Between israel and the United Arab Emirates, afghanistan, the potential october surprises dealing with Foreign Policy. This a fantastic panel that bring such a depth of expertise to these topics and i would like to introduce them. When charlie cook who is editor and publisher of the cook political report. Celinda lake, president , Lake Research partners. Doctor norman ornstein, resident scholar come senior scholar at the American Enterprise institute, and christian sultans anderson, who is part of cofounder of echelon insights. Thank you all. Were lucky to have you or this discussion and want to dive right in. I was excited to talk you to yl about this. Its something im interested in. Id like to start with the question for each of you that generally gets at the role of Foreign Policy in the 2020s election. How much do Americans Care about Foreign Policy and nationals could issues in this election cycle and how is that different from past elections that weve had recently . Lets just go in a political order. Start somebody, charlie, if that works for you. Great, thank you. So i. Think how much people care about pulse is onebo way to look at and its about i think in this t election Foreign Policy s actually standing out as a circuit for leadership style. I think in the end, leadership and character will make a big difference in this election. Y ah more important role, particularly as contrast is drawn about what kind of leader do you want. This is particularly poor into women voters and to suburban voters, collegeeducated voters, and i think there is a very, very stark contrast. Tweets, you erratic have voters to think at one point, donald trump could tweet us into a war, versus someone who has experienced steady, strong, knows how to deal with our allies, knows how to deal is aour enemy, so that strong character contrast, and i wills i think that is how you will see it play off. Sure. So i think Foreign Policy as discussed is not a toptier issue. Closelys woven in very to another issue, and that is covid19. The issue of china has been one that for many elections not ,eally i many voters radar President Trump was talking about that for a long time, and that might be why he was able to stand out in the republican primary four years ago, but we have seen in recent years the unfavorable ratings for china go from, according to the Pew Research Data at the start of trumps presidency, now you have 66 that you have people say they feel unfavorable towards china, and they were trending negative well before covid19, and it is not exclusively about republicans. 62 percent of democrats as well as 72 of democrats say they feel unsafe regarding china. While i would not say it is a top issue or a toptier issue, i think it is woven in deeply to economic anxieties, and then with covid19, china has become a health care issue, in addition to being a security and economic issue, so i think that policy had significant the question how to deal with other nations in fighting and controlling this virus has led to having relations become a little bit more critical. This is not a u. S. Domestic problem. This is a global problem, and watching how america has and has not succeeded in containing the virus as other countries or in combination with other countries, i think that is on many voters minds. A little selfconscious. Here i am on a panel talking about this from one of the great political scientists of all times, and a reporter, butl somebody has to play the role of someone who has gone to the picnic. I do not think that Foreign Policy issues directly or indirectly, sadly, i do not think theyre going to be very important. Biden i think this is a referendum up and down on President Trump, and so many things are baked into that cake about President Trump, and, sadly, americas role in the world, leadership, these are things that ought to be really, really important and i wish were topics in this debate, in this campaign, but really are not. Just about donald trump, as a midterm election. They were not only about donald trump. Think the policy issues are incredibly important, but i just do not think anything can eclipse whether you like donald trump, whether you love him or loathe him. I do not think any issues really penetrate their other than perhaps the handling or mishandling of the coronavirus. To red ay, somebody had jean this proposition. Did you want to weigh in . So, thanks, charlie, for the nice words, which i will say your modesty should not be there. The best of the best. Having said that, let me parse out a little bit more. I think on a larger scale, charlie is right. This is a referendum on the president. But i also think we are going to have a little bit of a choice here, that it is going to be issues of leadership, maturity, of empathy. That will play out. Morepact on for policy indirectly. I think we can look at some other things. This started by talking about china. You can see from the Republican Convention and the other things that donald trump has said in the past that, in fact, he is trying to skirt around the coronavirus issue, the covid issue, by saying, i had nothing to do with it. I made America Great again. We had the best economy in the history of the world, and then china undermined us, and we will see a push to go after china that could have reverberations, including with some issues of Foreign Policy, like trade, which i think could make a real difference. Because theight, electorate will be looking at whether or not they like trump or do not, but what we can see from both conventions is some farmer saying these tariffs, the way they handled the trade issue have been devastating to me, and some at the Republican Convention saying, that god, now we have finally got things in order, and our orders are up, and things are going well. How much those Economic Issues related to Foreign Policy matter will be interesting. As anave russia factor in issue, not just because of what we saw especially with the Republican Convention, the disdain for the russia probe and the implications which came up again and again and again but also, of course, the Senate Intelligence committee report, which is a pretty devastating takedown of what russia did in 2016 and again in 2020, and if we think about russian interference in the election, that sure seems to me to be a Foreign Policy issue. Finally, let me say it often becomes an issue when it comes to specific stitch wins, so i do not think it is a coincidence that we have a deal just reached with the United Arab Emirates and israel. It is very much the timing of it tied to an attempt to try to sway votes, and we may see other actions here that will also impinge on our ability to deal with actors abroad, adversaries and others, that are tied to an attempt to sway voters one way or the other. In the larger sense, you know that Foreign Policy is not the toptier unless we are in the middle of a war, and, of course, we can talk about afghanistan and both parties struggling over how many troops we keep in the least and what we do there. It will not be the most significant factor. Could weigh iny with marginal voters. How itnt to talk about is more a character issue rather than a specific policy issue. What is the mood of the voters . They prefer trumps unpredictable style on the world stage . Do they want to lean towards a e and, who is status quo do they want to lean towards a biden, who is status quo . Is it having any impact on voters, whatsoever . A really interesting question. First of all, it depends on which voters. Same for the republicans. There is a trump base who like his style. People in general tend to see him as pretty patriotic, and you see that reinforced at the Republican Convention, that this is a guy who loves his country. Women are much more troubled by it than men, and this has been true for at least two years, and what is really interesting to me is i think covid was a bit of a shifting point, because what we saw with covid was that it was kind of an idiosyncratic, personal style. He is not a politician. We knew what we were getting. We saw him on the apprentice, and it became a governing style on the tv for your family every day, and that profoundly influenced women. It is an interesting issue, right, because now we have the republicans trying to elevate proteststy threat, and violence, and the democrats elevating the Security Threat of having such an erratic leader in the world and that we need our allies. We need to work together. It depends on who you are talking to. But for the vast majority of women and four nonrepublican or nontrump voters, it definitely matters to them. Something they do not like. Carol i wanted to ask norm. Has the coronavirus, the pandemic, how has it shifted Public Opinion on americas role in the world, the changes in terms of the view of multilateralism versus unilateralism and those sorts of things . What is your take on that . Norman remember, this came up with a discussion of the wuhan virus as the china virus, but it who, spilled over to the world health organization, and internationally trying to combat this. It has played out in another way, as well, it is the contrast of how the United States has handled the coronavirus and how other countries, especially our allies, like australia, for example, have handled it and european countries, whom the president has harshly criticized, the european countries, but we know where countries moved very quickly to shut things down and to use masks and testing and contact tracing, this had a different implication. This is going to come up, i think, in another way. One of those areas where we see contention in congress has not yet played out because we have not had this new recovery bill. We will get it coming back to the board in september, the issue of whether we are going to provide some relief for especially the poorer countries around the world. As we move towards a vaccine or a set of vaccines, we know that some of those vaccines are going to be expensive enough that they will only be useful for richer countries. Are we going to subsidize other with those respects, our withdrawal from the w ho and the ways in which we have separated ourselves out from other countries, this will play into the election. It is not going to affect large numbers of votes, but will will if wevotes more see a resurgence of the virus as we headed to flu season right at the time of the campaign hot moments in the election. What that will do to turn out. Whether people return against trump. One thing we know is in terms of handling covid and our Public Opinion experts can say more about this, the public as a whole is not real happy with donald trump on this. It is not clear to me it has shaken many of his voters. Those who like him and are with him even if they dont think he has done a particularly good job with this. On that point, charlie and kristin, how has it changed . Particularly in the battleground states . Is there any movement over this issue . I think we have seen a dramatically different situation than what we were looking at for the first four months of the year. About a month in, starting in april, you started seeing the president s numbers flutter with doubts about his handling of the coronavirus. Then we saw the ballot numbers starting to move in june. It is just an up or down about President Trump, but its about culture and identity politics. My wife and i are sequestered on the coast of maine. I am looking over at a dock and empty fish house for our neighborhood lobster men had been until he went out of business this winter because of tariffs with china. I think it is hard to find a farmer, hard to find a lobster man, people adversely this was early in the administration. Are you worried about tariffs . He said i am really worried about tariffs. The next thing out of his mouth was, but i think every thing the president is doing, what he believes is in the National Interest and i support him 100 . I am going i cant believe. Anybody that stayed with him, that 40 is his base, they are not leaving no matter what. Anybody with the capacity for outrage is already outraged. That number is not going to go down below where it is now. The other 60 of the electorate are on the negative side or there are doubts about him getting higher and higher. All these things are kind of basic but not individual issues. Think that will have the same impact down ballot . Iowau think the farmers in who have been hurt might take it out on joni ernst even though they stick with donald trump because of that tribal identity . Me, i thinke asking joni ernst is in deep trouble. I am not sure the farmers. To me it is independent. I refer to the holsters. We saw pollsters. We saw an enormous erosion among independents has the coronavirus started rising. Town, rural folks like that, this is about identity. This is about he speaks for me. That, iut having said think they will have a horrible night in the senate. I think it will be more independents that are breaking overwhelmingly against not just the president but against republicans down ballot. His base will never leave him. Small town rural whites are definitely, and white farmers, definitely are in that base. The other thing important here is fierce. When you fears. With the groups he has done well with in 2016, the numbers have fallen off since the start of covid are Senior Citizens. I have studied millennial politics for a decade now. I have been preaching to republicans for a decade they have to give the program or lose young voters. Now those millennials are almost 40 years old and they still break for democrats by huge margins. If you look at many poles, Senior Citizens are voting like millennials. It is wild. It would be hard to suggest that isnt at least in some way do to covid19, which is disproportionally having a massive negative Health Effect on Senior Citizens. Comment on the whole china phenomenon. I think it is an identity issue, a Foreign Policy issue, an economic issue. The president is seen as much stronger and standing up to china. That has a lot of derivative positives for him. Strength. Draw that it emphasizes put america first. Both candidates are talking about putting america first. Joe biden has the buy american plan. In the United States so we dont have to rely on china for another crisis. Did you see it playing out in local races. You see mick sally trying to onsallie attacking kelly china. Whichk the china thread, is really a Foreign Policy issue, it is identity and economic strength. That fred is pulling strong. The other thread is russia where joe biden has the string. An organization launching an ad where they are hitting on where the russians put bounties on our troops. Donald trump did nothing and made friends with putin. He saw susan rice making the same attack. There are interesting threads for individual countries are playing a role about whose side are you on and what is your tribe. If i can just jump in, what is interesting is china. We hear so much about it. It is not about what should our policy be towards china. What you have got his President Trump and joe biden each using china as a cudgel to beat the hell out of the other so it is not a substantive issue. It is a tool. It is a weapon. What should our policy be towards china . Biden has a lot of interesting things to say but no one is listening. He doesnt even bother. They are using it as a weapon and not a substantive issue. It is a legitimate issue but that is not what we are hearing. I suspect china will be a massive issue in the republican primary of 2024. There is a reason you see josh hawley, tom cotton, everyone and congress he may be even thinking they might possibly may read for to be at in 2024 wants part of the china task force. Something your voter may think of on an issue like trade or in terms of covid19. I do believe this is something the Republican Base will be a much more longterm animating issue. It is so interesting how things have slipped in some ways on china. For a long time democrats were tougher on china than republicans. It was about human rights and it was about trade at a time democrats are more protectionist and republicans were more for free trade. Now you dont have anybody basically saying good things about china. It is pretty clear republicans have seized on the issue more and made it more of a force and factor for themselves. Its interesting, especially Million People in concentration camps with one of the worst human rights abuses we have seen in decades that the republicans were able to bring a human rights hero from china it was able to escape and achieve asylum here. They are talking at the Convention Last night, trying to some ways neutralize the human although it is not clear have any votes go with that anyhow. Mentionedn, you lawmakers who may run in 2024. I wouldnt ask you about congress generally. I wanted to ask about congress generally. Without the backing of Foreign Policy initiatives and really the backing of congress, it can all be very fleeting. President trump basically undid everything president obama tried to do or did do in his second term. The iran deal, the paris climate accord, the tpp stalled, cuba reopening. Dead ontisanship Foreign Policy . When you look at the congressional map, how consequential are some of the house and senate races in terms of shaping Foreign Policy the next four years . It comes down to where Foreign Policy gets made. The executive will always have the biggest role in that front. The house has a much smaller role than the senate but Foreign Policy is traditionally something the president drives. I believe there is a reasonable amount of bipartisanship on Foreign Policy. The area we see republicans the most apt to criticize President Trump is on Foreign Policy issues. Withdrawing troops from syria for instance. You had a number of folks that were big fans of President Trump on most issues in congress nonetheless coming out to say why are we abandoning our kurdish allies . There are a handful of Foreign Policy issues where because donald trump so complete the obliterated the mccainromney consensus, the president bush mccainromney consensus, those fractures exist and frankly give republicans more room to agree with democrats on some issues, creating the strange faultlines. The fact we are seeing big swings in foreig the fact were seeing these big swings in Foreign Policy is every thing to do with trump being an unconventional president rather than necessarily a particular bricked up of bipartisanship Foreign Policy. I would suggest there may be more bipartisanship on somethings than on whole host of domestic issues. The other thing i would add is the public really wants bipartisanship, particularly the senior voters. You are right on the importance of senior voters. We are doing better with senior votersrs before 2008. But they really want the democrats and republicans to work on, and people did not expect any kind of bipartisanship from donald trump. Trump. Even his best friends dont think thats possible. Thats a very, very important point you are raising. Its interesting to see the contrast that we have now. This is in some ways a populist takeover of the Republican Party and its reflection of the fact it is far more trump party than anything else. The criticism has beenri not jut of the obama Foreign Policy, and even more of the clinton Foreign Policy, it is of the reagan and first bush, second bush Foreign Policy just as much. Ronald reagan wanted to promote American Business around the world. He helped create views institute of peace, the National Democratic institute at the National Republican institute, and a whole lot of other entities. All of that now is sort of put into a bucket of the criticism by the administration but we also have most of the republicans in Congress Even when they criticize some elements of policies, they dont follow up in any way. Its not like the Senate ForeignRelations Committee held blistering hearings criticizing any ofon this. They havent held any oversight hearings on any elements of it. The interesting question is going to be when trump leads, certainly i think the people who are going to be fighting to be his errors will be led by those who want to continue those policies. Tom cotton and josh hawley will be out there in a very visible way. But we are going to see others including those who basically before trump went along with the more conventional Foreign Policy that really was the bushes and reagans and maybe step up and be more supportive of the nato alliance, more critical of russia, and maybe move in a different direction. How much remains to be seen, but right now what we have seen is really a takeover of the party from unconventional sources. It didnt start with trump. You could go back to pat buchanan and look at his approach to Foreign Policy which was a kind of populism as well. I would argue, i agree that Foreign Policy issues is the one area republican members have been willing to substantively stepped out away from the president a little bit but i would argue thats the only one they can do that because the trump base doesnt care much about Foreign Policy. Thats the only area where they can get away with creating some distance with the president and chilling fear not just with him 100 . I feel like that is a, they get a pass as long as they dont get too critical of the president. What was that, like, it was russia, sanctioning russia on the interfering benefiting election, 95five vote or 98 to two macbook. The president at practically no support at all and they thought they could get away with it and they did. No harm no foul. I wanted to talk specific about one policy. Theres Foreign Policy and thenn there is deploying troops overseas. I think norm mentioned President Trump promised he would end this war. Present obama promised all to troops over of you in a struggle with this. Its been going on for decades now as we all know. Where is the Voter Sentiment on this right now in terms of bringing home troops, endingro e war in afghanistan, and have demographics changed . We dont have any recent data on that. I dont know if you do, norm or charlie, if youve seen that. We have expanded engagement people are definitely antiexpanded engagement. I would think that would be even more so now where people think were out of money. We are the ones hurting. We have to take care of ourselves. Norm, i had never thought of that, thats a brilliant point at that would be a tough sell with the public. We havent looked at that. I dont know. I dont know if youve seen anything. We havent seen anything. One thing that comes to mind for me on iraq and afghanistan, was it worth it . How does it shape americans use military power abroad . Think about this. This different election will be the first on that someone who was not abide when 9 11 happened will be able to vote. Thats how long weves been in afghanistan. Someone who was born after 9 11 is now an adult and can vote this november. These are complex that have been going on for some of these new voters their entirer lives. I see and a lot of data a great deal of skepticism from young peoplele that america projection about overseas through military force has any potential upside. That doesnt meann they dont want a strong military, doesnt mean they dont want america to be able to defend itself but the ideas we can promote our values to strength abroad is viewed with a skeptical eye from a lot of younger voters. They have grown weary and frustrated about iraq and afghanistan, and they just have this attitude of you know what, to hell with it. This thinkest of going to fix itself. We had a son that served in combat in afghanistan, and david was perfectly willing to go back into combat. Just not in afghanistan. Itgh just wasnt worth him losig his friends. It wasnt worth it. There was no solution. Thats the weariness ande withdrawal from the world we are seeing out there is t simply a things. To those you wonder may be when iraq and afghanistan if everdo to get in the Rearview Mirror why the things will be in in a positioo go back and play our traditional leadership role butip right now they are sort of traumatized by these two places and they just want to get the heck out. And dont care that much about how we get out. It so interesting to me that when barack obama said he is going to set the deadline for withdrawal of troops, republicans went to defcon one. And now we saw it again at Republican Convention all the talk but how we pull the troops out. The fact is we dont know how many are there. The visibly there just as many there now asre the were in 2016. But thats just a complete reversal of form. Theres another place with a withdrawal of troops which was no impact on voters but which is especially striking as well in terms of the party change, that is the pledge to withdraw troops from germany. Whichh has great implications fr europe and for our relations with russia. That hasnt penetrated in any way and i havent even seen it mentioned. Its one of the pivotal Foreign Policy questions but alsoue gets at the trump relationship with putin that is off the radar screen and reinforces the notion things arehen these extremely important, its hard to get him to penetrate the public attention. Traditionally one of the three president ial debates is devoted more often, mostly to Foreign Policy. Given everything is so important and not really being talked serious way, that i think that would be a very revealing debate. I reallyea do. I think weve all learned a lot because we are not learning much on a daytoday basis, thats for sure. We are going to move to some questions from our viewers, if thats okay with you guys. Foreign interference and misinformation, this is an interesting question. The question is, our voters more aware and alert in 2020 2020 ao we run the risk of questioning the election outcome as a result . What you guys make of this disinformation, that question and how it is changing rapidly to gauge Public Opinion . You lost me with the tail end of that. Tell me if im not answering it right, but the question youre asking, the people are very worried about tampering in the election. They are also very worried and very aware of misinformation and disinformation. They see it as both an International Problem and a national problem. This is interesting. This is an impact on state and local races. In the last election we actually monitored the bots like montana, my home state, and may or charlie is right now, those with the top two states in terms of bots and involvement in the senate races. In fact, i often joked of montana, there were whole villages devoted to montana in moldova via devoted to montana. This information and interference or people are quite aware of. I dont know what to do better. Theyre not very good judges of it, and right now they dont hold the platforms as responsible as they should and a lot of efforts on the democratic side to get the platform, to get people told a platform more accountable. The last thing i. Will say, theres nothing like a good politician to invoke misinformation campaigns. We see this as a very bipartisan phenomenon, and way these women are treated is unimaginable. And sexualized, misinformation, this whole Child Predator thing which is a threat to their polling through the Republican Convention. So that is a huge concern for those of us who are really committed to women politicians. I think one thing thats happening, i agree with her with everything she said. Yes, democrats, people are sort of traumatized by the results of the 2016 election, but things are so edgy, so hyper partisan now. People remember, a lot of us remember 2000 election and florida, and we are half of the coach was going to collect election was stolen. The only question was which half . . We thought things were partisan thin. Heck, that was like a candy store now. I think they are holding these things together and terrified that if there is a close election, by the way, i dont think it is close but anyway, if it does get to be close, if it is disputed or disputable, they have got visions of 2000 coming back. They dont know what to think, but it scares the hell out of them. In 2000 in 2000 it was one se where you had every election lawyer in america this send, sift through every ballot inn palm beach county. Imagine that happening across a dozen states. Think about how many states do not or are just spinning up in the last couple of weeks robust mail in voting programs. The state like florida, those ballots get counted pretty quickly. A stately colorado, washington, those are almost over decades those states have built up a robust way doing this. There are other states that are throwing this together ramshackle at the last minute. You are going to see i worry, i found the folks sitting around and going does this signature match on this absentee ballot . And is being widespread. And it just feeding into a preexisting idea at the elections are some of invalid, either from the left because of foreign interference and voter suppression, or from the right because of voterth fraud. That makes me gravely concerned from november 4 looks like. We know that donald trump has said multipleld times that the chinese will send in millions of bogus ballots which has no basis in reality but its bringing the issue in a different way and in a way its a distraction from russia which are Intelligence Community has said under donald trump is actively trying to interfere in thisac election. And i would add, especially relevant to what my panelists have said, that when they interviewed in 2016 and wasnt just adjusted to elect donald trump. It was to foment the divisions that have long been there in American Society and people do that again as well. I am on a couple of task forces and working very hard on many of these issues if the good news is weve had conversations with the top people at almost every social media platform, and that includes facebook. They are very much aware of what the foreign actors, especially the russians but not exclusively the russians although some other allies are helping his area are doing. They will do their best, but following what kristen said, the super majority of republicans saye they will vote in person,a super majority of democrats say they are going to vote by mail. The results thatt we get on election eve are not going to match the final results. Some of the states that are not used to dealing with mail and some even like new york that are, but new york having one of the most incompetent election administrations that weve ever seen will take many, many weeks and we know even from some of these results that they can change dramatically from the election eve to the conclusion. California is there used to did with absentee votes but it took more than a month to settle races and dont be much misinformation about which vote to counter we mayay well have te president or some ofof his allis on election eve declaring victory, when maybe alo third of all the ballots have been counted. If we are not t prepared to deal with the disinformation coming from abroad as well as what were going to have internally, we are going to fms will make florida look like a picnic. The ironic thing is a president , the president is in a deep hole in this race, and right now its not competitive. But a focused, discipline president could climb of thiss whole, but not this one. The thing is he says and does things that are selfdefeating. A for example, by trashing vote by mail he is becoming more reliant on in person voting. The thing about it is because of the coronavirus, because of the inability to attract election workers, they are going to be a lot fewer in person polling places. He is hurting himself by trashing,im discounting the validity and the mind of republicans of that whole process. So he really is hurting himself. But you noticed last week at the Democratic Convention where they were saying vote in person if at all possible, vote early in person so youre not rely on the if youservice and only cant do that, then vote by mail so it has lots of time to come in where theyre taking a situation and use for maximum benefit and the president is undercutting his own side. To that point on voting in person we dont know what is its going to look like in terms of the pandemic on november 3. We had a question that im hoping you might be able to weigh in on in terms of what happens in october. Things look different in number of ways but there is the october surprise that as were all aware of. The question is from a viewer, with the may not believe Foreign Policy may be a factor, how could some unforeseen event move Foreign Policy to the forefront and shake up the race . Other historical examples . It better be a september surprise because by the first of october youre going to a lot of people who have already voted. So who cares . Am being facetious, but seriously, it would be interesting if i dont know anybody has this number to try to figure where would be the midpoint on the calendar where half of the votes that ultimately come in with have been cast . The first debate is on septembea big chunk will be done before this. The first ballot, North Carolina mails out their ballots on september 4. Given the intensity of emotions and feelings out there, it would be a lot of people that will vote as fast as they can just because they feel so intensely about this election. So we know what democrats fear, the socalled durham report. We have u. S. Attorney who has been empowered ivy attorney general bill barr, he is been around the country. He justwe has had multiple interviews with, for example, my kayden, with john brennan, all geared towards showing the Obamabiden Administration manipulated the election to try to kill Donald Trumps chances, the phony russia investigation, and that will also spill over into hunter biden and joe biden and ukraine veryst possibly. They fear that. The more traditional october surprise would either be a war or a treaty or something that undercut or changes thede subjet for the election. Rely possible. We have to keep in mind that up yahu would likeenh to see a surprise. We could have a confrontation with could have a confrontation with iran. We could see india and pakistan, who are always on the verge of something. We could see definitely something happen with china or elsewhere in that region. There are a lot of of things that could happen that could provide a kind of late attraction. And keep your eye on the southern border which is another place where i could very easily expect something to happen. Its been a distraction used by donald trump multiple times when he didnt like the way things were going. You mean caravan . Yeah. I said i think we might see and i really you made your point, democrats are accentuating this because democrats are trying to push for everybody to vote early. Vote just vote early, vote as soon as you get the ballots and vote as soon as you get that ballot and mow evaluating for democrats and the vaccine, whether its real or not and thats the other thing that could lend some unpredictable to this election. Thats a good point. Weve already seen some of the concerns being raised about politics going into that process. We had a question about, kristin, maybe you can take this one with independent voters. The question is, we talk all the time about independent voters and the weight of those who arent staunch supporters of one party or another. What do independent voters care about and what would tilt them one way or the other in this election. If i can jump in. Go ahead. Go for it, charlie. Youve got the trump lovers. Youve got the trump loathers and then the intweeners. The independents. Theres a between why theyre independent. Because most of them they dont follow news, they dont follow current events, they take care anything about politics, and most of them will end up not voting. So, the sliver of people right in the middle that are honest to god in the middle who will actually vote, youre talking about a really small group of people and a lot of that group. On the one hand, they loved where the economy was and they gave President Trump full credit, but at the same time a lot of them had reservations, doubts, concerns about his character, him as a person, as a leader, but was offset by the Strong Economy. You take away the Strong Economy and those doubts among this sliver of people in the middle tend to kind of cynical anyway, that kind of makes i think where the president has severely compromised his ability to go after and to be trusted by those people above anybody you know, anybody else. So thats why i just think this is a really uphill. But that group of independents, most of them arent independents, they lean one way or the other as n what are pure independents, 5 , 6 . What do you guys think . Theres an interesting study that pew research put out a few weeks ago, they have a panel and ask the same group of folks about their political views repeatedly. In december they logged who are republicans, they think theyre independents, but think theyre functionally republicans. They found between september of 2018 and july of this year, that about 9 of those folks had outright becoming democrats and another 3 said they know longer had a lean. Democrats experienced the same thing in at that period of time, 9 of democrats say they were now republicans or leaned republicans and another 3 said they had no lean. Its a small group of people, but i think thats part of why these Party Conventions weve seen the last two weeks, im actually skeptical of how much they are going to swing those independent voters because independent voters are probably not watching hour upon hour upon hour of conventions. What i think theyre trying to do is help democrats and republicans who are wobbly find the oldtime religion and come back home. You may not love the way that Donald Trump Tweets or handles himself. The way he handled covid, dont you remember why youre republican, here a mike pence and crenshaw, and people should be in their base dont really go wobbly in this direction. One of the things weve seen in the last few years, theres a growing divide between lets just look at white voters because we dont see others although hispanics are a subcategory who have not gone in the same direction as the same direction as africanamericans and asian. Trumps base is the noneducated white voters. A lot of white, College Educated voters voted for him in 2016 and voted democrats in 2018 and a lot of the struggle now is over those voters. I expect in the pew numbers a whole lot of those who were republicans who switched or who moved into a different category were from that suburban base. Why trump rather inelegantly going after suburban house wives, which isnt quite the right category he might want to aim for, but what weve seen, New York Times has an obsession with it, theyve done a million stories, all of these suburban voters who dont really like trump, they rebel against his coarseness, yet, on the other hand as we see them sort of thinking about going back to their original spot, and how you can motivate them. How many will decide theyre not going to vote because theres a dissonance there. How you motivate people back to original orientation is going to be a very, very interesting phenomenon. On the part of bai biden, its e scranton working class roots to try to lower the number that trump gets from the working class white voters. To 7030 or 6040. If Hillary Clinton had done that in pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, we would have a different results. And go ahead. Were one minute before were out of time. Interesting research, when you look at suburban voters, look at who they are, where they came from, and the ones that migrated out of the city, theyre very democratic. But the ones that used to live in smalltown Rural America for work reasons or whatever moved into the suburbs, theyre still bringing that smalltown rural point of view, and they tend to be much more republican. So its just an interesting way to look at suburban voters, i hadnt actually heard before. Its a great point and youve all made so many great points. Thank you so much. Thats unfortunately all we have time for. I could talk with you all about this for another hour, but thats not in the plan. So, thank you and we really appreciate your time. It was a fascinating discussion and im sure there will be plenty more to talk about over the next two months. Thank you. Thank you. Here is a look at our live coverage wednesday. On cspan, at 10 a. M. Eastern, dr. Francis collins from the National Institutes of health join suburban general jerome adams for a Senate HealthCommittee Hearing on a coronavirus vaccine. 3 p. M. , the Senate Intelligence committee looks at policy for declassifying government documents and possible changes to the process, with a representative from the office of the director of national intelligence. On cspan2, the senate is back at 10 a. M. To consider judicial nominations. And on cspan 3, a house transportation subcommittee looks at amtraks response to the coronavirus pandemic, with the companys president and ceo. That gets underway at 11 a. M. Eastern. There are several events streaming live wednesday on our website, at 1 15 p. M. Eastern, our campaign 2020 coverage continues with former vicepresident joe biden speaking in warren, michigan. Then at 3 p. M. , vicepresident pence attendance a workers for trump event in freedom, pennsylvania. And at 3 15 p. M. , the Senate VeteransAffairs Committee holds a hearing on Suicide Prevention and providing Mental Healthcare for veterans, again, thats live at cspan. Org. Tuesday in the senate, Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell gave an update on the latest Coronavirus Relief legislation. Then reaction by democratic leader chuck schumer. The senate is expected to vote on the republican coronavirus bill on thursday. Our nation has spent the last six months fighting the medical, economic, and social effects of this pandemic. The senates historic rescue package from back in march, the cares act, has gone a long way to help American Workers and families endure these incredible challenges. It delivered the extra federal Unemployment Benefits that helped laid off workers make ends meet. It created a Paycheck Protection Program which has helped millions of Small Businesses keep the lights on, and keep employees on payroll. It sent resources