analytical adrenaline going? i certainly hope so. seriously, of all the times we've hosted this conference over the years, this has got to be one of the more fraught election cycles in our lifetime. certainly a roller coaster counting process and still clarifying picture of what is happening down ballot for several weeks. so we have assembled a stellar team to help us navigate a couple of key questions -- what happened and why? was there an expected gap between expectations and eventual results, and if so, what was the cause of that? and how are the two parties, democrats and republicans, now going to move forward in terms their programs and policies but how they position themselves electorally over the next couple of years. with that, let me turn the microphone to my co-conspirator in this endeavor, ellen tess cano. ellen: i'm the cofounder of the inside american politics experience. last year and this year at nyu. 2008 following the historic election of barack obama as president. , we come together to discuss the election of joe biden with an equally historic vice president, kamala harris based upon the count of state and local voting officials, however contested, that there was a historic turnout, still being counted. high,rnout hit a 60 year which accounts for 62% of the eligible voting population. we are grateful to participants of these panels over the next two days. each panelist is expert and experienced in american politics, and very busy with the ongoing drama of this historically messy transfer of power. before we begin, let me thank my co-organizer steve mcmahon, with whom i have had the pleasure of working all of these years in the presentations of these conferences. and the bradman center, liz brown, deputy director of programming and outreach tom mcintyre. i would also like to thank our cosponsors in programming, its own series. the brennan center for justice and nyu vote. some logistical notes, we will leave time at the end to take questions from members of the audience. we will not read bios in the interest of making more time for the panels. a link is in the chat. with that, i will introduce the moderator of the first panel, steve mcmahon. longtime democratic strategists and cofounder of purple strategies, llc. >> thank you. we have got a great panel today. people who have worked in politics on both the democratic and republican side. others who have been television producers and, in the case of betsy who is now the executive director of the women in politics institute at american university. we are excited to have this conversation. we are talking in this panel about what just happened. we're going to dig deep, but jonathan martin, one of our journalist panelist today, wrote a great piece in the new york times the other day that looked at how joe biden won, with the key moments were. maybe a good way to start this would be to go to jonathan to give us a quick summary of how you think biden won this thing, what were the pivotal moments and how the campaign took advantage of those. >> thank you. thank you guys for doing this again. though this is a different environment than we are used to. we will make the best of 2020. i think the wisdom of the democrats nominating joe biden has come into focus the last week. this was a personal repudiation of donald trump's conduct. this was not a political statement on the republican party. look no further than the difference between the republicans who were afraid to lose seats in the house, but gained seats. while president trump loses convincingly. i think this was a decision that was critiqued by the conduct -- for teat by the conduct of the president, wanted somebody to bring some measure of normalcy back. at the same time, they were not calling for an expansive progressive government. we are now in a place where the democratic majority in the house has been reduced significantly. the senate will probably be 50-50, or 51-49 republican. that depends on what happens in january. the question now is, was joe biden the only democrat who could have beaten trump? given how the race was in swing states, would a different democrat have been able to put together that coalition of keeping the parties base of racial minorities in big cities, growing to the hillary advantage in the suburbs? would anybody else besides biden have done that? we will never know the answer, but biden did do it. that is a credit to him and his party. how did he do it? by being joe biden. he's a centrist oriented centerleft democrat whose instinct was to heal the country, cool divisions instead of inflaming them. he caught hell for it last year in the primary. every debate night, they were coming after him, saying he was naive. how could you think you could work with republicans? he never wavered. you guys know this, campaigns that win have message consistency. if you look at his opening video in april 2019 and take it through the speech he gave saturday claiming victory, you'll will see a through line of joe biden running on restoring the soul of america, america is better than donald trump, and i am going to restore us to a more congenial, less polarized place. it worked. along the way, there were challenges. but, i think consistency was essential. there is an argument to be made, and i could make it because i wrote the story, effectively this election came to an end in march. biden effectively ended the primary by beating bernie sanders soundly in michigan. the next day, we all got hit in the head by covid. it was clear that next day that covid was real, the president gave a speech, tom hanks was diagnosed, nba canceled its season. that week in march was really the turning point because it became clear that the whole trump theory of the case which was, you don't like me but the economy is great and the other guys are crazy, that case came crashing down. the democrats did not nominate bernie sanders, and he couldn't run on the economy anymore because the pandemic crash the economy. you can trace the election back to that week in march. >> thank you. i want to call on todd. todd is one of the best republican strategists out there. the candidates who outperformed donald trump, i remember when we were talking after the election you said you were not sure that your candidates could actually outperformed donald trump and win. but, that is what happened. they outperformed donald trump and won. do you think jonathan's analysis is right that it was over in march? or, given the results and how close it was, it seems like it was never over until the ballots were counted. what do you think? >> it did not feel like it was over in march. i think jonathan was exactly right to be calling this a split decision election. we talked for ages about trump's problems in the suburbs. the problem republicans had in 2018 was that there was no way for suburban voters to express their disapproval of donald trump specifically, and so they voted against republicans generally as a way to show their disapproval. this time around, they could vote against trump. you have, in all types of swing districts and statewide races, you have all of these suburban voters who did not like trump personally, although they did like his economic policies. at the same time, they were not ready to embrace, though it may not have been biden's agenda, there was a sense among suburban voters that these kinds of cultural changes that the left had been talking about were -- to them. one of the things i think republicans did a particularly good job in terms of messaging on was keeping that conversation alive about cancel culture, defunding the police, the riots and all of that. what you ended up with was a situation where, in 2020, voters could go vote against trump, but in state after state, they could turn around and vote republican. whether it is -- look at maine for starters -- the minnesota house, the state legislature there. wisconsin, pennsylvania, ryan fitzpatrick, one of the swingiest of all swing districts. i think biden is going to outperformed the president by 14 or 15 points. don bacon in nebraska too. same sort of dynamics. the final point i will make is one of the reasons why that dynamic worked both for biden and down ballot republican candidates is because the biden campaign did a good job of -- every election is about a choice. the most famous one from 1984, are you better off today than you were four years ago? the biden campaign debate did a really good job of making sure that the choice that the voters were thinking about was an up or down vote on donald trump. this was a referendum on donald trump, not a binary choice between two candidates. compare that to 2016 where you truly did have a choice. the entire last 10 days of the race were all about hillary clinton. from january onward of this year, the entire thing has been about donald trump. up or down vote. >> in that up or down vote, as a democrat i am excited about mr. joe biden, the history making that occurred with kamala harris. i want to talk about a couple of important subgroups the democratic party constituency, women and minority voters. i want to go to joel the pollster. let's talk about some of the voters that made this possible, joel, and doug. joel is a democratic pollster, one of the best in the world. doug for nell was involved in many races as a partner at sk dk, heavily involved at the biden campaign. many congressional senate races as well. i would like to get from the two of you a little bit on the turnout and which demographic groups made the biggest impact, and what that portends for both parties going forward? doug? >> it is great to be a part of this group. it is always fun to break down the election with so many smart folks. i appreciate you having me. i agree with almost everything folks have said so far. i think that a lot of the gains we saw in 2018 that the democratic party made in the suburbs and actually, started with hillary clinton in 2016, but increased in 2018. we have seen adding bang was able to build on those gains. second, when we look at turnout, numbers are still coming in. but when you look at milwaukee and philadelphia, detroit and flint, we are seeing the numbers of black voters definitely increased. there is -- about the percentage of those that went for trump, but the overall numbers have increased. that was in part due to an emphasis by the biden campaign to reach those voters. we also saw that among asian-american voters. and outside groups. i work closely with the naacp with turning out black voters. they had a concentrated effort on pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin and georgia. they spent early, mobilizing volunteers to transition that program to communicate an actual persuasion program, and then a turnout program. that started at the end of september. i think those are some -- particularly in the suburbs -- a place where biden in particular needs to feel good about the campaign he ran. we can have a conversation about polls being off and whatever, but i think the strategy of the biden campaign should be looked at and applauded in the sense that they had a strategy to focus on three states. they did five or 10 other places, but michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin, arizona, those were four components of the campaign. look at where biden was the last 24 hours of the campaign, pennsylvania. there were polls that showed democrats up soundly in pennsylvania, but the biden campaign was not taking anything for granted. they were all over pennsylvania. while there may have been indications from other polls that there were other states in play, i think there are many things i would give credit but, they did not get distracted by shiny objects. yes, they did invest in texas and ohio, but the overall strategy of their focus on those three blue states that was critical to biden winning remained from the start. they also knew they needed another one just in case one of the blue states didn't work out, so they focused on arizona and georgia. there is a lot to unpack overall, but i think the message discipline that jonathan mentioned was right on. i also think that one of the biggest strategic errors the trump campaign made was undermining vote by mail. the biden campaign ran a major vote by mail campaign and it made a huge difference. there was a time when republicans used to vote by mail, that is why florida in many ways runs such a sophisticated system. they have older voters and voting by mail is not something that is strange to them. that was a tactical mistake by the trump campaign, one that biden took advantage of and potentially is the reason why he won. >> joel, looking at michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. how does it look different to you since 2016? >> i think -- let me take that, but first say overall, i often say to people we forget we are a 50-50 country. we are probably 40-40, with 20% to consider themselves moderate and independent. to win elections, you have to win the middle. that is true when you look at those states. on a national level, joe biden improved his performance over hillary clinton with independent voters by 12 points. from 42 to 54. similarly, among self identified moderate voters, biden at 64%. i think when you look at those three states, those were the blue wall. you have to win the states if you are a democrat. as i said years ago, it was a monumental blunder by the clinton campaign thinking we had those states locked up. you have to win the middle. in this election, even though joe biden is not from the left wing of the party, donald trump is so far to the right it his extreme behavior, he is not ideological, but in his behavior he acts in a way that is alienating to voters in the middle. i have been talking about suburban voters early on. he plummeted in the early days of coronavirus. the aftermath of george floyd, donald trump plummeted with suburban voters, falling behind in a group he had won by four points and they make up half the electorate. he had plummeted in most polls, including fox news. which i think is the best media pulling out there. he was down 16 or 18 points. the margin was not anywhere near that big on election day. if you look at the gains biden made with suburban voters -- half of that margin is coming from the suburbs. to todd's point about smart republican campaigns, i agree totally, but i would also say -- when i say we are a 50-50 country, americans do not love it when one party has all three branches of government. if the system is supposedly built on checks and balances, voters often make sure those checks and balances are there. i think that is a lot of what happened. i also think in terms of congressional seats, and the senate. 2018 was a big win for democrats. they picked up a huge number of seats. i think this was, again, a check, a governor, if you will. to make sure that this does not run away too much in one direction. those dynamics were at play. we are probably going to talk more about this being a referendum on the president. any campaign were an incumbent is running, it is a referendum on the president's performance. the course of history, we have had few landslides. only seven presidents elected and reelected with more than 50% of the vote both times. we have a history going back to 1900, before trump, only seven presidents who sought reelection -- sorry five out of 19 -- lost. there are a lot of dynamics here structurally that could have been in play for trump, but more importantly with the events we had come of pandemic, the economy which is trump's strength falling apart. more households with somebody out of work than at any time since the great depression. he is out there saying he built the greatest economy. it was tone deaf and out of touch. >> i want to take a peek underneath the hood for a second on female voters. here the executive director of the mayor -- women in politics troop, before that executive producer of meet the press. you know politics, subgroups, you watch this closely. how would you characterize both the turnout and performance of female voters in the suburbs and elsewhere? in particular, what role did they have in georgia? anybody who has done democratic politics knows the most reliably dependable democratic voters are black women. women in general usually make up a majority of any electorate. could you talk to us about the role of women in turnout and what you saw? >> happy to be with you guys. as you mentioned, women are the most steadfast of voters. outnumbering men in both registration and turnout. that was certainly true this election cycle, women making up about 55% of the electorate. but, there was a lot of discussion earlier this year not only about the blue wave, but the female tsunami. coming into the biden column. we saw these polls showing biden up between 15 to 26 points among women. they will do a postmortem on other panels. for comparison sake, in 2016 hillary clinton -- 13 points. a lot of polls were saying it is much higher than that. what we ended up seeing from these preliminary exit polls, the caveat being it is early, trying to make sense of it all is not necessarily scientific. but biden winning women by 11 or 13 points -- staying the same since 2016, or shrinking slightly. interestingly, in terms of gender, the movement away from trump came from the male vote, which trump one i 11 points in 2016 and polls showing now him a much that vote by smaller margin. we as you mentioned, when look one step further and examine race, we know black in particular supported biden at the highest rate and trump appeared to win among white women maybe even doing , better than he did in 2016. but the black women definitely coming into play in terms of organization and support in some of the key urban areas. you mentioned georgia, but also philadelphia, organizing, adding the vote out. we also mentioned kamala harris earlier. that was also specific in terms of motivating black women to turn out and we certainly saw over the last couple of days, with celebrations about, you know, vice president elect kamala harris giving her speech, showing up in white, black women excited and proud. i think that was a real special moment. >> todd, i want to go back to georgia for a second device can. you were involved in the race there and were paying attention to polling on a daily, certainly weekly basis, and you saw how these things were moving. can you tell us a bit about what you were seeing? doug, i don't know if you were involved in georgia at the same time, looking at the polling from the other side, but to the extent that you were aware of polling, can you tell us what you were seeing? we occasionally get these moments, like at the nyu conferences, to compare notes about here's what the republicans were seeing and what the democrats were seeing in the same place at the same time, so let's just see if it lines up. >> so, i think it is an open question, because we just don't have the data yet, to definitively say in georgia, that it's ultimately the reason why biden, who is going to carry the state, they haven't called it yet, but is the reason he carried georgia because of a massive increase in african-american turnout? or is it more to do with the dynamics i was talking about before that a few others have mentioned, with the suburbs turning against trump? while it is true that there were massive mobilizations of african-american voters, particularly in and around atlanta, there were equally massive globalization's of rural white voters. there is some suggestion again, we don't have the data yet, that those two things likely cancel each other out, by and large, and if that is the case then the reason why biden one --won is because of the suburban vote. all you have to do is look. data here. as of yesterday, trump in the atlanta suburbs, trump is underperforming purdue by almost a point and a half. and underperforming purdue in the exurbs by a little north of half a point. when you just look at the raw numbers, hillary narrowly won cobb county, which cobb county is 25% african-american. 60% white. middle to upper -- middle to upper class. she was the narrow winner in 2016 and biden pretty overwhelmingly one cobb county. --won cobb county. the story has yet to be writtenr yet to what happened is be written and it could be that it is both, a combination of the massive african-american turnout and trump losing support in the suburbs. but at the same time, i know everyone pays a lot of attention to georgia and people talk about it like, it is so close, it is so close but it's been heading , this way for a long time. ago, i was involved in brian kemp governor's race which, you know, was probably the most competitive governor's race in the country. so, this is not anything new. the challenge for republicans is going to be that it is only going to continue trending this way. >> i would like to hear from doug. todayan, i know the times story recently. joel, you looked at the exits. but doug, you tell us what you and the campaigns you were involved in were seeing at the same time? >> yeah, i mean so if you start in 2018, i think we saw for the -- you could even go back to 2016, but we have seen incremental growth in terms of democrats picking up voters in georgia since 2016. 2018, we had a couple of really important congressional wins. we had a really close gubernatorial loss there. close nonetheless. and there was a lot of effort post that election by people like stacey abrams to grow the democratic base there and register voters. i think as we saw over the last couple of months, that was a state that became increasingly, one of those states that unlike , ohio, which i never thought was a place we could win this cycle, given the makeup and demographic of the state, it looked like a place democrats could do exceptionally well. the numbers i was seeing sort of showed that. for one of the projects i was working on, we made, we made a big investment over the last couple of weeks on a digital program to communicate directly with those 18 to 39-year-old black voters. many of them in frequent black voters, to get them to turnout. while the numbers are still going in, you can probably have two things be true. did well in the suburbs but also well with turning out black voters. so, you know, i think georgia became one of those places, like arizona that became a lot more -- i was more bullish on those two than i ever was on florida, or, for that matter, iowa or ohio. just because of the makeup of the state, you know. and what we were seeing trend wise. the campaigns made their decisions to invest the work that they did to mobilize there was, made a huge difference. a lot of the outside groups made a huge difference. >> joel? >> yeah, georgia is a state i have been looking at for a while. in 2012, 2016 in the hillary campaign at one point people were feeling so bullish, they wanted to do a head fake and put some money in a red state to try to get the republicans to invest there and they chose arizona. i argued against arizona. i said no one in the press is going to believe that arizona was competitive in 2016. georgia was a much more credible state at that point. i think the biden campaign made the right choice and a playing there. the other factor is that between the last election and this one, we did some analysis of population trends in the country and post-financial crisis, for the first time since reconstruction, african-americans were moving more from north to south than south to north. those were states like north carolina, georgia, florida. obviously virginia, if you call it a below the mason-dixon line state. what behavioral economics says during hard economic times, , people move to where they know people, where they have family and friends. where they could get a job with a social network. to me, georgia was a state that was not going to turn blue for sure what was going to be very competitive in this election and i think the biden campaign definitely played the right hand by investing there. turns out arizona was a pretty good investment this time as well. but those population trends gains ina lot and the population in georgia have been not only people of color but people 18 to 24. things that are happening in the demographics of the state that will make it more competitive going forward over time. >> jonathan, did you have anything you wanted to add? >> i -- you wanted to add? otherwise, i'm going to go to your wife, betsy. >> i spent time in georgia and arizona over the last couple of months in the campaign. it was clear they were both going to be competitive and biden was smart to make that investment in time and money. what is striking is that because of the covid campaign he only , got to phoenix once the entire campaign. detailed inthis is -- which story is this in? this is the story that hopefully you guys will have in your sunday paper. do you guys realize, well, you wrote the story, biden only went west of the central time zone once the entire campaign? he went once to vegas and phoenix in september. besides that, he never left central time. extraordinary. but he did get out there. he was in warm springs and atlanta the final week of the campaign. the numbers were there. you had a combination of nonwhite voters and suburbanites who didn't like trump's conduct and it was a math thing. it made a lot of sense. what's striking to me, guys, is we knew that arizona and georgia were coming. what i'm curious about is why north carolina cannot get -- it's such a hard state for democrats to win. you know, they elect democratic governors there every four years. if cooper serves his full term as governor they will have had , democratic governors for 28 of 32 years and they have elected one democratic senator in this century and that was in the year 2008, that obama carried the state. democrats have a problem in north carolina with federal elections. they have a hard time winning the presidency there. even though the demographics seem to be about as good as georgia. part of the difference is there is less of a black vote in carolina than in georgia. it's about 20% of the population. >> he is probably still talking. can you hear herein -- hear him in the other room? >> his laptop is dead. >> we will let him come back. but betsy, if you could for a second, one of interesting things i have always thought was the high wire act for gop candidates who are women is separating themselves from what i would call the misogyny of donald trump and being able to run a sort of independent persona and win as republicans. can you give us a little perspective on that? >> you know, todd mentioned this earlier. we did see some support coming in these down ballot races towards republicans, improving their numbers, of course, in the house and senate. the effect of that essentially is that there are even more republican women who have been elected to congress. when you run an institute on women and politics, that is a good thing because there is no way to get to the parity in representation unless you have both parties bringing women into the process. so now, we are on track to having more women in congress and i think the record number right now is 127 and with a couple of races left to be decided, up to 132. not a huge difference, but moving in the right trajectory. still under a quarter total. >> i'm back. >> welcome back. >> i missed florence. >> wait your turn, now. [laughter] >> the republicans, smartly after 20, when we saw only one republican woman elected to congress, they really just put a lot of focus, money, resources, and effort into recruiting some good republican women candidates. having those women in place to take advantage of the electoral winds that were moving their way you saw 13 new republican women, , some in races that have yet to coming at but also the expense frankly, of , democratic women, incumbents that were beat. five of them. we will have more women than ever in congress. but still a way to go. >> jonathan, you were in the middle of a compelling point. >> it was not that compelling. the point i was making was that like these states are fascinating to me. why was georgia ripe enough? why was arizona ripe enough at the margins? but north carolina, a state that you would think would be as favorable just doesn't get there for democrats. you really got to drill down on these county by county votes. looking at north carolina, biden did better than not just hillary, but better than obama in 2012 in two of the big metro areas. but why isn't he coming closer to winning? the answer is that trump has got a hold on rural voters that not only is intense, but it also is drawing more turnout too. i think trump's turnout with his base is what kept the election and those kinds of states closer. he's giving up ground in the metros, but he's making up for it in a lot of these rural areas. not just on the margins, but in terms of the definite turnout. >> ok, i'm going to go to todd and then doug. >> to jonathan's point, i was thinking a lot about this the day after the election. i was in iowa. i was there for election day and then flying home and at the time it looked very much like trump might be reelected and i was thinking about the hold that he has, the connection that he has to a big chunk of the republican base, specifically white working-class voters. and it reminded me of something i hadn't thought of in a very, time, which i'm surprised i remember at all, from my college economics class, it's something called loss aversion theory. what loss aversion theory says is that people are more motivated to protect what they than to gete something new. there have been all kinds of studies about this. by aan drill it down factor of -- i think it is three or four more times likely to want to protect what you already have. and so rightly or wrongly, and , people can have a debate about if you are a white working-class motor, in many ways your vote for trump is to , protect those things that you feel you already have. to protect the kind of country you grew up in. to protect the kind of culture that that, that you have always known and loved. more and more, a lot of these that iseel that slipping away from them whether it is immigration or the idea of political correctness or just the mere fact that whites will not -- we will be a majority nonwhite country in the coming years. there are all kinds of reasons why people are worried that they are going to lose that and trump speaks to that in a way that really no other candidate certainly in my lifetime has. so, the connection that they have with him is not based on economics. it is not even based on politics. it's cultural. and it's very, very powerful. dark ok so i am going to go to doug and then joel appeared and i want to come back to this intensity thing you mentioned. go ahead, doug. >> one thing i want to point, that i want to raise, the democrats had to run their campaigns much differently than in the past. in the past, democrats relied on voter contact methods like going door to door, doing rallies to help with voter registration and for turnout. masked -- for most campaigns on the democratic side, we weren't doing that. we weren't doing a lot of direct going door to door. definitely increased towards the end. and we weren't doing the rallies that democrats had become accustomed to. soulsof the things like to the polls, that was something democrats chose not to do as much because obviously of the pandemic. i think trump and many republicans took a different approach and i wonder, this race, at the presidential level, likely from a popular vote standpoint likely will not be that close. obviously it's closer from an electoral vote standpoint. but when you look at some of these places, did that make a difference? the fact that democrats didn't do a lot of those traditional voter contact methods that we are used to, that democratic voters are used to? yes, we did phoning. we arevirtual calls, but not doing as much door-to-door and it makes a huge difference. it's a lot more effective than doing phones or texting. having face-to-face conversations make a difference and i just wonder in a non-covid era, if we were doing that whether some of the numbers would have actually been better for dems. >> i want to go back to something that todd said and i disagree with most of what he said and i agree wholly on the loss aversion theory that i've read about as well, but one thing that's interesting, and look, trump is his own worst enemy. we all know that. it's unfathomable to me that their campaign didn't know that 60% of voters would have said their economic situation today was the same or worse than four years ago. keep talking about building the biggest economy on earth, the greatest economy in history when six out of 10 voters don't feel that way is bad politics and is going to be disastrous at the polls. when you look at how those voters voted whether they said , their situation was worse or the same, those who said the same voted two to one for joe biden. those who said worse voted 74 to 23 for joe biden. rules that work in trump's favor when he blows them up does not mitigate the need to use common sense in your campaign and understand where the voters are. but he's just not a controllable or malleable candidate. most of us as consultants would look and say to somebody, hey, you think you built the greatest economy on earth, but americans do not believe that anymore. stop saying it and most of them would listen. that's not the case here. you know, i think whether those things work going forward to the advantage of democrats, we have often done well with middle and working-class voters, particularly when republicans want tax cuts at the high-end, which most voters don't like, giving tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. i think that one of the dynamics at work here that contributed, and one last point that we haven't touched on, the plurality of voters made up their mind in the exit polls in the month of september and i really wonder how much trump's demeanor and performance at that first debate just put the nail in the coffin for a lot of middle-of-the-road voters, who just said i can't take this guy's behavior. if my kids acted like this, i would ground them for three weeks. i think they decided to ground donald trump after that. >> yeah. todd, i saw you raised your hand, but i'm going to ask you a question and if you can lead it in, that is great because you mentioned something that's really interesting. i hope the people watching think so, but i'm the moderator, right? you talked about intensity and the intensity of rural voters and their commitment to and attachment to donald trump. it's a two-part question. it starts with this. i was always struck by the fact that ever since he got there, he has seemed more interested -- sorry? ok, he seemed more interested in appealing to his base than he was ever interested in getting new people into his coalition. it doesn't seem like that's a good way to win a reelection campaign. my question is, as he went further and further into the base, it seemed like he got stronger and stronger among the base but it was a small group and it was not growing. it's a two-part question. number one, could any other republican in the future match that intensity among that group of people and turn them out the way he did? and do you believe the democrats match that intensity on the other side with an intensity to get rid of donald trump that was equal to or greater? and i want to ask jonathan to comment on that as well, because jonathan, you interviewed a lot of these folks and obviously you will have a perspective as well. todd? >> honestly, the second one first. if you subscribe to the applicability of loss aversion theory to voter behavior, the answer would be no. that people who are voting in order to gain something they don't already have are not ever going to be as motivated as those voters who are, rightly or wrongly, perceiving that they are voting to protect something that is at risk. if, if that theory holds true, it would certainly explain why no matter how motivated people were to either get rid of trump, no matter how motivated the progressive base was, to vote in favor of the kind of country that they wanted, it was never going to be as motivating as those who were voting to protect something they already had. as far as the coalition that trump was able to put together, i would love to be able to say yes, that you know, other republicans can match that coalition, but i'm not sure that that's the case. at least insofar as you look at those candidates who ran in 2016, i don't think that any of them, and i worked very proudly for marco rubio, but i don't think we would have been able to build the kind of white working-class coalition that trump did. and certainly not have -- we certainly would not have had the intensity that trump has. >> ok, jonathan and then betsy. i thought you had your hand raised. >> i think that trump himself is going to be the one that can keep this going. i mean look, how much could it be transferred? he couldn't transfer it to the midterms the same way barack obama couldn't transfer his appeal in 2010 or 2014 or 2016. if we are being candid, he couldn't transfer it in florida last week either. i think these presidents have a unique old on their voters because they are unique figures. i'm skeptical that trump himself could pass it on. there is in a -- there is a fascinating conversation going on right now in the white house because republicans are trying to incentivize good behavior with trump now by saying that you can get a reward later if you are good now and the reward later is that you can run again for president in 2024 if you do not totally fuck this up now. fromtrying to keep him going nuclear in the next couple of weeks. how interested is he in running? 2024, his not run in kids are going to be interested in running for either presidents or something. i think democrats and moderate republicans have deluded themselves to think by defeating him -- they are in this for the long run. they are going to be a huge part of the party. whether he runs again in 2024 my guess is he will keep the door open for a very long time, which will make it very difficult if not impossible for any other republican to start -- >> like marco rubio for example. >> like, hypothetically speaking, marco rubio or anyone. it would make it hard to do. jonathan: the 2009-2011 sarah palin experience is what i compare it to. if you can think back a decade there was so much hype around , sarah palin after 2008. remember she quit the governorship in the summer of 2000 and nine. what is she going to do? is she going to run? is she going to iowa? she is endorsing the south carolina governor. she made nikki haley governor. there was a period where she was a big deal in the party. i think we are about to go through the same experience of -- in order of many tiered bigger with the most famous person in the world. is he going to run again in 2024? of course, he had -- he is the constant showman. of course he is going to drag it on. >> one of the things i am most fascinated to launch given that dynamic, which i totally agree with, is how does fox cover him post white house? if they continue covering him the way they have, you virtually ensure that no other republican can get any lift. so, that will be something. betsy: speaking of fox, and the two different realities we are -- we seem to be living in america and it goes to the point of where we are to biden, one of the big things that jumped out to me on the exit poll very early in the night, which made me think, this is going to be aba closure election that we thought was the question about handling the coronavirus. there was a simple question on the exit poll, what is your opinion on the u.s. efforts so far to contain the coronavirus? how do you think it is going? and it is 50-50. 50% think that the efforts are going well. this is at a time when if you look at the map, it is everywhere and 50% of the country thinks efforts to contain are going well. it is living in two different realities. you are with us in this reality right now. >> one of the things i remember skeptical about joe biden being that was raising money. you saw that in the primary. liket out lapped by people bernie sanders, elizabeth warren. in can go back to his rise 2008. -- his raise in 2008. he had a hard time raising money. one of the big questions was whether or not his campaign could raise money. and i think that actually ended up being like, when you step back and look at the election, he was able to compete extremely well and by the end of the race, was far out raising the trump republican apparatus. last month of the the campaign, the first half of october, biden raised 130 million versus 43 million for donald trump. i think the other point is how that money was managed or mismanaged in the case of the truck campaign. -- the trump campaign. by the end, they were barely able to compete on the airwaves in these states that became battlegrounds. to your point jonathan, we can argue how important television advertising means. i think it means a lot but that is because i am a media consultant. states -- look at two the two states that ended up being very close and are still close north carolina and , georgia, the trump campaign actually outspent biden in north carolina pretty substantially, almost by $20 million or $30 million. in georgia, it was 20 million. if you are from a -- the question as to why do we not do better in north carolina, i do not know if numbers were for cunningham and cooper, but at the presidential level there , was, at least on the advertising, there was a big disparity between the two campaigns. i would go back to the point of the whole issue -- and small dollar donors by the end, joe biden was doing exceptionally well with. but the whole ability of the campaign to raise money, which was something there was deep skepticism about at the end, i think that was a huge component to him wedding. >> we do not talk about the donorsf small dollar because it gives democrats and was money in competitive states to render tv ads. -- to run their tv ads. but do you guys think that at some point it is counterproductive in a place like south carolina or kentucky or maine, where you have an element of rural conservatism? is it counterproductive to have out-of-state liberal money flowing into those estates? 10 that become a bigger news story than the money itself helps the democrats i guess is my question. >> i think that there will be many, many studies and a lot -- people will be spending a lot of time looking at -- just the avalanche of dollars that were spent, not just in the presidential race, but in the senate race. and in and some of these house races, where there are a handful of republican candidates -- the guy who ran against aoc raised like $10 million. there is like zero chance for this guy to win. iowa --greenfield in the iowa senate race between both sides ended up being $240 million in the state of iowa. that is insane. and greenfield -- steve: in a race like that, because you were doing that, what happened? you have $150 million in iowa, enough to run a presidential campaign and a one state. what do you do with all the money? you cannot buy that much television, you cannot spend that much money, right? todd: you can't. we raised a bunch of money, the campaign that came in at the very end, and i called our buyer and they were only able to spend a fraction of what we wanted to spend. i do not think that -- it's easy to say in retrospect that the democrats did not get their money's worth in iowa, but i do not think it is quite that simple. but just the sheer volume of spending this cycle, and i say this as a media consultant but , it truly was obscene. point -- media consultants do not usually say that. todd: we do not make money if you are not able to spend it. doug: i know. >> jamie harrison, his campaign by the end was running 5000 points of television in a market each week. now 1400 points a week is considered a light. 2000 is a lot. 1600, they were running 5000 points a week in one market. they were trafficking in, they had five or six different ads they were running. lindsey graham was no -- he didn't rollover either. he raised a ton of money as well. they had so many different creatives going on you could barely keep track of them should -- keep track of them. >> the greenfield campaign, at one point they had a spot on about fixing potholes. i remember thinking, they have run out of things to say, they have so much money. steve: here is the thing, as we go into the georgia runoffs in january, which will decide the control of the senate. we know what is going to happen. every democratic donor in america will give 25, 30 mug to the democratic candidates. at some point, is that helping the candidate to have a zillion dollars or is that letting david perdue and kelly say they are trying to do it again the , coastal liberals trying to buy our state and impose chuck schumer as the senate leader? at some point, does the money coming in help less than it does empower the message on the other side? >> i would just say that is a problem most campaigns would take. we have too much money. >> they would make the argument anyway. steve: exactly. joel, let me ask you a question, because you talked about how the middle is what wins presidential campaigns. and there is about to be, and there has been for a long time in our party a debate about whether we should be chasing the elusive, white noncollege educated voter. to my way of thinking, that may be the wrong way to think about it because it used to be the middle-class voter did not have an interest any different from the african-american or black voter, hispanic voter or latino voter because it was about trying to improve in life versus the people who have a lot. do you think it's possible and likely that the democratic party will find messaging that will appeal equally to the white noncollege educated male and the black or latina voter who is progressive and younger? is that possible? joel: i think it is possible. we do it more often than the republican party does in terms of getting to voters who are not part of your base. we have been fairly successful as a party winning in places people did not expect us to win, republicans have as well. but you have got to put together the right coalition in each race. it is going to be determined race by race. there is a reason why people campaign in the cities and suburbs more than the rural areas most of the time. when they asked willy, why did you rob so many banks? he said, that is where the money is. it is not because that is where the money is. you have to campaign where the votes are. if you can create a path to winning in a state or carrying a state, like north carolina, by winning the urban and suburban areas as a democrat, then do not spend your time and effort disproportionately going to the rural areas. i think that showing up matters, you have to campaign there is little bit can but every state will be different and you have to find out the right combination of voting blocs that will get you to 50% plus one to win the vote. i do not think you should be married, in any election, to any theory about what has one happened before because the electorate is different in each race and in each cycle. not dramatically, but what they are thinking about. and presidential elections, you have heard me say this, but i always say they are about big things, not small things. they are about the future, not the past. they are about their lives, not your life. that holds true in most elections. whether you are talking to any group of voters if you can , connect on those things, you will do well. if you failed to, you will lose ground. donald trump was out of touch on the number one issue, as president of the united states the biggest crisis we are facing , is the pandemic, and he kept talking about rebuilding the economy and the majority of the americans thought it was more important to get the virus under control than to focus on the economy. you have to be in touch with where they are in their lives and what they are thinking about for their families and their future. i think there are some states we can do better with the rural voters. but at the end of the day, every one of us on this session here would say you have to develop the calculus, whatever it takes to win those elections. if involves reaching out to rural voters in iowa, and they think joni ernst was less vulnerable than people thought at the beginning, then that is on you. you have to figure out what the right model is. and it is not like there is one path to victory but you have to , narrow your options so you can spend your resources smartly and strategically. steve: did you have your hand up? or is that just on your chin? >> it is just on my chin, but i agree with what joel said. you have got to -- the thing that nancy pelosi i think is so masterful at is telling her advice to all of her caucus, is you have to run the race that will win the race in your street. people like to give nancy pelosi -- i think that she is getting a lot of criticism for this election, but she always gives her candidates a lot of space to run their raises. i think that is what the democrat caucus has to recognize. in order for us to win some districts in georgia, in order for us to win some districts in virginia or start to move into some of the more southern, potentially rural districts, you know, we will have to run candidates that you cannot run in new york or run in california. there is nothing wrong with that. that is how you grow a strong party. i think that republicans should learn a lesson like that in other parts of the country, where they are not doing well, whether it is the suburbs or in the urban areas. so, i think that keeping a closed mind on, you know, the types of -- on what is the right ideology for the party. look, i think the party is about a brand. our brand needs -- it is like -- the democrats need to work on our brand republicans need to , work on their brand. we have got to run candidates that can do well everywhere. if that means that you run certain folks who have different views on issues that might be the majority view in the party, ultimately to me as a strategist, it is about winning races, so you can have people in congress making decisions about policies that matter. it is not necessarily finding that person who is going to adhere to whatever the all these ethos is on different issues. we need to find good candidates. we did that in 2018. inse are tough places to win 2020. betsy: i just wanted to pick up on that, maybe ask doug, we have heard that the democratic party is over the thanksgiving table with abigail coming out and winning a very tight race in virginia, much more moderate and basically saying the defunding the police messaging hurts candidates like her. so there seems to be some back and forth now within the party. you are saying people have to get the message that they have to run in their own district, right? doug: like i said, i think that there is a brand that the party needs to work on and it needs to be much more oriented around working folks, black-and-white, latino and it has got to be about helping working folks. i think aware trump made gains over the last five or six years was reorienting the party around working folks. and everybody thinks it when people say working folks, they mean blue-collar and white people, but that is not what i'm saying. like people work -- black people work in blue-collar jobs as well. i get what the-- moderate wing of the party is notng, but you can also expect aoc and these people running in very democratic precincts to take on what you believe is the right message. so, all i am saying is you have to find these candidates that are the perfect fits for their districts, and there needs to be an umbrella brand everyone can fall under. if in some places you will see certain different things to win, and that makes sense, but voters need to know what the democratic party stands for and right now i think biden has done a pretty pushing that message through. with the republicans, it has always been easier, low taxes, no regulation, strong on defense. democrats have a harder time communicating that. i do think this tug-of-war is going to happen within the party. i think it is actually healthy and part of what happens after an election. at the end of the day, i do not know how they can tell aoc and folks in low-level districts to not say certain things that people want to hear, and how aoc can turn around and tell people in moderate districts, do not talk about -- you need to talk about medicare for all and defund the police. people have to have respect for each other's constituents. betsy: right. that is where you will have a good jillion dollars drop in a district, right? steve: todd would not do that. i will let you close the comments. we have questions from the audience. joel, last comment. joel: i went to amend the last thing i said. here is where it is important to talk with rural voters. it is the biggest failure this cycle. this is why we did not get a legislative house in the cycle, and we did in 2018. we have got to compete everywhere. we have to start electing people at the school board level and up so we can reach into those communities who feel like this party has not talked about them or cared about them. because if we do not win those seats back, then we will have in this world of technology, both parties have it the extreme , gerrymandering that takes place where we have politicians basically picking their voters instead of the other way around, because of the manipulation of these maps. and we need to get our hands on that in more places to keep things balanced or evenhanded when we can, or we will fall behind in too many states and be confined more permanently to a minority party in those states. steve: ok, think you everybody. i will ask some -- thank you everybody. i will ask a few questions i'm getting pounded on on the comments section. if i get to your question, that is great. if i do not i apologize. ,you made the observation -- jonathan i will throw this out , for anybody, but you made the observation that joe biden was the man for the moment. and i think you asked the question if it was possible for anybody else to win this thing. i guess i would like to ask you and the panel, do you think it would be possible -- if it is a referendum on donald trump theoretically, anybody standing against him would win on the other hand, that is sort of what it was in 2016. the question is, if bernie sanders had been nominated would , he have won? hillary clinton or anybody else? anybody. >> i think with bernie, he would've had a hard time replicating the numbers in the suburbs, especially around philadelphia and milwaukee, that biden got. nothing of detroit. could he have done better with hispanics and made up for it? potentially. but i do not know if he would've done better in the rural areas. i think he would've had a challenge around detroit, milwaukee and philadelphia getting the numbers that joe biden did. and the other candidates i think would have a similar challenge. i kind of wonder about -- like amy klobuchar and pete , buttigieg, who would've been acceptable in the suburbs, but could they have juiced the base turnout? i do not know. i look at the 2016 map and the 2020 map. to me the story is what didn't , change. so much similarity. look at iowa. joe biden did not do much better in the eastern iowa counties along the mississippi river steve that you know so well. those are catholic communities. knights of columbus type of communities in davenport and dubuque. joe biden was like building a lab for those voters. he didn't do any better than hillary clinton. i do not think there is that much slack in the map, except for the margins where he did better than hillary in the suburbs and that is where he got his win. betsy: if we would have gotten bernie, would we have gotten michael bloomberg in the third-party echo we certainly know that that was a component when we are looking at these tight states in 2016 with a third-party vote impacting and hurting hillary clinton. >> that is a good point. steve: our sponsor may have a question about that. >> i wanted to ask for a moment to divert from the candidates to the process going because so many of you have inside seats. we were treated for several weeks and months with an apocalyptic vision of a complete meltdown of our system, whether it was going to be a machinery breakdown, poll workers, suppression of the vote. so between snafus, scoundrels and spies, we were supposed to have a completely dysfunctional boating system and yet it seem to hold up. i would be interested in some of your insights of the catastrophe that didn't happen. >> that is a great point. for all the hype about the voting process, this has worked pretty well. guysna and georgia as you know, typically have a longer count because there are a handful of communities that take longer to count ballots, especially in arizona. this happened in 2018 because arizona is a heavy mail-in ballot state. that is what they do. pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin, as we know, took some -- took a few days because they wouldn't let their counties count the ballots as they came in. and they wanted to start counting them on election day. of course it was going to take longer. but beside that, which was fairly predictable, i think it has been pretty smooth. steve: anybody else? betsy: i will jump in and defend the television networks, because i do think that they laid some groundwork certainly in letting voters know ahead of time this , may not be decided on election night. were very thorough and transparent in both coming and how they were coming in, what , the components of the mail in votes were. and as we followed along for the last three or four days after the election as well, really being transparent with the viewers as to how the process was playing out. >> i think i'm also ready to add poll workers to the health care workers, the postal service workers, secretaries of state of other party stepping up. betsy: and becoming vilified. fire for young know, actually following the law. >> thanks. steve: joel? joel: quick comment. i think that the republican party has to come to a point where they stop perpetrating the notion that there was rampant voter fraud in this country. it hurt them in this election. they paid a price for it in various places. if you asked people at the polls whether they have heard of cases or instances of voter fraud in their communities, local and state elections, and overwhelmingly people say no, because there have not been any. it is to the detriment of the democracy. both parties need to want people to vote and we should not try to destabilize it when you have no foundation for making such a case. i'm not, todd, you are the republican on the call, but this is not about todd or any republican in particular. the president played that hand and it bit him in the butt. and his voters decided not to vote by mail. >> two things -- one point point that has already been mentioned it was a huge strategic problem , for republicans that all of a sudden the mail-in voting was demonized. i mean, we saw this in races all over the country. to a degree, more so than i have ever had on any previous election. i was checking the long-term weather forecast going into election day because we put all of our eggs in that basket. if you have a ice storm or something in iowa and suddenly your people cannot turnout, it is a big problem. accusations of fraud, my view is a fae exist, let's see them. -- if they exist, let's see them. if they are problematic, let's investigate them. if they are illegal, let's take it to the courts, but if they are not, let's move on. to -- let's see the evidence. >> that message also undermines republicans who won. you cannot have a system where there was rampant fraud but somehow it did not affect republicans who won. it is the idea that democrats created this elaborate conspiracy where fraud was rampant to elect joe biden, but we could not figure out how to apply it to win house races and senate races. it's absurd. betsy: and for those people that voted for joe biden and joni ernst. todd: i made the point to a friend of mine yesterday. i said explain to me how the , fraud works where ballots are being manipulated to hurt donald trump, but to like have massive gains in state legislative races. jonathan: tweet that shit, dude. seriously. todd: i am happy to tweet it. jonathan: let's do it. [crosstalk] >> this sucks. steve: for those who are watching remotely, this usually happens in italy or greece somewhere, often over dinner and drinks. and we get a lot of real truth in those settings and a lot of good friendships. we are just about out of time. i see we have the chairman joining us. one of our esteemed colleagues. is there anything they want to add or ask? otherwise, we will give everyone a minute back in advance of the next panel, which is starting in about five minutes. is that right? michael, could you have anything you wanted to toss in? >> i am glad that we won. yay, black women. yea, first black woman vice president. ofew chapter in the history black women in america. she is going to enter the white house that was built by slaves as the vice president of america. steve: it is an amazing thing. everybody, thank you for your time and thank you for joining us. we really appreciate it. i do not know if you want to sign us out but mic drop. >> let's take a few minutes and we will reconvene the second panel in about tom will five. orchestrate it. steve: one question, everybody stays on, right? they just stay? >> everybody stays on, yes. >> stay put. >> good seeing you guys. , >> take care, everyone. >> see you, pal. >> goodbye. devices,ur mobile laptop or phone and go to c-span.org/election for easy access to election 2020 results. our latest video live and on-demand of the transition of power. go to c-span.org/election. senate races that remain undecided. two of those races are in georgia, which are both heading to a january runoff. republican senator david perdue will face jon ossoff because neither candidate received 50% of the boat. the other -- of the vote. the other runoff is kenny -- is kelly loeffler and warnock. kelly leffler was appointed to the sea after johnny isakson was retired. votes are still being counted in carolina where thom tillis leads cal cunningham. a lot of ballots need to be counted in alaska where dan sullivan faces independent al gross. we continue to you election results here on c-span. communicators,he president of the american telemedicine association talks about the growth of the telemedicine industry during the coronavirus pandemic. >> we have a term we have coined called to the telemedicine cliff. aat that means is this is not abstract notion. i am back now seeing patients in the office at 40% of our previous volume. when we get a little bit more cranked up, we will be at 75%. we will not go higher than that. in order for us to meet the demand, we have to have telehealth embedded in our workflow now. if we cannot do that, and all of a sudden the public health emergency goes away and there were no ways to fix some of these regulatory restrictions, they will be in trouble in our patients will be in trouble. >> tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the communicators on c-span two. >> c-span's washington journal. everyday, we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day and we will discuss policy issues that impact you. coming up tuesday morning, a discussion of the senate leadership. we will talk about the affordable care act case being heard by the supreme court with a policy expert from georgetown university. also a discussion of the biden with theial transition white house transition project advisory member. we sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. the supreme court hears oral arguments on the affordable care act and the consolidated cases of texas v california and california v texas. easternay at 10:00 a.m. on c-span, the health care law was challenged by texas after a 2017 tax law limited the penalty for not having health insurance. listen to the arguments live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe testifies before this and that judiciary committee on the crossfire hurricane investigation, which looks at russian interference in the 2016 election. watch live coverage tuesda

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