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Welcome to Surfing Political Waves, a short series podcast hosted by the Pepperdine School

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of Public Policy.

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This is Dan Schnurr.

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And I'm Joel Fox.

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And we're bringing you California election insight and analysis as the country ramps

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up to one of the most historic presidential races in memory, as well as other fascinating

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campaigns up and down the ballot.

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Well Dan, it's been an interesting election and this is going to be our final podcast.

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We've had some great guests talking about what might happen.

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Now you and I are going to talk about what did happen as we surf political waves here

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at Pepperdine University.

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And I think that it was as every four years we're told it's the most important election

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in the history of the country.

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And I suppose every four years it is, at least for that moment.

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Let me ask you a question about did someone win this election for the presidency or did

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someone lose this election?

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As you might suspect, Joel, it's some of both.

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But to take a step back, first of all, I'm very glad that you and I get to do this last

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episode together because I found that making predictions after an election is a lot more

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fun than making predictions before one.

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I hear you're 100 percent actually when you do that.

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And what we should admit to our listeners is in our last class at the public policy

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school before the election, we warned the students that it was clearly going to be a

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very close election and that it could be days, if not weeks, for all the votes to be counted

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and how important it was not to overreact to the amount of time it took.

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Well, of course, we knew by the following morning who won that election.

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So once again, we showed us that we showed everyone that we're not nearly as smart as

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we thought we were.

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Well, at least there are a few other elections that haven't been resolved yet as we record

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this.

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Fair enough.

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But to answer your question, there's no question that while Kamala Harris lost this election

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and she and her campaign made several mistakes along the way, perhaps the greatest mistake

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may have been Joe Biden's decision or the timing of Biden's decision to step away from

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the race at such a late date.

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But give Trump and his team credit as well.

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If Harris lost his campaign, Donald Trump won it.

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And we'll be looking back for many years at some of the strategic gambles that the Trump

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campaign took that paid off.

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And they deserve credit for that.

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I think that's right.

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And a lot of people were looking at the media and the constant attacks on Donald Trump and

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felt that he would not stand a chance.

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What do you think he did to get around the negative reporting about his campaign that

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made him successful?

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Well, what we should do, even though we don't have an immense amount of time today to go

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into the real depth about it, I'd suggest to you that there are two factors, one in

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the primary and one in the general election.

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And Joel, it's worth acknowledging that if we'd been doing this podcast two years ago

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today, just after the 2022 midterm elections, we would have been talking about the inevitable

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presidential campaign between Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis.

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And it's easy to forget now that after the midterms, DeSantis was not just ahead of Trump

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in many Republican primary polls, but appeared to be a potentially prohibitive favorite.

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And so I feel like the first thing that broke in Trump's favor, which may have seemed somewhat

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counterintuitive at the time, is that the various legal charges levied against him,

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the four lawsuits, the 90 plus felony charges and all the rest of it may have served to

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galvanize Trump's base of support and to unify the Republican Party against him.

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In other words, I don't know if Trump could have been the nominee if he hadn't been the

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subject of those lawsuits.

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I think the lawsuits went a long way in enforcing or supporting his base.

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But we've been reading a lot lately, Dan, that Trump went beyond his base.

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He went and got Latino voters and black voters, mostly young men that were anticipated that

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if they voted at all, which was a question, that they would vote for Kamala Harris.

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So I think that's credit to his campaign for being successful on that front.

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How much of a surprise do you think that was?

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Well, as I mentioned a moment ago, the Trump campaign took a number of very significant

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gambles in this race.

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And I don't think any gamble was riskier than devoting so much time and effort to turning

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out young working class male voters of all races and ethnicities, young white men, young

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black men, young Latino men who did not go to college, who generally vote in very, very

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small numbers.

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The Trump campaign decided that they worked hard enough to communicate with those voters.

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They could turn them out in large numbers and the gamble paid off.

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What do you think the top issues were that affected this election?

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We know what the pollsters told us, but looking at it now that the elections passed, would

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you say that the economy was the top issue?

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But what else might be really important in turning out the voters for Donald Trump?

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Well, I do agree with the pollsters on this one.

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The economy we knew all along was going to be the most impactful issue in the campaign.

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I don't think we understood to the degree that it would impact the electorate.

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And once again, going back to those young men, those young men without a college education,

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who in many ways turned the race in Trump's direction, their lack of economic opportunities

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and their frustration at not having those opportunities, I believe motivated their participation

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in the race.

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I'll offer you another statistic, Joel, or I'll offer you a statistic, Joel, that underscores

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the importance of the economy in this campaign.

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In one of the exit polls I saw, they asked voters broken down not by gender or by race

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or by income, but by their position on the issue of abortion.

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They asked them who they voted for.

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And roughly 60%, slightly more of the voters in America say that they support abortion

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either all the time or much of the time.

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Those voters, 60 plus percent of the electorate, they split right down the middle, 49% for

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Harris, 49% for Trump.

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And what that means is roughly one quarter of the pro-choice voters in this country voted

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for Donald Trump despite their disagreement with him on that issue.

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That issue was going to be the...

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Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Joel.

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I was going to say, so it wasn't a major issue in turning this election.

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It was an important issue, but it wasn't the major issue to turn this election that Harris

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thought it was going to be.

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That's exactly right.

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Just as the Trump campaign pinned their campaign on inflation and on the border, Harris pinned

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her campaign on abortion rights.

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And she did turn out an awful lot of voters who supported legal abortions in this country.

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But a lot of those voters who she turned out, even though they agreed with her on that issue,

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voted for Trump on other policy matters.

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So let me ask you maybe a little bit of an oddball one, but as you know, the Trump campaign

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spent millions of dollars toward the end of the election on the transgender issue.

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And some theories are that it helped affirm the vote of those young minority voters.

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But I'm also wondering, and I'd like to hear what you say about this, Dan, I'm wondering

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if those ads affected suburban women, because many people were shocked that suburban women

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actually voted for Donald Trump.

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And I wondered if they also were nudged by those ads about concerns for their children.

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Any thought on that?

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Yeah, I think first of all, I think it's important not necessarily to separate out young nonwhite

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men from the broader young men population.

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The set a moment ago, young men who didn't attend college, regardless of their racial

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or ethnic background, reacted in very, very similar ways to Trump's campaign.

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And while it's more historically notable how well Trump did with young black and Latino

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men, this is a much broader effort on his part.

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But your broader point is the right one, Joel.

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The transgender issue, both campaigns say, moved in immense amount of votes.

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And while it did motivate many of these young men to vote, I do think just an instinct that

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your supposition is right, that not only did it motivate these young men, but it moved

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some more traditional swing voters as well.

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I don't think the Harris campaign understood how much the issue is hurting them.

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It's been reported that Bill Clinton was trying to warn them that they needed to respond on

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it.

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They didn't see the need to respond and they paid the price.

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Yeah, I heard that.

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I heard that Bill Clinton was making that effort.

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Do you think that the polling was fairly close to results or not?

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There was the famous Iowa poll a few days before the election that turned out to not

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be correct.

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What about polling in general?

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Everybody watches the polling for the horse race aspect of presidential election.

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How is your feeling about how the pollsters did this time around?

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I think we give the pollsters a bad rap.

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What almost every reputable poll says when they released their results over the course

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of a campaign is they make it very clear that there is a margin of error built in.

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The polling is not precise and they always say there's going to be a four or 5% margin

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from their poll.

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To be fair, if you look at the seven swing states, six of the seven, Trump won all seven

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of course, but six of the seven fell within the margin of error.

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The nature of media coverage and the nature of just human behavior is we want more precision

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than they can give us.

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But if you look back at that margin of error in six of the seven states with the exception

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of Arizona where Trump appears one by six, six and a half points, the polls were accurate.

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We just didn't want to believe them because we saw those numbers so close.

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You said at the beginning of our conversation that you make predictions following the election

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so you can be 100% correct.

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Wise strategy, my friend, wise strategy.

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But let's take some conjecture where we can't prove it one way or another.

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And let me start with this one.

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If Joe Biden had left the scene earlier and Kamala Harris had more time to run her campaign,

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you think it would have made a difference?

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I'm going to hedge my answer on that, Joel.

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I think it could have made a difference.

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Most presidential campaigns run for a year, year and a half, two years or more.

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That's a lot of time for a candidate to get to know the voters and for the voters to get

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to know the candidate, particularly through a competitive primary process.

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Harris, and I'm not making excuses for her, she had 107 days.

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That's not a lot of time to get known.

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So did that make it impossible?

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Of course not.

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But it made her challenge more difficult.

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And I feel like the type of candidate necessary to win on such a compressed timeline would

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have needed to be a candidate who is much less innately cautious than Kamala Harris's.

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Remember, she didn't do mainstream media interviews for her first month.

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She was very, very careful in what she said and how she said it.

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If you're going to get to know people in that short a time period, you got to be more aggressive.

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And while that caution has served her well in other parts of her career, it was exactly

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the last thing you'd want in a candidate under these circumstances.

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Yeah, I think she was way too cautious.

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And I think it was quite proven, focused when she couldn't answer the question about what

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would separate her from Joe Biden.

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I think there was a telling event in this election season.

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I asked a group that I spoke to the other night if they felt had Harris been elected,

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would she have followed the trend of Biden's term and officer who she would have struck

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out in her own direction?

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And Harris supporters in that group split almost evenly, which to me is a very damning

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testament that she, Harris, did not articulate.

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Not only did she not separate herself from Biden, she didn't make it clear whether she

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wanted to separate herself from Biden or not, and left voters somewhat confused and somewhat

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muddled.

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What do you think of the size of Trump's victory in the fact that Republicans have the Senate

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and very well may have the House?

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A surprise or not?

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For me, it was a surprise.

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I don't think I would have been surprised if either Trump or Harris had won in a close

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race.

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I think the size of the outcome, I have to admit, is not something I was expecting.

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If that does end up being the case, and there's still a lot of votes being counted, if Republicans

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maintain control of the House, and if Trump does maintain this level of advantage over

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Harris in the polls, then this will probably be the most significant rightward movement

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we've seen in our country since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.

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I was just going to say this.

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There was a headline in the Los Angeles Daily News as we speak on today's paper asking if

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LA County moved to the right a little bit.

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The answer was no, not really, but some signs supporting the district attorney who was kicking

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out, I should say, the district attorney who was very progressive, and supporting the initiative

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for making it tougher on criminals.

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That rightward swing that you're talking about nationally even affected a liberal location

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like Los Angeles County.

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Well, let's say that Los Angeles County has gone from indigo to very deep blue.

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How about that?

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Yeah.

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I mean, I have to tell you, I was quoted in that article that I was mentioning, and I

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said, look, it's an urban center, it's liberal, and it's not going to change for now.

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I just said never say never.

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It won't be next week.

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It probably won't be when you and I are around, but it could happen because things change,

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circumstances change, policies change.

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But yeah, I don't think California is going to change much.

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As we know, Governor Newsom is already in Washington trying to get support for what

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he calls leading the resistance.

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And after that, he'll probably be in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

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Wouldn't be surprised.

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Don't get me wrong.

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You know, Gavin Newsom would much rather have Kamala Harris be president than Donald Trump.

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But for his own political future, waiting another eight years is not something he would

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have enjoyed doing very much.

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Now he gets to run right away.

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Now I'm going to ask you a prognostication question, which is before the election.

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As we sit here today, obviously things will change.

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Would another California liberal be able to grab the nomination of their party?

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I think so.

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I don't think that Democratic primary voters are going to make their decision based on

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the fact that Harris and Newsom come from the same state.

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That's not to say I think that Newsom will be the Democratic nominee for president in

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four years.

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I would just say sort of obviously he's got a much better chance of being the Democratic

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nominee in 2020 than he would have Kamala Harris had won the election last week.

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Yeah.

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And of course, we don't know what's going to be going on on the Republican side since

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Donald Trump will be termed out.

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So that'll be an interesting battle.

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Boy, I will say this, Joel, and I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on it also.

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I feel like the battle to succeed Trump in 2028 between what we'll call a pro-Trump Trump

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wing of the party and a pre-Trump, more traditional conservative wing of the party, I think that

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fight is going to make the Reagan, excuse me, the Goldwater Rockefeller fight look like

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small ball by comparison.

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And whether it's Nikki Haley and JD Vance or two other people we're not thinking about

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today, to me, those two factions, both within the Republican Party, are going to have it

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out in a big, big way.

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Don't you think?

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I think so too.

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And I think that's great insight.

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But my question for you as we sit here today, and I understand we're within the shadow of

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Trump surprising both you and me and the size of the victory he had, is how strong is that

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traditional part of the Republican Party?

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Can they rally and raise a solid effort to try to take it away from the pro-Trump wing

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of the party?

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Well, I wish I don't know the answer to that.

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Right now as we talk, they're weakened.

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Well, let's also agree that there's a lot of pre-Trump, I'll use the term pre-Trump

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Republicans, we could call them Reagan, Bush, Romney Republicans, if you like.

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But a more traditional brand of conservative Republican, to a large degree, has fallen

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in line with Trump.

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And that doesn't necessarily mean that they would fall in line with JD Vance or Donald

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Trump Jr.

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If you decide that the no-one Trump wing of the party, or the pre-Trump wing of the party,

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is only those never Trumpers who stood up in the last few years, Liz Cheney and John

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Kasich and so on, then you're right.

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That faction can't win.

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But I suspect, and I'd be you to hear your thoughts, that there's a lot of Trump supporters

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who are more comfortable with him than with Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, but would prefer

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a more traditional brand of conservatism.

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I think that's true.

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I think there are a lot of voters who, to use the cliche, held their nose and voted

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for Trump, probably on policy grounds.

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But he's got a very strong personality.

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It came across, it's come across for the last eight years.

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The next Republican candidate may not be able to capture all of the Republican Party voters

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who ended up voting for Trump.

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And it could be a very interesting contested debate.

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And of course, when you have an open seat and you have a contest for both the Republican

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nomination and the Democratic nomination, it's going to be a good time for political

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commentators like you, Dan.

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Well, when you say a very spirited fight, I will say very, very brutal one.

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But either way, I feel like the Republican Party is facing a great internal debate over

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its next steps forward, which to me is fine.

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That's what parties should do from time to time.

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And I suspect the Democrats will be going through a very similar, although perhaps more

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urgent process along the same lines.

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So let me throw the ball over to you.

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I've been asking you questions.

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What topics do you think we should cover as we wrap up a look at this election 2024?

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Well, my own feeling is that economic.

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If you go back to the famous Ronald Reagan three legged stool of Republican politics,

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economic conservatives, foreign policy, national security conservatives and social conservatives,

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to me, those are the three issue blocks that will define the party going forward.

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Which of the three, Joel, do you think will be the most important one as the Republican

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Party makes its makes its way forward?

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Well, I have believed and we've talked about this, that it's the economy's stupid line

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that always seems to be most prominent with domestic elections.

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However, maybe this is my personal point of view.

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I think the foreign affairs issue could become very much highlighted depending on what happens

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overseas and how Trump handles the wars that are going on, the relationships with China

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and with Russia and with Iran.

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And that could start to overshadow depending on how the economy works.

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But I'll stick to the economy as the general answer, but keep my eye very warily on foreign

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affairs.

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Well, I agree with that.

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At the risk of undermining ourselves completely.

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That added to that, you really can't overlook the importance of social and cultural issues

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in the Republican Party.

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And social conservatives are often the most animated in the most involved party volunteers

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and activists.

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And in recent years, I'd say that the party's economic conservatives, while always a critically

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and critical and vital piece of the Republican electorate, may not be as influential as social

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conservatives.

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And both clearly at this point in our history, we'll see if these changes, as you said, carry

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a lot more weight than foreign policy and national security conservatives, which some

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of us find less than ideal.

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Yeah, I agree.

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I agree with that.

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What else you got there, Dan, as far as your views on the election?

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Well, to me, we talked briefly about the young men who turned out for Donald Trump.

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And to me, what's really remarkable, and I'd be eager to hear your thoughts, Joel, because

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this is an economic argument, is just like Trump in 2016 was so successful at capturing

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the frustration and sometimes resentment of a large number of working class voters who

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felt that this new technology based economy is leaving them behind.

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I feel like Trump did something almost identical in this election, saying to these young men,

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look, there's a place for you in this economy, too, even if it doesn't seem like it right

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now.

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And Trump can be very combative and very confrontational.

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That certainly makes up much of his public persona.

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But that's a very aspirational message, don't you think?

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Absolutely aspirational.

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And I think he backs it up with some of his policy arguments, where he says, I'm going

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to set tariffs, so we're going to bring jobs home to the United States, and there'll be

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jobs for you, for this class of voters that you just described.

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And I think he was very effective in doing that.

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We will have to do a separate podcast at some point, if the powers that be will allow it,

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to talk about the advisability of high tariffs and isolationism.

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I'm still, I guess, a 20th century free trader who sees that as the key to economic success.

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Both in the US and around the world.

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But I'm also aware enough to know that that opinion, while it once reflected a majority

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in our country, now reflects a very quickly shrinking minority in both the Republican

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and Democratic parties.

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Well, don't get me wrong.

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I'm not endorsing the tariff idea.

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I just thought that Trump's use of the tariff spoke to some of the young men that he, and

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in his argument, that that would produce more work here in the United States, and they would

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have more opportunity.

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And I recognize that even out of the public policy school at Pepperdine, I'm at least

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a political, you're a policy head.

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So I'll stick to what I know best.

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I'll stick to campaigns.

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But given my ventures off into the policy world, I do believe that a Reagan-era internationalism

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is in the country's best interests, and I don't know that either party's making that

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as much of a priority as they need to right now.

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Well, that's important to me too.

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So you and I are in the same sinking boat.

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The other thing that struck me about this election, Joel, is how many people didn't

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turn out to vote.

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Trump's support, Trump's overall vote levels, when all is said and done, will end up being

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slightly higher than he's gained in his past elections.

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Harris's vote totals are going to be much, much lower than Biden's, particularly in very

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traditional democratic constituencies.

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So Trump did win some voters over, but you asked at the very beginning of this, did someone

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win or did someone lose?

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We've talked a pretty good amount about what Trump did to win, but whatever Harris did

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or didn't do, it drove an awful lot of loyal democratic voters, not to Trump, but to the

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couch.

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Yeah, I don't think she sold herself.

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I don't think she sold her policies, and I don't think she sold herself as a potential

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leader of the United States.

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And I think that kept people home who did not want to vote for Trump and decided that

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Harris was not a good alternative.

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Right, as we learned a long time ago in campaigns, you need to do two things to win an election.

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You need to motivate your base, and you need to reach out beyond that base.

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If Trump had lost, he probably would have been criticized for spending so much time

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motivating his base, he didn't reach out enough to swing voters.

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But Harris, in her defeat, it's entirely possible she may have spent so much time trying to

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reach beyond her base, she forgot to motivate loyal Democrats.

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So Dan, we're going to wrap our podcast up.

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And I wanted to throw a final opportunity to you.

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I don't have a specific question, but anything that struck you, particularly you'd like

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to comment on, any anecdote from the campaign or anything that in your observation was unusual

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that you'd like to talk about as we close up here?

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Hmm, anything unusual?

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You mean, aside from the two oldest candidates in history running against each other, one

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of them dropping out, the other one almost being assassinated.

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No, I can't think of anything unusual.

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Very typical campaign, wasn't it?

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You know what was unusual about it to me, and I say this in the best sense, is you and

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I got to spend this campaign with a bunch of incredibly smart young people at Pepperdine's

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Graduate School of Public Policy.

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And I don't mean to sound too shameless in my plug for this school, but getting to listen

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to these really, really intelligent and insightful young women and young men talk about what

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they were seeing from a different perspective and a different set of life experiences than

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us two old guys, that to me was the most unusual and the most rewarding part of the campaign.

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That's a terrific note to end on.

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So Dan, we enjoy this whole semester of podcasts on surfing political waves here at Pepperdine.

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Thanks so much for your great participation today and what you've done in the past with

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the class and with the other guests that we've had.

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So we'll be signing off now and thanks again.

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Thank you, Joel.

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And thanks to everybody at Pepperdine for helping us through this podcast series.

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We really appreciate it.

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Thanks for joining us for this conversation on surfing political waves.

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00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:02,560
For more engaging dialogue on politics and policy, visit Pepperdine School of Public

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Policy on YouTube at Pepperdine SPP.

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For upcoming community events, go to publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu.