President John Pudner headed back up to Champaign, Illinois, on his way back to Milwaukee as he concluded his recent radio tour across our Republic analyzing the state of the race, how early voting has changed the game, and why conservative candidates and non-profits must put a renewed emphasis on early turnout in order to win this fall.
A topic especially relevant in the Prairie State given the 512,000 early vote lead Democrats had statewide in 2022, as well as Governor J.B.Pritzker’s well-documented large money efforts to influence elections, including $24 million to the Democratic Governors Association to fund ads that helped nominate his preferred GOP opponent in 2022, Pudner discusses how the rules that govern elections in key swing states have changed, how liberal figureheads have taken firm advantage of these rules, and why conservatives must embrace this new political future and, instead of sitting out the game in protest, get their head in, adapt, and play to win.
Both Pudner and host Stevie Jay also analyze not only how the next President could be decided by this, with key battleground states across our Republic showing former President Trump and President Biden neck-and-neck in polling, as well as the newly-enacted election rules in those states encoruaging early voting and ballot harvesting efforts, but also how Trump’s VP pick could be influenced by this as well as the candidate aims to both unite his party and put his campaign in pole position well before November 5th.
For more in-depth analysis by President John Pudner on this topic, please click here. To learn more about TBOR Action's efforts on topics including election integrity, please click here.
The following transcript from this interview is presented in its entirety with minor edits:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
early vote, Trump, Republicans, election, doors, win, Vice President
SPEAKERS
Stevie Jay and TBOR Action President John Pudner
Stevie Jay 00:00
The president of Take Back Our Republic Action, who was a Bush 2000 aide, and the only person in United States history to run a campaign defeating a majority leader in a primary. He is Mr. John Pudner, who escaped the Swamp and is happily living in Milwaukee. How are you, John?
John Pudner 00:17
Great to be here.
Stevie Jay 00:19
Good to have you back. Okay, so we went from voting day to election season. How does that affect the 2024 election, Mr. Pudner?
John Pudner 00:29
Well, it's a big factor. I mean, we're right there in Illinois, not that it's a swing state, but you went into the midterms on Election Day with Democrats having a 512,000 vote edge when the Election Day vote was barely even in the Senate race, so it's a huge factor, because Democrats are only winning through a couple of modes - on-campus voting with there is same-day registration and early voting. Other than that, Republicans win by wide margins in all these battlegrounds.
Stevie Jay 00:56
Why not, then, focus on the dates for early voting?
John Pudner 01:01
That is what they really need to do. Non-profits do turnout as well as parties because there's a model for it. Florida used to be the ultimate swing state. It's not anymore, it's double-digit Republican wins, for one reason - the Republicans cast 300,000 more early votes than the Democrats in 2022. They've just been very good at doing it and you got to play by the rules that are in front of you. You can try to change them once you win, but you'd have to play by the rules that are there, and it's almost like sitting out the first half of a football game saying football should only be 30 minutes and then only playing the second half. You can't just go in with these margins.
Stevie Jay 01:41
Why aren't the Republicans very good at it, John?
John Pudner 01:46
There's just a lot of resistance to it, and I understand the reaction, but I was on national radio in July of 2020 talking about how the aversion to voting early could cost Trump Pennsylvania, and I did explain that there was this kind of misunderstanding with what he's saying. He's expressing concern about things such as Nevada, where they are mailing live ballots to everyone in the state, which was a huge fraud issue, but they're going the extra step to say I shouldn't be voting early. In a lot of cases, like Pennsylvania, there used to be a real early Republican vote. In 2020, they sort of thought they weren't supposed to and everyone is supposed to get there on Election Day, and if you have health issues, or get called out of town on business a lot, it's just a risk the longer you don't vote.
Stevie Jay 02:34
So what's going to happen, and finally, John Pudner on the phone line, is going to tell me who Trump's Vice President is going to be, Mr. Pudner.
John Pudner 02:43
You try to get me with this every time! If I were to say someone and it get publicized, I would instantly be scratched OFF the list because he does not like anyone predicting who is the VP. I'm not gonna give you the kiss of death for somebody.
Stevie Jay 02:58
It's a small circle at this point. I'm seeing the North Dakota Governor a lot. I think probably...I don't know who else is even hot. I mean, I like Ben Carson, I don't know what he does, but everybody likes him.
John Pudner 03:18
He's just been steady. He's kind of your VP who will never upstage the President, which is something that's important to a lot of Presidents, you don't want a VP who is out there taking the spotlight from you, you want one who is delivering votes, so he's certainly a good one, and as you said, Noem in South Dakota is certainly on the list. We'll have to see.
Stevie Jay 03:43
Final question is the Vice President, for the first time in the history of our country, said the F word in public, and I'm not sure what the point was, but Kamala Harris said kick in the freaking door. I don't get what the point was to that? Appeal to the, "Oh, they're cool! They said the F word!", what was that?
John Pudner 04:04
Yeah, I don't know, because there's obviously panic over the younger vote, and now you're saying over 20% of the black vote is for Trump now? I mean, there's some real panic going on there, I don't know if that's an attempt to be hip or something, but I'm not sure that's the way to go.
Stevie Jay 04:23
No, it's not the way to go. And, if you want to start that, why don't you just start the Let's Go Brandon chant, what do you think? First of all, I didn't even get what she was saying. She said if somebody opened the door for you, and then you have to kick in the effing door, and I'm going she should say that if somebody shuts the door in your face, then you have to...I didn't even understand what she was saying! And how can you be less popular than this President? WHAT?
John Pudner 04:49
That's an issue. You want someone who's raised us up, so not sure she's serving the ticket well.
Stevie Jay 05:00
Hey John, if they called you at the White House, would you hang up? Would you say I can't help you? I mean, it's a paying gig here....Really, I don't know what they do. At this point politically, with all this going on with Gaza and Israel everything, what would you advise?
John Pudner 05:18
Well, I don't know. The closest I came was interning in a US Senator's office in Congress when I was in college, so yeah, handling constituent calls is tough enough, but boy, with everything he's got going against him, those have to be tough calls.
Stevie Jay 05:32
It's John Pudner, president of Take Back Our Republic Action, how can people find you, John?
John Pudner 05:38
takebackaction.org is the best way to start!
Stevie Jay 05:43
Hey, appreciate your time as always.