Eye On Politics

It's time every Wednesday. We get an opportunity to speak with our eye on politics team, and they are with us now, once again, as they usually are on Wednesdays. We have Eric Lusk. We have Keith Mestrich, both on the line now. Gentlemen, how are you? Great, Matt. Fantastic. Glad to hear it. Hope you guys were up late last night following the election returns. Wisconsin became a very interesting place. Seems like a lot of folks were paying attention to that race as a maybe a signal, perhaps, some tea leaves to read for where things are going this year. A surprising result, at least surprising when you look at the polls, that the Democratic Socialist candidate. lost for once and we actually had a victory for the establishment. Let me kick things off by going to Keith, your reaction to what you saw in Wisconsin, sir. Well, pollsters are not doing well this year between Michigan and Wisconsin. And there's something there, I guess, that maybe we should talk about at some point. But, you know, this is where I think establishment Democrats, I don't love that term, but let's use that term in Wisconsin, I think said that we need to make sure that we pull out all the stops for the primary here and make sure that we have the candidate that. You know, can can win here and doesn't carry a lot of baggage into the contest. And I think you saw that at play. It's very, very close. I mean, I'm not sure that there won't be calls for a recall, not sure what triggers that in Wisconsin or not. But it was really close. Now I think Wisconsin is set up to be a real battleground there for that race. Probably a pretty close thing. I'm probably a more competitive candidate comes out of the Democratic primary here to do that. And then I think we look next door. of Minnesota where, you know, I think a more progressive candidate, maybe not a DSA candidate, but a more progressive candidate carried in one quite convincingly. So we have these Midwest battleground states over the last couple of weeks between Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota, and they've delivered a couple of different results here, but it does show that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. can really turn it out in primaries. And, you know, Matt, as you, I think alluded to last week, it looks a lot like what happened with the Tea Party and was in the Republican Party not so long ago. And I think it'll be really interesting to see how that plays out in a general election, particularly in a general election where there is very, very strong.

desire to participate by the by by democrats and it's going to be a very very interesting outcome i don't know how to predict it well maybe eric lusk knows how to predict it eric uh same question for you after you saw the election results in wisconsin especially as you compare them to the prior results in say michigan um and elsewhere in the country what did you see I see the Democrat socialist wave beginning to crest, thanks to, if you can believe this, I really am going to say this. Joe Scarborough of MSN now, or MSNBC, I forget what they call themselves today, saying the Democrat Party has got to start getting away from the Hasan Piker. as inspiration of the Democrat Socialists and hence the Democrat Party itself, David Remnick of the New Yorker magazine, and David Remnick is not exactly the second coming of Newt Gingrich, held an interview with co-chair Megan Romer of the DSA and started to ask her what she meant by, tax the hell out of rich people, what she meant by. defund the police, ran her through all of these different slogans, all of these bumper sticker slogans, and said, what does that really amount to? And Megan Romer of the DSA couldn't really answer the questions. That is showing that you do have some people in the Democrat Party who are coming forward saying, hey, wait a minute. When you are talking about defunding the police and nobody gets to be safe in their person when they're walking down the street when you're saying open borders, what are going to be the consequences? Hillary Clinton has been out hitting on this theme as well. And I think this showed up in the primary for governor. in Minnesota, it did not apparently show up for Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor in, sorry, in Minnesota. I was referring to Wisconsin with the race between Crowley and Francesca Hong. But we did see Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota fail up, and now she is going to be the Democrat Party's offering for the U.S. Senate. But I think we're beginning to see. the Democrat Party start to say, wait a minute, we're going too far overboard with some of this stuff. All right. So what are the implications here, gentlemen? I know that we're getting to the tail end of the primary season here. But as you look across the country, I'll go back to you, Keith for this question. The governor's race in Wisconsin is not necessarily really something that we care all that much about. It's much more about the Senate and the House. And as you're looking Senate-wise across the country, there's a lot of very weird...

polling that's been that's been seen recently. You know, you have Sherrod Brown, for instance, actually up in Ohio. Looks like Telerico's up in Texas. If you, again, buy the polls. You have Republicans doing actually halfway decent in New Hampshire. You have Susan Collins hanging in there in Maine here. What's the actual state of play right now across the country? If you were to actually throw your cash down on, say, polymarket or something, Keith. Is this going to be a Democratic takeover? Is this going to be a wave year? Is it not? Is it still indeterminate? What do you think? Well, I think as opposed to seven or eight months ago, there are a lot more Senate races that are on the table here and competitive as we get to the end of the, at the end of the primary season here. I think we have Alaska next week yet to figure out. But it looks like with Mary Peltola there, I think that race will also be competitive. But you now have. Alaska and Iowa and Texas and Ohio and North Carolina and maybe New Hampshire and Maine and a few other places on the on the table now and I think if we were having this conversation eight months ago we would all have been saying the likelihood of the Democrats taking back a majority in the United States Senate was pretty slim I think today it is now of coin flip and it's it neither the party is likely to win this thing um with a five six seven seat majority somebody's going to have the united states senate probably with a one or two seat majority and it's going to be a fascinating run from labor day until election day because i think all of those seats will remain on the table it's interesting some of these came on the table because a very conventional moderate Democrats emerging as real players here. Cooper, North Carolina. Sheriff Brown is more of a progressive, but I think it's certainly not a DSA type of Democrat. And so I think a lot of those states are in play. And I think election night becomes a nail biter. And then we'll see what John Fetterman decides to do at the end of the day. And is he serious about potentially flipping parties or not or people who say that potentially serious? So we could have some very, very interesting political dynamics here. right up until, you know, very, very late on election night, if not a few days later. And then I think the House, you know, we should talk about that at some point too, because I think that's also probably closer than people thought as well with the impact of redistricting and everything else that has happened. So I think we're talking about a fascinating general election season here that is going to really go right down to the wire and is going to leave either party. Might have split control of the two houses of the legislature or we might just have very, very narrow majorities in both. But this can be a great political season if you're a political junkie. Indeed it will. Eric Lusk, your thoughts on where we stand on August 12th. The Democrats have got a socialist communist problem in terms of their optics. They're chasing after the idea of we need more government to fix problems that have been over a period of 60 years created by government.

There are some great 80-20 issues out there. Do you want an open border? If I have a Democrat candidate saying, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done, and now she is one of the favorites to run in 2028 for the Democrat nomination for president, that we should have open borders, then the Democrats have got a problem. Is James Talarico going to lean into open borders running for U.S. Senate in Texas? Of course not. Is James Talarico going to... say that boys biological males should be allowed in the girls locker room I think he'll probably run away from that one too. But there are a lot of 80-20 issues. The Republicans can go after their Democrat compare candidate for and turn it into a winning issue. And of course, we're going to get into the topic of affordability as we get out on the campaign trail. Can James Talarico or Hannah Pingree or... Troy Jackson explain how bringing 20 million citizens of other nations into this country made housing more affordable. Can they explain how having all of these Somali families in Minnesota that are on public assistance makes it possible to have enough money to go around for U.S. citizens that need government assistance as well? There are some very good issues here for the Republicans to go after. Let's look at Medicare Medicaid fraud in the great state of Maine. Would it be better to go after all of that fraud as opposed to raising taxes? It's crickets on the Democrat side of the aisle in terms of going after all of this fraud. There are some good issues for Republicans to be campaigning on. All right, we are speaking with our eye on politics team and we always appreciate them joining us on the program here to turn our attention to Maine once again. Troy Jackson, as I've been searching around for the news this morning, I'm starting to see all the Troy Jackson online ads crashing towards me. So they're starting to activate there for sure. We had a poll out last week. that was, admittedly, a Democrat-aligned firm that did show him with a slight lead over Susan Collins. I suppose since we just talked about polling, we should add the caveat of polling to anything that we talk about here. But nonetheless, it is something. Keith, going back to you, I probably will ask you the same question all the way until Election Day every single week. But where's that race at right now? I... You know, it's pretty, it's going to be like that. I think the positions are incredibly hardened in here. I think everybody who was a Graham Platner supporter has largely migrated to the Jackson Camp and you see a very, very similar polling result there. We'll get some better polls here as we move on. I think the press herald is committed to, you know, continuing their partnership with the New York Times and Sienna University, a better, higher quality poll here that will give us some.

some views on that. But I just pick up, I think, on what. Eric was talking about here. If Eric is right and the issues in the election are around immigration and transgender issues, Susan Collins probably is going to convince a lot of those remaining undecided voters. But if it's about $4 gasoline and taking on corruption in Washington and challenging the establishment and bringing in a new bunch of people, Troy Jackson is probably going to win this election. And I think the next couple of weeks are going to... be really important to see how those issues tune themselves up. Everybody's got their opinion on how much Susan Collins delivers for the state of Maine or not. And if they like that or not, everybody's got their opinion if they want to toss her out in her ear or not and do that. It's going to be that, it's going to be that battle for that very small remaining undecided independent vote that is going to be interesting. And I think it'll be what issues that they focus on. Eric Lusk, what is going on in the Senate race to your eyes? I would love to see Troy Jackson take questions from any reporter that does not work for the Bangor Daily News or the main press herald. I'd like to see Troy Jackson explain what he did. to bring less expensive and more plentiful electricity to the state of Maine, what he did to prevent no bid contracts going out to somebody's brother-in-law who put in a bid to get money from the state of Maine for some good or service. What did Troy Jackson do to try to prevent the explosion of deaths of little kids? who were in foster care through the state of Maine. Tell me, Troy, all of the things that you did while you were Senate president. We can look at Susan Collins and say, here's what she brought to Maine as a U.S. senator acting on our behalf. But what did Troy Jackson do to help fix the different problems in the state of Maine while he was the Senate president? I think he's going to have a hard time answering those questions. And I think that's why the unenrolled independent voter is going to say, I'm sticking with Susan Collins. And a gentleman, obviously the gubernatorial race is another element here. And we should probably check in on that one as well. As we sort of talked about a bit last week, it seems like a sleepy race. I really can't even define for you what happened in the last seven days in that race. And I realize we're in August. You have two people in that particular contest who need to make some kind of move, right? So they don't have a lot of time and they need to get some attention and make some noise here. Let me stick with you on this one, Eric, Bobby Charles and Rick Bennett. What can they do? What should they do? Is it panic time for them? Is it...

Totally normal that they're down, you know, right now in this race. What do you think about what's going on in the governor's side of the issue? Hannah Pingree has got a clear advantage, if only by virtue of her mother, in terms of name ID. That doesn't hurt you. At the same time, Hannah Pingree is probably working as hard to stay away from microphones and answer what it is she likes about the Mills administration handling of the Wuhan virus lockdown that the Mills administration pushed on the state of Maine to a degree few other states could match. How did that work, Hannah Pingree? Why were you making the right call? And in light of what we're finding out of the great Anthony Fauci's text messages and emails, Does she want to disassociate herself from that? Then we get over to Bobby Charles. There's a spending issue that is going to come up for him, which is how can he get his message out? I don't think the Bangor Daily News is going to give him an opportunity to start asking questions of why is it the Mills administration didn't do well and how is Hannah not just Janet Mills 2.0 and what would he do to fix it? So he, Bobby Charles, has a little bit of a problem. How is he going to get in front of different megaphones? And if he can't get in front of different megaphones, how quickly can he raise money to create his own? Speaking of Anthony Fauci, I suppose in the last question I have time for here today, we had the release of those text messages. Obviously, there was all the theatrics in Congress before with his diary, pleading the fifth and all that, now been charged with contempt of Congress. What's your reaction to that, Keith? I actually want to go back on the governor race for a second. Yeah, of course. Oh, did I skip your needs? I apologize. Go right out of it. You're exactly right. Bobby Charles has got to figure out some way to define who the heck he is for this state. Rick Bennett's got to like define a way to get people to actually know he's even in the race. But last week, we did see Hannah Pingree step out on the issue of rural hospitals in a pretty big way, op-eds in a couple of papers, big press conference up in Damascada. She did her things, Bennett and Charles kind of tried to glom onto that and didn't really work. But we did see her move front and center on a pretty important issue in the state here and do that and get a lot of attention for it. And so if they...

Matt, you're 100% right. If one or both of them don't figure out how to actually do something to let people know who they even are, which I think they are largely undefined in the state, I figure he's going to run away with this thing. And so that's how that race looks like in shaping up. I'll let Eric talk about Anthony Fauci. He's got lots to say about that. Well, you might have very little time to do so, but Eric, go ahead and answer my question on the Anthony Fauci side. Clearly, Anthony Fauci was winging it. his whole way through the entire lockdown process. It's okay if you don't have all of the answers straight out of the gate, but it would have been much better if he had been straightforward with people. And then we get to the question of who was helping him to do one cover up or another. And I think we are entitled to some investigations. I think we're also entitled to have Janet Mills tell us why she. went in lock, stock, and barrel for everything that Anthony Fauci was recommending that was not necessary. You got 30 seconds of this, Keith? They all stand by a lot of what the past administration did. The end of the Trump administration, much of the Biden administration, in terms of things, I don't know if this is a witch hunt. I don't know what this is. It's interesting drama and theater. I'm not sure it's core to the issues that are really going to matter in this election. Why reelect people who went in for it the first time if they can't concede what they did wrong? All right, and that's where we're going to have to end because we are out of time. Gentlemen, appreciate it as always, and we will talk again next Wednesday. Thanks so much. See you then. See, Matt.