Northwest now is supported in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

While the eyes of the nation are focused on elections here in Washington.

We're just trying to keep our eyes open with very few, if any, competitive races and little chance of any shocking upsets.

But with that said, there are four compelling initiatives on the ballot, and there are big questions about the viability of the Republican Party and how a few key congressional races will turn out.

Ballots went in the mail today.

So tonight, it's Northwest Now's election round table.

A recent analysis of television ad spending done by the Seattle Times Danny West neat shows that the Democrats are outspending the Republicans by 80 to 1.

The MAGA coup left the state's Republican Party on the outside, looking in with real questions about the long term viability of any kind of credible opposition in the state, which, no matter what side you're on, is generally not a feature of good governance.

Meanwhile, there's a growing cancer in this country's body politic.

According to one analysis done by Professor Robert Pape at the University of Chicago.

5% of the population agrees that violence is justified to restore Trump to the white House.

That's about 13 million people, by the way.

12% is ambivalent and doesn't care.

That's about 40 million people.

Now, 80% disagree with violence, which sounds good, but again, his results indicate that we have about 13 million people ready to fight and 43 million people ready to sit by and watch it all happen.

What drives that 5%?

The great replacement conspiracy theory, the QAnon conspiracy theory and the cult of personality that believes only Donald Trump can fix their problems.

So while Washington State's elections will pass uneventfully, there are some real concerns about the national picture.

And frankly, when we'll even really know the results, with several states looking like they're going to have problems counting ballots.

Let's dig in now with our election roundtable panel.

Plus, political science professor and longtime northwest now political commentator Michael, our time UP's political science professor Robin Jacobson, and progressive Strategies political consultant Ben Andrew Stone.

Welcome, all of you to northwest now.

Great to have our election night team here to talk about elections in general and round table this a little bit.

Help get me off the ledge a little bit.

I keep telling people, you know, there's nothing really at stake in Washington state on this one.

We're at we're a known blue state, and the triple play is going to remain in place in state government.

So what do we care about.

So I'm going to put that on you now instead of me always trying to explain it away.

Michael, what do you care about.

What are you watching.

What do you think's interesting?

Well, I think, you know, it's it is interesting to see, the state of the Republic like, if we're talking about Washington, I think it's interesting to look at the state of the Republican Party and to think about what it takes to win in some of these districts versus versus what it takes to win, statewide, nationally, I'm paying attention to, obviously the presidential race, which is incredibly close, the balance of power in Congress as well as, some things that I'm worried about, like voter suppression that might happen, at the national level or the potential for something like, January 6th to happen again.

I don't think that takes you off the ledge, though.

So I do apologize for that.

And we're definitely going to get to the smooth transfer of power and the Republican Party in the state.

But those are some good top line thoughts.

Same to you, Robin.

What's your radar tuned to?

Yeah.

Well, since to take you off the ledge there are some changes coming up with the initiatives.

Right.

And so to think about how the voters are going to respond to four initiatives that really, not only substantively, will change policy and law, but also potentially challenge the legislature's power in a real new way.

So I'm interested in that in Washington and then nationally, I'm really interested in some of the changes in voting behavior that we're seeing happening, the increase in education gaps or sub or demographic groups that are behaving differently than we've seen before.

Yeah.

When you look at the polling, boy, it breaks right on higher education, a lot of other subdivisions.

But boy, the main break is right there on higher ed.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Ben, what do you, what do you care about?

Yeah, absolutely.

The the education gap exacerbation that, Robin mentioned is super interesting.

And here in Washington state, I think also in the 14th district in eastern Washington with the Latino vote.

Another interesting thing in general this year, low turnout voters, a group that earlier this year we saw was very unengaged.

Increasingly we're seeing that this actually could be a pretty high turnout here.

Think there's a lot of question about what those low propensity voters are going to do this year, and I'm very curious to see how that turns out.

Do you think they can move the needle at all?

I keep hearing they're going to move the needle in the suburbs of Philadelphia, but is there any does anybody predict anything in Washington state at all, or are we going to be boring old blue?

Not there.

Is there anything wrong with that?

But it's just it doesn't make for an exciting election night.

Yeah.

At the statewide level, I don't think I'm probably going to surprise anybody by saying it would be a stretch to imagine whenever a state office is going Republican at this point, we may be entering kind of an extended at the statewide level, one party state.

But with the initiatives and some of our local legislative races, I'd like to think we're not the most boring.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the Republican Party a little bit.

You all mentioned it.

I want to go there.

Michael, we'll start with you.

You know, they really took the last cycle off when it came to the gubernatorial race.

Dave Reichert, a credible candidate, multi term congressperson, former sheriff, in King County.

Not everybody necessarily I know agrees with everything he has to say, but at least at least the opposition party here is putting forth a credible candidate.

Is that is this a way out for the Republican Party or.

No, they endorsed Semi Bird anyway, who didn't have a pathway to any kind of a victory in the state of Washington.

What do you think the future is in terms of the MAGA rebellion or the MAGA takeover?

And is there a future for the Republican Party in this state?

I mean, I think of him as an example of why the Republican Party in Washington state isn't working right now, that you have somebody who maybe under other circumstances, would be a moderate alternative.

And if the Republican Party embraced him, maybe they would be a bit more successful.

But what you see is that they they failed to endorse him during, during their convention.

And also, you know, you see him having to go to these groups and appeal and say things.

Then the Ferguson campaign is able to use in advertisements.

You know, he has to he has to say certain things to the Republican Party base in a number of parts of the state that are just going to be really out of step with, with King County, with King County, and you have to, you have to be much more moderate than you ever can be.

As a Washington state Republican right now, in order to win statewide.

So, Robin, does this MAGA fever dream ever go away, or is this where that party's living for a while?

I mean, I think for a while, short term, I think we're seeing an increased in tensions between the state GOP, MAGA rebellion and the legislative GOP caucus.

I think we see that in the primaries results.

We saw that happen.

I think we see it in district four with new House.

And we can get into that maybe some more, where it really, I think in Olympia, the Republican Party is going to have to come to some serious grips with increasing tensions there long term.

I think it's a national story.

Anyway, this is all about the nationalization of our politics.

And so depending on what happens, this presidential election, I think that will determine whether it's a short term increase tension or in fact, we're in for a long haul and we can hit a new house in the fourth, in the last guy, the last standing guy to have voted for Trump's impeachment, and he's up against another Republican in that district.

So that really gets to some of that.

I guess, kind of infighting and the self immolation of the party that you're talking about.

Yeah.

Newhouse is someone who it's almost his thing to, you know, combat the extremist.

Right.

So he started out defeating Tea Party candidates in 2014 and 2016.

And so now that it really looks like he's in jeopardy in the face of this extremist candidates, I think that tells us a lot about where we're at.

Ben, it's great to have you as a strategist in on this and looking at the polling and a strategy, what what is what is the strategy for the Republican Party?

Can there be a coherent strategy that that comes out with the MAGA takeover in place?

I think at the beginning of it, it all has to start with better candidate quality.

I think the Republican Party could potentially run candidates that sort of go for this populist oeuvre.

But the big problem that they're kind of falling for is in the process of getting real kind of flame throwers.

They end up with candidates that oftentimes are, to be frank, grifters or have felony convictions in their history.

And, generically speaking, swing voters don't like these kind of things.

So until that problem is fixed, I'm not even sure that the ideology and MAGA thing is really the question.

They need to find candidates who can actually present as normal.

Yeah, yeah.

And somebody who's willing to put their their name and their reputation and their career out for public display to wear that label.

You know, you're asking a lot out of somebody who's a little credible.

Yeah.

Tough one.

Going to swing back to you here, Michael.

Talk a little bit about the changing electorate.

I know Robin wants to talk about this, too.

What is changing in the in the in the electorate, we have, you know, a larger, base of people who are minorities that are going to be changing the nature nationwide and in the state.

Talk a little bit about that and have any observations about that?

Yeah.

I mean, I would say that increasingly the state is going to be less and less white.

And that's going to I mean, that's going to have a significant impact on on party politics in the state.

I think that, if you're the Republican Party right now, you're going in exactly the wrong direction.

In the state, if you hope to appeal to this emerging set of potential voters and I don't think, I don't think I think that smart strategically as well as, you know, I just don't think that it's it's good policymaking.

If we think of the job of Representatives as to represent the constituents, which they have, I think they're out of step with that.

And all the Democratic demographic curves are going against you.

Yeah.

I mean, there's just.

Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, the math, you know, speaks to that a lot, too.

Robert, I know you've looked at this issue specifically and particularly in terms of things like redistricting.

Maybe share a few of your thoughts on that.

Well, I actually want to talk a little bit about nationally, what's happening, what that might mean for Washington state in terms of an increasing number of voters, of voters of color, because we see the Democrats really falling behind where they were with black voters as well as Latino voters.

And so, I mean, Harris is really underperforming where Biden was in 2020.

So this has happened quick.

And so the question becomes will that transfer to Washington State as well?

So when you say, I hear what you're saying, where they're at a step historically have been, I'm wondering what that means.

Why in the past week have the Democrats run into this?

They're in a little bit of a tizzy over this.

Have any thoughts on that?

Banner?

I mean, this is a problem that we're increasingly having among especially less frequent voters, lower trust voters, voters who express kind of a dissatisfaction of the way that society is going for them.

This has not been a bad group for Donald Trump in particular.

And to some degree, this may be some of that educational sorting that Robin was getting at.

These primarily are voters without college educations of more working backgrounds.

But it's a serious problem.

Even Harris has made some strides in recovering some of Biden's weaknesses among Hispanic and Black voters.

But she's only recovered about half of the decline among Hispanics.

That could be a problem in eastern Washington.

Yeah, and I was thinking about that.

And I and Robin, I know you and I had talked about this a little bit about the redistricting piece in issue in Washington.

Talk a little bit about that.

Maybe give us a little background what happened and why it matters.

Yeah.

So, after redistricting, it actually ended up in a court case, right.

Where in fact, in order to preserve, Latino voice in, the Yakima area, right, they redistricted, a new district 14, which actually affected, I think, 13 other districts around it.

But 14 is the new one that everyone's looking at, I think, to see how this redistricting will play out.

And there we do have Curtis King, the incumbent, against, Maria Beltran.

And it's actually really interesting to see what might happen there.

It's a super close election, right, right now, as far as we can tell.

And so what does it mean to have redistricting for a Latino voice?

We have more Latino candidates.

We do know that for sure.

In that whole area, we've seen a rise as a result.

I think, of the redistricting of Latino candidates, both Democratic and Republican as well.

I want to talk a little bit, too, about, voter suppression.

And, and tie that into a question I have for all of you.

I'd like to get your take on this.

Do you think we'll know, Michael, the results nationally on Election Day?

With Georgia Hand-counting, with Pennsylvania, maybe having local county, canvasing boards, not certifying elections.

I mean, there's I'm starting to see the seeds of mechanical and procedural trouble in some of the states and things.

What are your thoughts about are we going to know anything election night?

I, I my guess would be no.

And I think even without all those things, the election is going to be so close in a number of these states that, we're unlikely to know anything on election night or maybe even the day after.

So so I would anticipate, a lot a long evening and maybe a long, several days after I, because I've seen some national numbers that show that this thing could be decided by something like 40 or 50,000 people in a couple of counties.

Yeah.

I mean, that's incredible.

Yeah.

Well, why is that?

I mean, is it is that the easy answer is the polarization and the split of, of of American, the American electorate.

But how is it they're right on 5050?

That seems uncanny to me.

I it seems that our politics kind of naturally reorient to over that over time.

And I think the political theorists in here might have something to say about that process, but that does seem to be the gravity of it.

Although I will say this remains a remarkably divided time, and this election has remained remarkably stable in terms of the polling.

I think we all feel that it's been really chaotic.

But you look at the polling and this has been a tight 5050 race for both the president and Congress.

Pretty much all year.

I wonder, are we going to have somebody the not to to to inaugurate in January to some degree when it comes to court cases and all the things that could potentially come down the road, read the tea leaves.

Robin, do you think we'll know anything on election night?

Or, as a political scientist, I am never supposed to read it.

That is, that is, we always get proven wrong.

But I do think you're right in that this is going to be a long haul, not just a couple of days for counting, but as you said, the court cases are going to, potentially take this out, quite a distance.

And I think when we think about the dangers to democracy that you raised at the outset, this is where I think we find it.

Right?

What happens as we're waiting for these court cases to resolve themselves in terms of people's trust in the system?

Yeah, their sense of legitimacy of the system, even if everything's working like it's supposed to.

And so how do we help voters and other folks realize that this is what's going to be happening, to expect it and not to kind of panic when they see we don't have a president three weeks out.

Maybe this is for anybody who wants to answer it.

Why does a lack of trust in the system suppress the vote?

To me, it seems like it would innovate the vote.

Why why is that?

So we have a theory, I think, that people, don't want to engage a system that they don't trust.

And so, I think of, in particular like some research about why young people, do or do not get involved in politics.

You know, there's some studies that show that they, they actually care deeply about politics.

They get involved in like, transformative ways in their community.

They care about social movements.

They protest, they do things like that, but they don't actually vote is often and they don't do some other types of, of work within the system because of a lack of trust of that system.

I mean, I think that we see that writ large across the electorate as well.

When trust goes down.

Do you have people in your classes?

And this is for you, too, Robin, who young people say, hey, I'm out.

I don't like what I'm seeing or what I'm here.

I'm not I'm not participating in this.

To me, it seems my reaction would be just the opposite.

That's me.

But what are what are young people saying?

Well, if they're in my class, they're probably not the ones that are tapped out, but I do.

But there are some who say, for example, I'm in Washington State, I'm not bothering voting.

And I think it's the same reason if it's about political efficacy, if you think you can't make a change, whether it's because you're not in a swing state or because the system is corrupt, you're not going to show up at the polls.

And so I do think there are increasing number of folks who doubt the legitimacy of the system and will say, there's nothing we can do about it.

Am I accurate in this band?

I keep hearing that there's no such thing as an undecided anymore.

It's only it's only a matter of who you can get off the sofa to get.

Everybody's decided.

It's just now a voter turnout deal is is is that pure perception?

You know, I have always been a big booster of the idea that there are still persuadable voters out there.

And indeed, you look at what got Donald Trump elected in 2016 and then Joe Biden in 2020.

And it was some of the same Obama to Trump, Biden voters.

They do exist that having been said, from what we can tell, this election has the fewest undecided voters of any so far.

What it may come down to or actually voters are not necessarily undecided, but hard to get Ahold of and unengaged.

Those, low trust voters we were talking about oftentimes don't answer their cell phones to they don't necessarily talk to pollsters.

So there may be voters that we don't know where they're at.

But as far as the voters we are talking to, yeah, not many undecideds this year.

Yeah.

Here's another question I never thought I'd be having.

This is my I think my 40th year.

You know, and covering presidential elections since 1984, I never I thought I would ask people this question, do you think we'll have a peaceful transfer of power?

I don't know.

I which is scary.

So it's scary that you don't know.

Yeah.

I don't think you're wrong, but, I mean, my God, I'm taking students in January to the inauguration.

And I am I am hopeful that I'll be able to talk through what a peaceful transfer of power means and not, you know, talk through what it means for a democracy that we did not have one.

And so I'm going to choose to be hopeful.

But, but I can't say that I'm especially sure.

Robin, am I hysterical or is this a legitimate question?

It's a legitimate question.

I think I was more concerned about it last election, last presidential election than I am this one.

Well, Trump has been making some noise around the that the military and the National Guard should be brought out.

Yeah.

He's doing that as no longer the sitting president.

And so last election, we were in a really different place where the sitting president refused to acknowledge the outcome of the election as a challenger.

I think, there's a lot less danger of the kinds of things we saw on January 6th.

I think the danger is going to be the ongoing litigation to undermine democracy.

Yeah.

So I guess the question I should ask you then is that if Trump's elected, would there be a peaceful transfer of power?

That one I wanted to 20 of your nerves.

This just never seems to get better, does it?

Ben, a last thought from you about that idea of a peaceful transfer of power.

What do people what do people say?

And I'll bet when you pull them, they all want to say the right thing.

They all want to do the right thing.

They all want the right thing to happen.

And yet, here we are running this risk.

How's that possible?

I mean, it's a real problem in America that we have had a degradation of trust at the individual level for decades going now.

And I think that that sets up a backdrop where this is always a risk in our upcoming elections.

I am also heartened by the institutional control shift.

I think that will help.

I'm also heartened, frankly, that our election systems are as resilient as they are local actions departments, by and large, ran by the people.

I'm glad you're mentioning that because my experience with local election department people have, they have always been top notch and I think have been well-intentioned and done the best I can.

I'm sorry for interjecting that commercial.

Please continue.

No, not at all.

So I'm I'm hopeful, although I'm also the least accredited here.

And I'll say is, as somebody who looks at election systems, I'm also heartened that this year we don't have a pandemic going and our absentee ballots aren't going to skew probably the way they did last time.

So some of the chaos elements that were present last time, maybe not present this time, that's coming back to reassurance from giving my best there.

Yeah.

Good.

Well great discussion.

I know we're going to talk on election night about the four statewide ballot measures that are coming out with Steve Higgins, who will join us here in a minute.

We're going to be looking at, you know, a couple of races in Seattle we didn't get to with Andrea Suarez against Sean Scott, which I think is an interesting one.

We can talk about that on election night.

But I do thank you all for coming in and helping to set the table a little bit for what we've got here.

Coming up in a in a couple of weeks, ballots, dropped earlier today.

And, it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

Thanks so much, all of you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Because this let's talk a little more now about the four statewide ballot initiatives known collectively as Let's Go Washington.

Initiative 2109 would repeal the state's capital gains tax.

2117 repeals the state's carbon offset market tax, known as the Climate Commitment Act.

2124 repeals the mandatory payroll deduction for the state's long term care insurance program, and 2066 repeals the disincentives passed to discourage the ongoing use of natural gas.

On election night, our Steve Higgins will be tackling these initiatives and he joins us now with more on Let's Go Washington.

Let's face it, there's not a lot that's probably in play in Washington State.

I think the Dems will keep the the triple play in state government.

We we're a known blue state nationally.

But these four ballot initiatives, what do you think about them and what do you think their power may be to draw voters?

Well, you know, I think probably 1 or 2 of them have probably some pretty strong power to draw in the electorate.

I think we're talking about the Washington Care Act issue and, 2117 and the other two there are important for certain.

I don't think they really impact as many folks as they do the other two.

So yeah, that might be a good poll perhaps.

Yeah.

So let's talk about 2117, the Climate Commitment Act.

Groundbreaking.

We joined California and creating this carbon market.

On the one hand, it is a market based solution.

So the the Republicans have that.

On the other, it does come at a price.

And the low hanging fruit there is higher gas prices.

So how do you see this playing out.

What are your thoughts on that.

Well, you know it's interesting is you talk about this market exists.

It does.

It's small.

But now other states are actually looking to Washington to see how we are doing things.

And this initiative could really derail all of that.

I think probably 2117 has the strongest power likely to draw in voters to remain interested in what's happening, because the message on either side is strong.

You're talking whether or not we save the states ability to pay for programs that address climate change or prepare for it, and then the other one talking about hitting the pocketbook, I mean, this is something that everyone deals with higher gas prices, gas prices, and the cost of everyday business.

Yeah, having everything grow in expense.

Yeah.

How does that not reach every voter.

And, and 2117 feeds something between 750 and $1 billion a year into the state budget.

You mentioned, you know, for, for climate resilience efforts, but also education and a lot of things that are very near and dear to voters hearts for certain.

It doesn't necessarily draw down a black and white kind of line.

It would be easier if it certainly did.

But that's just not the world we live in.

And so that's I think what kind of gets lost in this mix is what is the obvious trade off that we that we see really good at understanding things that are black and white directly in front of us.

But if we're talking about educational programs, yeah, you know, some of that stuff is kind of important for certain, but not necessarily easily tangible and to to understand the impact really everyone but has an impact for the rest of society that might be beneficial.

Last 30s here talk about Washington cares.

It too is a pocketbook issue because that comes out of your paycheck that people see that one too.

What do you think?

What are your thoughts on that?

You know, I think, the state probably as a leader in that same kind of arena.

But I think what I've seen in some drawback for some people that are critical of this, of the Care Act is they'll say they've been working in the job and they've been making these payments.

They leave the state.

Is that money go?

Yep.

So very difficult.

I think that's probably pretty important.

Alongside age 2117.

That might yeah, might bring in quite a few voters.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

Steve, thanks so much for joining us on northwest.

Now taking a look at the four big ballot issues here in the state of Washington.

Good to see you.

Here's one thing we can all agree on.

We're just about done with all of this.

Only a little more than two weeks remain until the ads stop and the mailbox goes quiet.

The bottom line no matter how things turn out, let's hope our political battles remain confined to the ballot boxes and the courts.

We're all counting on the vast majority of the people in this country to respect the process and support all the people working so hard to uphold our Constitution.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can watch this program on the web at kbtc.org Stream it through the PBS app or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest.

Now, until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.