USA election 2024
Usa election race
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00:00Welcome back everyone here to live now from Fox. Well, the race is on to the White House
00:05as we will continue to bring you the latest really from both camps, Donald Trump and Kamala
00:11Harris as we all get closer to election day coming up in November. But right now we wanna talk about
00:19where they sit right now in the polls concerning the battleground states in focus that each one of
00:25them will desperately need if they want to claim the White House come up in November.
00:32So I wanna bring in our next guest here of this hour. Frank Luntz joins us pollster
00:37as well as communication strategist. Thanks so much for joining us on live now.
00:41Thank you for having me and I have to say at the outset that it was very interesting
00:47times over the last 30 days to see the Democrats dump Joe Biden,
00:53coronate Kamala Harris and that coronation was very successful.
00:59But I know we're gonna talk about convention bounces and where things are.
01:03I wish I could tell you that it's clear what's gonna happen, but it's not.
01:08Even the debate on September 10th as you showed briefly, even that's up in the air.
01:14I do not remember a time in my life where it has been so close and where seven states
01:20are gonna determine what happens to the other 43.
01:23Yeah, that's so true. And let's talk a little bit about this debate that just
01:28seems to keep going back and forth there. We heard Donald Trump today at this news
01:33conference type of setting talking about that. He doesn't mind if the mics are on or off or what.
01:40So it seems like that one should just go on. But where are we at right there with the Harris camp?
01:47Well, it's not clear about what she's gonna do. And I'm not surprised
01:52when the debate is gonna be this important. And it's truly gonna be the most important day in
01:57the election other than when Joe Biden and Donald Trump faced off and it cost Joe Biden's political
02:04career, the end of his career. These details really do matter. Whether you stand or sit
02:11is an advantage. Whether you have two minute responses or just 60 seconds,
02:17each one of these decisions will have an impact on whether or not voters at home
02:23respond to how the candidates do. Whether or not you have open microphones.
02:28So they seem like it's negligible, like it's not an issue. It is. And the debates have been
02:35decided based on decisions like these that they're arguing over right now.
02:41Yeah, that's so true. And we'll continue to look for more updates regarding September 10th and
02:47just how these rules will all play out. In the meantime, let's talk a little bit about
02:53these battleground states where they are heavily, heavily in focus. Frank, you put out a great
02:59update today talking about the three in question that are really centered. We're talking about
03:04Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. And the reason why I choose those is that in the end,
03:11I think that Trump is going to win Nevada and I think he's going to win Arizona because of the
03:18Latino vote that has voted Democratic over Republican by about 20 percentage points.
03:25And now with it, the campaign with Trump and Harris, she still has an advantage,
03:30but it's single digits. That's a big increase. That's a big gain for the GOP and it has held
03:36to the Democratic Convention. Similarly, the two states in the South, Georgia and North Carolina.
03:44Why Trump would pick a fight with the governor of Georgia this close to the election, a Republican,
03:50is a surprise to me because he's going to need Georgia to only win one state in the central
03:58part of the country. And in North Carolina, we're still looking at the African American vote.
04:05The younger African American males, they were giving Trump about 30% of the vote before the
04:11convention. We don't know what the breakdown is now, but we know that it's a key group.
04:16And if Trump can get 30% of them, he will win Georgia and North Carolina, which of course
04:23leaves you with Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Do you want me to itemize each of
04:30those states? Yeah, yeah, definitely, go ahead. So Pennsylvania to me is the key state in the
04:36whole country. Wherever Pennsylvania goes, I believe is where the national election goes.
04:41It voted narrowly for Biden in 2020 and voted narrowly for Trump in 2016.
04:47On a statewide basis, it has continued to elect Republicans to the legislature,
04:53even though it's had a Democratic governor. This is a state that has been a ticket splitter for
04:59years now, and so it's impossible to call. Move over to Michigan and I'm watching the 100,000
05:07traditional Democratic voters who opted out of the election because they were opposed to the
05:12Democratic Party's position on Palestine versus Israel, or I should say Hamas versus Israel.
05:19Michigan has a Democratic governor. In fact, all three states have Democratic governors,
05:24but they had elected Republican governors as recently as a decade ago. All three states,
05:29the local election shift back and forth. And all three states, Michigan in particular,
05:35you have ticket splitting. People vote one way for the governor and the president and vote a
05:39different way for the Senate, the House, and the local election officials. In Wisconsin,
05:46a state that elects Scott Walker as recently as, I guess about 12 years ago. This is a state
05:53that had moved considerably to the right in the 2000, 2010s. But since over the last five
06:02years or so, it has begun to shift towards the left. And it's another state that is critical.
06:08All Trump has to do is win one of those three states and he's elected. However,
06:13Harris is ahead in all three states, either ahead or even right now within the margin of error.
06:18So that's why this election is so close, because these three states are so close.
06:24And Frank, I also want to get your take on the policy issue with Kamala Harris. And I
06:29talk about an issue because the policies are not on her website. And we don't have
06:35a sit down date for when she might do an interview with the media or maybe even a
06:40news conference. Tell me how that all plays into effect with the voters and
06:45what they want and see from Kamala Harris.
06:48Well, that's significant because you've never had a presidential candidate in modern times
06:53who has truly avoided the media. In fact, you've Donald Trump who one could argue spends too much
07:00time with the press and Harris who doesn't spend any time at all with the press.
07:05In the end, the public has the right to know where they stand on the key issues.
07:09And the candidates have the responsibility to live up to that right. And no candidate should
07:15be allowed to duck where they stand on inflation, on immigration, on healthcare,
07:22on the taxing of Social Security and Medicare. These are essential issues to the American public.
07:28We know that they matter in the polls that we do in the public polling that's out there.
07:33And the fact that Harris has not done an interview has not hurt her in the polls as of yet.
07:39But sometimes there are things that are more important in a democracy than whether you win
07:43or lose. And in this case, the public absolutely should know what specifically she's going to do
07:50on the affordability crisis. Some of the stuff that she has said is relatively controversial.
07:55And the public has the right to see them side by side, which is why that debate on September
08:0110th is so important. At some point, she's gonna have to articulate where she stands.
08:06And she's afraid that is gonna turn voters off, which is why she focuses on the attributes
08:12and the character traits where she has an advantage over President Trump.
08:16And lastly, Frank, I wanna get to, this is the three-year anniversary of Abigail in Afghanistan
08:24with the death of 13 US service members. Today, we saw a moment where the former President Donald
08:30Trump at Arlington doing the wreath laying. We had President Biden coming back from California
08:37and then going to Delaware, and we did not see Kamala Harris. They did put out statements, but
08:43seeing the visual of Donald Trump there at Arlington, and what will that do for voters?
08:49Does that mean anything for voters going forward there when they see those images,
08:55or is it something that'll get lost within the next 24, 48 hours?
08:59Well, the first thing is I was going back and forth between the cable news channels
09:03to see who was showing those interviews, those images. And the only network that was really on it
09:09in a significant way was Fox News. The other ones mentioned it but did not stay on it. So
09:15most people won't know that this thing actually happened.
09:19Second is that this was the beginning of Joe Biden's political weakness. Up to that point,
09:25his favorability nationwide was pretty strong. His administration was supported
09:30even by some Republicans and an awful lot of independents.
09:34When that happened in Afghanistan, the anger in the public was quite strong and quite immediate.
09:40And that was the beginning of Biden's fall from grace.
09:44Third is that the Republicans tend to be the party that receives the national security
09:50foreign policy vote. And this was an ability to distinguish himself from Harris on an issue so
09:58important. I don't know why she didn't come back. She would have absolutely blunted the advantage
10:04that Trump clearly got from that photo op. Because in the end, when you have elections
10:10that are going to be decided by 50,000 votes or 30,000 votes, even 10,000,
10:16getting the vote of our men and women in uniform matters.
10:20And this was a chance for Trump to have an uninterrupted, pretty amazing photo op.
10:26And she missed a really good opportunity to actually show that she was committed to the US
10:34having the most lethal fighting force on the face of the earth. So I think you were right to show it.
10:40I think that this could be an issue. But make no mistake, as of now, this election rises and
10:47falls over affordability. And right now, on that issue, Donald Trump does have the advantage.
10:53There we go. Frank Luntz, thanks so much for joining us on Live Now from Fox.
10:57Such a great wealth of information leading us up,
11:00getting closer to November. We appreciate it as always. Welcome back anytime.
11:04Thank you. Appreciate it.
11:05Thank you. And it looks like, everyone, we do have Donald Trump speaking right now,
11:10making some impromptu remarks. Let's listen on Live Now from Fox.