Launching his latest radio tour across our Republic, this time as Fox News Radio's official post-election analyst, President John Pudner called into Memphis, Tennessee, to begin his full post-mortem on the 2024 Presidential Election between 45th and 47th President Donald Trump and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, in what ended up becoming the most anticipated and polarizing political contest in modern American history.
The election, marred by surprise shocks to the system alongside ever-changing political landscapes, offered voters a stark choice between two distinct visions—one rooted in common-sense populism (Trump), the other an established, yet boundary-pushing progressivism (Harris), and in the first Republican Electoral College and popular vote victory since President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, voters clearly voiced their preference more so than in any other cycle in recent memory. From blue-collar economic backlash, to opposition to woke culture wars, to hard-line immigration enforcement, Trump's victory has not only led a common-sense revolution, but a political realignment that has changed American politics forever, consolidating support among Latino voters, particularly in Florida and Texas, and Black men, particularly in urban cities.
As Pudner and hosts Ditch and Tim Van Horn summize, the 2024 election reflected an energized, disillusioned electorate who felt disconnected, forgotten, and taken for granted by their elected officials in Washington, the confirmation that the era of Trump-ism has and continues to reign supreme, and a Republic ready to take it's first steps toward what it hopes to be a brighter, more prosperous future under a second Trump Administration.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Trump victory, early voting, Republican registration, black men support, suburban women, abortion amendment, pro-life exceptions, economic issues, transgender policies, price gouging, rural vote, urban vote, Florida results, Midwest blue wall, election strategy
SPEAKERS
Tim Van Horn, Ditch, and TBOR Action President John Pudner
Ditch: 00:00
John Pudner is with us. Hey, Pudner, how you doing this morning? Did you get some sleep last night?
John Pudner: 00:02
Good! Actually, I have not slept, but it was a great night.
Tim Van Horn: 00:08
Yeah, we're high on adrenaline and a couple of cups of coffee this morning. Well, let’s lay this out from last night. Trump is projected to win, many of the networks have him at 277 electoral votes, with some outstanding votes, and it looks like he gonna pick up even more. Let's talk about the layout of the night. What was your experience watching it all unfold?
John Pudner: 00:40
It's almost assuredly going to be 312. I did something I’ve never done before. Last week, we published a state-by-state prediction, and we actually picked all 50 states correctly. I really think this thing has been wrapped up for three weeks. You could see it, and it had nothing to do with polling, the polls were just so off this year, but there was a huge increase in Republican voter registration, and new voters vote people - those people always show up to vote. The early vote was another key. I had Republicans winning the early vote in key states, not by a lot, but still enough to make a difference. Republicans were millions of votes behind the last two times, but not this one, and last week, I called it 312 to 226, and I think that’s where it’ll land. The race has been over for weeks.
Tim Van Horn: 01:36
That’s incredible because it sure is hard when you don't have the numbers and experience, and how the mainstream media was pushing the narrative that it was going to be razor-thin, then making it tough to stay the course when you're bombarded with that, but it sounds like you absolutely stayed the course there. Let’s talk about Florida, incredible night for Trump, especially in counties that many thought he wouldn’t win.
John Pudner: 02:13
Absolutely. We knew Trump was a great rural candidate. He’s brought a lot of the rural vote home, even in places that used to be solidly Democrat. But, what really stood out was his performance among Black men, which we started seeing as an early indicator. Black men were shifting toward Trump, and sure enough, we saw over a quarter of Black men voting for him in Georgia. That's what we kept seeing everywhere and that’s a significant shift in urban areas. The other thing that was interesting is that he held as strong with suburban women as last time, with the assumption being a big drop after the Dobbs decision. But, some of the concerns, like men in women's sports, safety, seemed to balance off the abortion debate for many suburban voters. Trump really broke through in all three voter groups: urban, rural, and suburban.
Tim Van Horn: 03:18
Florida’s knocking down that abortion amendment, do you think that was a bellwether?
John Pudner: 03:27
It had to be. The pro-life side hasn’t won any of these things, and I’ve been involved in the movement for many years, and I kept saying that the day Roe was overturned, you're going to have to allow politicians to make exceptions. It’s fine to say you're 100% when you can't do anything, but you need to at least allow for exceptions like rape or incest, and the fact Republicans ignored that in 2022 made the situation so much worse because the reaction was to go the complete other way. In Wisconsin, we proposed something to simply knock the law down from 24 weeks to 12 weeks in a public referenda. Florida's was fairly absolute, however, so at least a win on the abortion amendment is a big step. You got to see what you can win and take to the people and I think it gives a pathway for other states that'd like to be more pro-life, but there is only a certain level you can go to in this climate.
Tim Van Horn: 04:48
Let’s move up to the Midwest, specifically Pennsylvania. Was that just a matter of hard work, rolling up the sleeves... What was the secret sauce? What was the groundwork Trump laid out on this?
John Pudner: 05:12
You can’t ignore the shift in Black men. For all the polling that was out there—most of it was garbage—there was a breakthrough poll last week from Echelon Insights, a really good firm, that had Trump up by six in Pennsylvania. I called the head of the firm and said, “You’re really going out on a limb.” He said, “No, I'll tell you why it’s true. What we’re seeing is that Black men, throughout the South, fewer were willing to vote for her. They were either gonna take a pass or vote Trump, and every time I see that in the South, it’s also playing out in places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit." He stood by it, got abused for it, but that was really the key seismic shift, and if Democrats couldn't win over Black voters in inner cities, they’d be in trouble.
Tim Van Horn: 06:15
How much do you think the economy played into this?
John Pudner: 06:23
Huge. This was front and center, and people could clearly get it when their bills are higher, when they can’t afford a home, when groceries and gas were eating into their budgets. I think the one non-economic issue was just the aggressive transgender stuff. There was no way to say that wasn't liberal, and I'm talking in women's locker rooms, surgery on kids...I mean, at least you had liberal economists trying to cover for them, but that one, it was her own words, and so that was the other issue, but the economy was the top.
Ditch: 07:10
And on the economy, her only plan was to create some kind of price-gouging law, which no one bought into. That’s not the problem, lady!
John Pudner: 07:27
Right. Grocery stores have a 1% profit margin, so are you going there? Are you going to stores like that where it is so tight to make just $0.10 a square foot? Food is not the place to focus on that. Might be other areas, but that certainly isn't one.
Tim Van Horn: 07:52
John, you’ve been an integral part of our coverage throughout the election cycle, and we really appreciate all your contributions!
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