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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On this day after Labor Day, we love democracy, warts, and all. Do you know that famous Winston Churchill quote about democracy that it's the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried? The fuller quote, which I read this weekend is, "Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe," very Churchill. "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. [chuckles]

I got the fuller quote this weekend while thinking about the state of our democracy from the website of Churchill scholar Richard Langworth, so credit to that site. Many of you have probably heard the quote before, at least the short version, but did you know that Churchill said it two years after losing his reelection bid as prime minister? That will be 1947. He didn't lie to claim that he won when he lost.

Neither did Boris Johnson, by the way, who we were just hearing about on the BBC, many of you. Neither did Boris Johnson, who gave a farewell speech today and handed over power to Liz Truss. Maybe it's something about the UK or maybe it's something about every candidate ever, except Donald Trump. Still raising money and making campaign speeches as if the election was stolen from him by mysterious hundreds of thousands of added ballots in six swing states that nobody has been able to find the existence of.

That continued this weekend in Pennsylvania, where many analysts are saying his scorched-earth campaign will actually likely backfire on the actual Republican candidates this year, trying to take control of the Senate and the House in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. We'll see, but here we are with democracy itself. The true counting and reporting of election results on the ballot in one way or another in most of the swing states that Joe Biden won. We love democracy. We hope our country can keep it.

The day after Labor Day, here we are, is generally seen as the real beginning of the full campaigning season. We will come out of the gate right now by seeing where the starting line seems to be on the swing district map nationally in the race for control of Congress. Just to set this up with a tiny bit of audio, they say all politics is local, that cliché. These days, both parties tried to make a lot of local politics national. That's why both Biden and Trump gave campaign-style speeches in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in the last week. Biden said many things, including this.

President Joe Biden: Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represented extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

Brian Lehrer: Trump said many things, including this about Biden.

Donald Trump: He's an enemy of the state. You want to know the truth. The enemy of the state is him and the group that control him.

Brian Lehrer: Biden and Trump in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania as Pennsylvania is a big swing state this year for House and Senate and governor. A New York Times article over the weekend carried the headline Pennsylvania Stakes its Claim as the Center of the Political Universe. It goes on to say how both abortion rights and, yes, free and fair elections themselves, we love democracy, are on the ballot and how, in 2020, the Philadelphia suburbs roundly rejected Trump while white working-class Pennsylvanians gravitated toward him. With us now, Steven Shepard, senior campaigns and elections editor and chief polling analyst for Politico. Hi, Steve, thanks for coming on. Happy post-Labor Day and welcome back to WNYC.

Steven Shepard: Thank you, Brian. Good to talk to you.

Brian Lehrer: Biden and Trump both held rallies in Pennsylvania the last few days. Why Pennsylvania?

Steven Shepard: Well, you mentioned that there are hyper-competitive elections for Senate and statewide elections for Senate and governor this year. Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Pat Toomey is retiring, which opens up his Senate seat. The Senate is divided 50/50. If Democrats can flip that seat, it means Republicans would need to oust at least two Democratic senators in order to win control.

The chamber really would offer Democrats a little bit of cushion, which, obviously, they have none if the set is divided evenly and the governor's race. The Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, is term-limited. There's an open race to replace him as governor. Pennsylvania's governor is a pretty powerful one. The next governor, whether it is Democrat Josh Shapiro or Republican Doug Mastriano, will appoint the person who will oversee the next presidential election in Pennsylvania.

Then there are a handful of competitive congressional districts, including one open seat in Western Pennsylvania where the two presidential candidates essentially tied on the ballot in 2020. One that will be a really good test of which party has the support of the public in President Biden's first midterm election. Pennsylvania does really have all the cycle. I think that's why you saw both of the parties' respective leaders campaigning there in the run-up to Labor Day.

Brian Lehrer: About Pennsylvania, I see you retweeted an article from a Politico colleague summed up as Dr. Oz is making headway with the GOP base. Many Republicans at Trump's rally in Pennsylvania said they're committed to voting for him even if they have to hold their noses, but he's still struggling with an enthusiasm gap and even far-right disinformation. Can you explain that last part of that? If Dr. Oz is the Republican candidate and backed by Trump and Oz did get an appearance at that Trump rally or Trump dominated the Oz rally, whichever way you want to look at it, who on the far-right is putting out disinformation about Oz and why?

Steven Shepard: Well, if you recall that primary that Mehmet Oz won over David McCormick back in May, the margin between the top two candidates was fewer than 1,000 votes. The two candidates essentially ran even in that primary. Both got under 40% of the vote. You had roughly two and three Pennsylvania Republicans support a candidate for Senate other than Mehmet Oz.

Mehmet Oz would be the first Muslim senator if he's elected this fall. I think he is obviously someone who has his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, someone who has spent time working on childhood nutrition campaigns with Michelle Obama. All these things that I'm mentioning are the sort of things that might earn you some distrust among the right-wing Republican electorate and that segment of the Republican electorate.

Indeed, I think that was born out during the primary. In some of the polling before the primary, Republican voters were essentially even when asked about their image rating. When asked about whether they have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Mehmet Oz, it was roughly 50/50. That is not a good place for a candidate to come out of a primary before you can even start to try to campaign to swing voters and grab the center of the electorate.

You need to make sure you have your base with you. That has been a struggle for Mehmet Oz coming out of that fractious Republican primary and something he's obviously still figuring out as we sit here nine weeks until Election Day. It's a prerequisite for him to have any chance of beating John Fetterman, whom he trails in the polls by some margin, but it is not sufficient in and of itself.

He needs to lock that down and then look to the center of the electorate. You don't want to be sort of still courting your base with nine weeks to go, but he needs those voters. Especially voters who are enthusiastic, not just about Donald Trump, but about Doug Mastriano, the gubernatorial nominee. He needs them to all come out, not skip the Senate race on their ballot, be motivated, vote for him, and then work toward getting some of the swing voters that he's going to need to beat Fetterman.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Nine weeks from today, Election Day. November 8th, I think, is the day, right? That's the latest that Election Day could be because it's the first--

Steven Shepard: It's the first Tuesday after the first Monday.

Brian Lehrer: Exactly.

Steven Shepard: It cannot be later than November 8th. This will be the longest campaign possible, of course, for all of us.

Brian Lehrer: While most of us feel we've already been through the primary season and, now, it's just the general election season, it is still primary season in the Senate race in New Hampshire. Looks like you're following a race between a more mainstream Republican there and a more MAGA Republican and how the Democrats are trying to help the MAGA Republican win that primary. Do I have that right?

Steven Shepard: You do. They are the top Democratic super PAC, Senate Majority PAC. This is sort of the super PAC with very close ties to Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader. It is really the manifestation of the Democratic Party in Senate races. They began running ads last week attacking the moderate candidate, Chuck Morse, who has the tacit support, I should say, of Mitch McConnell and his political operation. A group sprung up last week to support Chuck Morse in this primary and spent a lot of money on television ads. We will find out after the primary in all likelihood that it was funded by Mitch McConnell's top super PAC.

That won't be disclosed until later though. They started attacking Morse. Now, if you ask Democrats, they will say, "Well, we don't want to see Don Bolduc, the farther-right candidate, win that primary necessarily. We're attacking Chuck Morse because if he wins the primary, he is a threat to Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan's chances of reelection." However, if you listen to the ad, you see that the sort of things they're attacking Morse on might also make it more difficult for him to win a Republican primary. I don't think that they would be disappointed necessarily if Chuck Morse lost that primary next Tuesday. He's a keeper for them.

Brian Lehrer: The MAGA candidate--

Steven Shepard: This is yet another race where they'd prefer to face the candidate they see is weaker in the general election even if that candidate's positions and views, especially on-- you talk a lot about democracy and the 2020 election at the start of your show, especially on these issues, is just more extreme.

Brian Lehrer: More extreme and more dangerous as far as Democrats are concerned if that person gets in, but this strategy has been going on in a number of states from Democrats this year, helping to support far-right Republican primary candidates, even though the Dems consider the MAGA Republicans a threat to democracy itself because they think their Democratic candidates will do better against MAGA Republicans in the fall than against mainstream ones. That strategy has gotten some press and some criticism this summer. How widespread can you tell it has been? Does your polling analysis, since you are a polling analyst, or any other reporting tell you that that strategy is likely to succeed at giving the Dems more seats in the House and the Senate?

Steven Shepard: I think on balance, it would be more likely to succeed in that regard. For example, in Michigan's third congressional district, Democrats helped to boost a challenger to a sitting congressman, Congressman Peter Meijer from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump a week after the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

They helped to boost his Republican primary challenger, John Gibbs, a man who had far less money in his campaign, not an established campaign. In a seat that Joe Biden carried by nine points, they view Gibbs as much easier to beat. Indeed, I think you'd have to consider the Democrat there, Hillary Scholten, the favorite over John Gibbs. Whereas I think Peter Meijer would have been the favorite over Hillary Scholten, the Democratic nominee, had he won that primary.

Democrats' argument is that every vote for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker and for Republican leadership is damaging to democracy in some way. You can debate the validity of that statement, but that is their position. Every Democratic vote for Speaker, whether that's for Nancy Pelosi or someone else, on January 3rd of next year is a vote that they see as preserving democracy. Again, I'm not here to cast judgment on that position.

Brian Lehrer: I know. That's their political strategy and their view, even though that leads them to support some MAGA candidates who might be more explicitly anti-democracy for the Republican nomination. Listeners, you'd be the pundit or you'd be the questioner. What do you want to say or ask about the midterm elections, national picture primarily, the race for control of the House and Senate? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer with Steven Shepard, senior campaigns and elections editor and chief polling analyst for Politico. Sorry, I interrupted you in mid-thought there to give out the phone number. What were you saying?

Steven Shepard: No, I appreciate that. I think the counterargument there is that anything that Democrats do to strengthen the Trump wing of the party, some folks would use the word "authoritarian" wing of the party, is in and of itself damaging to democracy. If you see people like John Gibbs or Harriet Hageman in Wyoming, not that Democrats had any designs on flipping that seat, but some of the Trump critics driven out of the party and replaced by people who will perpetuate the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen, that in and of itself is damaging to democracy.

Even if a lot of those folks don't end up winning like Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, if they don't end up winning in November, we are a two-party system. If one party increasingly stands for those falsehoods, then that in and of itself is damaging to democracy and not worth doing it from the Democratic Party strategy. That is, I think, the counterargument to what Democrats are saying about something they've spent a lot of money doing this summer.

Brian Lehrer: You retweeted a Wall Street Journal poll that finds Democrats gaining in the national poll result of which party people prefer for Congress, a generic ballot for Congress as they call it. 47% to 44%. The big number that jumps out at me from that poll is that independents now favor Democrats 38% to 35%. While in the journal's last poll like this in March, Republicans led among independents by 12 points. Now, Democrats lead by three among that group. That's a very big swing toward the Dems in the last six months. How much of that is abortion rights?

Steven Shepard: I think a good deal of it probably. Typically speaking, midterm elections are about the party in power. Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress, though by narrow margins. That said, I think for a lot of Americans, the biggest new policy that they've heard of out of Washington over the past four to six months has been the reversal of federal abortion rights by the Supreme Court in June. That certainly doesn't make it seem like the Democrats are the party in power.

Anything that diminishes that argument, I think, is something that turns what is typically a referendum on the president's party into more of a choice election. I think also former President Donald Trump's continued presence in domination of the political scene and the new cycle also hurts the general pattern of midterm elections that they're about the party in power, and that the other party just needs to stand up as the opposition or as a check and balance. Instead, we talked about what happened in Pennsylvania this past weekend, Trump and Biden, and it is sort of a rerun of 2020 instead of just a referendum on the Biden administration's performance and Democrats in Congress.

I think anything that disrupts that typical midterm election dynamic is where you would see those independent voters, people in the middle of the electorate, start to swing back and forth a little bit. Typically, they swing against the party in power. The party in power doesn't seem like they're really in power. Instead of just one dominant political figure who's relatively unpopular, there are two dominant political figures who are unpopular. That can really introduce some volatility and I think we're seeing that in the polling.

Brian Lehrer: Right. With respect to the current president and the former president as being figures in these congressional races, President Biden's job approval in the poll, similar to other recent polls, is 45% approve, 54% disapprove. In a hypothetical head-to-head race against Donald Trump, Biden wins 50% to 44%. How does he get from a 45% approval rating to a full 50% of the vote in that hypothetical?

Steven Shepard: Well, I think that you would look at former President Trump's poll numbers, whether in that poll or another's, and they're worse than Joe Biden's. Not a lot worse necessarily because Joe Biden's poll numbers have fallen during the first year and a half of his presidency, but they are worse.

Again, I think if you ask a lot of Republicans working on some of these races, Donald Trump's continued domination of the news or presence in some of the states and congressional districts as he seeks to travel the country and hold rallies and make himself a central political figure in these midterms is probably not good for Republicans' chances because it does seem like the electorate may not like Joe Biden's job performance right now, but they don't want to go back to Donald Trump.

To the extent the midterm elections become a Trump versus Biden proxy war, that is not the place I think Republicans want to be and not the place they think they thought they'd be six months ago when it looked like they were poised to win a larger majority in the House and had an advantage in the battle for the Senate. Today, in our election forecast, we updated it to note that no party really has a discernible advantage in that battle for the Senate.

It's a true coin flip and that's not where things were a few months ago. I think anything that creates that dynamic is something that it's just a lot of volatility. It's not something we've seen a lot in midterm elections. It raises the prospect that this might not be a typical midterm election where the president's party is automatically going to lose and lose big.

Brian Lehrer: To your point about Trump being out there possibly hurting Republican candidates, I read an analysis by David Frum in The Atlantic this morning that says, "Trump fell right into the trap that Biden laid for him by giving a speech in Pennsylvania." Frum says Trump's own speech in Pennsylvania was all about himself in a way that's likely to hurt the Republican candidates. He was theoretically there to support Mehmet Oz for Senate and Doug Mastriano for governor because Trump denounced Philadelphia, which could get inflamed and turn out a lot of Democratic voters.

He denounced Mitch McConnell, which could dampen enthusiasm to vote at all among Republicans for Senate. He denounced the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, reminding swing voters that, "Oh, they had to search Mar-a-Lago because they caught him with all those classified documents and resisting law enforcement." [chuckles] I guess you agree pretty much from your analysis of the polls or just your impression as to whether that kind of Trump speech is productive or counterproductive for his party.

Steven Shepard: I don't know if I would say that about that specific speech, but I do think that what appears to be the emerging strategy from Trump's political operation of traveling the country in hitting a lot of these swing states, swing states that he lost in the 2020 presidential election where there are hyper-competitive races for Senate and governor and Congress and in the House, that continuing to remain a central figure is probably not helpful to Republicans. They could win anyway because this is a midterm election and that's the way they usually go. I think that's not an automatic anymore. The more Trump's out there, just more competitive yet.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue with this Tuesday morning edition of our usual weekly feature, Monday Morning Politics. This is, of course, a Tuesday kind of Monday that comes after a-- No, I got it backwards. It's a Monday kind of Tuesday that comes after a three-day weekend. We'll continue with Steve Shepard from Politico. We'll start taking some of your calls. One of the other things that I'll ask him about is two really divergent polls in the New York State governor's race.

One the other day, showing it really, really close between Kathy Hochul and Lee Zeldin. One just a few days earlier, showing it as a blowout by Hochul. We'll get his polling-analyst take on those. We'll take your calls, 212-433-WNYC. Hello, Pennsylvania. I know we have some listeners in Pennsylvania and we've been talking a lot about Pennsylvania in this segment, so we welcome you to call in on those particular races or anyone else, 212-433-WNYC as we start down the road to the general election on this day after Labor Day, 212-433-9692, or we'll follow your tweets also @BrianLehrer. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we begin the race to the general election nine weeks from today, the general election campaign traditionally seen as beginning in earnest on this day after Labor Day. Our guest is Steven Shepard, senior campaigns and elections editor and chief polling analyst for Politico. Let's take a Pennsylvania call from somebody looking west from Manhattanville. Elliot, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Elliot: Let me turn off my radio. Hold on. I'm sorry. Alexa, mute.

[laughter]

Elliot: All right.

Brian Lehrer: Now, how many people in the audience just had something go silent? Because you said that out loud. I'm just kidding. Go ahead.

Elliot: Absolutely. If I happen to get a call from someone named Alexa or Alexis, then whatever the next thing I say, the thing will respond usually with a joke.

Brian Lehrer: That's right. In fact, I was watching a Yankee game this weekend and the outfielder on the other team was named Siri, and so you can imagine.

Elliot: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: They were joking about it. Anyway, go ahead.

Elliot: I could talk about any number of topics, Pennsylvania, Senate, House.

Brian Lehrer: Well, you told our screener, you wanted to talk about something about the Doug Mastriano, MAGA Republican for governor campaign in Pennsylvania?

Elliot: Yes, but if you want afterwards though, I can talk about the House too. Doug Mastriano is at the top of the ballot in Pennsylvania. He's a MAGA Republican, but that's really besides the point. Doug Mastriano is a smart guy. He was in the military. He taught at the Army War College, which is in Pennsylvania. For a faculty photo in 2013 or '14, he wore a Confederate uniform.

The faculty were told, "If you want to wear a historical outfit, go ahead." He was the only one who chose Confederate uniform. Most people didn't wear uniforms. Then he does a MAGA thing and then he was at January 6th. He was at the Capitol and he's refused to appear before the committee in the House. This is really just the basics. Like you said, it's just been Labor Day. Now, we're headed into the campaign.

Those are just the basics. John Fetterman has a ton of money and Mehmet Oz has spent a ton of money. Josh Shapiro running against Doug Mastriano, has been attorney general. Of course, we all like our state attorney generals. The enthusiasm and the turnout in Pennsylvania is going to be exactly the opposite of what it was in 2016. I don't know why Mehmet Oz is really even putting in the effort. At this point, I might as well go to other states and campaign to other people who have the chance.

Brian Lehrer: Elliot, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you very much for your call. Anything you want to comment on there from that call, Steve? I did notice relevant to one thing that he said that you retweeted an article about how a record cash haul vanished for Senate Republicans, that's a New York Times article, may be relevant to his statement that Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for Senate, has so much money and Mehmet Oz doesn't.

Steven Shepard: Yes, and I would commend that article. I was in Sunday's New York Times by Shane Goldmacher that described some of the cash flows at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the official committee charged with helping Republicans win back the House under Chairman Rick Scott, the senator from Florida. A very interesting tale about how Senate Republicans tried to build an online fundraising juggernaut and poured a lot of money into it and it hasn't panned out for them.

Mehmet Oz spent $13 million of his own money, he's very wealthy, trying to win that primary. He'll be required to disclose his fundraising again not until the middle of October. As far as we can tell, turned off the cash and hoped that national Republicans, both individual donors to his campaign and also the NRSC and Senate Leadership Fund, the top super PAC, would fill in the gap and carry him over the finish line. Whereas John Fetterman had a more sustainable outside-fundraising operation.

I think that explains why up until a week or so ago, when that Republican super PAC went in big in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz was really getting killed on the airwaves. He was getting outspent by Fetterman and Democrats who were running a lot of ads, both Fetterman positive ads and also negative ads against Mehmet Oz. That's a big reason why Mehmet Oz has fallen behind in that race. It's the same dynamic in the governor's race there in Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro has spent years building up his bank account for this race.

Doug Mastriano is a candidate who doesn't really raise a lot of money, isn't running television ads. He's doing something very unconventional, just trying to build support from the far-right Republican base and that grassroots and hoping that that carries him in a way that a traditional television campaign is really not an option for him. Different schools of thought here, but one consistent theme. Republicans, until recently, getting badly outspent in both of those top-of-the-ticket Pennsylvania statewide races.

Brian Lehrer: The Mastriano race versus Shapiro is so important nationally for people who haven't focused on it. We're doing a number of separate segments just on this dynamic around the country. Because the Republican Mastriano, who, as the caller reminded us, was at the Capitol on January 6th, part of that rally, he's explicitly running on making it easier for a governor or the state legislature to cancel the election results that are otherwise certified, correct?

Steven Shepard: He has talked about how the state's elected official should have the ability to intervene to reverse results of a presidential election. Obviously, Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral votes in the 2024 presidential race will be extremely important. I think in Pennsylvania, unlike some other states where the chief elections official, usually, the secretary of state is elected, that official is appointed by the governor in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania also has a Republican legislature and, currently, a Democratic governor who are often at odds. [chuckles]

If Doug Mastriano wins the governorship, it's very likely that Pennsylvania will have a unified Republican government. Certainly, the legislature could pass laws that Doug Mastriano would sign, that current Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, would veto, and that Josh Shapiro if he were elected governor would veto. They could pass laws that would potentially make it easier for them to reverse the results of the presidential election. Doug Mastriano could also appoint someone to oversee the election, who would interpret the laws and run the election in a way that would boost the Republican candidate in 2024 over the Democratic candidate instead of running a fairer election.

I think there's certainly a lot at stake just in that one race. As you mentioned before, with Democrat's primary strategy, it's notable that Josh Shapiro ran ads before the Pennsylvania governor primary that were seen as boosting Doug Mastriano's chances of winning that Republican primary all in the thought that Doug Mastriano would be a weaker general election candidate as opposed to a more mainstream Republican. Just something to keep in mind as we get closer to Election Day, especially if the polls stay close between Shapiro and Mastriano.

Brian Lehrer: Democrats taking that risk. Here, I think we have a true swing voter. Donna in River Edge, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Donna, thank you so much for calling in.

Donna: Oh, hi, how are you? Thank you for taking my call. Longtime listener.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Donna: I have been an independent voter for most of my life, 40-plus years. Though I do tend to vote on the Democratic side, I'm in the middle swinging toward the left. I have been so disgruntled and really appalled by Donald Trump and his party that in the 2020 election, yes, I did declare myself a Democrat. However, when I heard about how the Democrats are funding these extremists, now, I'm hesitant. Oh, I forgot to mention. I'm not extremely wealthy, but I'm well-off. I've donated hundreds, maybe $1,000 or $2,000, which to me is a lot of money, to Democratic politicians across the country because I wanted Democrats to take control. Now, I keep getting notices asking for donations, but I'm hesitant to do that now.

Brian Lehrer: Because of that strategy of boosting the MAGA Republicans in their primaries?

Donna: Yes, I feel that goes against what the Democratic Party principle should be.

Brian Lehrer: Donna, thank you so much for your call and for your first-time call. Please call us again. How many Donnas in River Edge do you think are out there, Steve?

Steven Shepard: That's a good question. I think in past years, we would dismiss things like this as really inside baseball when you delve into each party's strategy. Certainly, the way this is typically done in terms of intervening in these primaries or meddling in these primaries, it's typically done by super PACS that rely, though not exclusively, heavily on large individual donations that are unlimited. Thanks to a Supreme Court decision in the previous decade in Citizens United that allows them to execute that strategy.

For those groups, it is more about large wealthy donors and their approval or disapproval of the strategy that funds whether it's going to continue or not. I'm a little skeptical about how much all of this is going to matter for swing voters when it comes down to actually casting their ballot, not just nine weeks from today, but basically starting in a couple of weeks with early voting and mail voting starting in some states that send out their ballots earlier. We are a lot closer than nine weeks until the "election."

That said, I think there's been some recent polling showing issues involving democracy in the future of our government rising in importance for voters. Both parties are going to seek to claim that mantle. I think that's what you saw President Biden try to do last week and Republicans rebutting that. I think that's becoming increasingly important for both parties in an election that I think, six months ago if you ask me, would've been decided almost exclusively on what we call kitchen table issues like the economy and inflation. It seems like some of these issues around democracy are becoming more important.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you two data questions to finish up. I'm curious if you've looked at how much this year's redistricting favors one party or another. Listeners in New York State know that a new congressional map that favored Democrats was thrown out by the New York State Court of Appeals. A special master drew new districts much more friendly to potential Republican gains. Of course, partisan gerrymandering goes on in many states.

We have a general sense from things that I've read that the Republicans more successfully gerrymandered this year than the Democrats. What would make it a threat to democracy is if we wind up in November with a result in which more Americans vote for Democrats for Congress, but Republicans win a majority of seats because they're just better at gerrymandering or more willing to gerrymander to create that unrepresentative outcome. How much do you see that as possible?

Steven Shepard: Well, two things there. One, I think you're right that Republicans netted out better from redistricting. I don't think that necessarily would've been true if you didn't have that court decision in New York or you didn't have a similar court decision in Maryland that undid Democrats' congressional maps. Whereas in a state like Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis prodded his legislature to pass a much more aggressive map despite explicit directions in the Florida state constitution that legislators are not allowed to make political considerations in redrawing congressional districts, he prodded them to draw a map that would elect more Republican candidates.

They eventually ceded to that, passed it. He signed it. A judge struck it down. The Florida Supreme Court, a majority of whom were appointed by either DeSantis or his Republican predecessors, allowed that map to stand, whereas a more Democratic-friendly court in New York or Maryland did not allow those maps to stand. I think that is why at the end of the day, Republican jurists were more tolerant of some of this gerrymandering than liberal jurists why Republicans have that advantage. On the other side, I will say that that's certainly possible that a majority of voters will choose Democratic members of Congress.

Some of that happens anyway because of the way we've sorted ourselves as Americans. You have a lot more districts in which Democratic candidates win 80%, 90% of the vote, especially in cities. Places like the old José Serrano district in New York was always a district where the Democratic presidential candidate would win 90% to 95% of the vote. Even in rural America, those districts don't really exist for Republicans. Republican voters are just sorted more efficiently to win a lot of districts with 60% of the vote than Democratic-leaning congressional districts. That can happen anyway. I do think that raises the chances of that happening based on the results of redistricting this year.

Brian Lehrer: We could start a whole other conversation out of that answer that we don't have time for, which is, is a person's vote in the Bronx supposed to mean less than a person's vote in Wyoming because all the congressional districts have roughly the same number of people? If Democrats are winning by larger margins in their district, including high turnout, that's still more Americans voting for Democrats than Republicans in years when it turns out that way if it turns out that more Americans vote for Democrats.

Because of redistricting, Republicans keep the majority of House seats. That's really a problem for democracy. My last question is, and we've been talking about House and Senate races in this segment, but I'm too curious not to get your take as a polling analyst on this one gubernatorial race in New York. Two recent polls, so different. A Trafalgar poll just out, found Republican Lee Zeldin trailing Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul by just four points. Just a week earlier, a poll by SurveyUSA for an Albany television station found Hochul leading by 24 points. Both things can't be true. What do you make of them?

Steven Shepard: I would just say that the Trafalgar Group whom you referenced is a polling organization that really popped up, especially in the run-up to the 2020 election, with this operating theory that the polls have, in recent elections, systematically underestimated Republicans and so that we're going to make some adjustment to boost Republicans in our numbers because we think that will end up closer to the truth. It works in some cases. It doesn't work in other cases.

Brian Lehrer: It was true in the 2016 presidential election, right?

Steven Shepard: It was true in 2016. Certainly, they went into 2020 with that theory. I would say that the balance of polling, not just the SurveyUSA polling, but the balance of polling looks more like a larger Hochul advantage. You're not seeing national Republicans get involved in the New York governor's race. New York is an expensive state obviously to advertise in.

You're not seeing national Republicans get involved in the New York governor's race because they think they have a chance to win. The rest of the polling looks a lot more like the SurveyUSA polling. Typically, when a poll looks like an outlier, it's because it typically is. I would say, wait for more data before starting to believe that the race between Kathy Hochul and Lee Zeldin is that close.

Brian Lehrer: Steven Shepard, senior campaigns and elections editor and chief polling analyst for Politico. Thanks for starting us on the road to the general election 2022. We really appreciate it.

Steven Shepard: Thanks for having me.

 

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