00:00Joining us in studio is PUC News Washington reporter Abby Livingston along with Ashley Koenig,
00:04the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers.
00:07Abby, let me start with you. Just give us the lay of the land in Maine.
00:11This is to pick the candidate who will go up against Susan Collins, long-standing senator from the state of
00:15Maine.
00:16Yes, there has been this stream of scandals. We can talk about the degree to which they've worsened here.
00:21But with each one, it seems like there is a Maine population, at least of Democrats, kind of inured to
00:26this,
00:27who find Senator Collins distasteful and are willing to look the other way in backing Graham Plattner here in this
00:32race.
00:33This is an absolute obsession within the highest levels of the Democratic Party.
00:37You look at Twitter, they're fighting about it.
00:39It's generally, and this is the Washington, New York political class, and it's often following along gender lines.
00:47But this is the most important Senate seat to Democrats.
00:50It's the easiest pickup, and yet it's been hard in the past.
00:54And there is, among his supporters, a confidence that he's been able to get through this, he's been able to
01:00weather this.
01:00But the other folks are like, well, hey, the Republicans haven't had their chance to just dump a nuclear bomb
01:08of advertising against him.
01:10And so I think the biggest question right now is what else is out there, and nobody seems to know
01:16what they don't know.
01:16And all the while, Janet Mills remains on the ballot, if I'm not mistaken.
01:19That's correct, and it seems unlikely that she would prevail on Tuesday.
01:25And Plattner, and the decision makers on this are the Maine voters, and they seem to be sticking with him.
01:31But the question is, Maine is an older state, and many of the voters are older women.
01:35Are they going to go along with all of these allegations?
01:38Ashley, what's your take on that?
01:40Because we do have some updated polling, and it does seem that when you put at the moment Plattner and
01:45Collins up head-to-head, Plattner is ahead by five points.
01:50It's within the margin of error there.
01:52But what is your take?
01:53Is it just that anyone but the person we've got, we've seen that sometimes on the other end, especially with
01:58people backing the president, no matter what he does or says, staying loyal to that.
02:02Is this kind of the same thing, but from the Democratic side?
02:06You know, this race was supposed to be about Collins.
02:09This whole race was supposed to be about her.
02:11And really now it's going more towards Democratic viability and that tension between the two factions in the Democratic Party
02:17of progressive versus the kind of, you know, moderate middle lane.
02:23And so we really see that gap, and we haven't even had the primary yet.
02:27We do see that gap between him and Collins tightening for the general ballot in November.
02:31So that should be somewhat of a warning sign leading into the primary and especially leading into the general in
02:38terms of is this candidate still going to be viable and a surefire win against Collins as we head into
02:44November.
02:45Abby, I'm curious what this means.
02:46You mentioned sort of who's making the decisions here.
02:48Yes, it's the main electorate.
02:49But you have Chuck Schumer who made no secret of the fact that he wanted Janet Mills, the governor of
02:53the state, to be the candidate going forward.
02:55Talk a bit about his kind of relevance in picking candidates for these races.
02:59We just went through a round of primaries last week in which a candidate that he had anointed or backed
03:03did win.
03:04What does that tell us?
03:06What does this race tell us about Washington politicians having the capacity and, yes, money to back primary candidates in
03:12these races?
03:13Candidate recruitment is why Chuck Schumer is in the position he's in.
03:16This has been his forte.
03:18He has won many Senate seats that Democrats have had no business occupying based on his recruitment in these states.
03:24And he's had successes this year.
03:26North Carolina is obviously one of them.
03:28But on the other hand, Michigan and Maine are absolute messes for the Democrats.
03:33Were these his recruits?
03:34He did not have – he has preferences in these primaries, but they have not – they are struggling.
03:39And it is unclear whether they will get through.
03:41I mean, Janet Mills isn't going to get through.
03:42That's right, of course, yeah.
03:43So this is – he still has some of the juice, but it may cost – but not everywhere.
03:49All right, Ashley, we want to turn to the other end of the country now because votes are still being
03:54counted in California.
03:56But it looks like in the governor's race it's going to be Javier Becerra.
03:59He's clinched a spot in the general.
04:01Hilton and Steyer are battling it out for number two.
04:05And then you've also got the L.A. mayor's race.
04:07You've got Karen Bass.
04:07It looks like she's making it to the general.
04:09Spencer Pratt and Councilwoman are about a percentage point apart.
04:14These are tight races, and some Republicans are trying to figure out where they stand.
04:19Where do you see this turning out, and where are the winds kind of pushing in favor of which candidates?
04:25I think, you know, I think when it comes to the governor that Democrats did avoid the possible scary situation
04:31of a Republican taking that top spot.
04:34So, you know, Democrats did dodge a bullet over there with the governor.
04:39But also we have to remember that these kinds of elections, they will take time, especially when we see narrow
04:44margins like we do with Pratt and Rahman, because it will take time to count those mail-in ballots.
04:50Apparently many of those ballots came in very late towards primary day, and so that's going to take time to
04:57count.
04:58Unfortunately, feeding a little bit of that kind of election security and, you know, election falsifying storyline that we know
05:07of.
05:08But that storyline is not going to go away as we head into the midterms.
05:12Abby, let me just by asking you about this affordability issue.
05:14We've talked about it before when you've been here, the degree to which it's animating voters.
05:17Our colleague, Amory Hordern, was traveling with the president to Wisconsin, back to Bedminster,
05:21and she asked him during a colloquy with the president in the aisle of Air Force One about affordability in
05:26the context of these sporting events
05:29that we're waiting for, the Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the World Cup.
05:32FIFA.
05:33FIFA, yeah.
05:34Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
05:35The cheapest price for the Game 3 you're going to is $8,000.
05:40Everyday Americans can't afford these sporting events.
05:42Well, I know, but they can watch it on television.
05:45It's sort of semi-free to watch it on television, but that's the way life goes.
05:50You know, you have some, and now if the game wasn't a big, if the team wasn't a big success,
05:55you could go very easily.
05:57So, you know, you could do that too, but that's the way life is.
06:02We've got about a minute left, Abby, but that's the way life is.
06:04That's the way life goes.
06:05It strikes me as another watch semi-free.
06:08These are sound bites that you have to imagine his advisors are not glad to hear as Americans are struggling
06:13with higher prices.
06:14I mean, he's now at a montage level with this.
06:17I mean, you've got the, like, little girls don't need as many dolls this Christmas.
06:21I'd forgotten that, yeah.
06:21Oh, I had two, yeah.
06:23I mean, there's a succession of them, and I think the biggest—
06:27Not that worried about oil prices.
06:28Exactly, and I think the biggest struggle here for Democrats is which ones to pick to use in the ads.
06:32They have a glut of choices.
06:35All right, Abby Livingston, you are, of course, with Puck News.
06:38We're glad you're here.
06:39And Ashley Cunningham, I'm sad you couldn't be here in person, but we're always happy to have you.
06:42Thank you, Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling.
06:44Thank you both for joining us.
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