WTH Are Americans Thinking About November? Mark Penn Explains His Newest Data
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2024
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Super Tuesday wrapped up as predicted, with Trump sweeping the GOP win and Haley dropping out. Barring a meteorite, this means we are locked into a Trump-Biden rematch. But the newest Harvard-Harris CAPS poll reveals an America that is not as certain as primary voting behavior suggests – overwhelmingly, they profess a desire for a non-Biden non-Trump choice at the polls. For voters, immigration has become a national priority, even in states (Alaska) that are nowhere close to the southern border. Meanwhile, inflation, which affects everyone, has moved farther down in voters’ anxieties. And then there’s the large majority of voters who are comfortable marking on a poll that they believe Trump is a felon or that Biden is incompetent, but then vote for them anyway. This week, we try to get some clarity about these puzzling contradictions.
Mark Penn is the chairman of the Harris Poll, as well as leading research companies including the National Research Group, Harris Insights & Analytics and HarrisX. He is the co-founder of the Harvard-Harris Poll, a monthly poll on key public opinion topics crucial to Americans like taxes and healthcare. He's also the president and managing partner of the Stagwell Group, a private equity fund. He previously held senior executive roles with Microsoft, WPP, and senior strategic roles on electoral campaigns for President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:03.1 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell he's talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. Hotels gone on. |
| 0:01.0 | Who in God's name |
| 0:21.7 | knows what it's all about. I'm Daniel Pletka. I'm Mark Tieson. Welcome to our podcast. What the |
| 0:33.8 | hell is going on? Mark, is there anything new the hell going on? |
| 0:38.8 | What the hell is going on is it looks like the polls are coming in and the vast majority of |
| 0:44.2 | Americans do not want a Trump-Biden rematch and they're going to get one anyway. |
| 0:49.7 | It's where we're headed. |
| 0:51.1 | It's just mind-blowing, isn't it? |
| 0:52.9 | It is. It is. You know, the American people don't get |
| 0:55.8 | their say, I guess, in terms of picking each other party's candidates, but they sure will get |
| 1:00.6 | a say in November. And so we're trying to figure out what the hell is going to happen in November. |
| 1:06.3 | And, you know, when you have an election like this where people don't like either candidate, don't want either candidate, they have a lot of contradictory views. |
| 1:14.8 | And Mark Penn, he runs the Harvard Capp's Harris poll, I think, is one of the most interesting pollsters out there because he asks questions that nobody else is asking and gets answers that nobody else is getting. |
| 1:26.1 | But he's got a new poll out, and it shows that 56% of Americans think Donald Trump has |
| 1:32.5 | committed crimes for which he should be convicted. |
| 1:34.5 | 56% think he'll be a dictator. |
| 1:36.7 | 50% think he's a threat to democracy, and 53% are going to vote for him over to 47% for |
| 1:43.0 | Biden. |
| 1:43.5 | So he beats Biden by six points. |
| 1:45.8 | That's where America is. That's a snapshot of the good old USA in 2024, Danny. |
| 1:50.8 | It's schizo. It just is. And look, you know, I mean, I understand, and Mark talks about this |
... |
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