Politics and thank you for attending todays program. Discussion groups are made possible by the new mens own foundation and would like toe thank the family fun for sponsoring. Todays program will be live streamed and available on our youtube channel. We arer also excited that cspan is recording this session. You canth also access all past Dole Institute program by visiting our youtube channel. After the program well have time for audience questions. If you have a question please racial your hand and a student worker will come to you. For virtual viewers please send your questions to dole questions at ku. Edu. Ask one brief question. The Dole Institutes mission is to foster civil and respectful discussion around important and difficult topics. Please raise your questions with this in mind and ask one brief question. Before we begin i i would liko remind you to please turn off your cell phones. And now please join and welcoming our fall fellow jerry seib. [applause] so im thinking, did i turn off my cell phone . Thank you all for being here. Its nice to have you here. Were going to talk about Political Polarization which is the subject that hangs over every conversation in washington where i usually amhi an here in everywhere else. Both about politics and governance. Its a huge issue. The former president of colombia the nobel peace laureate is your last night. He said that Political Polarization not just in this country but about the democratic world is maybe the biggest threat to democracy and we have to figure outhr how to come to grips with itt and reduce it. Thats what wee will be talking about today. Im happy to have two great people here to discuss this subject. Neil newhouse is a a partner d cofounder Public Opinion strategies, National Political Public Research firm, one that used to do polling force at the wall street journal so ive known neil for a long time. He has done dozens of house, senate,te gubernatorial races cn serve as as a pollster for fr president ial candidates including two of senator udall. One and a half may be senator dole. Was a chief pollster for mitm romney 2012 campaign. He has been named pollster of the year by the American Association of politicalame consultants three times. Maybe more important he is from Shawnee Mission kansas so grew up just down the road. If you want proof of that you can look at his twitter handle which i think is casey kid. Interestingly hes a graduate of Duke University which are putting in an interesting spot for football saturday. I will sell it right now. Even okay, i am a ku fan. My alma mater takes precedent. Whenever theyre not playing duke, i am for ku. Fairr enough. You will notice there is not joel. We upgraded. Joel suffered a fall in his hometown of new york yesterday, hurtes his back and was told by doctors do not get on an airplane. Governor sebelius as you all know graciously agreed to. Step in and thank you for that very much. For governor sebelius. [applause] kathleen i like ku. [laughing] you lost the crowd already, neil. You know the story, kathleen was twice elected governor of kansas. As you point out to me she is one of three Democratic Women who have been elected governor of kansas and that makes this the only state that has that distinction. Subsequent issues appointed by president obama as secretary of health and Human Services which is a really easy job. Prior to that she was Kansas Insurance commissioner and serve in the state legislature. As a result we have a conversation here that is simultaneously national, bipartisan and of kansas so thatslt awesome. Topic is Political Polarization and out might affect the 2022 vote but first how we got here. Polarization seems to be the backdrop of everything. You seem to be a country that is not only evenly divided between the two countries but bitterly divided between the two countries. Let me ask you need to talk about how we got here before talk about we go from here. Neil, why did you start . It didnt start with trump. It goes back to the bill clinton era and when Newt Gingrich pushed to impeach bill clinton. Began to polarized the country. What was interesting back then was president clintons approval numbers were not very high. After he got impeached as he is going to the impeachment process his Approval Ratings went up. I would talk to republican audiences and do my usual presentation and people would ask me, who the heck are you pulling . Theres away his Approval Rating can come up while hes being impeached. The answer was to me obvious. When republicans attack democrats, democrats rally around the candidate and it was democratic voters who were not wild about bill clinton letter coming to his defense. When republicans are attacked democrats, democrats rally around their candidates. Republicans rally around the candidates and you begin to see that not just at election time but the route of legislative session, during all points of time during a cycle. I would look at numbers. We track a a race, we pulled p campaign. March of election year. Generally would have a large number ofou undecideds, republicans really were not decided which we would vote and democrats werent. This was two decades ago and now if you pull in march in electionyear the republican candidates winning, Democratic Candidates winning 89 and there are no undecideds. Theres nobody in the middle. It is at, polarization that is really intensified over the past 20 years as a result of not just campaigns were running back the fact that theres nobody in congress who is causing over and crossing party lines right now. Governor sebelius . I cleara practitioner, not a pollster. I do not have the kind of data lends that neil has. I go back to my own personal experience, both my father and fatherinlaw were in politics. We got married in 1974 and they did not know each other gary and i were worried. One was a very liberal democrat and one was a conservative republican. They quickly became great friends. They were in the same biz. They were both in military service but both found Public Service to be logical step. They both believed in contributing to the country and told the same jokes. Keith sibelius told my father a democrat had never beaten him. My father said, neither has a democrat beaten me. [laughter] fast forward, the world is remarkably different today. To me, watching this through the lens of kansas, it is about the clinton era politics, but a different thing happened in kansas, we were ahead of the country which was this divide the started in the Republican Party where suddenly there was a new, in 96 in kansas. There was abr new branch of the Republican Party and about a was more ferocious among republicans frankly that it was between democratsra and republicans. In fact, it gave in this state a wide birth to democrats to make deals in the legislature and run and win races. That began to happen all over the o country. The partisanship became much more complicated. It was also tied to, wasnt a broad tent that became a narrow belief system and people were asked to exit from the own party registration. Kansas is interesting. I went back ten years. I thought this was different. We have approximately the same number of registered republicans, independents and democrats as we did ten yearsnd ago. Thatsth not like a lot of stat. Independent is still a big block of voters. Many find themselves not want to self identify as partisan and i think that is somewhat different than a lot of places in the country. Those independents to move back and forth. I do think it has grown and social media has added to that growth in a tremendous way. People selfselection of their fact to base has added to that in a tremendous way. In the 90s things began to dissolve in a way we hadnt seen before. Its not just voters. Its members of congress. Some of the students they recognize national journal. National journal is a publication in d. C. That studies congress. They used to do a study every year and they would rank every member of congress on an ideological scale, mostly liberal to mostal conservative. 1982 there were 275 members of congress that fell between the most liberal republican and most conservative democrat. So thats the middle. 77 or so of congress fell in that middle. In 2015 they redid the study. There were three members who fell in the middle. There wasnt a single u. S. Senator that crossed over that line. I totally agree in terms of social media. Its a combination of social media, redistricting so that republicans are running for more red districts and democrats are running for morera blue districs and you dont have to appeal to voters in the middle. Its a combination of these factors and it has resulted in this bitter partisan polarization that democrats dont trust republicans and republicans dont trust democrats. You and joel had done some work in the space and wanted to put up a couple of numbers. The first one may be the most shocking one, about whether some americans now think that maybe it would be better if their states just seceded from the union, literally dissolved the union. Union. As youllec see 59 of partisans on the democratic side said that wouldnt be a bad idea for the state and 77 of partisans on the republican side. 59 of biden voters and 77 of trump voters said it would be better if all blue states, all right states this gives you an idea of the start intensity of a sentiment aCross Party Lines. Its as if were not having a common conversation anymore which people different size of the party. He gave me that line and you just used it. I thought he might. I had a long conversation with a jolt today and he kept saying say this. He and neil do a lot of programs together. Interestingly republicans and democrats both think the otherer guy is a bully. 73 of democrats think about and republicans. 74 of republicans think that the democrats. They think the other guy is untruthful. So kathleen, i have two questions. First question, is this dangerous what were talkinganab about or is it just an obstacle to Good Governance or is it actually dangerous . Its extremely dangerous and i would say the intensity of voters, you take a whole group of people and they are the large group of people whatever stage are looking at who have just opted out a while ago who are not registered who are not voting who actually have given up on democracy. Added to this is that group who say participating, not only is not a democratic responsibility that it wont solve anything. It doesnt help anything. It doesnt mean anything. In fact, it may be counterproductive. I think the danger is people not only cannot talk to each other, cannot think about working together, any kind of compromise is seen as being a traitor. Often you cant cross the line come you cant put together a deal, you can move anything forward but the intensity to say i want you to live someplace else, i want you to be a new country, i will pick up arms, i will do whatever is a real danger to the democracy. Again if we do not have a common set of shared values and facts, were in real trouble. I mean shared values like do we believe an independent judiciary . What does that mean . What about a free press . What about three equal branches of government . Those tenants have not been under scrutiny and questioned until fairly recently at a think they are under extreme tension and scrutiny and pressure. Tr neil, i am tempted to think the Political Institutions particularly in washington the house, the senate, are more polarized than the nation itself, that they were underrepresented in that sense. Then they see the numbers you have an event maybe thats not true. My question is, is the country as polarized and divided as washington is . I potentially the country more divided than d. C. I agree with the governor. This is extraordinarily dangerous. When joe and i did these numbers and we did this for the university of chicago, we asked, we add questions on serving just for the heck of it to see what kind of response we get. It scared the shit out of us. It really did. These are scary numbers. When you talk about potentially democracy the estate i dont think thats an understatement. As youre talking i will ask them to look forward to a set of numbers that a suspect you have in mind. Can i so one thing in your just about the Congress Versus the country . I dont disagree that individuals in their own hearts and minds are getting more and more polarized. I would say the function of government is very different in congress than at the state level. Things done. O get they have tos at the end of the day passed a budget. They have to adjourn. They have to. Move things forward. Theres only a few states in the country element being onee and maybe handful of others that have defineded that. They just cant, they live in some endless monetary morass. But most states actually function and a literally go from step to step and get things done. Often a the government is not te same party as the legislature so i do think congress has a particularlya frozen and dysfunctional look to most of the country. The legislative pretty remarkable just because they are justt like, people literaly cross across parties. We asked voters to think politicians should Cross Party Lines . Everybody, 90 of voters say absolutely they should. And then you ask do you think, your republican incumbent should cross party line and compromise their views . No, no, no. And republicans want democrats to compromise. Democrats what the republicans to compromise and were still stuck in the middle. You have a hard partisans on either side that are just not budging. You do have people in the middle of the people in the middle in politics, independents usually dont voice their concerns. They are relatively quiet about what they believe. Governor civilians lets talk about the experience in the state this year because you had a referendum on abortion in which i think everybody regardless of which side youre on on the abortion debate was surprised at the outcome because the prochoice forces won by 18 Percentage Points in a state that donald trump carried by 15 Percentage Points you have probably 180,000 independents showed up to vote. Is that assigned maybe everybody isnt is in as locked in to their silos as we think and or that independents can still stand up and take a stand from time to time . Its the couple of things. First of all people want to be asked about Big Decisions and this was a big decision and this was a straight on yes or no vote. That made ite easier than translating the candidate or lots of different issues. Also the notion are registered, registration to a party means that you believe x, y and z on these 1010 issues is just blown away by this. The majority of voters in the referendum republicans. Even if 100 of the democrats and 100 of the independent who went to the polls on august 2 voted no, it would have lost. Clearly republicans are prochoice, some portion of them. Some portion of democrats are prolife. Independents are all over the board. I think its true with guns, with climate, i think its true with finances. Party registration often is not the best picture of what people believe andpe they may be leadig a different things. They dont necessarily fall into a silo. What this referendum showed is that at the end of the day kansans overwhelmingly did not want state legislators to control their Reproductive Health decisions for themselves or their grandchildren or their daughters, period. They didnt want that to happen. The other thing it showed is, it didnt show 58 of cancers are prochoice. What it showed is kansans wanted to protect the right to make their own decision. I think even prolifers didnt want to legislate what other people shouldle do. Having grown up in johnson county, wasnt all that surprised by the final a vote. May be the margin but not the final vote. But in all due deference, you might not have been surprised by the no prevailing. I was blown away, and maybe you were more pressing it than i was about pressey at about the turnout and the numbers, registration. And the fact that people were on fire. We talked about this earlier. Ohio which does not have a Ballot Initiative on the ballot, women are out registering men by a margin of 12 points. New registrations in women has got off the charts. The Dobbs Decision has ignited a fire and is not just in kansas. Its easy to see we had about six weeks after the v bad decisn but i i think youre going to se it play out in november in a meaningful way. In terms of engaging some of those folks who just have said nothing really matters, imm nt going to vote. They are suddenly finding this matters and theyre going to vote. Regardless of what happens in november when the republicans when the house, when a center whatever happens were going to look back on this election a decade from now as the dobbs election. This will be the dobbs midterms. This is what defines this election. It defines the election. Its nothing of what issue. Number one issue is cost of living and inflation but the Dobbs Decision worked in anything else the fines with this election is about. Women turned out and young people. The groups that are marginal or regarded as maybe they wont show up this time. Youth vote was off the chart. Latino vote was off the chart. Categories of voters who are often regarded certainly in a midterms as unlikely voters were very much present in the amendment vote. I want to talk about two things. First about the nature of this civil discourse in the country and second what we might do to improve both the civil discourse and the polarization within the infrastructure. We sit here today at the Adult Institute which stands for bipartisanship which i hope were displaying today as well as civil conversation. Neil, the work that you and joe have done there seems to be a rift in the conversation. You found farina presented people said they have avoided political conversation with other people they know because they just dont want to have that unpleasant conversation. Maybe more shocking, 59 im sorry, 28 of people said it may be necessary at some point soon for citizens to takee up arms against the government. Maybe they were saying that for shock value but how do you interpret those. Was the other numbers we showed, to rally americans believe its possible to have civil war next ten years. These are scary numbers. It is being fueled not just by the politics but fueled by the media, by the niche media that we are all subjected to. When youre growing up in the cbs, abc, nbc and thats all you had. Now all republicans do is listen to fox. Democrats listen to cnn which is changed dramatically in the past decade. You are giving siloed information that is fulfilling to reinforce what you already believe. Thats playing a huge role in this. These are scary numbers. Its not just republicans. Republicans are like 34 . Democrats are 20 . My favorite group, npr listeners. 4 of npr listeners set may be time to take up arms against the government. These are ridiculous numbers. And i think it just, its just another measure that our democracy is facing a real challenge right now. We just watched on january 6th people take up arms against the government. This is not hypothetical. We watched people come i never thought i would see it in my lifetime storm the United States capital, desecrate the building. I mean, people died. And so its very real and very scary. I would agree with neil that its not just, i mean, i dont think Political Parties necessary is driving this. I do think they contribute. It is the 24 7 cycle that has to create conflict and has to create shock value or they get tuned out. Also social media which is no regulations at all about information and disinformation and misinformation. They are notan accountable. I do believe that is a piece of this puzzle that regulators are going to have to look at very, very seriously because a lot of information and misinformation and disinformation is driven through channels that are really outside of the purview of any kind of regulatory control. I think that adds to just tumultuous heaving in the country that you are on the edge and any moment you may fall over and you better get a gun and you better protect yourself because they are coming for you. Whoever they are. If thats the backdrop, had we change the conversation . Thoughts about how we as a country create a Better Climate to have conversations that are not so fraught about politics and even about culture . Go ahead. Jump right in. When we answer this question, there is anns easy way out. I think its going get worse before it gets better. I really do. I think i you need new leadershp at the tops of both parties and new candidatesh running. Right now i dont see it getting better. Its going to beedo a decade bee we get t through this. The only thing that gives me, first of all, i am a democrat from kansas on always optimistic. Have to be optimistic if you continue to register that way. In college in the late 60s in washington, d. C. And we really were on the edge of the earth. The weekend was spent with peace marches. There was a war underway and i remember the first lottery when, watching my brothers numbers be drawn. One was 32 andnd the other was. We had a president who had lost the faith of these in the Younger Generation who was running a war that people didnt believe in, at least the Younger Generation were on the edges in d. C. We were still living in the burned remains of the riots that a fault the assassination of Martin Luther king, Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. I look at that as a time where i did feel the country was unraveling workpeople generations were at battle with one another. I remember the National Guard troop emmett own state of ohio that wasr sent to kent state ad killed students, these young National Guard soldiers were told to fire on protesting students and killed four of them. I remember campaigning a couple of months later the father was running for governor, not the governor who there were people in union halls who said to me i wouldve shot more of them. I wish we had had shot more. I wish theyt had been better shots. There were enemies within families. There were enemies on i will put that as as aop drop backy that been some really hard times before and we pulled out of it. Now we didnt have 24 7 news media. We did have social media. We didnt have this level but i do think starting some civics conversations very early on and having a better understanding particularly of younger people in how critical it is that they participate. The number of people who just choose not to register is growing. That should have been an alarm bell ten years ago. We are leaving 1 million votes on a table or in kansas. They just dont participate. We have a problem i think that a systemic and has to start at a veryve young age to make electin day a day off. Did people engaged, and fall. Im all for a year of service of all kinds, a service, notforprofit service, other kinds of service to really engage young people as a graduate from high school and the fact that this is your country. Service is a part of the rent you pay for living in a democracy. Some elements like that could be helpful and not any partisan way. Just to say you got to own up and step up and be part of this and then run for office or get involved in campaign be a part of your town council. One of the most encouraging things i seen lately is the increase in turnout. I love it. And it is across the board. We are goingth to see a higher turnout it is now multiple cycles in a roe. It will continue hopefully. Consistently high the last three cycles. If you look at the data, president ial elections, 1829yearold comprise a largeryearold comprise a larger portion of the electorate than senior citizens. 1829 year olds. This should be bigger if they come out and vote. Amazing number. We need somebody octogenarians to get the hell out of office. [laughing] they are too old and they need to exit the stages. Its like oh my heavens, because speakers anyone you have in mind in particular . I could make a long list, but you know im a big believer in passing the baton. This this is a relay race ane are people who just block the channel for a while and they need to move on. I want to talk about something that each of you mention in passing because its important, which is structural problems a a given weight of bipartisanship and compromise particularly in washington maybn even at the state level and cover you can talk about that. People ask me this all the time what can we do to fix the polarization in washington and always start with redistricting. We have created a system which fincen is to talk only to your side and only danger you face in job security terms is in making companies with the other site and making your base angry. Redistricting reform, may be primary reforms in which things like jungle primaries where you dont run as a parts and a primer for just one as a candidate. Let me ask each of you, do though systemic changes carry potential . I do think the system itself has to be changed and im worried its getting more and more locked in and reapportionment is a big part of it. We disown reapportionment occur. You got a supreme courtur who ss partisan gerrymandering is fine. Thats pretty alarming. In less its extreme racial gerrymandering thats fine, too. If thats the law of the land and you have a dominant party draws whatever maps they want regardless of whether its represented of the voting population, thats a system that is right for a lot of some old. Other keeping dropping off or some old. Less representative, represented people feel when they go vote, the less they will vote and the less you going to feel that is an alternative. I think its a very serious problem and a stub and locked in maybe another ten years. I live in lawrence, kansas, and im part of the first district. Hardly a committee of interest although my name is sebelius and there is a sebelius lake in the county. I guess that gives meona some. It was clearly done as a way to gerrymander smore congressional districts here. Its disheartening and discouraging to watch it happen. Even in states like ohio in the task of redistricting reform, it went to the courts and they pushed through a republican plan anyway and did the same thing the law was trying to fix. They will still do their redistricting the way they have done it. They are still going to gerrymander. I like the idea of the rankedChoice Voting. I dont like the jungle primaries as much but ranked choice maybe you should to find that. It when you go in the polls and you have maybe three candidates or four candidates running and to make them 1234. Then they are tallied not basedn just your first choice but second choice. If someone didnt get 50 they go until somebody hits. And then divide up the lower number. We did the polling in the ner york city mayors race on this when they had ranked Choice Voting. Heres whats interesting about it. It changes the way you campaign. As a practitioner i been doing campaigns, my First Campaign i ran was 1976 and every campaign you do contrast advertisement, they kind of stuff you guys probably dont like butif the wy most voters make the decisions between differences between candidates. When you have rankedChoice Voting, people who dont like a single candidate may not give that candidate their second choice or third choice. So it encourages campaigns to be more positive. The less negative you are the more positive you are in a campaign, the less polarizing the campaign is, at the less polarizing voters become as result. Mp something that its an interesting idea to take a look at but i think, and im as guilty as in the else is recommending negative advertising and thats that because it works. It moves voters, else they win elections. If it doesnt help you win elections im notot going to do it. So if you do the rankedChoice Voting potential to change the way campaigns are run. I think its worth looking at. Why dont you like jungle primaries . Because its not help supporting the twopart system. California, to make democrats running against each other and to write in republican. Jungle primaries is everybody runs regardless of party identification. The idea would be our system works best when there to help the parties. Yes exactly. I have seen the rankedChoice Voting thing in action. Sarah palin lost an election lost in alaska as result of that. It may help us longterm elect more candidates who are maybe more representative of their constituencies. Regardless of party identification. The idea is our system works best when there are two healthy parties . Thats right. I have seen the ranked Choice Voting thing in action. We saw sarah palin laws. Ok. Sarah palin lost. Ok. It may help us elect more candidates that are may be more representative of their constituencies. So, governor, your experience is instructive. You could not have been elected twice if you did not connect with republicans. What is the secret sauce that politicians can use to do that . Governess sibelius we are so in some ways i do think its about peoples having you know, eventually a body of work that can counter the whatever tag people are trying to put on them and thats very helpful. Havingpeople like you is helpful. I was benefited when i started running statewide for insurance commissioner. My married name definitely helped because keith is a popular republican dying and i remember the first time i went out west to a farm show and people would say related to keith, yes. Some guy came up to me and said house keith and i said no complaints and this kid with me said isnt he dead . Yes, but i dont need to be the one to tell him. [laughter] so i got some lift from that but i think its about listening to people and having people understand you care more about them than yourself and identify what the issue is and in this state education and choice, there becomes some issues around the democratic side, those were the issues and economic development. You had to be perceived as a probusiness democrat, that didnt mean antianything, it just was you were interested in both but people would cross the isle based on reviews on those issues. It parallels kathleen switches i did a ton of work inmassachusetts for republicans and governors. Mitt romney, charlie baker. Paul colucci, all elected in strong democratic states. Bill weld ran for u. S. Senate so hes a popular governor, ran for senate against john kerry. And stthe numbers were better than terrys. They liked and more. And on the ballot cast we asked why he voted for kerry and what were your hesitationsabout bill weld. Hesitations about sending republicans to congress was he had to work with mitch mcconnell. He had to be, there is such a perception and sure this is true in kansas that when you send the money like that they are beholden to the party. So even though there bill weld wasnt a hardcore republican in massachusetts they thought if you went to washington he would be sucked in. And the same thing with electing a democrat. Same thing. It would be schumer and oh no, whoever we send their i know youve been independent doing this but when you go to washington , your utility party line. By the way governor says about five more minutes so lets start out early but let me ask you both to talk about how the climate weve been discussing will affect this years voting. How many independent voters are there out there and how many swing states are there in this incredibly polarized red versus blue, everybodys in their environment. How much surprise might we be in for . Let me start off by saying im still not certain howmuch you can trust the public polling. This comes from a pollster. I know two of my associates who were on here last week, tony angelo and, donald trump spent the last five years just beating the ever livings not out of pools saying veyou cant trust them, youre lying. Theyve got an agenda. Guess what . His supporters dont want to answer a damn survey. And were having really a tough time giving some of those voters, who does want to answer it . Anybody who is prochoice. You have to control for that kind of stuff when youdo polling and its top. If youre looking for fredemption in the Polling Industry in 2022, you may be waiting a littlebit longer. Independent voters, usually midterm elections are based on the base. You turn on your base. This year you had a high turnout, independents are going to come. Independents despise elections. Any republican running will get 85 to 95 percent of the republican vote. Independents decide the race. And usually its independent men goingrepublican and independent women going democrat. And what share of the electorate do you consider to be independent . Actually independent was 12 to 50. So everythings decided in the margins. Its all a couple of points and youve got all these states right now that are within a few points on the statewide balance, theyre going to come down to the end and usually in midterm elections, elections like that swing one way or the other. I could see what i would call a splitlevel election. Which is i think republicans are going hato win the house. Just based on the redistricting, based on mrthe races that are up, the campaigns. House races dont take on the personality as governors races do. Republicans that win the house and you may have immigrants retain control of the senate, i dont know but i could foresee that result and part of it is you look at canada. You know, we put up some candidates that might not have been the best nominees for the party. They still may win which is even scary maybe but its going to be a tight election. Were not going to know who controls the senate on election night. If you dont promise to stay up until you figure it out because were not going to figure it out that night. I disagree that polling hasnt been great. I can say that kathleen. Im happy to pile on. I think that pulls are not necessarily predictors. I do think therewill be some surprises. The races are toast so tight thehouse is likely to be flipped. I dont think its going tobe some giant tsunami. It could be a narrow split house. Senate , i think not only did the republicans nominate some candidates who are good for their party,they are good for the country. I think the quality of candidatesmatters. The dialogue matters. So i think there will be some dos effect that we dont know how tocalculate quite yet. We dont know what thats going to do to turn out. We dont know what its going to do to be priorities and how they look at the election. Nait may translate more at the state level than it does at the national level. Its a little hard to tell but i think this electionwill have some surprises and rsnot be six months ago , the standard notion was tsunami for republicans, it will be a shellacking as barack obama liked to call the 2010 weelection and that is not what weregoing to look at i dont think. I think whatever happens will impact clearly on 24 both in terms of candidate selection. In many ways donald trump is on the ballot in many of these and chosen candidates. And if those candidates inprevail, if some of them lose i think that will begin to reformat where the republicans go for leadership so its got some domino effects on the inside, particularly i think itwould be really interesting to play out. Lets assume republicans win the house. Whats that mean for joe biden . I think the worst thing that happens to biden in the 2020 election was that the one that handily. Theres some people invited world that would agree on that. Because they have complete control so when you have complete control you gotto get stuff done. And they waited until the last month. In the process they showed every bad side of the party and everything. Its a very interesting place to be where the fate of the world lies in the hands of joe manchin. [applause] i got one more question for neil and then open it up to you for questions. One word we havent mentioned here tonight and i think its relevant to the polarization argument is populist. Populism is a flexible term. But it feels like were in a populist moment right now in this country which is probably adding to the raw nature of the conversation. Stop populism or are we onthe downturn . I dont know and im not even sure how we define populism. And im reminded of the focus we were going in 2016 in New Hampshire and this is when i was working for jeff was a supervisor and trying to figure out how to get voters to move up donald trump on to jeb bush and we were presented all this information and we had two of the voters who were undecided who to vote for. They canfigure out whether they should be voting for donald trump or Bernie Sanders. These are confused people. Theyre not confused and its almost like they met at the other end. And theres something about that message. The similarity of the trump and Bernie Sanders message is stick it to the man. Whoever the man is thats the common theme. And voters have been told in billions of hours of campaign ads over the years that the system is broken and corrupt and you want to go busted up so maybe thats not as surprising. It may not be and a majority of americans think the system is corrupt and working against them. The political system, and its not just africanamericans and hispanics, its white and its white low educated. Whats really interesting is i got update the other day. Since 2012 i did mitt romneys campaign in 2012. The Republican Party was dominated by higher educated white voters. And now it is dominated by low educated white voters. Theshift in a decade has been extraordinary. And i would never have dreamed Something Like that. In socioeconomic terms the parties have almostchanged places. All right, we will have to microphones. And people who are, and well im going to ask you to do i this again. People watching on youtube can send in questions by emailing. Questions ku. Edu. For those of you in the audienceraise your hand and i call on you. And up, thank you very much for the audience. The hequestion is actually a question and not a speech and it has a . At the end so keep that in mind. Who wants to start l . Something thats been on my mind as you been talking is theres a big leaning in the Intelligence Community that china might dosomething with taiwan. And that that might draw the us into some sort of peertopeer war with china, possibly russia north korea itself. You think the two parties could figure out how to call time and start working together in that scenario or would they see that as an opportunity for gamesmanship and polarize things further . Interesting question and a good question. In that ndcircumstance the parties would pull together. If theres something that unites all voters is somebody taking a strong stand against china so that unites voters, they would pull together on that. And that is something an outsider like that could pull americans together like 9 11. In. Republicans have the run of that idea in theukraine which has not been a source of partisan disagreement. I remind people one of the things that held bipartisanship together for 40 or 50 years was the cold war, the idea that there was a common enemy that everybody needed to unite against which was in that case the soviet union and when that went away the glue that held the two parties together to some extent blew away. Its a good question. Right back there. You talked about the parties distrusting each other. Out Neither Party seems to believe what the other is saying, where do youthink this culture of mistrust in the two parties started. The flip answer would be fox news and msnbc but i mean, it goes back to how campaigns are run to some extent. How campaigns are run and how you divide the electorate and tryto polarize people in order to win elections. There are Newt Gingrich used do to talk about wedge issues. A wedge issue where you can divide the voters 6040 and youre on the 60 side and you push it through because it generates heat oneither side of the argument. Thats what many politicians and campaigns are used to doing. Our candidates understand that you dont, youre not going to win and elections is the not unanimous. Youre not going to get every vote so youre geared towards winning 50 percent plus one and you dissect the electorate to that you hit just above that number. And if you get half the people who love you, it doesnt matter if the other half at you. So a lot of it has todo with the way campaigns are run. Which doesnt help in governing after the election is over. Know and it used to be i was a chief of staff for a congressman back in forever, 77. A lot of his buddies were democrats. They would hang out in the gym, work out together. And now you dont see that kind of stuff anymore. Wewere just looking at bob doles phone , in the archives and number one or two on speed i was ted a kennedy. And number four is george mitchell. That doesnt happen nowadays. Ill just interject that john harvard a friend of mine we were working on a book had dinner with George Dingle who served in the house longer e. Than any human being ever, a democrat from michigan and he said when i came to congress which wouldve been in the 50s people saw their role in the following way, first there for the states, second and represented an institution, the house or senate and third they represented the party and what happened after the my career is those have flipped, you represent aparty, then an institution and lastly do you representyour state. So not healthyi would say. Who else, right there . You pensions that the education democrats demographic has a split between republicans and democrats and im wondering if you can say more about that thats new to me. Why did that happen . It didnt start with trump. I think he accelerated the movement but we begin to see that even after the romney noelection. Im not, i cant pinpoint exactly why it happened. Im going to get one more example. New york times came up with a poll this past sunday and asked which party is a party for jesus and which party is a party for theworking class. Republicans and democrats were tied. This is just stunning. I think its because democrats became more a party of people of color and liberals and i think some of these southern conservatives especially. They felt alienated and began talking more about issues like immigration that appeal to immigration crime that appeal to lower educated white voters and i think it slowly shifted over time so that the numbers are just different than they were a few years ago. And it has continued since the 20 election. It hasnt slowed down. You said you were having trouble getting trump voters. Speak into the mic, go for it. You said youre having trouble getting trump voters to answer your goals so does this same error apply when balloting . Yes. Were having difficulty getting trump voters on the phone or to answer surveys because even when trump is not on the ballot but unfortunately it does. These voters still believe that theres some kind of plot and are pulling and we want to reinforce the point of view or what to make a point with their surveys or their doneby the media. They just dont want to answer them and its not like , we can interview more people. We interview more white rural low income. We wait our surveys. But the same time we dont capture kind of the same message. Were still not getting those people. And were not getting them used in the numbers they represent when they turn out. Thats why you saw in the 20 election trump doing better than expected and are house we expected to lose 20 seats, 25 seats in the house and picked up a dozen. Thats a huge difference. And thats just not because the turnout was different than what we had imagined. Trying to figure out whos most likely to vote is just as crazy when we do our surveys. We ask the question how likely are you to vote. Howhelpful the question is , zero. We did a project in virginia before the governors race a few years ago and we asked like just to get this question. We asked every turnout question known to man and ran through the data and then after the election went back and looked at the voter rolls for who actually voted not a single question was a good predictor of who, whether somebody was going to vote. 25 percent who said they would vote didnt vote and 20 percent of those who said they were going to votedid vote. It was what thehell . We ended up the best predictor was whether somebody had voted in the past. So it is thats the most challenging. Turned out to be not such a great predictor in that one because you had all these trump voters who didnt vote that came out of the woodwork. Im all for higher turnout elections but asked my wife. Im not good at predicting who are winners and losers in these things. Everybody knows march madness brackets. Well in our household we also do election daybrackets. I came in third place. Please stand up could you tell us about whats going to happen to the bush, the romney, the lumbar alexander, those. The howard baker, the bob packwood, the cliff case. I could not understand why Lamar Alexander and roy blunt , to me even. Would not call trump out for what he is. Rawere they so intimidated . These are presumably. Bill frist did. And then you uget does not kick out of you and youre persona non grata ro in your party. You can do it but you basically marker yourself. Because youre not going to win another election. Not as a republican. Mitt romney, i love the man. I walk over coals for him. But he cant win the republican primary in iowa or New Hampshire or anyplace. Its a different time right now. Were going to get through this and we will eventually come back around but again, its going to take time. But im not optimistic about, i mean rob portman. What an incredibly good guy and a quality legislator. He almost was on the ticket with mitt. But you know, theres not a future right now in the short term in the party for him. So its just we had dinner with bill graves the other night. Great governor. And he came out the other day and endorsed a democrat. Its times are changing. Last question. When you pull republicans on their belief in the big lie, the rigging of the election you get as high as 70 percent who believe that. Its 59 or so. The way you differentiate between those who honestly believe that and those who are simply blind devoted to donald trump. Thats a tough one. We do ask on the survey and some of our surveys among republicans do you consider yourself to be a trump republican or closer to trump or closer to the Republican Party and the ones closer to trump are around that 80 percent number or 70 percent number thatthey think the election was stolen but right now the majority of republicanprimary voters are in that category. So. Correct me if im wrong the share of people in the party said there more trump voters than traditional republican voters. Among republican primary voters its 40 percent of the republican primary voters right now are republicans are diehard trump supporters. Thats enough to win primaries. That wins primaries. Heres the challenge for you in kansas then. Lets fix this. Elect good candidates. And for those of you are students, we have internships. And will gladly bring you on and we love to work with the good kids. There you go, worth the price of admission. And its a really good firm that neil helped found and helps run. As i said we worked with the man for years and years. Welcome back to your home state, thank you for being here. Were going to dive deep into the kansas picture next week here. Next wednesday 4 00 with former governor jeff pollio, republican and former congressman james slattery, a democrat and as i think hes got some sense today the kansas liberal picture is as interesting and important this year as any in the country. So thank you very much. [applause] today on cspan former us solicitor general paul clemens and jeffrey wald look at the Upcoming Supreme Court term beginning in october hosted by the Heritage Foundation , live coverage starting at 2 pm eastern. At 4 pm the Senate Rules Committee considers a bill to reform 1887 electoral contact to ensure that electoral votes counted by congress accurately reflects each states vote for president. At 8 pm a conversation on the biden administrations policy agenda with White House National Economic Council director brian diese. The senate returned at 3 pm and vote on whether to proceed to a shortterm spending bill to avoid a Government Shutdown. With Congress Facing a september 30 government funding deadline both the house and senate expected to work on a shortterm spending bill to over to federal shutdown. The house returns on wednesday at noon. Members will later on Veterans Affairs banking legislation. The senate returned at three eastern and will vote on whether to proceed to a shortterm spending bill to over that Government Shutdown and debate a proposal by West Virginia editor joe manchin streamlining the federal permitting process. Watch live coverage of the house on cspan, the senate on cspan2 and whats on our free video app cspan now or online at cspan. Org. Democratic caucus chair chief jeffries was the keot
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