“Lawless vs Flawless”

One candidate called for unity and promised to be a leader for all Americans on the Ellipse. The other continued a grievance tour and promised mass deportations amid a “love fest” at MSG. On this last episode before the election, Senator Claire McCaskill is joined again by Symone Sanders Townsend, former senior advisor to Vice President Harris, and co-host of MSNBC’s The Weekend. They tally the closing arguments of both candidates and the incredible volume of dark money in this election. Then, NBC’s own data whiz and numbers guru Steve Kornacki stops by to frame up what to expect on election night and the day(s) after, how to think about the polling and what to take away from shifting early voting trends. And the last segment of this episode is for you- the voters. Claire and Symone urge you be patient, keep calm and carry on. And even if you’re not in a swing state, do not sit this one out.

Further Reading: As Claire and Symone mentioned, here is the Open Secrets tally of 2024’s biggest campaign contributors: Who are the Biggest Donors?

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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.

Claire McCaskill: Welcome to “How to Win 2024.”

It’s Thursday morning, October 31st. Happy Halloween. I’m Claire McCaskill. I am not in costume right now, but I will confess that my grandchildren love it when I dress up as one of the villainesses, one of the bad people in their world. So I have a really good Cruella DeVil costume, which by the way, I like to wear because there was actually a focus group once where a woman described me as Cruella DeVil. So I take that role to heart, right?

And then this year I have Maleficent, who is the evil witch in “Sleeping Beauty.” I am busy being the bad guy this year. What about you? My guest co-pilot, Symone Sanders Townsend. You got a costume?

Symone Sanders Townsend: Oh my gosh. Claire, I don’t have a costume. We took my stepson to the White House yesterday for the Halloween and he was Sonic. And my husband and I both showed up and we both came for meetings and he was like, “What are you guys?” And I was like, “Well, I’m a recovering Democratic strategist and very tired TV anchor.”

Claire McCaskill:  There you go.

Symone Sanders Townsend: And tonight he’s going to be a basketball player. So one of the Warriors. So he’s running the gamut of the costumes.

Claire McCaskill: There you go. So Symone Sanders Townsend is obviously this former senior advisor and chief spokesperson for Vice President Harris and now co-hosts “The Weekend” with Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele. There’s just five days to go, Symone. And this is going to be our last episode before Election Day. The closing arguments have largely been made. The money has largely been spent. The field programs are in place. So we want to take a little bit of time today to assess the speech at The Ellipse and how it compares to former president’s closing pitch, including last Saturday’s hate rally at Madison Square Garden. That was something, huh?

Symone Sanders Townsend: It was something to behold and not in a good way, Claire. And in a bit, we are also going to have NBC’s star numbers cruncher, all around data whiz, the man with the plan and the numbers, Steve Kornacki. He’s going to give us a sense of really where we are with less than a week to go. You know, just make it a little more plain for folks about what to expect so everyone can stop asking everywhere we go, what do you know? What’s going to happen? We all know what’s going to happen and Steve Kornacki’s going to tell us why. But he can help us figure out how we’re going to interpret the data, understand the results on election night and beyond.

Claire McCaskill: And before we wrap this last pre-election episode, Symone and I want to take a minute, and in the spotlight segment today at the end, we’re going to spotlight you. We want it to be about you. We want it to be about how you can be patient and calm and do the work that we need to do to make sure we hold onto the values that we care about in this country. So, spotlight on you this week.

But first, if we were in the room, let’s go to The Ellipse. First of all, let’s just say, as people who have been around events like this most of our adult lives, who have been in the closing days of inspirational presidential campaigns and seeing crowds that are similar to what she had on The Ellipse, it was special. It was beautiful. They say 75,000, it was huge. The overflow area by Washington Monument, the pictures of that brought a tear to my eye. Literally, it made me happy that so many people care so deeply about where we are right now. And I thought her message was pitch perfect too. What did you think?

Symone Sanders Townsend: Yeah, I was there actually. My husband and I went to see it. I wanted to see it for myself. And I bumped into so many people, Claire, who said that they came from out of town to witness this moment for themselves. I thought the framing of the shot was immaculate with the White House right behind her in the MSNBC special “Road to 2024, Black Women in America” that Melissa Murray and I did. One of the people we talked to was Mignon Moore, who was the chair of this year’s Democratic Convention. And she said she rejected the notion that men wouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris, but that people needed to see her as Commander-in-Chief, needed to be able to visually put her in that place. And that happened on The Ellipse.

I thought it was positive and so powerful. The words, “I have lived the promise of America.”

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

Kamala Harris: And I pledge to be a president for all Americans.

And to always put country above party and self.

Kamala Harris: I love our country with all my heart. And I believe in its promise because I’ve lived it.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

Symone Sanders Townsend: That knocked me back. I felt like she hit all of the marks. And from just a campaign perspective, you couldn’t ask for anything better from your candidate for a closing argument. It was inspirational. It wasn’t cocky, if you will. She asked for people’s votes. She didn’t dismiss what is very valid concerns from some voters out there. She’s like, I’m meeting the voters where you are. If some of you feel like you don’t know me, she’s like, let me tell you who I am. And talked about the kind of president she would be. So I just, and not to mention the folks she had on the stage prior to her coming out. Republicans, young people, doctors, Amanda Zebrowski and her husband.

Like this was just, it was a little tapestry of America, Claire. You know, people had American flags. I was like, what is this? What is going on? I love it. Yeah, the freedom, the flags, the patriotism, the unity message.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

Kamala Harris: I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better. I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress. I pledge to listen to experts, to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make, and to people who disagree with me.

Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

Claire McCaskill: And I think what you said at the top is really true, Symone, it was so fricking presidential. I mean, she just oozed, I am the president. I can be your president for all of you. And it was just a crying shame. And I have to mention this, because if we don’t, we’re not doing our job, that you had the misstep by Biden that night, because the message of unification, the message of saying, My enemies will have a seat at the table. I have a to-do list, not an enemies list. The people who disagree with me, I want to listen to them. I want to be their president too. It was so well-framed and it was so, frankly, uplifting. And then when the president misspoke and wasn’t clear that he was talking about what was coming out of Trump supporters’ mouths, not the supporters themselves, it just gave the opening that Trump was looking for. And it’s just, I feel badly for Biden, because I know he feels badly about it, but it sure was a mistake. It just was a plain mistake.

Symone Sanders Townsend:  And in that speech, the vice president said, she talked about being a president and working for people, even the people that didn’t vote for her.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

Kamala Harris: I’ll be honest with you, I’m not perfect. I make mistakes, but here’s what I promise you. I will always listen to you, even if you don’t vote for me. I will always tell you the truth, even if it is difficult to hear. I will work every day to build consensus and reach compromise to get things done.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

Symone Sanders Townsend: And I thought that was a really important message to make. And it’s interesting because there was no service out there on The Ellipse. So all of the people that were out there, and I mean, all of her campaign, just about almost all of her top campaign aides were down there. There was no cell service. So not until walking out of The Ellipse did people start to get service and see the comments from President Biden.

And I also think he misspoke, and I’m glad he clarified what he was saying, but I also don’t think that Joe Biden’s comments should overshadow Kamala Harris’s speech.

Claire McCaskill: He’s not running.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Yeah, he’s not running. And Claire, you know, it’s not like they had plans to campaign together the next day and like, it’s legitimate for people to be talking about it. Like they didn’t even have plans to campaign together and so I was actually shocked. Then the 24 hours after what we saw on The Ellipse, a lot of the television coverage and a lot of the print coverage led with the comments from President Biden. And I was just, you know, why are we asking the vice president to answer for what President Biden said when he himself took responsibility and clarified? And yet I don’t think people have put enough spotlight on Donald Trump answering for his, the words coming out of his own mouth.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, by the way, it’s the double standard at work again. As Van Jones said on CNN, one candidate is lawless, the other has to be flawless.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Come on.

Claire McCaskill: And it is crazy to me that Trump has called Harris supporters garbage, vermin, the enemy within, going to call out the military on them, going to put them in jail for treason.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

Donald Trump: They’re coming from 181 countries as of yesterday, right in, we’re a dumping ground. We’re like a garbage can for the world. That’s what’s happened. That’s what’s happened to us. We’re like a garbage can.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

Claire McCaskill: You know, it is crazy that he can continue to do that over and over again. And they blew this up like it was some big deal. But by the way, can I just say, Trump in the garbage truck.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Claire, the memes are crazy. The memes are crazy. The memes are going off.

Claire McCaskill: It is Michael Dukakis in a tank. It is him in a fricking tank. I mean, him in that orange vest.

Symone Sanders Townsend: He kept it on, by the way. He wore it to the rally afterwards.

Claire McCaskill:  I have covered some fat with suit jackets in my life, so I am not without sin here.

Symone Sanders Townsend: We’re speaking from experience. I would like to say.

Claire McCaskill:  Okay, so I think his closing strategy is weird.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

Donald Trump: Next Tuesday, you have to stand up and you have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve done a terrible job. That crooked Joe Biden has done a terrible job. You’ve destroyed our country. We’re not going to take it anymore. Kamala, you’re fired. Get out, get out. You’re fired.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

Claire McCaskill: It’s all about the bros and the billionaires, right?

Symone Sanders Townsend:  Yeah, trying to turn out that bro vote that, I mean, very unreliable, right? Like, he is working, his closing argument is to turn out voters that do not reliably vote, that his campaign can’t necessarily quantify. And so I know much has been made about how, oh, the Trump people don’t have a good infrastructure. And I don’t think they do. They have something, right? Because Republicans are showing up for the early vote in places all across the country. But a lot of this, he ceded his ground game to Elon Musk and Turning Point, folks who haven’t elected anybody.

So I just continue to believe, Claire, that hope is always a better motivating factor for voters than fear. And Donald Trump’s closing argument is very scary. It’s about fear and it is uniquely about himself. And for those voters that in that Republican primary voted for Nikki Haley, because of the things that Donald Trump had been saying previously, I don’t see how this makes them come home for people who had voted for Donald Trump twice previously. I don’t see how this is the same, like I’m fighting for you message that he tried to serve up in 2016. So I don’t think it’s an effective closing strategy, but we going to see.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, and some of the things he said are really just off the hook. He’s increased the rhetoric about mass deportations. And I say to my friends, I put friends in quotes here that are Trump people, how do you think that looks? What, is this workplace raids? And you’ll think about this. Quinceañeras are important celebrations in the Hispanic Latino community in America. Can you imagine the military comes in and requires everyone to show their papers? Is this a situation where mothers and fathers are making their children carry passports with them everywhere they go in case the military tries to round them up? And where do they put these people? Are these mass holding pens in jails for people until they figure out who should be deported and who should, I don’t think people are thinking about the reality of what a mass deportation would look like in America and how offensive, disruptive, difficult, and painful that would be for many American citizens.

Symone Sanders Townsend:  I agree.

Claire McCaskill: That have every legitimate reason to look at somebody in a military uniform and say, what are you doing right now? Why are you bothering me? It would be really, really, really bad.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Mark Cuban makes this point to your, along the lines that you’re saying, that it’s also, think about these small business owners. Is this happening at restaurants? Do you think that people are going to continue to patron restaurants that the military or police are running in, literally asking people to show their papers who have worked in the establishment for years?

So I just, I don’t know how this is better for the economy. Like what is the economic argument for this? This is just purely rooted in hate. And that’s just one of the many arguments. I mean, we didn’t even get to how he says, what he said about women and how, he’s going to be the protector of women, whether they like it or not. I don’t know what that means. It’s very scary.

Claire McCaskill: It’s very scary, very misogynistic. And by the way, I don’t think anything he’s done in the closing days of the campaign are helping him with women. And that’s his biggest weakness. Calling her the antichrist, talking about her pimp, having Hulk Hogan rip off his shirt. I don’t think any of these are going, like, oh, women are going, yeah, no, those guys are for me. They’re the ones I really want to be in my life for the next four years.

And also the billionaires. It’s the bros and the billionaires, as we said. And I want to spend just a minute about the billionaires because Jon Tester called me this week and he said to me, Claire, I don’t know if I’ll make it back to the Senate or not, but if I do, my motivating thing is going to be all of the dark, huge money that’s in politics now. We have billionaires buying newspapers and deciding not to endorse. In both “The Washington Post,” Bezos says no endorsement, and out in California, in Los Angeles, of all places, another billionaire deciding not to endorse, just unilaterally because they’re billionaires and because they can, they say no endorsement.

And then you look at what’s going on. We’re going to put this on the notes on the podcast so you guys can see for yourself. This is from Open Secrets, which tracks as best they can, but most of this is untrackable. So, because most of it is sliding through other groups, as you know, Symone, into other groups, and you don’t know where the money came from in the original group that gave the money, but what we can track of the top 10 donors, let me just do the numbers here. We’ve got, number one, Timothy Mellon at $147 million. We got the Adelsons at $135 million. We got the Uihleins at $129 million. You have Ken Griffin at $100 million. You have the Yasses at almost $100 million. These are all GOP.

You’ve got Michael Bloomberg, who did do 50 million to the Dems, but he’s also given a million to the GOP. So, we’re talking about, in this list.

Symone Sanders Townsend: It’s a lot of money, Claire.

Claire McCaskill: A billion dollars from billionaires. Now, who do you think Trump’s going to look after with a billion dollars from billionaires, plus two newspapers that clearly have pulled endorsements because they’re afraid of him? I just think people need to realize that if you think the bros and the billionaires are the ones who should be calling the shots in the Oval Office, then Trump’s your guy. I’m telling you, Trump’s your guy.

Symone Sanders Townsend: The ads that people are seeing, that they are so tired of seeing, the negative ads especially, listen to who they say sponsors them. Listen to how many times it says, you know, I’m Kamala Harris and I approve this message, or I’m Donald Trump and I approve this message, versus one of these groups you’ve never heard of. The majority of these ads, the money that is being spent in terms of targeting negatively and disproportionately Democrats in this race, particularly Democrats in the Senate, okay? Because the billionaires in this country, they do not want to be held accountable. They do not want their taxes raised, okay? And that is really what it boils down to. It’s what it’s about.

Claire McCaskill: Right, it’s money.

Symone Sanders Townsend: It’s money.

Claire McCaskill: It’s money, honey.

Symone Sanders Townsend: It’s all about the bottom line. People have to pay attention. So I just encourage people to do their research before they go into that ballot box, honey, okay? Because the ads may make some of it sound good. Y’all got to do your research now.

Claire McCaskill: So let’s pause here. When we’re back, NBC’s “Numbers” guru, Steve Kornacki, joins us to break down what to expect next Tuesday.

Back with him in a moment.

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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. My co-host and MSNBC colleague, Symone Sanders Townsend is still with me.  

Symone, in this last week, the phrases I keep hearing from folks are words like, I’m losing it, I can’t stand the stress, I can’t sleep. I mean, I’ve always been around people who get very anxious around election time because I typically around election time, hanging with people who are very involved in elections. But this is happening, you know, like I checked out at the grocery store at our lake house over the weekend and this sweet woman checking me out, looked at me and she goes, just tell me we’re going to be okay. I mean, she was about to cry.

So I thought, I’m not sure that going to the guru of all data is going to help us at this point because I’m not sure that data is our best friend at this point in terms of relieving anxiety, but no question, everybody is thirsty for more information about what the hell is actually going on.

Symone Sanders Townsend:  I mean, I too am witnessing the anxiety all across America. I literally went to vote this morning and people are like, what do you think? What’s going to happen? And I’m like, I don’t know, but perhaps NBC’s Steve Kornacki can help us just map out what’s going to come on Election Day, what to watch for and also its aftermath because we’re really talking about an election week if we want to be honest.

Steve is our go-to electoral map guru, numbers guy at NBC and MSNBC. And he’s also the author of “The Red and the Blue, 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism.” And he’s also a national political correspondent.

We need Steve Kornacki.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, listen, welcome Steve. And you were our first guest here on this podcast way back when, and now our last guest before Election Day. And I want to put in a slight plug for Steve Kornacki because there are people at our network that have a tilt. I think we have to be honest about that.

One thing I have noticed about Steve Kornacki, he don’t tilt. This is a guy who doesn’t play team sports. He plays the data. And I don’t think he gets recognized for that. I think a lot of people don’t realize how straight he plays it, but I can assure you as somebody who has consumed cross tabs as pleasure reading all my life, somebody who loves the data, immerses myself in the data, nobody plays it straighter than Steve Kornacki.

Whatever he says today, it ain’t red or blue. It is just the facts, ma’am. Welcome, Steve.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Yeah.

Steve Kornacki:  Wow, just truly, I appreciate that because I mean, that’s exactly what I’m aiming for in the reality with what I do is if it seems I’m on one side or the other, it’s going to seem like I’m shading it one way or the other and I lose all credibility with what I do. So I really, I thank you, I appreciate that.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, well, it’s true. So five days out, what can you tell us other than we don’t really know who’s going to win?

Steve Kornacki: Well, let me just hang up now because that’s where we are. I’ve been telling people pretty much every election that I’ve covered, not just presidential, I usually have some kind of a hunch going in where it’s going to land. And I just, I can imagine scenarios in this election that I could sketch out with a fair amount of detail, but which one’s more likely than the other, I have no hunch this time.

Claire McCaskill: Okay, well, good.  Yeah, let’s talk about whether the polls are off or not. We know they were off in 2020, we know they were off in 2016, we know they were off in 2022, all favoring different parties. They weren’t off just for Trump or just for the Republicans. They were also off for Democrats in 2022. Do you have any sense that the modeling has been overcorrected?

Steve Kornacki:  So yeah, when you say there’s scenarios, I guess here’s how I look at the polling. Everybody knows how tight it is nationally in the battleground states. Our running average of the battleground state polls has the most lopsided state right now at one and six tenths of a percent, Georgia for Trump. We have five of the seven battleground states inside of one point. And I’ve never covered a presidential election where the battleground is that consistently razor thin just across the board. So the question becomes potentially where’s the polling off? Couple of things that I look at, a big issue both times Trump ran was under counting of Trump support with blue collar white voters, particularly in the Northern tier of battleground states. Wisconsin was the worst polling miss in the country in both 16 and 20. Michigan is up there. Pennsylvania is not far behind. 2020, the miss was not that bad really, like in Georgia, but it was in those states with very large blue collar white populations that had until very recently been voting Democratic. There’s been a big shift playing out there.

So pollsters have tried all sorts of things to correct for that. There’s new approaches this time. There’s a theory that COVID itself, the pandemic situation in 2020 caused some of this and evidence that perhaps they’ve addressed it or it’s addressed itself is simply the tightness of the polling. We saw polling in Wisconsin, as I said, in 2020 at this time that had Biden up double digits and it being six tenths of one point. No, we have close polling in Wisconsin. So maybe the polling is telling us that that issue has been addressed, but if it hasn’t, obviously, Trump’s in fantastic position right now. If there is still some residual failure to capture Trump voters. Obviously a race that’s tied now, that would then move decisively in his favor.

But on the flip side, what we see in the polling is that Trump’s coalition is built disproportionately on voters who it’s very far from clear they will show up and vote in the election. We measure this a couple of ways. Voting history, folks who voted in both the 2020 presidential and the 2022 midterm, pretty reliable, politically engaged voters, Harris is winning by high single digits with those voters. Folks who did not vote either in 2020 or 2022, so it’s very much an open question about ‘24, Trump is up 16 points with them in our polling.

Also enthusiasm, we rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. If you’re in that 7 to 10 range, the highest interest, Harris does best there. Trump’s up double digits on people who call themselves 1 to 6. And this connects with the gains we’ve seen Trump making in the polls with any combination of younger, non-white, male, layer those on top of each other, Trump does better and better. And these are voters also who are not answering necessarily with the most enthusiasm or who don’t have the most established history of voting. So does that materialize? Polls have it. If it doesn’t materialize, the polling miss works in Harris’s favor.

Claire McCaskill: Well, Steve, first of all, early vote, right? How should people be looking at early vote data? I mean, as we have this conversation, more than 58 million people actually have already voted. So the numbers are going to keep climbing. How should people be looking at early vote data? And then we talk about the polling misses in 2022. I’m wondering, what about the Roe vote or the Dobbs vote, if you will? Part of the polling miss in ‘22, I think was the not accounting for the effect that Roe would have. And this is the first presidential since Roe. What difference is that going to make?

Steve Kornacki: Yeah, that connects. I should have added that when you’re talking about polling miss. Another thing Democrats are counting on here is sort of surprisingly high and disproportionate turnout from women, particularly single women, single, you know, you layer these things on top of each other, younger single women. And if you got a situation where two things are happening at the same time, these less enthusiastic Trump voters, not all of them are voting. And there is that surge that Democrats are counting on. And that’s, again, that’s where you see, we will talk after the election about how the polling undercounted Harris’s support, underestimated it, and, you know, she’d win the election.

In terms of the early vote, extreme, extreme caution. You can talk to Democrats who can point to things they’re seeing and say they feel great about them. You can talk to Republicans who say the exact same thing. The biggest issue with early voting, the two biggest issues are, there’s always the question, if it looks like one party is doing extremely well in the early vote in a state, are they just doing that much worse with the voters who are going to wait till Election Day to show up? And we’ve seen that before. We’ve seen where the early vote has created expectations, and then you get to Election Day, it’s like, wow, this is so much more lopsided in the other direction than I thought. So that’s always a possibility there.

The other thing is just on this scale, in most states, early voting is still relatively new. And so having a good benchmark, a good basis for comparison for the numbers we’re seeing, like, oh, Republicans are improving off 2020, Democrats are improving off 2020. I still think we’re at a point with early voting where the patterns have not really sorted themselves out. They can change dramatically from election to election, especially if you’re using COVID 2020 as a baseline.

So the one exception everybody will always talk about is Nevada. You have a long history of early voting there. Vast majority of votes are cast that way. John Ralston, who’s a political analyst there often on MSNBC, has a very good track record of interpreting that early vote, and then ultimately, he’ll give you a forecast for the election to the 10th of a point. That’s held up pretty well in the past. He’s finding right now that the early vote is favoring Republicans just in terms of the partisan turnout in ways that it hasn’t before.

So obviously, Republicans are very excited about that, but again, even there, I hesitate because I still think there’s volatility in the Trump era in particular in terms of how people are choosing to vote, whether it’s early, mail, or in person. And I’m not entirely convinced we get to Election Day in Nevada. And just as we’re seeing something different in the early vote there now, we don’t see something different in the same-day vote in Nevada that washes it all away. So even there, I’m very cautious.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, we could have a flip, because typically you think the early vote is for Democrats, and the same-day voting’s for Republicans, since Trump has been an enemy of early voting and mail-in ballots. But they’ve changed their messaging this cycle, and we could have a situation where the early vote favors the Republicans, and the same-day vote favors Democrats, because the get-out-to-vote operation that Rebecca Lambe runs in Nevada is pretty on point. She could really turn it out on Election Day in Clark County, and we could look at being ahead in Nevada on same day and then lose on early votes. And that is the opposite of what’s gone on in states before. So it really is, it’s a topsy-turvy thing.

Let’s talk about third parties for a minute. I’d love you to talk about Jill Stein, and then importantly, really importantly, RFK in Michigan and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court left him on the ballot in both of those states. He was desperate to get off, which tells people what I think they need to know, that the data favors Harris in Michigan and Wisconsin if RFK is on the ballot, that he cannibalizes more Trump vote than he does Harris vote. Am I right about that?

Steve Kornacki: Certainly when he was a candidate. The question now that we have with the third party vote is it looks like it’s going to be, I’m guessing, I think it’s going to be more on the level of 2020 than 2016 when we had an unusually large third party vote in 2016. And when you get to really small levels with a candidate, eight tenths of a percent, 1.3 percent, something like that, there are a number of people who just utilize third party names on the ballot as some form of protest, of saying they don’t like either one, and maybe they recognize the Kennedy name without any particular agreement with his views. You start getting a lot of that.

And in fact, when we look at it through our NBC pollsters, we have a category that’s called persuadable voters. We’re always tracking this. And our pollsters, and by extension, us, we’re now including people who are citing, people who are saying they’ll vote for a third party candidate, we’re including them in the persuadable category for that possibility that they ultimately decide, as a two-person race, and I want to pick the lesser of two evils, something like that.

So I don’t discount the possibility there that there are some hardcore RFK people who just, they see his name and that’s it, and that’s a lost vote for Trump. And as I always say, it’s one of those factors, I could come up with a bunch of them where if you get super, super tight in these states, and like some of these polls are showing, and we’re inside of 10,000 votes or something, hey, Michigan was about 11,000 in 2016, then those super, super small things loom large. But I think it’s at that level.

Claire McCaskill: And Jill Stein, same thing?

Steve Kornacki: Yeah, I mean, a little bit more established in that she’s run before, and I think she has a very, very small base of support.  I also wonder with that, we tend to think of Green Party, Stein, lefties, they must be otherwise going to vote for Democrats. I also wonder if her base is so disaffected from major party politics that those are lost votes for Democrats, or are those just votes that the Green Party or Jill Stein just sort of have?

Claire McCaskill:  I’m so done with her, I’m so tired of her and RFK. Come on.

Symone Sanders Townsend: You know, Claire, it’s so interesting because, Steve, Claire’s exasperated, like just, oh, about it all, is because she’s paying attention to what they are saying. But many voters, frankly, as we all know, like they might not have heard some of the things that Jill Stein has said and her supporters have said about trying to block Kamala Harris from being successful.

Concurrently, they might just know the Kennedy name. I mean, we’re spending a lot of time on third party, but I think in a really close race, third party makes a difference. It can make a difference in a race where the margins are tight. Are there any particular states outside of Michigan that you’re watching to see where the third-party vote might shake out?

Steve Kornacki:  No, I mean, in all of them, and I guess for context, the kind of the category I put it in, things that can matter if it gets super, super tight. You know, I would look in Michigan at, we talk about like the Muslim American, Arab American vote. I think if we’re in that range and there’s some kind of a shift there, that could end up being decisive in a super close race. Yes, I put the third-party vote in that category.

In North Carolina, I don’t think this is a thing, but I think the Republicans are testing the limits of it, I would say, which is I don’t believe it’s a thing in politics in a presidential election that the down ballot drives the top of the ticket vote. But in North Carolina, and we’ve seen North Carolina, they have the gubernatorial elections concurrent with the presidential elections, long history of the presidential election going one way, the gubernatorial the other.

The Republicans have fielded such a problematic gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, and I think the disparity between that governor’s race and the presidential race will be sort of extra pronounced. I’m not talking about anything that’s going to move masses, but if there were a couple thousand voters who just by association didn’t want Trump because they don’t want Robinson, the gubernatorial candidate, again, I put it in that category if we’re looking at a, you know, five, seven, 8,000 vote race.

Claire McCaskill: I’m living testimony to that. As you remember, Romney won Missouri decisively the same year that I defeated Todd Akin by almost 15 points. Same situation, I had tens upon thousands of Romney voters that voted for me for the Senate. That was back in the good old days when saying something that was a little off the beaten path got you in trouble.

Now the party’s leader specializes in off the beaten path. So we did a NBC poll recently, and let’s talk a little bit about the issues that emerged on that poll, Steve. It was interesting to me how much money the Republicans are spending on trans issues digitally and how much they’re spending on crime, and I didn’t see any of those on our issues that folks were worried about in this election.

Talk a little bit about what the poll showed on what the issues are that are really driving people’s vote this time.

Steve Kornacki: Yeah, I mean, part of it too is we’re not always asking about these in polling. We end up kind of reducing issues to a smaller set to try to kind of get a sense of priorities. But yeah, I mean, what we have seen consistently, this was true when Biden was in the race. This has remained true with Harris in the race. Numbers have moved around a little bit, but economy, cost of living/inflation, and border, border especially. Border is Trump’s double-digit advantage over the Democrats, whether it’s Biden or Harris. Economy and cost of living, you’re more mid to high single digits, but consistently Trump showing an advantage there.

Claire McCaskill: Isn’t the trend that she has closed that gap a little bit during this campaign? —

Steve Kornacki: Yeah, I would say. I would say it’s probably, I’d have to put our averages together, but just ballparking it, it’s moved three, four points away from Trump on that question. Still, he outranks, he outweighs her on that. And then the biggest Democratic advantage just all year has been abortion. Our most recent poll, 19 point edge for Harris, and obviously you’ve seen them lean into that, and that ties into what we were talking about earlier about the turnout.

Symone Sanders Townsend:  Well, see, then that begs the question then. Okay, so election night comes. There are many people who are listening to this right now, and they’re wondering, are we going to have an election week like last time? Are we going to know on election night? What can you tell people to assuage the concerns of that lady at the grocery store that Claire was talking to, the folks at the polling place this morning that I was talking to that were like, we just want to know.

Steve Kornacki: Famous last words, I think it will be quicker, potentially much quicker than 2020. And that doesn’t mean the race is a blowout. It just means that what clogged things up in 2020 was the volume, unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots in states, many cases that had never processed them before, like Pennsylvania, the state we waited five days to get a result from before calling the presidency.

One, mail voting is down substantially this year. More people are voting early in person. And just without getting into the mechanics, early in-person voting is super easy to tabulate, super quick. Mail-in voting, it’s a process. You got to open the ballot, verify all this stuff. So I don’t think that logjam is going to exist. Some states have changed their rules completely when it comes to mail-in ballots. Michigan, I think Michigan’s going to be super fast compared to how it was in 2020.

Now, Pennsylvania did not change their rules, but things are a little different. They’ve had a few elections now to deal with this. So they have some processes in place. Again, lower volume in Pennsylvania overall. And Philadelphia was the big place we were waiting on in PA in 2020. They’re now going to work, or saying they’re going to work round the clock, getting these mail ballots processed and reported out. So I think all of that adds up to, even if you have a close race, I tell people, just think back to 2016. It was a close election. Swing of about 75,000 votes across three states would have made Hillary Clinton president. That was settled at 1, 1:30 in the morning.

Claire McCaskill: Well, it was really, honestly, when it was really settled was when I came off the Fox News set at the Javits Center after doing a hit on Fox the night of that election. And I’m walking down the stairs. I remember exactly where I was standing when somebody in the inner circle of the Clinton team walked up to me. It was about 9:30 PM. And he said, “We’ve lost Florida.”

Symone Sanders Townsend: Oh, no.

Claire McCaskill: And I went back into the hold room where there were a lot of quote unquote VIPs. I looked over at Madeline Albright. And if you know Madeline Albright, she never cusses. She looked at me and she mouthed, “We are fucked,” just like that. And when Madeline Albright said that at about 10 minutes till 10 PM on election night, I knew it was over. I’m going to do a Dave thing. I’ve seen enough. It was over. So we knew early, right?

Steve Kornacki: Yes, Florida was.

Symone Sanders Townsend: The writing was on the wall. Yeah, Florida. Oh my goodness.

Claire McCaskill:  So let’s go through the states so people know. The slowest for counting will be, what do you think? Probably Wisconsin because they don’t start processing mail ballots till Election Day. And same thing with Pennsylvania, depending on how many they have.

Steve Kornacki: So the way I look at it is, Wisconsin is actually, it’s not a ton of mail and it is fairly efficient. We got a call in Wisconsin, and it was six-tenths of a point, 20,000 vote race. I think we got a call late morning, the day after the election, in 2020. The big thing in Wisconsin, mail ballot wise, is the city of Milwaukee. They reported out last. This is an overnight hours thing. We’ve had a couple straight elections in Milwaukee where that’s been the thing that pivoted it from Republicans leading to Democrats leading and they don’t look back. So I mean, that moment I think is going to come in the, let’s say, 1 to 3 AM window. And even if we don’t call it, we might kind of know Wisconsin then.

PA’s the wild card for reasons I just said. No change in law, but you could see maybe it’d be faster. The West is where you’re really, if it’s super tight in Arizona and or Nevada, you’re guaranteed to be waiting days in those states. And it has to do with mail-in ballots there. The main thing is, in Arizona, hundreds of thousands of people will drop off their mail-in ballot in person on Election Day or like the day before Election Day. And they don’t even get to opening those ballots and processing them until the whole thing is over, until election night is over. And you get basically, you get in 2020 from the morning after the election until Arizona was finally called, which was about a week later, nearly a million more votes were counted up. And these were all late arriving mail-in ballots.

So, if Arizona is a fairly decisive, you know, three, four point win for somebody, you can call it earlier than that. But if it’s close like it was in 2020, guaranteed you’re going to the weekend there at least.

Claire McCaskill: Well, let’s put it this way. Let’s hope it’s just one long night. Let’s hope it’s not more than one long night. So, listen, Steve, you’re great. And you are in high demand right now. You can’t even return calls to the NFL and the Kentucky Derby, which I know you love.

I can tell when you do the Kentucky Derby and the NFL, you are like, as we would say in the Ozarks, you’re like a pig in slop. But right now you can’t even return their calls because you are up to your neck and work that you’ve got to prepare for, for election night.

We will be relying on you then. We’ll see you a lot. And we always are very appreciative of you taking time to spend a little bit of time with us on the podcast.

Steve Kornacki: Thank you. Enjoyed it. And good luck to both of you in the final days.

Claire McCaskill: All right, see you.

Symone Sanders Townsend: We’ll be watching.

Claire McCaskill: Okay, after the break, Symone and I want to do sort of a PSA. We are into public service announcements to remind folks to be patient, keep calm, and to make sure, even if you’re not in a swing state, do not take your vote for granted. Do not sit this one out. Back with that in a moment.

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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. My MSNBC colleague, the amazing Symone Sanders Townsend, is still with me.

Symone, I want to take this last segment for Election Day here on “How to Win” to remind voters that the only way we win is through them. And we need to talk about a few key things as we gear up for next week, which are be patient, be engaged, and vote.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Yes. Plus. Bold underline to everything Claire just said. I mean, people need to just really take to heart also what Steve Kornacki just said, right? That, you know, the numbers are going to be coming in. People need to be patient. They need to trust the process. We are going to learn a lot on Election Day about the votes cast. It might take a while. Steve said it might be quicker, but we just, people just need to be patient. But also, Claire, the people have the power. That is the thing about this representative democracy that we live in. Like, people are still voting.

Again, as we said earlier, more than 58 million people have already cast ballots in the early voting, and we don’t even know what’s going to happen yet on Election Day. So I really think that people need to take to heart that I know it doesn’t feel that way sometimes, but the people have the power. Our participation can change things. And the last thing anyone should be thinking about doing this Election Day, this election season, is not participating by sitting out and not casting a ballot.

Claire McCaskill: Yes, and I think what you said about trust the process is important and patience is important. Plan your vote.

And by the way, many states, you can go online and you can actually see how long the lines are in various locations. I think most states have gotten to the point that you’re not tied to a certain location. I know I early voted for the first time in a presidential in Missouri. We have no-excuse absentee ballots.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Oh, wow.

Claire McCaskill: We’ve never had that before. Never before.

Symone Sanders Townsend: For that? Okay. — It was what the Democrats, who there are very few Democrats in Jeff City, but they held out in the Senate and filibustered on a voter ID law until they took the voter ID law. So you have to show an ID now in Missouri, but they got early no-excuse voting. So in my county, in St. Louis County, they actually had on their websites how many people were in line in all the locations. Now, I want to tell you this, Symone, because it was really fun for me. If anybody thinks people in the Black community don’t know what’s going on, they’ve never spent any time in the Black community.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Well, come on now.

Claire McCaskill: If anybody thinks they don’t know exactly what’s what in the Black community, you are looking from a distance and you are buying into bullshit stereotypes. I looked at where all the lines were and I realized that North County, there were no lines. So my husband and I went up to North County, by the way, and there’s way too many white people in St. Louis County that wouldn’t go to North County, which is another big problem in our country.

We go up to North County to this rec center and it was a love fest. I mean, I was almost in tears. So many hugs from so many people. You know, everybody knew what was going on. Ninety percent of the people in line recognized me and were showing such incredible affection. I could hardly get through the line. I was so emotional that people were so loving and kind and it was efficient, it was well run, it was perfect. The line wasn’t as long as it needed to be in North County, but I know folks are working on that. And I mean, as we were driving home and I turned on some jazz on the radio, my husband and I said, you know, he said, “You know, that’s the most fun I’ve had all week.”

Symone Sanders Townsend: Wow.

Claire McCaskill: And that’s the way it should be, you know? It should be an experience that, after it’s over, you go, “Okay, this is good.” And you can make it that way if you plan. Bring a friend, bring a book, be sure and thank the poll workers. Be nice to everybody because this is an important part of what we do as Americans. And I just think it’s one of those things that if you have patience that day and you plan that day, you’ll remember it and it will be important. And we’re all hoping you remember it because we do something historic.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Yeah.

Claire McCaskill: Next Tuesday.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Oh, I’m so glad you had such a great experience at the polling place. My husband and I went to vote this morning and I was like, we got to make sure. I’m like, can we go vote together? We planned our vote. I’m like, when are you voting? Can we go together? And we went in the polling place together and our polling place, we voted early. So it was like down the street from where I voted early last time in the midterms. And some of the same folks who were working that day the last time I voted were there that day. And they were like, oh, it’s good to see you again. I’m like, yeah, it’s good to be seen. And they walked me through my ballot, like how to do it because it’s digital. And there were just, there weren’t a lot of people there, but we went to vote at like 9:30 AM this morning. So most people, they said, a lot of people came in prior to work.

But we thanked everyone that was in that polling place that worked that day. We filled out our little card and people said that they felt good. And walking out of there, we took our little selfie in front of the polling place. But I was excited. I was excited and I was grateful because in so many places in our world, what we are having the opportunity to do this election season, there are people that do not have the opportunity to do that. Like it is something that is just so beautiful about America. And yes, there are people that want to disrupt this process, let’s be clear, but people would not be trying so hard to disrupt the process and keep people from voting if it wasn’t so important.

So I just, you know, shout out to all the people voting early. Again, more than 58 million people as we’ve had this conversation. And for people that haven’t voted yet, you know, you still got your time. Maybe you’re going to go on Election Day, like Claire said, plan your vote, bring a book, bring some snacks. Maybe if you in Georgia, don’t pass those snacks out though, because you know, they got those laws now. So be vigilant about what the laws are.

But after people have cast their ballot when the polls close, just remember what Steve Kornacki said. There are many factors, folks. We got to be patient, trust the process, take your time. You know, click on a little MSNBC. Claire and I will be there throughout the night, okay?

We are going to be there to just help everyone. We’re going to be going through it together. And I’m hopeful, Claire. I’m very hopeful.

Claire McCaskill: Before we close, I got to give one important speech to people that are in states that you think don’t matter.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Come on.

Claire McCaskill: I’m in a state where folks think it doesn’t matter because Trump will win this state. Yeah, you’re right. Trump will win this state. But guess what? Trump’s not going to win in California and New York. Harris is going to win in California and New York, but guess what’s going to happen in California and New York? We’re going to decide who controls the House of Representatives in California and New York. Now, think for a minute how important that is, everybody in California and New York. You’ve got to vote.

And here’s the other thing that is different about this election. We now have a candidate for president who is best friends with three guys, Xi, Kim Jong-un, and Putin, who don’t let their folks vote. There is no voting in those countries. And he is trying to convince America that our voting process is not fair.

The margins will matter in this election. Kamala Harris needs to win the popular vote by so much that it undercuts Trump’s ability to convince people that somehow it was rigged or somebody cheated.

If Kamala Harris just wins the popular vote by the same margins she wins those swing states, it gives him ammunition. Whereas if she wins the popular vote by a lot, which means your vote counts in Utah, your vote counts in Mississippi, your vote is huge in Alabama, all of these states, you’ve got to see this election not as whether or not your state’s electoral votes go to Kamala Harris, but rather whether your American vote goes to Kamala Harris.

And if you look at it that way, then maybe you’ll have the sense of urgency that folks in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have. And frankly, they’re so sick of all the ads and all the people at their doors. And I know all of us out in the other states are going, well, we don’t see much, we don’t see anybody. But it matters just as much, the margin matters in this election more so than any other election.

So get busy folks, especially in the sleeper states that we think we might win a Senate race, like Nebraska. It’s not a win for Nebraska because I don’t even know who the guy’s going to caucus with, but it would be a defeat for the Republicans if he won. And of course, in Texas, Colin Allred can win you guys, he can win.

So if you’re in Texas, man, don’t for a minute think, it doesn’t matter what you do next Tuesday.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Preach, Claire, preach, you’re about to make me take up a collection. And as a native North Omaha, and as a native Nebraskan, Dan Osborne said he’s not going to caucus with either party, he’s going to be a real independent, we’re going to see if he gets elected. District two, it is, as Claire said.

Claire McCaskill: Omaha.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Come on, Omaha. It is. There’s an opportunity for Democrats to take back the House, to make Hakeem Jeffries the next Speaker of the House. There is an opportunity for Democrats to hold on to the Senate. And to be very clear, there’s state legislators, state legislative folks on the ballot all across the country. In Missouri, especially, the Attorney General is on the ballot, there’s an abortion amendment, the governor. Come on, people. Like, your vote does matter. I believe America’s policy is made in the state legislatures. So every single state all over this country has an election that is going to make a difference to some part of our democracy. And I think that’s a beautiful thing for this election.

So get out there and vote, people. Don’t do that little thing about how you don’t live in a place that is one of the seven battleground states. Your state just might be a battleground for the Senate. It could be a battleground for the House, or it could be a battleground for the control of your state legislature. Make a difference.

Claire McCaskill: There you go. Okay, so I feel better.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Yeah, you know, that was good.

Claire McCaskill: I do, I do, I feel better. My day is going to be better because I got that out of my system. Thanks for joining us today for “How to Win 2024.” And a big thanks to my co-host today and my friend, my colleague, and co-host of MSNBC’s “The Weekend.” I think I’m going to come hang out with you in studio this weekend, Symone.

Symone Sanders Townsend: Yes, we can’t wait to see you.

Claire McCaskill: I ‘m going to be there. I’m going to be at the desk, I think, this weekend at 30 Rock. So we’ll see you then. Thank you for being with us today. Really appreciate you.

Symone Sanders Townsend: My pleasure. See you guys at the ballot box.

Claire McCaskill: Next week, Symone is back with me along with her co-hosts from “The Weekend” Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele. We’re going to, four of us are going to gather post-election for a very special “How to Win” to analyze what we know and what we don’t, what happened and what didn’t happen. And remember to subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for ad-free listening and bonus content.

This show is produced by Vicki Vergolina, Janmaris Perez is our associate producer, Katie Lau is our audio engineer, our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes, Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio, and Rebecca Kutler is the senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC.

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