What Happens in Vegas Won’t Stay in Vegas (with Jon Ralston)

Hello, everyone. And welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. I’m Sarah Longwell, Publisher of The Bulwark. And this week, we are talking about Nevada. A state that has taken money out of me over the years than I would like to admit.

Nevada is a state where Democrats have done well in recent cycles, though it is not unheard of for the state to elect a Republican. Likkinen Heller was elected to the senate in twenty twelve, and moderate Brian Sandoval was elected governor in twenty ten and then reelected in twenty fourteen. Biden, he won Nevada by about two and a half points in twenty twenty. But with the Democrat slide with Hispanics, and COVID hitting the hospitality based economy especially hard, Republicans think that they have a great shot at winning both the governor’s race as well as flipping a senate seat. Now, I wanted to explore a burgeoning polling anomaly in which Joe Biden’s low poll numbers don’t seem to be dragging down individual democratic candidates.

It’s unusual. So this week, we talked to dams and left leaning independents who are frustrated with Biden and the democrats and describe themselves as open to voting for Republicans. Now, Republicans are gonna flip the state, these are the voters they need to win over. My guest today is the Dean of the Nevada Press Corp. John Ralston, CEO of the News Site, the Nevada Independent.

John, thanks for being here. Thanks

for having me, Sarah. How

is my pronunciation of Nevada? I’m I’m very impressed. We don’t have to spend any time on lessons today. K. Great.

I my staff, like, wrote it out phonetically for me just to make sure I didn’t mess it up. So first of all, I’m so glad you’re here. Follow all your work, love it. And before we jump into the focus groups, tell us about the state. Like, what’s going on?

Give us just your broad whenever you’re kinda laying the groundwork for people. To help them understand, just give us your, like, three minute rundown.

Yeah. I’ll I’ll try that to go on for longer than that or maybe even that long. One of the things I found interesting and covering politics here for more than three and a half decades now. Yes, I’m old. Is people have this vision of Nevada.

Still in a lot of ways. It’s just kinda quirky weird state. It’s unlike the rest of America. There’s casinos. There’s prostitution, their slot machines, and grocery stores.

But what’s really happened since I moved here nearly forty years ago was Las Vegas has really become a very demographically diverse city that is really reflective of America more than people might think there is life not just on the Las Vegas Strip, and there’s all kinds of different people who who live here. Sure. It’s a service based economy. And as Donald Trump once famously said here when he was reading his old results, I love the uneducated There are a significant portion of non college degree folks here, but Nevada gets disproportionately hit every time there is an economic downturn. And when COVID hit, Nevada really had a problem, especially because the governor essentially shut down the state, shut down the casinos, which was not an easy thing to do.

And Nevada was really hurting a lot of people lost their jobs. Our unemployment rates soared to one of the highest in the country. But right now, we’re coming back But we’re not there yet. The unemployment rate is relatively good, but not necessarily relative to the rest of the country. And there’s still a COVID hangover going on and there were problems with people collecting unemployment benefits.

But the Nevada economy seems to be coming back, although we’re still too much of a one trick pony.

That came up obviously in the focus groups, people were talking about, how hard their industries were hit, how it affected them, and the people that they know. Have you watched a lot of focus groups or do you just focus group by, you know, hanging out with your neighbors?

I try not to hang out with my neighbors, Sharon. No. I I I don’t think so. But but, yeah, I I have seen many focus groups in the past. Yes.

I’ve had the privilege of sending in a bunch over my career.

Was there anything about this one in a killer that struck you as like, did they seem to you? Like, oh, yeah. That sounds like our state. So those are our people right

there. There were a few surprising things, but not many. But what really struck me, and and maybe you wanna talk about this more, is that, you know, not everyone is like you and me Sarah. They actually have lives. They don’t follow this stuff twenty four seven.

And so when they think of politics, I expect people not to know that much about the candidates, even the high profile ones, they have more important things to do. But the negativity continues to grow I think cycle after cycle and with good reason perhaps and maybe more so now than ever. But the lack of enthusiasm in those focus groups for almost anything that they were asked about or any candidate, they were asked about with maybe a couple of exceptions was really something.

Yeah. You know, it it’s true and it’s not uncommon, though I do think I said this at the top, but I should be really clear that we screened on purpose to find people who are kinda down on Biden. Because we wanted people who represented the kind of voter that we think Republicans are trying to pick up, which is people who are mad about the state of the economy and inflation. And see how that translated when they got into sort of like a head to head on the candidates. But let’s let’s dive in there.

That’s a good place to start. So, you know, at the beginning of every group, we always ask people, you know, how do you think things are going in the country? And as you said, they were they were very down. So let’s hear from this group about why they’re open to voting for Republicans.

Things have not been going well with the Democrats or the Republicans. I’m just not looking forward to this because it feels almost like no matter do you choose? Nothing’s getting done. I’m open to anything. I’m probably going to be waiting until the last minute because I wanna see how everybody is doing at the end.

I mean, are they keeping their words so far during that last week? I’m just literally open to anything right now. I just have to see where things go.

That is a African American. We are brought up and talked to vote Democrat. That’s all we know. But I’m thinking back in history, I’m like, okay. We’ve had issues after issue after issue.

Not with just people like myself, but the country, you know, as a whole, and Democrats have had countless attempts to resolve these issues and they weren’t done. So I’m not limited to myself anymore. The very progressiveness is new. So I’m not limited myself anymore to just do what I did and was told to do and what my mother and her mother did. I wanna weigh the issues and see which candidate presents the best option that I agree with, and I’m on with that candidate regardless of the party that they represent.

I’m a new voter, and that’s all we know is just about Democrat. But no. It’s not like in, like, these past few years, it’s been as specialized. We all thought it would be even with our even we had a bomber in office. It wasn’t at like he did that much of a change either.

So

Okay. So Emerson College recently pulled Nevada And Biden’s approval rating there is at thirty seven percent. So numbers like that are clearly downstream of this sense of malaise that people have. But there’s been this narrative over the last month or so that Biden’s making a comeback, and he’s notching up a bunch of wins. This group didn’t seem to have gotten that memo.

So, what do you think John Ralston is going on with voters right now? Why do you think they seem so negative?

Well, listen Biden’s numbers in Nevada, and and, you know, any poll can be right or wrong, as you know. Sir, even if it’s a good pollster, but Biden’s numbers here, have traditionally been a few points worse than they are nationally, but not dramatically. One thing that’s happened here that has never happened in all the years I’ve covered politics here is a surge in independent and non major party registration to the extent that the Democrats who have led here for some time don’t even have a lead in the state now. It’s non major party voters who have a plurality while the Democratic margin over Republicans has fallen a little bit. It’s under three points now where it’s usually at five or six points.

And the sense of, as you heard that one African American gentleman say, being taken granted, I think is also to some extent explaining why the very large and significant electroblock of Hispanic voters is drifting away from Democrats thinking that maybe that they’ve been taken advantage of. I wanna say real quickly, Sarah, and you know this very well. No demographic group is monolithic. And so that’s not necessarily true throughout the entire African American or Hispanic community. But in races that are considered toss ups like the senate race here, like the governor’s race here, And we also have three competitive congressional races that are close that could make a difference.

So speaking of Hispanics, We did a Hispanic group a couple months ago. It was very similar to this group. Do you have a theory on what’s happening with Hispanics there. I mean, do you think it’s that Hispanics actually are, like you said, not monolithic, but that there’s a significant block where they’re sort of like these white working class voters. Like, they’re culturally actually not dissimilar in some way.

What do you think is happening with this slide? Yeah.

It’s it’s a little bit hard to tell. And to some extent, the fact that the economy got crushed here affected Hispanic disproportionally. Remember that the most important Hispanic voter force here is contained within the culinary union, which represents a lot of casino workers, and the Democrats have always counted on the culinary union to essentially be the Hispanic turnout machine. More than half of the culinary union in Hispanic, a significant number of them. It’s hard to pinpoint it, are registered, and they’ve been masterful at organizing and getting that group to the polls.

But remember, so many of them lost their jobs during the pandemic and that problem was compounded. And this came up in the focus groups actually, Sarah Moore, than I thought it would. The problems with the state department responsible for getting them their unemployment checks. There was a huge log jammed. There’s still a backlog and people remember that.

And that disproportionally affected the Hispanic population and you lay that on top of what is happening everywhere with the feeling among some pre syncs that that the Democrats have taken them for granted, that they’re not happy with Biden. You heard several folks in those focus groups that you did hear talk about how he didn’t keep his campaign promises that nothing much has changed. Those kinds of things By the way, part of that, as you know, is a problem with messaging because there are a lot of accomplishments that clearly have not trickled down to a lot of voters.

Oh my

goodness. And like nothing could be a clear example of that than with the student loan forgiveness. Let’s hear some of people’s grievances with Joe Biden and the Democrats, and it actually starts out with student loan forgiveness.

Well, I think

they should lower that income maybe drop it down to if you make fifty thousand or less or forty thousand or less on that, honestly, because I mean, there are certain people that really are in the lower income brackets that can’t afford to pay that back. Other people, they have good jobs, but they automatically qualify because they make a hundred and twenty five thousand or less. I just think that’s too high in income bracket to include. I really think it should be lowered. You

see, like, with this school shootings and the gas prices and the housing. So, you know, there’s no way that the problems can be denied, but I just don’t hear any talk or action about it. You know, it’s more in something that we had press conferences, like, every day when COVID was going on, but we don’t see any type of alerts from the White House about any type of strategy to resolve any of these issues at all.

The only thing I can say about when Trump ran

in the

country, he was kinda crazy, but nobody messed with us. China didn’t mess with us, but North Korea didn’t mess with us. And the economy wasn’t that bad. Gas prices were reasonable. People were working, people had money compared to what what has happened now.

I mean so I don’t know. I could possibly vote from again because what we have right now stinks in my opinion. I I don’t want another four years of this. So

that last woman actually was a Joe Biden twenty twenty voter. And the other thing about this group was like none of them were enthusiastic about voting. You know, they weren’t, like, excited about twenty twenty two. They were all gonna vote, but they weren’t excited about it. Other thing I thought was super interesting about this group.

It wasn’t a surprise that when we asked them if they wanted to see Biden run again in twenty twenty four, they all said no. But I was surprised that close to half the group said that they would vote for Trump over Biden if those were the choices in twenty twenty four. Did that surprise you? It really

did. I mean, I I I’m shaking my head now, Sarah, and I’m I was shaking it as I as I was listening to it. And even though you got this affected democrats who are considering voting for the Republicans, you want to think with all that has come out on Trump and all that happened with Trump while he was president, that there would be as many as there were, and that just shows the kind of date myself and use a Carter error word. The malaise that has afflicted so many voters across so many different demographics.

We’ll jump in to the governor’s race here in in one second. So they’re so negative. They’re talking about inflation. They’re talking about housing prices, cost of gas, school shootings. Were you surprised though that abortion didn’t come up, like, up top?

Yeah.

I mean, it did

come up, and I’m sure you wanna talk about this fairly significantly when you asked about the senate race. Which surprised me a little bit, but I still don’t have a good handle on what kind of electoral effect that is going to happen. And as you all know, campaigns in, candidates matter and how they use that issue matters. But when you talk about abortion say versus the student loan forgiveness, I think Some of the hostility to the student loan forgiveness is what I referred to earlier when I was describing the makeup of Nevada. There was lower than almost any state in the country, college educated folks here.

And so the student loan forgiveness is not going to resonate in a good way with a significant number here as it might elsewhere. But I did think that abortion seemed like a base driver in the antipathy that was expressed toward Adam Lachshalt in the senate race.

Yeah. We will get into the to Washington because it absolutely comes up and like central. It’s important. So, anyways, let’s get to the candidates because I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the governor’s race where you’ve got Steve Sissilak running for reelection against Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo.

And Sisylox, you can correct me if I’m wrong, you know, these people better than I do, but Sisylox is a pretty moderate ish normal Democrat, not a world crusader, unsweeted to running in a swing state. He should, I would say, be in an okay position to win. But They thought he handled COVID okay at first, but in this group and the one that we did previously, there was a lot of concerns about the lingering effects of COVID. On the economy and this led them to be kind of lukewarm, I would say, on Sysylak. Let’s

listen. I

like the guy. He’s been governor for how long? Like, I honestly don’t know. How long he’s been governor. But recently, I mean, he’s been doing good except he ran a stop sign not too long ago, didn’t he?

I’m

pretty happy with them. There are a lot of things that he could be doing better. He has a tendency, in my opinion, two k sometimes with the Republicans and really, really upslowing people We should stick to his guns better. But for the most part, I do think he has been doing an okay job.

The COVID thing, I feel it was way too strict. I work at an elementary school. And I know a lot of the other states didn’t close the schools down. I think it really had a bad effect on the kids. Also, it put a lot of people out of work, lines for grocery, you know, to get into grocery stores.

I just feel like it just hurt a lot of Nevadaans. It hurt the economy. I mean, when they were wearing a mask, the next day were no. I I just I don’t

like

the way he handled it. I think it was too extreme. It

was real tough

for my industry and, you know, a lot of guys a lot of women in our industry. It was hard, man. There’s no live events. We’re not and then, you know, that money didn’t come through till ages later and a lot of people I know are real high and dry in a rough, rough, rough spot. And I know I had to make some tough choices, but I think it could have been handled better, you know, from where I was sitting.

So John,

you said that, you know, Vegas is kind of bouncing back, but tell me about the COVID kind of lasting effect and kind of options are thinking about politics. That’s the liability we kind of heard for sisolact there, but, like, are there others that these voters weren’t bringing up? So it’s interesting,

Sarah, and I found some of those responses just to be absolutely fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of polling on Syslak and his approval rating and his handling of COVID. And both are better than I thought they would be. In other words, he’s not way upside down in his approval ratings if you might think even based on those focus groups and his handling of COVID I still think he does okay because and you didn’t play some of this, but some of the people said, I I was actually surprised to hear this that they gave him credit for shutting down immediately, doing it to the casinos who were seen as kind of omnipotent here when it comes to politics, that that he made the decision to shut them down, but and you heard a lot of buts. What he did later on was a problem.

And again, there was a huge issue in this state with the unemployment system just collapsing. It had always been underfunded but that’s okay and maybe a few people don’t get their checks on time. There were tens of thousands of people who didn’t get their checks. So it’s one thing to shut down the state. It’s quite another for these folks not to be able to get, you know, the basic subsistence that unemployment benefits provide.

So that made things worse. So I think the whole fifty fifty thing with him, which is basically what the polling showed was reflected in these focus groups, in that they liked what he did early, but maybe not so much later

on. Yeah,

I think that’s exactly right. And I think I’ve heard this in a lot of other groups where they were happy with their governors in the beginning when everyone was scared, and they wanted to see kind of the draft taken action and people were getting money, but then as it sort of dragged on and people felt like this is going on too long, the precautions in schools, the shutting down, a lot of people just talk about not having enough information. And I guess I have been wondering then I continue to wonder the electoral price that stem governors who maybe played it safer a little longer than voters wanted them to whether or not they’re gonna pay an electoral price. But as you note, I mean, the real clear politics average has Syslak, I think, down one point four percent from his opponents that we should talk about. Because obviously it looks like there’s an opportunity for Republicans in this race.

Sheriff Joe Lombardo is the Republican nominee. I’ve always thought of him as maybe like, a secret normie. Like, in a lot of other states, there are really extreme, really insane candidates running and You know, Lombardo did call for an Arizona style audit, but then he also said Joe Biden won. He did get Trump’s endorsement in the primary, which usually to me means bad things about a candidate. But I I don’t know.

Is he kind of a normie? Like, if this was two thousand and fourteen, would we all

be like, that’s a good Republican candidate? I I think your description as someone outside of Nevada is very apt in the sense that it’s kind of amorphous. Right? He can’t quite pin down what he is. And and I think it was very fitting that this week in Nevada that Glenn Youngkin came to do an event with him because Youngkin too was was considered, like, masterful in the way that he got Trump to support him, but kept Trump at arm’s length.

Lombardo had absolutely no public face on any other issues except he was to share of He was a fairly popular sheriff, by the way, as most sheriffs are, even though there have been some statistics that show crime is rising in Clark County. Where he’s to share. We had no idea whether he was very conservative or even very liberal. Nobody knew. And so during the primary, when he had a fairly robust field running against him even though he had the most money and the best campaign.

And then he had a former senator Dean Heller was running against him. He had a guy named Joey Gilbert, a lawyer who was, as he’d like to say, Trump from the jump. He was a real trampy candidate with all the conspiracy theories and all the rest of it. Amy had the mayor of North Las Vegas. So to some extent, Lombardo had to do a nod to what and you know what the buzz phrase is now in its code, Sarah for Republicans election integrity.

Mhmm. He did some of that, and he was a little bit all all over the map. On that. And then I think that they were a little bit worried about a surge by Gilbert, and that’s when they went out and somehow got the Trump endorsement. If Trump was going on endorsing that race, the natural person from endorse was Joey Gilbert who was there on Capitol Hill on January sixth, and was a real Trump guy.

Now Trump’s former political director, Chris Carr, is working for Lombardo, and I think that that had something to do with it. But now, what do you do with that Trump endorsement in the general? You don’t talk about it at all. Right? And you try to moderate including and I hope it’s okay if I bring this up on abortion, which Lombardo, to some extent, has been all over the map on.

And just as recently as this week said he would fight against an abortion ban after saying, a discouraging some really pro life rhetoric during the primary.

Yeah. Look, I really wanna get into what these voters think about Lombardo, but you brought up Dean Heller, and I just have to ask you, what happened to Dean Heller?

It’s

almost a political tragedy. What has happened to Dean Heller to the arc of his career, and I go way back with him all the way through the time when he was in the assembly and he was Maverick Secretary of State fighting against the establishment that he almost lost in a primary for Congress in two thousand and six and he’s never been the same. And this was kind of the nadir. That’s this campaign. He was he he was so desperate to win that he would say almost anything Joe Biden’s an illegitimate president.

The Clark County registrar voters should be fired because of all the voter fraud. There’s no evidence of course, a voter fraud. I I mean, it was really a sad pathetic ending to his career. Yeah. And then for him to get crushed too, to basically just, like, act like a lunatic

like that and then just get crushed. Why he took that run there? Okay. I hear you on the Lombardo’s tough to pin down. Let’s hear what the voters said.

He

sounds like he has made up his mind before he’s listened to all of the options. I want a politician who truly does listen to the people because he’s voted to represent them. And it concerns me when somebody gives the message from their past experience, that their thoughts, their opinions, their ideas are more important than the constituency for which they represent. From

what I’ve seen and heard so far. I do not like the guy. He just seems like the desktop type. Like, he wants to rule rather than sterve the state. But I have to do more research because, I mean, it could just be you know, bad press and everything else, I may not have seen and heard the truth.

So like I said, most likely, I’m going to be voting for Syslek, but I do wanna give him more to a chance. I just want to learn more about him

first. They

don’t know a lot about him. I know he’s pro life and I mean, I guess I have to make some concessions. I I think he’ll be stricter. I think he’ll be more his own

person. You know,

I think he’ll help the police department a lot more. Hopefully, because when all this stuff went down, everybody from California was coming over here and acting a fool. And just doing all kinds of crazy things on the strip, and people were just acting crazy. And I would just like to see some law in order restored to Vegas again, I guess. You know, as much as can be restored because people are just nuts right now.

There’s no law. People are being let out of jail. People don’t have to post bond in their let out. I just want more I

want to

feel safer in Las Vegas. I don’t feel safer right now. So the thing

with running a sheriff when crime has been kind of in a bad place, Would they blame him for the fact that crime has risen since he’s been sheriff? Or would they be excited by the idea of a sheriff because crime is a problem and they want somebody who will tackle crime. And I would say,

it was like

a little

bit the latter Like, to the extent that the sheriff mattered, it was like a positive, except for the woman who called him the Gestapo, they

didn’t seem to hold him

responsible is what I’m saying for crime in Las Vegas. No was like tagging him with that. What are you hearing about him out there? Well,

I have

to tell the stories here because it was really comical. They decide to take the Trump endorsement and Trump makes a visit very early on in the campaign until they could get it out of the way. And what is the quote that there’s the takeaway from Trump’s visit? This is a cesspool of crime. But that’s standing next to the sheriff.

He has endorsed who’s running for governor. Of course, that was the headline. In every story and and that sound bite was all over television. It’s interesting because the appearance of Nazi analogies aside. There was nothing that he has said that makes him seem that way at all, but maybe it’s just a law enforcement sheriff that causes that.

But the most important thing is I really do think people do not know much about him. There is no evidence that Joe Lombardo had any positions on any issues that are relevant to a governor’s race. And so one of two things has happened since then. Number one, he has read up on these things and he’s developed these positions, always hired this high powered campaign team, and they have told them here is what you need to say, in all of these situations. And we will be able to win because there’s going to be a red wave and people don’t like cis black as much as they did.

When when he was elected. I still don’t know the answers to some of the questions. For instance, on abortion, he is really now given some contradictory answers to questions. And I really think that Sissilec among other Democrats in the state really thinks that that issue could be the deciding factor in

the race. There’s

no doubt as we get into the next section, it’s gonna become clear how big a role that was playing with voters. But I do wanna just ask one more question about the crime as somebody who Luvs Las Vegas, as I do, because I’m a degenerate gambler. And I went there for my fortieth birthday and haven’t been back. And so has it descended crime was clearly on people’s mind. What’s it like out there?

It has not changed appreciably

to to, you know, where people are scared to go out on the streets or or anything like that. Sarah, you know, these things ebb and flow. There’s nothing that that’s really happened to change that. And I do think that Lombardo can point to certain statistics that can make the case that he’s done a good job and sisylac will point the other statistics that he’s done a bad job. But I really hate to contradict the former president, but we are not a cesspool of crime out here.

Here. Hey,

one last question, actually. So there’s this this really horrific and disturbing case of the Las Vegas Review Journal reporter, Jeff Gehrman, who was allegedly murdered by a local Democratic official Robert TELUS and the sheriff who is overseeing this very just insane case is none other than Joe Lombardo. And so does that impact anything one way or another? So the story

is, as you mentioned, in saying, this is a very obscure public official. He is the public administrator, nobody even knows what he does. Anyhow, there’s a there’s a ton of evidence against this guy and it appears that he committed this murder is an absolutely insane an absolutely horrible horrible, horrific story that has rattled a lot of people in our business here, including me, by the way. Sarah, it’s just a terrible, terrible story, but it’s clear that Lombardo got involved in this very, very early on whether he thought he needed to as as the sheriff, whether whether there were political considerations. I don’t wanna speculate on that Even though there have been Republicans who have tried to make an issue of the fact that he’s a registered Democrat, I don’t think that has had any resonance whatsoever outside the Twitter feeds of geniuses like Rick Reynolds.

So I don’t think that the killing of Jeff Garriman, which is absolutely nightmarish gonna have much of an effect on anything. And, you know, as you point out, for people who who are in

journalism there, this has gotta be this, like, terrifying horrifying about what I I didn’t actually expect to go down this road now that we’re talking about it. You know, what has that been like for all the journalists out there? Like, how are people feeling now? Well, I

think especially his colleagues at the Review Journal, and I used to work at the Review Journal, are really, really terribly terribly rattled by this. And they’ve done, by the way, a spectacular job of covering of this story. And I think they were instrumental in helping to get this guy arrested, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to cover a colleague’s murder. But I think everybody in journalism I mean, listen, I think this is in some ways a one off This is a guy who was unhinged. Jeff Garriman wrote these pieces about him having an affair with somebody in the office.

His wife left them And so it appears it appears allegedly that the guy just became unhinged and killed this journalist. And I think trying to graph anything else onto this whether it’s if for partisan reasons or or otherwise is really a fool’s errand, but it’s unsettling. It’s a different world now than when I started in journalism in in in the mid nineteen eighties, Sarah. And and friends who called me and said, you know, be aware of your surroundings, be careful, all that stuff. I don’t even know what that means, really.

It’s just where we live in a world now where someone wants to get you, they can probably get you. And and that’s kind of right.

Yes, terrifying. Okay. Let’s switch gears and go back to the senate race. So Senator Cortez Masto, she won narrowly in twenty sixteen, the Hispanic vote as we’ve been talking about is shifting slightly more to the GOP. And we know that people are down on Biden and the DEMS.

So this is and probably still is one of the top pick up opportunities for Republicans. And that Emerson poll that I’d referenced before had Adam Lachshalt leading by about one percent. But what was interesting to me and this goes to the sort of thing I raised at the top, the delta between Biden’s sort of poor numbers and even the dissatisfaction with Democrats how it translates to the individual candidates, people

were

still on board with Cortez Masto. Let’s listen.

She was

kinda like a big impact on, like, the women’s issues that we were facing. When I was mentioning, campaigns earlier, how they’ll say, like, negative stuff. I think there’s, like, a negative one about her, but it wasn’t too, like, impact for where it was, like, oh my gosh. And she spoke on, like, the abortion ban too. I

think she’s, you know, doing okay. I wouldn’t say great, but it seems like she kinda Per Nevada. Per Nevada, you know, I’m not saying, you know, I was laying on their side, but I I think we could do worse for sure. I

love Cortez Massto. I think she does her best to serve the Nevada. She’s doing great with health care. Lowering the cost of medications. And, I mean, she’s working with law enforcement.

She’s doing a great job in

writing. Are you

surprised that people were as favorable towards her as they were?

A little bit. One of the frustrations for Democrats here ever since Katherine Cortez Maslow first came in the public office as the state’s attorney general Sarah, is that she really is the definition of a a workhorse and not a show horse. And whether you like her politics or not, that’s true. She doesn’t go out there and do a lot of press conferences, seek publicity, and that’s been a frustration for Democrats who think that you should at least be doing the basics. So a lot of people don’t know that much about her.

It’s hard to which makes it harder for for her opponent lacks all to go after. So it’s all about buying mastel, Biden, mastel, Biden, mastel, while with his, you know, very wrote talking points about her. And so The fact is she she is running a really, really good campaign. Even smart Republicans in the state will acknowledge that her TV ads have just been really, really good with rare exception. And she’s essentially being herself that is not flamboyant, not boastful, just here’s what I’m doing and being very matter of fact about it.

It appears that she is not being conflated as much with Biden as the laxol campaign would hold.

Yeah, exactly. So let’s let’s talk about Adam Lachshalt a little bit. He’s the former attorney general. He’s the grandson of a former senator, Paul Lachshalt. And so he was one of the obvious recruits for this seat.

But this group did not have very many nice things to say about

him. Let’s listen.

With the pro life, but it’s not just that. It’s with no exceptions for rate incess or to think the mother’s like if needed. Right.

And

that’s

uh-uh. That’s a definite note for me no matter what. It

makes the question when it comes to other situations other than abortion. If you’re just gonna be narrow minded and not thinking what’s best for, people that’s supposed to be supporting you and you’re supposed to be supporting them. That means you’re only supporting a select range of people. And that doesn’t look positive for, like, anyone unless it’s benefiting them. So I don’t like that because I would rather someone, like, at least take into consideration.

Everyone’s standpoint, especially with Nevada being so diverse. That’s, like, an important thing that a candidate would need. And it seems like if it’s one decision that’s, like, all he’s sticking to. So yeah. No.

Emma decided I just know that he ran for governor a while ago and lost and

premise you

I mean, I know that he’s pro life and it’s kind of extreme. And just from what I’ve seen on the commercials for Katherine Cortez Massto Bachete. And then now there’s a new email. Well, she was saying that he was, like, the child of wealth and privilege, and he went to these Ivy League schools, and you know, I went to, like, a forty thousand dollar a year high school. And then now, there’s his commercial that came out and is saying that he was raised by a single mom.

And they were poor or they weren’t — Whatever was it. — the cap throwing court’s mastos. Camp is put out in the commercials. So I am going to be getting on the Internet and doing some digging of my own because it’s like from one extreme to the other, so which one is true?

Okay. So

this is where abortion was like the whole ball game. And I gotta say in both cases, in both the governor’s race and the senate race, as down as people were on Biden, and as down as people were on just the environment and on Democrats. When we did the heads to heads

and we make

everybody, we try not to let them wriggle out of it. Were, like, elections held tomorrow? Who do you vote for? In the governor’s race, all but one went sisolac, But in this race, the head to head,

it was

unanimously pro Cortez Masto. They were all said if the election was held today, they would vote for her. There’s this one woman and and she was the last one talking there where she’s like, I I gotta get on the Internet and find out. I gotta do more research. But she was still leaning Cortez Masto if you made her vote on it.

Does that sound right to you? Like, does that feel like where the state is? Like, kinda down, kinda unenthusiastic, but at the end of the day, they’re gonna come home to the dams because these Republicans, especially in laxal’s case, feel too extreme, especially on an issue like

abortion. You know,

I hate to make pronouncements. I’ve learned this lesson in mid September about an election in November, Sarah. But What was really interesting to me and confirmed some of both specific data and anecdotal data that I heard out there is the difference between the vulnerabilities of Syslak and Katherine Court as Mass though, more because of their opponents than themselves. You you suggest that all of them were procore to his mask, though, when the gun was put to their head to say how they would vote. They were anti lax salt.

And, you know, again, just urine. But I mean, really anti, and even though some of them slightly may have misstated, his abortion position lacks all position history is really something. And I hate to believe in this. I won’t go on too long, but I think it’s a good background for people to know. In nineteen ninety, there was a referendum passed in this state to cement the pro choice statute twenty four weeks into law, meaning it could not be changed again, except by referendum, and it passed two to one.

And polling shows more than thirty years later that that is still where that is. When he ran for governor, lacks all suggested he might try to start a referendum, which is the only way you can do that to change that. He has subsequently said he wants Nevada to be a pro life state. He has said roll versus wade is a joke. And by the way, wants a referendum for thirteen weeks instead of twenty four weeks saying that is where most Navedans are.

Yet, just this week, Sarah, when he was asked what his position was on the graham bill, the fifteen week bill, he refused to answer. Now he refuses to answer most media questions, but what he did is he asked his spokesperson put out his statement saying, bill’s not gonna pass anyway, so I’m not gonna take a position on it. And he is claimed, which is absolutely visible to me. That he would vote against a federal abortion ban, which no one who has followed his positions on abortion over the years believes, and it seems to me that all the statements he’s made has trickled down to the point where voters do get the sense that he is very, very pro life, and he is. Yeah.

I mean,

this is what

came through loud and clear. And I think that, you know, obviously, everybody’s thinking about, okay, how does abortion affect the midterms? This is just one of those races where it could end up being definitional. It could be that Cortez Masto was in real trouble. People were frustrated.

Bad environment. And then, you know, she gets an opponent like Adam Lachshold. Who because of where he’s been on abortion and because he’s been very clear, big pro life advocate that he can’t turn around and run away from it, and you’re right. This is this is a point I try to make, but I did it backwards here. When I said pro Cortez Massto, what I should have said was anti Adam Laxalt because the thing that is happening in so many of these races.

And it’s why I wanted to do the focus group with this kind of group that we’re seeing is environment’s bad for democrats like that hasn’t changed. When you ask them open ended questions, will they bring up inflation and crime in the economy? And yet, When you show them the head to head, when they show them these Republican candidates, whether it’s it’s lax salt or blake masters or ah’s, or the new New Hampshire nominee Bulldog. Right? They’re looking at them and saying, these people are too extreme.

They’re weird. They’re they’re out of step and they’re crazy and a lot of the extremism that the thing that they put their hands on to sort of articulate the extremism The thing that they know about oftentimes is the abortion position. And that to me is how abortion is really I think having a big influence in sort of the tide turning right now despite the environment still being tough for Democrats.

You know,

Sarah, it’s interesting. You know, we like to talk about races either being a referendum on the incumbent or a choice. Yep. Both of the elections we’re talking about. You have Democratic incumbents who know the atmospherics out there are bad for Democrats.

And so they have decided to do everything they can to make this a choice rather than a referendum necessarily on their record and they don’t wanna be associated with high gas prices inflation, the Biden administration, and the differences that are really illuminated in the focus group for me is the difference. Even though it might be slight, it could be significant between the governor’s race and the senate race and that Lombardo is still, I’ll use the word again, amorphous, to some voters. And so there are some of these demos who might consider voting for him while lax salt is much better defined already based on his past statements based on being attorney general land, an election denier, and all the stuff the portion, and so that choice is clearer to them. But the fact that they knew that they had to make both of these races choices rather than referendum on their own record is very significant. I think Sislak’s running a good campaign, but his problem is is that a a Lombardo is not defined as well all the reasons I discussed as laxatives, and that is why I think that Republicans are more confident in the governor’s race than they are in the senate race.

Here, one more thing sir, I have to say this, because you you did what numbers nobody else has done in the national media, which is to long black salt, together with masters and with with Herschel Walker with with us, Laxalt’s a terrible candidate. He’s a terrible candidate, but because he hasn’t made Laxalt which people still then resonates because of Paul Blackshalt, who was in office fifty years ago or so. Half of Blackshalt’s relatives that adds against him in twenty eighteen. They don’t even like him. So the Republicans nationally like to play a black soldier some kind of great candidate.

He’s a terrible candidate. If he wins, it will only be because there’s a huge red wave in this state. You

know, I

I’m so glad that you framed it like that because this is something that I find myself just saying over and over again to people when people are like, yeah, the environment’s changing because of abortion, and Trump is putting himself back on the ballot, those things are true. But one of the big things that caused the shift is that once the primaries were over, people who looked up at these candidates that had emerged from the Republican primaries and went Are you serious? Like, these are terrible candidates, and like the people that Trump endorsed in these primaries, almost uniformly turned out to be pretty awful candidates. And many of them just because they’re so extreme in general, and they’re trumpy, and they’re election deniers, but that also means that there’s like a pretty strong Venn diagram where they also happen to be extreme on abortion where I think going into some of these races, they didn’t realize how central that was gonna be, and so they ran sort of a normal intensely pro life primary campaign, and now a lot of those comments are going to come back and hurt them. But yes, this idea that, like, these are bad candidates and LACSAULT is one of these bad candidates.

Cannot be understated. I just want to say one other thing, and I

I don’t even know if they have time to talk about this, but Two of the really disturbing things to me that came out of the of the focus groups and they’re and they’re related to what you just mentioned is that absolutely nobody knew who was running for secretary of stock. Alright. Alright.

Hold on. You’re just jumping ahead of me. So listen, this is I wanna end on this particularly dark note. Because Nevada has a secretary of state race and no one in this group knew what the secretary of state does. They didn’t know who was running.

And that’s a real problem because the Nevada Secretary of State oversees elections. And I want to give you a sample of what the Republican nominee, Jim Marchant,

thanks. And I’ll ramp

for Congress in twenty twenty, and I believe that I was a victim of election fraud, my opinion, and I believe that that there was a lot of shenanigans going on there that caused me not to win. The twenty twenty result is because of that plan that they hatch back in two thousand and four. We haven’t in Nevada elected anybody since two thousand six. They have been installed by the Deep State cabal. I call them the cabal.

Yeah. And they are well funded and evil. Mhmm. So they don’t want us to exist, and they’re gonna do everything in their power to make sure

that we

don’t have any impact on their power. Yeah. So you

and me, same page on the Secretary of State Bank. And I would say it was troubling in the group because people don’t want to vote for someone who tried as Marchant did to overturn the twenty twenty election. They also, like, didn’t care that much. Like, it wasn’t this, like, galvanizing reason to vote against him. Even after we told them, some of this guy’s, you know, crazy things, this one guy who was gonna vote for Sislak, gonna vote for Cortez Massto, was like still willing to throw this guy a vote and wasn’t bothered by the election denial stuff.

Let’s listen. So

I really think that people do things for a tier of motives. So if Trump being Trump and them being businessman, I think that that was a business decision. You know, what if the accountant went on and then he wound up winning? Because I’m old enough to see, and it happened before. Because I remember a president giving an announcement, then they said, oops.

It wasn’t him. It was somebody else. So I think that they would just ever in their bases and, you know, doing what they felt would be best for themselves at that time. So, you know, I wouldn’t hold it against them. Now now I’m sorry.

I like stopped you, but because I wanted to do the whole setup, but now tell me everything you think about the Secretary of State Rees.

Well, we

we’d have to do another four podcasts for me to do everything. Oh, I see. Let me let me just lead off by saying, it is the height of cynicism for a lot of these Republican consultants to be telling their candidates that don’t worry about if you’re an election denier, people don’t care about it that much. And unfortunately, that’s validated. By this focus group.

It’s not a galvanizing issue. And I won’t go too much into this, but it is a galvanizing issue for me and anybody who follows this and is It is a really informed person. It is so dangerous what is going on. And there is no person more dangerous in this country. Than Jim Marshawn in the Secretary of State’s position.

You heard just a snippet of him there. He is totally unhinged. He goes to the Mike Glendale conferences. I I mean, he said no one’s been elected here since two thousand and six. He was elected sent in into the assembly since two thousand and six.

So so he’s people like Marsha just say these things without regard to whether they’re they’re on this planet or not. And and it’s frightening because if he were to be come the secretary of state, the things that he said he he will do. He’s already gone around the state and some of the rural counties were, by the way, Trump won in landslides and gotten them to change the whole way the administrative elections with paper ballots, and he’s gotten his own clerk in one fairly larger than some other rural counties. And so there is so much at stake here. And the real danger of course is if the Democrats cannot illuminate this.

And he has a very good candidate running against him who’s never run for office before and is not that well known. They better start doing something soon. That if there is a bad atmospherics on November eighth for for the Democrats, people aren’t gonna pay attention to the secretary of state or something like the state treasure, which is also a very important reason to have someone who’s even more unhinged, believe it or not. Than Jim Marchant running for state treasurer against one of the best state treasurer we’ve ever had. And and this is This is this is the Democrat’s best chance if they can take advantage of it, Sarah, which is there’s so many bad Republican candidates.

Running, but people just are not paying that close attention. Listen. I think you’ll agree with me when you look at listen to these focus groups, and they’re not paying close attention to governor and US senate. Think about how close attention they’re paying to down ballot ratios that could be really important.

Yeah, I tweeted after this focus group something like nothing keeps me up more at night than the fact that Americans seem to both not know who the Secretary of State is that is running in their state, nor what the job entails. Because it is so important that’s the center of this whole conversation around elections. And this Jim, our shot guys, you know, like, he’s the head of some, you know, weirdo coalition of, like, America first secretaries of state — Yeah. — which includes this like Christina Caramo in Michigan across so many of these swing states. They have really, really frightening secretary of state candidates Mark Finchham in Arizona that could get swept in with Kerry Lake.

Like, people need to be paying attention to these because if Carrie Lake, who I think still stands a really good shot of winning, because she was a newscaster, because she’s so compelling, and charismatic to a lot of people, we could find ourselves in such a dangerous place and you dealt with this. Right? Like Nevada was one of those states where you had laps all running around with Grinnell, people who were out there saying, yeah, the election was stolen. They were trying to get it overturned. Aren’t people alarmed about this?

Why doesn’t locally this just, like, freak people out more? I don’t know

the answer to

that. And and and I think it’s because just want to be done with it. They want to move forward. But it is so dangerous. And by the way, Nevada is a perfect test case.

And you described it accurately, Lysol and Brown and Schlap and the head of the Republican Party here and others were making all kinds of wild claims, all of which were eventually debunked about, of Biden not winning here and stealing the election, Biden won here by thirty three thousand. Oh, but this is a it’s an object lesson, I guess, There was a Republican Secretary of State here. She’s the only statewide elected official who’s a Republican. And She is very conservative, was a very conservative legislator, and she withstood incredible pressure from national and local Republicans to stand her ground and not put up with any of that nonsense. But if it had been Jimmar shot there, It is frightening to think of what might have happened.

And and and to have a Republican secretary’s state who actually said there was no fraud. We’ve looked into this and be really offended that this was going on. If you elect a bunch of secretary of states, like Jim Marchant across the country, that’s frightening. It will change the way elections are run it. Bad enough what Trump and the company have done to undermine faith in elections.

Imagine if you had these kinds of secretaries of state overseeing elections with the immense power that they have to essentially change results.

Stark my friend. It is dark and scary. And I’m glad I’m glad you brought it up. I’m glad we had a chance to talk about it because it’s something that’s been on my mind as well. John Rolston, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you coming on and talking to us about your home state, Nevada.

It has been so illuminating. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of The Focus Group. We will catch you again next week.