Idea's Editor at Barron's, Matt Peterson, says one specific reason may very well determine the outcome of the election. Watch!
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00:00It's the economy, stupid. Those were the iconic words spoken nearly 30 years ago by legendary
00:06political strategist James Carville. Words that have proven true in just about every
00:12election since. Will 2024 prove it's now anything but the economy? Barron's Ideas editor Matt
00:21Peterson with us now. Matt, happy Election Day. I don't know how many of us are happy
00:27or think it will be over, but I do focus on the economy. We are a business network.
00:33As are you, a business publication. Here we are. Stocks at all time highs. Unemployment
00:38is low. Job growth is high. Gas prices are low. Domestic energy production's at an all
00:43time high. GDP growth is healthy. Even inflation appears to be back where the Fed wants it
00:48and I'm out of breath. Still, this is a rager thin margin. Does the economy matter?
00:55That is what we are going to find out tonight. Well, hopefully tonight, maybe in the next
01:00few days. But the big question is whether inflation was so bad that it just doomed the
01:06Democrats chances, right? I mean, it was just two years ago, June 2022, when inflation was
01:12running at 9%. And you're right that price increases have fallen. The price of gas is,
01:20you know, objectively speaking, pretty low. But as we all know, groceries are still expensive
01:24and people have not forgotten that. So we're going to learn tonight whether that's just
01:28fatal for a candidacy. Eggs, milk, bread. So maybe it's not. Maybe the economy doesn't
01:35matter. It's how you feel the economy is. Is that ultimately what we will learn tonight?
01:42I think there's some truth to that. You know, consumer sentiment is still below where it
01:47was coming out of the pandemic. Right. People just feel gloomy about this economy, even
01:53though a lot of the sort of objective indicators that folks like me watch are up. Right. And,
01:59you know, something that's just because we've been hearing for a year or so from the presidential
02:04campaigns about what a mess this is. Right. I mean, you can't turn on TV, turn on the
02:08radio without running into one of the candidates explaining to you how they're going to solve
02:14all your problems, reminding you of how tough this has been. So hopefully a lot of this
02:19sentiment is going to lift after the election one way or another, whoever wins. But we'll
02:23see how it goes. Yeah. Facts be damned. I had an argument with about a dozen people
02:27over the weekend who were telling me how bad the economy was. And I just said, give me
02:30one quantifiable metric, not about these political options or candidates, just one metric that
02:36tells you the economy is in bad shape. And well, none of no one can come up with one.
02:40So is there an issue or two issues that you think will ultimately decide this election?
02:48They are probably, realistically, immigration and abortion. Those are the big things that
02:53the candidates have run on. Democrats point to abortion, the Dobbs decision overturning
03:00Roe v. Wade. They point to that as the reason why they did a lot better in the 2022 midterms
03:04than everybody expected them to. And that's basically been the theory of the case. You
03:08know, Harris would much rather talk about that issue than she would talk about the economy,
03:13so that was pretty good. Likewise, immigration. You know, we've all heard the stories of
03:18how chaotic the border is, how many people have come into this country illegally. You
03:22know, that is front of mind for voters. Polls have found that, for once, Americans want
03:28to restrict, more Americans want to restrict immigration than not. So both the candidates
03:34basically are running on relatively restrictive immigration policies. Obviously, Trump is
03:38running much harder on that. But the Democrats aren't exactly out there defending immigration.
03:43So, the election is really going to come down to those two things.
03:47Yeah, and because of the abortion issue, the gender gap is massive. And as I see it, is
03:53the determining factor in this election. Trump has a massive lead with men, Harris a huge
03:58lead with women. What I don't hear political commentators discussing is the fact that we
04:04have more women and men in this country, and they also tend to vote in greater numbers.
04:10How do you see that gender gap playing out and factoring in here?
04:15I think that's about right, that you'd rather be Harris than Trump in this scenario, although
04:19I'm sure the Democrats would rather have Roe v. Wade standing than win the election, probably.
04:26But you know, you've seen in the last couple of days, I mean, I think Trump spending three
04:30hours on Joe Rogan while thousands of people waited for him to talk the other day is a
04:35good indicator of how hard he's trying to reach out to men, right? You know, he may
04:41succeed in this effort, right? There are still plenty of women that are going to vote for
04:45him. You know, the split in the country is like, what, like 52-48 women to men or something
04:50like that. So, it's not a huge number. But you know, women are really, really animated
04:54in this election and it's understandable. So, they're going to turn out in big numbers.
04:58Yeah, turnout of the gender gap will truly define everything here. So, final stretch,
05:03we've got Lady Gaga and Oprah showing up for Kamala Harris in Philly. Do you think that
05:10celebrity factor helps her? I've heard some actually fear on the left that it could hurt
05:17her in a real blue collar state like Pennsylvania.
05:22It's possible. You know, it's hard to say what drives the couple of undecideds who are
05:27left in this country. I haven't met any of them lately. You know, what tips them over
05:31to vote? Harris has Beyonce. You know, she's got Charli XCX. She sort of has Chapel Road.
05:38You know, she's got a lot of people at her camp that are supporting her. You know, again,
05:42I think I'd rather have them than not. But you know, celebrities coming out, it's always
05:46polarizing. I mean, remember when George Clooney basically doomed Joe Biden's presidential
05:52run with an op-ed in the New York Times, right, back in June, July. So, sometimes these celebrities
05:59are, you know, a tricky thing for the campaign to handle.
06:02Yeah, I've heard a lot of critical words on the right about the left bringing out these
06:06celebrities and I say, well, what is Hulk Hogan? I mean, look, you may not have the
06:11Beyonce's or the Taylor Swift's, but you're certainly trying in that regard. So, what
06:15are the final closing messages of both candidates?
06:19Look, at the end of the day, Trump is trying to say, voters, trust me, this economy was
06:26glorious back when I was president, mostly true. You know, just hand it back to me and
06:32you won't have to think about this ever again. And Democrats are basically saying the same
06:37thing. Harris's big closing argument was all about Donald Trump, was all about democracy.
06:42She had resisted campaigning on that up until the very end. But, you know, a vote for Harris
06:47is really a vote against Donald Trump. That's what this comes down to. Do you want another
06:51four years of Donald Trump in your life or not?
06:55So ultimately, I have to ask, do you think this thing is decided tonight or will it play
07:02out well past the weekend?
07:06I do not think we are going to get a result tonight. It's happened. You know, the AP called
07:11it for Bill Clinton at 9 p.m. Eastern back in 1996, but boy, was that a long time ago.
07:18Everybody who's job it is to call these things, I've talked to a few of them, they think it's
07:24going to take a long time. So, you know, realistically, the setup is basically the
07:28same as it was last year when it took to Saturday. Nothing fundamentally has changed in the factors
07:33that got us to Saturday last time. So it's not unreasonable to think it might go to Saturday.
07:37But you know, for the sake of my sleep and mental health, I'm hoping it's over sooner.
07:41And for the sake of the nation, I hope it's over tonight. How do you think the next couple
07:47of days in that case play out, maybe here in the markets, maybe in this country? And
07:53those 76 days between now and January 6th, what are your expectations?
07:59It could be messy in the markets if we don't get a result. I mean, I think people are relatively,
08:05you know, used to the fact that it might take a couple of days. And so I don't think you'll
08:08see the markets collapse, the stock market collapse or anything like that if we don't
08:12get a result tonight. But, you know, there's a lot of money that's been waiting to come
08:16into the markets, waiting for a result one way or the other. And so the more this drags
08:21on, I do think it really will weigh on markets. You will see people just not knowing how to
08:28make a bet either way. And so it's just staying back and staying on the sidelines. You know,
08:32that could be endangering this amazing rally that the stock market has had. You know, the
08:36outer limit of this thing, for what it's worth, is really December 11th, when the states have
08:42to finalize what their electoral college's votes will be. And then they've got a week,
08:48Supreme Court to hear the results. But so, you know, Bush v. Gore back in 2000 took until
08:53mid-December. And it's not unreasonable to think that if there are serious challenges,
08:57it may take that long again this time.
08:59So you can punt, but is there an indicator that Matt Peterson says, all right, this is
09:05what I think happens? Is there the S&P, the Dow? It could be Nate Silver. What do you
09:11think happens tonight? Who wins this thing and why?
09:16I'm looking at gas prices, honestly. That's the thing, personally, that I think has changed
09:21the most that people aren't really talking about the most. You know, gas prices nationwide
09:25are about three bucks. And if you factor in inflation and all the rest of it, that's really,
09:30really cheap. That's just making it easier for everybody to get through this economy
09:34in one way or the other. And I think, you know, if Harris wins, it will be because of
09:39something like that, because the economy has eased in ways that people feel, you know.
09:44And if Trump wins, it will be because he has convinced people that that feeling that
09:48they have, you know, that anxiety from the last four years, you know, is real and it's
09:52not going to go away.
09:54You finally found the one thing both sides agree on. We all have anxiety about the results
09:59of this election. Our thanks to Barron's Ideas editor, Matt Peterson. Our best of luck over
10:05the next couple of days. Thank you, sir.
10:08Thanks a lot. Hang in there.