Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Just one very quick word about our winter fundraiser. We are in our only two-for-one matching period this hour only. If some of you are on the verge of donating to the station and want to do it when your money is basically going to be tripled, we have a generous match from the Kaplen Brothers Fund, two-for-one this hour only. Get your pledges, and if you've been meaning to do them, 888-376-WNYC, 888-376-9692, or from the homepage at wnyc.org.

We'll talk about this more later, including the Kaplen Brothers Fund in honor of the late Lex Kaplen who I knew, but this is coming up in a little while. Just letting you know this is on the table starting right now that it's ten o'clock. Now, you've been hearing the Super Tuesday results headlines. Trump and Biden basically swept the 15 states that voted, except Nikki Haley beat Trump in Vermont. Haley suspending her campaign and not endorsing Trump as of now, we're hearing.

For all intents and purposes, the general election starts today, but I've been looking at last night's numbers with this question in mind, which party's dissenting voters are more of a threat to their nominee? That is the people who voted for Haley in Republican primaries who may refuse to [unintelligible 00:01:40] Trump in November because they see him as unfit, or the people who joined the new uncommitted movement in the Democratic primaries over Biden's continued funding of the war in Gaza.

Here's some numbers. On the Republican side, Haley got 40% in Utah, 37% in Massachusetts, significant, 35% in Virginia, that's 240,000 votes there, people who might not vote for Trump, 28% in Minnesota, potential swing state, that's 97,000 votes there, 26% in Maine, 23% in North Carolina, definitely a swing state, and that's 250,000 votes for Nikki Haley in a Republican primary. 250,000 votes in a swing state of Republicans. Presumably, it was a Republican primary that did not go to Trump.

On the Democratic side, 7 of the 15 states had an uncommitted option. We remember Michigan kind of started this campaign, anti-war, at least anti-Gaza campaign, the way it's being fought. Voters in Michigan, 100,000 of them last week, so 19% in Minnesota, potential swing state, 45,000 votes. 13% in North Carolina, 88,000 uncommitted voters. Massachusetts, not a swing state, but 9% voted uncommitted, 54,000 people. Colorado 8%, 43,000 people. Also, Tennessee 8%. Alabama 6% and 4% in Iowa voted uncommitted.

Now, according to Reuters, the Edison Research exit polls found that in addition to Muslim voters who chose uncommitted, what Reuters called students, suburban women, and liberal Jewish activists, made up most of the uncommitted coalition. Reuters interviewed a number of voters choosing uncommitted and found none of them planning to vote for Trump in November, but will they boycott Biden, and will the Haley voters reject Trump?

By the way, almost as important, maybe as the presidential news yesterday, independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema dropped out of her re-election bid for the Senate in Arizona, so a Democrat or a Republican will pick up a seat in that closely divided state for the closely divided Senate. Let's talk about all of this with Errol Louis, who many of you know as a New York Magazine columnist and host of Inside City Hall and the You Decide podcast from Spectrum News NY1.

Errol just launched a weekly national politics show on Spectrum systems across the country too. It's called The Big Deal with Errol Louis, and it airs at 8:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday nights. Errol Louis, great to have you on, and congratulations on the new show.

Errol Louis: Thanks very much. Very glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: I'll let you do the promo first. Your new national politics show, Friday nights at 8:00 is called The Big Deal. What's the big deal?

Errol Louis: Ah, there you go. That's why we named it that so that people would ask that very question. TBD, The Big Deal with Errol Louis is really an attempt to give folks a nice concise summary from the ground level up on the national issues that are going to shape the country and help determine--

Brian Lehrer: Errol, I'm going to jump in, and I apologize because you're promoting your show, but Nikki Haley just took the podium in South Carolina-

Errol Louis: Let's listen.

Brian Lehrer: -and we think she's going to be dropping out of the race right now. Let's dip in for a little bit anyway.

Nikki Haley: -that will eventually crush our economy. A smaller federal government is not only necessary for our freedom, it is necessary for our survival. The road to socialism is the road to ruin for America. Our Congress is dysfunctional and only getting worse. It is filled with followers, not leaders. Term limits for Washington politicians are needed now more than ever. Our world is on fire because of America's retreat. Standing by our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan is a moral imperative, but it's also more than that. If we retreat further, there will be more war, not less.

As important while we stand strong for the cause of freedom, we must bind together as Americans. We must turn away from the darkness of hatred and division. I will continue to promote all those values as is the right of every American. I sought the honor of being your president, but in our great country, being a private citizen is privilege enough in itself, and that's a privilege I very much look forward to enjoying. In all likelihood, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee when our party convention meets in July. I congratulate him and wish him well.

I wish anyone well who would be America's president. Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us. I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee, but on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said, "Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind." It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that.

At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away, and our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing. I end my campaign with the same words I began it from the book of Joshua. I direct them to all Americans, but especially to so many of the women and girls out there who put their faith in our campaign. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for God will be with you wherever you go. In this campaign, I have seen our country's greatness. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, America. God bless you.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Nikki Haley, and there it is. She has suspended her presidential campaign, but very pointedly, she did not endorse the obvious Republican nominee, the presumed Republican nominee now, Donald Trump. Errol Louis, what do you make of it?

Errol Louis: Well, I think it's important that she did not fall in line. The divisions that we saw in the Republican Party that were reflected in the outcome of the primaries and caucuses were real, is what she basically just told us. One of the fault lines I think she was very explicit about on foreign policy, where there are a number of Republican leaders who don't want to provide any aid to Ukraine, and this person who has abundant foreign policy experience and has seen what goes on in the rest of the world is saying it is not safe for the Republican Party or indeed the United States to turn its back on Ukraine, Israel, or Taiwan, when we have what she described as a world on fire.

I think she put quite a lot into just a couple of minutes, making clear that she intends to be a player, a mover, and shaker, both within the party and within our national politics.

Brian Lehrer: If she is suspending her campaign and not endorsing Trump, what role do you see for her the rest of the election year, or does she just disappear having made that statement and try again in 2028?

Errol Louis: I don't think she'd necessarily disappear. I think she's holding what could be described as a political lottery ticket. You have to remember that the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party is facing 91 criminal counts across four different indictments, and in fact, they're doing jury selection right here in Manhattan in just a few weeks. There are things that could happen that would make whoever is the nominal or titular leader of the 40-odd percent of Republicans who did not support Donald Trump in these early primaries, they can go to the convention and they can make some kind of an impact depending on what happened.

I think she's going to hold onto that political lottery ticket. I think she's going to continue to speak out and get ready for 2028, just as you suggest, and try to be the voice of the future of the Republican Party for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Your new national politics show, Friday night at 8:00 is called The Big Deal. Which do you think is a bigger deal? The Republican primary voters who chose Nikki Haley on Super Tuesday, or the Democratic primary voters who chose uncommitted?

Errol Louis: Oh, by far, the turbulence in the Republican Party is more important. If you go back to when, say, Pat Buchanan ran, or say, when you had even Ted Kennedy, if you want to go really far back in 1980, running against the sitting president Jimmy Carter, those were movements that garnered maybe 15%, 20% of the party's vote, and we all reported it as a major rift within that party.

What we just saw with Nikki Haley is serious. It's sustained. It's in every corner of the country. She actually won a couple of primaries, and that's enough to, I think, establish that there are some people who really mean what they say when they say never Trump, and that's going to be a problem for Donald Trump. If he doesn't expand his base, he's going to lose again. There's no question about it.

On the flip side, among the Democrats, this uncommitted phenomenon is not an organized movement. It does suggest that there are some problems that the Democratic strategists are going to have to attend to, but even in Michigan, where you have this very pronounced defection, if you want to call it that, of 100,000 voters who voted uncommitted, this was a state that Joe Biden won by 150,000 votes just four years ago.

You can't write them off. You don't want to take them for granted. There's clearly some politics that has to be worked, but I don't think it's decisive, and it doesn't look at this point like it's going to capsize the ship.

Brian Lehrer: North Carolina was the one true 2020 swing state among those that voted on Super Tuesday, yesterday. Trump won it over Biden in 2020 by just one point, and we had those 250,000 Haley voters in the Republican primary. That's bigger than his margin of victory in the state of North Carolina, I believe, plus 88,000 voters in the Democratic primary who voted uncommitted. Do you happen to know, with respect to North Carolina, were people only allowed to vote in the party they were registered in, or were they allowed to cross over?

Errol Louis: I believe they are a closed primary. Don't hold me to that, in North Carolina, but we paid special attention to the open primary states last night. I was doing a bunch of coverage with my colleagues around the country, and it was Virginia and it was Vermont. It was some other states, not North Carolina.

Brian Lehrer: That means the 250,000 Haley voters are Republicans, and that's a big challenge in a very important state for Donald Trump. A lot more than the 88,000 uncommitted voters in the Democratic primary.

Errol Louis: It's a swingy kind of state, but it plays out in a different way than we might see elsewhere. In North Carolina, they've had a Democratic governor for I think the last seven years, and there's an attorney general now running for that slot, a Democrat who has a pretty good shot at winning. In the same elections, when a majority or even super-majority of members of Congress turn out to be Republican, there are, I think, veto-proof majorities at the State House level for state positions.

It certainly has gone for Republicans, even if narrowly, for presidential races, but at the same time, they keep voting in these Democratic governors. North Carolina is not an easy call. You've got to look at it region by region, office by office, and candidate by candidate.

Brian Lehrer: The next big event in the race is Biden's State of the Union address tomorrow night. Technically, a State of the Union address is a report to Congress and the people, not a campaign event, but in reality, this year, would you say it's both?

Errol Louis: It is both, and frankly, it should be both. This is a chance as required by the Constitution for the president to bring Congress up to date on what has been happening. You know what? You need to bring the rest of the country up to date on what's been happening too, and that it turns out is what any president seeking re-election needs to do. It may have a few more bells and whistles than usual, but I'm going to be listening for the core substance of what this administration believes its story has been, what it believes its successes have been, where it intends to go on foreign policy. That explanation is owed to all of us, not just for political reasons.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Glad we got to hear Nikki Haley live. She definitely made news there and kind of threw down the gauntlet to Donald Trump to have a bigger tent, I guess even, and maybe be a different person. [chuckles] [unintelligible 00:15:07].

Errol Louis: Yes, right. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: As she dropped out of the Republican race, or at least suspended her campaign. Edition number two of your new national politics show, Friday night at 8:00 on Spectrum News NY1 locally and other Spectrum stations around the country, what's on tap this week?

Errol Louis: This week, we're going to be looking at the opioid crisis, and the real premise behind a lot of this, Brian, is that different issues look differently. We led off the show by looking at the migrant crisis, and it included a report from the border. We actually have a series of border reporters, that's their beat, down at the Texas border. In this case, we're going to be looking at the opioid crisis, not in the way that we here in the Northeast are used to thinking about it as an urban problem and dealing with substance abuse disorder, but it plays out a little bit differently in Kentucky, for example.

There are some of these rural areas where it is devastating. It is important. It is something that we've all got to try and get our hands around, and there are a lot of different issues like that. That's why we have the show to look at different problems from not a narrow regional or urban lens but from the point of view or multiple points of view from all around the country.

Brian Lehrer: One, by the way, clarification on North Carolina, we were talking about whether it was an open or closed primary. We just looked it up and it's what they call partially closed. Democrats were not allowed to vote in the Republican primary, and Republicans, registered Republicans, were not allowed to vote in the Democratic primary, but unaffiliated voters were allowed to vote in either. I don't think that changes the calculus very much of what you were saying before, but technically, some people who are not registered in each party were allowed to vote.

Errol Louis: It's interesting. It points to a broad trend because I believe North Carolina is one of these states, along with New Hampshire, New Jersey, a number of different states where those uncommitted voters who are not enrolled in either the Democratic or the Republican Party exceed the enrollment of either of those major parties, so that it becomes much tougher to try and pigeonhole where things are going to go and party allegiance doesn't factor in in the same way as it would in a state like New York, which has closed primaries.

Brian Lehrer: Errol Louis, who also still hosts Inside City Hall on NY1 Monday through Thursday nights at 7:00. Errol, good luck with the new show. Thanks for coming on.

Errol Louis: Thanks so much, Brian.

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