demographic. Regardless of education, your job, gender, pretty much everything. How you get the news seems to matter quite a lot. Potentially more than we had thoughts. So given that context, given this has to do a lot with behaviors that people have for someone whos talking a lot to campaigns, helping campaigns think about how to succeed and win, we can have highminded ideas about trying to engage everyone. I happen to have this idea and the foundation has us ideas. Help with a shared here. I think will hear later about those are focused on persuasion. In the world where stakes are incredibly hi, for whom only focus on the few people who arent just bumping into news who are junkies and highly engaged, therefore highly persuadable, is there anything we can do to encourage campaigns to actually think about nonvoters as being worth the time, effort, investment . Absolutely i think again in the theme of myth busting delayed the Data Destroys its conventional wisdom, one of the things i think people believe are just inherently think about, as it overwhelmingly favors one party over another. That if one party were just overwhelmingly cultivate this group of voters, they would win every election and have a permanent majority. That is not what we saw on the data. Its actually pretty evenly split. A third of these nonvoters support the Republican Party. A third of these voters support the democratic party, and a third are in what you might call an independent, perhaps quans eye persuadable mode. The challenge with nonvoters is resource limitations. A lot of campaigns and his organization say hey its interesting that we just dont have the recent sources to engage this segment of the electric. What he think their study revealed is there are the first advantage for these campaigns whoever gets to them first, might actually enhance their prospects of winning. In spite of the fact that some people might say oh dont go after them as much because are not likely to vote. If you make an appeal with them, they have shown, they have beliefs and strong held beliefs at that. Does that have to follow s at something we can expect from a president ial campaign or is this going to have to happen in municipal elections and county elections who is going to be willing to say im in and make an investment because i think im activating a constituency thats going to have a good lifetime value. If your marketing you think about lifetime value that the 64 milliondollar question. Campaigns like the nfl whenever theres in the National Football league all 31 other teams copy. Think the First Campaign whether its the president ial campaign or the culture and locally meant miscible campaign to see theres a pool here if properly engaged and activated and sometimes his work with the engagement, they can show that puts them over the top, it might have a force effect that just changes the culture of how these are engaged in the nonvoters are engaged. So. Make it is practical thinking what it would take whether its a campaign or social movement, to activate these folks who you already mentioned sort of one of the key vectors is really whether you actively encounter news or bump into it. We used to have a model, or even kinda do both is called the newspaper. We used to be economically viable and its something were on intensely the Knight Foundation. Sue and the information environment we live in, one in which frankly we are increasingly bumping and information more, what are some of the more promising levers, areas of behavior that campaigns or others about information or others that people should be focus on based on the survey. One of things that emerges is people are more likely to vote when their network and family and friends and people they work with vote. And this survey comments some ways force is that idea. The people not voting are having disengagement with their community and are less happy with their lives. To activate these people, its not necessarily treating them as individuals, but approaching whole communities, engaging whole communities and suggesting the whole communities who have often been disengaged for decades that there is something worthwhile about the voices. And one, you get people within communities to encourage each other. That would lead to these networks that political scientist talk about where people encourage each other turn out to vote, they encourage algebra to sit and even follow the news. There is, in some sense of privilege with some people have to spend a lot of time following the news that many just do not. Once we really kind of reinforced network effect, and reinforce these kinds of connections that people might have and use those connections to actually encourage people to participate politically, i think that would be the most promising avenue for increasing interest and. Some people say lets go little deeper on this, we are in a moment were a lot of the work that bob putman and others led with urban socialization is coming back into vogue. They have faced disconnection and disengagement whether its in politics or community. Certainly that school of thought would agree with the sediment you just espouse. Its about how you being valorize in your community. Some people say but look, the places where that happens are gone. Others would say theyre just happening in new places, they are happening online, through different how in your work do you think we should be hopeful that we can regain those networks in new places or is this really going to be about rebuilding institutions and communities that are at the very least stress . Research suggests that we dont need bob putnam style bowling leagues to create connections and networks. Networks exist all around us. They exist in our families, still exists in religious communities, and certainly online. There is researchers suggest that if your online friends report that theyve vote you are more likely to do so. I think the institutions are there, it is just a matter of reaching people who are within these communities, who are pressure points. Who might actually suggest to their friends and neighbors and families that theres something worthwhile to you being engage with politics. Its something you should put your time into. Last word to you, think about that through sort of a cynical political lens. Is that a message . Is there a message there is it a campaign can embrace this active contribution . No question. I take a cynical sometimes political perspective. Ive seen entire people who president ial campaigns designed around a subgroup of voters in the swing state of florida, puerto rico maybe even cubans, smart target pool of voters. These are 100 million americans concentrated in every state. This isnt some fringe group, what you need to see, especially in the media fragmentation as we see younger demographics less and less likely to engage in traditional media. Campaigns in the culture of Campaign Needs to do a better job meeting these nonvoters where they are. They are not always on the traditional media websites. They are in gaming platforms, theyre watching tv shows that sometimes have nothing to do with politics, or on their phone. They are completely isolated from the traditional means of dissemination of information. I think those campaigns at seymours and opportunity, and the Value Proposition that the opportunity could lead to massive electoral gains, i think that might change the culture. But they have to be willing to make those risks as well. Thank you both relating the study and for joining us this morning. We really appreciate it. [applause] [background noises] [background noises] please welcome back to the stage politico editor at large peter canalis. [applause] first of all i want to thank you all for that very insightful presentation, i also want to remind people that you can participate in the discussion via politico elections, and we will be taking some questions via twitter later on. So, we are here now to talk about where the metal meets the road so to speak. Where nonvoters, and how the Political Parties will be contending with this in the 2020 election. I am very, very honored to be joined, starting on my left with caroline by, who is the managing director for morning consult. Thats the Polling Company that works with politico and surveying. Matts daily or the deputy political director of the Republican National committee. Thank you so much for being with us. Crystal knight, political director properties usa which is a democratic super pack, and doctor kostas from Northeastern University up in mild stomping grounds of boston. To start off i want to ask matt a question. The numbers that came out of the night said it, actually had some good news for President Trump in there. And that was it in every swing state with the exception of georgia, there is a plurality of nonvoters who actually supported truck. This was very surprising because for those of us who followed this issue for a while were assuming people worse than nonvoters were skewing more illiberal. In fact the nonvoters even more than the voters were actually approach him. To think of a state like arizona where the welltodo suburbanites have been in the United States a little bit more toward the democrats. There are a lot of people along the border, a lot of guys in pickup trucks or supporting President Trump. But it turns out they may not be registered or if they are registered that they may not be voting. How are you going to continue to deal with that. First of all no surprise there is boarding President Trump. But with that i mean its very interesting i look back on this i think of a question like nonvoters most of us and never understand that we would like. We are all about politics all the time. We are always cant wait to vote so its like a super bowl. Thinking that people who dont vote and why they do not vote right . The job of the Republican National committee and the Trump Campaign is to go out there and find voters in a state like arizona and figure out what motivates them to turn out the vote. Selectively we are fortunate to have a huge ground game its been going on around for a long time engaging these people right now to figure out why they dont vote and figure out how they vote. How do we motivate them to turn them out to vote. Right now theyre trying to figure who their nominee is going to be a we are able to do this. So time is on our side which is very valuable in politics. Theres been a lot of attention in the last couple of years, to republican secretaries of state and some of the states who have had voter purges of often the hundreds of thousands of voters who just havent voted and as few as two of the last elections. Imagining the arizona comparison, it could be a lot of those casual voters are trunk voters. Are you concerned the party has been adopting the wrong strategy when it comes to moving people off the rolls . Its interesting, a lot of secretary of states take different approaches to this. Some follow the laws in the state. Im from West Virginia where they refuse to purge the roles forever because once they did that the democratic resident a giant registration would fall so much to the republicans would gain there. Their registration as a priority. Again its up to the secretary of estate to decide how they want to do. But from the data perspective, we are focused on these people. We Pay Attention to movers list, interstate outofstate calmly Pay Attention to people who come off the rolls and we know there republican, we will figure out if they are still there and how to reregister them to be active again. Imagine a conversation of one of the secretaries of state came to the rnc and said if we enact one of these voucher purge laws, would that hurt us . What would your response be . I would say that it would not hurt us. We want the best Data Available so every state has a data file that we buy from the secretary of state or election board that shows who is registered to vote on that day. And that we update that list. We need the best Data Available. So the secretary of state is going to purge the roles of inactive voters, that just makes our job easier to figure out who we can target to turn out. See mcchrystal, priorities usa, trying to mobilize liberal leaning law voters, one of the surprising results of the study that it showed both the most dedicated voters are women, but also the most dedicated nonvoters or women. In the category of voters that was the most disengaged, this is measured by their political literacy, their ability to answer questions about public issues, 65 of that group were women. Which is a very significant, large, large, number. We have all heard about the womens march, womens engagement, and women are never more engaged and they are now. Theres obviously a Huge Community that is not. What can be done from your point of view to get those people out . I think that statistic was very surprising, number one. But i also think we have to speak to issues that affect women. Women are just as affected by the economy, healthier, the rising cost of prescription, just as men are. But if a woman has competing issues and she lives in a state like pennsylvania, for example, for you only have one day to vote on, and im a single parent, i have to think about dropping off my child in the morning, maybe i try to go and vote in the middle the day, and the line is really long, maybe after work i have to think about owing to care for an elderly parent or another relative. All of those things become competing issues when i think about going to the booth. well, i think those issues are important to women and i think they are also important to men but we also have to find the messaging that speaks to women in the state they live in. One message about abortion rights or paid family leave that may be applicable to all women but in a state like michigan, if i am a woman who has been laid off from my from gm for example, and i see that my that the top executives are getting tax breaks are the president and maybe i feel like the system isnt working for me. And so, i have to figure out well, which candidate is speaking to my issues and do they care about me. Do i see myself or my life Getting Better under this particular candidate. That will obviously, that will determine whether i decide to go to the booth or not. Caroline, one thing that surprised me also is the number of people, largest number of voters and the reason nonvoters because the reason they did not go to the polls is because they did not have reliable information and did not know enough about the candidates. Is that realistic given our nonstop campaigns and the whole cacophony out there . Is that true to your experiences in surveying voters . Yeah, i think there are two camps of nonvoters and one we have low information voter who is not that interested in learning a ton about politics because maybe they are just not interested. One of the top reasons we see cited in surveys as to why people dont vote is not necessarily because they dont have the time to vote because they are not interested in politics to begin with. I think the other half might be interested but they think the system is broken and i think on both sides, both republican and democratic side, we have candidates who are speaking to that half of the nonvoters segments. We have yet to figure out a solution to the other half of nonvoters, those who dont have enough information and not necessarily interested in learning more information and so its a huge conundrum for campaigns and parties to begin to engage those voters. I would ask you and others could weigh in is that we always assume those low information voters or low information by choice and that they just checked out of the process in some way but weve also experienced changes in the last 20 years and there has been decline in the Mainstream Media that has been well documented. Theres also been much more contentious advertising that has been out there. Could it be that they want to know more and just cant get the information . Yeah, i think most of us in dc, cnn, msnbc on and talks on screens all these time and we can see these headlines are provoking and polarized and as you move away from local reporting what we see is we created a media system that thrives on profit and profit thrives on the polls. For the polar opposites. We have far less getting further left and the far right media getting further far right and so most voters actually exist in the middle and there is no longer a media that speaks to those voters. I think one of the things as we think about solutions is how we focus on fact driven media and how we focus on data in media and how we focus on having representative reporters in media and just reviewing that faith and understanding that most people in our country actually exist in the middle. Our polling consistently shows that on an ideological scale most people dont exist as one of the five but exist at the two are the four on the ideological scale paid a reversion to speaking to where people are is a promising prospect. I would invite our under panelist to join in but i also was think this relates to research and i think some of us who live in washington, we will be shocked we go to swing states and turn on the tv and you get this endless backandforth of negative ads and super pac advertising and things like that and it becomes plausible, i think, when you see all that that people could be really confused. You see all the sensational charges going back and forth and you think this cant be true and what is true so does that does the cacophony of modern campaigning actually diminish peoples confidence in the information they have . Is not only confusing but exhausting. By the end many voters are just sick of it and they want it to just be over and they seen so much negativity and, you know, all these outlandish claims theyre not sure what to believe and exasperated. I think that can turn off some of them for sure. Getting back to the point about how much information voters have. One of the striking findings in the Political Science literature is that even people with relatively low levels of information, they can still make wise voting decisions. They can rely on other information shortcuts and what we call heuristics either party labels is a great example of a heuristic. The choice to vote for people who will support the kinds of policies you believe in but sometimes it is just what an endorsement that someone has gotten or piece of information gotten from a neighbor or friend with the Previous Panel talked about. We have also the ways of getting information paid you dont necessarily have to be immersed in following with happening in the media and into news for two years but we have incredibly long election cycles in this country and they are getting longer and longer in part because of the need for candidates to raise huge sums of money over long periods of time and that does have the potential to just tire people. Just to spin out on your research if i could, Party Identification and endorsement from a newspaper or Something Like that might be a reasonable reason that a low information voter would go to the polls and make a choice but did you also find they are making choices based on race, gender, ethnicity and you know, they like the sound of somebodys name and the thing that is listed right after their name is that an issue that inspires them. What did you find . Sure, its not just my research but all sorts of research that has examined these voting cues that the kinds of information that people use, we might think about that is information that is not great or that useful and that those are not the way the voters should be making up their minds but if its important to those voters and if that is a signal that is relevant to them and useful to them and if they want to support a woman or someone of a particular ethnic background or race and someone with a particular sort of experience. For example, some of the research ive done is looked at the impact of having served in the military as a voting acute. For some voters that is a very important feature. If they happen to know that and its important to them then why shouldnt they vote on that piece of information or other sorts of these cues that they pick up in different places. It may not be viewed by experts and analysts as a nice package of a fully vetted candidacy but its important to those voters and there is nothing illegitimate about using that as the basis for rationale for casting a vote. In terms of the cacophony, pistol, prior to a state that does advertising and stuff do you find that contentious negative advertising really works and that is what you want to go with in a race . Or not . [laughter] it depends. We do our advertising based upon the issues of the state so right now we are focused on trump accountability and that looks different in florida and looks different in michigan and looks different in wisconsin and looks different in pennsylvania. What we try to do is identify the issues that are most salient in each state, go out get real stories from real individuals who are really affected by the economy and by healthcare invite rising costs of prescriptions or whatever the issues are in those states and speak to those issues. Voters in the states and our key battleground states are seen issues they most care about that weve identified in our polling and research and analytics so that we are messaging them directly to what they want to hear and what they care about. What is your take on that . It seems like in some of these states you will see or they are describing President Trump has presided over the greatest increase in drug prices in a long time but then you see an ad right after it same President Trump as cracked down on pharma so how does that work . The question does negative advertising work . Of course it does. Thats why everyone does it. Its effective and you have to know your race and state whats going on there but thats the outside groups you see them there able to go away more on the attack and the candidate will try not to go negative so you have that sometimes too. I was just in iowa and even here in dc were getting bombarded with ads backtoback so what you are saying that people might get confused from it about what to believe. People that Pay Attention to the disclaimers of whos paying for what they are just trying to take it or turn it off so its very interesting. Obviously you just have to run your race and if you feel if thats negative then thats part of politics. I want to go back to something you said earlier that is relevant to her later conversation. You talked about the very intensive targeting that goes on both parties do it and trying to get there people to the polls. Are the parties speaking much to the base and not enough to the general electorate . Lets go back 20 years to 2000 great most states do not have early voting so you only had one day to cast your ballot and only a couple ways you could reach it through mail, tv was king and landline phones and doorknocking. Now go to fast forward 2020, 32 states have early voting and you can go to cast your vote early and then theres all these other meetings that you can target you on that youtube, twitter, google and direct boxes and if you have the money he could be in a neighborhood and everything a person has a different message on their tv so we can just inundate people with so much information that it becomes too much. You have to figure out what message do we need to drive to this voter and what is the best way to deliver that message and then try to follow up and be like to be persuade them. How do you choose which voters to target based on enrollment or it all goes back to data for the pulley national committee. Weve invested over 200 million since 2012 in the data and we use micro targeting and consumer data to dump that all in there. An example would be the president s rallies like we see large amounts of people that turn out for the rallies that did not vote in 2016 and not registered to vote or registered democrats. That is very interesting to us. We got to figure out who those people are so the data team at the rnc and just that and use that to model and then we have to go talk to these people and figure out okay, this is interesting read this sector of people might beat with us so lets go find out if they are or not and then we decide, yes they are and expand to other states or go somewhere else. There has been a major demographic change with trump at the head of the Republican Party as opposed to previous nominees and how is that played out . What have you noticed in your research that its a less affluent demographic perhaps more casual voters that are responding to President Trump . Yet, he delivers a message that resonates with people and resonates with the nonvoters that the left behind americans i feel like they been snubbed some way or the other and now we have all this administration has a compost so much we have all this to talk about and that will bring people back into the fold of what the Research Says and of course i will phone out which we are talking about and of course you would say you would vote now so why would you not act like youre patriotic and doing your civic duty but the president has brought in people that traditionally just did not feel like it mattered and he did such a good job at delivering the message that he cares for them and it widens up the demographic of voters that we can target and its similar to president obama with what he did. That goes to the point that insurgent candidacies, another reason that people cited for not voting is either they dont believe the system works for them or they dont think their vote will matter and nothing will change. I will ask the whole panel and people can weigh in that do we need more insurgent candidates to wake up the electorate . And we get started with you, crystal. The democrats need to have an outsider nominee to get people to change their habits and to get to the polls . I think the democratic side we have a feisty primary right now. [laughter] we will wait. Priorities we dont have an opinion about who becomes the nominee. We will support the democratic nominee whomever he or she is. I think we do have some insurgent candidates on the democratic side and traditional candidates and moderate candidates but i think one of the things about the primary in the long process of it is we are able to identify these nonvoters and able to identify our base and expand our electorate because you have so many options for people to choose from and so i think as we are seeing right now this primary process play out we will ultimately determine who will be the candidate of our party and how they will build the base and make sure everyone is brought in for this election. You know, insurgent candidacies do have the capacity to excite people who may not be excited by the traditional candidate or mainstream next dallas meant candidate but the question is depending on the outcome what happens to those voters cannot do they stay engaged or motivated . Either at their candidate loses or if their candidate wins as in the case of obama in 2008 and then they realize that they still have to go through the same political process that is slow and gradual and incremental and that is not necessarily going to deliver the type of wholesale dramatic shift that they expected that someone new and fresh would be able to deliver for them. We have to reset expectations for voters in this country to square with the institutional arrangement that the rest of the political system through the constitution puts into place. I think thats part of the issue but i do want to speak to this targeting issue for a second because while first of all, targeting does not always work. Sometimes it can backfire. But it is the case that parties are increasingly focusing their attention on the base or on dedicated voters. Part of the problem with chronic nonvoting is that campaigns and parties and other types of groups are just not going to focus on those voters for they fish where the fish are. They are constantly reaching out to those voters who, through marker targeting and other means, they know are likely to vote and they will spend their resources targeting those types of voters. If you are a non boater or attend a low propensity boater you are unlikely to get contacted or mobilized in the first place but that is a big issue. Its one thing the Political Science literature has also shown is that mobilization is important. Its crucial. Some people are intrinsically motivated to vote but most people vote because of other extrinsic factors. If someone ask you to do so but sometimes as a party or neighbor or teacher or employer or a political candidates but nonvoters are simply not being asked to vote. In part, because of the history of nonvoting and that cascades into this selffulfilling situation of chronic nonvoting and i would also point out in that context that there is no onesizefitsall mode of voter mobilization. The types of things that work for low propensity voters are not necessarily the types of things that will work as effectively for higher propensity voters but its important to keep assessing out and figuring that out. We have some knowledge about that from studies and other tests that have been done but if you are expecting that one approach will mobilize voters across the board, including low propensity voters who were trying to reach out to we may be mistaken. What you think is the solution to that though . Does the government need to do more . Should there be more foundations like nights that are targeting and reaching out to people who are chronic nonvoters . Or should the parties be shamed into a broader message somehow . Im not sure what the governmental role in this would be. I think its a role for Political Parties and other activists and organizations for campaigns to take up. I think the more we know about some of these nuances and details of the most effective campaigns can do their job. Thats an area in which the applicable Science Literature has made and in normas contribution over over the past 20, 25 years in part through randomized experiments that test different approaches, different methods et cetera and we now have really good information about what kinds of things can effectively mobilize voters. The more and more research that is done to explore the nuances of that and of those approaches and the types of people they are likely to be effective on i think the better campaigns will be able to do their job of stimulating these voters, reaching out to them in way that actually works. I think, just quickly to get back to the insurgent candidate question. I think when i was speaking before about their nonvoters or the two sectors they fall into we have those who are low information and those who are high information but think the system is broken i think one thing that we see answered by insurgent candidates is the system is broken. We see this on both sides. We have donald trump and President Trump saying drain the swamp and we have bernie sanders, senator sanders saying the system is rigged and its actually the same message in in some ways it is speaking to the nonvoters are both sides of the party. In terms of bringing people in to the fold i do think insurgent candidates might have an advantage. I dont necessarily think that it means they are going to win at large, whether that means winning the Electoral College or the popular vote but i do thank you bring people in to the fold with messaging that speaks to the system being broken and leading change because those people that are nonvoters who dont think the system is working want to hear politicians say not. Caroline, he surveyed voters and you have a certain independent perspective here and you have representatives of the Republican Party, representatives of the Democratic Movement and an academic who is suggested that they are mis serving the public to some degree by targeting voters trying to rally the base rather than appealing to nonvoters but if you are advising them to they have actually anything to gain from reaching out to nonvoters or does it seem like rallying the base is really going to win . I think there are two different answers but i dont think it is a symbol that you have to choose one or the other but its a multipronged approach where people that are trying to rally the base and messages that rally the base but at the same time you are targeting those nonvoters in the hopes that they turn out. Obviously, we do see greater investment in those who we know vote and from a strategy perspective you are betting a thousand on those people. From a non boater perspective the investment is a little more risky because you dont know that they will turn out and you can invest and hope they will so the difference between strategy and what will win versus what is better for democracy at large i dont think i would advise either party to go against what will make them win in november but obviously there it is troubling that we invest so much in the base as a whole. Just to sketch out the magnitude of the problem probl problem. Its an astonishing fact that you have 100 Million People who could vote who are not voting and yet semi 5000 votes in three states made the difference in the election. They made the difference in all the spin too. Those 75000 votes had flipped we would not be talking about Donald Trumps issues or about the border or about highly different conversation. If there are 100 Million People who exempted themselves from the process what is that say about americans my accuracy . Yet, i think chronic nonvoters are different than say nonvoters who voted for obama in 2012 and then did not vote in 16 or folks who voted for donald trump in 2016 and did not vote in 2018 and i think if you look at those margins and if you look at michigan and if you look at wisconsin and if you look at pennsylvania or 4 in each of those states voted for obama in 2012 and then did not vote in 2016. Similarly we saw really high turnout among workingclass bluecollar white voters for trump in 2016 who did not turn out again in 2018. If i were focusing on not chronic nonvoters but focusing folks who have voted and shown political allegiance in some way those are folks from both lenses that need to be re motivated just thinking about detroit, 75000 people in detroit voted for obama in 2012 but did not vote in 2016. Having sketched out the enormity of the nonvoting problem there are people like the commentator george will that has written many times that if voters do not feel fully informed we dont really want them to participate. I could tell from your earlier comment that your view is different than that but you would say if people are just, you know, guessing based on Party Affiliation or they like the sound of someones name why does that help democracy to have these people out there and the parties have obviously made a choice to try to target people who actually do have a chance to come out to vote and you know, theyre in it to win and theres nothing wrong with that so how much should we care about people who are willfully absent teens themselves from the process . I think we should care at least to the extent that if we can give people reasons to vote and give them and make it easy enough for them to do so if they want to that we should not necessarily be putting a gun to peoples heads to make them vote. That is not necessarily such a great thing for democracy. There are places that do that and we could have voter turnout, 75, 80 turnout as they have and ill show you and other places that have compulsory voting if we wanted to compel people to vote at the polls not sure thats necessarily such a better system. It is something that even barack obama at one point suggested we should think about in this country if that is some way we want. But thats compulsory registration not compulsorily voting. Right, but in a stroll yet they have compulsorily voting and you do have to vote or pay a fine and many other countries there are a couple dozen countries in the world where voting is not a choice but you have to go vote. There is no guarantee for those individuals will make wise choices. They may even cause outcomes to occur that are less desirable for whatever reason. I think one thing to a knowledge and i do believe we should get as many people as possible to vote and im committed to that as an individual and as a scholar in trying to think about this and study it but i think its important to point out that if we do raise boater turn out dramatically this will look like a different country. The kinds of policies and the people support and the kinds of views that out there and the kinds of issues that politicians will support can look different and maybe not necessarily in the weight we expect but thats probably what the night findings show is that these nonvoters might not look like we think they look and they dispel the data in one possibility is that we could be making Public Policy move in a more conservative direction on some issues, perhaps a liberal direction on other issues et cetera, but if we automatically made all 100 million of these people vote in the next election the kinds of people that would get elected and the things they would support could look very different than what we currently have. I want to remind the audience we will be taking questions from you in about two, three minutes. Please send your questions in or we can also add a couple people if you want to raise your hand in a couple minutes and i will signal for you to do so. One final question for the whole panel to discuss here. In terms of the whole getting people to the polls cacophony kind of question what would be the one thing you would do to increase that you think would most meaningfully increase the turnout and i would add one caveat to that that people seem to dwell inordinately on peoples roles and indict study only a negligible amount of people voted rules as an obstacle to voting grade if there is one suggestion that you think would increase turnout starting with caroline. This is a much longer, broader strategy but i think i would start in education. I think it comes down to making sure we have cynically minded and engaged voters and i think it comes down to making sure that students are able to parse through news and want to parse through news creating a culture of Civic Education and ask a really long term strategy. I dont have the conundrum of meaning to turn people out in a few months here but i think for me its a broader societal strategy. In every state, every line has republican up for election make sure that slot is filled and make sure those campaigns have resources to let people know that they are running and i thank you see a swell of Ground Support for the local support which affects to fill ballots. I think we have to lower the barrier for people to go to the ballot. My suggestion would be to make election day a holiday. That way we give every single american who wants access to vote the opportunity to vote. We have removed any barriers for work or family in any of the things that are competing interests in one day to vote as you make election day a holiday. I will give you two because one is a rule or set of rules and that is to focus on registration so anything that automatic registration or election day say they sameday registration we know one of the Biggest Barriers is the twostep requirement of having to be registered in order to do so. I also think it would help to recruit better candidates and one of the things we have seen and not necessarily new candidates but better candidates and whatever your definition is paid one of the reasons why barack obama was able to lift turnout so much in 2008 was because he inspired people and inspired people with his message but also who he was as an individual for the vision that spoke to voters and were not necessarily voting we need candidates who are able to do that on both sides of the aisle to be able to show people that voting is not just if you are talented and skilled et cetera you dont necessarily go into politics these days in our society. It used to be a very respected profession and its becoming increasingly less respected and maybe even dangerous for some of these people and that is not a good place to be if we are losing talents to the private sector and to other areas when they could be Public Servants who are properly compensated, properly respected and rewarded and elevated as being contributors in this way. Thank you. We have a few questions here from twitter. One of them is on the political spectrum, far left, is going farther left and the far right is going for the right and voters in the middle, how can we engage in such an environment . Any thoughts and any interest in the voters in the middle or there is this just inspiring [inaudible] [laughter] i think we care about all our voters and we have to, again, it goes back to messaging but we have to meet voters where they are and priorities we do a great job creating and putting out digital ads and so on a Previous Panel one gentleman spoke about meaning voters on gaming sites. That has a high volume of traffic people who are engaged in those civic processes so if we are targeting our voters exactly where they are on social media and on youtube those sites see high volumes of traffic daily and if we are meeting voters in the middle wherever they dwell on their daytoday lives then we are able to grow that base of support. Yeah, never take any boater for granted. As we talked about we have a longer time span to reach these voters and how we can target these voters to turn them out that helps with all of this. Do we have questions from the audience . They are, yes. [inaudible question] i think someone can bring you a microphone. There we are. I was just wondering the daytona 500 spectacle a couple days ago do you all have people, does the rnc have people there registering people to vote . And all of our target states one of the main focuses is registering voters. Our data shows that someone that we register or a new registered republican is more likely to vote in the next election so any campaign rally, an event like daytona there are volunteers out there registering voters trying to petition and get people on the ballot or just general collection so registering voters everywhere. One more question for twitter relates to a topic we talked about a few minutes ago. Can we speak to the breakdown of nonvoters in the study between chronic nonvoters and people who vote sporadically . Are there noteworthy differences between those groups . Thats a question more for night but having studied the night numbers the difference in the Group Attends to be the numbers of people that are in that very disengaged level that the very disengaged voters are more likely to be chronic nonvoters and the people who are casual nonvoters tend to be more people who are distressed of the system and does that ring true to your experiences . Yes. [laughter] to add a comment to that, people are disengaged i think it would take more than registering them to get them educated and out to the polls. One more question, this i know, this came from probably Quinn Bradley who is putting together a group to deal with this and he has raised issues about barriers that may be facing eligible voters with disabilities including people who have dyslexia and may have trouble with dealing with the ballots and this voting as we know is a statebystate proposition but in your experience is that a significant problem that states are not accommodating people with disabilities and its significant thing when you think of people who have this dyslexia and transposed numbers the ballot is incredibly daunting thing to approach and you can easily imagine people just skipping it entirely but did you guys come across that it all . I think states have made to mentis product and trying to expand access to voting for these types of voters and it is hard to cover all the bases in all jurisdictions and in all precincts across the country but i do think most states have accommodations in place to make it possible for some of those voters to do so and the expansion of early voting in many states help and that process and theres no pressure to do that all in one day at one time or to do it through mail in balance or absentee ballots. Question right there, yeah. You did not mention the influence of money in the election. Some people think bloomberg trying to buy endorsements or its like [inaudible] you know, thats an interesting we will try to discern a questionnaire but the question would be people are concerned about the influence of money in politics whether Mike Bloombergs enormous spending or just the sheer Unlimited Money that goes into super pacs and some of these other organizations and things. Wouldnt the best antidote to be a higher turnout and higher participation is that something that you feel that the more people vote the more the power of money is diminished . I think that might be true but i dont think it will diminish our money for campaigns. Campaigns are expensive, especially National Campaigns and campaigns as long as what our campaigns are like these days. Candidates need money and need resources unless we will think about Something Like public funding of campaigns or some way of providing these resources the campaigns will have to go out and acquired these things for themselves. Its different from spending 500 million on advertising to pursue a nomination but we do or we have seen very dramatic shifts in the sources of money, especially in the aftermath of Citizens United which has now opened the floodgates for corporate money and im sorry to say it, but super pack and dark money et cetera to attract huge sums of money that was much harder to do in previous years and its hard to get around that in the absence of a constitutional amendment and i happen to be cochair of the commission that was started massachusetts by Ballot Initiative in november 2018 to put some language together and cooperate with other states that are pursuing this to try to do exactly that and to create a constitutional amendment that allows money to be regulated elections and thanks about the proper rights that corporations and other artificial entities should have in this space. This is a good question as a final question. The actual question here is if you are a nonvoters fired by an outsider candidate what happens to those voters after the election and how do we keep them engaged long term . The solution that is suggested is we need to invest in communities way before and way after elections. That goes to the question is disengagement that these voters feel partly a result of local communities breaking down, local politics breaking down and it is not from the National Level but the community that is breaking down so what have you all seen . Feel free to take a shot spirit definitely. All politics is local and if yot a stop sign on your street to make people stop speeding and your local elected official wont answer your emails or letters are you inspired to get involved in politics it also. I think thats right although we have these elections every so often in these campaigns are excited and they are mobilizing and identifying and recruiting voters and trying to speak to them et cetera and then some win and some lose and they more or less disappear until the next sweep of candidates may not speak to their voters and may or may not target them and there is no consistent contact, communication, relationship with voters that campaign or candidates develop. Apart from incumbents. This is also a role that parties can play and in fact local parties can help play this role because they can have ongoing relationships with local individual voters that are part of a community of likeminded individuals in the places they live that i think will keep them engaged and keep them sustained and keep them involved in the process. Where you and i are from we have the old town meeting system but has not diminished around the country . s. I think so but i think were seeing a bit of a resurgence in that. Thats a good hopeful note. It looks like we are at the time for it i want to thank caroline, matt, crystal and also think the Knight Foundation for making this wonderful event possible and i want to thank all of you for coming and please stay tuned for political live for information on more events and have a great day bird thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] and we are live in dallas, texas. You can see the lone star flag they are behind the stage and we are waiting for 2020 democratic president ial candidate joe biden to come out and meet with these voters at this community events. He scheduled to be joined by senator Amy Klobuchar, the minnesota democrat who dropped out of the president ial race and will endorse the former Vice President. The former mayor Pete Buttigieg who also has dropped out of the race offered his endorsement to the Vice President. We will have that event for you later tonight on the cspan networks and we are waiting for the Vice President to finish up an interview with another television network. When he does we expect him on the stage and we will have live coverage right here on cspan2. Again we are standing by for joe biden to join these voters in dallas texas cajoled the former Vice President is scheduled tonight to be joined onstage by senator Amy Klobuchar who is offering her endorsement and we understand former congressman and former candidate beto orourke will joined the Vice President onstage. When that gets underweight we will have it live for you on cspan2. In the meantime from washington journal discussion with former fda commissioner doctor Scott Gottlieb. Thank you for joining us this is doctor Scott Gottlieb former head of the food and Drug Administration and served as a Trump Administration in 2019 and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise institute here to talk about the response to global coronavirus. Doctor, good morning. Guest thank you for having me. Host can we start with you gauging the response to date. What is working and what has been done well and what would you have some concerns with as far as the u. S. Response . Guest well, the efforts we made to up lament travel restrictions and limit travel from china clearly bought us some time. It slowed the rate of new cases coming into the country and i think the question is what do we do with a time and we did some things well and somethings not so well. I think we prepared the nation and cap Healthcare System prepared and we were able to educate providers and we learned more about the virus and how it spread and how you can combat it but the one thing we did not do that we should have was have in place broader streaming. We should have an plummeted screening a week ago or a month ago or maybe more to try to detect small outbreaks early before they became large outbreaks. We had problems rolling out in the diagnostic test. We took a very linear approach, in my view, and dependent upon one test promulgated by the centers for Disease Control and prevention and we worked with manufacturers and academic labs to try to get in place other kinds of diagnostics and when that test did not work we had to scramble and so we are just now getting in place the kind of screening capacity in this country that we probably shouldve had three, four weeks ago and what that means is there are cases in the United States probably that came in at some point mid january, may be earlier than that from china probably that had been spreading and we probably have, at this point, certainly hundreds of cases and maybe in the low thousands in certain regions and there will be certain hotspots in the country and this is a pervasive spread. Its a country of 330 Million People so several thousand cases its still a small number so anyones individual risk of getting the coronavirus right now is low. But the challenge is now there is spread in the country it will make it harder and not impossible but harder to contain those outbreaks and ultimately mitigate continued spread. When you look at the outbreaks factor into those two in Washington State what does that suggest as far as the concentration, possible concentration in the United States . Guest parts of Washington State look like they might be a hotspots and parts of california appear that way and theres a case in new york that its hard to believe it has not spread in new york city given how much trouble comes through new york city. When you see cases where people are hospitalized or there are fatalities that suggest there are cases underneath those index cases but those are the ones we will identify first because the patients who will get tested first are the patients who have presented or right now in hospitals that are very sick with an undiagnosed form of pneumonia and now that doctors have the capacity to test the coronavirus they will test those patients. The initial case that we identified in this country will be skewed heavily towards more severe patients but as we then traced back from those patients and Start Testing other people who might be mildly systematic then we will start to find more cases of more benign illness from coronavirus because we do know that most people dont get very sick from coronavirus and a large percentage of people dont develop any symptoms or meaningful symptoms at all. Its a small percentage that developed pneumonia and a smaller percentage they go on to have a really severe illness and find themselves in intensive care. Host our guest is here to answer your questions about the outbreak of coronavirus, the u. S. Was wants to admit if you want to ask questions 202 7488000, for democrats, republicans 202 7488001 or im sorry, [inaudible] independence 202 7488002 and you can text us at 202 7488003 doctor, i want to to play you the secretary who talked about the rates of testing that the u. S. Is currently doing. Listen to what he has to say and then respond to it. We with historic speeds the cds he developed a lab test and we had an emergency use authorization at fda and promulgated it out in the country and there was a third element to the initial test because we do believe in quality testing here in the United States. There was a third element to the test that was specific to all coronavirus. Some labs were unable to replicate and validate their own performance on that. Cdc never had trouble so we always have been open for business in the cdc for testing. Weve had full put through and no delays and testing but as of wednesday we authorized over 40 labs to use the test with only the first two elements of that specific to the coronavirus but weve authorized home brewed test by certified Clinical Labs around the country. Host listening to that, doctor, what is your response to that . Guest i will look forward before i look back. By the end of this week will have the capacity to test 10000 patients a day and that is when the Public Health labs of about 100 labs running about 100 tests and some will have more capacity than that but by the end of the next week if we can get online, the academic lags, fda has not given reglet trait looks ability for the academic labs and the High Complexity Labs inside medical centers to promulgate their own test and if we can get most of those labs online we should have potentially another 10000 patients a day Testing Capacity so in two weeks time we could be at capacity of upwards of 20000 patients a day and that is a Pretty Healthy capacity. Thats assuming we can get the academic on lab and some may be slow to come online and others will be quick and get these test on their Automated Systems where they might run hundreds of samples a day. It is the case that the cds he has problems manufacturing a kit that could be used by other labs but what the law envisions in the Public Health law and emergency use authorization in the law that was put in place as part of pandemic preparedness what they envisioned is that setting of an outbreak cdc would go first in the first lab to get up and running with the cdc and the cdc would develop tips to advance those kits to state and local labs on by local Health Authorities and then Start Testing for pathogens as well. The reason why we do that and there are many reasons but one of the reasons why we do it is because of access to samples but if you have a passage pathogen of significance like this virus or a pandemic strain you want to handle that pathogen very closely. Cdc will have the first to have access to it to synthesize it and be able to give samples to the other labs and so we want cdc in charge. That is what happened here but the challenge was the kit that cdc manufactured because remember, cdc is not the manufacturer but they run a good lab, High Complexity Lab and atlanta but they dont routinely make kits that can be used by other labs pray that is the work of manufacturers like [inaudible] and they are in the business of manufacturing kids so when cdc went to manufacture that kit they did have a problem with what we call a reagent in one of the proponents of that kits. In hindsight being 202012 we could have done and what we should probably think about doing next time we are in this circumstance is cdc should go first and that is the way it ought to work but simultaneous to that we should also be working with the manufacturers to have them develop approved kits quickly and we should work with the High Complexity Labs and let them develop Laboratory Developed services and let them make their own what we call their ldts, their own diagnostics inside their labs. That is what fda did last week and they gave permission and over the weekend they announce this on saturday they gave permission to the High Complexity Labs inside Academic Medical Centers to not make their own test subject to their own specification and all they will need to do is go back and invalidate those tests and demonstrate they work by sending certain samples to a Reference Lab like the cdc. That is something we couldve done three weeks ago. That is hindsight i think we need to learn from that Going Forward but bottom line is now we will have a robust Testing Capacity but what that also means is that there is been spread and we will start turning over and start finding their hundreds and probably in the low thousands of cases in this country right now we need to find them very quickly and do the contact tracings and try to contain the spread where we can and take steps to mitigate it where we cant. In Northern California, parts of Washington State i think we are approaching mitigation steps to try to control the spread there. Host the lines for the segment will be 202 7488000 in the eastern and central time zone, mountain or specific time zones, 202 7488001, doctor Scott Leavitt joining us. Our first call is from harry in virginia. Harry, you are on with our guest, go ahead. Caller good morning my question first of all my question is should we be Wearing Masks and the second question is i was online to buy a mask just to protect myself because im the only one goes out side the house and i wanted to buy a mask online but i thought the prices and it shocks me. Its costing over 200 on amazon or ebay for an and 95 mask and it used to only cost four or five dollars before so what should we be worried while we can do about these prices . Thank you. Guest yeah, Hand Sanitizer as well as selling out online and prices have gone up. Its very important that Public Officials help people and tell people what they can do to lower their risk. The risk of contracting coronavirus right now unless youre in one of those really specific regions where this might be spreading like certain counties in Washington State or Northern California at the risk is pretty low right now. That is going to increase and that could change quickly but it is going to increase over time but its important that people understand things they can do to lower their individual risk. Putting on a mask probably isnt going to help that much good the biggest benefit from wearing a mask is that it prevents you from touching your face but a lot of the transfer of a coronavirus we have experience with coronavirus it causes the common cold but the transfer isnt touching. Its from a shaking hands, touching a dirty surface, door knob so handwashing really becomes important. It sounds like it is something so simple that it cant possibly work but it really does cut your risk substantially. Ive been fairly maniacal about using Hand Sanitizer and ive impose that on my family as well. That could really reduce your risk. The coronavirus could probably live on Services Like a doorknob for a couple of hours and on Services Like cardboard or plastic a little longer but passing a glass and touching or shaking someones hand and then touching your face those are the ways that are most likely to affect ourselves with this virus. It is not through droplet transmission bid that is a risk. Someone is close to you, talking close, cost on you, sneezes in your vicinity and that is a risk but this isnt as best we know airborne. It doesnt remain suspended in the air for a period of time. You need to be in close proximity to those droplets. The most likely route of transmission is probably going to be picking it up on your hands and touching your face. Host from hampton, virginia this is donna, hello. Host donna from hampton, virginia. Caller hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I have a comment in a question for the doctor. I have at least five family members spread across the United States that are in the medical fields and of course, they are saying the same thing you said pete wash her hands, wash her hands, its very important. What i am concerned with is you never hear anything in this virus that is affecting small children. Its affecting adults. Thats rather odd. I am one of these people that believe answering media has made a bigger deal out of this. If you look back at the record of the regular flu more people die every year from the regular flu. This is another virus. Basically the cold is a coronavirus. I think the panic has been caused by Mainstream Media. Host doctor gottlieb. Guest while, i dont think this is another virus. Respectfully disagree with the caller. This is not the flu. China did not shut down their entire economy because they had a particularly bad flu season but they did it because they were confronted with a strain of a virus that could be potentially very deadly. We dont fully understand its a virus yet but we do have a lot of data now and look like the case in the fatality rates of those who died who developed the disease from coronavirus might be around 1 . That doesnt sound high but by proportion to other viruses its extremely high. The flu, by comparison, is. 1 so in a bad flu season one person will succumb to the flu for every thousand who contracted. In this case and maybe that one person succumbs to coronavirus for every 100 that contracted. What we call the number of new infections that you get for every infection is also very high. Typically with flu fee are not Something Like 1. 5, 1. 3 so for every person who gets the flu you will get 1. 51. 3 new infections. With coronavirus we believe that figure is at least two and most people agree it is at least two and it could be as high as six based on some of the analyses but its probably higher than two. It spreads efficiently and it can be very deadly. The thing about this virus is that there is not a typical spectrum of disease. What i mean by that is with the flu if you give 100 people the flu they will all get pretty sick there will be some people with milder symptoms and some people with more severe symptoms but it will be a smooth gradation of illness, if you will. They are developing pretty significant forms of pneumonia in many cases and for people who are compromised or vulnerable because of other reasons, maybe they are elderly or they have other diseases, that can be quite serious. Host the Vice President s will address the coronavirus and u. S. Response at 5 00 this afternoon. You can see that live on cspan. The president is reportedly expected to meet with trust makers pharmaceutical makers about the coronavirus as the former head of the fda what should be the conversations, doctor . Guest with respect to trying to get a therapeutic vaccine, we absolutely need to be putting a really robust effort behind a therapeutic vaccine. We always knew that once in a generation is dream came along and this may be bad. This may be something we havent seen in a generation in terms of its virulence. We always knew when it came along we would have to depend upon science, technology and innovation to be our savior in that setting if we are going to probably need a vaccine against this virus but thats maybe a year or two a way so there needs to be equal focus on the therapeutics or something that can be used as a prophylaxis or people vulnerable from getting the infection, something you get repeatedlygive repeatedly, mayby basis and prevents people from becoming infected. Frontline healthcare workers or people that are uniquely vulnerable. We have the potential its exceedingly unlikely we will have a vaccine by default. Its unrealistic to think we will have a vaccine by default so we need a shortterm and longterm strategy in the short term strategy is going to be a drug on the shelf for an antibody that we can scale very quickly. We did effectively. Theres been work against mers with similar approaches. Thats something we could have. What could happen is that march, maybe april are going to be difficult months. We are going to see continued spread and case numbers grow into the thousands in the United States but then in july and august, infection will start to slow down and thats going to be in part because of the steps weve taken to mitigate the threat that it will be effective and because coronavirus doesnt transfer as efficiently in the summertime. But with a very Novel Coronavirus where there is no cross immunity they will spread in the summer. But in september as it starts it may come back and we need to be ready for the comeback and the best way to be ready if you remember in the swine flu season, april 15, 2009 but continued to spread in epidemic proportions. The difference is that started vaccinating from healthcare workers and by october the 65 65 vaccines and by december we had delivered about 100 million vaccines by december and the vaccine is actively vanquished and circulates it still hurts people but not in the portion of the once feared. Host two quick questions on the social media feed this one is from twitter. Does the coronavirus have an incubation period of 14 days or more come anmore, and could core more, and could coronavirus be coming into products and food coming into the United States . Spin it has an incubation period up to 14 days and its been anecdotal reports it could be longer. We see that kind of variability. Sometimes the reporting isnt very precise. But incubation is shorter than that something more like five to seven days. Theres a lot of reason, let me give you a few. Joe biden took on the nra and he beat them. [cheering] joe biden helped barack obama save the American Auto industry. [cheering] and another reason, joe biden will defeat donald trump in november. [cheering] now, real quick let me give you one more important reason. I had the privilege of serving as chai the chair of the texas e democratic congress, and thanks to some amazing in 2018, we find ourselves now only nine seats away from having a Democratic House of