[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with our informal, unofficial, thoroughly unscientific Brian Lehrer Show Exit Poll for Election Day 2022. We'll get back to your phone calls on, for those of you who've decided in the last two weeks, for those of you who are voting for something or against something, as you've seen it, for Black and Latino men who are considered swing voters more than in the past, for anybody from any swing district around the country, though our New York radio station will take your calls from anywhere, places that may have more contentious.

It's pretty contentious in New York and New Jersey and some of the places I have to say, but what gets the national attention is Pennsylvania, Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, and with the whole country watching the Pennsylvania Senate and governor's races, John Fetterman versus Mehmet Oz for Senate, Josh Shapiro versus Doug Mastriano for governor. With us now for a few minutes is Philadelphia Inquirer political reporter Jonathan Tamari. Jonathan, thanks for a few minutes on a wall-to-wall day for you. Welcome to WNYC.

Jonathan Tamari: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: First of all, any breaking news to report this morning from any polling places, election intimidation, or even violence, any other apparent or possible dirty tricks, or how are things going generally?

Jonathan Tamari: Well, this would not fall into the world of dirty tricks, but it is something to keep in mind. There was a last-minute change made by the Philadelphia City Commissioners this morning, which is the group that oversees elections in Philadelphia that is going to reinstate a procedure that they've used to count possible double voting in the past.

The bottom line of what that means for people watching Pennsylvania's results is that it could take longer than expected to count Philadelphia's votes and because Philadelphia is quite obviously the biggest voting block within the state of Pennsylvania, if there's a really close race for Senate or any other statewide office, it means it could take longer than we expected to get results could drag on, certainly into Wednesday, possibly past Wednesday.

It's important to note that this is something that was sought by Republicans, they sued the city to try to make this change, require this change. That's going to delay how long it takes to count every ballot in Philadelphia. If it's a close race means it might delay how long we know how long it is before we know who the winners are.

Brian Lehrer: On the possibility of a delayed vote count, that kind of increases the possibility of shenanigans like local or state level big lies, claiming that elections were rigged when they weren't really rigged. I want to play a clip from another state and ask how much you're seeing anything like this as a possibility in Pennsylvania. This is the Democratic Senator from New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan, speaking yesterday on MSNBC about her Republican challenger there, Don Bolduc.

[start of audio playback]

Maggie Hassan: Don Bolduc is an election denier, spent over a year stoking the big lie about 2020 in our state. He is actively casting doubt on tomorrow's results in New Hampshire, a state that has some of the best elections in the country, and has said that if in 2024, his preferred presidential candidate doesn't win, he as a United States senator, if he were to be in the Senate, would vote to overturn that election.

[end of audio playback]

Brian Lehrer: New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan yesterday, we'll see if Bolduc actually does anything like that or tries anything like that if he does lose today. Jonathan, are you anticipating anything like that from either Oz or Mastriano if they lose for Senate or governor in Pennsylvania?

Jonathan Tamari: Mastriano, as people may know, was one of the leading proponents of the big lie in 2020. He has already started to complain about how long it might take to get results. Now, the possible saving grace in that race is that it does seem, if the polling is accurate, which is a very big if, that that race might actually get called faster, because the polling has shown that Josh Shapiro, the Democrat, has had a pretty big lead over Mastriano, and so that result might be obvious a little sooner than the Senate race. The Senate race is an interesting one because, in the Republican primary, Oz went through a lengthy recount, and it lasted over two weeks.

Him and the other Republican, they abided by the process, they respected that process, then the other Republican, in fact, sued to get more mail ballots counted in his attempt to close the gap and win that primary. This morning, Oz was asked if he would abide by the results. He said, "Of course." Now, the big wrinkle there is that Oz, of course, has been endorsed heavily by Donald Trump, who was in Pennsylvania on Saturday, continuing to repeat a lot of the false claims and lies about 2020. We're wondering, might he see something and he weigh in on Pennsylvania's result, the same way he did in 2020 when he prematurely and falsely claimed that he had won the state.

Brian Lehrer: Oprah, who launched Dr. Oz to national prominence, endorsed John Fetterman the other day, I see. Does she carry any swing votes or any extra turnout with her at this point, do you think?

Jonathan Tamari: I don't know how many swing votes she carries. She's pretty well known as someone who supports Democrats generally. I think that in such a close race that it looks like it could be between Fetterman and Oz. The reason she might matter a little bit is that she, of course, was helped make Oz famous. She knows him very well personally and is choosing not to support him and is actively choosing to support his opponent. Will it swing a lot of votes? Probably not. Could it be enough to maybe nudge a few people here and there in a really close race? It seems plausible to me.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. Did Fetterman's slightly speech-impaired debate performance as he recovers from a stroke, which has gotten a lot of publicity in the national political media, help him, hurt him, or no impact as far as you could tell so far?

Jonathan Tamari: The public polls that we've seen have said that it's had very little impact, that very few people changed their votes after that. Watching that debate, it sounds like some people who were inclined to vote against Fetterman might use it as another reason to vote against him anyway. People who are inclined to support him will tell you it's less of an issue.

I will say that Republicans say that they think it had more of an impact than you're seeing in the polls. Their belief is that people wouldn't want to publicly admit to a pollster, "Yes, I'm voting against the guy because he has a health issue," but they think that it is a factor, and that it is a problem that could push that race in their direction. Obviously, we'll find out, but that's their argument that people might not admit it to a pollster, but that it's hard for someone to watch that debate and feel comfortable with him in their view.

Brian Lehrer: Jonathan Tamari, Philadelphia Inquirer, political reporter. Thanks for touching base with us on Pennsylvania. Obviously, a lot to watch for tonight. Based on what you just reported about Philadelphia, perhaps in the coming days as we wait for the final results in some of these races. Thanks for some time today, Jonathan.

Jonathan Tamari: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Now back to your calls in our informal, unofficial, thoroughly unscientific exit poll for Election Day 2022. Again, here's the Election Day roll call of who we're hoping to hear from, who made up your mind in any race in the last two weeks, who feels like you're voting for something in this election and who feels like you're voting against something. We're inviting any caller from Pennsylvania or any swing district or any swing state other than New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut, in addition to our local people.

Black men and Latino men, so much has been written recently about the GOP trying to get a few percentage points more of your votes. Where are you and what conversations? Are you having plus anything that you want to report from your polling place? I see we're getting more calls from Mercer County, New Jersey, where none of the voting machines seem to be working. We'll get back to that as we go. Let's go next to Shirley in Westchester. You're on WNYC. Hi, Shirley. Happy Election Day.

Shirley: Hi, Brian. Happy Election Day to you. Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, Shirley. You voted early, I see. You want to tell us that you're voting for something it looks like, right?

Shirley: Yes, I voted early, and I'm voting for democracy, the future of the world depends on this election because whatever happens now will be-- I feel that the way we're heading, I don't like the direction. People, yes, we have inflation. Yes, we have crime. Those things over time will be finished, but the future of this country is in the hands of this election.

Brian Lehrer: Shirley.

Jonathan: People have to choose-- Oh, sorry.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much. We really appreciate your call. Call us again. Freddy in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Freddy.

Freddy: Hey, hi, Brian. How are you doing, sir?

Brian Lehrer: Good. How are you doing, sir, yourself?

Freddy: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Freddy: I'm doing great. I was calling-- By the way, I love your show. You're amazing.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Freddy: I was calling regard that-- I'm against the Democrats right now, in favor of the Republican. I'm Latin and I voted my whole life for Democrats and I feel like the Democrats are playing the fear-mongering and of democracy, and in a national level that's okay but as a New Yorker, we are dealing with real crimes and I grew up in the city and now I have to do some double looks in the subway and it's dangerous right now. I really think they're just neglecting the Latin community and they feel entitled that somehow that we have to vote of Democrats and that's how I feel about this whole thing right now.

Brian Lehrer: What do you say to the Latino caller we had from Queens a little earlier if you heard him who said he can't imagine voting for Republican because Republicans are basically against your people. I realize that's many, many different groups of people, Latino or Hispanic but that's how he was framing it. The Republicans hate us basically, and so how could I vote for them? How could any Latino vote for them? What would you say to that caller?

Freddy: Well, you got to make a distinction. First of all, not all Republicans are the same. That's too general and this is the reason why we are so divisive right now because somehow this identity politic it put everybody into one group and the other group second. Second, when we are talking about that, we are talking about Trump. I voted for Trump even though I didn't like Biden. Now we are not talking about New York City about identity politics. We are talking about the real issues here. First, I will say to him that I don't think abortion's going to go in legal in New York City or in New York. Second of all, we need to deal with the crime.

Then we also have to deal with inflation. What about the rent gentrification? We have so many issues going on in New York City that for us to get caught up in the national politics is doing a disservice. Now, I don't know if Zeldin is going to follow through but what I do know that the Democrats haven't followed through. Somehow I'm willing to give Zeldin a chance rather than, and I don't think as well that this whole Spanish, Latin, that we all alike and I really think that it's a disturbance to the New Yorkers that somehow we are creating the propaganda, the Democrats, that we don't vote the end of the world.

Brian: Freddy.

Speaker 1: I just don't--

Brian: I'm going to keep moving. Thank you very much. Really appreciate you chiming in on election day. Thanks for the nice words about the show too. Please keep calling us. Let's go next to Trina in Short Hills. We had mentioned earlier that there was an issue or Brigid Bergen had mentioned when she was on earlier in the hour about an issue of whether the students at Vassar College were going to be able to vote at a polling site on their campus and Trina in Short Hills, I think is calling about her granddaughter, who's a Vassar student. Trina, is that right? You're on WNYC. Hi there.

Trina: Hi there. I was just driving to my daughter's house and here's your show about Vassar and then I called my granddaughter and she said they do have a polling place today and because of that, lots of more kids are voting. They also had a shuttle bus taking them for early voting in Poughkeepsie but now that it's on campus, a lot more kids are voting.

Brian Lehrer: Very interesting. Can I ask you your reaction to something? I'm curious if you heard we've had two callers already who are both men saying that they're not worried that anything's going to happen to abortion rights in New York State if they vote for Zeldin. I'm just curious if you heard that or I guess you didn't have the opportunity to ask your granddaughter about hearing things like that from men but do you have any reaction to that when a guy says that?

Trina: Yes, because a guy's never been pregnant. I'm a 78-year-old retired internist, and I was an intern before we had Roe v. Wade, and I remember women coming into the emergency room dying of septic shock. Without abortion rights, women are going to die and no one's going to want to be an OBGYN because it's too scary. I'm sorry that the men don't care about it but the women should.

Brian: Thank you, Trina. Brian Lehrer, WNYC, our informal, unofficial thoroughly unscientific Election Day Exit Poll continues.

[music]

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, now to more of your calls in our informal, unofficial, thoroughly unscientific Election Day Exit Poll. Janice and Highland Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Janice.

Janice: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I listen to you all the time and love your show. I'm calling to report an issue that's happening in New Jersey and I called the New Jersey 12 network news yesterday to report it but I haven't seen anything. My sister lives in Jackson, New Jersey, and she sends in her email about a week and a half ago, it went to Trenton. It was stamped November 1st, and then it was returned back to her and she called up because she didn't know what to do. Her ballot didn't go through apparently, and they returned it to her.

It took a little while to find information but was told that she should drop her mailing ballot to an official ballot box and she was thinking about emailing it and she put it in the ballot box, but they told her that there was a glitch at the post office and we're wondering how many people had their ballots returned to them. Maybe they think that it was registered or people who didn't have a return address, perhaps. Who knows what happened to that email but I haven't heard anybody reporting about these mail in ballots being returned to the center.

Brian Lehrer: Another one that we're going to report to our New Jersey desk to see if that's a pattern or if that was just an individual error. Very interesting, Janice, thank you for reporting it to us. Here's another Pennsylvania call, Barbara in Dingmans Ferry. You're on WNYC. Hi, Barbara.

Barbara: Good morning, Brian. Thank you for talking with me.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for talking with me, so who are you voting for in the swing keystone state?

Barbara: Federman. There's no question about it. I can't look at this locally. I'm actually looking what I consider strategically, I don't like that Federman had a stroke. I feel sorry that he had deal with it. I've had a couple of members of my family have to deal with it, and I know that it can affect you but I don't think that we can as a society can afford to have OZ and lose one more seat in Congress. It just can't happen, so I can't vote for OZ. Besides the fact that I think he's a carpet bagger says the woman who just moved to PA herself but I just think that for me there's just no if, ands or buts about it. Federman, I have to vote Federman.

Brian Lehrer: What makes you concerned about him as a senator, even though you're going to vote for him because he had a stroke? What do you think he wouldn't be able to do or wouldn't be able to do well enough if that's a downside for you?

Barbara: It's really his ability to verbalize things can be problematic. Also, just from my own experience, I've had three family members over the last, shall we say 10, 15 years have strokes and I know that it makes a change to them. Some of them became a little more volatile. Some had a hard time with cognitive thinking and so it was a concern of mine. In the end, I'll take him over OZ in a minute.

Brian Lehrer: Barbara, thank you for checking in from England Ferry. Really appreciate it. This is WNYC FMHDNAM, New York, WNJT-FM, 88.1 Trenton, WNJP, 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming @wnyc.org at eleven o'clock are informal, unofficial, thoroughly unscientific election-day exit poll for the whole Brian Lair show today, plus some other guests who are sprinkling in. We're going to talk about the national scene in a few minutes with Aaron Blake from the Washington Post.

We'll have another guest with a view of the very interesting ballot questions in some states, whole variety of things. It's not just legal weed or expanded Medicaid anymore as it has been in a number of elections. Abortion is on the ballot explicitly in a few states so is the right to collective bargaining, the right to healthcare a special tax in one state to build out an electric vehicle infrastructure? We'll get to all of those as we go, but to more of your phone calls first, up next is Madeline in Floral Park. You're on WNYC. Oh, Michelin. Sorry. I saw Madeline. It's Michelin, right? Am I saying that right?

Michelin: Yes, Brian. Good morning, Brian, and thank you for your show. I love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Michelin: Brian, you're welcome. My I am puzzled by the way the American people are thinking. The Republican are thinking that it's President Biden for, it's the Democrats vote that there is inflation, there is crime, and they forget what the Democrats and President Biden did during the pandemic. That's how he tried to help. Not only the Democrats, also the Republican. He helped everyone. Now the inflation, the crime, it's not just in America. It's in the five continents.

[unintelligible 00:21:31] Asia, Africa, it to be here, but it's not the Democrats Biden fault that the [unintelligible 00:21:39] is high. They're just thinking about themselves and forget what the Democrats and President Biden did when we need him the most he helped. Now everything, they blame him. They blame the Democrats for everything that happened is global. The most peaceful country is problem now because of the pandemic. It's nobody's trust, especially not President Biden and thought that we are in the condition we are is problem all over.

Brian Lehrer: Michelin, thank you very much and please call us again. [unintelligible 00:22:23] in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hello, [unintelligible 00:22:26].

Caller: Hi Brian. Thank you. This is my first time calling. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Caller: Yes, I'm calling to tell you that the main issue on the ballot for me is not Republican or Democrat, but public safety, not with funding. The woman right to choose is important. The freedom in our democracy is important, but the most important thing for you and me is to be save at your home and outside. What would be the use? If you have the freedom and somebody attack you in your home and kill you, or you go outside in the subway on the street and somebody attack you and kill you, what would be your freedom? You going to be dead.

Brian Lehrer: What do you say to the previous caller who said, we have to look at this in global context, and I'm broadly paraphrasing here, but she basically said the pandemic sent everything haywire. There's so much more inflation, there's so much more crime everywhere in the world right now. You can't blame Joe Biden and you can't blame therefore Kathy Hochul. You can't say, well, automatically either Republicans, just because they're saying crime, crime, crime, fear, fear, fear are going to do a better job. What would you say to that caller?

Caller: They are not global New York State governor, Global US President. They are leaders in their locality. That's why you choose a leader who will solve a local problem based on local situations in America. Not every place is so bad, as we are talking about, not every place is so crime infested. That's why we have a leaders at your locality, at your constituency, at your city, at your state, at your nation. Not global president. We have state president

Brian Lehrer: State governor. [unintelligible 00:25:14], thank you very much. Please call us again. Before we go to the news and then Aaron Blake from the Washington Post, some tweets coming in. Quite a few reacting to the same thing after a couple of guys called in saying they're not worried about abortion rights in New York State. One listener writes, yes, I'm so glad men aren't worried about something that doesn't affect them. Imagine how much. Well, I'll leave the rest of that for you to read. A listener writes, I'm not sure I can listen to another man call in [unintelligible 00:25:50] on how abortion access isn't going anywhere with decades of history.

Another one got to love all the men calling it Brian Lehrer, who are voting Republican that are not worried at all about abortion rates. Then on something completely different. Listener rights just cast my vote for Beto O'Rourke in Texas. I moved to Texas a few years ago after lifelong New Yorker. I've seen a huge surge of people from the tri-state area moving here in recent years. We are going to turn Texas blue. Well, we take a lot of people from the tri-state moving to Texas to turn it blue, but who knows what might happen down there with Beto O'Rourke and Greg Abbott. Thank you for your tweets. We'll continue with our informal, unofficial, thoroughly unscientific Election Day Exit Poll till the end show--

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.