up next, a conversation about the election results and what they may mean for the 2022 midterm elections. -- the biden administration agenda. the brookings institution hosted this one-hour event. >> good evening. i am the executive director of the institute of politics. we are pleased to welcome you to a discussion regarding a breakdown of this year's election results and a preview of the 2022 midterm elections. before one of our students introduces our guest, i want to introduce events we have. we are going strong into the end of the quarter. tomorrow, thursday, november 11, eric rcr, a journalist and author -- eric garcia of we are not broken changing the autism conversation and 10 alberta, a staff writer for the atlantic will be discussing is to discuss research and misperceptions surrounding autism and other disabilities along with writing and there journalism careers. join us for a live taping with david axelrod and pramila jayapal. at 5:30, monday, i will be monitoring a discussion with whom of any -- whom the dean to discuss her career in national politics and her new memoir. after the moderator discussion we will open the floor to questions from you all in the audience. please line up to ask questions. as usual, we give priority first to student questions. make sure your phones are on silent. we will now hear formal introductions of our speaker from adams abner, a fourth-year neuroscience major from iowa city, iowa. adam worked as an organizer for pete buttigieg is -- pete buttigieg's caucus campaign and then began the director for northwest iowa i did 2020 campaign. adam worked on a campaign in georgia for the u.s. senate. welcome adam to the podium. adam: it is an honor to introduce the speakers for today's event. today's speakers are two of the most successful posters in the country that have helped presidents navigate of people both in the electorate and the way polling is conducted. tony fabrizio is an iop fellow who served as chief poster for donald trump in 2016 and 2020. -- chief pollster for donald trump in 20 -- 2016 and 2020. he has worked internationally for marine le pen gym and netanyahu. -- he has worked internationally -- a field organizer in iowa, now the chief poster for president joe biden. it proves my theory that organizers run the world. she pulls for barack obama and hillary clinton. work with corporations, nonprofits, advocacy groups, and trade associations. today's conversation will be moderated by iop advisor, the deputy editorial page editor for the washington post. she recently released a book on the first lady, nancy reagan. join me in welcoming today's speakers. cs karen: thank you so much adam. after hearing your experience, i am thinking we should invite you to pull a chair on stage. i am so excited to be here tonight. thank you for coming out. this place is so special to me. of course, as a political reporter there is nothing you enjoy more than talking to people doing it and really at the top of their game. that is why we are doubly lucky tonight. and, the timing of this event was sheer perfection. >> for some people. karen:[laughter] so, we are looking ahead tonight but we cannot look ahead without looking back a week. i think that, as election day was rolling around, it was possible to anticipate what was going to happen in virginia. if either of you tells me you expected how close it was in new jersey i will make you prove it. but, there was also just across the map from local elections in long island to local elections in seattle and minneapolis. so, what do you take away from all of this? >> the big take away is democrats got there as kicked when you go through a beating. do not deny it. own it. say, devcon 10. understand that you have to figure out why. i think we talked about this last night. a lot of this is atmospheric. if you go back in time and google midterm elections, you will see the same thing with carter, with reagan, obama. bush, etc.. and, trump in 18. so, most are economic. some of them, like w bush, was more about the iraq war. for trump it was about this distaste that suburban woman -- women had for him once he became president. but historically, this is not unusual. the difference is that, again, whether you believe it or not, president joe biden, in modern history, has had more challenges that about any other president has had. we are already the 20th months of a pandemic, psychologically, there was always anxiety about it happening again and it happened again with delta. you have supply chain problems. you have inflation. you have work shortages. you had afghanistan. we went through 2.5 months of literally slog of the process of trying to get something done. it was really bad because if you are talking process, you are losing. so the atmospherics were really bad. you can talk about what percent is atmospherics and a bad environment versus weather terry mcauliffe owned 30 or 40%. but you cannot avoid new jersey and other places. where, again, the political and economic environment, and, again, psychologically, the pandemic environment is just going to hurt the person who is president of the united states or their party. democrat or republican. karen: -- john: so, don't misdiagnosed. you have to make sure you don't misdiagnose, is this just a messaging problem, etc.? we can talk about messaging later. i think democrats have the potential for 2022, but, there are only -- there is only one silver lining about the elections in 2021. that is it is not 2022. we have one year to figure out, diagnosed, -- diagnose, and talk about the path forward. and, be competitive. i thing we can be competitive. i will outline that. maybe, tony wants to talk about other things. adam: -- tony: when you are in a hole, stop digging. that is something democrats have to learn. it is not only democrats. we all have the same problem when it happens too often -- to us, often times. karen, i will challenge you on new jersey. i released a survey in early september that had thoroughly losing by one. there was private polling that had the race within two or three the last months. talk about long island. from there i was deeply involved on knocking off the democrat incumbent da that they had not had for 12 years. so, it is hard to look at the results and not understand that what happened early on to get into the weeds a little bit was it was an increased surge among republican voters. the bigger thing was we saw a collapse of bidens numbers with independence. -- independent voters. that was really the turning point. we were looking at new jersey over virginia and we saw biden numbers go from plus five or plus six with independence to down 10. that shift really shook the foundation of how those elections were going to go. i think one of the problems that both parties suffer from is they misread what happened in the previous election. they overplayed their hand. they think that when they got elected it was a massive mandate to do certain things. i disagree with john. we will be nice to each other tonight. i disagree in that while i do think that anything is possible in politics, i think it will be even more difficult now for the democrats to break out of their funk of the fighting between more moderate members from marginal districts and progressives. i understand, they pass the infrastructure bill. but the next piece is -- it could very well be even more problematic because it is not just what people think of the bill overall. there is some data that has come out lately that has shown that. people have mixed opinions about whether the next spending bill will help them or hurt them. if it flips to the hurt side bid, you know, -- big, you know, we have kind of scenes is when they told the democrats in 2009 that we would be giving all of that stuff away and it did not work. here is the big difference. in 2009, we got our buds kicked. in 2000 nine, obamacare was immediately underwater. negative approval rights. bad. it only got worse. there was an incompetent problem too. john: during the entire debate, whatever you want to call it, the numbers have never moved. not only is it 60% in terms of approval, all of the individual components have way above 60% of approval. so, we talk about the third part of when you have this type of election. do not just buried. do something. you have to have -- bear it. do something. you have to have a message. that is why i don't want to misdiagnose. the ultraleft in our party want to say that if you had just been more liberal and defunded believe and been more woke it would have all worked out. the fact is this. when i talk about the toolkit. , the last 2.5 months have been brutal. people expected us to get something done and we did not get it done. we will get it done and we will have something we can talk about in the 2022 elections impactful for people. none of this is something people think of as social spending or entitlements. it is something they think will help them. it will lower improvement -- insurance premiums. it will lower the cost of an -- prescription drugs. it will help them with childcare. it will help them with eldercare. karen: -- they will feel it. john: there will be $7 billion in the midterm election. my point is we will be able to communicate about what we have done. more importantly, we will communicate, because, not one republican will vote for any of that. every frontline democrat candidate for senate will be able to say that republican lowering costs for health care premiums, for prescription drugs. why? to protect those at the tops and -- the top and big corporations. the fact is we have a very strong message. the one misdiagnosis is that somehow people are loving republicans. you always do far to the -- default to the party not in charge. the republican party has worse numbers than the democratic party and their leaders have worse numbers than joe biden. we are getting our butts kicks because of certain atmosphere in different states but, we have a strong message in 2022. tony: should i give my rebuttal? karen: absolutely. tony: look, i do not doubt that somewhere out the right it -- at out the -- at the white house there is this long list of beautiful things about what this planet does. the seeds of doubt have already been planted. not only have the seeds of doubt already been planted, but, we have a problem called inflation. while you may understand it to be a supply chain problem, the average person does not call -- care about supply. they care about what happens when they go to the grocery store to buy a turkey. what happens when they go to get gas. housing prices through the roof. so, the real question will become, can you make -- what is easier to do? to make the argument that all of this government spending is only fueling the inflation and the inflationary spiral we are in. or, that we need to spend our way out of inflation? karen: today we had inflation numbers. one month, the worst in 30 years. people are already arguing that to drop a gigantic load of government spending into the middle of this environment, especially, there are people on the hill arguing we should not even bother with the cbo for, how will you fight that? john: three things. you notice he did not respond to the strong message that the democrats have. and, he did not respond to that we will kick republicans out because they will vote for all of this stuff impactful for the working family. tony: you curveballs to inflation. john: they always hope the political and economic environment says the same. but, if we came back here. if you invited us back here in september or october of 2022, who thinks that the economic and political environment will be the same? i'm not counting on that. the fact is, i will take our message of what we are going to do for people. it will be real. what they did not do for people and why they did not do it over this hypothetical that inflation will be as bad in october of 2022. inflation is real. no head in the sand. the psychological impact of inflation is the driver of people's perception of the economy. that is real. i understand that. every day, the biden administration is trying to do things on supply chain and ports. i think we would both agree that a lot of it has to work itself out with business and economics. tony: it does. we pay for it. john: you are right. we paid for it. donald trump, six point seven $4 trillion worth of spending. tony: [laughter] john: that was my third point. karen: can i take this back? there were a couple of things also. one is the assumption among democrats has been, and i think it was shattered in virginia, that high turnout benefits the democrats. that, i think, is gone. the second assumption is little scientists love to argue that candidate quality does not matter. i think that glenn youngkin disproves that. but how your client in chief is going to be intervening in a lot of primaries. he stayed away from virginia, but, there is a lot of score settling going on with trump. how worried are you about primaries that produce the kind of, some of the upbeat candidates we have seen? i am looking for a nice word. john: i think that, one, we cannot dispute that donald trump is still a major force in the republican party. he is sitting there with 150 plus million dollars in his accounts. karen: and he has a lot of scores against republicans he wants to settle. tony: he does. it's mikado came around and endorsed herschel walker to -- mitch mcconnell came around and endorsed herschel walker today after trying to sabotage him with his minion before he got in the race. it is interesting to see mcconnell about what trump wants. there is no question -- bow to what trump wants. there is no question he will make endorsements and some will not pan out. it will be a situation where we will not always nominate the best person. it will not be like 2014 where is was a more controlled process. after 2010, with the tea party, party leadership went about trying to control the process. karen: after i am not a witch, right? tony: yes, after i am not a witch. but i think we have so many competitive races that the playing field is such that if we do not get the right candidate or what is perceived to be the right candidate in the races, the options for us to take back the house and senate are plentiful. it will not be everyplace where he plays or everyplace he picks somebody that is unelectable. for example, alabama. ok? the former president endorsed mo brooks. can mo brooks win statewide in alabama? yeah. john: but, can attend ball and in north carolina? -- ted bond win in north carolina? karen: there was some situational stuff in north carolina. including, a nominee who had some unfortunate -- john: it is the most entertaining season of 2022. it will not be baseball, football, or basketball. it will be the republican primaries. in 2010 we got sharon ingle against harry reid and harry reid should have lost and we won. we got christine o'donnell in delaware. karen: not a witch. john: right. murdoch in indiana. tony: but they won the house and took over as governor. john: the point is you should have taken it over that here and they didn't. candidates do matter. the fact is, the democrats are probably going to have compressor -- competitive races they should not have because of that. i want to go to your original question about virginia. i think there should be lessons learned. the fact is that in 2017 we had a historic off year election turnout everywhere. it did not matter if you are the mayor of cincinnati, we had double turnabout -- double turnout. because people were so ticked off by trump. they thought he would be presidential. women were disgusted with him. you saw what happened. you never could have imagined there would be bigger turnout in virginia that northrop was in 2021 and there was. you learn you have to persuade. what tony was talking about in independent voters. in 2006 democrats one independent voters 60/40. in 2010, republicans run -- one -- won 60/40. even though terry mcauliffe got more votes that northrop, -- northrum, more people came out. you cannot out mobilize the organization. tony: you also have to look at what the turnout was. can best candidate quality does matter, but i would argue that -- candidate quality does matter, but i would argue that while all of the attention was on youngkin. and i am not belittling young kin. he ran a very good campaign and mcauliffe ran a crappy campaign. but if you look at the turnout, the exit polls, the turnout in virginia was wider -- whiter, less college-educated, older, less conservative, and less democrat considerably across-the-board than in 2017. it was not just the independence. it was who turned out. the fact is that even though more democrats turned out, more republicans turned out. that was 2018. one of the things we saw in our polling dueling -- doing work for cls congressional leadership. one of the things we noticed. karen: cls is the super pac associated with house republican leadership. tony: one of the things we do would we do polling is we do it among voters. we know your vote history. one of the things that kept coming back is there was anywhere between when he percent and 30% of the samples, not the entire electric -- 20% and 30% of the samples that had never voted in a midterm election before. when you look at typical midterm voters, republicans were winning. when you look at that 20% to 30%, democrats were winning by double digits. in a lot of districts, that made the difference. the question is, now, what happens in 2022. say what you want about donald trump. and i know everybody in this room has an opinion. it brings people out. there are a lot of two-edged swords with them. but every election he has been on the national stage for, turnout has increased and continues to increase. everybody in virginia, you had a 600,000 vote increase. in new jersey, almost a 500,000 vote increase. it was not even as focused as virginia. connect the dots in virginia. terry mcauliffe's entire campaign. john: 20% of the people who voted for youngkin that a disapproval of trump area why? they said that this guy was not trump. karen: you think you will have a set of accomplishments to sell. how will democrats play defense on some issues we saw in virginia? critical race theory has become a code phrase. yes, it is not in the curriculum for third-graders in virginia. but, it struck a resident mcauliffe did not seem to understand. how are you going to defend that? and, immigration, and all of these. we know the playbook. immigration and all of these. we know the playbook. john: we have things we want to do for people and they use which issues. -- wage issues -- wedge issues. they hit us on defund the police, joe biden said i do not believe in defunding the police. are you going to ways -- race taxes -- raise taxes? the problem in virginia, it was at the candidate themselves said i did not think that parents should have a say in what teachers teach. you lost people there. that was a big problem. critical race theory, if you are smart, you do not say, critical race theory is not taught anywhere in public schools. i am against critical race theory and you explain the importance of teaching things like slavery and civil rights and lynching. karen: how you deal with the left in your own party? john: how did joe biden deal with the left? he disagreed on defunding, he disagreed on fracking, he disagreed on a lot of things. he became president of the united states. there's going to be disagreements. if you are a front-line democrat, you are going to take some stands that you will take eat for. tony: i'm going to give a bill to dnc headquarters. the divisions in the democratic party during the 2020 election and during the 2020 primary process to nominate joe biden, were covered or papered over. there was one thing that united democrats more than anything else. there absolute hate and -- their absolute hate and loathing of donald trump. alexandria ocasio-cortez and the congressman from new jersey, scott oliver may not agree on anything. they do agree that donald trump should not be president. a lot of it was papered over. now, what you guys have to actually govern and what is happening is i love president biden may 1 of the truest statements in the -- happening is president biden said one of the truest seams in the world. the problem -- sayings in the world. the problem is the alexandria ocasio-cortezs over the world are not going away. that creates a problem for how you get all of these things you want to get passed, done. how you get joe manchin and kristin sinema to go along or how you get the 13 republicans? john: the democratic caucus is not like the republican caucus. it does not look like a country club board of directors. we have an incredibly diverse, ideologically, demographically, gender, etc. the process is pretty messy and it has hurt us. i will be the first to say that. we are going to get some stuff done. that is important. it will be impact. as well. you have to deal with that, not now, not in the first quarter or the second quarter, you guys would have to deal with the effect that you do not have anything to run on. i hope you have plans of what you are going to do about the border and what you are going to do about how we perceive the broad or what you want to do about voters who have lost confidence in biden's ability to govern. not his ability to understand government. john: let us challenge. i do not disagree with any of that. i think you are going to get overconfident, hyper confident. this is a done deal. i will take that any day. i will take that every day. the fact that joe biden ran against 13 of our dutch -- other liberals, pragmatic liberals dominate the democratic party. what happens in d.c. in the bubble is not real america. as a party, we have only cowtown to that side of it -- bowed to that side of it. karen: i want to come over to your party. tony: please! do you want to join? that would be big news! karen: the republican party is now in a position where i think jim jordan is in the mainstream, donald trump has convinced most republicans that the election was a massive fraud. he was actually elected, which is a lie. tony: he has convinced them. karen: it is not in keeping with reality. we are going to go into this next election with a lot of people really doubting the integrity of whatever the results are. tony: unless a republican wins. i would love to agree with your statement that is going to impact the turnout. the fact of the matter is, we saw turnout particularly republican turnout, in both new jersey and virginia increase. karen: how it impacts turnout, how it impacts democracy. how -- if we have reached the point where a significant portion of our population does not trust the people who have run our elections and done a pretty good job of it for our history. tony: i think, there is a gradation of what people think. even within the republican party there is a gradation of what they think. about what republicans thought about the election. the closer we get to 2022, and they crossed back -- the prospect helps move this down the road. will trump start talking about it -- stop talking about it? once you get past 2022, you are onto the next election. can i do another lesson of the 2021 elections? john: big turnout, republicans should not fear big turnout. they should not fear making it as easy as possible for people to vote. because virginia was blue, that there was a democratic governor, male in voting was easy -- mail and voting was easy. you should not be afraid of it. in new jersey and virginia, if you do it in georgette that you are so worried that you are stopping people, putting impediments for people to vote, by mail or by early voting. you have no worry. tony: we are not. john: if you are limiting the number of early voting places in a place like north carolina, there was a lot of them. if you are not going to let the mail in boxes, limit the number of days, hours, that is an impediment for people. karen: we know what is actually happening. how do the democrats, to the democrats have a strategy for anywhere there is a close election? you will have swarms of people looking -- john: we have done a great job of having election people watching. there are broken machines, you call. karen: people do not trust that. john: i do not know how to answer that. how they act. what they are trying to do to put impediments on voting but impediments on the election. -- how they are trying to do that, put impediments on voting, impediments on the election. there is videotape of it. there will be lawsuits about it. there were 60 different judges who ruled against the trump organization about the legitimacy of the election. there was not one that didn't. that, will rule how the outcome -- tony: in states where there have already been a number of states, a number of states already had robust mail ballot programs for years. florida, arizona, ohio, colorado. there are certain state that are vote by mail at all. they mail everybody ballots. the thing that helped the whole theory, of what happened, was there were a number of states where this was not used to being done. it was being done under the guise of covid and because people did not want to vote. one of the things that happened was by president trump attacking mail-in voting before it ever happened, it polarized who would vote by mail. it pushed republicans from being male and voters -- mail in voters to be election day voters. democrats to being male and voters and early voters. -- mail in voters and early voters. it was easy to see how on election night, there would be a red maras. it would look like because you built up on the election day votes, such a huge margin. there were mail-in ballots there were to be counted and they were going to break two-no one -- break 2-1. democrats were more fearful of covid then republicans and they were more fearful of voting in person. that is a unique set of circumstances that we never have to face again. where we do not have people unsure about how to -- how the mail-in work. more people will take advantage of that. john: the problem is that in a place like georgia or it worked beautifully except for the fact that biden one, the republican -- won, the republican governor decided it worked beautifully. let us put impediments on it. you have to have a notary, facts in this, all of these different -- fax in this. changing the rules. tony: if you are talking about showing id -- john: stacey abrams -- tony: that did not happen! john: do not hide! most people are for id! tony: that will not change the rules in georgia. john: there are 15 new rules including somebody brings a bottle of water why they stand in line. karen: reclaiming my time. one last question. before we go to your questions. what about the perception of biden articulated this week by abigail? that this gigantic massive program that the democrats are trying to get through on capitol hill is not what biden was elected to do. that people did not think that they were electing fdr. john: 90% of president biden's ads outlined the build back better program and how we were going to pay for it. i love her, she is great, and she is reacting to her governor in virginia. joe biden did one -- two things in the election. he is going to get control of covid, and he laid out everything that is in conciliation or build back together. we did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deals. voters knew exactly what he was doing. voters told him what he wanted to do and he laid out what he was going to do. he is going to get part of it past. tony: with all due respect, we talk about this 7 million vote margin that joe biden has. we elected president by the electoral college. he won that. military college would have looked much different -- the electoral college would have looked different. to say that those states were decided based on his future tilt back better plan -- build back better plan, when arguably, he look at the exit poll data, covid had a bigger impact in those states that flipped than the flips -- states that did not flip. john: hold on -- is joe biden president because your guy filled in his job? tony: is that your excuse when you lose in 2022? john: it is unfair to say that voters did not know what joe biden wanted to do when 90% of our ads whirling out his build back better program -- work detailing our tilt back better program. -- build back better program. if your insurance premiums were cut or prescription drugs were cut, allow me to suggest none of those working families think that is liberal policy. what they think is that they have been working there -- their rears off and they feel they have an opportunity to exceed because of these types of things. we can knock them down to say because of the environment now. these are real things that will help people. will it save us in 2022? i do not know. it was laid out in his campaign. karen: i want to point out we have a microphone set up right there. if you guys have better questions than i do, please line up. tony: there is a lot of people lining up. i think only time will tell. i do not think any of this is going to help them. i think that you will be able to describe all of these things that you are going to do and look at the trends in what has happened. look at the voters who are try to target to get back. there is a value spike that is going on, critical race theory may engender, but it is broader than that. mask mandate and vaccine mandates are all about if i want to wear a mask or not. there has been a revolt about you telling me what i can and cannot do. it is that type of values fight that is going to be the underlying problem that you guys face in 2022. not some academic argument -- john: i agree with the psychological fatigue. that is benefiting you human though it has nothing to do with republicans. if you are counting on that, to still be there, when the bell rings. karen: we will move on to the questions. please identify yourself so we can get to as many questions as possible, put your question in the form of a question. >> as a is certified -- as a dissatisfied biden voter, how do you answer, i do not know what is in the build back better program. john: that is the challenge. the fact is that when you go through this process and you are counting on free press. it is difficult. that is what campaigns are about. at the beginning of when joe biden started his campaign, no one knew what he wanted to do. we spent a couple hundred million dollars. there is one to be $6 billion spent on campaigns in one year, that is incumbent upon democrats or republicans to get their message out. to explain the very thing which is what is in the bill and here's what we have done for you. that is the absolute challenge. nothing easy about it. >> hello. we have a unique year coming up. not just because you are both here together speaking to us, but because of redistricting. i am curious, how does your disturbing play into -- how does redistricting plate into -- play into it? tony: we have seen a bunch of states who have finalized other states are putting out multiple maps. i think we wind up picking up seats just through districting. -- through redistricting. karen: single digits? double digits? tony: single digit. there are democrats. i think there are some democratic states like new york that is still, they could move it around. you can off a couple of republicans depending on how you can do it. we do not need more than 10 seats from redistricting. that bodes well for us. it is like, you are in a sailboat. you have a stiff wind at your back or you do not. redistricting is one thing we have heading into 2020. john: republicans do things very well, reasserting -- redistricting, really well. in north carolina, they have the map going from nine republicans to 13. look it up. they do redistricting really well. they do disinformation really well. what? tony: hold it! john: they do branding, they branded the democrats really well. they just do a better job than how we brand them. it hurts us. karen: when you see reforms in redistricting, voters in virginia approved turning it over to an independent commission that has just collapsed. it is working out great for the republicans. john: same thing in florida. we will wind up becoming -- picking seats. john: if you look at every congressional district, democrats be in total those, it is like the national vote versus the electoral vote. how that extrapolates out into the number of seats. it is ridiculous the seats we do not have because of redistricting. >> my question is about liberal states in the northeast and maryland. we have state like vermont and maryland where the state is very liberal. is it possible that they could still win or that they have information gone too far for that? john: vermont, the bluest of blue states, they have republican governors. john bel edwards in louisiana, has a democratic governor. roy cooper one in a top state of north carolina. -- won in a trump state of north carolina. there is not a state, kansas has a democratic governor. there is not a state who cannot, in your case, the right candidate, this can happen. tony: the people who govern those states are being a governor, being a governor is different than being a senator. john: it is about job approval and a lot about how you get things done for people. tony: people do not know what senators do. they do not follow legislation. i think hogan and baker and i cannot remember vermont. old age. i think they have forged a combination of job performance and cult of personality. it insulates them from partisans. john: maybe baker is? at the end of the day, they agree, 70% with most republican things. they are not perceived to be ideological. >> suppose before the 2020 two election, donald trump is indicted for seditious conspiracy and the indictment lays out credible facts. what would be the effect on the 2022-2024 election? or come could be elected -- or trump could be elected president for jail -- from jail? tony: i don't think it matters. donald trump has core supporters who will support him no matter what. that core may wane but, right now, there has been no erosion of that core. he went through two impeachments, he did not lose, he did not lose his core support. i hate to say this, i will get booed, everything going on in bc, did anybody see the impact on the virginia's governor race? voters have the capacity to look beyond and vote with their interests. john: voters have the capability of looking like this, i do not mean that to be smart. there is a universal voter who is putting their head in the sand about facts. the fact is i do not think it could embolden his supporters. there is a universe of supporters they are worried about not getting out. in january, when you had the runoff elections in georgia, there was a drop-off in republican voters. trouble was not on the ticket. karen: you are urging republicans not to come out. john: i will still lean towards these people are coming out. karen: i do not mean to put words in. no matter what, no matter who they subpoena, no matter assuming whatever documents -- tony: that was big into the cake. it did not impact republican turnout. it was not, it is like the first impeachment. everybody thought that the first impeachment was going to be -- i think john and i would agree that the first impeachment, by the time we got to november, that was so far in the mirror hind so many things that happened. the same will happen here two. -- that was so far in the mirror , so behind, so many things had happened. the same thing will happen here too. this is coming true. the litany of things against him , this is coming true. >> you both talked about how certain people are not real americans. academics, people in washington, people talk a lot about chicago people not being real americans. do you think there is any future where people stop talking about academics or educated people as not being real america? or chicago not being real america? karen: james carville talks about the faculty lounge politics. john: i do not think we said that up here. there is a universe, there are things that happen in d.c. that are -- there is a gap. between what they are thinking israel and whatever -- is real and whatever is facing real people. these political elitists. karen: give an example. john: twitter is not real. tony: bingo. john: if you look at what is going on on twitter, the percentage of people in america who look at it, there could be a disconnect. i think the disconnect is the biggest problem. there is a disconnect between congress and the political elite that run d.c.. what is going on -- i live in montgomery, alabama. he lives in florida right he lives in a democratic place. we have a reality check. i watch no cable tv. i do not watch fox. tony: i do not watch fox. john: he does not watch fox. tony: i will say the following. i do not believe we said you people in chicago, i do not believe we disparaged in any way. there is a segment of the american voting public, the voting population, who feel that they are looked down upon. that they have been looked down upon by the elites in washington who make fun of them because of what they believe, because of how they believe, because of how they worship, because of all of those things. i will tell you, it is the underlying undercurrent, what donald trump tap into -- tapped into. that is what people do not understand. that group of people who feel like that they are looked down upon, whether it is directly or through a disconnect with values. that is the long-term problem i see for the democrats. karen: how does race figure into this? tony: there is such a huge disconnect between white and african-american opinions on racial justice in this country. during the defund the police, argument, during the campaign, even white immigrants did not want to defund the police. the attitudes towards the police and the violence was just so disconnected. i do not know how you put that back together when there were just -- there is a reality and a perception among white voters that is totally disconnected by the reality that african-american voters live. i do not know how you bridge that. maybe you have some suggestion or you have seen something in your data. i have not seen anything. john: there is a disconnect between how policymakers believe african-americans or people of color think on policy. tony: absolutely. john: if you are a pollster, you afgan americans are some of the most moderate to conservative voters out there. there is this wrong narrative about, what african-americans believe or what latinos believe. latinx is a pertinent example. -- perfect example. it was created by this -- we ask the question. latinos want to be identified by their nationality, colombian, cuban, mexican. we come up with these disconnects even when we are to represent a minority or pursuit of caller. -- color. tony: one of the stories that came out of 2020, was that actually trumped it better with hispanics than he had done previously -- trump did better with hispanics than he had done previously. they did better. polling in new jersey, picture really was doing better than the previous -- bowling in new jersey, a republican candidate was doing better than previous -- polling in new jersey, a republican candidate was doing better than previous rounds. go back to february of 2020, before coronavirus, take your mind back to that day. there was no mask, no vaccines, he could fly on an airplane and eat a bag of peanuts. in february, i had delivered a set of numbers to trump. at that time, we were getting in the mid to high teens among african-american boats and we were in the high -- votes, and we were in the middle areas with hispanics. they had felt the impact of the economic growth and they were responding to it. covid came along and a lot of that shattered and went away. there is a misconception as john said that there is only one way to reach these voters and the only respond to one message. there are many ways to reach them. if you are in d.c., you believe that if you are talking to latinos, they only want to hear about immigration. one of the weakest issues among latinos is that. not that they don't believe in dreamers and all that kind of stuff, the issues are the same as any location. -- caucasian. john: there is a disconnect in terms of how we communicate. not just as a democrat, but how people communicate with a narrative. what the narrative becomes about certain demographics. including noncollege whites. you can take every demographic group and there is a targeting narrative that is often wrong. tony: yes. leave it to washington to get everything wrong. >> i have a question. i have been listening to the coverage of everybody talking about the governor races and the blowout, it is a horrible sign for democrats. you said that tonight. i am curious, in the new jersey race it was the first democratic governor to win reelection in 44 years. the race in virginia was only a three point margin. democrats won huge in california. i am on it if you could talk more to that narrative of it being such a disaster -- i am curious if you could talk more to that narrative of it being such a disaster? john: a loss is a loss. you lose by three, it is a 13 point swing. that is rough. it is hard to lose a plus 10 state. tony: almost as hard as losing a plus 16 state. in new jersey,, virginia, i saw that in new jersey, -- in new jersey, virginia, democrats outspent republicans. karen: you mentioned california, a live democrats saw what happened -- a lot of democrats saw what happened. it is all about trump. john: there was not an alternative for newsom. his job rating with the di -- his job rating with the da percent. his opponent -- 58%. his opponent became clownish. youngkin was not scary and he had a good message. that is a plus 30 democrat state. one of the things that they did effectively, and he knows this, they recognize that they had an enthusiasm problem. tony: they worked it really hard. john: newsom did a good job of branding elders. i have never used california as a bellwether. unless it is netflix. that is helpful what are you seeing in california? it was a rough night for democrats. we are not going to put our head in the sand. i do believe that we have what we need to be competitive. it is a lot of this atmospherics? yes. can you change the atmospherics? we hope so. you have to take things into your own hands and tell people what you are going to do for them. tony: the difference between new jersey and virginia is while the democrats outspent the republicans, there was a $6.5 million gap in new jersey. if that had not existed, that race may have been one of their too -- there too. john: there was a race in virginia. it is next to washington dc. everything gets polluted. you had a because i income but, -- you had a quasi-incumbant. a lot of what was happening was atmospheric. the two analysis of what was happened -- what was happening -- the analysis of what happened should be focused on new jersey. . . karen: i think we are coming to the end of our time. we have time for one or maybe two more questions. >> i think there are two of us here. >> can i lower my mask to speak into the microphone? the fact is, midterm elections are always hard for the party that is in power. president biden's approval rating is 30%. what you think the chances are that the republicans control the house and the senate? john: i would go to 538 or rcp. the aggregate. -- they aggregate. i will take the five points. i think, given where we are with the political environment and the biden job rating. i do not think there is anyone in d.c. or vegas was going to say that there is great chances that the democrats are going to keep the house. we have a better chance in the senate. the candidates matter. i think we will be competitive. i do not think there is anyone out there who does not believe that the republicans have a good advantage going into the elections. i am not going to lie about it. tony: i would put our odds of getting back the house, 85 percent plus. the senate is trickier. i think the odds of taking back the senate is about 60%. i am bullish. john: i love that. tony: you want to disappoint me! i will be here to have a shoulder for you to cry on. >> thank you for coming. we have had enough of tony. i think a lot of people question democrats claiming that the infrastructure bill that passed was a victory. how are the democrats going to address this last election, a failure in messaging. how will they better address is going into 22? it seems like there's wood to be a lot of difficulty getting any kind of progressive agenda passed. john: to be fair, when you are in an off year of the midterm, it is not as if there was a democratic mess. you have two candidates. i think it is a little unfair, not just by you but by the media, that there was a mess. what hurt, have been talking process. the sausage is being made in a very diverse party where you have alexandria ocasio-cortezs and etc. i laid out what i believe is going to be a strong messaging in 2022. thing able to see what we have done for people -- being able to see what we have done for people will be important. i am talking about the things that i believe will impact working families. if you are haley stevens in michigan, you talk about -- tony: in the eventuality, i am right and john is wrong, and 2022 -- we are right about everything else. if that is the case, looking beyond 2022, here is the real challenge for democrats. if they lose the majority, the people who lose are going to be the moderates in their party. the more practical liberals. the caucus, the democratic caucus, the progressives are going to have a larger voice. if they lose the senate, the senate is going to look at the house. the house is going to be looking at the senate. it is going to become more problematic. there is an opportunity, that would be for president biden to triangulate from his own progressives. much like clinton did back in the 1990's. or he was able to triangulate himself between the republicans and his own -- where he was able to guide you late -- where he was able to position himself between the republicans and his own party. john: the republican party will have to stand for something and have -- tony: stronger border, lower taxes. john: the wedge issues are playing themselves out because they did not work against biden? at some point they will play themselves out and people are not going to believe it. karen: i will go ahead and call time. thank you both for an fascinating evening -- for a fascinating evening. we will find out who is right a year from now. [applause] karen: >> tonight on "q and a," in his latest book, the professor of philosophy at the university of british columbia, looked at the evolutionary purpose of intoxication in the row -- roll drinking played throughout history. >> alcohol makes it harder to lie, for instance. you paralyze the prefrontal cortex. also, it makes us better at detecting lies. so humans, it turns out, on detecting lies, we don't do a good time of it, but if we just relax and take in cues, we do a better job. i'm arguing alcohol, in the same way, we are not showing a weapon in our right hand. cultures use intoxicants at treaties, meetings or business meetings, anything where potentially hostile people need to figure out a way to cooperate as a way to disarm. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." listen to this and other programs on the new c-span now app. >> these week on the c-span networks, congress returns monday at 3:00 p.m. with the senate continuing work on the 2022 defense authorization bill. watch the senate live on c-span2. tuesday at 9:30 a.m. eastern, live on c-span3, the d.c. circuit court of appeals hears oral arguments in trump v thompson, a case concerning the january 6 committee's request for the national archives to release former president trump's call logs and other records surrounding the attacks on the capitol. we will also have live coverage of two hearings on c-span.org and the mobile app. a senate subcommittee hears from consumer safety advocates from holiday product safety concerns such as counterfeit toys and malfunctioning decorations. treasury secretary janet yellen and secretary jerome powell testify before the banking committee on their agencies use of covid-19 relief funds. they returned to capitol hill wednesday to appear before the house financial services committee that will also stream live at c-span.org and on the c-span now mobile app. also wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3, the u.s. supreme court hears oral arguments in dobbs v, jackson women's health organization a case on the constitutionality of a mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. watch this week on the c-span networks or watchful coverage on c-span now, the new mobile video app. also, go to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live or on-demand any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. > get c-span on the go. watch the days biggest political events on the go or anytime on the new mobile app, c-span live. discover new podcasts, all for free. download c-span now