"Lesser of Two Evils" Drinking Game (with Natalie Allison)
The Focus Group Podcast
The Bulwark
4.8 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 24 September 2022
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Republicans may be losing one of their best pickup opportunities in the Senate after they nominated a MAGA weirdo to run against an astronaut in Arizona. POLITICO Senate campaigns reporter Natalie Allison joins Sarah to listen to a group of Arizona swing voters and what they think of their choices.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bullwork, and this week we're talking about Arizona, |
| 0:18.8 | where Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans have a grand canyon-sized candidate quality problem. |
| 0:25.0 | Now, we recorded this episode before the news broke that Mitch McConnell and the Senate |
| 0:29.5 | Leadership Fund are pulling all of their money out of the Blake Masters race. |
| 0:34.0 | So some of the conversation I had with our guest today about |
| 0:37.4 | Masters fundraising issues doesn't take that into account. |
| 0:40.4 | Most of the people in the focus group you're about to hear voted for |
| 0:44.0 | Joe Biden after voting for Donald Trump in 2016. And that means that they help |
| 0:49.4 | put Biden over the top in Arizona by around 10,000 votes. It's not a lot. |
| 0:55.0 | Arizona is one of the most important states for both 2022 and 2024. |
| 1:00.0 | Right now, Senator Mark Kelly is trying to win a full term against Masters, who I think is a bit of a MAGA weirdo. |
| 1:08.0 | My guest today is Natalie Allison, Senate Campaign's reporter at Politico. |
| 1:13.0 | We have featured her reporting on this podcast before. |
| 1:15.8 | Natalie, thanks so much for being here. |
| 1:17.8 | Yeah, thanks for having me, sir. |
| 1:19.6 | I'll just say up front, you do not have to subscribe to my way of describing these candidates but you I probably |
| 1:26.0 | won't do that yeah I believe that so tell me have you been able to get out on the trail in Arizona? |
| 1:33.4 | And if you have sort of what's jumped out |
| 1:35.2 | at you about these races or even listening to these groups? |
| 1:38.7 | Well, not to tip my hand too much, |
| 1:40.4 | but I'm planning a trip out there. |
| 1:42.1 | Unfortunately, I did not make it out in the primary, |
... |
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