Pod Save America - “Covid, covid, covid.”

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

The pandemic dominates the final week of the election, the dueling candidate schedules reflect their most likely paths to 270, and what the early vote can and can’t tell us about the election. Then Wisconsin organizer Dakota Hall talks to Tommy about how Democrats can turn out as many young voters as possible.

We can't put on things we can't verify. Leslie, they spied on my campaign. Well, we can't verify that. It's been totally verified. No. No, your first question was, this is going to be tough questions. Why? You don't ask Joe Biden.

I saw your interview with Joe, the interview with Joe Biden. I never did a Joe Biden interview. It was a joke. I think we have enough of an interview here, Hope. Okay, that's enough. Let's go. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. That was a big whiny baby talking to Leslie Stahl.

That's the opening clip that you heard. You guys see that 60 Minutes interview? That's how I wanted to close. Yeah. Closing strong. So 60 Minutes, you can download it as a podcast and then you can listen to it at one point three speed, which is what I would recommend for that. But you know what? You miss love it. You missed seeing him grit his teeth and clench his jaw while she asked him the question. Anyway, on today's pod, Tommy talks to Wisconsin organizer Dakota Hall about how Democrats can turn out as many young voters as possible. Before that, we'll talk about how the COVID-19 pandemic is dominating the final week of the campaign, what the candidates' schedules can tell us about their closing strategies, and what, if anything, we can learn from the record-breaking early vote.

Lovett, how was the show this weekend? Great, Lovett, or leave it. Barnburner, second-to-last show. Alex Wagner and Guy Branum did OK Stop on the debate. Ira Madison for the monologue. We talked to Teresa Greenfield, who quizzed me on Iowa facts. I talked to Olivia Troy. Do you know the price of corn?

No, I don't know the price of corn. I'm a East Coast. Yeah. I mean, it depends. If they cut it off of the cob before they serve it, I kind of get a sense of the price. And then I talked to Olivia Troy about working with Mike Pence and I tried to get her to criticize Mike Pence, but I kind of failed and talked to a young person trying to turn out the vote on TikTok for Biden.

It was a great show. Hey, Barry, lead love it. I didn't know you were canceling love it or leave it after a couple more shows. Second to last show till the till the election. Listen, first of all. What would I do on Saturday? I mean, look, I had to keep this going till I can get the applause back.

I obviously missed the applause. And I think 2021 is the year I can have applause again. Damn right. Make America applaud again. Travis' hands are calloused and bruised at this point just from doing this on Zoom. But it helps. No comment.

If you didn't catch it already uh also check out uh love it and dan's interview with joe biden we finally got joe we got him a special bonus episode pod save america it was very nice great job to hear a good human being geeking out and getting excited about policy when he told you that he was going to be pushing the sunrise movement and not the other way around, I was like, all right, man. There we go, Joe. He's ready to go. He's ready to go.

He wants to be president. And to the rest of the Biden family who listens to the pod, who we didn't know. So these grandkids, maybe Ashley, like, welcome, welcome to the pod. Love to have you. Just forget all that shit in the primary. We were just kidding.

No, what primary? Yeah, what primary? We've been riding with Biden from the beginning. We were just kidding. No, what primary? Yeah. We've been riding with Biden from the beginning. All right. Finally, if you've already voted, fantastic. But your job is not over. You have about a week to make sure everyone else votes, too. We will not just win this thing with good early vote numbers. We're going to talk about that later. It is absolutely critical we get people to make a plan to vote and turn in their ballots. Ideally this week.

Don't wait till election day. If you have your ballot, mail in your fucking ballot. If not, figure out a plan to go to a Dropbox, drop it off in person. Or if you really want to vote on election day, make a plan to do that, but make a plan

and make sure everyone else in your life makes a plan as well. You can go to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer to find all your options to get involved between now and election day. We need people to call to remind people to turn in their ballots, to make a plan, still trying to persuade some undecided voters. There are a lot of calls to make. There are a lot of voters to contact. We really all need the help. So go to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer to get involved.

You, a lot of people have heard that again and again and said they were going to do it. This week, one hour, make some calls. You haven't done it yet. There you go. Who's he talking to? Exactly. Exactly. All right. With nine days left to vote, here's the headline in today's Washington Post. White House signals defeat in pandemic as coronavirus outbreak roils Pence's office. Oh, my God. It's not funny because the pandemic is awful, but that headline is funny in the last week of the election for Donald Trump.

That's right. After five of the vice president's aides tested positive for COVID-19, the White House chief of staff told Jake Tapper, quote, We are not going to control the pandemic, which is now beginning its third wave. On Friday, the U.S. hit an all time record for daily cases as hospitalizations jumped in at least 38 states, including 14 states in the Midwest and Mountain West that have reported a record number of COVID patients in the last week. that have reported a record number of COVID patients in the last week. Love it. Before we get into the political implications of all this,

why is this third wave potentially more dangerous than the previous two? Well, it seems like it's on track to be bigger. It's, this has been the fear the whole time, right? The whole fear, you know, when Trump was saying it'll be gone by summer, the other half of that was there was a great worry about what happens when America has a winter during this pandemic. We know when the flu season is. It comes in the winter. Why? Because people go in their homes. They're inside. There's poor ventilation. So the fear was that if we had not done enough to contain the virus by the time we got out of summer,

we'd be in a position for the worst wave yet, that the second wave was bigger than the first wave and that the third wave would be bigger than the second wave. Europe is a bit ahead of us. And I see some conservatives and others taking cold comfort and somehow explaining that with a kind of fatalism that if Europe's cases are going up, that must mean this would have happened anywhere. But what we know is that Europe did a very good job of getting this contained when we were seeing our second wave. And the fact that they're going up so dramatically and we're going up right behind them so dramatically tells you

that we could be in for an incredibly scary and tragic winter, which by all accounts, given how little national leadership there is. And when we know that a lot of where this outbreak is growing the fastest is in red states, Midwestern states, states controlled by Republicans. Yeah, and everywhere. It's probably the first wave that is, I mean, the Midwest and Mountain West are really sort of where it's concentrated, but it's like, you know, 40 something states have had rising cases. So it's very scary that it's all over the country right now. And again, that it seems to be just beginning. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff who reportedly Trump wants to fire,

went on CNN Sunday to let America know that the White House has all but given up on COVID. Here's a clip. We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation. Why aren't we going to get rid of it? Because it is a contagious virus, just like the flu. But why not make efforts to contain it? Well, we are making efforts to contain it. By running all over the country, not wearing a mask.

Tommy, how good is Mark Meadows at his job? And and what could a real White House be doing right now to contain the virus? Yeah, we're not going to control the pandemic. We've noticed, Mark. This morning, I was thinking about Mark Meadows and how he ranks among former White House chiefs of staff. And I was ready to be very harsh to Mr. Meadows. But then I thought about Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and H.R.

Haldeman having the job. And suddenly he looks a little bit better. But I do think he stands out for being uniquely stupid and seemingly going rogue all the time. I mean, how do you otherwise explain him both trying to cover up Mike Pence's COVID diagnosis, which we learned happened this weekend, and then also telling the press corps that Trump's case was worse than his own doctors had just said during a briefing at Walter Reed. And the honest answer is no Trump White House chief of staff right now could do much to contain the virus when his boss doesn't really want him to. Trump doesn't want to contain it. He wants to throw the problem to the states and lie to people that things are going to be OK.

But if Biden was president and the VP got COVID, the White House chief of staff would be doing contact tracing or at least having someone do it. They'd be quarantining people who were exposed. And most importantly, they'd be working with Congress to pass a coronavirus relief bill that included an actual plan to deal with this. But instead, Mark Meadows is arguing that Mike Pence is, quote, essential personnel, which is essential is a word that has never been used to describe Mike Pence, not in the White House, not as a governor. And they're sending him back out onto the campaign trail to continue to just spread his gift of this virus all across the country. So, yes, Mark Meadows, not the best White House chief of staff in history, maybe not the worst. Love it. The CDC says if you've been exposed, you should quarantine for 14 days unless you're a critical infrastructure worker.

That was those are the specific words in the CDC guidelines. Is Mike Pence holding maskless super spreader rallies? Is that critical infrastructure worker. Those are the specific words in the CDC guidelines. Is Mike Pence holding maskless super spreader rallies? Is that critical infrastructure work? It isn't, right? Doing a PR. It's a PR campaign. A campaign is a PR campaign.

He's doing PR events. No. Famously, vice presidents have told great jokes about it since our founding that their job is the least essential. The only requirements of him

are to be alive, be alive, and break ties in the Senate. That's why he exists. You know. And he's not doing a good job with the first one. No, he's not. He's not. So he should obviously be. Look, you know, everybody on the set, that 60 Minutes interview, a lot of the focus has been on Trump walking out. Fine. I understand why that is. But there's actually, I think, a pretty chilling moment right after when Mike Pence sits down. It tells you something, I think, about how we got into this mess. Basically, you know, Leslie Stahl says to Mike Pence, do you think Fauci's an idiot? And he's like, oh, well, the president's got broad shoulders, you know? And then he says,

you know, she says to Mike Pence, what should families do about Thanksgiving? And he says, oh, Thanksgiving, it's a wonderful time of the year, and I'm looking forward to spending it with my family. And she's like, well, what should people do? What's safe? What's not safe? And he's like, well, each family needs to make a decision on their own about what the right thing to do is. But I know that it's a wonderful time of year. You know, there have been incredible policy failures on coronavirus.

We all know that. Incredible failures to invoke presidential authority, to make PPE, to contain the spread of the virus. But their failure to be moral leaders throughout this? Pence is just as guilty of that as Donald Trump. He may say it with a kind of smoother tone of voice, but Mike Pence should be isolating himself and he should address the country and say, because the virus is uncontained, this is the right thing to do so that

we can have holidays so that kids can go back to school so that seniors who are abandoning Trump in droves because they see just how reckless these people have been and how much they have failed to contain the virus to let them go back to their lives and see their grandchildren so that they could go and be part of their families this Christmas. You know, fundamentally, like what these people are doing, you know, they're stealing Christmas from people. That's what they're doing because Melania hates it. And it was her plan from the beginning. I mean, it doesn't it just we don't have to have this dark winter. Right. Right. We keep glossing over because like the Trump administration is so fucking incompetent, like what we could

actually be doing here. Scott Gottlieb, who was the FDA commissioner for a time under Trump, wrote an op-ed that said, he said, it's time for a national mask mandate. Anthony Fauci has been saying this too. He's like, tell all the states to do it. And if they don't do it, then we have to mandate it. You have a national mask mandate. Tommy talked about sort of passing a COVID relief bill, which is absolutely right. I think at this point, we've realized that for bars, for indoor restaurants, we need to like have a bailout for bars and indoor restaurants until we have treatments and vaccines because like we should almost never be opening bars and indoor restaurants while the virus is raging. More resources for rapid testing, other safety

precautions at businesses and schools, right? Like I saw Andy Slavitt, who worked in the Obama White House with us on health care issues, talk about how like two different colleges, the difference between an outbreak at one and not having an outbreak at another was at one college, they test everyone in the college every week, all the time. There's access to free rapid testing, and they just haven't had bad outbreaks. At the other one, they don't do testing, horrible outbreak, right? So their free rapid testing exists. It's just not all over the country yet. Like these are the things that the Trump administration could have done and could still do to prevent a horrible, horrible. Yeah. And so we're opting for a hot zone winter in honor of Megan Thee Stallion. Just just they just they've given up. It's not a joke to say Mark Meadows is waving the white flag.

That's exactly what. And, you know,? Just one other small point about this too. It's control is not a switch you flip on and off, right? You're right. This virus is hard to contain, right? There will be outbreaks. There will be states that get worse. Like even if you do everything right, Europe, some places have done everything right. And it's really hard, but doing enough, doing better, saves thousands of lives. Step one is trying. Untold pain. Try, try. Of course we should be trying. So let's talk about how this is playing out on the campaign trail. Joe Biden gave a major speech on Friday about his COVID plan and spent the weekend calling out Trump's mismanagement of

the pandemic while Trump spent the weekend complaining that the virus is getting too much media coverage. Here's some clips. It was as if he decided to go on offense for the virus, holding rallies with no masks, no social distancing, where people contracted the virus, inviting the virus into the White House, hosting what Dr. Fauci called super spreader event, endangering more people's lives by telling the public, don't worry, don't worry about the disease. Don't let it dominate you. How many people from Kristen in Arizona will end up suffering because their loved one listened to the president? And we're rounding the turn. You know, all they want to talk about is COVID. By the way,

on November 4th, you won't be hearing so much about it. COVID, COVID, COVID. COVID. Today, let's talk about COVID all over Europe, right? Europe, spike, they don't talk about that. Now we're rounding the turn and we have the vaccines coming out very soon. COVID, COVID, COVID. Complaining that Americans who die from COVID are getting too much media coverage doesn't sound like the most compelling closing argument, does it, Tommy? No, it doesn't. I mean, also, like, he is directly contributing to the outbreaks. USA Today had an interesting piece that traced a number of local outbreaks, specifically back to Trump campaign events. So they're not just harming us with their message. They're harming us with their events. But for me, this is much bigger than their COVID handling. It is about Trump

leaning way too hard into the Marsha, Marsha, Marsha joke construction, because I don't think he's referencing the 1995 Brady Bunch movie. I think he is talking about the original show from the late 60s and 70s, which I'm sorry, that's just not going to land. You know, he did it the debate too. He did the Russia, Russia, Russia thing. No one knows what he's talking about. Like it's 2020, man. You're like a bitter old asshole Republican white guy from New York. At least quote Seinfeld, right? Like update this, this repertoire a little bit. Do you think he even knows that he's quoting the Brady Bunch? He has to. Do to think he's ever watched right yeah maybe i guess i thought he was more

of like an archie bunker well yeah in spirit certainly he is archie bunker as our president i mean i just like hearing that in the 60 minutes interview like trump you know and we've talked about this before but like in 2016 he was at least pretending to fight on behalf of his supporters, on behalf of people, against liberals, the elite, immigrants, the media, whatever it may be. It's now just he's only fighting for Trump. He only cares about himself. He's mad that there is coverage of a pandemic that's killing Americans because it's taking away from positive coverage for Donald Trump. That's where we are. He's pissed that the virus is

stealing his coverage. That's where we are right now. Yeah, no, I mean, look, I think, you know, the virus got like a pretty high powered PR firm and has been planning a lot of like really negative stories. And like, this is like a dirty game, right? Like we've seen this time time and again these kind of ugly pr campaigns run by some of the worst elements in our society like like you know covid or you know others you know it's really sad he was and it wasn't just that rally he's tweeting this morning he's got five six tweets this morning covid covid covid it's all covid all the time it's like and this this whole, a lot of the cases, it's because we're doing more testing and blah, blah, blah. No, no, there's fucking hospitalizations rising

in all these states. Like, like the situation is dire in El Paso, in Wisconsin, in South Dakota. Again, a lot of his supporters, right? Which also goes to show you, he doesn't give a shit about his own supporters. He doesn't give a shit about all of us for sure. But he doesn't even care about his own supporters that are going to these rallies. And again, they're not just ignoring the pandemic at the White House now. They are actively spreading it. They are actively spreading the virus themselves. Yeah. It's also like I don't know who this more testing argument is working on anymore. Right. Like these numbers like, you know, I just don't know who this is for. It's for his base, for people that aren't seeing the rest of the news around Trump,

they're not seeing clips of him calling Anthony Fauci disaster. They're just not seeing the full scope of what he's been saying day to day. But yeah, I mean, look, testing has been going up incrementally from the beginning. It should have gone up much faster, much sooner. But we're seeing massive spikes. It's not from testing. It's just a lie. And I don't think anyone believes it. It's just a sad reality that what he's doing is not just terrible for the country. It's not from testing. It's just a lie. And I don't think anyone believes it. It's just a sad reality that what he's doing is not just terrible for the country. It's not even good politics. It's hurting everybody, including himself. One last question on Biden, Tommy, because we've talked about this. He's been criticized not just by Trump and the Republicans, but by a lot of pundits for not campaigning enough, not doing door-to-door organizing,

encouraging mail-in voting, even though it comes with greater risk of rejected ballots. How do you think those criticisms look now, a week out from the campaign? I mean, if Biden loses, then I'll be fully on board with all those criticisms. And if he wins, I'll be slapping those people around on his behalf. The one that really galls me is the criticisms of vote by mail as if we're just talking about a strategy. We're talking about creating a way for people to vote, especially seniors, people who have pre-existing conditions, where they won't die. Critiquing that as some sort of political who's up, who's down thing really pisses me off.

I do think some of the days that people were giving Biden shit early on for calling a lid or not having events, he was clearly doing debate prep. That was obviously time well spent, events, he was clearly doing debate prep. That was obviously time well spent, given, as Levitt put it, he won three debates by attending two. Clearly, the campaign strategy in terms of Biden's travel has been based on minimizing the risk of catching COVID and the risk of giving his supporters COVID. Now that we know that 100% of the Republican ticket has gotten the disease versus 0% of the Democratic ticket and local officials in states are tracing outbreaks back to Trump events. I'd argue that those concerns from the Biden camp were justified. Hey, guys, this is Tommy Vitor. You know me. Earlier in the show, I said that Mike Pence currently has COVID and that 100% of the ticket has COVID. I had been talking to future me who assumes this is going to happen since his body guy, chief of staff and a bunch of other lackeys around him currently has COVID. But my bad, as of now, Mike Pence does

not have COVID. I apologize and regret my error. All of this was Trump trying to spend months saying that Biden had dementia or was too low energy for the job. And then Biden mocked the floor with him at two debates. So I don't think it was the best strategy in hindsight. But to your point, John, it again, it just shows how much Trump is focused on the process in the sport of politics, right? Like when he would get a substantive critique at the debate about, I don't know, being tied to Wall Street, he would come back with a rejoinder about how he could raise more money than Biden did if he did X, Y, or Z, right?

He never thinks about politics in terms of what people actually care about, what they're looking for from politics, like how things, how it might help their lives. And I think that's why he is failing. That's my take. Or like, what is just the responsible thing to do? What is the responsible way to govern as a president? I always remember Obama saying that during the financial crisis at the end of the 2008 campaign, what he believed he should do is show people how he would act as president of the United States and show people how he would govern. And if that meant doing things that politically short term might not be as popular or might be risky or whatever it may be, you know, like

McCain tried to suspend the campaign and not go to the debates. And then there was question about whether he should support the financial rescue package in Congress, even though it wasn't popular. And Obama was like, look, I have to model the behavior that I would follow as president of the United States that people expect me to. And that is what Joe Biden has done during this campaign around the pandemic, even if it gets some criticism at times, or sometimes it wasn't necessarily as popular. And again, we'll we'll see how it turns out. Yeah, stay tuned on that one. All right, let's talk about where both campaigns have been spending these final days. Donald Trump has been holding rallies in states that he won by five or more points in 2016,

like Georgia and Ohio, the second district of Maine and the second district of Nebraska, which is also right next to Iowa, which he won by nine points. Mike Pence was in South Carolina and Indiana. The Trump campaign has also been campaigning, of course, in the six most competitive battleground states, all of which Trump won. Biden has been campaigning in all of these states as well. Their campaign has also been holding events in Ohio, in Georgia, where Joe Biden will be this week, and now Texas, where Kamala Harris will be this week. What do these two schedules tell us about each campaign's thinking in terms of paths to victory? Are there any states that surprised you on either side? Love it. Yeah, I mean, well, look, we talked about a little bit last week

about, you know, when you put aside the bluster, it's clear that the Trump campaign sees a dwindling path and the Biden campaign while trying to signal nothing is for granted. Some of these polls are out of whack, like they are seeing a widening map, right? That's why they're adding Georgia. That's why they're adding Texas. tells us that they really do see, they have to assume that they're going to surprise people with some turnout. And if that happens, they're looking at where they can lose and still eke out 270 electoral votes. There is a non-trivial chance of a map in which you can see a situation where Biden and Trump are both at basically 267 and 269 electoral votes. And it comes down to one electoral vote in Nebraska and one electoral vote in Maine. Is that likely? I don't know, but they clearly view it, right? They want to make sure they close the deal in Iowa, but there really is a possibility that Trump could be at 269 electoral votes and tries to go get one last electoral vote to not to win by winning that Omaha seat in Nebraska

or winning that second district in Maine. It's unlikely, sure, because any one scenario is unlikely, but it's plausible. It's totally plausible. Oh, no, it's the scenario where Trump wins Florida and Pennsylvania, Joe Biden wins Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, and then Joe Biden wins if he wins the Nebraska second and he loses if he doesn't. Well, John, here's what's chilling. You're totally right. I did it a different way and got to the exact same result because Biden can win Florida, lose Pennsylvania, lose Michigan.

Oh, yeah. And still be in that exact same scenario. Holy fucking shit. No, thank you. No, thank you. So when they announced yesterday that they're sending Joe Biden to Georgia, some people said, oh, is this smart? Because has he locked down the rest of the map yet? Should he really be going to Georgia? Tommy, what do you think about that? I mean,

here are some reasons to go to Georgia, right? They have 16 electoral votes. So you could take the 2016 map. You could win back Michigan, Wisconsin, and then flip Georgia, and that gets you to 274 if you're Biden. Or you could take the 2016 map, win Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia, that's 275. So you could lose Pennsylvania, you could lose big states if you win Georgia. It also has two huge Senate races, John Ossoff, Raphael Warnock are running strong. I don't know if it's smart or not. No one will know until we have the results, right? I mean, remember in 2016, when the Clinton campaign made this late October push into Arizona, they sent Michelle Obama, they sent Bernie, they sent Hillary herself

like in early November. And in the moment, it felt like an exciting attempt to expand the map. In hindsight, it looks like a huge mistake because she never went to Wisconsin, right? So we'll find out. I have confidence that the Biden campaign is looking at some polling that tells them Georgia is fertile ground and that they're like, you know, relentlessly focused on 270. But he's also going to Florida a lot to his credit. But he's also going to counties where he has won overwhelmingly. Like in Ohio, he went to a county where he got 68% of the vote. In Wisconsin, he went to Waukesha County where he won by 30. In North Carolina, he goes to a bright red county outside Charlotte. Biden's travel is different. They went to Pennsylvania 10 times. The next state is like three visits, which is Florida. But on top of that, he's going to Bucks County. He's going to Luzerne County, which are like basically swing counties and swing districts, which shows that they are not just trying to turn out base voters.

Biden thinks he can persuade people. They can turn out new suburban voters and maybe push down Trump's vote in some of these redder places. So I don't know. We'll find out. I don't care what they do as long as they get to 270. But I do think it's like the candidate candidates time is the most important resource you have. And if you're going to a stretch state when you don't have others that are easier in the bag, people will question that decision if you lose. because knowing the Biden campaign and how cautious and conservative they are, when you send a candidate to a state like that or the running mate, it's not necessarily like, oh,

we got all these other states in the bag and we're just sitting at campaign headquarters, you know, kicking back and having a good time and maybe we'll go expand the map and run up the score. It's about giving yourself multiple paths to 270 should one of the paths foreclose, even though you didn't expect it to. right? And especially when you're talking about states in the Sun Belt specifically, where the electorate has been changing so fast, you just don't know what's gonna happen, right? Some states like the electorate is set and it's been set for a while.

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, those electorates don't move too much. In Georgia, the fact that we've seen this huge suburban shift over the last several years among white voters, the fact that in Georgia, if 30% of the electorate is black, as it was when Stacey Abrams ran in 2018, you combine that with a suburban shift, suddenly Georgia's in play. Now, you know, what if something happens in Pennsylvania,

something happens in Wisconsin? They missed a surge of white working class voters, right? And then suddenly, well, then you have Georgia, right? So I think it's about some of these trips are about giving yourself as many different paths to 270 as possible, and not necessarily just trying to play and expand the map just for fun to run up the score. I'd add just one small thing, too, which is that Biden is doing a ton of events in Delaware. And the Republicans try to make hay of that. That's doing events in Pennsylvania, too. And it shares a media market. He's really hitting Pennsylvania so hard., that's doing events in Pennsylvania too. And it shares a media market. He's really hitting Pennsylvania so hard. So he's doing that as well. Now, is it, well, follow up is like, is it smart to send Kamala Harris to Texas?

Texas is interesting because there was a poll out this weekend that had Joe Biden up three points. Then the New York Times Sienna poll came out this morning, has Biden down four points. But the turnout in Texas is so large. We're going to talk about this in a second that like no one knows what this electorate is going to look like there. And of course, if Biden wins Texas, it's over. But it's tantalizing. I mean, it's a game changer. Right. Thirty eight electoral votes. You could lose every state that Hillary lost in 2016, flip Texas and get to 270. You also have MJ Hagar running a close race against John Cornyn for that Senate seat. Maybe even more importantly, there are all the

down ballot races where if Democrats can flip nine Texas state house seats to get a majority, that would give us a seat at the table in the 2021 redistricting process, which could might mean this a swing of plus or minus five congressional seats in Congress, because Republicans will try to rewrite those maps as advantageously as possible for themselves, gerrymander the shit out of Democrats. And so there's just like huge stakes up and down the ballot in Texas. And so I get like, look, I'm excited by it. I'm watching everything Beto O'Rourke is doing. It's pretty amazing how many calls they're making every night and, you know, how much his organization has registered voters in that state. But like, I don't know, I don't want to get sucked into this romantic fantasy world where we win Texas and Biden potentially wins by 400 electoral college

votes and not pay attention to like the key Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania. It's 2016. In 2016, Trump was like the coyote who made it across the cliff and ate the Roadrunner. Maybe 2020. Texas has always been like Lucy in the football. But like maybe this is the time where Charlie just kicks that ball, you know, boots that thing, just gets it just like any. And that's it. I mean, even in the New York Times poll, you know, they showed Biden just crushing Trump in some of these suburbs where we're already also seeing the turnout numbers go up. What keeps him behind is that Trump has shown improvement among more working class Latinos and black voters in Texas, which are hard populations to poll. So it's who knows.

But, you know, the difference with Texas and Georgia is Texas is much more expensive to play seriously there. Right. This is when I talked to Stacey Abrams way back when she likes she always likes to say that Georgia is a cheap date because it's a little easier to compete there and it's closer than Texas, which is very well. Fifty percent of voters currently registered to vote in Texas have never voted in that state or vote infrequently. So just a very confusing state. It's hard to read. That's why I'm not letting myself get excited about this early vote data or literally any other, because who knows? Well, let's talk about early voting. November 3rd is technically Election Day,

but over 60 million people have already voted by mail or in person. That represents 43% of the ballots cast in the entire 2016 election. And we still have eight days of early voting to go. Texas is leading the way here with 80% of its 2016 turnout. Of the states that report party registration, we can see that 49% of early votes have been cast by registered Democrats, 28% by registered Republicans, 22% by voters with no party affiliation, and 0.6% by voters with a minor party affiliation. We got a lot of listener questions about this. Lovett, what can the early vote tell us about the outcome of the race and why? So here's my position. Basically nothing. Basically nothing. We know one thing. We know one thing. There's going to be

a historic turnout in this election. That's the one thing I think we can really say with certainty. We don't know ultimately what the party breakdown will be. We went into this. You know, we talked about this for so long that there's a real bias towards Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters voting early and Republicans and Republican-leaning voters voting on election day because the media that we consume is different. And one side has been honest about the pandemic and the other has been telling people it's a liberal hoax and it's overblown. And a bunch of Republicans are planning to vote on election day. We also don't know how many Democrats are people that are Democrats in name only who voted for Trump in 2016 and are going to vote for Trump now. We don't know what some of the breakdowns of these independents will be. We also don't know

the impact of what happens when there's a ton of reporting saying, holy shit, there's huge Democratic early vote. We don't know how any of this is going to play out because we've never voted in a pandemic with this much vote early and vote by mail before. So I see it only as a sign of huge turnout. And beyond that, I think we should take nothing for granted and draw no conclusions. Tommy? Yeah. You got anything to add? No, I think it's right.

Like there's some states, there's some early voting data that makes me excited. I think North Carolina is an example. There's some where it's a little worrisome, frankly. Florida Republicans seem to be chipping into the Democratic early vote lead. And they historically turn out more on election day. So I think, yeah, every minute people spend trying to interpret this data is probably time better spent doing literally anything else, including making calls into swing states, because who the fuck knows. And I'll just I'll tell you guys why for people who are wondering this, like the party

registration numbers aren't very helpful, particularly. And I'll just use Florida as an example. So Florida right now, it tells you the early vote, absentee voting by party registration. So it's 42% Democrats, 36.5% Republicans, 21% what they call NPAs in Florida, non-party affiliated voters, right? So you think, OK, that's sort of a small lead for Democrats, but not great, whatever. So there's a Florida CBS poll over the weekend. And among those who voted early, it's Joe Biden up 61-37. Well, that's much bigger than that party registration breakdown I just read. Why? Because Biden wins NPAs by 15 points and he takes 10% of Republicans. Now,

will Biden really do that? It's one poll. It's in line with some other polls, so it's possible. It could be off a little bit too, but it's the example of why the party registration breakdown can't really tell you anything, especially in a race where Joe Biden is consistently in the polling been winning over so many independents and even more Republicans than Trump is winning over Democrats, right? So we don't know. That's why when you look at all the party registration numbers, we just, and we don't know the party breakdown or the candidate breakdown of who's left to vote. And by the way, one thing we've talked about over and over again is that there's been this huge shift of seniors, right? A huge shift of seniors who may have voted for Trump

in 2016 and may vote for Joe Biden. Now, what is their party affiliation? What is the breakdown of the kind of senior who might have voted for Trump and now will vote for Biden? Are they independents? Are they Republicans? Are they Democrats? We just don't know. We don't know. Yeah. And I will say, too, what it can tell us, and what especially it can tell campaigns and why campaigns like early voting data is it tells you how many of our voters still haven't voted yet. How many people with ballots haven't returned them yet? How many people still need to make a plan to get to the polls? So as the voting universe shrinks because a bunch of people started voting, if you see numbers that are concerning, oh, we don't have much Dem turnout in Miami-Dade County. Now you can focus on those

neighborhoods where you know those voters are and start making calls and getting people to return their ballots. So for campaigns, it can be useful. For predicting the outcome of the race, it is not. Another question we got from quite a few listeners is what to expect while watching returns on election night, aside from abject terror. Someone want to talk about like just watching returns on election night and which states we might know soon and which states we might not and all that for listeners? I'll just say I'll say that I will look, I have a lot of anxiety. And I for me on election night, it will be the shape of Florida. It will be that will be the shape of it. It will be it's a miasma. It's actually visible. It's like

like kind of greenish, but it will form into the shape of Florida and I'll be watching Florida. Can we win without Florida? Sure. But because they'll have counted a lot of their early vote and vote by mail, we may know Florida relatively early. And as we've talked about many times, Trump's path narrows dramatically. If we have Florida, similar, I will also be watching Colorado, also be watching Arizona. There's a chance early in the night we might know the results there.

And if we do, we kind of have a sense of where this is going. Does that mean that's what's going to happen? Of course not. Does it mean if some of these things look worse, the night, we might know the results there. And if we do, we kind of have a sense of where this is going. Does that mean that's what's going to happen? Of course not. Does it mean if some of these things look worse, the night is over? No, the night is just much, much worse emotionally. Yeah, I mean, look, here's the very 2020 part that's quite tricky. All the swing states that are hardest for Joe Biden, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, swing states that are hardest for Joe Biden, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa,

Texas, are the ones who count first and count on election night. Don't want to delay the count. In addition, those states all may start by showing Biden in the lead because they dump vote by mail early vote first. And so when the polls close in those states, it could show a big Biden lead. And then Trump starts eating into his lead with Election Day votes. The states that should be easiest for Biden, at least according to the polling, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are all going to take a couple of days because they can't count the mail ballots until the day of the election or in Michigan the day before. And they could all show Trump in the lead as polls close because they will dump the election day votes first and then start counting the mail ballots in the days after. So everyone's just got to sit tight. Like you said, like you said, love it. You know, we win one of those in the first column, like a Florida, a North Carolina, a Texas.

Yeah, it's probably over. Right. But if we don't- Hey, wait a second. Knock on something. Throw something over your shoulder. I don't want to hear probably over. Just emotionally, just saying it's probably over. If we win Texas on election night, it is over. I'll say that. I'll give you that. If we win Florida, I'm like 99% sure it's over.

Here's the thing. Here's something. If we win Texas, and again, who knows? And I want this clip to have plenty of caveats in it when it's used against us in the future. But if we win Texas, one thing to look forward to is Republicans deciding they want to abolish the Electoral College and us being like, but this has been part of our country from the beginning. Shame on all of you. Shame on all of you. All right. We got a few other listener questions.

Victoria Rome asks, I feel like there's a lot of grassroots work for Biden with phone banking and text banking and more. Are the Republicans also doing this? Do they have the same volunteer enthusiasm that we do? Tommy? Probably. We should assume they do. I mean, they're also doing more in-person canvassing. They're actually physically knocking on doors. Now, I think all the conversation about who's doing what field work is a little bit confusing, because even if the Biden campaign proper isn't doing like door to door, actual door knocking, some groups are in key states. So I'm a little I feel like no one really has a handle on the aggregate amount of field work doing. So I guess just don't stress it, but assume they have a huge

turnout operation. Assume they're mobilizing people in churches, that people are hitting doors, that they're making calls like we just got to outwork them. Yeah, we've been saying this the whole year, last year to like assume that Trump is going to get his turnout from 2016 and maybe add a few percentage points in each of the swing states. Republicans are going and so far, you know, everything in the early vote, again, you don't know what it means for vote share for each candidate. But in terms of registered Republicans, they're turning out. So are Democrats, but Republicans are turning out too. We should assume they have sky high enthusiasm for their fucking Maga God.

The biggest story that didn't get enough attention out of 2018 is that the Republican turnout was there. Beto O'Rourke hit his numbers and he still lost because more Republicans showed up than anybody expected. We should assume that that is the case. Yep. Angela Berthold asks, I may have a dumb question. Ask it anyway, Angela. Why don't candidates make more visits to smaller towns in states? I realize there are more people living in larger cities, more bang for your buck, but it's the rural areas that tend to vote Republican. I wonder if a candidate visit would help rally support, especially in Midwestern states like Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Yeah. At this point in the campaign, you should assume that both campaigns have county by county turnout projections that they're trying to hit. And some of those numbers will be based on like field targets, like how many door docks, how many people are telling them on the phones that they're voting for Biden or Trump. Some of it will be based on early vote and they're going to choose where they go accordingly. It does seem like in the aggregate, Trump is much more focused on turning out his base, whereas Biden is a little more focused on suppressing his margins in the redder counties and getting swing voters out. But yeah, I mean, look, these are data driven decisions usually. Yeah. One example, and I'll use in Pennsylvania,

it used to be that Democrats believe they could win Pennsylvania only by showing up in Pittsburgh, showing up in Philadelphia, like running up the margins there and in the inner suburbs. And that was it. And they didn't have to go anywhere else. That's what Hillary did. And she actually got the margins that she needed out of Philadelphia and still lost the state. Biden has been like he was, you know, right after the convention, his first stop was in Greensburg, which is right outside of Pittsburgh. It's a suburb outside of Pittsburgh. And he's been going to Erie and he's been going to Scranton. Right. So he has actually been going to some of these, I wouldn't call them small towns because they're like small cities. But some of the places in these redder states that Trump won just to sort of cut the margins down a little bit, even if he ends up losing Erie, Luzerne County, all those places like he could lose them in Pennsylvania.

But if he loses them by less, that's enough to win the state. Like he could lose them in Pennsylvania, but if he loses them by less, that's enough to win the state. Brett Turner asks, hello, Obama had all three branches, Democrat in 2008 to 2010, but couldn't fix a lot of issues. What were the obstacles and do they still exist now? Thanks for everything. Love it. Yeah. Well, what a question.

Yeah, sure. I'll take it. I'll take it. So here's what I would say. Here's what I would say. First of all, the first two years of the Obama administration were probably the most productive period of governing via Congress in 50 years. There was the passage of a Recovery Act, a health care bill, a student loan bill, among other, uh, an equal pay bill. Um, you know, with Obamacare specifically, you know, Obama had that, uh, had a big majority in the Senate, but those weren't all people who had signed on, uh, for the Obama agenda. These were a lot of moderates that are now in some of

these receipts, we've lost some of these, uh, seats that are now Republicans. But, um, the challenge in the early days of the Obama administration, even with a big majority was getting some of the more moderate Democrats who'd been around a long time to get to 60. You know, we've talked a lot about Joe Lieberman. A lot of people try to blame Joe Lieberman specifically for killing the public option. It actually wasn't him. It was a bunch of conservative Democrats who killed the public option. Lieberman just... Tune into Pod Save America today to hear Lovett give a spirited defense of Joe Lieberman. Now, Joe Lieberman personally killed the Medicare buy-in, which is currently still not law. It's what actually Biden has included in his health plan so there can be a Medicare buy-in for people

over 60. Lieberman personally killed that and raised health care costs for everybody and is a genuine monster. But, you know, I think one of the lessons of those two years is that the focus was on health care and the recovery and some other big priorities. But things that didn't happen in that period, immigration, voting, some legislation on unions were the kind of steps we could have taken to not just do really good progressive change for the country, but also make America more democratic and help make sure that people have a better say in how they're governed and how their offices are governed. And that, I think, ultimately was a missed opportunity. But it was in the midst of a massive financial crisis. And every administration has to make choices. And only so much progress can happen in a short period of time when you're dealing with a recalcitrant wing of your own party. I would just say, I think the lesson from that period of time for Joe Biden,

if he wins, if we take back the Senate, is move fast, use your power swiftly and brutally and do all the things you want to do, especially in including a voting rights, voting access bill that will unfuck some of these problems we're having right now, voter suppression and gerrymandering and all the ways Republicans are trying to lock in minority rule. But that's why I think people get so, you know, frustrated when you hear about like a blue ribbon commission on this or, you know, giving Mitch McConnell some time on the filibuster. They're just going to try to wait out the clock while like big insurance companies and fossil fuel companies pour hundreds of millions of dollars into some AstroTurf firm to prevent climate change legislation from happening or, you know, prevent climate change legislation from happening or, you know, prevent the public option from being expanded, et cetera, et cetera. And I think they just got to move fast. Got to get rid of that filibuster right away. Looking at you, Joe Manchin, looking at you, Kirsten Sinema, looking at you, freshman class of 2020 Democratic senators

who come from largely red states and are going to want to be fairly moderate. You have a choice. You either come to Congress and then be able to tell your constituents you did something and you pass something or you come to Congress and say, Mitch McConnell blocked everything and I couldn't do anything. They're not going to like that excuse as much. I also think that's it. Like on that, first of all, we've got 180 days on a blue ribbon panel to figure out the the judiciary. So that's one delay. On the filibuster- Could probably work overtime to shorten that window a little bit. Maybe start in the transition.

Maybe put some extra hours in. Come on, Charles Freed or whoever's on that thing. Let's go. We're going to work weekends. All right. Climate change is real. I also think that this issue of the filibuster, similar to adding justice to the court, is this sort of philosophical or process question. But it won't be come January when we're talking about whether or not we pass a big relief plan or a climate plan or a health care plan. And then I think people can force to choose between a Senate procedure or saving the country's economy. I think the skids get a bit greased for getting rid of some of these hurdles, I think. Hope so. And I will just say, I almost didn't want to talk about this question because it's like

a high class problem to have because it imagines that we win. But it should push everyone in this final week that like this is the future we could have. These are the arguments we could be having if everyone turns in your ballots. And the Senate is just as crucial to this whole thing as the presidency. So yeah. All right. When we come back, Tommy's interview with Wisconsin organizer Dakota Hall.

I'm now joined by the executive director of the Wisconsin-based youth organizing group Leaders Igniting Transformation, Dakota Hall. Dakota, welcome to Pots of America. Hey, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here and really excited about the next few days ahead of us. Yeah, you guys are kicking ass out there. So your group, Leaders Igniting Transformation, or LIT for you old folks at home, you guys do issue-based and electoral organizing. What issues are resonating most?

What's like motivating people to go out and vote? Yeah, I mean, what we're finding is one of the number one issues in Wisconsin is education. And that's K through 12, that's higher education. We actually just got a poll back that said almost 90% of young people between the ages of 18 to 34 are voting with education at the top of their mind. And so we know after what we've seen for almost a decade of Scott Walker in Wisconsin and the disastrous cuts to public education, K-12 and higher education, that people are designing an education system that is well-funded, that meets the needs, and that is also equitable for black and brown communities as well, too.

God, that's so frustrating. It's like the obvious number one issue you see in polling. How often has it been discussed on the campaign trail or at least in the media? Like never, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's quite frustrating to think about, you know, what most people are thinking about. Most parents, most young people, most grandparents, you know, caretakers of children are thinking about the education that their child is going to receive. And yet we don't hear the plans that are going to lay out the future to eliminate, you know, almost $2 trillion in student loan debt.

We're not hearing plans that are going to change critical funding formulas to ensure that property taxes are not the only ways that schools are being funded because we know that is inherently racist and inherently just out of touch with reality. We're not, you know, no, why are we still funding our school system off of decades, centuries ago idea on how schools should be funded. So for us, you know, it's pretty frustrating to think about almost every day while doing this work that what people want to hear the most about is not being talked about. Yeah. Yeah. So there's what people want to hear the most about is not being talked about. Yeah. Yeah. So there's what people want to hear about. There's also how to reach them, right?

And with the pandemic, there's a lot of talk about how to reach voters this cycle, especially since sometimes like normal face-to-face contact can feel risky or unsafe, especially for older cohorts. How are you guys reaching people? And does your strategy change if the outreach is to seniors in high school versus a 29-year-old? Yeah, I mean, so our outreach is similar to a lot of folks. Like, we're making, you know, phone calls. To date, we're approaching 1 million phone calls. We're approaching 1.2 million text messages to Wisconsinites. You know, we're on social media, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, reaching people there and getting people to interact with us on social media as well, too.

So, I mean, while we're not in person, I think a lot of our game plan is still to be the same in terms of reaching out with people, not necessarily about the election first, but talking to them about the values in which, you know, is motivating this year. Right. Whether it is the coronavirus response. Right. in this year, right? Whether it is the coronavirus response, right? Or lack of response, depending on who you're talking to and communities feeling left out to dry, whether you're a small business owner, whether you're a young person who was intentionally left out of the coronavirus relief package earlier this year and received no stimulus dollars and was told by your campus that we don't have a plan, but we're going virtual. You may or may not get a refund for the housing you already paid for, and you were sent home. And they got screwed throughout the whole entire COVID relief stuff. And even now, a lot of them are forced back to the campus without a clear safety plan or testing here.

So one of the examples we always bring up is University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, when they first announced that they were coming back to school, announced that they would not be testing every student. They would only test students who were showing symptoms of the coronavirus, and that did not include testing faculty. So it was just a really unsafe plan to usher people back in to receive those housing dollars, to receive the tuition dollars, without a real plan to keep people safe and educate them. Yeah, that is absurd. So you mentioned how a lot of Wisconsin college students are back on campus. Are you guys still able to organize on campus in traditional ways or how does that work? Yeah, I mean, it's completely changed. We've done a few safe, like COVID safe events outside, handed out PPE, just talking to people as they walk by. But the campus vibe has completely changed, right?

You don't have hundreds of students walking by, thousands of students walking by. And so it's definitely different. And that's where all of the text messaging and phone calls come into place, as well as we brought out a relational voter program to have some of our young leaders reach out to some of their classmates and their friends. And we've built over 3,000 strong contacts on college campuses. And who's doing that organizing? Who's reaching out saying, hey, we have this coming up. We have this coming up. And every day they're talking to people who they otherwise would be able to interact with in person, but now they just moved to, you know, whether it's text messaging, Facebook, other means besides that. Right. So early voting is happening right now in Wisconsin.

Yes, it is. We're seeing some big, big aggregate numbers. How are you feeling about youth turnout so far? You know, I'm feeling good about it. I mean, while Wisconsin data isn't the best in terms of breaking out young people, we know that almost a million ballots have been returned in Wisconsin via the absentee program. And we know that young people, due to what happened in April, are ready and know how to vote by mail. And, you know, we've seen them request ballots ourselves, as well as I think the numbers are going to show that when it comes down to it, you know, the winner of this election is going to have, you know, young people to thank because the young people are going to sway, you know, Wisconsin. When you look at the polling numbers, almost every age group beyond 35 and above is almost neck and neck for Biden and Trump. And our poll shows that Joe Biden's up 28 points over Trump between 18 to 34 year olds. So really, I think, you know, I think young people are going to determine the election in Wisconsin, as well as other places like Arizona and Georgia and Florida.

All these key states are really relying on, you know, Gen Z voters and young millennials to, you know, change the country a little bit. Yeah. Are you guys getting help and support from the Biden campaign or the Wisconsin Democratic Party? Are you operating independently? Like, how do you work with those groups? Yeah, we operate independently. All of our work is independent of Democrats. While we know a lot of our values and interests may align with them, we don't directly work with them on them on any campaign stuff. But we also know we push a lot of Democrats, even here locally, to go a little bit further, to think a little bit bolder and bigger around some of the issues. One of the things that we push a lot of Democrats on this year was removing police from schools. And we got that victory back in June by removing

police officers from Milwaukee Public Schools and Milwaukee Public School Board. You know, most of those folks identify as Democrat, if not, you know, Democratic Socialist. And it was a fight, a multi-year fight to get people to think about rethinking safety in a district that is 90% black and brown. And we finally got that done this year. Yeah. So, you know, also Wisconsin was the center of a lot of the Black Lives Matter protests this year after Jacob Blake was shot in particular. Have those protests and that organizing been foundational to your work? Do you work with them? Like, how do you view what happened in Wisconsin and the ability of organizers to build on that? Yeah, I mean, I think I think what just happened in Wisconsin was,

you know, nothing new to us. Unfortunately, I think we just finally got a lot of media attention because of what happened to Breonna Taylor and George Floyd earlier in the year. And then we get the we get Jacob Blake down in Kenosha being shot seven times in the back in front of his kids. But that's not the first case of police brutality that we've had here in Wisconsin. You know, we had Dontre Hamilton shot 14 times right downtown in Milwaukee. We had another young man shot in Madison. So, I mean, and for Wisconsin, this wasn't new to us. And it's something that we've been building towards.

And a lot of cities are, you know, now just getting attention for the injustice that their communities suffer. But really, you know, I think, you know, when we think about what happened with Jacob Blake and everything, it was, you know, I think just more heightened media, but it's something organized on the ground since, you know, 2013, 2014, I've been dealing with and organizing against and holding local city councils accountable to, you know, 2013, 2014, have been dealing with and organizing against and holding local city councils accountable to, you know, really focusing on changing some of these police policies and getting civilian oversight over their police departments. Yeah. Are you guys running into or concerned about voter suppression or voter intimidation efforts?

Yeah, I mean, definitely, you know, I think one of the things that the Jacob Blake shooting brought up was that, you know, there are tons of militias in our surrounding communities, especially in Illinois, who are willing to come up and commit harm against our communities. And so even just a few last week, NPR report came out saying that Wisconsin's one of the top five states that would be at risk for voter intimidation with militias. And similar to Oregon, what we saw in Oregon this year is that militias are coming out and they're coming out with guns to scare people, to, you know, ignite some fear. And so we're definitely worried about that here in Wisconsin, thinking about, you know, all that can go wrong in such a critical state, especially with vulnerable communities, black and brown communities, indigenous communities who often, you know, suffer high rates of violence,

especially indigenous women from outsiders of that community. And so what does that mean when you have a bunch of armed militia who are going and intimidating people to the polls to suppress the vote is something that we're helping, you know, promote out there of talking about voter protection hotlines, really pushing that out to the most vulnerable communities. We're promoting hotlines in Spanish and Arabic to indigenous communities to make sure that they know how to access resources when some of this stuff may happen in their community. Yeah. So maybe you just sort of spoke to some of this, but like knowing that risk is out there. Yeah. So maybe you just sort of spoke to some of this, but like knowing that risk is out there, how do you think we should balance the messaging of making people aware, but not making them think, oh man, there might be a militia at my polling place, so I shouldn't bother to vote, right? Like we don't want to scare people away from voting or kind of do their work for them. But what's the right balance, do you think? What's the right balance, do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just talking about the values of why we vote, right? And how long it took for some of us to vote, right? When we think about indigenous communities not becoming citizens until 1924, and then fighting, you know, state constitutions for another 40 years to get that right to vote. Think about the struggle that Black Americans have gone through, and the civil rights and the Voting Act, right? And even the suppression that we've gone through in the last few years after the Supreme Court, you know, overthrew some critical parts of the Voting Rights Act and no longer mandate the states have to go to the feds to change some of the rules. And so all of this tells me that, you know, they're afraid

when black and brown folks go out to vote. And that's why we need to go vote. And, you know, if they weren't afraid for us to go vote, they wouldn't be doing all this stuff, right? And so that balance for me is really telling people, you know, we have this power and we're going to try to make sure that everything is protected and make sure that people are voting safely, even beyond the militias, right? We're still in the pandemic, right? So even going out to vote next Tuesday, November 3rd, it's still going to be dangerous. And making sure that, you know, we're equipping people with PPE, giving out masks, hand sanitizer as well, too. And really just talking about, you know, this is not just, you know, voting for us, right? We're voting for the ancestors who made us aware and got us to this point. We're voting for the elders who literally got beat for the right to vote down

in the South, right? And even some places around the country. And so while it's a single vote for us, it's much bigger as a collective. Yeah, very well put. So there might be people listening who are doing similar organizing in different states, similar age groups. Are there any strategies you guys have found that they should steal from you in this last week to try to really juice their numbers? Yeah, I mean, I think that I think the number one strategy that folks need to focus on is building a relationship with young people. You can't just assume, you know, that you're going to get them by doing a, you know, a funny TikTok ad or you're going to, you know, go viral on Instagram. But really, you know, I think oftentimes people are like, oh, what do young people care about? You know, they care about

climate or they care about, you know, this or that. Young people, you know, they're not a one issue voter. They often carry multiple identities. You know, Gen Z is probably one of the most politically aware communities, you know, communities that are, you know, hyper tuned into the intersectionality on the way things go. And so you really have to do that on the ground organizing. You can't just start your campaign in September or August or wait for campuses to come back. But you really have to invest into this year round and be committed to doing that deep work. And even doing the work that you may have to unlearn as a campaign or as an organization or political entity on like how, you know, you're currently structured doesn't meet the needs of young people in this time. And so really, you know, the advice that I always give anyone is, you know, build these relationships, because at the end of the day, you know, you're always going to get people who are going to get excited to vote and you can send out text messages and people can be like, yeah, you know, I'm really down for Joe Biden or I'm really down for this candidate. That, you know, that's cool now. But what we're trying

to do is we're trying to build a movement. We're trying to lay the groundwork for something larger than a political campaign, because we know oftentimes what we're trying to do is we're trying to build a movement. We're trying to lay the groundwork for something larger than a political campaign, because we know oftentimes what we're dealing with cannot be legislated out, right? We can't legislate out racism. We can't legislate out misogyny. We can't legislate out, you know, a bunch of these different things are affecting people's lives, you know. So it's really, it goes beyond the election for us as well, too. That's good advice also. so last question for you. If people are hearing you talk, they're hearing about Leaders Igniting Transformation, they think that sounds like great work. That sounds like important work. How can they help

you out? What do you guys need for this last week? Yeah. You know, check us out on our website, you know, sign up for a volunteer shift. You know, we're accepting people to help us do some phone calls, some text messaging. If you're in Wisconsin and one of the places we're working in, we're doing glit drops all across that, you know, donating is always good, helps us push us over any last thing, you know, whether that is sending out more messages, paying for all the messages that we're doing, printing, turning out more students, even on election day, right? Like there is no money that is too late, even up to election day in a place like Wisconsin,

where our polls open at 7 a.m., they close at 8 p.m. And we know for those 11 hours or 13 hours that we're going to be in it, right? And we're going to have to make sure and motivate people to stay in line, even though it's going to be cold and dark in Wisconsin. 8 p.m. in Wisconsin is going to be about 30 degrees, super dark, and people are going to

need motivation, right? So that, you know, can we bring them hot chocolate, hand warmers, you know, deploy all of our staff, interns, fellows around the state to make sure that these people are staying in line? Nothing is too late at this moment. All right. Well, thank you for the work you're doing, Dakota. I really appreciate you doing the show and all the organizing. Leaders Igniting Transformation. Check out their website if you want to help out. But listen, man, I appreciate you fighting the good fight. And hopefully we'll win this thing.

I appreciate having you on. Thanks to Dakota for joining us today. Dan and I will talk to you on wednesday and then we'll be doing one more one more pre-election podcast that the four of us will all record on friday so wow wow it's exciting stuff it's here it's here guys it's here votesaveamerica.com volunteer please do it pod save america is a crooked media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

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