Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 2020 New York University Host

This has got to be one of the more fraught election cycles in our lifetime. Certainly a roller coaster counting process. And still unclear, a full clarifying picture of what is happening down ballot for several weeks. 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 . If so, what was the cause of that . How are the two parties, democrats and republicans, now going to move forward in terms both their program, their policies, but also how they position themselves electorally. With that, let me turn the mic over to my coconspirator in this endeavor, ellen toscano. Ellen . Hello. I am the cofounder of the inside american politics series. Hostedfor 10 years and last year and this year by the center at nyu. We started the annual conference in 2008 following the historic election of barack obama as president of the united states. Now, we come together to discuss the election of joe biden. With an equally historic Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman, the first woman of color. We do find ourselves in a transitional and dynamic moment in the transfer of power from the current president , donald trump, who has not conceded but will instead contest the results. To president elect biden, widely accepted and acknowledged as the president elect based upon the counts of state and local voting officials across the country. However contested, there was an historic turnout with votes still being counted. The turnout hit a 50 year high which million votes, accounts for 62 of the eligible voting age population in the united states. We are grateful to participants of these panels over the next two days. Each of our panelists is expert and experienced in american politics, and very busy with the ongoing drama of this historic and historically messy transfer of power. Before we begin, let me thank my coorganizer steve mcmahon, with whom i have had the true end the center, executive and i wouldn brown, also like to thank our cosponsors and programming, federal hall, debate, defense, democracy, the Brendan Center for justice. Some logistical notes. Will hopefully use the last 15 minutes for q a from the audience. In the not read bios interest of more time for the panel. And a linkite, nyudc is in the chat. With that, i will introduce the moderator for the first panel, steve mcmahon, cofounder of strategies llc. Steve thank you, nyu, for doing this. We have a great panel today. People who have worked in politics on both the democratic side and the republican side. Journalists and Television Producers and in the case of betsy, who is now the director of the center of women in excited to we are have this conversation today and we are talking in this first panel about what just happened in the election. Were going to dig deep, but jonathan martin, one of our journalist panelists today, wrote a great piece in the New York Times the other day that looked at how joe biden won, what the key moments were, so 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 did the Biden Campaign take advantage of those . Jonathan thanks, steve, and 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 Trumps conduct. This was not a political statement on the Republican Party. Look no further than the difference between the republicans who were afraid to expected to lose eight to 10 seats in the house, but instead gain as many seats while President Trump loses convincingly. I think this was a split decision by a country that was fatigue by the conduct of the president , wanted somebody to bring some measure of normalcy political normalcy back to america, but 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 about 5050, or 5149 republican. That depends on what happens in georgia in january. The question now is, was joe biden the only democrat who could have beaten trump . Given how close the race was in some of those swing states, would a different democrat have been able to put together that coalition of keeping the partys base of racial minorities in big cities, growing the hillary advantage in the suburbs, and doing the same or a little better than her in the rural areas . 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. Consensus oriented, centrist, 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 from that message, and you know this from working campaigns. Campaigns that win have message consistency. If you look at his opening video in april 2019 and take it through the speech he gave on saturday the night claiming victory, youll 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. Obviously, it worked. Along the way, were there some challenges . Sure, but i think consistency was essential. The last point ill make is this. There is an argument to be made, and i could make it because i that the story in march, effectively, this election came ofan end in the second week march. Biden effectively ended the primary by beating Bernie Sanders soundly in michigan on tuesday the 10th, super tuesday 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 that night in the oval office, tom hanks was diagnosed with having covid, and the nba canceled its season. I think that week in march was really the turning point because it became clear that the whole trump theory of the case which was, maybe you dont like me but the economy is great and the other guys are crazy, that case came crashing down. Because the democrats did not nominate Bernie Sanders, they nominated joe biden, and he wasnt going to be able to run on the economy anymore because the pandemic crash the economy. You can trace the election back to that week in march. Thank you, jonathan. I want to call on todd. Todd is one of the best republican strategists out there and actually represented a number of candidates who outperformed donald trump and won their election. I remember when we were talking after the election you said you were not sure that your candidates could actually outperform donald trump and win. But, that is what happened. They outperformed donald trump and won. What did you see and do you think jonathans analysis is right, that it was over in march, or given the result and how close it was, it seems like it was never really over until the ballots were counted, but what do you think . Todd it did not feel like it was over in march. I think jonathan was exactly right in calling this i made the point in my notes, calling this a split decision election. We talked for ages about trumps 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 in swing statewide races, you have all of these suburban voters who did not like trump personally, although they did like his economic policies. But at the same time, they were not ready to embrace, though it may not have been bidens agenda, there was a sense among a lot of suburban voters that these kinds of cultural changes that the left had been talking about were an anathema 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 Fitzpatricks race, one of the swingiest of all swing districts. I think ryan is going to outperform the president by 14 or 15 points. Don bacon in nebraska too. Same sort of dynamic. The final point i will make is on that 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 keeping the choice 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 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 in an up or down vote. Steve in that up or down vote, one of the things as a democrat im excited about in addition to 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. Before we talk about the polls, joel, lets talk about some of the voters that made this possible, joel, and doug. Joel is a democratic pollster, one of the best and finest there is anywhere in the world. Doug was involved in many races as a partner at skdk, heavily involved at the Biden Campaign. Doug did many Congressional Senate races as well. I would like to get from the two of you, if i could, a little bit on the turnout and which demographic groups made the biggest impact, and what that portends for both the Democratic Party and the republican parties Going Forward . Doug . Doug sure, it is great to be a part of this group. Again, its always fun to break down the election with so many smart folks. Appreciate you guys having me again and i agree with almost everything folks have said so far. You know, look. 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 then certainly increased in 2018. Able toseen biden was build on those gains in the suburbs in 2020. Second, when we look at turnout, numbers are still coming in. But when you look at places like milwaukee and philadelphia, and when you are looking at detroit and flint, we are seeing the numbers of black voters definitely increased. There is some question about the percentage of those that went for trump, but the overall number in many of those places have increased. That was, in part, due to an emphasis by the Biden Campaign early on to reach out and connect to those voters. We also saw that among asianamerican 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 for black voters and then a turnout program, infrequent voters. That started at the end of september. I think those are some particularly in the suburbs a place where democrats biden in particular needs to feel good about the campaign he ran. You know, i think 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, and when you look at arizona, those were four components of the Biden Campaign. Look at where biden was the last 24 hours of the campaign, he was in pennsylvania. There were polls that showed democrats up pretty soundly in pennsylvania, but the Biden Campaign was not taking anything for granted. They were in pennsylvania. They were all over pennsylvania and that made a huge difference. 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 to the Biden Campaign, 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 didnt work out, so they focused on arizona and they also had a focus on georgia. There is a lot to unpack overall, but i think the message discipline that jonathan mentioned was right on. But, you know, look. 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. You know, there was a time when republicans used to vote by mail a lot, or at least had confidence in it. That is why florida in many ways runs such a sophisticated system. They get results. They have older voters and voting by mail is not something that is strange to them. That was a big tactical mistake by the Trump Campaign, one that biden took advantage of and potentially is the reason why he won the presidency, along with a number of other things. Steve joel, looking at michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania, how does it look different to you since 2016 . Joel i think let me take that, but first say overall, i often say to people we forget we are a 5050 country. We are probably 4040, with 20 to consider themselves moderate and independent. To win elections in this country, you have to win the middle and that is particularly true when you look at those three 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 moderate voters self identified moderate voters, clinton got 52 . Biden got 64 . I think when you look at those three states, those were the blue wall. You have to win those three states if you are a democrat. As i said a couple of years ago on this panel, it was a monumental blunder by the Clinton Campaign thinking we had those states locked up. She didnt campaign in those states, but you have to win the middle. In this election in particular, even though joe biden is not from the left wing of the party, donald trump is so far to the right, in a way, in 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 the coronavirus and the aftermath of george floyd, donald trump plummeted with suburban voters, falling behind with a group he had won by four points and they make up half the electorate generally in president ial elections. He had plummeted in most polls, including fox news, which i think is the best media polling out there. He was down 16 or 18 points. With those suburban voters. The margin was not anywhere near that big on election day, but if you look at the gains biden made with suburban voters across the country, they make up half the margin of victory for him. Half of that margin is coming from the suburbs. I think to todds point about a lot of really smart republican campaigns out there, i agree with that totally, but i would also say when i say we are a 5050 country, americans do not love it when one party has all three branches of government. And i think they 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 probably goes hand in hand on this 2018 was a big win one. For democrats. They picked up a huge number of seats. I think this was, again, a check on it. A governor, if you will. Carhave speed control in a to make sure that this does not run away too much in one direction. I think 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 for reelection, it is a referendum on the president s performance. There is a predisposition toward incumbents. Over the course of history, we have had few landslides. The seventh being to be elected and reelected with more than 50 of the vote both times. We have a history going back to 1900, before trump, only seven president s who sought reelection sorry five out of 19 lost. Lost the reelections. There are a lot of dynamics here structurally that could have been in play for trump, but more importantly with the events we had, the pandemic, the economy, which is trumps strength falling apart. More households with somebody out of work than at any time since the great depression. Hes out there every day saying he built the greatest economy. It was tone deaf and out of touch. Steve i want to take a peek underneath the hood for a second on female voters. Betsy, you are the e