Hey, it's election week. There we go. We're finally here. This is very exciting. Thank you for joining our Substack live stream. I'm Scott Galloway.
A lot to get to here, so let's bust into it. We'll be live streaming all week and breaking down all the results as they trickle in. So, make sure to subscribe to support our show and get the latest coverage. All right, let's start with what feels like — I don't know, is it a bombshell or is it a grenade being thrown in an empty house? I can't figure it out.
It's lively. Whatever happened in Michigan? I think it's more about the media entertaining itself than it is about anything that's going to impact anything. But anyways, let's —
The bombshell or the grenade into an empty building is coming out of Michigan, where a Democratic unity push in the Senate race has completely unraveled. Abdul El-Sayed's former primary rival, Haley Stevens, spent the final weekend feuding over Israel in the direction of the party. And instead of joining El-Sayed at a unity event, she stunned Democrats by endorsing Republican nominee Mike Rogers and appearing alongside him at a Detroit church. Meanwhile, El-Sayed campaigned with Congressman Jim Clyburn across town, brushing off the drama. The fallout was immediate. Rogers cut it to 23% to 32%. I guess that's real, though El-Sayed remains the favorite at 68%, but El-Sayed is showing no signs of losing momentum. He raised $2.4 million on Sunday. It's beginning to feel more like a fundraising event for El-Sayed. Democratic leaders across the country are really pissed off. Chuck Schumer called the move a despicable betrayal, while Hakeem Jeffries urged voters to back El-Sayed. Let's watch how Stevens responded to the backlash.
Yesterday, El-Sayed said essentially what you wanted him to say regarding the offensive ad. He said he did not agree with the contents of the ad paid for by an outside group. So if you and he were on the same page when it came to that ad, what changed other than he had put out that statement and disinvited you from that church service? Is that — was that the angrier and angrier part that you're focusing on?
Anderson, this is a broader point about what's going on in our party.
It's really just a question of — we were just recognizing — look, I haven't cast my vote yet. You know, people, my neighbors were asking me, 'So you might change your mind again?' They feel the same way.
Back in August, you posted on social media, quote, 'Mike Rogers will be another rubber stamp for Donald Trump's dangerous agenda. We can't afford to give MAGA another Senate seat in November.' How do you — why is it okay now? Why can you afford now to give MAGA another Senate seat in November?
Well, why is it okay to have the Democratic Party and a top nominee, you know, injecting rather this type of anger and lack of kindness?
Oh. I watched that interview yesterday. It's painful to watch again. It was just so — I mean, it's again, I have this theme called 'Don't these people have friends?' I don't know, and I want to ask you if you think this is going to have any impact. What I'm fairly certain of is that her political career is over. And it was obvious — it seems sort of obvious in retrospect when her fiancé came out and made a public statement. By the way, I can't figure out why the hell anyone cares what her fiancé says. Folks, a fiancé means you're all still getting along. And if she wanted to put — there's no way he did this without her permission, meaning she was planning to do this. And Anderson Cooper has exactly the right question: What changed? So this feels very strange. So I'll start there. Jess, do you think this has any impact on the votes?
Yeah. On who gets elected? I don't — yeah, I think it does have impacts, and we can talk about, you know, where Haley Stevens goes from this. But I don't think it has a big impact on the outcome on Tuesday. I think that what Haley Stevens is talking about is a real sentiment that some voters, especially Jewish voters in Michigan, have, where they don't feel that Abdul has made a clear enough case that he cares about Jewish safety and Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. And I know that his tack is that he's against ethnostates generally, but people feel like he's only talking about Israel and regularly talking about Israel in the ethnostate category. So Haley Stevens didn't invent this, right? That it's a set of concerns that people have, and there's talk about some folks that will be leaving that line on their ballot blank. There is a group called Democrats for Mike Rogers, which her fiancé, Jason Turcotte, is a member of. I don't know how robust that group actually is — usually these things exist. But Mike Rogers has been doing better with Jewish voters and Black voters than a Republican nominee traditionally does. So there was an argument to be made that inroads were happening with those communities. But the story does not make sense. And as you know, someone who is part of the media and also someone who doesn't like to be sensationalist or certainly, you know, place blame on a woman — like, did your fiancé make you do this? The story is just not adding up here. And the quick turnaround on this, that she's even saying, 'Oh, I haven't cast my vote yet,' when there was a conflicting story about how she had already voted and had voted for Mike Rogers — like, nothing is making a ton of sense except the fact that she was uneasy, which we knew from the jump with this, and that her fiancé was definitely pushing in this direction.
And Governor Blanchard, who was the governor of Michigan, had dinner with them on Friday night, and according to reports said that her fiancé was quite bullying and was talking about how everybody's disappointed in her, and that, you know, she came out right away and she endorsed him. Well, that's what you're supposed to do after a primary. And you're not supposed to make it ugly, and you're supposed to do what you can to help the person that won the primary win the general election. And that doesn't mean just act like everything's sunshine and butterflies. That means talking to them about real weaknesses in their campaign, which there are with Jewish voters and with Black voters. But I don't think it's going to have a tremendous amount of impact on it tomorrow. There's even a case to be made, which, you know, some folks in the media and other electeds have been making, that the fact that she did this at a Black church made them feel like she was using Black voters as pawns in this bigger game, and that they were not happy with that — like, why did you have to do this here? Or my point, which I just made on America's Newsroom, I was on this, where I said, 'Why wouldn't you just say, upon further consideration, I'm going to be voting, you know, straight-ticket Democrat, but I'm leaving the Senate line blank?' You know, coming out and endorsing Mike Rogers and then making the argument that it's because you want to support the party that isn't proliferating hate when they've called Abdul just in the last few days a jihadist, a leprechaun jihadist, you know, Muslim Brotherhood — I don't know how you could be saying like, 'You guys are the hateful ones, but these ones over here are okay.' Okay. Not to mention the litany of reasons that she's given about why you can't elect Mike Rogers based upon his record and the fact that he'll be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump, meaning, you know, poor people are going to have less health care, they're going to be paying more, talk of having a national abortion ban. It's bad stuff. And the betrayal that these folks in the party feel — you know, she was on the phone with a lot of them hours before this happened, you know, the night before, like Debbie Dingell and Jamie Raskin, and talking to Nancy Pelosi, and then they were waiting for her at Clyburn's church. People — her staff was there.
Look, there's an academic term to describe what's gone down here, and it's simple: she fucked up. I mean, this is just nothing. Whether you think El-Sayed is anti-Netanyahu, anti-Semitic — nothing about the way he acquits himself around this issue changed between Saturday and Sunday. What changed was her grievance, and this feels like personal vendetta. I don't think it's going to have an impact. And see above: he raised $2.4 million on the heels of this. Half her staff has reportedly resigned — half her staff has resigned over this. So, Republicans aren't going to — moderates aren't going to credit her for this. I mean, what, I think the percentage of the Jewish vote in Michigan is one and a half percent. Is that right? It's like —
Anyways, it's not — it's not massive, but she has a huge Jewish constituency, you know, in her district. I don't want to minimize the concerns. Obviously, the electoral impact is another question.
Yeah. But my point is the concerns haven't changed. It's she's changed in that she was able to see past her concerns. I mean, the irony of all of this is she claimed, alleged, falsely alleged early in her campaign that Rogers had endorsed El-Sayed, and now she's — she's now endorsed Rogers. There's a general — in politics, people would rather be wrong but resolute, and that is, George W. Bush was seen as wrong on a ton of issues, but people appreciated how resolute he was. Probably the most effective campaign ad ever is that people thought John Kerry was better on the issues, but he was seen as a waffler. And even though Trump was seen as Islamophobic, he captured a greater share of the Muslim population's vote in Michigan because they said, quote-unquote, in exit polling, that 'I'd rather you stab me in the front of the chest than in the back.' So voters and the public are generally turned off by people who flip-flop like this, especially when there doesn't seem to be an event other than trying to either grab the spotlight or demonstrate grievance or because she's personally still angry about her loss, whatever it might be. But this is more — I think this story, in retrospect, the lesson here is going to be about how not to handle yourself 48 hours before an election, not about the impact it's going to have. I don't — I mean, I don't — I just don't see any — I mean, I guess it's too late for polling. And again, there's certain stories that the media just loves because they're kind of quite — they're salacious and they can bring her on and she looks like an ass, and it's interesting warfare, which the media loves. My sense is, in retrospect, this will be seen as a nothingburger other than her signing her own resignation from the world of public politics. Should we move on?
Yeah. Well, I'm curious. Are we going to do a whole polling section on it? Because I did want to mention, you know, the New York Times/Siena poll has Abdul up 11.
Which is massive. And so I know that there's this concern about oversampling of Democrats, and even the Washington Post poll, which came out and then kind of invalidated their results and said, you know, 'We think we oversampled Democrats.' The New York Times actually has remodeled from 2024 to compensate for that problem. So if this poll were run by the 2024 methodology, Abdul would be up 16. Like, I don't — you should always play like it's a tie game, and they are — Abdul is playing like that in terms of how hard he's working. I know that there have been criticisms about, you know, attitudinal things where he seems — comes off as arrogant and like he doesn't have to, you know, answer certain questions, etc. But the guy isn't sitting around on a Barcalounger with his legs up, right? He's doing events nonstop. But 11 points — that feels crazy to me. I mean, maybe I just won't allow myself to feel like it could be like that tomorrow, that level of a bloodbath. But what's your feeling?
Well, I've seen in the Michigan race, I've seen anywhere between three and 11. So, it sounds like he's safely well ahead. And I think the only numbers that really moved with her endorsement of Rogers were, one, his cash haul that day, and also CNN's viewership last night watching this train wreck, watching this individual just crash out. But I think in retrospect, I would speculate that it's not going to have much impact on the actual election. And to your point, we're all nervous because there are situations where the polls ended up being wildly wrong, usually either around Hillary or around Maine. But he feels like he has a pretty comfortable margin. So, speaking of that, let's check in on Trump's final push. After spending Saturday night partying with wealthy friends in an extravagant jungle-themed Halloween bash in Mar-a-Lago — which is fine, I think opulent Halloween bashes are fine — President Trump made his final campaign stops in Iowa and Kansas before he makes his last rally at his algae-filled reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial later today. But the political landscape is looking increasingly grim for Republicans. As Jess had referenced, the last New York Times/Siena poll of the cycle shows Democrats leading in five key Senate battlegrounds, including Texas and Kansas, which is shocking.
Kansas specifically, with an edge in Alaska and a virtual tie in Iowa. Just 38% of voters across those states approve of Trump's job performance, and Democrats have a nine-point advantage on the cost of living. Again, when they took a bunch of seats in '18, they were D+7. Now it's D plus N. So, this is not — this is a — again, the thing that I find most shocking about any of this is usually at the end things close and narrow, and this seems to be — the gulf appears to be broadening.
Any thoughts on the final weekend on the campaign trail, Jess?
You know, the Republicans are just trying to blunt the trauma right at this point, and they're fighting the couch. We're fighting them, and they're fighting the couch. So that's why Trump, in a lot of these more conservative states, may be the galvanizing force that you need to get a Darlene Crapo across the finish line, or maybe Roger Marshall in Kansas. Though I have spoken to a lot of people who feel very good about Kansas and that Reverend Hamilton is the perfect candidate for this, and that actually we all weren't aware of how bad Roger Marshall is. Did you see the ad that he made himself on his iPhone that his team wasn't involved in and then just released on socials? They're not even putting money behind it. It's so catastrophic. I thought it was either a parody or something that Reverend Hamilton had some fantasy dream about and then somehow it came into being that Roger Marshall would go direct to camera to talk about the medical debt story — how he actually instructed folks to go after people who had come to him for emergency hysterectomies, for instance, and that they set the interest rate at 18% versus the industry standard of 12%, and that he had gone after folks for as little as $101. So that story has been permeating the ecosystem in Kansas, between that and stiffing the local bakery. Everyone's getting an idea that Roger Marshall is not a good dude. So he decides that he's going to do a direct-to-camera about this. And when you're explaining, you're losing. We all know that as a general maxim to live by. But on top of it, he then says, you know, 'So of course I had to use a few collection agencies.' And you think, is this real? Like, three days before an election, you're talking about how you sent collection agencies out to chase women that had had emergency hysterectomies for $100.
So, you see that and you think maybe Kansas is real.
It's really wild. You got to give it to — we've been critical of Senate Minority Leader Schumer, but whoever's in charge of candidate quality —
Well, Senate Majority Leader — Minority Leader Schumer. Well, that's — as I was saying.
