00:12.480 --> 00:16.440 Sean Murray: Hello, everybody and welcome to Broker Fair virtual. Thank you for joining us 00:16.440 --> 00:23.670 today. I'm here with Scott Rasmussen. Scott is long recognized as one of the world's leading 00:23.760 --> 00:29.040 public opinion pollster. Scott Rasmussen is constantly measuring and analyzing the mood of the 00:29.040 --> 00:33.960 nation. Whether it's the upcoming election, underlying business trends, or the coronavirus 00:33.960 --> 00:39.720 pandemic, Scott had the data you need to know. His latest polling results are released at 00:39.720 --> 00:46.050 scottrasmussen.com, and by various media outlets, but the numbers are just part of the story. His 00:46.050 --> 00:52.200 love of history and depth of experience helped put that data in a meaningful context to act upon. His 00:52.200 --> 00:57.540 lifetime and broadcasting brings it alive during entertaining and informative presentations. 00:58.050 --> 01:03.510 Additionally, ballotpedia publishes Scott Rasmussen number of the day, featuring newsworthy 01:03.510 --> 01:09.450 and interesting topics at the intersection of politics, culture, and technology. So without 01:09.450 --> 01:11.640 further ado, please welcome Scott. 01:12.740 --> 01:17.660 Scott Rasmussen: Well, thanks, Sean. It's great to be here today. And you know, normally I would say 01:17.660 --> 01:22.520 that and you're looking at people, you're talking to an audience, you're seeing some kind of 01:22.580 --> 01:29.990 reaction. In this virtual world, it's a little bit odd, as a speaker, interacting with the audience 01:29.990 --> 01:34.940 is a real key part of the presentation. I love to meet people before and after the talks. But also 01:34.940 --> 01:39.380 during the presentation. You know, if you see people are really engaged in a certain aspect of 01:39.380 --> 01:44.600 what you're saying, well, then you go on a little longer on it. And if you see people dozing off in 01:44.600 --> 01:49.820 the corner, while you think maybe I better move on to a different topic, obviously can't do that 01:49.820 --> 01:56.000 today. So I'll do my best to keep this moving. And, and then we'll have some fun questions when 01:56.000 --> 02:04.820 it's all done. And I want to say right up front, these are strange times. But I still am very 02:04.820 --> 02:11.600 optimistic. I'm very optimistic that our nation has a bright future ahead of it. And I say that 02:11.600 --> 02:16.790 despite being very pessimistic about our political system. I believe the political system is badly 02:16.790 --> 02:23.300 broken. The reason I can hold those two views simultaneously is because I believe the culture 02:23.300 --> 02:29.330 leads and politics lags behind. So I'm not looking for whoever is elected to solve our problems for 02:29.330 --> 02:36.140 us. I think there are greater forces at work. Now, you know, we're in this time when, well, Sean, 02:36.140 --> 02:41.690 when you and I talked, maybe a month or so ago, we were talking about the pandemic is the big 02:41.690 --> 02:49.970 surprise of the year now we've had the Floyd murder and these issues are just throwing 02:50.000 --> 02:54.950 everything that we know about the political world upside down, and they're raising new questions for 02:54.950 --> 03:00.410 us to wrestle with. Some of them have to do with federal spending and regulation and other policy 03:00.410 --> 03:08.300 topics. Ultimately, they have a lot to do with who we choose to be as a nation. And it's with so many 03:08.300 --> 03:14.930 moving parts, it's hard to figure out exactly what to focus on. So for me throughout my entire 03:14.930 --> 03:21.650 career, as a political analyst, I draw on a lesson I learned from an earlier career when I was an 03:21.650 --> 03:27.920 entrepreneur trying to start a crazy new business back in the late 70s. And by the way, normally, at 03:27.920 --> 03:34.640 this point in a talk, I would say that, you know, I ask people to raise their hands if they remember 03:34.640 --> 03:42.260 the 70s give me a sense of just how old the audience is. But in the late 70s, my father and I 03:42.260 --> 03:47.570 learned about this new technology called satellite transmission. We learned how it can be used to 03:47.570 --> 03:53.360 interact with cable systems. And we thought there might be an appetite for an all sports cable 03:53.360 --> 03:59.540 network that we call the ESPN. And when we first had the idea, we were so excited that we thought 03:59.570 --> 04:04.850 if we showed it to anybody, they would steal it from us. After we got rejected for funding by 04:04.850 --> 04:12.680 every major broadcast group that was out there. We ended up getting to a meeting with Getty Oil. And 04:12.680 --> 04:20.270 they said they gave us $5 million to begin building out the idea in hopes that it might work. 04:20.570 --> 04:26.960 And we went through that money in just a few months. And then they expected that and in May of 04:26.960 --> 04:36.740 1979. We had a meeting at the Getty headquarters, Wilshire and Western and at that meeting, we it 04:36.740 --> 04:41.120 was basically the go no go decision. Getty was going to make the decision at this point whether 04:41.120 --> 04:48.650 to commit what turned out to be more than 100 million dollars to the venture. And at the 04:48.650 --> 04:52.700 meeting, when we were we were in this Boomerang shaped table in their boardroom, we were on the 04:52.700 --> 04:57.500 inside. They had people arrayed around the outside to intimidate us in doing a very good job of it. 04:58.220 --> 05:05.540 And somebody asked a question about our revenue projections for 1988. And to give you an idea of 05:05.540 --> 05:12.140 how absurd this was, were in 1979, the industry didn't exist. You know, there were no 24 hour 05:12.440 --> 05:17.900 sports, television networks, there were no 24 hour cable networks, there were no advertiser supported 05:17.900 --> 05:22.550 networks. And they're asking me about the revenue projections nine years in the future. But I was 05:22.550 --> 05:28.910 young and stupid. And I gave them a very precise and totally worthless answer. I explained that 05:28.910 --> 05:33.410 there's 12 million cable households in the US. And if this percentage of them sign up for the 05:33.410 --> 05:39.050 satellite, and this percentage of that percentage sign up for our service, and we get these ratings 05:39.050 --> 05:44.000 during these hours, and our cpms are this and that, I went through this whole thing and put in 05:44.000 --> 05:49.580 some growth rates and said, You know, so that's how you get the answer. And at that moment, Sid 05:49.580 --> 05:54.590 Peterson, who was the brand new CEO of Getty was sitting right across the table from me. And he 05:54.590 --> 06:01.880 said, he has no more of an idea about what the revenue is going to be in 1988 than we do. What we 06:01.880 --> 06:07.850 have to do is look at his underlying assumptions. Will the cable industry grow and embrace the 06:07.850 --> 06:15.860 satellite programming? You know, will viewers tune in to an all Sports Network? In those days, we 06:15.860 --> 06:20.480 call that narrow casting because we it was different than the big mass audiences we were used 06:20.480 --> 06:27.830 to. And most important of all, would sponsors actually be willing to underwrite programs to 06:27.830 --> 06:35.900 sponsor programs? Targeted is such a small niche audience. And what Peterson said is, you know, we 06:35.930 --> 06:42.560 forget all the specific numbers, we need to base our judgment on those underlying assumptions. What 06:42.560 --> 06:49.190 are the fundamental assumptions in play? I was a little hurt. But you know, he was right. All my 06:49.190 --> 06:55.760 numbers weren't nearly as important as those key drivers of the process. And by the way, I should 06:55.760 --> 07:02.000 add it the time I made that projection, there were 12 million cable households in the US. And I 07:02.000 --> 07:09.050 projected that by the end of the 80s, ESPN alone will be in 30 million households. And let's just 07:09.050 --> 07:14.510 say they were a little skeptical about it. And I was way off. It turns out that not 30 million 07:14.510 --> 07:20.420 households, but by the end of the 80s, ESPN was in 60 million households. And the reason it worked 07:20.420 --> 07:26.870 was partly because of Gettys funding. And partly because Sid Peterson looked at the fundamental 07:26.870 --> 07:31.730 issues, he encouraged his team to look at those issues. So when I look at the political world 07:31.730 --> 07:39.140 today, I take that same approach. And in a presidential election year. There is always a key 07:39.140 --> 07:46.640 driving issue. The last two times that a president has run for reelection. We see this very clearly 07:46.640 --> 07:52.940 in 2004, George W. Bush running for re election. The big issue then just coming was the first 07:52.940 --> 08:01.160 presidential election after 911. The big issue then was the war on terror. And at this time, in 08:01.160 --> 08:07.520 2004, this time of year, the President's job approval ratings were in the mid to high 40s 08:07.970 --> 08:13.610 probably wouldn't have won reelection if they'd stayed there. But bit by bit over the months 08:13.610 --> 08:20.210 leading up to the election, confidence that we were winning the war on terror increased. So did 08:20.210 --> 08:29.240 the President's job approval. And on Election Day 2004, Bush's job approval rating was a 51%. 51% of 08:29.240 --> 08:36.830 voters thought we were winning the war on terror, and 51% of Americans voted for him. In 2012, 08:38.120 --> 08:43.670 Barack Obama's job approval ratings right now we're about 47%. They had been there for most of 08:43.670 --> 08:51.110 his term. His big issue was the economy coming out of the Great Recession. And bit by bit over that 08:51.110 --> 08:57.350 summer, and leading up to election day, we saw people getting more confident about their own 08:57.350 --> 09:02.300 financial condition, how they were feeling about their own personal finances. The President's job 09:02.300 --> 09:09.470 approval rating improved, and President Obama was reelected. So before the pandemic hit, and all the 09:09.470 --> 09:13.250 other news I would have expected to be here. Actually, I would have expected to be in a room 09:13.250 --> 09:20.000 with all of you talking about, well, here's what's happening, here's the driving issue of the Trump 09:20.000 --> 09:25.310 administration probably would have been focused on the economy. Would have been talking about how our 09:25.310 --> 09:31.730 suburban women reacting to it and things of that sort. But instead, the world got turned completely 09:31.730 --> 09:37.280 upside down. You know, we had this pandemic, and then we had the Floyd murders and or Floyd murder. 09:37.610 --> 09:43.430 And everything that would have been appropriate to talk about even a month ago just seems like 09:43.430 --> 09:53.240 ancient history. We're now at a point where there are two major issues in the campaign. Both of them 09:53.540 --> 09:58.520 have arisen in the last six or eight months of the campaign. So it's not a case like with Bush or 09:58.520 --> 10:05.900 Obama, where the Policies had been in place for most of their first term. It's, it's a very, very 10:05.900 --> 10:12.260 volatile situation. When people ask me today who is going to win the presidential election? My 10:12.260 --> 10:19.520 answer is, it's, we have no idea. If things break a certain way, President Trump could not only be 10:19.520 --> 10:25.940 reelected, he could win a majority of popular vote, he could expand on his Electoral College map 10:25.970 --> 10:34.610 from four years ago. On the other hand, if things break in a different manner, it could be a Herbert 10:34.610 --> 10:41.420 Hoover like rejection. And that would be, you know, a fundamentally different world that we 10:41.420 --> 10:48.080 would come out of that election with. You know, earlier, I said that I'm optimistic about the 10:48.080 --> 10:53.810 future but pessimistic about our political system. I'm also I've been saying that, you know, things 10:53.810 --> 10:58.850 will get worse before they get better. And I never knew what that was. But now we're living through 10:58.850 --> 11:04.910 it. This is the crisis for our political system, and how we come out of it will be determined, in 11:04.910 --> 11:09.770 the next several years, not just in this presidential election, but the election is going 11:09.770 --> 11:16.130 to be a great starting point. So when we talk about all of these issues, again, I want to give a 11:16.130 --> 11:24.500 little context, we're redefining the nation in a pretty fundamental way. The shortest history of 11:24.500 --> 11:31.160 the United States that I can give is from colonial times, up until the 1970s, everything in America 11:31.160 --> 11:37.370 began to get bigger and more centralized and more homogenized. Back then we thought that computers 11:37.370 --> 11:45.170 and were only the tools of large corporations. And throughout that entire time in American history, 11:45.800 --> 11:51.920 government grew bigger and more centralized, not really because of an ideological shift as much as 11:51.920 --> 11:56.660 it was following the culture. That is, as companies got bigger, so didn't government people 11:56.660 --> 12:02.780 like more centralization. And then in the 1970s, with the invention of the microchip, and Apple and 12:02.780 --> 12:09.740 Microsoft, and even the cable industry, American society began to go in a decentralizing 12:09.740 --> 12:15.980 direction. But the political system didn't follow hasn't followed, yet, the political system has 12:15.980 --> 12:22.070 become much more centralized. And so over the last four decades, we've had this tension between a 12:22.070 --> 12:28.160 decentralizing society and a centralizing political system. And that's the reason our 12:28.160 --> 12:35.840 political system is so toxic and difficult and broken in these days. And that's the in those 12:35.840 --> 12:40.310 tensions as they're being resolved. Turns out, they're going to be resolved through questions 12:40.310 --> 12:46.850 about how we respond to the pandemic, and how we respond to the other ongoing issue in American 12:46.850 --> 12:56.330 history. You know, the centuries of legalized racial injustice, the centuries and centuries of, 12:57.320 --> 13:04.250 you know, really legalized racism. We don't have the legal forms like we used to, but we're dealing 13:04.250 --> 13:09.020 with the echoes of them and dealing with the fallout from them at this point. So what does that 13:09.020 --> 13:17.030 mean in terms of this election season? First, on the issue of the pandemic, largely, the themes 13:17.030 --> 13:25.850 have been set. What matters is how things reopened between now and November. That is going to be the 13:25.850 --> 13:32.600 dominant issue. If the economy does begin to bounce back, if the next jobs report is even 13:32.600 --> 13:37.880 better. And if the next jobs report after that is better, and people are beginning to feel that when 13:37.880 --> 13:45.410 the economy is on its way back. That will be very good news for Republicans and Donald Trump. And 13:45.410 --> 13:50.720 the reason will be such good news is the President is clearly identified with trying to push to 13:50.720 --> 13:56.780 reopen and democratic officials who have been clearly identified with saying, No, we need to be 13:56.780 --> 14:01.910 more cautious. So if it's working well, that's great news for the President. If we have a second 14:01.910 --> 14:07.940 wave of the pandemic, if the coronavirus comes back and we have more stories this fall like we 14:07.940 --> 14:14.630 did last spring, it's going to be there's simply no way the President will be reelected. Now, the 14:14.630 --> 14:23.660 other issue, the issues of racial injustice, are going to be there in a little in a secondary role. 14:24.260 --> 14:30.410 And, you know, the reopening saga is going to be a daily occurrence. It's going to be something as 14:30.410 --> 14:35.240 more people go to back to a restaurant for the first time as more people go back to a job for the 14:35.240 --> 14:42.950 first time. Or even as some people you know, right now, 45% of all workers are don't see any 14:42.950 --> 14:47.930 customers or co workers they're doing all of their job on a zoom conference call or other video 14:47.930 --> 14:55.820 calls. 24% of them aren't seeing anybody else. But 45% are taking part in zoom calls on a regular 14:55.820 --> 15:02.450 basis as those things begin to break down and more people get into the idea of actually working with 15:02.450 --> 15:09.470 colleagues again, that will be a daily occurrence that will help society reopen, help the economy 15:09.470 --> 15:16.610 come back and be very beneficial to the Republicans. The racial injustice issue is going 15:16.610 --> 15:22.940 to flare up. You know, I am old enough, I remember the late 60s and I lived through some riots, 15:22.940 --> 15:30.350 Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1970. And it's, it's not something that's there every day, but the 15:30.350 --> 15:37.370 tension is just beneath the surface and waiting to boil up at some point. And this issue is not the 15:37.370 --> 15:43.940 same as the pandemic, the response to the pandemic is pretty well baked in the political parties have 15:43.940 --> 15:51.290 been identified with their position. On the second issue, there's still a lot to be sited about how 15:51.290 --> 15:57.080 the responses will come. And there was tremendous danger for both parties. The reason there's danger 15:57.230 --> 16:05.210 is about 8 out of 10 voters nationwide, recognize that there has been racial, systemic racial 16:05.210 --> 16:11.750 injustice, they believe that black Americans are not treated equally with white Americans and 8 out 16:11.750 --> 16:18.410 of 10 believe the protesters have legitimate grievances, and most of them are trying to respond 16:18.410 --> 16:24.950 and express those grievances peacefully. They do acknowledge there's a few bad apples few rotten 16:24.950 --> 16:29.150 apples in the batch. And so there that's causing some of the problems we're seeing with violence 16:29.150 --> 16:37.730 and looting. But thinking that those people have legitimate grounds for protest, does not mean 16:37.730 --> 16:44.360 people hate the police. In fact, a similar number 8 out of 10 say that police officers, by and large 16:44.360 --> 16:50.090 are good people trying to do a difficult and dangerous job. But once again, there are some 16:50.090 --> 16:55.700 rotten apples in the bunch. Most Americans about two thirds of Americans hold both those views 16:55.700 --> 17:02.870 simultaneously. They're viewing the best in other people. And you know, same time recognizing that 17:02.870 --> 17:10.220 none of us are perfect. And the danger for Republicans on this issue is that they're going to 17:10.220 --> 17:16.220 look insensitive to the questions of racial justice, or perhaps even worse, look like they're 17:16.220 --> 17:23.540 resistant to the cultural demand for reform for some kind of change in our historic policies that 17:23.540 --> 17:30.380 will move us to a society that's a little closer to our founding ideals. for Democrats, the issue 17:30.380 --> 17:36.050 is going too far the issue is turning it into the only way to support racial justice is to hate the 17:36.050 --> 17:43.790 police or to defund the police. You know, that would be a losing issue. And what's going to 17:43.790 --> 17:48.800 happen, this is not something again, it's not like what Bush or Obama had, where they dealt with an 17:48.800 --> 17:54.230 issue throughout their first term, incidents are gonna pop up. There's some news coming out of 17:54.230 --> 17:58.820 Seattle these days, that's, you know, one of these flare ups, we're going to see these throughout the 17:58.820 --> 18:04.220 campaign. And so we'll have the larger setting of how the economy is reopening that will begin to 18:04.220 --> 18:10.430 set the stage for how close the election is, and which way it's flowing. And if it remains close 18:10.430 --> 18:17.210 these other issues, will ultimately determine the outcome. Now, what does that mean in terms of 18:17.210 --> 18:22.670 policy or where we stand today? You know, right now, today, my latest poll shows Biden is up by 10 18:22.670 --> 18:29.300 points among registered voters, Trump's support is a little more enthusiastic. So maybe you'd be a 18:29.300 --> 18:37.280 few points closer. It could be that things are will tighten up before election day. And I would 18:37.280 --> 18:42.350 expect that if the economy is doing really well, that the President's numbers will improve from 18:42.350 --> 18:49.970 where they are today. Having said that, it's really important to recognize and this is a stat 18:49.970 --> 18:59.690 that stuns people who live in brief politics. 22% of voters about one out of five, say that it 18:59.690 --> 19:06.620 really doesn't make much difference whether Biden or Trump wins. Again, 22% of voters are saying 19:06.620 --> 19:12.830 doesn't make a difference. Another 17% say it's all gonna make a minor difference. And as we look 19:12.830 --> 19:19.070 ahead to November, these are the voters who will determine who is elected, you know, the base is 19:19.070 --> 19:23.780 solid for both candidates. It's these swing voters that are going to ultimately decide and they're 19:23.780 --> 19:31.130 going to be responding to events of the day. As they do this, you know, you'll hear lots of 19:31.130 --> 19:37.250 discussions about specific policies and about whether we should spend more or stop spending. 19:37.490 --> 19:43.280 Right now, hardly anybody believes the federal government should stop its spending. Instead, they 19:43.280 --> 19:48.920 believe that something has to be done to help deal with this economic crisis. Nobody's sure what but 19:48.920 --> 19:54.410 they want some government engagement. At one level, it's a sense of they broke it, they bought 19:54.410 --> 20:00.410 it. There's a strong belief that if a small business was hurt, by government shutdown or The 20:00.410 --> 20:06.530 government should compensate them for those losses. But as you go beyond this, the deeper 20:06.530 --> 20:11.900 question is about who is going to be really in charge? We did a polling question about a week or 20:11.900 --> 20:19.340 two ago, and asked about whether business owners had the right to determine whether or not they 20:19.340 --> 20:23.900 wanted to require masks on their customers. Do business owners have the right to make that 20:23.900 --> 20:32.990 decision? 48% of voters said yes. 47% of voters said no. When we took the question, do governments 20:32.990 --> 20:39.260 have the legal authority to require citizens to wear masks on the street? Well, most people said 20:39.260 --> 20:47.750 yes. But we had a pretty big partisan divide in really a an ideological and generational divide on 20:47.750 --> 20:53.570 questions about who should make decisions. And I want to be clear, this is a question about who 20:53.570 --> 21:00.140 decides not what is decided. Because in today's environment, if a business owner had the chance to 21:00.680 --> 21:07.790 require or not require, their customers to wear masks, most would, at least strongly encourage the 21:07.790 --> 21:13.310 possibility because they want to get people into their stores. And, you know, I walked through the 21:13.310 --> 21:17.330 streets of New York last night, we're supposed to all be wearing masks, but there's an awful lot of 21:17.330 --> 21:23.480 people who aren't doing it. So these, you know, it's really not the ultimately it's how people 21:23.480 --> 21:30.620 respond to these things that matters. But the question is going to be, do businesses and, and 21:30.620 --> 21:36.680 private groups and individuals have that right to make most decisions on their own? That would be 21:36.680 --> 21:42.320 consistent with a decentralizing society? Because we all have so much access to so much information 21:42.320 --> 21:51.200 these days? Or, or do we end up going in the other direction saying no, we need more decisions made 21:51.200 --> 21:58.100 by political processes and political authorities. That question of who decides, is going to be 21:58.130 --> 22:04.910 ultimately the outcome of all the turmoil we're going through. And in terms of your industry, it's 22:04.910 --> 22:11.630 very, very significant. If we ended up going in the direction of a stronger regulatory effort and 22:11.630 --> 22:19.100 more authority being given to governments, both federal, state and local levels. If we go in that 22:19.100 --> 22:26.240 direction, there will be significant, significantly higher levels of regulation on all 22:26.240 --> 22:32.810 industries, and especially on the finance industry. If we go in the other direction, it will 22:33.200 --> 22:39.740 be more up to consumer choice. But a lot of what happens will be determined, again, not just by the 22:39.740 --> 22:45.950 political events, not by who wins the election, but by the behavior of businesses themselves. You 22:45.950 --> 22:53.090 know, the more that corporations and small businesses appear to be responding to the cultural 22:53.090 --> 22:57.440 trends and appear to be dealing fairly and appropriately with customers and the community at 22:57.440 --> 23:04.640 large, the more likely it is that the regulatory touch will be lighter. The more that businesses 23:04.640 --> 23:14.900 seem to engage in either political activities, or activities that are that rub against the cultural 23:14.900 --> 23:20.000 grain, the more likely it is there will be political solutions imposed. And that's something 23:20.000 --> 23:27.140 that really every business leader needs to to keep in mind. So to sum it all up. Right now, we're at 23:27.140 --> 23:33.980 a point in time, where there's volatility in the political process. Is volatility caused by the 23:33.980 --> 23:41.210 fact that we're finally wrestling with this huge disconnect between a society that is 23:41.210 --> 23:46.160 decentralizing and putting more power and information at the hands of individuals, and a 23:46.160 --> 23:52.400 political system that over the last four decades has become more centralized? That's the struggle, 23:52.460 --> 24:00.470 I'm optimistic, I do think, ultimately, we will go in the political system will catch up and be more 24:00.470 --> 24:08.600 in tune with the social system, the cultural decentralization, but it's going to be a very 24:08.600 --> 24:14.030 messy process. And if you want an understanding of why it's so messy, look at the fact that we have 24:14.030 --> 24:21.530 two men who are over 70, who are running for president. And neither one of them really gets the 24:21.530 --> 24:25.280 digital era that we're living in. So we're going to have political leaders who are a bit out of 24:25.280 --> 24:32.480 touch, trying to wrestle with these questions. And it's going to be a very disruptive time. And Sean, 24:32.480 --> 24:38.690 on that note, I'll be happy to take any questions that you or anybody else might have, and see if we 24:38.690 --> 24:41.420 can continue the discussion for a little bit longer. 24:43.730 --> 24:50.180 Sean Murray: Thank you, Scott. Wow, there was a there's a lot to unpack from that. And with what's 24:50.180 --> 24:56.570 going on currently in the country. I want to back it up a little bit to the economy, because my 24:56.570 --> 25:00.830 understanding is that the economy has historically dictated whether it's Not a president gets 25:00.830 --> 25:06.590 reelected. And I think we're starting to get lost and some people are starting to get losses, what 25:06.590 --> 25:15.320 is the economy? Because one thing that has increased recently is the national deficit. And 25:15.320 --> 25:20.450 you know, we've increased it a lot in recent times as part of the stimulus. And I'm wondering if the 25:20.450 --> 25:24.830 national deficit and the national debt if that is going to factor into how people feel about the 25:24.830 --> 25:30.560 economy, or they're really going to come down to whether or not they're employed and have income 25:30.560 --> 25:33.980 and have a job? You know, how do Americans feel? 25:34.850 --> 25:38.930 Scott Rasmussen: Well, the first part of that's really easy to answer, the deficit and the debt 25:38.990 --> 25:45.140 are not a part of the discussion right now. It's simply doesn't matter. We've done a lot of polling 25:45.140 --> 25:50.030 on this, you know, should Congress stop spending should do more we phrased it in different ways, 25:50.720 --> 25:57.920 basically, about anywhere between 14 and 20% of voters have told us in different polls, that 25:57.920 --> 26:03.410 Congress should stop spending now. Which means now there's different ideas about how the money should 26:03.410 --> 26:07.340 be spent, and what should be done with the idea that we should just stop spending because of the 26:07.340 --> 26:13.340 debt or the deficit does not enter the equation. What does enter it is perhaps a longer term 26:13.340 --> 26:19.700 perspective. And maybe it's comes I guess, it comes because people are looking at this almost 26:19.700 --> 26:26.180 like World War II is viewed in a sense. In World War II, the the national debt grew tremendously, 26:26.690 --> 26:32.270 because we were fighting an existential enemy. And after the war, over the next couple of 26:32.270 --> 26:39.110 generations, the the debt level was dramatically reduced going from more than twice the national 26:39.110 --> 26:44.420 income to down to about a third of it. And people are saying, Okay, we got to spend what we have to 26:44.420 --> 26:49.430 right now to get out of this crisis. But looking down the road, we're going to have to be we're 26:49.430 --> 26:55.370 gonna have to rein things in a bit and get that debt back down to a manageable level. In terms of 26:55.370 --> 27:01.250 what the economy is, most of it will come back to how do you feel about the way things are going in 27:01.250 --> 27:08.120 your life. And right now, about four out of 10. Voters do know somebody who has who lost their job 27:08.120 --> 27:12.860 due to the pandemic and has been rehired? If that number continues to grow, that would be a sign of 27:12.950 --> 27:14.720 a more positive economy. 27:16.580 --> 27:21.080 Sean Murray: So you say it's really not part of the conversation right now. And I noticed an 27:21.080 --> 27:27.110 interesting stat that you had reported last month, it was that only 14% of voters believe that 27:27.110 --> 27:32.930 Congress should stop spending money on new programs, and that among Republicans 63% were in 27:32.930 --> 27:39.650 support of new government spending. Are we seeing this trend, because of the recent crisis, or our 27:39.650 --> 27:44.810 republicans or the or the American public, just becoming more comfortable with government 27:44.810 --> 27:45.290 spending. 27:46.220 --> 27:51.410 Scott Rasmussen: The response to everything right now is a response to the pandemic. I mean, this is 27:51.410 --> 27:58.880 something none of us have been through. You know, my grandfather had the Spanish Flu back in 1918. 27:58.880 --> 28:07.010 But you know, even like, my time I knew him it was it was old news. So this is new territory. And the 28:07.010 --> 28:14.960 old ideological discussions don't apply when you're in a crisis like this. What we do know is 28:14.960 --> 28:22.070 that, for example, we ask people about, would this have been handled better if we had a single payer 28:22.070 --> 28:26.990 health care system, only 22% of voters think things would have been better under such a system? 28:26.990 --> 28:32.210 So it's not really that they're embracing new policies. It's this is seen as an emergency 28:33.110 --> 28:37.070 situation, you know, you have your retirement fund as an individual and every now and then you need 28:37.070 --> 28:37.910 to break into it. 28:39.550 --> 28:45.580 Sean Murray: Okay, yeah, totally makes sense. So let's talk about the shutdowns and the lockdowns 28:45.580 --> 28:49.660 because even New York is starting to come out of the lockdown finally, even though some other 28:49.660 --> 28:56.200 states came out of them a few weeks ago, or maybe even about a month ago. And at one point, in May, 28:56.200 --> 29:03.130 you reported that 41% of voters said that the lockdowns had done more harm than good. So my 29:03.130 --> 29:07.780 question would be if there was a second wave in the fall, do you think that Americans will be more 29:07.780 --> 29:13.570 or less receptive to another lockdown? Can we even will that even be tolerated at this point anymore? 29:15.490 --> 29:22.330 Scott Rasmussen: You know, I live in New York City and I can tell you, you know how much frustration 29:22.330 --> 29:29.770 there is with the lockdowns at this point. We even know some restaurants who if you call ahead and 29:29.770 --> 29:33.790 order dinner to pick up they'll actually let you sit at the bar for a little bit while you wait for 29:33.790 --> 29:37.870 your food and it's their kind of breaking the rules but let because they just know there's that 29:38.200 --> 29:48.880 tension. It is hard for me to imagine support for lockdowns at the level we saw initially. If there 29:48.880 --> 29:53.140 was another outbreak if there was another way, the data we're seeing now suggests people would look 29:53.140 --> 29:59.590 for a more focused solution. But again, what does that really mean? The other thing I would say 29:59.590 --> 30:07.630 about a second wave is it would have a tremendous impact a tremendously negative impact on consumer 30:07.630 --> 30:17.020 confidence. When you normally in the in the economic world, when people get bad news, 30:17.050 --> 30:22.810 confidence falls right away. And then when you get to report a good news, well, people don't really 30:22.810 --> 30:27.820 reevaluate and bounce back up that quickly take maybe six months of good news to overcome one dose 30:27.820 --> 30:35.110 of bad news. If we have a second wave of the pandemic, it will be like depression level 30:35.110 --> 30:36.670 attitudes of confidence. 30:39.120 --> 30:45.060 Sean Murray: Okay, I can totally see that. So then my next question would be, if there was a 30:45.060 --> 30:53.100 statistic you threw out earlier, in the conversation, I think it was 22% of Americans felt 30:53.280 --> 31:00.030 it made no difference whether or not Trump or Biden got elected. And I'm wondering, is that 31:00.030 --> 31:10.740 consistent with historical elections? And is that a factor of hopelessness, in-difference, or more 31:11.010 --> 31:15.690 that Americans feel that local government is likely to have the biggest impact? 31:17.970 --> 31:23.190 Scott Rasmussen: It is, it's hard to know how deep the history goes on that. But yes, it's broadly 31:23.190 --> 31:28.290 consistent with what we know about historical elections, there's, there's always a base of 31:28.290 --> 31:33.330 people who are passionate that believe that if our team doesn't win, the world will come to an end. 31:34.500 --> 31:40.230 But most Americans are a little bit less engaged. Part, it's some of it may be hopelessness. But I 31:40.230 --> 31:48.240 think more broadly, it's a lack of a sense of connection between, say, what a politician says on 31:48.240 --> 31:54.120 the campaign, what they're able to accomplish, and then does it really make any difference in their 31:54.150 --> 32:03.150 in somebody's life. And it's also consistent with this idea that most change two out of three people 32:03.150 --> 32:08.160 believe that positive change in America almost always comes from outside the political system. 32:08.700 --> 32:14.460 And so that's, that's part of the people are just they don't see. So what would be a great example, 32:14.490 --> 32:20.880 you know, if I, if a bank is trying to convince me to go to their to use their services, and there's 32:20.880 --> 32:24.780 two competing banks, and neither one of them, we're talking about things that I care about? 32:25.320 --> 32:29.850 Well, how do I make the choice? And if I don't believe that either one of them are going to 32:29.850 --> 32:35.280 really deliver on everything, they said, again, how do you make a choice, ultimately, these people 32:35.280 --> 32:40.380 will make a decision first on whether to vote, and then second, how they will vote. And that's where 32:40.380 --> 32:42.090 you'll get the late break in the election. 32:44.880 --> 32:52.410 Sean Murray: I'm thinking now about Biden as a candidate. So we have the economic factor. We have 32:52.650 --> 33:00.330 what's happened with George Floyd. Right? And I'm wondering if Americans are going to feel or do 33:00.330 --> 33:07.650 they feel that Biden because he was chosen as the candidate before a lot of this happened, if they 33:07.650 --> 33:12.090 feel he is the appropriate candidate, to champion their causes? 33:13.890 --> 33:18.360 Scott Rasmussen: So we did we actually asked recently about, we asked both Biden and Trump 33:18.360 --> 33:24.450 supporters, are you enthusiastic about your candidate? Or is it simply the lesser of two 33:24.450 --> 33:31.110 evils? And for Trump, about three out of four said they're enthusiastic about him? For Biden only 49% 33:31.590 --> 33:39.330 say they're enthusiastic. 41% say, he's just the lesser of two evils. So, you know, there's not 33:39.330 --> 33:46.020 going to be a groundswell of enthusiasm. I think the it will be a broader issue, the greatest 33:46.020 --> 33:52.170 turnout vehicle that the Democrats have is Donald Trump, which by the way, was the same, you know, 33:52.170 --> 33:56.910 Republicans turnout was always goosed by Barack Obama. So, I mean, that's something that will 33:56.910 --> 34:04.830 help. The other thing, and this is something which hasn't been talked about much, but Joe Biden, I 34:04.830 --> 34:11.880 think, has been hurt by the pandemic, in a couple of ways. First, he didn't have that repeated 34:11.880 --> 34:16.620 string of victory is dominating the news for him to win the nomination. You know, when candidates 34:17.130 --> 34:23.850 are when victories are reported, people get more excited about a candidate. The other thing that he 34:23.850 --> 34:30.210 hasn't had is the opportunity to take part in a lot of debates. If you went back to 2008. And you 34:30.210 --> 34:35.430 watch the very first debates that Barack Obama took part in, he wasn't very good. But as the year 34:35.430 --> 34:40.020 went on, and he practiced in lots of debates, and then when he had Hillary Clinton had a lot of one 34:40.020 --> 34:45.360 on one debates. He became very skilled and he dominated John McCain in the debates that year. 34:45.600 --> 34:49.200 Joe Biden, I think, is going to have missed that practice. 34:51.660 --> 34:56.970 Sean Murray: Yeah, personally, I love the debates. I can only imagine what there'll be like this time 34:56.970 --> 34:57.480 around. 34:57.720 --> 34:58.140 Scott Rasmussen: Yeah. 34:59.670 --> 35:06.960 Sean Murray: I'm sure as we approach the election, both sides are going to find a party to blame for 35:06.990 --> 35:14.820 at least the the lockdowns and the pandemic and the response. I'm curious to to know what, who 35:14.820 --> 35:20.670 Americans feel is, you know, are responsible for what has happened? Are they are they blaming the 35:20.670 --> 35:26.340 government? Are they blaming China? And are they blaming their their neighbors for not social 35:26.340 --> 35:30.000 distancing? Who do they think is to blame for what happened? 35:30.600 --> 35:34.830 Scott Rasmussen: Well, I would start by answering that people think there's plenty of blame to go 35:34.830 --> 35:42.000 around. So China gets the brunt of it. Americans overwhelmingly think China lied about the 35:42.630 --> 35:49.170 Coronavirus. They think that it reported disinformation, intentionally that has harmed and 35:49.200 --> 35:55.470 the world's ability to deal with it. There's strong support 7 out of 10 voters say they want 35:55.470 --> 36:00.420 all this is done. They want us to trade less with China. And you know, some of them are saying 36:00.420 --> 36:08.040 complete ban. Some of them are saying a ban until we negotiate better relationships. But what 36:08.040 --> 36:14.640 there's a desire among Americans to see China punished at some level. Beyond that, that's pretty 36:14.640 --> 36:22.290 simple. If you're a believer in lockdowns, then you think that Donald Trump is the evil who's 36:22.290 --> 36:29.460 caused the problems, because he's urging people to go out and ignore them. If you believe society 36:29.460 --> 36:33.900 should reopen more quickly, well, then you have the opposite view. And, you know, early in the 36:33.900 --> 36:39.930 comments, I mentioned how people looked at the protesters in the police these days. There's 36:39.930 --> 36:44.520 something similar going on here, you know, people looked at the protesters and said yes, most of 36:44.520 --> 36:50.370 them had legitimate grievances. They were trying to respond peacefully, but there were a few rotten 36:50.370 --> 36:55.530 apples, same said about the police. In these lockdown questions in the political world, it's 36:55.530 --> 37:01.650 become, almost if I ask a question about lockdown people ask. It's almost they're responding almost 37:01.650 --> 37:08.520 as if I'm asking about Donald Trump. But what most voters tend to respond more to is if you're 37:08.520 --> 37:17.130 talking about reopening with some kind of health protocols. Well, then people are very supportive. 37:17.130 --> 37:22.800 They want both. They don't want social distancing to end they want the formal mandated lockdowns to 37:22.800 --> 37:29.130 end and then they expect business owners to say, okay, we're going to, we're going to be concerned 37:29.130 --> 37:33.900 about our workers and our customers. So we're going to put our own protocols in place. And it's 37:33.900 --> 37:39.390 that mixed view that people in the middle have, that they don't want to vote, they're not ready to 37:39.390 --> 37:44.250 support Bill de Blasio, his approach to lockdowns in New York City, and they're also not ready to 37:44.250 --> 37:47.730 just open the gates and say, let's see what happens. 37:49.950 --> 37:55.140 Sean Murray: Right. A few weeks ago, we talked about a conspiracy theory. And I think a little 37:55.140 --> 38:04.080 bit of how that's been disproven over time. The theory was in some of the, you know, grayer forums 38:04.080 --> 38:10.320 online was that Biden was potentially going to be replaced as a candidate as we lead up to the 38:10.320 --> 38:14.190 election. Is there any chance that that could happen at this point? 38:16.430 --> 38:21.950 Scott Rasmussen: You know, under any normal circumstance, I would say no, Biden has won 38:21.980 --> 38:29.690 officially enough pledged delegates, he will be the nominee. The only way that would change is if 38:29.690 --> 38:35.990 there is either something new comes out about Joe Biden, which I can't imagine he's been a public 38:35.990 --> 38:47.150 figure for four decades. Or if he really has some, you know, if if he looks really incompetent when 38:47.150 --> 38:53.840 he begins to emerge from the basement, if, and, again, I think those are very long odds. When you 38:53.840 --> 38:59.420 and I spoke earlier, a few weeks back, it was still a long shot, but I think it was more 38:59.420 --> 39:00.740 plausible at that time. 39:05.090 --> 39:09.410 Sean Murray: Right, yeah, I think you're right about that. I don't know if you know the answer to 39:09.410 --> 39:15.620 this question. But you reported that and one of your numbers of the day that 68% of voters have 39:15.620 --> 39:17.420 had protests in their area? 39:17.780 --> 39:18.140 Scott Rasmussen: Yeah. 39:18.530 --> 39:25.040 Sean Murray: Do you think whether or not there have been protests in their area could have an 39:25.040 --> 39:30.710 impact on someone's view versus whether or not they haven't had protests in their area? Because 39:30.710 --> 39:34.610 it might make it a little bit more real to them versus whether or not they see it on TV? 39:36.130 --> 39:39.760 Scott Rasmussen: Actually, the the bigger difference we did a follow up question as part of 39:39.760 --> 39:47.620 that was whether the protests in their area were generally peaceful or if they turned violent. And 39:47.620 --> 39:54.160 there was a bigger gap between those who have seen a violent protest or a protest that turned 39:54.160 --> 40:01.780 violent, and those that haven't. So that's, that's where the gap is at this point in time. It's also 40:01.780 --> 40:07.270 really, you know, there's, there's a great book by Ed Catmull, the founder of Pixar, called 40:07.270 --> 40:12.490 creativity, Inc. and he talks about the ways we can keep creativity going in organizations. And 40:12.490 --> 40:19.450 one of the points he made is that it's hard for us as humans to see what's right in front of our 40:19.450 --> 40:26.500 eyes. What happens is only 40%, what our brain sees only 40% of it actually comes in through our 40:26.500 --> 40:32.440 eyes, the other 60%, we fill in with our own baggage, what we expect to see what are what 40:32.440 --> 40:39.580 patterns we recognize. And when you talk about the protests, people can look at the exact same thing 40:40.330 --> 40:44.980 and have entirely different conclusions about it being you know, based on whether what their own 40:44.980 --> 40:50.230 political views are going into that. And that weighs more on the issue than than anything 40:50.230 --> 40:55.360 they're seeing. I liken it to two guys, considering a sports bar rooting for different 40:55.360 --> 40:59.290 teams, and a referee makes a tough call and one guy thinks it's brilliant. And the other guy 40:59.290 --> 41:04.690 thinks, you know, the referees, a scumbag, because they're rooting for different teams, they looked 41:04.690 --> 41:12.160 at the call through, you know, their own fan lens. And we all do that. So a liberal democrat and a 41:12.160 --> 41:17.560 conservative Republican could look at the exact same protest. They go into it with different 41:17.740 --> 41:20.140 views, and they come out of it with different views. 41:21.540 --> 41:24.090 Sean Murray: Sure, and this is my final question for you. 41:24.420 --> 41:24.990 Scott Rasmussen: Okay. 41:26.430 --> 41:32.700 Sean Murray: Because that's all the time we'll have. One of your recent numbers of the day was 41:32.700 --> 41:39.240 that 48% of voters believe businesses can decide whether their customers must wear a mask. I'm 41:39.240 --> 41:44.070 wondering, are you going to be asking such questions at a later date as well? Because I'm 41:44.070 --> 41:50.880 wondering as, as we move on, whether or not people will continue to feel the same way or some of your 41:50.880 --> 41:57.660 data is just a reaction to the crisis? I mean, are people going to feel this way three years from now 41:57.660 --> 42:02.220 that 48% of them, you know, say they they should be allowed to dictate whether or not they can wear 42:02.220 --> 42:05.010 a mask? Or is this just a reaction right now? 42:05.960 --> 42:10.136 Scott Rasmussen: So let me start by saying on almost any question, any data that I've talked 42:10.192 --> 42:15.650 about in this, we're going to be pulling it again, you know, we're tracking right now. 29% believe 42:15.705 --> 42:20.885 the worst of the pandemic is behind us. That's double where it was, you know, about six weeks 42:20.940 --> 42:26.287 ago. So we're seeing a trend there, we're gonna be measuring whether people think the economy is 42:26.342 --> 42:31.744 getting better or worse on a regular basis. So we do track all of that. I'm actually beginning to 42:31.800 --> 42:37.202 wonder right now, if we need to modify one of the questions we've been having, because events are 42:37.258 --> 42:42.604 changing. We've asked people whether they were more concerned about the economic threat from the 42:42.660 --> 42:47.783 pandemic or the health threat. And early on, it was clearly the health threat. Now, a slight 42:47.839 --> 42:52.795 majority believes it's the economic threat. So we've seen a trend there. But I'm actually 42:52.851 --> 42:58.142 thinking we're gonna have to start including an option for neither was a threat, because that's 42:58.197 --> 43:03.432 the way a lot of people are responding. When you ask about the question in businesses deciding 43:03.488 --> 43:08.834 masks, I certainly hope it's not an issue three years from now. But what we will ask continually 43:08.890 --> 43:14.125 is who has the right to make decisions? And that is a fundamental divide in America today, you 43:14.180 --> 43:19.638 know, do you believe primarily, that government has the authority to make almost all the decisions 43:19.694 --> 43:25.151 about what businesses and individuals do? Or do you believe that individuals and businesses should 43:25.207 --> 43:30.832 make decisions on their own within some, you know, important guidelines? But where is that balance of 43:30.888 --> 43:36.011 power going to be? And that question of who decides? Bluntly, that question goes all the way 43:36.067 --> 43:41.190 back to the colonial era? It's been an ongoing debate in America. It's why we have a federal 43:41.246 --> 43:46.871 system. It's why states and the federal government argue with each other. And that is going to be the 43:46.926 --> 43:51.772 outcome of that question, but who decides will determine the world that my children and 43:51.827 --> 43:53.220 grandchildren grow up in? 43:54.960 --> 43:58.440 Sean Murray: That's great. Well, thank you very much, Scott. That is all the time we have here 43:58.440 --> 44:04.620 today. I know earlier, you mentioned how important it is to be able to see the audience and get their 44:04.620 --> 44:09.840 reaction. Unfortunately, you can't see what their responses right now, but I'll do the awkward clap 44:09.840 --> 44:15.990 for you that you see, I'm sure they're all doing that right now at home. So appreciate your time 44:15.990 --> 44:17.400 and thank you for being here. 44:17.670 --> 44:18.660 Scott Rasmussen: Thank you, Sean.