Episode 11 - Iowa Caucus Results & Preview of the New Hampshire Primary

all right welcome to episode 11 of red versus blue my name is Mike Stark and I'm Keith G and we just finished the Iowa caucus and what have we learned Keith well we learned that it's closer than people actually think but Trump is still very far ahead remember we said if Trump were held below 50% that would be significant he got 51% we said if Nikki Haley were in second place that would pretty much finished D santis well she was in third place about 2300 votes behind D santis she didn't quite hit that Mark either on the other hand 49% of the people who showed up to caucus in Iowa and it was a record low turnout you have to go back to 2000 to have fewer people show up in an Iowa Republican caucus 49% of them wanted somebody other than Donald Trump so while he beat this field handily he still shows I think significant weakness amongst Republican voters to uh caucus in in in the state of Iowa which is a caucus that he won with 97% the last time and a state that he won by 30 or 40 points going away against Biden that's the state of play there we're now moving to New Hampshire where independent voters can vote they actually vote they don't have to go in caucus so that means you can vote in advance you can vote by mail and Nikki Haley is expected to do better there with chrisy out of the race Christie's votes will likely go to her but Ram Swami's out of the race his votes will likely go to Trump Tim Scott today is endorsed Trump so his votes such as they are there and there weren't many will go to Trump so we'll see but if she is close to Trump coming out of New Hampshire then we'll go to South Carolina at the end of February for a major Showdown let me go back to Iowa for a second I heard a figure that there were only 18% of the entire Republican voting Block in Iowa that actually voted is that the right figure yes about 110,000 people 170,000 people caucused last time so a significant drop off the lowest turnout since 2000 in terms of participants in the caucus now the weather played a significant role here sure but I think you have to say sort of the lack of voter enthusiasm for for any of the candidates really but that importantly affects Trump he got 51% in a place state that he had been running at 55 and higher just a month or so earlier 16% higher so he got 51% he's calling it a historic Victory but it's only 51% of 18% of the full voting count of the Republican party in that state right it's exactly right which is why the sense of of inevitability the sense of coordination that people may be imbuing him with I think are misplaced at this point in time I think the more significant number is that almost half 49% of Republicans who went out to caucus and Iowa want somebody other than him who is the presumptive nominee but is uh got a real enthusiasm Gap I think if we were actually voting in Iowa and the weather was good it could be a completely different outcome right absolutely because you'd have a much broader somewhat more diverse voter turnout you would have people who would be able to have voted over a period of time it would have been a potentially different result now we don't know he could have won by more sure of course course but again the fact is it was a 5149 victory for Trump so he did win but it's closer than people think but you can't call it historic right it's historic in terms of the fact that it was a cold night and many people participated that's what made it historic exactly okay so now it's on to New Hampshire and what do you see going on there you sort of touched on it but give us a little more detail last night Nikki Haley did a candidates Forum did a Town Hall in New Hampshire she did very well uh both her and D santis do very well in those environments they take issues well they understand the issues they're able to articulate on them it makes you understand why Donald Trump would be at a significant disadvantage if he were on the stage there because other than huffing and puffing he really you know doesn't understand the issues enough to be able to talk about them in the way that Haley and and even the santis are able to do I read today that somebody said that the biggest strategic decision that Trump made was not participating in the debates because he didn't have to go up there and face the other candidates and didn't have to expose himself to sort of his thin understanding of of the issues now new voters it's another retail politics State they have these meetings in people's homes and in schools and in churches and and restaurants and you do get to meet and know the candidates and they take it very personally and very seriously there it's a more educated voter base certainly than Iowa that generally will help Haley you know Trump could still come out on top but I think it's going to be a much much closer race we'll see how it gets spun coming out of Iowa but I expect that Haley will get a ticket that that makes her the viable Challenger for the drug that will come in South Carolina which is obviously the state she's was governor of and then on super Tuesday March 5th okay so we'll have to wait and see but I think you laid it out there pretty well for us now something we don't talk much about on this show and we probably should because the focus is always on the presidential election but there are a number of Senate battles going to be going on this year can you give us some highlights to some of those well for those of us in California we're going to have a significant race here it's going to be a jungle primary on March the 5th there's three Congressional Democrats running and Steve Garvey the former Los Angeles Dodgers San Diego Padre baseball player he's also facing a republican activist Eric early who's run Statewide several times before unsuccessfully the top two will go to November and there's a possibility we could have two Democrats go to November that would likely be Adam Schiff and Katy Porter or we could have Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey I think those are the two likely possibilities uh if the Republicans unite around Garvey the Republicans will will be in November in West Virginia Joe Mansion who has been a conservative Democrat is not running for reelection the popular and Rich uh governor of West Virginia Justice is running and the Republicans will likely pick that up which would result in a 5050 Senate so the vice president whoever that might be will be able to to cast the tiebreaking vote and control of the of the Senate there are some other races in Arizona you have Christen Cinema elected as a Democrat I think she's running for re-election he's facing a Democrat Ruben GGO and a republican Carrie Lake who has been a big election denier formerly defeated candidate for governor so that race could go well we don't know how that race could go but it could there's three candidates there a Democrat the incumbent who was running as an independent who was elected as a Democrat and a republican Cary Lake who's pretty strong magga we'll see how that comes out the Republicans have some long shots shered Brown has got a run in Ohio a state that you know he's a oldtime liberal and Ohio is a different state than than it was when he first got elected and there's some other races that that could also uh you know go one way or the other in a surprise but I think those are the ones to watch oh and tester in Montana who is a conservative Democrat uh you know who is held a conservative State now for several years he always faces a tough challenge of the ones you mentioned the ones that are of most interest to me are the Arizona and the California because we're both in California the California one would be really interesting whether it's Garvey or Porter that are running against uh shift either one of those would kind of be an interesting battle don't you think it would be an interesting battle because they would if it's uh Porter versus Schiff the question becomes who is going to appeal to the 30% of the state who are Republicans now Schiff historically has been a more moderate Democrat he was part of the blue dog Coalition he was relatively moderate in the legislature he's been around long enough to he was part of in the 90s with the you know get tough on crime activities which actually worked but which now are held against him by you know Democrats and and liberal activists with long memories he has most notably however been known for going after Trump and he his popularity rose when the Republicans decided to censor him in the house that just like it's helping helping Trump when they go after Trump Republicans going after Schiff AED and abetted in his you know rise in the polls and popularity with Democrats really now he did pursue the Russian hoax thing which was bound to be a hoax right so he's got some tar on on that and more recently he come out and he's called for the Supreme Court to be packed he wants to add another four seats you know he'll want to eliminate the filibuster and he's sort of buying into sort of these liberal Dogma things that are sort of their version of anti-democracy and changing the way that elections are done to benefit their side so that's going to make him pretty unpalatable to Republicans but there's absolutely nothing about Katy Porter that appeals to Republicans she is an alode of Elizabeth Warren she is hard left she lives in public housing at UC urbine that ought to be used by a UCI faculty member and it's very luxury housing by the way and she gets a subsidized home there that she's not moved out of since her election you know that's a little deal on the side that is going to become an issue I'm sure so uh you know Republicans will have a real dilemma if Garvey doesn't make it through to November and and Garvey of course has come out as a kind of a never Trumper he hasn't really been staunch about that but uh in the interviews he's done he's he's been pretty clear that he's not going to support Donald Trump he has the advantage of of not having a record so he can take positions and and Donald Trump even amongst Republicans at least Coastal Republicans is not all that popular when Hillary Clinton got more popular votes than Trump in 2016 her entire margin of Victory which was several million votes was here in California Consultants who are running Congressional campaigns in California are very candid about the fact that keeping their congressional candidates removed from Trump and and the the stain and stink of trump is critical to their election success particularly in the coastal areas so Garvey has the uh ability and the fortuitousness to not have had a trump record and so he can in fact sort of distance himself and he should plus he has that celebrity Factor too which plays more and more in modern day politics it does sometimes it works a lot of times it doesn't you know there have been a lot of athletes who' served in the Senate who were former you know baseball players Jim bunting who was a pitcher for Philadelphia was a Senator you've had football players Steve Largent who played for the Seattle Seahawks was in the house who have been successful and good leaders JC Watts who was a football player we'll see I think garvey's a smart guy and I think he's got a good heart and uh hopefully he'll be a good candidate well I think we've covered it pretty well we could talk talk briefly about all of the craziness we talk about every week in in regards to Donald Trump anything that you want to add to the circus that's been going on over the last couple weeks in that department I think the key is the timing of it all before the end of the month we're going to have a verdict in the business fraud trial relative to how much cash he's going to have to pay next week the second egene Carol trial will wrap up and will be a judgment there for damages that will be you know again more multi-million dollars and we're seeing now the starts of things such as the hush money trial with stormmy Daniels and the stripper he has got a campaign in South Carolina and in super Tuesday against the backdrop of all of those producing news and producing judgments and producing facts that are highly negative in terms of his you know previous statements and electability now so far that hasn't stopped him but we'll see they do tell pollsters if there are guilty verdicts you know that may change my vote we'll find out and in other news Joe Biden is still old yes he is and every day it just gets worse you know the poor guy you know they gota use bigger print on the teleprompter because he sints too much trying to read it and we are now in a world environment where our adversaries believe that they can do the negative spread you know you know make a fight in Israel and in the hoodies and in Iraq and in South Korea and in Taiwan and Ukraine and just stretches so thin that we're all just going to say that will be Beyond his ability to successfully manage it right and I think there's beginning to see evidence of that and uh that is just a dangerous situation for the world there's not much he can do about it he's going to like you say if he wakes up the next day he's going to be another day older other news this week is that we have a budget deal in Congress which is kind of surprising isn't it well apparently uh when speaker McCarthy left he left his Playbook on the desk and speaker Johnson has figured out how to use it here again we see that he Johnson is getting a lot more Grace from his Republican caucus than the McCarthy got I think a lot of that was driven by a dislike of McCarthy but Johnson cut basically the same deal that MTH did I don't know 818 Republicans did not support him on it but they are not the leadership they're not leaders in the house it's a good deal for America and it will keep the government going so that uh you know we can have an Appropriations bills and we'll see where that process goes but to his credit Mike Johnson did what was good for America brought the deal to the floor worked with the Senate leadership and the White House to make it happen and with his Democratic colleagues in the house you know government worked and it's fact that we're having this discussion shows you how surprising it is these days when government does work I did see this morning trending on Twitter vacate the seat so there there's still some rumbling about that but I'm with you I don't think it's as strong as it was with McCarthy and I think you're right there were probably some personality conflicts over that situation as well so we'll see how that works we will and and think it is a personality thing they just you know didn't like him they had long-standing objections you can say a lot of things about Mike Johnson cannot say he's not a true believing right-wing conservative and so uh they just demonstrate more irrelevance if they try and go after him and they're going to continue to have this vacate the chair thing until they change the rules and they Purge guys like Matt Gates who care only about themselves another great show Keith thank you very much and we will be back next week and talk about the New Hampshire primary that's right thanks everybody have a great week