OA647: Senate AND House Both Very Much In Play for Democrats!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:18 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 647. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torres, Optimus Prime, Optimus Prime. How you doing? Well, I'm great too. I am also fantastic. What a great election day. That is a weird thing to say. I even when we had that blue wave, the results were so delayed that it felt not as good for a while, but this pretty pretty immediately feels, Democrats just demolished expectations. I mean we'll see what it means in real terms, but wow, what a performance.

0:01:28 Andrew: I can't wait to kind of go through because, spoiler alert, I think people are underselling, particularly online cable news, the possibility that the Democrats could, and I'm going to give you two delightful possibilities. Number one, hold the House outright. Number Number two, head into the Colorado recount for Lauren Boebert's seat, split 217 to 217. And that would almost be better.

0:02:10 Thomas: Yeah? Wow. Yeah.

0:02:25 Andrew: Not entirely, but almost.

0:02:27 Thomas: Only that, the Senate. How's the Senate looking? Oh, we're going to get into it. We'll get into all this this stuff. This is a midterm celebration and an analysis episode. It's a bit of a victory lap, I think, especially for Andrew, who, you were the one predicting the positive news and I was the one, you know, being pessimist for and once, maybe the first time ever, Optimus Prime, just because, you know, the world sucks. So it's hard being the Washington generals. But but yeah,

0:02:54 Andrew: It is. I mean, I went on Skeptocrat and like, had to talk Noah, Heath, and Eli down from the walls. Right. Don't, as I said on that show, as I said on our show, like I don't blame anybody for being skeptical coming into tonight. And let me say this right but before we get to the actual analysis, being excited at a midterm election is in no way an indication that like, you know, time to dust our hands and say problem solved. Right.

0:03:21 Thomas: Yeah.

0:03:21 Andrew: This is still a gigantic cluster bomb. Right? It's a total mess. The fact that, you know, we're celebrating a 50-50 outcome between the party of fascism and elections don't matter and the party have not that is is not right. So there's plenty of things. None of this should be meant to say that, like, we don't have systematic institutional real problems. Okay. But in I thought this was going to get moderately worse for us. Know, there's at least some possibility that things will objectively get better for Democrats in terms policies.

0:03:38 Thomas: Yeah, of course.

0:03:59 Thomas: So unexpected and will be massively welcome We'll again. Get to it in the analysis. You while we're on the topic of happy things, any other happy things happen that you can think of at all? Any other, you news anywhere whatsoever.

0:03:59 Andrew: Yeah, as we go to press, a $473 million punitive damage verdict has just been entered against Alex Jones in the Connecticut case. I have to look at it and break it down and everything. As we pointed out, this was due to the CUTPA, the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act claim that was present in that case, but not in the Texas case. And so it allows you to get around what is otherwise a really, really onerous cap punitive damages in Connecticut that, again, Norm Pattis doesn't understand this, but

0:04:41 Thomas: Yeah. Norm, that is not understanding a law thing.

0:04:52 Thomas: What's next? You're going to tell me he's not very good at visual art. Make sure you've listened to Law'd Awful Movies on the law and legitimacy podcast. That was a good one.

0:04:57 Andrew: Yeah, if you. Oh, gosh, it was so good. But yeah, no. So so Norm Pattis is in the $1.4 billion that he's cost his client and counting. Accounting.

0:05:08 Thomas: Jeez. What a bad lawyer.

0:05:11 Andrew: This is a good illustration of like why you don't have somebody who's drinking your Kool-Aid defending you as your lawyer, so,

0:05:19 Thomas: Yeah, the very people who need to know that fact are the exact people who cannot fathom that. It's like it's like Trump needing to know that he shouldn't just have sycophants around him like he can't process that. That's not there's no way he's doing that.

0:05:34 Andrew: You like watching them on TV does not equal them being a good lawyer. And uh,

0:05:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah or a good candidate in for example Pennsylvania. Oh one more happy announcement too. We are getting back on track with the Q&A's. Let's be honest, we had a lot going on. We were late. We missed one and we're late on this one. And we're going to make it up to you by having a Q&A a little late. We're not going to skip the one that we should have had. We're doing it. We'll do it live. It's going to be, literally, we're going to do it alive. It's gonna be next Wednesday or this coming Wednesday for people who use language that way. That's the 16th at 4 PM Pacific. That'd be 7 PM Eastern. That's Wednesday the 16. You'll see the links. You'll say it go out on all our stuff. The Patreon, the Facebook group, Twitter, if Twitter hasn't gone under by then, we'll see.

0:05:39 Andrew: Yeah. Exactly, all-

0:06:25 Thomas: We'll go to twitter.com and see if the website works. And if it does, we will put our live Q&A in it.

0:06:32 Andrew: I had a high ranking government official tell me today that they are making plans for Twitter's demise in days or weeks in terms of how they disseminate information to the public. As a Musk skeptic, that was a head, head turner even for me.

0:06:50 Thomas: That's crazy. See you on the Q&As. Andrew will have the thread up while you're hearing this. So go ask away. Lots of questions, I'm sure. And with that said, I think that's all the dilly dallying. Let's get to the hot midterm analysis. So, Andrew, we did well. We did well, there's some there's definitely some some places where we didn't and downsides. What do you what do you want to cover first?

0:07:03 Andrew: Yeah.

0:07:20 Thomas: Where

0:07:20 Andrew: Let's start kind of with the with overall picture, which, you know, I sort of broke down what team holding pattern would look like, and then I gave you the case for team slight optimism, right? Two to two and a half percent polling error in favor of the Democrats, that turns all of these races that are 50 50 coin flips into not 50 50 50 coin flips. Right. Like a two and a half percent does not increase your odds of winning the coin flip by, you know, just two percent. All of a sudden, like a fifty to forty eight race, like you win that 70, 75 percent of the time. In Right? Other words, it takes out the scenario in which the Democrats just through sort of sheer repetition.

0:08:01 Thomas: Sure, coin flipping practice.

0:08:03 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like if you have to flip 30 coins and you can only flip four heads, you don't take that bet. It also, as you saw on the night, you would have put a couple more Senate seats in play. And so what I would say, and again, this a third of the vote has come in in California, right? There's still a tremendous level of error bars to hang on this. I would say, based on what we saw on the East Coast, that we probably had a D plus one night, we were probably right, halfway to that scenario that kept the Ohio seat competitive for a long time. It kept the North Carolina seat. Sherry Beasley, who, again, you I would like to make her just governor of Earth right now. It kept that seat competitive for a very, very long time. We came up short and that's sad. But it tells us sort of where we were. Right. And we want to kind of check in? Because, again, I know people are going to continue to be nervous.

Let's check in on the state of the Senate, where in Georgia, again we told you this, that the worst case scenario would be, you know, despite all the late polling that seemed to show movement to Herschel Walker, was that that was at worst going to head to a runoff. It's kind of disappointing that

0:08:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah mm-hmm.

0:09:14 Thomas: Yeah Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Didn't expect that. I'll be honest. I expected that. Talk about candidate quality. That's, yeah.

0:09:21 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And again, let's remember, when you hear media saying candidate quality, what that means is allegiance to Trump,

0:09:27 Thomas: Ben Shapiro tweeted candidate quality matters kind of thing with the periods, almost like the hand clapping emoji. And I was just thinking, you know, when your party platform is literal garbage, you shouldn't really be surprised when every candidate across the nation is just three raccoons in trench a I mean, that's you can't be like here. Here's our platform eating literal shit. Why can't we get John Hamm to be our candidate? I don't understand. Why cannot we get Barack Obama to be arcane? It's like, yeah, no, the people who support that are going to be terrible because it's terrible.

0:09:51 Andrew: Can We Get John Ham to run for something because that Would be, that Would be amazing. Yeah.

0:10:01 Thomas: Yeah, probably we can. You know why? Because our platform is not a plate of literal crap. Crap.

0:10:07 Andrew: That Is true. So, look, uh, Georgia's headed to the runoff. I, uh, thought, uh, based on the distribution of numbers that there was a chance even late that Warnock was, was going To get over 50 Percent.

0:10:17 Thomas: Yeah, it was so close.

0:10:19 Andrew: It's close. You get forty nine and a half even if control of the Senate hangs in the balance, which it, spoiler alert, I don't think it will. I feel very confident about the Democrats ability to win that seat.

0:10:28 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. Because you take out some rando libertarian two percent candidate, I think, you we have a good record of Georgia runoffs recently, for one. Once you take up that other third party candidate that tends to hurt Republicans more than us, I believe.

0:10:32 Andrew: Yeah.

0:10:45 Andrew: And lots of people were energized. Lots of Republicans were energized by the Kemp Abrams race.

0:10:50 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll have almost nothing to vote for in this case.

0:10:54 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. And they will reluctantly head out for that. And if, as I expect, is the case that Democrats will be leading 50 Senate seats to 49 heading into it, then this could be a 10 point blowout.

0:11:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah exactly. Truly, truly nothing for Republicans to proactively vote for. In that case, so short of just the sheer brilliant candidacy of who is it again? Yeah. Let's see. Who's their candidate down there?

0:11:10 Andrew: Yeah, running back Herschel Walker, who, again, continues the pattern of Donald Trump only trusting people that he has hired. So, the New York generals employed them. If you haven't heard our USFL episode, if

0:11:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I would Say if Walker has enough newly discovered children by then that could vote for him, it'll make it close. You know, if they all move to Georgia, we'll see. Yeah, yeah. Maybe they're just aging into it. A month You away from their 18th birthday. That's the I think.

0:11:41 Andrew: They're all 18, that that is a thing. So why do I say Democrats could have 50 seats by then? The other two seats that are uncalled, let me sidebar myself, they have not called the Alaska seat. It is very clear with the operation of ranked choice voting that that is going to go to Murkowski and not her Trump-backed challenger, even though Murkowsky trails by a couple of points, because Mark Begich has 12 percent of the vote, and every single one, he's going to be finishing third, and every single baggage voter is going to put Murkowski as the two on

0:12:05 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, good. I personally forgot that. So I looked at that result and I was like, oh, man, what the. But glad you reminded me. So you're predicting and you think that's like virtually certain.

0:12:28 Andrew: That is mathematically certain at this point. Yeah. That will be. And again, she's a Republican.

0:12:30 Thomas: Oh wow. Okay, cool.

0:12:34 Andrew: She's a Democrat who voted against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. So, you would much rather have her.

0:12:39 Thomas: Wait, sorry. She voted against.

0:12:41 Andrew: Yeah. She voted against Kavanaugh. Yep. She

0:12:41 Thomas: Oh But she voted for Coney Barrett.

0:12:44 Andrew: Voted for Gorsuch and I think she voted for Barrett.

0:12:48 Thomas: Right. Okay but anyway better than look we'll take the slightly better than worse thing that's better than the worst thing. That's math.

0:12:54 Andrew: Yes. And Murkowski's overall record is, again, you significantly to the left of most of the Republican senators. And yeah, you absolutely that is you should feel about her the way you feel about Joe Manchin. By right, far the best thing you're going to get out of Alaska. You barring unforeseen circumstances. So that, that race has not been called, that that Murkowski is, is going to sail to, to, reelection once they implement the ranked choice voting scheme. That leaves Nevada and Arizona. So let's talk about Arizona. Mark Kelly has a five percentage point lead.

0:13:29 Andrew: It's over 100000 votes and the votes are out in Democratic areas. So

0:13:24 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, what? Yeah. I've been wondering why that is so close still or why they're not calling that one. But also, the election process was just a real disaster, right, for Arizona? Yeah,

0:13:45 Andrew: This was where we had an injunction entered because Trump, Trump backed election watchers were, you know, showing up with openly carried weapons and, engaging in outright voter intimidation. And, an Arizona good governance group went to a district court judge, got an injunction that said, "Hey, you can't come within 75 feet of people." And I would have liked the order to say, "And also you can't conceal carry."

0:14:13 Andrew: But, you know, it's Arizona. That fine, you know, you have a right to conceal carry your firearms in Arizona, but you don't have a right to open carry and brandish at a polling station. I consider that a minor victory in the sense that that is not a battle you should have to fight to say, hey, Donald Trump backed lunatics should not be able to show up in their stupid red hats, brandishing guns at the polling place, that's going to lead people to turn around and not vote. So, so Arizona, um, terrifying conditions. You have, uh, Carrie Lake is a half a percentage point back in the governor's race.

0:14:13 Thomas: Oh, a little disappointing. I mean, Carrie Lake was a terrible candidate.

0:14:51 Andrew: A Terrible Candidate, and a, a lunatic. And, and there are still pathways, I think, to Lake winning that governorship. There is, right, a degree of uncertainty about the nature of the outstanding votes in Arizona, but, um, I've ran the math, it it would basically have to be the equivalent of the best same day voting showing that Republicans have done throughout the state, uh, for Kelly to lose. Kelly's winning that race. And I think most people recognize that

0:14:53 Thomas: Oof. Oh.

0:15:19 Thomas: But You scared me a little bit. I thought for some reason I wrote that one off as like, okay, we got it, but, uh, I didn't know it was that close. All right, that's, it's a little scary.

0:15:22 Andrew: Where are nervous. And, and I understand this and I've done a lot of work here is Nevada with Catherine Cortez Masto, who trails by just under 16,000 votes right now. There was a tranche of votes that came in from Reno, from Washoe County last night that cut about seven or eight thousand votes off of the Adam Laxalt is the Republican Trump lackey lead. So 16,000 is a lot of votes to make up. But that's coming in now are ballots that were postmarked as of or before the day of the election and are arriving by mail. So these are mail in votes. The law allows those to be counted so long as they arrive by Saturday.

0:16:07 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Wow.

0:16:13 Andrew: Right. Four days after the election and their mail in vote. So these aren't Democratic friendly votes. And there are only three places where sort of less than 90 percent of the vote, based on the ballots that were issued, have yet to be reported. And those are Clark County. Eighty eight percent of the vote is in. That's Las Vegas. That's a D plus five at minimum area. And there are about 60,000 votes outstanding. And again, you have every reason to suspect that these are going to be much more strongly Democratic, right? Two to one Democratic because they are mail-in votes.

0:16:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:50 Andrew: Right. And Republicans think mail-in is how you summon demons. So, not

0:16:54 Thomas: In general here, are there any places where we wouldn't expect the late counted vote to break blue? Are any like, You okay, here's pending result where these are still being counted. They're going to be, you know, largely red. Is that anywhere? Mm-mm.

0:17:07 Andrew: In any large numbers, right? There may be rural counties in which there were low levels of mail-in ballots to begin with, and so they tabulated those before the polls opened in states where you're allowed to do that. That should be every state. But, you know, of course, Republicans have thrown a monkey wrench into the works. And so you do have the phenomenon in some rural counties where they've already reported all of their, all or substantially all of Their mail in balloting. But you you know, you got to drive out to, you know, Gus's truck and pick up the actual physical box that has, you know, the votes from, you know, some way out precinct that is, know, in a rural county. That could happen. But sort of by definition, because they're rural, there aren't big sources

0:17:11 Thomas: Right. Yeah. No kidding.

0:17:34 Thomas: Okay. Right.

0:17:52 Andrew: Of votes, So right? You are correct, the way that in which we look at overlaying all of these races is with an idea of of how Democratic leaning is that remaining vote likely to be. 16,000 votes is a lot to make up. But there are 60,000 votes out in Clark County. There's 50,000 votes out in Washoe County. That's Reno. That's been split overall. But again, remember, the last bunch of these kinds of ballots that came in favored Cortez Masto two to one.

0:17:53 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:18:23 Andrew: The only place that is a Laxalt stronghold is Carson City, Nevada. That's that's been Laxal plus 12. Those could still be Democratic votes based

0:18:33 Thomas: Just the proportion of mail-in being Democratic votes.

0:18:35 Andrew: Exactly right. And it doesn't matter because there's only 6000 votes that are out there. That's just that's just not enough to move the noodle. Those votes break 6545, right, that is under 60 percent for Catherine Cortez Masto. So that is a much lower level than all of the ballots that we have processed today. And again, many of these are the second half of that, set of boxes that came in. If they break 65-45, that's going to be more than enough to give her the lead in that race.

0:18:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, OK.

0:19:08 Thomas: Could you dress like Kornacki while you do this? Could you put on the just and let's start on video. I know we don't normally just record audio, but if you don't mind, Andrew.

0:19:10 Andrew: I do. Uh, Get some khakis, roll up the sleeves, yeah, I

0:19:18 Thomas: Yeah, it's just it's Just going to help me understand. You know, I was just telling me.

0:19:21 Andrew: Understand, I understand. Um, so there's your Senate. In my view, uh, likely by mid-December we're looking at a 51-49 Senate. Um, that is enough that if Mansion and Cinema cooperate, they can derail you, but you can also pick them off individually, and by the way, like that, they so far have not collaborated, right?

0:19:30 Thomas: Wow. Right. Right, right. Right. Not only that, I was going to say, oh, that means now just cinema is the pain in the ass that we have to listen to. But as you say, cinema is so terrible that there are some things you might get mansion on that you don't get cinema on. That's wow. OK, it gives us two two bites at the awful centrist right leaning apple.

0:19:42 Andrew: Right.

0:19:55 Andrew: Yeah. That's right. Tasty worm ridden apple.

0:20:09 Thomas: Show is brought to you by the Jordan Harbinger Show. It's a podcast. You should definitely check out Jordan's show, which Apple named one of its best in 2018. Is aimed at making you a better informed, more critical thinker, so you can get a sense of how the world actually works and come to your own conclusions about what's happening, even inside your own brain. Each episode is a conversation with a different fascinating guest. And there's definitely something for everyone here.

There's a really wide range of guests on this show. There may be some people that you're not a super big fan of, but there's also a bunch of people you're definitely going to be a super big fan. He talks to everybody, really.

A recent episode you should check out, if you don't haven't read about or heard about or know about, the Iran protests, episode 746, Jordan Harbinger has Yas al-Azzadeh on, who is a clinical assistant professor of Persian language and literature and the Persian program coordinator at New York University, and take you through the history, what's going on, why it started, and where it might be likely to go. Check out that episode. That's the Jordan Harbinger Show.

0:21:07 Thomas: You can't go wrong with adding the Jordan Harbinger's show to your rotation. It's incredibly interesting, and there's never a dull show. Search for the Jordan Harbinger Show, that's H-A-R-B, as in boy, I-N, as in Nancy, G-E-R, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

0:21:24 Andrew: So now let's talk about the house, shall Let me give you my my overall thoughts right now. And this is an O.A. take that I might be stealing off of your notes. And it is this. If either of these two things had happened, if we had no overt political gerrymandering or if the Democrats had gerrymandered in California and New York the way Republicans gerrymander in North Carolina and Wisconsin, this race would already be over. Democrats would have picked up seats. They would be way ahead in the House.

0:21:27 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. So, I think what you're saying is, if we had anything resembling democracy in the deliberative body that's supposed to be responsive to the will of the people, i.e. the House, you're seeing if we have anything like democracy, we already won.

0:22:10 Andrew: Correct. And that's just indisputable. Right. Like and as we go through and look, Republicans outside of Florida made their biggest gains in flipping for New York House seats and counting. Yep.

0:22:12 Thomas: Yeah. It's just math. Yeah. I was wondering when we're going to talk about that, because New York is so depressing. It is a disaster on so many levels. But I didn't want to go right into the bad news. I wasn't sure if your format is like the good news first.

0:22:33 Andrew: Path to a House victory, right, to 218 plus seats for Republicans goes through California, goes through six California House seats that have been uncalled. And going to break those down. But reason that we lost those seats in New York is because the Democrats, we talked about this on the show, the Democrats submitted a very partisan map that actually would have wanted us, netted us a couple more seats, right? Right.

0:22:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:00 Andrew: Was designed in the same way that Republican gerrymandering is designed. But, and again, I can't fault that the New York Court of Appeals, the New York Supreme Court, because I get the right answer. But the court, that what happened was, New York State Supreme Court struck down the map and drew its own map. And where, where you can fight the New Year's Democratic Party is in every other situation, right, like this is an Andrew Jackson, right, like, well, the court's drawn its map, let's see it enforce it. Right, in every situation in which this has happened to Republicans, what they've done is said, okay, well, that court map is nice, but we've redrawn the map to answer what you said in your opinion. "Oh, would you like to appeal that? Sure, great, appeal that."

0:23:39 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Maybe for next election.

0:23:48 Andrew: That's right, and you wind up using the gerrymandered map even though the court has sort of impotently flailed around and said, "uh, yep," and and we needed to play that level of hardball in New York, and we did not Bloomberg.

0:23:52 Thomas: Yeah, hardball. Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of people, including AOC, by the way, has been kind of retweeting and commenting a little bit that this is just an absolute failure and possibly corruption for the New York Democratic Party. And I'm certainly open to that, at least a strategy blunder. And really hurts, Andrew, to see such a good night and then to have the place that might that might again, we still might be OK, but the place that might just completely scuttle what should have been house control, you in this amazing victory for Democrats, the place that, screws all that up be New York, you

0:24:06 Andrew: Right.

0:24:33 Andrew: Be the strongest Democratic stronghold in the country. Yeah.

0:24:35 Thomas: Yeah. It's, it's really, oh, it really hurts.

0:24:38 Andrew: Yep. But here this should, you know, salve those wounds a little bit. So let's start off with the race. Everybody has been waiting. You know, we're 25 minutes into the show. Lauren Boebert in Colorado's third district. So here's the bottom line. We will not know the answer to this seat for a month. OK, here's why. Boebert has trailed all night, trailed until Thursday morning until we recorded the show where she has now picked up a narrow three hundred and eighty six vote lead over Democrat Adam Frisch. And that's twelve one hundredths of one percent. There is one block of votes left to count in Garfield County, which has been a Fresh plus 14 area so far. So that's probably 2000 votes. That seems more than plausible that you could be twelve hundred to eight hundred.

That right would put Fresh over the top, except that, uh, in Colorado you trigger the mandatory recount if you're under what looks like in this race it's going to be about 1600 vote margin and I don't see either candidate getting to a lead of 1600 votes or more. That is less than half a percent, uh, the state pays for the recount. That recount must be conducted, uh, under this is Colorado Revised Statutes Title One, Article 10.5, must be ordered by the Secretary of State within 30 days and must be completed within 35 days. So 35 days out from the election, we will have that final recount in in the Boebert fresh race. And look, is these are the kinds of margins in which recounts do matter. Right.

0:24:42 Thomas: Okay. Yes. Wow.

0:26:22 Thomas: Yeah. With that few votes, right. But not only that, there are, uh, ways that people can still, if you, if you're in that district, you may have gotten a notification about a spoiled ballot of, You know, whatever. There's all these ways that you can still make sure your vote is counted. I saw Frisch tweeting about that. He said that make sure you get that done immediately. All the instructions will be on the notice you got that your ballot was spoiled. Like if you tried to vote, you know, for Frisch and something went wrong. So there's still ways to get ballots counted. And in that race, every single vote, literally every single vote matters.

0:26:23 Andrew: Yeah.

0:26:57 Andrew: I shared that out. I shared out a Colorado Sun article on the same thing. And I want to say it on the show. If you live in Colorado, particularly if you're in Colorado's third district and you tried to vote for Frisch, the rejection is almost certainly because of a signature mismatch because of the, you know, stupid voter ID laws that they put into place. You have eight days to cure that mismatch.

0:27:24 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:24 Andrew: OK, and you can start off by texting Colorado to the secretary of state. That is two eight six eight three. And follow the instructions on your rejection letter. You may be able to cure this on your phone. So text Colorado to two eight seven eight three and every single vote for Frisch there counts. Would also I add, if you're not tapped out, I know you probably are, I threw 25 bucks at Adam Frisch this morning because they are taking incoming donations on their ActBlue page, and that's what they're using to fund the drives of trying trying to track down voters who have ballots that they can cure that will be counted. That is a valid thing to do. So yeah,

0:27:42 Thomas: Wow.

0:28:12 Thomas: That's an extremely good use of money, Andrew. I'm going to go make a sizable donation literally right after we're done recording this.

0:28:19 Andrew: Bless you, Thomas, like this is a, this if I asked you how much would you be willing to pay to see Lauren Boebert no longer a member of the House of Representatives? And this

0:28:28 Thomas: I got the mortgage guys on the phone, Andrew, they're saying If I, if I do something called a reverse mortgage, I may be able to. No.

0:28:30 Andrew: Was this was not on anyone's radar. And this, by the way, is, you know, the example of what happens when, you you have an unexpectedly good night, right? Like You, you wind up with one of these seats where, you you've got a dimwit that thought they were cruising to reelection in a a gerrymandered district this this is an R plus 10 district and

0:28:38 Thomas: Yeah. Okay.

0:28:56 Thomas: I, need to ask something. This may be, I, I'm not trying to do like a contrary take. Can I ask you, Andrew, why did she lose, or might she lose? And that because all I'm seeing everywhere, oh yeah, she's terrible, oh look at her, she's okay, Marjorie Taylor Green cruised to re-election, Marjorie Taylor Green is is maybe worse, and part of me wonders if the reason she's losing is a bunch of stuff that actually, I, I think is maybe not the valid reasons for her to lose, like the drama with her partner and like the, oh she did, uh, don't explicit photos or whatever, like am I missing something, why is she losing?

0:29:30 Andrew: So the first place to start is that Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, right, Georgia's 14th, is R plus 22. OK, once you get into that territory, your district is safe regardless of candidate quality, right. We talked about this with Maryland's first district and, you know, Andy Harris. And sure enough, like, my my my colleague Heather Miser managed to cut into that lead and score about 37 percent of the vote, which is better than any Democrat has done in, you know, several decades out on the eastern shore. Thirty seven is still, you know, a ways off from 50, he's a garbage monster of the first rank. The only reason you don't hear more about him is because he is like also unable to speak properly.

0:30:17 Andrew: So. Right. And I don't mean that, you know, he has an actual disability. I mean, he just every time he opens his mouth, it's the like,

0:30:23 Thomas: It's Like Trump kool-aid and they can't even you can't understand them anymore more, yeah.

0:30:24 Andrew: Yeah, exactly. It's just it's It's complete nonsense. So, and it doesn't matter how bad he is or how good the Democratic candidate, like, he can't win in an R plus 40 district.

0:30:34 Thomas: But so but but did Marjorie Taylor Green underperform at least, or because

0:30:38 Andrew: No, Marjorie Taylor Greene did fine, right? She won 65-35 in a heavily gerrymandered district that was designed to produce that kind of result. That's because there was sort of no plausible path to victory, right, and just don't, they or there just aren't enough people there. In an R plus eight to R plus 10 district, which is Colorado's third, right? Like that's the estimate. It's a high single digit. It is enough to insulate her on the basis of candidate quality until you have such an amazing mismatch, right. Right. And you've got somebody like Adam Frisch who is willing to do the very, very hard work and get out there and really pound the district and, and build up that enthusiasm for, you know, we can yeah, do way better than this. And delightfully, this may be the seat upon which the balance of the the House of Representatives rests.

0:30:50 Thomas: I see so you're saying when there's like no possibility people just like aren't gonna bother, yeah.

0:31:33 Thomas: You say delightfully, but I just loaded it up again and she's, up up by almost 800. Little nervous, little nerve-wracking, uh, who knows, hopefully that was predicted. I, this has been a roller coaster, because because I was like, oh, she's gonna lose for sure, and then it seemed like, oh no, she's gonna win for sure, and then I saw someone who's really tracking like the county by county said they expect, as you've kind of said, that they expect Fresh to be able to win. I, fool, 800 votes in the race this tight, I'm little worried about 800 votes.

0:32:01 Andrew: Should be. But remember, what you're seeing there is 400 more votes, and that could easily be, you know, one of Cousin Jed's boxes from one of these super rural counties, right? We talked about that the start of at the show. They don't make any difference in any race that's not this close. Garfield County results are still to come in. And again, until you see that number exceeding 1,500 to 1,600, you can breathe easy.

0:32:09 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah exactly because We're gonna get a recount no matter what

0:32:31 Andrew: There's going to be a recount, breathe right? Easy is the wrong thing. But,

0:32:32 Thomas: Yeah don't have to stop breathing, yeah. And the only other thing I want to say about that is, you know, we can celebrate Bobert losing without slut shaming, uh, without doing insulting her in I've seen a lot of stuff. No, I mean, people on the left, it's frustrating. I think there are a lot of people who are on the left, but see anytime woman who's on the right, they see it as an opportunity to just kind of let their sexism come out because it's a target that people are okay with.

And I just want to let everybody know that's certainly not okay in the the OA group, um, and that's that's, I think it's pretty easy actually to celebrate this and maybe and and and even take digs at a really horrible person without a bunch of collateral damage.

So, just a, just a personal note, I mean, I saw a meme that was a, you know, somebody saying, oh, she's gonna work at fast food now, it's like, all right, the people who work at Taco Bell are literal saints, I would take them over any of you listening, don't insult fast food workers, they're the best. They provide me with a solid three crunch wrap a day diet.

0:32:36 Andrew: Right. Exactly right. Oh, God. How gross.

0:33:33 Thomas: That is the reason any of this show happens. Okay. So let's not insult the fast food workers. They're just trying to make a living.

0:33:40 Andrew: I saw that same meme and that was gross. So, all good message. Now Now let'S talk about where the republicans are right now and what they need to do to get to 218. There are 209 house seats that have been called for republicans. So Yep. They need to pick up nine. That means they can win eight.

0:33:56 Thomas: Math. Nine seats. Right. We can spot them

0:34:03 Andrew: So where are they very, very likely to win those seats? And now at this point, these are just uncalled races. So it doesn't matter if this is a Democratic defend or a pickup opportunity.

0:34:03 Thomas: Eight.

0:34:14 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:15 Andrew: It's just, does it go to the Republicans? There are only four districts as of this morning that had over 75 percent of the total vote in and had a Republican lead. And you would be surprised. So Boebert's was one of them. That race will not be called until December. OK. Arizona's second district, 82 percent of the vote in. We talked about this race on Tuesday. This is Blue Dog Democrat Tom O'Halloran defending his seat. He is down by 18,000 votes and seven and a half points. He is going to lose to lunatic Trumper Eli Crane. Just I don't see any way that that remains a seat at all.

0:34:15 Thomas: Yeah. Right.

0:34:50 Thomas: A Yeah. All

0:34:55 Andrew: Okay, that's 210. New York's 22nd District. This was in the guide. I elided over it because we were already at 90 minutes on Tuesday's episode. But if you got my show notes, and thousands of you did, you saw the write-up here. This is Francis Conole. Conole was a pickup opportunity. And as of this morning, with 95 percent in, he trails Brandon Williams, the Republican, by one and a half points. That's three thousand nine hundred and twenty five votes. And I estimate that there are about ten thousand votes outstanding. So Conole would have to win those two to one or better. And it just doesn't seem like that's going to happen. So go to 211. The last district number of votes in is Maryland'S third district. We talked about this race. And shockingly to me, Neil Parrott, the Republican, leads total wine magnate David Trone know, by 4,500 votes. That is two percentage points.

0:34:56 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:35:53 Thomas: Despite all my donations. And scotch all. Right, I'm gonna pull up an order, just, just, to yeah, it's got to help, right? I mean, okay, I'm donating to Frish and I'm, I'm spending money at Total Wine. It's gotta be the way to help this. Happen.

0:36:08 Andrew: It should be.

0:36:09 Thomas: Couldn't hurt.

0:36:09 Andrew: And that's 92% in. Now, I there are about four to five thousand votes in Montgomery County, the bluest county in Maryland, that could easily come in. If it's four thousand, thirty five hundred to five hundred for Trone. There could be another fifteen hundred mail in votes in Frederick County. So this is not a race I'm willing to write off yet. Again, I know this district. I know these candidates. It would be disharmonious with the rest of the night for this to be one of the Democrats to go down. Right.

0:36:26 Thomas: Okay. Yeah.

0:36:45 Andrew: So that being said, you'd rather be parrot than trone right now. Right? He's banked a one and a half percent lead. He's backed, forty five hundred extra votes. And there just aren't that many votes still out there. But I can't call this one just yet. So stay at 211. Then you look at where do Republicans have big leads, but they haven't been called yet by the media. And here, I don't know that there's any one, but there are a bunch of these. There's a a reason why they have not been called. So Arizona's sixth district, 67% of the vote in. We talked about this race on Tuesday as a Democratic pickup opportunity. It is Kirsten Engel versus Juan Ciscomani, uh, Ciscomani leads by 7800 votes so far. Uh, but again, a third of the vote isn't in, and 40% of the total vote in Pima County, uh, in Arizona, which is a heavily Democratic county, uh, is still out. That could be 150,000 more votes, right? That will break heavily, heavily for Engel. So can't call that one yet.

Oregon's fifth district, uh, about three quarters of the vote is in, 73%. Percent laurie chavez de reamer leads Jamie McLeod-Skinner This is a D plus two district. And, and by the way, this is another one of these where McLeod Skinner was the progressive candidate who knocked off a centrist incumbent in the primary.

0:36:57 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:10 Andrew: That is Kurt Schrader, who lost in the primary. And that's how the race has been run. Right. It's been DeRemer Chavez, DeRemer saying, you know, she's too liberal for this district. And McLeod-Skinner running is sort of a proud progressive. So I just flagging these data points because, you we lean to the progressive side.

But certainly if this winds up being a loss, this is one that institutionalist Democrats will point to and say, see, you should have let, you know schrader go on through and I don't I again I I don't don't take that right I think it is uh the responsibility of Schrader and his voters to get behind the progressive and uh vote blue no matter who uh we're flagging these on both sides um anyway uh Skinner needs to pick up 7120 votes that's a three percent margin And most of the vote that's out is in heavily Democratic areas. Is it going to be enough? I don't know. But but you can't tag it yet. Everywhere else where you have a Republican lead are six California races where you You have, remember I told you in Colorado that you you have four days for postmarked

0:38:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:17 Andrew: Bouncer. In you'll have a week.

0:39:17 Thomas: Have a long time Yeah, I

0:39:20 Andrew: Absolutely. So these are six races in California that we just will not know until next week. Now, one I feel pretty comfortable calling now, that is California's 40th. Fifty eight percent of the vote is in. And that is young Kim, who leads Asif Mahmoud by 18 points. That's 30,000 votes. It could be, you know, there's a mathematical path to victory. But Kim led, it was sparsely polled, but Kim led by 15 points in the polling, right? Like this just, that's consistent with what we saw. It's consistent with what you should expect. I'm going to give that to the Republicans. That's 212. These other districts, I don't know, man. California, 45. 56% of the votes are in. This is something you might have seen discussed on MSNBC.

0:40:06 Andrew: Incumbent freshman Republican Michelle Steele in a vulnerable district. Jay Jay Chen currently trails her by 10 points, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that that is a typical distribution, right? This is a D plus two district, even though it got redrawn a bit with the maps. Steele outraged Chen six million to four million, but that's still four million bucks as a top tier challenger, right. Right. So I'm not saying that Steele couldn't win and that, she might not even be in the driver's seat right now. Certainly, again, you'd rather be up 10 points than down. But I have reason to believe that that data is Republican. Right. And so you couldn't call that race. California, 27, just 44 percent of the vote is in. Mike Garcia leads Christy Smith, that's the Democrat, by 15. This was supposed to be a toss up.

Again, nothing suggests that that's representative sample that's coming. So it could be all of the in-person Republican votes, have built up this lead. And now we're tabulating early votes over the next week or so. We just don't know. We don't have the data. California, 22, 39% of the vote is in. This is a race we talked about on the show. David Valadao leads Rudy Salas, the Democrat, by eight. But only 29% of the vote has come in from Kern County, which is a big Democratic area. And then finally, number five of six, and you'll see why I start to say finally, California's third district. This covers where your old house used to be in Sacramento. Kevin Kiley, the Republican that leads Kermit Jones, the Democrat by six.

This is an R plus four district, but again, 44% in. There's still a lot, a lot of time left on the clock on that one. Now let's go to California 13. Exactly 50% of the vote is in, and this is a Republican lead, but let me give you the numbers.

0:40:30 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

0:41:56 Andrew: John Duarte, 34,715. Adam Gray, 34,512. So that's 200 votes with 100,000 left to come in, and this is a D plus 4 district. You've got to feel like the Democrats are likely to pull that one out. And there's one more toss-up race right now on the board in any state anywhere, that is Colorado's eighth. This is a newly created district, we talked about it on the show, uh, this is Yadira Caraveo versus Barbara Kirkmeyer. We said that Kirkmeyer had a narrow polling lead late, uh, but, but Caraveo outraised the Republican and that this was an even R-plus-zero district. And, and right now, this is a teeny tiny lead for Caraveo, for the Democrat. It's an absolute toss up.

And, you know, obviously, you would love to see the Democrats pick that up. And Thomas, I'm done. Those are, that's it. Every other race left on the board are races that the Democrats are leading and in which it is difficult to see them getting picked off. So I'll tell you about very, very quickly about the two closest ones that are under 2 percent, right, under about a percent and a half. York 18, Pat Ryan leads by eight tenths of a percent. That's 2081 votes. Almost all the votes are in. And that's close, but that looks like he's over the finish line. And California, 47, only 58 percent of the vote is in. This is Katie Porter's district.

0:42:55 Thomas: I I, yeah, I was gonna ask about Katie Porter. I, I thought she, she wasn't declared the the winner, I

0:43:32 Andrew: Not as of this morning, yeah,

0:43:34 Thomas: Well, here's the, here's the complicating factor. Now that Twitter is a complete piece of garbage, I may have seen a fake verified account that said she she won. So my bad on that. I thought I thought she already pulled it out.

0:43:47 Andrew: I don't see how they can call. She's only up by nine tenths a percent. But like Katie Porter is not going to lose this race. I, you know, she

0:43:53 Thomas: OK, good. I don't have that confidence, but yeah. Well, because didn't she get redistricted into a harder map?

0:43:59 Andrew: She did. It's a harder map It's it's absolutely, um, maybe that's too much confidence because I like Katie Porter, so much, but, but now, so here's the bottom line. If the Democrats hold in every race where they're currently leading, right, and they win both of those toss-ups, Colorado 8 and California 13, then that would leave six remaining races and they could go two for six in those races and still have a plausible path to victory to 217, right? That's it. All you have to do is pick off two of the ones where they're currently losing. So which, which are the most plausible? Again, I think the Maryland Third District, David Trone, is that's my number one pick, where, right, he could come from behind. And then you need one more come from beyond victory. And again, ask me, you know, would I, would I rather be the Republicans?

0:44:00 Thomas: Harder district. Yeah. Yeah.

0:44:54 Andrew: I'd rather be the Republicans, right. I don't want to lie to you about that, um, but could, Engel win in Arizona Six? That seems really plausible to me, right? Could McLeod-Skinner come back in Oregon? That seems plausible to me and you only need one more and that deadlocks us at 217-217 headed into the Boebert recount. And, and I gotta tell you, I, again, would rather hold the House than not, but a 218 to 217 Republican House that hinges on keeping, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, you can't lose Matt Gaetz in your coalition, so you know you Want to talk about, uh, the Democrats keeping it together with uh Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, that's that's a challenge I would not wish well, I would wish on Kevin McCarthy, having to uh try and hold together a coalition of

0:45:32 Thomas: Oh, I was going to say that this joke I was going to made led led by the brilliant political mind of Kevin McCarthy, keeping these people together, having to be majority leader drove Paul Ryan to retire. So and Paul Ryan, say what you want about Paul Ryan. I think he is a smarter and better politician than Kevin McCarthy. I don't think that's saying a whole lot, particularly. You can disagree if you want, Andrew, but I feel like that's going to be rough. I'm already seeing news. Republicans, by the way, have declared victory on the House, of course. Well, they declare victory on everything because that's how it works now. Elections aren't real to them. But plausibly have declared Victory on the house that they're going to have taken the gavel out of Pelosi's hands. And I'm seeing far right factions already challenging McCarthy. McCarthy. Who knows how much to make of that? But that's got to be a tough job. That has got to be a really a one vote majority, as you're speculating might could possibly happen for Republicans. Good luck with that.

0:45:45 Andrew: Yeah Yeah.

0:46:45 Andrew: Yeah, so, you know, so that's where we are.

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0:48:40 Thomas: Can you remind me? We're out of time, I feel, but like I know the Senate rules pretty well, we but spent, spent less time with the House, I think, because it tends to be more straightforward usually. Is it the kind of thing where, let's say, McCarthy is majority leader, hypothetically, even though I'm really hoping you've got me all optimistic. I genuinely am optimistic. I feel like there's a good chance that Democrats could, could hold them off. But let's say McCarthy ends up being majority leader. Is it the kind of thing where if we get a bill passed in the Senate, McCarthy can even keep it from coming up for debate at all? Or do the rules allow for, like, let's say we pick off, you know, again, one Republican in the House would give us back a majority of votes, hypothetrically. Are they, if we were to do that, let's say we've got 218 who want to vote for a thing, is the House majority leader able to just keep that from coming up to a vote, right?

0:49:30 Andrew: Great question. I love ending on this because the answer to that is debate time in the House of Representatives is fixed, has always been fixed by rule. And so you cannot delay indefinitely, you can always make a motion for the previous question. That's the Robert's Rules of Order term for "I am going to call for a vote right now." And it is always in order, except under certain bizarre circumstances. And you just say, "move the previous question," and and then call for it, division, which means, you know, you actually have the, you know, number vote that you know attested, because when you move the the previous question, you get the yeas and nays, right, and you get, the in the opinion of the chair, you know, the eyes have it because you screamed louder Uh, Then You call for division, and that means everybody's got to come up and cast their vote individually, and so yeah, you can do that at any time if you have picked off one Republican, that is correct, correct.

0:50:14 Thomas: Right. Yeah, stupidest thing in politics. But yeah, oh, Wow, so it's almost like it works how, you it should work, and there wasn't some historical accident that created the stupid filibuster, like, like in the Senate, shouldn't it? The founding fathers did not design it that way. Anyway. Okay. Well, I'll let us go.

0:50:39 Andrew: On All of that, yes, so

0:50:41 Thomas: Well, that is, that's, you know, that's encouraging, worst case now feels like still is just a very slim majority for Republicans, you know? Worst case at this point.

0:50:51 Andrew: So Let me tell you, uh, the the potential, potential downside of the Republicans controlling the House and They're really

0:50:56 Thomas: Oh, there's a lot of them.

0:50:57 Andrew: Yeah Lot of that we have baked in already, like you Know, there's going to be a select committee to Investigate The Pornography on Hunter Biden's laptop and crap like that, and we know that that's coming. Here's a hidden advantage that you get when you control the House, that, that actually worked its way into the very last infrastructure bill that passed in the lame duck session under President Trump in 2020. And that is the composition of House committees. Right. So even with a one vote majority, every committee in the House of Representatives will get at least one more Republican than Democrat, because you can serve on multiple

0:51:00 Thomas: Yeah. Hunter Biden's laptop. Yeah, Yeah.

0:51:37 Thomas: Oh,

0:51:37 Andrew: Committees.

0:51:37 Thomas: Dang.

0:51:37 Andrew: Yep. And so they'll be doing the first draft of the writing in particularly in crucial committees. And so when you go into reconciliation on particularly on the budget, to have it's just going to be a lot of uphill lifting with a lot of like garbage that the Republicans are going to write in and you're not going to be able to sneak through the kind of stuff that Democrats were able to sneak through into into the last COVID relief bill. For example, like highlighted we how, you know, how did how did Donald Trump sign like ten million dollars for tribal relief?

0:52:06 Thomas: All right. Yeah.

0:52:11 Andrew: Well, the answer was because, you Know, yeah. So that

0:52:12 Thomas: Well, Trump Republicans are not the smartest students in the classroom, we'll just say. They're not the most well-read House members, I imagine.

0:52:17 Andrew: That is very true. But But it does mean that it's going to be more work. So, you KNOW, fortunately, we had a lot of Democrats who are up for working hard.

0:52:24 Thomas: Yeah, we I mean, look at Porter. We just were talking about one of the hardest working people in politics, Katie Porter, order right?

0:52:32 Andrew: And and remember, unlike the Senate. Right. If there is a House vacancy, if somebody retires or something else, you causes them to leave their job, you have to schedule a special election for that. Like you don't get to appoint a brand new member of the House of Representatives.

0:52:50 Thomas: So do you just pass stuff with any majority, or does it have to be 218? Yeah.

0:52:53 Andrew: Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, you can you can pass stuff with with a plurality of the overall composition of the house. So, yeah, you could pass things, you know, 205 to 150.

0:53:01 Thomas: Wow. Oh. I love it. Okay, so lots of reasons for optimism. Just wow, what a day. I mean, there's so much more we could talk about, didn't. It's kind of good we skipped the bad stuff because, you know, we deserve some good news. Florida was just terrible, terrible news. We'll talk about it at a later date.

0:53:14 Andrew: We We'll be talking about that a

0:53:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and we could also, you know, there's... we need a lot more information too. I mean, there's a lot of interesting trends, interesting theories coming out of this, but there's lot more data to come in still, a lot more analysis to be done. So, I'm sure we'll talk about what happened, why it happened, and what we can learn from it. But what a good day, really, relative to expectations, relative to history. I mean, a historic midterm election, right? Right?

0:53:19 Andrew: Lot. Yeah, if You had said to anyone that we would have, you know, the highest inflation in a century, that we would have a sort of year of massive underperformance, right? Had both a bear market for stocks and a bear market for bonds which, you know, scrambled a lot of folks' retirement, you know, 401(k)'s. You, so record high inflation, relatively poor performance at the stock market, a sitting incumbent president whose approval ratings are about 10 points underwater. That, that, is the kind of thing that loses you 60, 60 seats.

0:54:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:18 Andrew: Right. I talked about this at at some length on the Monday episode of Skeptocrat. But there's a reason why if you if you haven't heard that or you need us to go over it. Right? Like, there was a reason why people are saying, this is historic staving off the red wave. Really is like presidents in these situations. Again, it's not fair, but they get killed, they lose, you know, the last time in 2010, Democrats lost eight seats in the Senate and almost 60 seats in the House. Same thing happened to Bill Clinton in 1994. Like, it's just a massive overcorrection. It always happens. And the fact that it didn't, I put on the back of one thing, and this is how I would summarize it, and it's why I feel comfortable coming in and spending. Again, look, like, you know, our optimistic case is still it's probably two to one Republicans do take the House, right? Like that's probably where the sheaf of probabilities lie. The reason I want to infect all of you with my optimism today is countered this, right, what counterred the weight of history was, in my view, two things.

0:54:18 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm.

0:55:18 Andrew: And it was, number one, a rejection of Trumpian authoritarianism, election denialism, skepticism, that kind of crap. And number two, we need to do a better and more vigorous job, women voters and voters who prioritized the fact that we saw a Supreme Court engineered on a 50-year plan by Republicans to deprive people of their right to an abortion, of their rights to control their own bodies and plan their families and make the most intimate personal decisions.

0:55:25 Thomas: Election denial. Yeah, yeah.

0:55:35 Thomas: Young voters.

0:55:53 Thomas: Yep.

0:55:53 Andrew: Those trends aren't going away, right? If you're real mad about the Supreme Court and the Dobbs decision in 2022, you're going to be real mad in 2024, right?

0:56:03 Thomas: And I think it'll be a lesson. Again, we were I was just in the middle of saying this is stuff we're going to talk about later. But no, I get it. That's I agree with those answers. I also think it should tell us what to run on in 2024. You know, run proactively on what you are going to do about abortion in this country on. And I know Biden did that somewhat. He said, give me two senators and I'll, you we'll pass a national codification of Roe. More of that.

0:56:13 Andrew: It should.

0:56:25 Andrew: Well, we could give them one.

0:56:27 Thomas: Yeah, more of that, so well said, Andrew. Again, knocked it out of the park on Monday's episode. I think you can take a little victory lap. So good, so much more to talk about, but we'll just have to leave it there for now and really get back to it. I'm sure there will be much more analysis.

0:56:43 Andrew: Absolutely.

0:56:44 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:56:50 Thomas: Now it's time for T3BE Thomas takes the bar exam. Each week I attempt to answer a bar question using only what I've learned from the world's best teacher, Andrew Torres. So let's see if I can do it on this weird book. Let's go.

0:57:02 Andrew: All right, Thomas. A farmer asked a grocery distributor for an application to supply onions to the distributor and filled it out. The farmer addressed it correctly, then mailed it first class to the address provided on the form. Two months have passed and the farmer has heard nothing further from the distributor. Has the farmer's offer elapsed? A. If the farmer indicates that it has lapsed, yes. B. Ifthe distributor indicates that ithas lapsed.

0:57:32 Andrew: Yes. C. If If the farmer accepts the offer, yes.

0:57:32 Thomas: Oh boy. What?

0:57:37 Andrew: Or D, if the distributor determines that the first-class mailing was inadequate, yes All

0:57:41 Thomas: Oh my God. This test. Test, oh, this test. Postal law, everybody, these ones always get me. Contract. Postal contract law. All right, let's see what we can make of this. So the farmer asked the grocery distributor for an application, so we're talking about an application, okay, so that's not like a signed contract kind of thing, to supply onions to the distributor and filled it out. Farmer addressed it correctly, mailed it first class to the address provided on the form. Two months have passed and the farmer has heard nothing further from the distributor. Has the farmer's offer lapsed? Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So, the concerns I see here is like, they haven't agreed to anything, but like it's an application. So you, you know, the, the trouble would be, well, the farmer, you know, that you waited too long.

0:58:31 Thomas: So the farmer sold his onions to somebody else. And then, you Know, the distributor comes back and is like, Oh, Hey, we got your form. You have a deal. And so I think for that reason, you would really want to know how long this offer can last. Is there a time limit or is it the kind of thing where the farmer needs to rescind the offer? That could be, I could see both those those things being true? Or is it the kind of thing where, because this was merely an application to supply onions, doesn't give us the details of that. It doesn't tell us, the application dictate how many, what price? It doesn'T really tell us. So I'm not sure how much of a contract-y thing that is. That's something that I find hard to remember, all the rules on that. At what point have you committed yourself to your side of the contract? Is an application enough to do that?

0:59:16 Thomas: All right. All those concerns in mind, has the farmer's offer lapsed after two months here? A, if the farmer indicates that it has lapsed, yes. Okay. That's a totally reasonable answer. A is a strong contender. B, if The Distributor indicates that it has lapse, yes, I'm going to say no. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I think B is a no. Don't think The Distributor would be the one in charge of that decision. That would seem like a weird system. I mean, it's not impossible, I guess, but I, you know, is this farmer going to be on the hook for like 10 years because the distributor never will be willing to say like, yeah, your offer lapsed? I don't know. I think B is a no. C, if the farmer accepts the offer, what?

1:00:03 Thomas: Hold I don'T, there's not even an offer. What is the offer that? I think C is word salad. I'm hoping. So I think C is a firm no. That makes no sense. So, all right, we're down to our final other possibility here. D, if determines that the first class mailing was inadequate. Yes. What?

1:00:24 Thomas: Boy. Don't, I don't see how that could be possible. That just makes no sense. There's oh boy. I guess I'm between A and D because D is so baffling that maybe it's a trick question, but I, I hate I, it because I feel like this was, you know, maybe two in a row that are easy ones. And this, this, book just has me on pins and I'm just, I'm so suspicious there's a trick, but It's think this may be just another super easy one. Um, A. So I'm going with the A final answer, and I will be really curious to hear why, if wrong why, um, D I think is my second chance answer, but I'm going A.

1:00:56 Andrew: Right, and if you want to play along with Thomas, you know how to do that Just share up this episode on social media Include the hashtag T3BE Include your guess, your reasons, therefore And we will pick a winner And who knows if we'll be able to pick a winter by Twitter anymore But we will shower that winter with never-ending fame and fortune I'm, unfortunately, not guaranteed.

1:01:11 Thomas: Good point. Yeah, and

1:01:18 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

1:01:20 Thomas: Now it's time to thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law and Andrew. We've got quite a list this week, thank you so much, new patrons. Um, there's going to be a lot of movies coming at you real soon, hopefully, that'll be another reward. Law'd Awful Movies, I think we'll say now, uh, because I just, I see how many patrons have recently pledged and I'm so grateful and I want to give them the goodies right away.

So the ad-free episodes, you get those right away, the ability to ask questions on the Q&A thread for the Q&A on Wednesday the 16th at 4pm Pacific, that's a benefit you get right away, and like I said, Law'd Awful Movies should be coming up something like a week, maybe a week and a half, so that'll be a benefit you gets.

So thank you new patrons, I'll start us off, thank you to Matthew Homentosky, Bryan Koepp, Invisible White House Notary, Steve Cusick, Daniel Lipton, jeanlass, Aaron Boyd, They call me Fieryone, cause I'm Fieryious about the state of US Politics!, I don't know, sorry, Ty Golden, Michael Klein, Natasha Zieroth-Chaumont, Tammy Foltz-Ferguson, DEBORAH WARREN, Kathryn Dodge, A court reporter doesn't court reporters. Gus the Dog, ed balme, Alex Deeley, tara s, Benjamin Page, Ben Agre, Sharon Flynn, The pirated NFT of Roger Stone's Presidential Pardon. That's a good one. Emil L, John Fowler, Trent Hibbard, Heather Fliss, crying at brunch is just emotion in lemonade, Doug Duggerson, Heather Micheel,

1:02:53 Thomas: Rachel Knight, Ryan Flannery, Meaghen Friel, and infidelSawyer. All right, your turn, Andrew.

1:03:01 Andrew: All right. Well, how about a big thank you to Michael Stansky, Stephen Beveridge, Louie R LeFlore. Sometimes you own the libs and sometimes the libs own you.

1:03:13 Andrew: Theo Lotion, Jerry Goodridge, Robert McKenzie, Mira, Garrett Chomka, kyle knox.

1:03:50 Andrew: Just Joe from the UK, well, you'll, you'll always be a special Joe from the UK for us. Megan Sage, thank you all so much for supporting us over at patreon.com/law, uh,

1:04:02 Thomas: And that's our show. I'm still fantastic, Andrew, I can't wait for the, the recount, there's so much to do. Hey, another reminder to me, as well as everyone listening, go donate to that Frisch. Where? Where do we find the thing I'm donating to Andrew of his Twitter?

1:04:15 Andrew: It's Adam Frisch and, uh, he's got a pin to the top of Adam for Colorado on Twitter, yeah

1:04:21 Thomas: Okay. I'm going there right now and everybody do that as well. That's That's a good cause. So what a great election day. Pat yourselves on the back. If you voted, if you organized, if he kept the energy up, well done, and we'll see you next time.

1:04:35 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

1:05:08 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.