Democrats’ Primary Dilemma And The Mood Of The Country Under Trump 2.0

This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. And we are back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at The Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at Radio at the Federalist.com. Follow us on X at FDRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and, of course, to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is legendary pollster John McLaughlin, Trump's pollster, a CEO and partner with New York-based McLaughlin and associates. Let's take a look at the latest numbers and the state of play moving into the midterms, and there's no better pollster to talk to about that than John McLaughlin. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you so much for joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. Matt, great to be with you again. Well, it's been a while since we chatted. And boy, some things have happened since then over the last eight months or so. It's kind of been like drinking from a fire hose for those in the reporting business. And I'm sure those in the polling business, too. Let's start with the numbers. You have some very interesting numbers in your latest poll. And I want to start where Americans. feel about where we stand, at least the latest numbers in the McLaughlin and Associates poll. I find this interesting. 49% say the country is on the wrong track. 44% say the country is heading in the right direction, but then you have 52% approving of Trump and his policies. There seems to be a disconnect there possibly. I don't know. Can you explain? Well, it's a lag because, by the way, as far as that right direction number, that's the best we've had since, you know, since right after COVID when we're coming out of COVID. But after four years of Biden, when it turned upside down and people thought the country was headed on the wrong track, which enabled. the Trump campaign to win and President Trump to get reelected again or elected again, maybe for the third time. So, but four years of, we survived four years of Joe Biden. And by the way, Biden's a 40 approved and 57 disapproven the new survey. And President Trump's 52 to 45.

job approval. And this is space and it's posted. We posted on our website, McLaughlin Online.com, posted it this week, a survey that was completed last week just before the Labor Day weekend. People like his policies. And we generally ask, do you like his policies or his personality like we did in the campaign? Because we use his policies to raise their favorable views of him. And it's net positive. And he's moving forward. And it's not as high as it was on Election Day because we had the whole campaign moving then. And we had, whether it was Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, to pivot against. you know, we're now in charge. And that 44% right direction is probably the highest that we've had since before COVID. And you've also got 58% saying the economy is not in recession. The economy is the top issue with inflation. And that's the highest it's been since before COVID. And you've got 41% saying the economy's getting better, not worse. And again, that's the highest we've had since coming out of COVID. So organically. people's own situations in spite of what they see here on the left of center media, the legacy media, those people that certainly that, you know, listen to conservative talk media like your federalist podcast here or, you know, Newsmax or Fox News, not CNN. They're more optimistic because they get into facts, but people in their own daily lives are seeing. inflation being kept in check, some prices going down. They feel that, by the way, we had a survey for the job creators network where we asked them about. to trump tax cuts. And when they told them about provisions, they supported like 6820, and they support the president's tax cuts 5437, but also small business owners, and that's 400 small business owners and employers that we do for the Job Graders Network. They think things are getting better. So things are organically getting better in the country at the grassroots level. And it's percolating because... You know, after four years of Biden inflation, open borders, endless wars going on between, you know, Ukraine and Russia and with the Gaza terrorist attacks from Hamas, et cetera. People are feeling America is getting strong again and America is getting more secure and crime is going down. The borders are secure. People are starting to feel better about things. You know, for President Trump, he hasn't even been in office a year. It's been like seven months. And people are starting to feel better. And after four years of Biden and Harris, that's a good thing. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, the numbers are where they are at right now. I suspect and wanted to get your take on this. My hunch is that they could be.

Probably are better or would be better if we had an honest... corporate media. We do not. How much of the impact of just the daily onslaught? You've seen it before. I know the good folks at NewsBusters are fabulous at covering. Yes. The, you know, just the absolute pounding of negative coverage on the Trump administration, the president in general. You know, and it's, it's, it would be laughable if it wasn't really. They want to talk about threats to democracy. This sort of, you know, accomplice media is an absolute threat due democracy. How much do you think that's having an impact on the numbers that you're seeing? It's very significant. We wrote about it last month and we put it up on our website. But 37% of these likely voters for the midterms watch right of center media, or Fox News, News, Max, Fox business. you know, and 36 watching Left of Center news, whether it's CNN, MS Now, Bloomberg, CNBC, et cetera. And the other, by the way, the other 30% don't watch any that they want to be entertained. But knowing that, it's significant because Trump's job approval in the right of center media. is 7422. Well, he's a net negative with the left of center media of 41 to 56. And if they don't watch any news and they're in that entertainment cell, it's 4449. So we're slightly a net negative. But the right of center media gets it and they're getting good facts. And it's going to affect the midterm votes because in this survey, you saw that the... the generic ballot for Republicans, we were ahead 47 to 45. So it's close. We're still under 50, but it's going to help Republicans get reelected. But if they're in the left of center echo chamber, the Democrats are winning 2 to 1, 61.30. If they're in the right of center echo chamber, we're winning 72 to 19, keeping that, you know, in effect, the generic vote goes Republican. And if they're in that entertainment group, which is not getting left or right news is 38 to 46. So unlike the 2002 midterms where we kind of bucked history and had a good economy, Bush tax cuts were working, the economy was growing, there was a sense of, you know, America was rebounding from the 9-11 attack. And, and. And, you know, we picked up two Senate seats and eight house seats then. And we had a plan that we targeted Bush.

2000 voters and brought them out in the 2002 midterms. And we had certain techniques and certain messages to get to those voters. And it worked. And we picked up two sentence seats, picked up eight house seats. And George W. Bush went on to re-election in 2004. We were working for then Speaker Hasser, the chairman of the NRC, Tom Davis, the RNC chair. Jim Gilmore and then the Bush campaign in 2004. So it can be done. But we've got a lot of work ahead of us to do. I mean, we're fortunate that President Trump's policies are working. He's secured the border. He's reducing crime in America. He's, you know, doing peace deals. Forget about the UN. I think they ought to just cancel the United Nations General Assembly so they don't mess up traffic in New York. They should just go to the Trump White House. And he'll do a peace deal, whether it's India, Pakistan, whether it's, you know, whether it's Russia and Ukraine, whether it's, you know, making peace in Gaza. I mean, getting the hostages back, the Israeli hostages that the Hamas terrorists have been holding. I mean, Armenia and Azerbaijan did a peace deal with the Trump White House, we should just let. Donald Trump do the peace deals and save ourselves the money that we're wasting out of the UN. And, you know, let him be the peace president. Or at least put the International House of Pancakes in charge where the UN is in charge. I think that would go a long way in making us feel a lot better, at least better fed, that's for sure. You know, you talk about the issues and the policies that are working. You can tell that one of the biggest concerns that Americans faced in 2024, you can tell that the policies are working because One of the biggest concerns was border security, the border immigration. Now, that's still a concern at 6%, but that is significantly lower than it was, you know, going into the 24 election. And that's because when Trump got into office, he dealt with that immediately. And America knows that. And it was easy to deal with. I mean, all he had to do was enforce the laws. And by the way, he had a mandate because 75% of all voters support deporting criminal illegal immigrants. Only the Democrat Party and members of Congress, they were keeping criminal illegal immigrants in the United States. How out of touch. Yes. And next year has to be a contrast election because every Democrat in the House and Senate voted against

cuts that are saving the average person money, reviving the economy, helping us grow again. And instead, they voted for what would have been the largest tax increase in the history of the United States, would have been a $4.5 trillion tax increase. So instead of the average person getting $2,000 or more is a benefit from lower taxes, which they'll see on their tax. taxes next year. And for working Americans, we're talking about the no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. Working Americans are going to get a benefit next year. The Democrats would have had tax increases that would have gone up $2,000 or more for every working taxpayer. And, you know, so. So it's going to be a clear contrast next year that we have to remind these voters, you know, the Democrats are so out of touch, whether it's the cultural issues, having men in girls' locker rooms and bathrooms, whether it's having illegal immigrants on our streets committing bribes, whether it's taking more money from you. I mean, the Democrats are really out of touch.

Are more people learning how to game the system? The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. This Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal 1.1 million Americans have become disabled in the last three months? Over 200,000 alone in July? Is America really as disabled as the data shows? Whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. No doubt about it. And so a contrast election could be to certainly should be to the benefit of conservatives, Republicans in this country, to President Trump's agenda. But there's no Trump on the ballot. And that always is a problem. And I have seen this play out, for instance, five months, barely five months after the 24 election. at a Wisconsin state Supreme Court election, you know. And that was seen somewhat, and I think in a smaller universe, as kind of a first test of where things stand. You know, it's... an election held in April. So it doesn't get the same kind of stuff. But you did not have a lot of conservatives, particularly low propensity voters, who come out when Trump is on the ballot. They didn't come out for a critical Supreme Court election, which ultimately meant that leftist will be in power of the Wisconsin Supreme Court a swing state for several years. So where do you see? 26 going based on these numbers and the issues of the day. By the way, you bring up a very important point. I was, you know, I really missed the Trump campaign. I mean, we had very talented people. Susie Wiles, the manager with co-manager with Chris Lasavita. You know, during the primary, we were firing up people. Jason Miller. We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we drop us off the ballot. You know, they were, I mean, it was just unbelievable the persecution that Donald Trump had to face in that election that you and I talked about multiple times. Oh, yeah. You folks had a few obstacles. That's for sure. And certainly, they went after members of the campaign. They went after, they went after average people. They were ruthless. And, um,

You know, and American people can see that now, but, but so I missed that campaign, but, you know, it's your point about Trump voters getting fat, dumb, and happy and complacent, absolutely in Wisconsin on April 1st. Donald Trump last November got 1.7 million votes in Wisconsin. The conservative candidate for judge that's going to affect the next election, going to affect the daily lives of people in Wisconsin, only got a million votes. 700,000 Trump voters stayed home. And you saw it in the congressional in Florida, although the Republicans won those congressional races by about 20 points in Florida won, Florida 6. that was less than the two-thirds of the vote that maybe over a hundred thousand Trump voters didn't vote in those specials. And granted, the Republicans won by 20 points, but they didn't win by the two to one margins they had on last November. So Trump voters need to get a really important message, need to be identified, get really important messages, and be made to go out and vote because that's what we did in 2002 to win the midterms those years. And next year's midterms are going to be even more critical to the future of this country. I mean, when you think about the issues that we face and how deranged the Democrat Party has become and how deranged the anti-Trump media has become, and they've lost a lot of credibility. I mean, MSNBC has changed its name. to MS now. NBC doesn't want anything to do with them anymore. The ratings have just plummeted. And that should help, of course. The name change. You know, we saw how effective that was for Cracker Barrel. So that should be good for whatever MS is deciding it wants to identify as these days. Yeah, but we're going to have to go out and defend what we've won again. You know, just because we won the presidential race and we kept the House and the Senate by thin margins, we have to go out and win again because, you know, they just, democracy just requires it that we, if you want to have voter ID because the 35 states that President Trump won, we've got voter ID in those states, Georgia, et cetera. You have to go out and win elections because. You know, it's one of those things where freedom, you know, requires us to be vigilant every election and defend our democracy and our rights. And, you know, now you're finding out the Democrats say they're running on democracy, but now we're finding out that, you know, people like John Brennan and Clapper at the CIA and the DNI, they were conspiring to undermine President Trump even before he took office. Tulsi Gabbard is.

put out lots of documents that aren't getting, you know, getting exposure in the mainstream media. But, you know, they put out, they put out these documents that basically they were manufacturing the Russian collusion story that, you know, people on Pulitzer surprises on that were totally fake. Didn't happen. And they were told to manufacture it to delegitimize. a legitimately elected Donald Trump back in 2016 going into the inaugural in 2017. And we can never let that happen again. I mean, those of us who were old enough to remember Watergate, you know, like, by the way, Donald Trump went to Fordham University for the first two years of college before he went to Penn. And, uh, And Fordham University, when I was attending it in the 70s, had major ethics symposium because John Mitchell went there and G. Gordon Liddy went there. And there was, you know, concerns about Watergate and the post-Watergate, you know, lessons that had to be learned. Well, John Brennan went to Fordham University when I was there. And it's like... They just didn't learn anything. And here they are, you know, we're finding out that they were, they were the ones actually undermining democracy. And now they're trying to do it again with these redistricting. I mean, Kathy Olkel in New York State. redistributed last year because she didn't like the court ruling in 2002, said they were gerrymanding in the elections. And Republicans won 11 seats from the lines of the judge room. She redrew them last year. We lost four of those seats that we'd won the previous year, simply because they jiggered the state courts and they, you know, they could and they went and they did it. Now they don't like Republicans doing it, but. That's exactly what they did to try to undermine our majority in the House last year. Well, John, it's got to tell you something when you have Democrats moaning and complaining about Texas redistricting, you know, mid-decade. And they flee to get out of a vote where to the most gerrymastered states in the country. It's certainly Illinois. is not your example of fair maps, as they like to say it. And obviously, to the victor go the spoils, but the Democrats have been gerrymandering for a very long time. And I think all of this that you're talking about gets back to, you know, with Brennan and with Clapper and James Comey and the deep state pushing out. this absolutely reprehensible, politically driven. And I think the word soft coup is not overstated at all, but they pushed out this phony Russian assessment, this intelligence community assessment that was, you know, the predicate for the Russia collusion hoax. And if we had an honest media, the,

The people of the United States, significantly more would be up in arms, but we don't. And so that is one of the big hurdles as you look forward to the next couple of elections, the midterm, and 2008. That's going to, you know, still play a significant role. Our guest today is legendary pollster, John McLaughlin, Trump's Polster, CEO and partner. with New York-based McLaughlin and Associates. They have a very interesting deep dive poll that just came out a few days ago. And it is revealing on many fronts. Let's take a look at 2008, if we could. It seems surprisingly... Not surprisingly at the same time, but Kamala Harris has a 48% favorable rating. 49% do not have a favorable rating of Kamala Harris. And she seems to be still, even after her very significant loss in November, seems to be the frontrunner so far, according to your poll. What's going on there? Well, for the Democrat, by the way, nationally, that... 48 to 49 Farrell to Unfairrell, that's an approval for, because we certainly in the campaign last year, certainly on election day, she was not quite that popular. No, that's why I'm really surprised here, based on what the election results were, based on who Kamala Harris is, I would have thought that she would be well underwater. I mean, this is. It's kind of startling to me, but what's the explanation behind it all? Well, the Democrats still like her, 86 to 11, independents are split. Liberals like her, 73, 23. But she was kind of the good loser and kind of, you know, it's Joe Biden that they don't like. Joe Biden's a 40 favorable, 57, unfavorable. So they hold, he was more culpable. There was a reason he stepped down. But when you look at the actual Democrat primary, the one who's moving. is Gavin Newsom. You have him, Gavin Newsom, because Gavin Newsom in the last month, and by the way, he's, you know, he's, he's, he's, his favorables where he's 32 favorable, 39 unfavorable nationwide. So Democrats are less fair. less favorable to him, but he's at 58 and 13, so he's got some potential there. Republicans don't like him. He's 11, feral, 64, unfavorable. And in Independence, he split, but 31, feral, 37, unfaural. And on the West Coast, he's a net positive, 47, 36. Amazing. That's mostly in California. Amazing. He's the one moving. Some people have said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be the one to move, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, her favorable is a 30% favorable, 44 unfavorable. Chuck Schumer is a 27 favorable.

44 unfair we love him as a leader um and uh thanks again new york yes yes but the but the did when you ask those voters who And again, this is a thousand likely voters across the country, but then we asked them if they think they're going to vote in the Democrat partner, which includes some independence and certainly Democrats. Harris was at 25 last month, and that's a drop from December of last year where she was at 35 to she's now down to 27. Gavin Newsom's gone from 7 in December of last year to 18 now. He's gone from 9 to 18 in this month. And I think he's gotten a lot of partisan press because he's going to redistrict in California. I used to work for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold took it out of the gerrymandering out of the hands of politicians, created an independent commission, which hasn't gone well for Republicans, by the way. Sure. But now, you know, Gavin Newsom is just gone total partisan where he's trying to pick up the, you know, those. voters who don't like Donald Trump, who disallow the job he's doing. And Pete Buttigieg is at nine, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's at four, and the rest are in three or less. And Stephen A. Smith gets one. I saw that, yeah. That machine is picking up, huh? Well, he peaked at two at some point back in January. But the, uh... But football season is coming up, so he may get higher. Right. But Gavin Newsom. And you think Pete Buttigieg, that beard knocked him down or up? This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you, know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. I think he just, you know, he was... He was kind of known and, you know, he ran for president. He was like out there, but he's, I think he's vulnerable to people like Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went down and Gavin Newsom seems to be the one who picked up because he was getting the most deranged. I mean, look, you know, thanks to Gavin Newsom, California is, you know, still, you know, attracting illegal immigrants, but Trump's closed the border. But when you think about it, crime was up. the city nearly burned down in los angeles i mean don't it's just the if you're an anti-trump deranged democrat

California's high taxes, open borders, you know, wildfires that have almost caused, like I said, Los Angeles to burn down. You're attracted to that kind of derangement. That's a recipe for success to the average Trump deranged Democrat, which is fascinating that we're at that point in American history. Yeah. And could create an opportunity for JD Vance or some other Republican. to win the, win the 28 elections, but that's a long way off. We've got to get through 20, 20, 26, and keep our majorities in the House and the Senate. Otherwise, you know, 20, the bampars, when we lost in 2018, when they didn't pass the tax cuts until 2017, and you didn't have the economic growth that we needed until 2019 going into 2020 before the COVID pandemic. When we had that kind of pandemic, There was one point where I was, I had been in Europe and I had called back, I was delivering polls in Europe to clients, called back for a meeting at the White House. The campaign, we walked in, Jared Kushner. Brad Barscale, other people in the campaign, we walked into the Oval Office, and President Trump got up from behind the resolute desk and says, I think I have to shut travel down to Europe. And we had all the battlegrounds stay polling in front of us. And I was like, I just took the big computer books that I said, well, we could throw these out because they said you were going to win. And we were ahead at that point. But it was kind of, there was just a bad turn. of events that took our growing economy and turned us into what would turn out to be a shutdown that shouldn't have happened probably. Bad turn of events and opportunities. Remember, that was the Rahm Emanuel idea. He didn't come up with it, but he certainly drove at home during the Obama administration, has never let a good crisis go to waste, and that's exactly what they did. editor-in-chief at the Federalist, Molly Hemingway, wrote an excellent book about the mechanics, the mechanizations of the 2020 rigged election. And we'll never get a full accounting of the numbers, but we know the systems that were put in place, the leftist nonprofits, the Zuckerbucks, all of that stuff. people are right to still have questions and be suspicious about the outcome of that election. Not to belabor on 2008, but here I am belaboring on 2008. Just a quick note. You mentioned JD Vance, possibly. being in a very good position with the way the left is running itself, the way the Democratic Party is running itself in America today. He is the solid frontrunner at the moment. He's the vice president, but he is, he's not a Kamala Harris vice president. He has, I think, really shown himself to be a credible.

number two and certainly a credible candidate for president in 2008. And his numbers show it, don't they? Yes. And in fact, he's actually gone up from last December where it was at 25. And we'd been asking about Donald Trump Jr. because there was always some speculation about that. And he has the brand name. But JD, gone from 25 to 36 when you look at this month. Donald Trump Jr. were from 21 to 16, but Rhonda Sanis also hit double digits at 10. So, you know, there's a lot. I think a lot depends upon what happens in the midterms because. Keeping the House and keeping the Senate are paramount right now. And President Trump's putting together the policies that that could happen. And that's the most important thing right now is that we make sure that the economy is growing. We make sure that America's stronger. I mean, the Trump brand is about peace and prosperity. And the economic policies are in place that, you know, we certainly need, you know, what's interesting is that business. I mentioned to you from Job Creative Network. When you ask these small businesses, you ask them about, even though they're more optimistic and they're very supportive of the Trump tax cuts, how difficult it is for them to raise capital in this interest rate environment. 69% of small business owners and employers say it's difficult. And do they support the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates at its next meeting, low credit costs? 74% support that. That goes across the board, whether you know, whether your size of business or your political, I mean, your politics, they want the interest rates to be cut. They want to see the economy continue to grow. And, you know, that's, you know, it's really important that the Trump tax cuts that, you know, ironically begin in the first term. because going back to the 2016 election, I remember sitting in President Trump's office, 26th floor, Trump Tower. And it was right after, you know, they were battling. He was battling Ted Cruz and Cruz had won Iowa, he won Wisconsin, and we were going into the New York primaries. And President Trump says to me, do you think we need a tax cut? I said, of course, you know, you're out there on trade and immigration, but you're running in a Republican primary. And he says, where do I get at what? I said, you just talked to Larry Cudlow and just, you know, Larry, I said, call Larry. He'll put together a great plan for you. And he did with Steve Warren and Steve Forbes and Marlaffer. And they, they, and Trump got it passed. When he got it passed, it was growing the economy. And now you've got Trump 2.0, the Trump tax cuts, they're growing the economy again. Markets are up, 401Ks are up. you know, small businesses, or nine out of ten of those businesses in that Job Carriers Network, Paul, said they are going to grow their businesses. They're going to take advantage of the Trump tax cuts, the deductions, the...

you know, expensing for equipment, expensing for energy destruction, expensive research. They're going to take advantage of that. And nine out of ten of them are telling us they're going to do things like almost half said they're going to raise their employees wages and benefits. They're going to expand their operations. They're going to hire more people. One in five said they'll hire more people. And so there's a lot of good benefits. that you can just see it's in place that we can have a growing economy like Ronald Reagan did going into the 84 elections or like Donald Trump did, certainly going into the 2020 elections until COVID hit. And, you know, like George W. Bush had going into the economy, the 2002 midterms, that kind of a growing economy is really important to keeping the House and keeping the Senate. and keeping the overall economy growing and not allowing the Gavin Newsom of the world to say, hey, California's high tax rates are good for everybody. No, absolutely not. Well, you hope that the derangement like COVID doesn't spread, but, you know, the usual suspects and the accomplice media are helping as much as they possibly can. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you, know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. You know, you talk about the importance. Clearly, it is critical that if Republicans and Donald Trump hope to continue on with the agenda that Trump has set, the ambitious agenda, they're going to need to hold on to the reins of power in Congress. A lot of folks have talked, understandably so, about Republicans, the challenges of holding. the House with a very narrow majority right now. What doesn't get the same kind of conversation, though, is, and I know you've looked at these numbers, Republicans have their own share of challenges in holding the Senate as successful as they were in 24 in regaining the Senate. What do the numbers look like there? Well, I think a lot of people are more optimistic about the Senate races because it's fewer. But you've just had Joni Ernst decide to retire in Iowa and you had Thom Tillis in North Carolina. But having polled for Donald Trump three times, we won North Carolina.

And certainly, Burke Jay Jones running for governor, well, the Senate race against Jon Ossoff in Georgia is going to be a key race. So when you look at the Senate races, they're less vulnerable to, say, a generic wave of Trump voters staying home. I mean, if you have Trump voters stay at home, we've got to really worry about the house. And there'll be like 40 to 50 seats in play in the house. However, if we can motivate the Trump voters to come out, we should be able to hold the house. But in the center races, when you look at, you know, toss-ups, you'll have Michigan, where you have Mike Rogers, who came close last time running again. And we had worked for Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. My brother Jim was doing his bowling. And he was able to win that close race. But when you've got toss-up races in Michigan and North Carolina and Jon Ossoff, he's polling in the mid-40s. in Georgia, which is a bad sign for an incumbent. So it means he's vulnerable. And again, we had polled for President Trump in the... in all three races for them in Georgia. And the only reason I think we barely lost Georgia in 2020 was because of the drop boxes. Well, when Georgia fixed their election law, requiring voter ID for early in person, voter ID for mail and ballots and voter ID on election day, I think that's straightened out a lot of the races that we won handily and decisively in last November. And then you've got. you know, a close center race. In Maine, you'll have Susan Collins and she'll be in a close center race. New Hampshire or Jeanne Shaheen retiring. Donald Trump came close to winning New Hampshire. And I think that. You know, you've got candidates like Dan Ennis up there who could give a good race to Pappas and the Democrats. And you've got, you've got to Ohio, we should be able to hold. Sheriff Brown is going to run again, but Houston should be able to hold that. And we could give them a race in Minnesota. We should be able to hold Iowa. You know, those of us who recall the Des Moines Register. the end of the race that you and I have spoken about before. Iowa, you know, I mean, President Trump won that decisively and it wasn't in play, and we should be able to hold that race. And, you know, John Cornyn or Ken Paxton should win in Texas. So. You know, so the Senate, the Senate's in play, but a lot's going to depend upon, you know, like Michael Whatley, North Carolina, he's running to replace Thom Tillis. A lot's going to depend upon the strength of those individual candidates and President Trump support for them to get out the Trump voters again, particularly in states like Georgia and North Carolina and Michigan, which we won. And, uh,

You know, we came close in New Hampshire, but, you know, we should be able to win these races and hold the Senate. Anne Selser sees a blowout for the Democrat Senate candidate in Iowa. No, I don't. I think Anne's retired. One thing, yeah, one thing you won't see coming up in the midterms is Anne Seltzer polling at all. I think that's. I think before that she was very professional, but I think the Des Moines Register editorial board took advantage of her. It would seem that way. I would like to see some of the communications and memos behind that, but I don't know if we will. There's good news from this poll. There's a lot of good news from this poll for conservatives and for conservative principles, but I think it is important to note. that the McLaughlin poll finds raving support still for capitalism. At about 65%, what's socialism? John, around 14%. Although I will say this, a new Rasmussen poll is out, and they suggest that a majority of people 18 to 39... support Democratic Socialists on the on the ballot, you know, your New York communist running over there. Maybe they've got some solidarity behind him. But your polling suggests that we're still. steeped in the principles of free markets and free people? Well, the big difference is, it's the contrast. And the way Scott Ward is question is different than we polled for Newt Gingrich and his American New Majority Project, where we call it big government socialism. And... You know, and that's fair. And the reason is you think about this. A lot of the voters in the United States today were not born until after the Berlin Wall came down and the Iron Curtain came down. That's right. Yeah. So you don't really understand communism and socialism. You know, most of them haven't been to China and most of them have not been to. you know, certainly Russia where they, you know, may not be capital, it may not be capitalism, but it's certainly not. And it may not be communism, but it's not real capitalism. I don't think most of them has seen the movie Stripes either with Bill Murray. Right. But the idea of when you have big government socialism, that changes everything. These younger voters, they don't know. When you test just, if you think socialism is fair, et cetera, they're getting this. you know particularly the university educated they're getting a different perspective but but but that four to one margin exists for when you test free market capitalism as larry cudlow might call it versus big government socialism as new kingrich defines it and uh uh

You know, but there's other issues. Like when we say how serious rising crime is in the United States, it's nationwide. 88% of all voters say this is a serious problem, 52, very serious. That's on our website on McLaughlin Online.com, this month's poll. And when you ask them about, by the way, this is helpful for Republicans. I may not agree with everything that Donald Trump and MAGA stands for, but I think they're right about putting America first and the American people first. They agree 66 to 29. That's higher than 14 points higher than the president's job approval in this survey. And now the difference is, too, we're talking about defining the Trump, you know, Trump's big, beautiful bill. When you ask voters if they think it's more of a spending bill or more of a tax cut, 42 to 37, they say more of a tax cut, but 21 don't know. So leaving it up to the left of center media to define it doesn't work. And when we ask voters if they're familiar with it, only 62 are familiar, only 18 very familiar. And, you know, do you support or oppose President Trump's tax cut bill that recently passed into law? Instead, even 43-43. So, you know, there's things that we still have to tell the voters and define with a contrast versus these big government socialists. One of the thing, too, that's unique coming up to 9-11. for those of for New York, should every school in America be required to teach students that September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked by radical Islamic terrorists? 60% said yes, but 23% are saying yes, but don't mention religion. That's, you know, I mean, that's kind of interesting when you consider it was radical Islamic terrorists who attacked us. Do you think the United States should be, would be attacked again by radical, or will be attacked again by radical Islamic terrorists? 47% of all voters said likely. 41% said not likely. You know, so you've got, you've got voters who in effect aren't sure that this is going to happen again, but the plurality voters think it might happen again, so we've got to be on our watch. Who are the voters, by the way, that said don't mention religion? Are these Keir Starmer? Labor Party Democrats in America. I mean, that's the sort of stuff that we are seeing under that regime and the censoring and the silencing of speech is amazing. I know you've polled for folks across the pond, across the world. That's an interesting, twisting turn of events, too, and something to watch here in the country. But I would suggest that for all of the young socialist, as you say, born after the Berlin Wall fell, why don't we get them a double feature of stripes with Bill Murray and Harold Ramos and Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze? See Thomas Howell. I think they might change their perspective, John.

It's younger voters who are more secular. And it's like they're maybe university educated. So it's like they're not just, they're just not being, you know, they're, I mean, they're not being taught about, you know, basic facts, the historic facts. So it's, it's, you know, they're being taught a more secularized, a more. You know, I would think it's just a less realistic set of facts about what really happened on 9-11. So for those of us who lost friends and people that we knew, I mean, they, because I'm for New York, so friends who were firemen, friend, you know, Father Michael Judge was a, he was the fire department chaplain. He was a personal friend. So those of us, Neil Levin, he was the head of the board authority, used to work for Senator Aldamato and Governor Pataki. For those of us who lost friends, you know, you can't lose perspective on what really happened that day. So, and since then a lot of these younger, a lot of the younger voters who are now voters, a lot of them had friends and family who actually responded and volunteered to serve after that, whether there's, you know, in Afghanistan or Iraq or some other place where they've been at, we still have to protect our country from these terrorists. that's it's an important it's an important uh aspect that that needs to be taught but your your point is it's younger it's more secular uh they don't you know they they they just uh they don't have the religious values that they understood what was going on at the time and uh and at the same uh They're more likely to be college educated where you wonder what kind of education they're getting. Yeah, no doubt. I think that university indoctrination certainly plays a role. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast. I have a final question for you. I mentioned before. You have been doing this game for, what, 40 years now plus? Yeah. Over 40 years. Yeah, yeah. Professionally, I used to work for Arthur Finkelstein, who was one of Reagan's pollsters back in 82. I started working for him and worked in his reelection campaign as an assistant to Arthur. And you got a photo with Dutch in your office, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But by the way, it was a long time ago in this 20th century. So look at that lush black hair. Oh, geez. Yeah, well, that was more of the lighting then. But it's still there. Fair enough. He was a great president. And he was a friend to Donald Trump, too. So there's a lot of us, there was a lot of us all Reaganites that have Susie Wiles worked in the Reagan White House. You bet. You bet. Yeah, she's Trump's chief to stay up.

There were other people like Tony Donald was a speechwriter for both Ronald Reagan and for Donald Trump. And Tony passed away after the election. So it's like there's a, there's a strong Reagan connection between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. And the third grade, Matt Kittle. Got a letter. Rub it in. Go ahead. From President Ronald Reagan, I sent him a letter talking about, you know, my brother was in the Army in Germany and the, you know, the Beirut bombings had occurred and I was concerned and I wrote him a letter. And I still have that, took that to show and tell many times. But this is what I have to ask you as we close out our conversation. You have done polling for. A lot of famous politicians, Steve Forbes, Fred Thompson, you mentioned Schwarzenhager, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, you know, and you've internationally polled for the likes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. How about that? And the turn of events, who's the, and we bring it up again. President Trump's pollster. Who was the best to poll for, for whatever reason that might be? What was the best campaign you worked on? I was definitely Donald Trump's last campaign. I thought so. And it was because Donald Trump, we had a personal relationship. Although he grew up in Queens, I grew up in the Bronx and then moved to Rockland County. And like I mentioned, I stayed at Fordham, but he transferred after two years, went to, went to University of Pennsylvania. But he was the best candidate to work for in the last campaign. because he didn't want to lose again. And we saw someone who, no matter what they threw at him, whether they tried to take away his wealth, they tried to put him in jail, they tried to knock him off the ballot, they didn't give him enough secret service protection where his life was at risk. And, uh, He endured that all because he's very patriotic. And he did what needed to be done because he didn't want to lose. He knew too much was at stake for our country. And they were dismantling all the good things he put in place during his first term. And he knew he could do a much better job this term. Well, he was a phenomenal candidate to work for because when you asked him to do something and he understood it. and he believed it, he would do the right things. And whether it was during the primaries or during the general election, he was, he was on a mission. And at the end of the campaign, when he was asking, and we'd been through this before, because after, you know, after Biden was declared the winner in 2021, and.

I had to meet with him. It was February 10th, and I said to him, do you realize two-thirds of the Republicans want you to run again? And I told him, I said, when Biden fails, you will win. Just like Jimmy Carter failed against Ronald Reagan, you know, people would want, they had buyer's remorse. They wanted Reagan to run again, and he won decisively in a landslide. I said, you will beat Joe Biden in the next election because he's going to fail. And when he fails, you'll be elected. People will have buyers or more she'll be elected. Well, he stayed on that course where he just, he understood that he could beat Joe Biden. And we were ahead in the polls ever since Biden surrendered Afghanistan. triggered inflation. In my polls among likely voters, Donald Trump was ahead of Joe Biden, stayed ahead of Kamala Harris. And in the end of the last week, after the rally in the garden, he called me, he said, so what's going to happen? I said, just make your puts. I mean, you know, Mitt Romney was ahead of Barack Obama, he days out. And then he blew over New York and New Jersey that get hit by Hurricane Sandy. I said, You know, he looked like he was out of touch and he lost the election. I said, you just need to make your putts stay on message and keep doing what you've got to do in these battleground states. And Donald Trump said to me, you know, I'm not Mitt Romney. And he said. No, he is not. But he was fantastic. I mean, he was unbelievable. Yeah. Totally, he rewrote history. He was a phenomenal candidate. He's a historic figure. He was a great political one. Now he's having great policy wins, and he's making America really, truly great again. And his brand for America is absolute peace and prosperity. And that's what his mission is to make America more prosperous so that every person benefits whether they're working. working class or whether they're, you know, a little better off, that's fine. He wants him to be prosperous. And he wants America to be a peace. He doesn't want to have to put us into any of these wars or endless wars. He wants some people to, if you don't respect America, you should at least fear us and you should just let us, let us exist in peace and let us our friends and allies exist in peace. So it's a great legacy. He definitely spoke his language at the end of the campaign. Make your puts. That's something Donald Trump knows all about and the importance therein. And I will say three. One word three times, fight, fight, fight. That absolutely represents Donald Trump and not just Donald Trump, but his mission to make America great again. He continues to fight for that every day. Thanks to my guest today, John McLaughlin, CEO and partner with New York-based McLaughlin and associates, Trump's Polster.

You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections Correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray. This weekend, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your news podcast.