Concluding his tenure as Fox News Radio's post-election analyst, President John Pudner traveled down south to Dallas, Texas, a few hours north of historically-Latino Webb County, who flipped toward President Trump and Republicans for the first time in over one-hundred years, marking another sign of the historic shifts that occurred across our Republic during this election cycle.
However, as Pudner and hosts Carla and Ernie surmise, this was more so a repudiation of the last four years of a Biden Administration whose mandate wore thin in record time. According to CNN's exit polls taken during Election Day, 72% of voters were disasistifed with the current direction of our Republic, with nearly half stating their family's financial situation is worse off than four years ago, 58% disapproving of President Biden's job performance, and 68% stating the status of our economy now is not good or poor. This, alongside clear, succinct, vintage messaging from the Trump campaign - "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" - made for a tough cycle for Biden allies to contend with.
Pudner summarizes how, despite the long, complicated journey marked by alliances, strategic positioning, and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, a Harris presidential candidacy still in its infancy amidst a historic last-minute change, coupled with these factors, all but cemented the fate of Democrats up and down the ticket before a ballot was even cast.
Carla Marion: 00:00
John, good morning. What do you make of this win?
John Pudner: 00:04
Well, I’ll tell you, the pollsters who kept saying this was a tie race were off. In the last few weeks, Trump had clearly broken away. If you understand how campaigns work, the voter registration had shifted by hundreds of thousands in favor of Republicans, and the early vote had shifted heavily as well. When that happens, it carries through to Election Day. We actually went on air and went public last week, predicting all 50 states correctly, and we called it 312 to 226. And that’s exactly how it turned out. I think it was baked in during the last couple of weeks.
Ernie Brown: 00:36
It seems like I was just looking at the map, and they’re getting close to finalizing the results in some states, but I’m surprised some haven’t been called yet, especially Michigan, where 97% of the vote is counted but they still haven’t called it.
John Pudner: 00:51
It’s amazing. They’re always cautious, even Fox News is being really careful. But I was watching one of the liberals explaining why they hadn’t called Wisconsin yet. They said there were 100,000 or maybe hundreds of thousands of votes left in Milwaukee, and she would need to win 95% of those to catch up. But of course, that wasn’t going to happen. MSNBC was saying something similar—that if there are any votes left that are not 100% one way, they won’t call it. They’ve got to loosen up on that. This is going to be 312 for Trump.
Carla Marion: 01:31
Do you think this points to the fact that maybe elections can't be bought or manipulated by the media? Maybe people have finally had enough, and they’re done with the name-calling and the rhetoric, and now it's time to get down to business?
John Pudner: 01:48
That’s right. There are diminishing returns on these kinds of things. You spend the most money on the most important aspects first, but after that, the returns start to drop off. Don’t get me wrong, anyone running a campaign would love to have more money, but at some point, they just didn’t have a message. I thought the radio ad Charlemagne the God did on transgender surgeries in prisons was really effective. If they had run that a few more times, it would’ve worked for Trump. But that final slogan—“Let’s get to work”—was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I don’t care if you spend a billion dollars on it. Trump’s message, “Trump will fix it,” made perfect sense. But the other side just had nothing to offer in the final weeks.
Ernie Brown: 02:38
Given that Kamala Harris didn’t really run in the primaries, do you think that if Joe Biden had stepped aside last December, Kamala would have been the eventual nominee, or would someone else have emerged?
John Pudner: 02:53
It would’ve been tough for her. I thought she did fairly well in the debates and had some qualities that could appeal to Democrats, but I also felt sorry for her at times. When she gave that speech on unity and Biden called us all "garbage" in the middle of it, I really felt sorry for her. What else could go wrong? In the end, it was the Biden administration that lost. It wasn’t necessarily her fault, but they had a terrible record. They didn’t accomplish much, and now everyone’s paying more for food and gas. I think if you’re part of that administration, it’s hard to win the election.
Ernie Brown: 03:38
This is John Pudner. John, thank you so much for coming on.