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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, couple of quick program notes. Our election night coverage will begin at seven o'clock tonight here on WNYC. I will be anchoring the first-hour of our national coverage, and then we'll turn it over to NPR anchors at eight o'clock from Washington and around the country. Also, in case you're interested, I'll be a guest On the Media's election night, zoom at nine o'clock tonight for about 20 minutes with Brooke Gladstone, that's a Green Space zoom event so you can find it @thegreenspace.org. If you're interested that'll be going on all night with Brooke and Bob from On the Media.

I'll be a guest with them for about 20 minutes at nine o'clock tonight. Also, if you've got any news tips today, if you're seeing what you think is voter intimidation, voter fraud, things that are going badly and there's incompetence, whatever's going on out there that you think is newsworthy and you want to tip off on newsroom, we have a tips email set-up, which is tips@gothamist.com. tips@gothamist.com or you can find us on social media at WNYC or at Gothamist if you want to submit an Election Day news tip that way. Meanwhile, thanks very much for your New Jersey legal weed cause, it's Election Day on the Brian Lehrer show with our informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific Election Day exit poll. Next question.

It's really three questions for three separate groups of you, who among you switched parties in the presidential from 2016, or are voting today and didn't vote at all in 2016, or it didn't make up your mind in any race until the last week? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Three questions for three separate groups of you, who among you switched parties in the presidential from 2016 or didn't make up your mind in any race until the last week or since turnout is so much bigger this year apparently, who's listening right now who is voting or voted this year, but sat it out in 2016? 646-435-7280.

Supposedly, if the polls are right there are many of you in the category of party switchers. The policy Trump has lost a lot of people and that many are white, suburban women. Are you one of them? 646-435-7280, but we've also heard from some people on this show who are switching the other way, Democratic or third-party or abstain in 2016, and are voting for Trump. You're invited too.

646-435-7280, who among you switched parties in the presidential from 2016 or didn't make up your mind in any race until the last week or since turnout is so much bigger this year apparently who's listening right now who is voting or voted this year, but sat it out in 2016? 646-435-7280. As our calls are coming in Slate political writer, Jim Newell is with us. He also writes the weekly politics newsletter called The Surge. Hi, Jim, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Jim Newell: Hey, Brian, good to talk to you again.

Brian: First of all, is there any news this morning that you're keeping your eye on anything yet to report?

Jim: There is not much news. I am keeping my eye on certain things like some live past of Florida election date numbers, but I wouldn't describe that as a healthy habit. They're not really going to show us anything that useful. You need to need to see how the day progresses and how all of the return mail breakdowns by registration turnout. I would not recommend anyone doing what I'm doing right now which is obsessing on Twitter over every little piece of data.

Brian: Your article out today is seven things to watch for today and let's just go there. Number one, a democratic breakthrough has the sunbelt finally arrived now part of me, Jim says, "Oh, Jim, they say that every year, but Beto O'Rourke lost Stacey Abrams lost, et cetera, et cetera." You asked the question, "Has the sunbelt finally arrived?" Do you think it has?

Jim: I try not to make predictions. All I can say is the polls show Arizona and Georgia were both within about five points in 2016, they've added a lot of new voters since then and the polls show it pretty close to tide in both of those States this time. I think those States are going to be one or two points either way. We'll find out today if the balance gets tipped, but this is I think the future, whether it arrives this site or not, this is where the Democratic coalition is heading.

They're probably just generally going to keep losing some voters in the Midwest and the North, but they're going to keep adding new voters just with population trends in the South, along the sunbelt for cycles to come, whether it arrives this cycle or not, we'll see, but I think a couple of presidential elections from now, we're not even going to recognize the electoral maps that we're so used to.

Brian: Thing to watch today. Number two, battleground Pennsylvania. Jim, if the usual mantra of election watchers and you've already used the word and our brief conversation is Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, this year, maybe it's Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, and you wrote the other day about what you sarcastically, I think headlined, "Hot pollster on pollster controversy." Do you want to talk about that?

Jim: If you look at one of the sites that aggregates a lot of polls is this website, Real Clear Politics. In the last days of the race, you've seen a lot of numbers come in from these groups like Trafalgar or Insider Advantage, Susquehanna, a lot of them that are their partisan pollsters or have partisans as their clients and they're doing the polls on their behalf. These have been much rosier for Trump than most of the August high-quality NBC News, Wall Street Journal polls or things like that.

Now I want to be very clear. Trump can absolutely win the election but when you look at under the hood at some of these partisan Republican polls, they show things like Trump winning 30% of independence in Michigan or 30% of Black voters in Michigan. Things that just are really in a different universe from a lot of other pollsters. I think Trump could win. I don't necessarily think that it will look like what Trafalgar or Insider Advantage is showing if he does. I think if Trump wins, it will once again be huge surge of rural voters. The controversy is just that a lot of pollsters have been questioning some of the methodologies used by some of these Republican pollsters.

Brian: Why the obsession with Pennsylvania do you think? Certainly, the candidates spent an inordinate amount of time there in the last few days, the media is obsessing on Pennsylvania, but it's only one of various paths to victory.

Jim: If you look at it statistically, Pennsylvania is the one that's the most likely to give either Trump or Joe Biden, 270 electoral votes i.e. it's the most likely tipping point state. If we are in a situation where Biden's being underestimated nationally now, then States like Texas and Ohio and Iowa were in play. If we're looking at the polls as being pretty much correct, then the closest States are going to be Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona.

If the polls are wrong like they were in 2016 and Trump is being underestimated, then Pennsylvania is Biden's last line of defense to keep an electoral college majority. That's why you've seen Joe Biden spend more money in that state relative to the population than any other state and why he's visited it more than any other state, including going to Scranton today.

Brian: You also have your eye on the Senate races. I know you've been watching the Senate races, the Senate could flip to Democrat today, I mean to a democratic majority control, depending on how things turn out today, I'll let you weigh in on one of these. North Carolina in which you write, "The future of the country comes down to an illicit sex haver."

Jim: Yes. Thank you. Democrats felt really quite good about their chances in the Senate where they could pick up Colorado and Arizona seats pretty comfortably. They were in good shape in Maine to pick up Susan Collin's seat. Then the so-called tipping point state there was going to help decide control of the Senate would be North Carolina where Thom Tillis was running against the challenger Cal Cunningham. Cunningham had built up a pretty decent lead, but then he was caught having affairs. We don't actually know how many affairs, but one affair, two affairs so that's brought that race a lot closer.

It does still look like Cunningham has a modest advantage there with Tillis, but what's interesting is you've seen the main Senate race say they're really quite close because Susan Collins, brand for independence is helping keeping her afloat in an otherwise really difficult environment for her. I think controlling the senate could really be quite a nail biter here, I think that look has probably improved a little bit for Republicans, than a [unintelligible 00:10:26] of things a few weeks ago.

Brian: Last thing for you, Jim, you had a pretty widely shared article around this time in 2016. called, "Of course, you should be panicking about the election," and that was aimed at Hillary supporters. Of course, as it turned out if they weren't panicking, then they had their heads in the sand, and you remind us of that this year and say, "You're still pro-panic," tongue-in-cheek?

Jim: It's a little bit tongue-in-cheek. If we compare this race to the Clinton race, Biden's numbers are better, they're not some of the really frightening signs for Democrats that were being ignored popularly in 2016. The generic congressional ballot looks good, whereas it was really closing a lot for Clinton in the last days of that race. If you break down all the numbers, it's hard to see where the disaster could actually strike but that's kind of what I was trying to get at 2016 when there really were some bad numbers for Clinton.

I just think that if you're a Democrat and Donald Trump to be president for another four years, it's probably you should be on high alert for that and you should not be resting on your laurels that the race has already won by Biden when there's still a full day of voting left to go.

Brian: Jim Newell writes The Surge, political newsletter for Slate. Jim, now you can go back to obsessing over the early tea leaves from Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida.

Jim: Thank you. Very healthy decision by me.

Brian: Now, to a few calls. We only have a few calls coming in from people who have switched sides in the presidential from 2016 to now. Let's see what we do have. It might just be one caller actually, if so. I've got a whole other informal, unofficial fairly unscientific Election Day exit poll question lined up, but Mercy and Pine Beach, New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in Mercy.

Mercy: Hi, thank you for having me.

Brian: Who'd you vote for in 2016 and who are you voting for today?

Mercy: I voted for Trump in 2016. After about a year, I regretted that. I have been embarrassed about how he has conducted himself and watching the few debates, the two debates with my husband have been very uncomfortable because he is still a Trump supporter and it's been a tough go.

Brian: What changed you?

Mercy: First of all, when he pulled out of the--

Brian: Paris Climate Accord?

Mercy: Yes, when we pulled out of that. I work in a nursing home, and as soon as the Coronavirus hit that was when he came out in February was his opinion of what was happening, I was just appalled and seeing people die on a daily basis and hearing how he was handling this. It just was devastating to me, and that did it for me, I did not want to vote for him. I was surprised that my husband wasn't with me on the switch.

Brian: Mercy, thank you very much for your call. I hope there's peace in your family. Mercy, one of those people in New Jersey and in the healthcare field, as she said who got alienated after voting for Trump by the way he has talked about and dealt with a pandemic. One of many according to the polls. Don in Rivervale, you're on WNYC. Hi, Don.

Don: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian: Good.

Don: Lifelong Republican who dropped out about six months into the Trump administration. I cannot be affiliated with what I now refer to as a [unintelligible 00:14:58] party, as in pusillanimous. They have been so involved in tying themselves directly to Trump and his every wish that I cannot be affiliated with them anymore.

Brian: Don, thank you very much. Jay in some Somerset County, no, I'm sorry. It's Dan in Forked River. Interesting. All our vote switchers in New Jersey today. Dan in Forked River you're on WNYC, Hi.

Dan: How you doing? Thanks for having me.

Brian: Who'd you vote for in 2016, who are you voting for today?

Dan: I voted for a libertarian out of Texas in 2016 just because same old, same old, you hear the same things, the lesser of two evils I just can't do it, I couldn't do it then. I couldn't do it in the prior election or the one before that, but this one, I really do believe my vote counts and I had to vote against Trump. I just don't like the man.

Brian: What led you to vote libertarian in 2016? I know you said lesser of two evils, Tweedledee, Tweedledum.

Dan: Well, I'm all about the planet, nature, the environment, having some freedoms, not the way Trump sees them, but the way most normal people would see them if that's the accurate way to describe it.

Brian: We don't have time to really get into it, but libertarians and environmental protection people are sometimes the opposite because the libertarian say, "Let business do what it wants. without government regulation, the market will take care of the environment." Of course, environmentalist tend to be the other way.

Dan: Well, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I didn't do a whole lot of research into it, I do feel I need to vote and I did vote for that reason only. I looked into libertarianism, and it's probably the closest thing that aligns with me, but even that's not completely aligned, you understand what I'm saying?

Brian: I do. You did that in 2016 but now you just got to get rid of Trump. I hear you. All right. Thank you for those of you who called in. Switching your votes from 2016. We're going to clear the board and we're going to have one more call in for our last few minutes and very simply, folks in our informal, unofficial, thoroughly unscientific Election Day exit poll. The question is, how will you be spending election night?

This time there's no right answer, no wrong answer, well, there never is, but you're not going to wind up being right or wrong when Election Day votes are counted. How will you be spending election night? 646-435-7280, how much of it will be self-care? 646-435-7280. Regardless of who you're voting for, are you going to watch? Will listening to the news or following the news in any way just make you feel terrible?

Are you going to be glued to the TV or the phone or maybe you're going to be playing board games or taking a bath or playing with the dog? How are you mentally and physically preparing for tonight? What are you going to be doing tonight once the counting starts? 646-435-7280. Are you planning on gathering virtually or with friends in your COVID bubble to watch on election night or you're going to do it alone with whoever's in your household? What are you planning on cooking or eating tonight?

Maybe every four years you make election night chilli, are you upholding that tradition or some other comfort food tonight? 646-435-7280. Maybe it's illegal weed in New Jersey one last time if that vote goes the way the polls say it's going to go, to get you through the night, whatever it is 646-435-7280. What are you going to be doing on election night? We'll take your calls after this.

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Tanzina Vega: All right, everybody for years since the last presidential Election Day we're back at it again. You made it so this show is about you the voters. How access to the polls has been affected by Coronavirus and wildfires, what you need from the media in this moment and how to follow the election results, we've got it all I'm Tanzina Vega and that's next time on The takeaway weekday afternoons at three on 93.9 FM.

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Brian: Coming up at noon on all of it with Alison Stewart, the case for abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote. Jesse Wagman, a member of the New York Times editorial board makes the case with his book, Let the People Pick the President. That and more at noon with Allison here on WNYC.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. In our previous call in on people switching from the 2016 presidential vote, we didn't get anybody until the very last minute once we went into the break, who switched to Trump from the Democrats. We're going to put that person on the air and it's Shully in New Jersey. Shully, do I have you?

Shully: Yes. Hi, can you hear me?

Brian: I can hear you. Who did you vote for in 2016 and who you're voting for today?

Shully: Since I immigrated to this country, I've been voting for a Democratic candidate, never a Republican. I'm a registered Democrat, but I was very upset with the Democratic Party and Hillary's nomination, so I voted for Trump. I'm voting again for Trump because I don't think Biden is fit to be a president. I don't understand the Kamala Harris pick.

Brian: Your switch really came in 2016, it didn't come now. I see. What most turned you off about the Democratic Party?

Shully: I'm sorry, what's that?

Brian: What most turns you off about the Democratic Party by 2016?

Shully: I thought then that Hillary was just given the position. She was handpicked by the elite of the party. I don't think they encouraged enough of Democratic politicians to run against her. Somehow Bernie got on the ballot. I don't think it was a fair way that they went about it. I think that Clintons were crooked, though I have to say, if Bill Clinton was running today, I'll probably vote for him again.

Brian: That's so interesting. Shully, we're going to leave it there at the time. Go ahead. Did you want to finish your thought there?

Shully: No, no, no. Go ahead.

Brian: Shully, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you very much. We appreciate your call. Now we'll spend our last couple of minutes on what you're doing tonight, Instead of or as you're following the returns. Jamie and Glen Ridge, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jamie? Real quick.

Jamie: Hi, Brian. I am spending the evening because my wife and kid are in Texas. We had our renovation interrupted by COVID. I'm spending the evening creating, building, and fixing things and I hope it's a harbinger of the year to come.

Brian: Well, you'd be doing that to kind of get your physical energy out while you're following the returns?

Jamie: That's entirely right. Otherwise, I'm just pacing. I'm a nervous wreck. I can't take any more of Trump.

Brian: I hear you, Jamie. Thank you very much. Laura in Brooklyn. Hi, Laura, you're on WNYC. What are you doing tonight?

Laura: Hi, first-time caller, longtime listener. I am making arduous lasagna. I started my Bowling news at 7:00 AM and I'm going to [unintelligible 00:24:31] to distract myself all night.

Brian: The intricate lasagna. What's in it?

Laura: Yes. This one is a meat lasagna. Just the classic goat tomato sauce meat, bolognese, [unintelligible 00:24:31] cheese, mozzarella, all of it. Yes, we'll probably have some sweet cocktails to go with it.

Brian: Stress carb loading. Laura, thank you very much. Liz in Saugerties, you're on WNYC. Hi, Liz?

Liz: Hey, Brian. First-time caller, longtime listener. I want to visit my family in Brooklyn, but I'm going to be watching the news, I guess tonight in the past couple of days because I'm not sure what the protests are going to be looking like and my family live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Bay Ridge hasn't been the most classiest this past couple of months.

Brian: When you say looking at what the protests are going to be, you mean you're kind of getting ready to go out if you feel like your physical presence is needed?

Liz: No, what I mean by that is I just want to spend time with my family and I have to take the bus or the train, so I'm worried about going into 42nd Street or Penn Station. Just what that might look like after election night.

Brian: Liz, thank you very much. Jared in Montclair, I think is going to get our last word. Hi, Jared? We got about 30 seconds for you.

Jared: Okay, Brian, I appreciate you, I appreciate the show. I made a friend over the course of this pandemic. We really became close in these last several months and we're going to stick together and watch the show this evening with some fun food and snacks.

Brian: You have a network picked out or you can a graze and see what Fox is doing, see what MSNBC is doing, that kind of thing?

Jared: Grazing is on the agenda for sure.

Brian: Grazing is on the agenda for Jared in Montclair and his new friend. Thanks to all of you for your calls. Good luck getting through tonight. Whatever you do, who knows what we'll be on the other side. Tomorrow morning, we will talk about it here. I'll also be back at seven o'clock tonight to anchor our first hour of coverage. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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