john Zogby: [00:00:00] you mentioned the great convergence, between the top two issues, the war and, and affordability. I think it's already there.
Jeremy Zogby: it should be pretty obvious to everybody else, that the president is completely losing, narrative control.
john Zogby: Our job was just, look at elections, but now these are high drama phenomena, and so much so that a president of the United States interferes.
john Zogby: It's Monday morning and a special edition of Real Polling in Real Time with Zogby. And here we are again, my son and managing partner, Jeremy Zogby, senior partner, that would be me, John Zogby. And we're going to chat a bit today. There are so many things to talk about, and we try to keep these limited, and we also try to keep these at a, at [00:01:00] an even keel. So we're gonna do a bunch of topics, and I'm gonna kick it off, and we'll see where this takes us. we're gonna talk about Iran eventually, but I-- we, we've had a couple of elections, and we have one coming up. In fact, we have a main primary that's become even more controversial than it already was. And then we have, the elections that took place last week in California and, in particular Los Angeles. something that the President of the United States has addressed and that I'd like to address as well. So first of all, let me talk about Los Angeles. California has the most open of open primaries, and so for mayor of Los Angeles, is an open ballot. There were candidates, and it's nonpartisan in the sense that even though most people [00:02:00] know what parties and what ideologies the candidates may represent, they don't appear on the ballot as a D or as a, as an R. As expected, in race, the incumbent mayor, Karen Bass, is-- looks to be getting about 34, 35% of the vote. Her-- still counting ballots. They're still receiving ballots. And there are updates every day. But she has already been projected to, be in the runoff election, top two candidates for November. The interesting thing is second and third. only one other candidate makes it into the runoff, this has been an, a fascinating battle. on one hand, there's Spencer Pratt, whose resume simply says that he played an evil character on an MTV [00:03:00] show. there is no government experience, no known political experience. He just represents, say, your typical pissed off guy in, in Hollywood. And then there is the Councilwoman Rahman, who, is a progressive, is endorsed by Bernie Sanders and AOC and the like. On election night, was in a solid second place at about 30% of the vote. Rahman was in a third place, at about, 21 or 22%. But the sense was that there were hundreds of thousands of votes yet to be counted, and we weren't exactly sure what areas those ballots were coming in from.
But there was a sense that she would [00:04:00] close the gap, Councilwoman Rahman. That's exactly what has happened. With each passing day, Pratt's, number of votes have pushed him lower, Rahman's number of votes coming in have pushed her higher. And so as of Sunday, she is now in second place, if the momentum continues, she may be more and more in a solid second place.
This counting is going to take place until the 12th, so we've got, as we're speaking right now, today is the 8th, so by the end of the week, we'll have a, better idea. Unfortunately, President Trump has already declared that this is a corrupt ballot with absolutely no evidence to that whatsoever. but this is the way votes are counted in California. no sign of any [00:05:00] shenanigans whatsoever, but what is becoming clear is that the Republican in this race, and that would be, Spencer Pratt, is, is, losing ground. It is just unfortunate that one of the keystones of any democracy is respect for the electoral process, and, dirty elections, miscounts, incompetencies, they take place and sometimes do impact, elections, large ones and small ones.
In this instance though, we already have a challenge from the President of the United States. That doesn't bode well Now, all the way over on the other side of this nation Maine. Susan Collins, who wears the label of moderate Republican, no friend of the, of [00:06:00] President Trump or the Trump administration, is the incumbent. She's been in for four terms, 20, years. She's running for a fifth term. And polls have had her behind pretty much all year, and particularly behind Democratic challenger, Graham Platner. Platner is a controversial character, has seen duty, deployments, in, Afghanistan, has confessed to PTSD, has confessed to some, some alcoholism and, some difficulties with his own mental health. He has also acknowledged that he has had girlfriends and has been not good to his girlfriends. however, and of course, one main controversy, M-A-I-N, major [00:07:00] controversy is, a tattoo he has had since his military days that, a, Nazi, insignia of some sort. He has claimed he's apologized for that, gotten rid of it, or had it inked over, and said that he didn't know what it was all about. But The New York Times did a piece this past week, three former girlfriends, two of which had some pretty serious charges about violent, language, violent behavior, controlling. bad boyfriend, other words. something that made him apologize, but also something that made his team counterattack 'cause one of the women who had the most serious of charges turns out to be a Republican conservative operative, and perhaps, we don't know, maybe not so [00:08:00] innocent, all. But the thing that fascinates me again that undermines our election system the story comes out and now it becomes a question of whose side are you on? th- Republicans immediately reject Platner, which they were doing anyway, but charging him with immorality and with, being violent and so on. Democrats rally to him, and one of the stranger statements from Congressman Progressive Ro Khanna is that he says, "Look, the guy's been honest. guy had problems. The guy has PTSD. He has mental health issues. He's honest, and we need honesty in the United States Senate." I don't know. Call me old-fashioned, but I look at that and I say, "We need [00:09:00] better services for those with PTSD. We need to question our going to war, especially for flimsiest of reasons." But it... None of this makes you qualified to serve in the United States Senate. And so the issue come next week is, does Platner get hurt by this the Democratic primary? the, his opponent, the current governor, who, running for his Senate had already dropped out of the race, but she's still on the ballot. And we'll have to see if this hurts Platner in the primary, or, wins the primary but then goes on wounded, and loses to Susan Collins, who was everyone was expecting would, would, lose her, bid for re-election. So we used to just have elections, our job was just, look at elections, but now these are [00:10:00] high drama phenomena, and so much so that a president of the United States interferes. That's all I have to say about those two. Not quite a lightning rod, but, call it a cri de coeur from somebody who's been doing this sort of stuff for a long time. on your mind, Jer?
Jeremy Zogby: let me start off by saying that Spencer Pratt, i- if the tr- the trajectory continues and he comes in third spot and he doesn't advance to the general election in November, I would tell him, Spencer, you dodged a bullet" because based on what I'm seeing, going on around the world and the implications that'll have for the United States at every level from federal to state to city, especially Los Angeles, y- you don't...
I don't think you really want the, this job. So [00:11:00] keep that between Rahm and, and Bass. and then on, on the other side in, Maine as, you're suggesting, this is typical. We get into these issues about people's personal lives and, this has been going on for decades, but I suspect people are gonna, stop talking about that and thinking about those kind of things 'cause I, I think they're gonna be potentially bigger fish to fry.
there were-- there was a, few Substacks ago, that I, wrote a piece, about, the war in Iran numbers that, the president should see or the, the political class should see and, I've talked about this in, in, in other Substacks about this notion of the convergence.
But, specifically what I was talking about with Iran, and I've been also talking about [00:12:00] this on, the podcast, is we're, gonna get to a point based on what I've seen in the numbers that we've been closely tracking over the months that the war in Iran as a separate issue and the economy/affordability and inflation as kind of one issue wrapped up into itself are gonna come together
formulate into one major issue, and that's gonna change the public psychology and their perception of events and I think that's when the rubber meets the road and the tough gets going.
And I think we're getting fairly close to that moment, and I say that because I wanna ask the question, h- did anyone catch within the last week when, I think it was the vice president of, ExxonMobil s- somebody senior level, It, could have been one of the C-suite, the president or the vice president.
he [00:13:00] said two things last week. He said, "Number one, we're getting dangerously close to critical low levels of, of oil supplies." This is, somebody high up at ExxonMobil. When they say something like that, people should be paying attention. The next thing he said was He wouldn't be surprised as this continues and we don't see, any resolution to the war.
He doesn't rule out $160, barrel oil That would be the record. As far as I know, the highest level it ever got, Brent crude that is, was a hundred and fifty in July of 2008, right around the time the, global financial crisis was, ravaging. So a hundred and sixty dollar barrel in oil is pretty significant.
overnight, over the weekend, we [00:14:00] saw the, the attacks between Israel and Iran kicking back into full gear. th-this morning, the Houthi rebels, of Yemen, funded by, Iran, announced that, they were gonna attack any Israeli vessel and allies of Israel who go through the Red Sea. So that's two maritime choke points right there that are now in-involved in full-fledged war.
And, meanwhile, it's pretty obvious to me, and it should be pretty obvious to everybody else, that the president is completely losing, narrative control. This confidence game that he's been playing for a hundred days now, this appearance that he knows what he's doing, he knows what he's talking about.
It-- I, I think for a critical mass of voters over this weekend, we're now shifting into that point where people are, [00:15:00] increasingly, probably even within the Republican Party, are gonna start saying, "This guy's got no plan." and so I'm looking at the summer, and, I'm thinking about all the young people graduating from high school, graduating from college, and about to enter the real world.
And, there's really two choices that, that they can do in terms of action. They can, really, get involved and mobilize in terms of voting. But if events play out in terms of that convergence where the war in Iran and its economic implications really start to hit home and we see the next level of price shock, I don't think y-the youth are gonna be thinking in terms of voting.
I think they're gonna be pretty angry. And, we're seeing that around the globe. that keeps resurfacing. This has been going on since the great financial crisis of [00:16:00] 2008. Year after year, you, see the youth take to the streets in, other parts of the world, down with corruption, down with the ruling party.
I remember in Lebanon, I think it was during COVID, the re- the youth really hit the streets hard. And, they were saying, "Give us anybody to, to be in government who has no government experience." That, that's how bad it got. And the situation there obviously hasn't gotten better. And so That's what I'm looking at as far as what could play out in this summer.
And look, I've been very calm and I've been very cool-minded in terms of analyzing these events. But I have to say that, and I've studied a lot of history, I think that this is the stupidest war that I have ever seen or read about in my life and leave it up to [00:17:00] our president to get us involved in it.
john Zogby: Okay. I'm gonna just close with, a couple of comments. One is, you mentioned the great convergence, between the top two issues, the war and, and affordability. I think it's already there. I'm starting to hear it anecdotally in private conversations, and we're starting to see it as well in, in our polling and our open-ended questions where the war is now and of itself an issue, but inextricably linked with the high cost of living.
That doesn't bode well. And as we're hearing from economists, if there were a ceasefire, signed, sealed, and delivered today, prices would not start to be impact- impacted for [00:18:00] another six months. and so the convergence I think is there. The second thing is that... And we mentioned this last week, I believe, that, we asked if Israel is, an asset or a liability, and overall, to the-- that is to the United States, 50% that it was a liability, which included over 70% of Democrats and 60% of independents. we asked the same question about NATO, and it was a flip, that NATO was not seen as a burdensome or liability, in our alliance, with Eur- European countries. In a bill that just passed, one of the houses of Congress, there is a plan to phase out [00:19:00] aid to Israel and merge the two militaries, the United States and Israel, which case Israel would receive a lot more money and a lot more hardware, et cetera. And we're gonna be asking the American people in our next poll, do you think that's a good idea? that where this relationship, is already being viewed now almost a majority by, by the American people as a liability, is this the direction that we wanna go into? word, Jer?
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah, I, I can see a great poll question. the United States and, Israel merge their militaries and, become one. What could possibly go wrong?
john Zogby: we have a head start, don't we?
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah
john Zogby: [00:20:00] we got a lot covered in a short time span. see you next podcast
Jeremy Zogby: Yep, you got it
john Zogby: Take care. Bye-bye