Why has a Democrat "traitor" switched sides to help Trump win? | The News Agents

Michigan is absolutely critical to the Democrats' chance of taking the Senate. And if El-Sayed pulls it off, despite all of the institutional forces against him, from his primary opponent, Haley Stevens, who's emerged from the darkness to try to stop him, at the point at which she flipped, it just felt... vindictive because Mike Rogers is not a saint Mike Rogers has used a lot of islamophobic rhetoric on the campaign it kind of leaves a taste in the mouth to put it mildly And conversely, if he wins, then he has won with a progressive argument and having come through the betrayal, the nightmare of Hayley Stephens two days before. The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. Thank you. This is a global production. Hey, Michigan. As you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for US Senate, Abdul, said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away. And he's right. And that's why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today. I don't belong in Abdul's campaign. We're in Detroit, Michigan, home of one of the most critical Senate races of this whole midterm election. And we have had one hell of a surprise, an influential Democrat now abandoning her own party, screwing the Democratic candidate and voting with the other side. Yes, Abdul Al-Saeed had beaten Hayley Stevens to win the nomination for the Democratic Party. She has just come out and said, I'm supporting the Republican. Has this completely screwed the Democrats in this must-win state? Welcome to the Newsagents. The News Agents. It's Jon. It's Maitlis. And it's Miles. Who? What are you doing here? Well, you invited me. So you exist in real life because we've only ever seen you down the line until now, when you've been in a remote studio outside Washington DC. And here we are all together in Washington DC, overlooking the White House, which is now a building site, because Donald Trump has ripped down half of the east wing to build a ballroom that is going to dwarf... The rest of the White House. And so you've got cranes up and you've got construction and it just looks a total mess at the moment. Except for the reflecting pool, obviously, which we might be taking to a little bit later because that is all finished now and it is vandal proof. Thank you. We've also got the soundscape of Washington, D.C., I should say. I mean, this is... It's an alarming place right now. Yeah, this is kind of... It's a convoy. It's just endless police sirens and motorcades. And presumably a very important motorcade going down on the street beneath where we're speaking to you now. Well, and we're going to hear more of that because the president is making his closing argument of these elections at the Lincoln Memorial not far from here by that reflecting pool where he's purportedly installed cameras to find the vandals. And I'm sure we'll talk about this, but a very interesting place to make his closing argument at the base of one of his. I feel we're going to be hearing about ballrooms, not ballots later today, but we will bring you all that when we have it. Look, we were expecting to spend the weekend in Washington, D.C., getting everything ready for our all-nighter. We're bringing you the election results on Tuesday night through the night. And yet something started happening late on Friday night, which just made us shiver a bit. And it was a row that erupted in Michigan in one of the most critical Senate races there is. Abdul Al-Sayed, if he wins, would become the first Muslim in the Senate. He's the Democratic candidate. And late between Thursday and Friday night, there were rumblings. There were rumblings coming from the woman who he beat in the Democratic primary. Now, She has made it clear that she finds some of the people around him and some of the advertising around him pretty anti-Jewish. She uses the word hate and she asked him to call it out. There was a specific advertisement which was made not by El-Sayed but by Rebellion Pack, by Cenk Uygur and I think we should play you a little bit because it kind of leaves a taste in the mouth to put it mildly. We get all the sandwich stuff for the kids' lunch. They don't like turkey anymore. Yeah, I know. What about the bananas? Yeah, I got them too. But, honey. What? You're going to have to put those eggs back. They don't like eggs anymore? No, they like eggs. But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians. What? I mean, don't we give Israel $4 billion a year anyways? Yeah, and now we're giving them another $26 billion. Do you know how much that is per American taxpayer? No. It's like $161 per person. Apparently, it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza. That's terrible. Don't they get universal health care too? Yeah, they do. We're paying for that too, probably. Might as well put the bananas back. Why the do we have to pay for all of this? Don't cuss at me. Why does Mike Rogers care so much about what Israelis want and so little about what you want? Mike Rogers is for they, them. Abdul El-Sayed is for. So at this point, many people are asking him whether he'll disown the ad. He didn't make it. At this point, many people are saying, is she on side? Is she going to rally with you? And he turns around and he says, frankly, I don't think I need her. They were meant to be doing a church kind of rally together with Jim Clyburn, another senior Democrat. He tells her to stay away. Stay away. Stay away. And at that point, I think. The woman in question is called Hayley Stevens and she had as you say Emily wanted to win the Democratic nomination she came close she'd had a lot of money backing from AIPAC which is the pro-israel lobby in the US she came very very close didn't win it and it's clear that there are policy questions on which she and El Said sharply differ. But there's also personality, and they really didn't get on. And so she did the unthinkable. I mean, it was stunning. It was shocking that she, on the Sunday, two days before polling, when we were in Detroit, suddenly announces, not only is she not going to support him, but she is actively backing the Republican candidate Mike Rogers and stands with him. And you've got to feel that she has absolutely... Toasted her political career by this. And we were in a coffee shop together in kind of just outside Dearborn, yeah, in Michigan, when we were interviewing a Democrat candidate in these elections. She was running for the Dearborn council, but part of the El-Sayed campaign. Her name's Dana Mohamed. And we were interviewing her as the news broke that Hayley Stephens had defected, had betrayed El-Sayed. Say again? Hayley Stephens. Oh my god. Dana, in the last minutes that we've been talking to you, we've just heard Hayley Stephens formally endorse the Republican candidate for Senate. Your response? I, for some reason, I'm shocked. I didn't think that it would be an official endorsement. I know she was campaigning with him the last couple hours, but I had no idea that she would endorse him. I think, like I said before, I think her position in the Democratic Party is dead. I don't think she'll ever be able to run as a Democrat in the state of Michigan again. If he loses on Wednesday, does she have to accept the blame for that? Absolutely. Absolutely. This does look like a deliberate act of sabotage, doesn't it? Yes, it does. It does. And also it makes her seem like a very sore loser, if I may say. You ran as a Democrat and we were all under the impression that, you know, we rally against a Democratic candidate once we lose a primary, and that's been the tradition since ever. So I'm shocked that she would take it upon herself to, you know, I would see that as an act of leaving the Democratic Party. When we started speaking to you, You said you were really optimistic that Abdul Al-Saeed was going to win. You've now got a woman who does command considerable support, not as much as Abdul Al-Saeed. But if she's telling her supporters, vote Republican now, hasn't his job been made a lot more difficult to win the Senate seat? I really don't want to give her all of that credit. If she had that tremendous amount of influence, she would have won the primary and she didn't. But she's still got some influence. It was a close run thing. Yeah, I think it just proves that a lot of her policy positions were more aligned with the Republican Party than they were with the progressive Democrats. Are you angry? I am. I am angry. I am. I mean, I'm hearing this news live with you guys, so I have to process it. But my first initial feeling is very, very, very angry. So what does it mean then if she is now endorsing Mike Rogers? What does Mike Rogers stand for in your mind for Michigan? I have never known what he stood for. All I've ever known about his policy is that he hates Arabs and he hates Muslims. And so I think that it's unfortunate to see Haley Stevens align herself with that kind of messaging. I mean, we've heard him on the debate stage the last time he debated Abdul, and his message over and over again was rooted in... anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. I literally do not remember a single thing he said about any policy position. And so the fact that she's lining herself with that kind of messaging, and I know her fiance has been very vocal about that as well over the last week. Already endorsed my voice. Yeah. So I think it's just, it's upsetting. It's unfortunate. I think she has no position in the Democratic Party moving forward. And, um, To me, she's lining herself with Islamophobia. I think in Britain we'd say good riddance. Oh yeah. Yeah? You'd say that? Yeah, I'd say that two times ten. 10. So traitor is a strong word to use. I've got to say when the cameras weren't rolling, the language was riper. Yeah, it was a lot stronger than that. It was a lot, lot stronger than that. And the reason is this. Michigan is absolutely critical. to the Democrats' chance of taking the Senate and the fact of the matter is that as things stand they need to flip four Senate seats from Republican to Democrat to take control If they take Michigan, that's not a game. That's just a hold. It was a Democrat seat beforehand. And so this is all about not just the control of the Senate, which is important enough in itself, but also El-Sayed is a progressive candidate. She is a more establishment Democrat. And it's about what the future of the Democratic Party looks like going into the 2028 presidential election that so much rides on what happens in Michigan. Well, I'll just say... The whole episode was so thick with symbolism because this whole race has been, in part, this fight between the past of the Democratic Party and what feels like the future of the Democratic Party, but also... A populism that's been coursing through a lot of these midterm races where you see people who maybe have voted for Donald Trump in the past saying, you know what, I want a disruptor. Maybe I'm interested in El-Sayed. And this sort of last minute flashpoint between El-Sayed and his previous candidate says a lot about this race. Yeah, I found it really interesting for the 48 hours whilst the row was brewing because it was making me think about. Some of the friends, the bedfellows that he's had on the campaign, it was making me think about the language in the ad. But I have to say, at the point at which she flipped and she actually went to actively support Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate, I think there was a clarity in that. It just felt. vindictive. It felt like a personal vendetta because Mike Rogers is not a saint. Mike Rogers is not an anti-hate candidate. Mike Rogers has used a lot of Islamophobic rhetoric on the campaign, including imitating his kind of mobster bosses language of jihadists and extremists and dangerous connections to Al-Qaeda. And I think that became a sort of A much more clarifying moment, but we went along to the the Abdul El-Sayed rally actually and when I say rally, you have this image in your head in America of something that's... 10,000 people. 10,000 people, an airport hangar. How many were there? About 50. Seriously, it was like it was a very small little kind of medical center, the kind of place you might take your baby for a first vaccination. We had 50 chairs out. I was on like row five or six. So he was kind of right in front of me. And what was interesting was when he finally came in, you know, a lot of build up. He did not want to talk about Hayley Stevens. He wanted to talk about affordability. He wanted to talk about health care. He looked knackered close up, actually, because I think. He feels that every time he tries to talk about policy on the campaign, all he gets is people saying, but have you disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood? But why are you called Muhammad? I'm not, but why are you linked to Al-Qaeda? I'm not, but why aren't you denouncing this advert that you didn't make? And so he looked like a man who actually was not derailed from what he was trying to say, but was just sort of shattered from having to keep addressing things that really We're never part of his policy or his campaign or frankly, anything to do with his alliances or allegiances. And yet, John, when we look at this race in Michigan and the seven seats that Democrats might have the most competitive opportunity in the Senate, poll after poll has actually shown the Michigan race has their best. Yeah, of those competitive seats. And it's been interesting to watch sort of establishment members of the Democratic Party still dragging their feet over El-Sayed when he's potentially one of their best opportunities to win and hold a key seat. And that could have big implications for this election. Do you know what? When it all broke and we were together in Michigan yesterday and thinking wow, this is unbelievable, my immediate instinct was to think, okay, if he loses now... then that's the progressive cause done for and that you know the establishment democrats will be cock-a-hoop and actually overnight the more i thought about it the more i thought actually no it's the opposite i think that if you know if he loses it will be Haley Stevens who will get the blame it won't be progressivism it won't be the arguments he was making it was the intervention of this one woman and conversely if he wins then he has won With a progressive argument and having come through the betrayal, the nightmare of Haley Stevens two days before. And he will say, look, we're bomb proof, we're fireproof. If we make our arguments with confidence, nothing can derail us. It's worth saying that in Michigan, they've had nine days of early voting before this announcement came, so loads of people will have voted already. And in the hours after Haley Stevens switched, he raised over a million dollars. So something happened. Something became a sort of, you know, a Viagra moment for his fundraising, which was her saying, I'm out of here, send the money up. But I do think what we are about to see... Viagra moments and things going up. I mean, honestly, Emily... Too much? It is quite early in the morning here. I probably needed to think about it. This segment is not sponsored by... But wait, the one thing I want to say is that, you know, we always talk about... Trump's ability to kind of, you know, find votes in really canny, clever places. And Dearborn was the place that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden lost because they did not get the Gaza feeling. They did not understand, I think, the strength of of Arab-American feeling after, you know, the destruction of Gaza. And this time round, I think our side is saying. Just let me have a go, because I can find young people in this state. I can find young people in these communities, and they might not be natural Democrats. They might have never voted before. I will get into the polls. I've been looking at this race and thinking. Yeah. So goes Michigan, so goes the nation, because you sense all of that populist fervor that we've been talking about for months across the United States and so many of these races is really epitomized there in Michigan. And if El-Sayed pulls it off, despite all of the institutional forces against him within his own party and from a longtime Washington creature and his opponent, Mike Rogers, from his... Primary opponent, Haley Stevens, who's emerged from the darkness to try to stop him. If he overcomes that, it's going to say a lot about what we probably will see in these other races across the country. And not just the future of the Democratic Party, but where American politics are headed. I was sitting next to a young woman who wore this Jews for Abdul T-shirt. And so obviously I started the conversation. I was like, well, you know. Do you mind any of the rhetoric? Do you mind any of the stuff that you've sort of heard on the campaign? Not from him, but around him. And she was really honest and it's worth just hearing a clip from Sharon because she basically sets out this feeling of like, I think the Jewish community in Michigan is quite divided. I think, you know, my mum's friends, they don't really like what they're hearing, But they kind of see There is a greater thing going on here and actually what he's going to do on healthcare, what he's going to do on affordability, and what he's going to do for democracy, that she remembers at the last minute, is not unimportant. And I think it's just worth listening to Sharon trying to kind of unpick a very complicated set of emotions there. Getting the word out about how to get money out of... Be your next United States senator. Hi, I'm Sharon Gorgi. I live here in Detroit. I've been an enthusiastic supporter of him since his primary campaign and I'm really excited to see him doing so well and I'm really hoping he'll be on TV. And I couldn't help spotting your t-shirt, Jews for Abdul. Why is that an important message for you to get out? I mean, I'm a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and a group called Detroit Jews for Justice here in this area and there's a lot of us in these groups who are really actively supporting Abdul in the election and basically they made t-shirts for pretty much every group who's supporting him in the election, women for Abdul, Muslims for Abdul, Jews for Abdul, so I got this from the Abdul campaign and I've been on canvassing today with the Jews for Abdul group, so I'm wearing my t-shirt. And do you think that in general Jews from Michigan are supportive of him because this has been like the center of some of the criticism some of the criticisms Yeah, I mean the Jewish community is very divided, it really depends on who you talk to. I think there are enthusiastic supporters of Abdul within the Jewish community, there are people who will never vote for him, and there's a lot of people who are in the middle and who are frankly confused. I really mean that. A lot of my mother's friends are going to vote for Abdul, but they have some serious reservations, but they still feel like preserving American democracy is more important than anything right now. Really interesting. They're confused because they didn't like all his messaging? Yeah, I think some of his messaging during the primary rubbed some Jews the wrong way, frankly, like money for Michigan versus money for Israel, it's like a classic duality that I don't think, there's a lot more complexity to why Michigan has been struggling economically, frankly, for decades, and especially in the last, you know, eight years with everyone in America embroiled with Iran and everything going on around the world, yeah. So we're talking today that Haley Stevens has suddenly announced that she's not only not supporting she is going to vote for the Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. Yeah. You know what, it's kind of a last minute, like, attention grab from my point of view. I mean, I just think her feelings were hurt because Abdul said, you know, please stay out of the last few days of the election because she was, you know, made some video about him and his advertising or allied advertising. And so she got, her feelings were hurt. So since last night she said she was going to appear with Abdul this morning, and then by the morning she appeared with Mike Rogers. I mean, it seems pretty silly, right? Do you think it's a big mistake? I don't think it's good for her career. I don't know how many votes it's really going to sway, quite frankly. I think most people have made up their minds already, and it seems kind of last-minute silly. Yeah, and of course, what gave this contentious, horrible advert so much attention was Haley Stevens drawing attention to it. The other thing, though, to say about Haley Stevens is she did enjoy considerable support amongst the Jewish community and amongst the African-American community in Detroit itself, where there was a reservation about Abdul Al Saeed. And we just don't know yet, on the eve of polling, whether it's going to make a huge difference to the way people vote, whether they, you know, maybe sort of Jewish Democrats or black Democrats thinking I've now got a license to vote Republican. Because Haley Stevens has gone this way. And so, it's not surprising. I mean, I'm sure Abdul Al-Saeed was knackered yesterday. But it was also a pretty shitty day for him as well. When you've got, you know, they talk about the October surprise. November the 1st. It was the November the 1st surprise. It was just running a bit late. We ended the day in a Detroit bar, a sports bar. And it was really interesting speaking to people who weren't at the rallies. They weren't at the polls. They weren't early voters. They were... What's that phrase that they use here? Kind of low interest voters. Low propensity. Low propensity voters. And, you know, let's say it was late on a Sunday. They might have been the worst for wear after a drink or two. Although I would say a few of them had their car keys in their hands. So I'm hoping not too far gone. A classic Midwestern thing. But what was interesting was that one of the guys we talked to, Dave, when I asked him about Al-Sayed and how he felt about the candidates, he immediately started talking about Al-Qaeda. And I was like, where did that come from? Well, actually, where did it come from? It came from Fox News and it came from Trump and it came from Mike Rogers himself. And so this is how things travel. You know, people pick up these names, people pick up these ideas. And he kept on asking me, isn't that true? And I was like, no, it isn't. I mean, it's worth listening to a tiny bit of Dave. Are you going to vote on Tuesday? No, I don't vote. Why not? Because they're... They're both liars and they're both not, they're in it for themselves and not for the state of Michigan. And if I was squeezing your hand and making you say one over the other, who would it be? Squeezing my hand? No. I don't know. I would say Rogers, because he's already established. The new guy, El-Sayed. And with his supposed ties to Al-Qaeda or whatever, you know, and Al-Sayed, the views like Muslim women have to, you know, no divorce, no that, it kind of turns me off. Do you know he thinks that? I mean, do you know he hasn't got ties to Al-Qaeda? Well, I have no, you know, I'm just saying that on the premise of... What would you be scared to have a Muslim in the Senate? No, it's not that. No, absolutely not. Uh... It's just that it seems like that he is focused on his Al-Sayed, how do you say that, of views. And then women have to have escorts and no divorce. You know, from his past, that is what they said on the news. You don't think that's maybe his enemies trying to spread lies? Yeah, it's pretty much, it could be his enemies, but is that true or not? Can you tell me? It's not. It's not. It's not true. So you're with LL... I'm not with anyone, but I'm just interested to know what facts get through and what facts don't. You know, I try to understand my own facts and not be swayed by the facts of the media. Do you like Mike Rogers? Not enough to vote for him? Well, I really... No, I don't know much about him. Tell me, uh... He's got a track record, I guess, and that's what they say on TV, you know, 30 years, you know, and he's done nothing. But, of course, nobody does nothing. When they get elected, nothing happens. So you're a disillusioned man. Yeah, disillusioned, for sure. What are the toughest things about life in Detroit right now? Toughest things in Detroit? All right. Or toughest things for you in your life right now? Uhhhh... Just staying focused on my job and, you know, if I have to pay a little bit higher gas prices for whatever reason, good reasons, of course, so be it. Dave, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. But there's also in this race, I think, a political realignment that we are seeing across the country, and El-Sayed taps into it during the campaign. He ran this ad recently of Fox News personalities celebrating him, talking about how great he is, as sort of a way to cross over and appeal to conservative Voters, and the issue of Israel that keeps coming up is one of those issues that shows the realignment is you've got a number of conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's right, he pulled Tucker Carlson into his arms. That's right, a lot of these people who have broken away from Donald Trump and said this isn't an anti-Jewish thing. We're allowed to have opinions on America's relations with foreign governments and you've got a lot of anger among blue-collar voters about getting sucked into another forever war and you see it in this race of people saying I can hold two things in my head at the same time. I can be great with the Jewish people and I can be furious that the United States government is once again following the lead of the government of Israel and I say that as someone who three times I sat across from Netanyahu in negotiations. I was deep in the Republican Party where we worked very closely with the The GOP of today is unprepared for the reckoning that's coming when it comes to Israel policy. And we've also seen from this race, the El Sayed race, that the Democratic Party is also unprepared for it. And I will say, you just have to get used to the Miles flex. They're going to come with increasing regularity. And we're going to have these little name drops from here onwards. We used to sleep in our guest bedroom, and we don't allow them in the house anymore. And that symbolizes what's happening. Thank you. Donald Trump came around to my hotel room last night. No, okay, he didn't. But look, I think that all these things come together in such a toxic brew for the Republican Party, don't they? I mean, the fact that gas costs so much more in the pumps right now. Well, that's because of Donald Trump's war with Israel against Iran, which has been unsuccessful and led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and has led to oil prices being so much higher. Donald Trump promised the American people that he was not going to get involved in forever wars before the election. And suddenly he's got a war of choice on his hands that people are furious with. He's allied himself absolutely firmly with Netanyahu, when people have seen what has been happening in Gaza and feel furious. about it and so you just see that all these things come together in terms of affordability in terms of foreign policy in terms of foreign entanglement and Donald Trump has made all of this worse and you know it looks like the Democrats are going to profit from it and in a moment we'll talk about some of the polls that have come out from the New York Times on the eve of polling Which suggests that the Democrats are doing well. Now it's time to thank our partner, HSBC UK Commercial Banking. When you're growing your business, you need a banking partner as invested in your success as you are. And with HSBC UK, business financing is about more than just money. They support ambitious UK businesses looking to grow, whether that's accelerating technology adoption, expanding into new markets or strengthening their workforce through upskilling. 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So I'm not sure what the collective noun is for a whole lot of polls, a slew I guess, but they've come out today in the New York Times and you'd have to say that if you're a Democrat you'd be feeling pretty chipper reading them because in Michigan that we were just talking about it looks like El-Saeed has an 11-point... lead over Mike Rogers, go to Texas and James Tallarico. The Democrat has a seven point lead over Ken Paxton, Maine. It's a six point lead that Troy Jackson apparently has over Susan Collins. Ohio five point lead for the Democrat, Kansas five point lead and Alaska a two point lead and Iowa a one point lead for the Democrats. So in these seven key swing states, it looks like the Democrats have an edge or have a clear lead. Well, you know, but also this is one of those things in the closing days of a race that if you are the insurgent party, you both want and you don't want. There's a weird psychology in the lead up to voting day. You kind of don't want polls that show you blowing the other side out of the water because you really want your voters to get there today. Democratic voters will be getting emails from their candidates, not citing the blowout surveys of the New York Times, but saying it's too close to call. We are on the edge. We might not pull this off because they want their voters, especially the ones who haven't cast early ballots, which have been historic, by the way. To still get out there on Tuesday and feel like their vote is going to make a difference. So there's this interesting last minute psychological nervousness you see in the Democratic Party despite those good numbers. Yeah, that's what Ted Cruz, who's the other Texas senator, was doing at the weekend where he said if the election was held today, he said this on Saturday, it would be a bloodbath. And you're like, whoa, Ted, hang on. But of course, what he's trying to do is say it's not over yet. You can get out and vote for the convict Ken Paxton over James Talarico. What I find interesting about this set of polls is that up till now, we've used this phrase a lot within the margin of error, right? And within the margin of error, basically does so much heavy lifting because it means that if you're seeing a poll where the difference is about three or four points then the pollsters can say with some you know righteousness look we were never going to get it spot on three to four percent is within the right the the margin of error. Now of course if you're waiting for results that doesn't help you because three or four percent is the difference between winning or losing a race and quite often what happens is You know, you can see this whole slew of blue looking polls and then six are within the margin of error and they all go red. So that, you know, that kind of flips on its head. Now, when you're looking at numbers that you just said, like El Said up 11 points, Talarico up seven points, I'm not sure that sits within a margin of error anymore. In other words, if those don't come right, then there is a serious problem with American polling. There is a serious problem with American polling. I have to say, this is something that I was learning this morning, we always assume that it is the Republicans, that it is the Trump voters that are somehow underestimated, because that did happen in 2016. More recently, I think it has been the Democrats, am I right, that have been undercounted in polling, certainly in the midterms. There have been certain areas, there are certain places where they get undercounted. But I think it will be a big question, that's all I'm saying. If these ones are now wrong... And they are showing such large margins. There is a massive problem with the polling. So there are certain races where I think I'm still very sceptical. And so, you know, we talked a lot about Michigan and what happens and what unfolds there. Alaska, where... The Democratic candidate has been kind of caught, although her campaign has been caught, kind of with this kind of name of another candidate the same as the Republican. Well, to Dan Stevens, she says she knew nothing about it. To Dan Sullivan. Yeah, Dan Stevens, I think, was in Downton Abbey. Sorry, Dan. Anyway. He's also running. He's also running. The Dan Sullivans, J and S. We think now a deliberate ballot confuser. Mary Paltola has said she didn't know anything about it. She's distanced herself, but it is her own former staffer who has basically spilled the beans to the New York Times and said, I think she knew. And also what an impossible woman Mary Paltola was to work for. So that's one race that I'm sort of, you know, slightly sceptical about the numbers. The other one is Maine, where although it shows Troy Jackson out in front quite comfortably, At the last time that Susan Collins fought that seat, the final poll underestimated her support by nine points. She does very well with people who may not want to kind of admit to being supporters of Susan Collins. And so I kind of think, OK, I'm going to watch Maine pretty closely as well. I suppose the other thing, if you're a Republican, which you might take comfort from, is that, you know, historically, in the final day, it's the Republican vote that comes out more strongly. Democrats vote Vote earlier, vote by mail. Republicans turn out in big numbers. But you know, I was looking at stuff. Sorry, Miles, I know you want to come in. They were talking about Mississippi on the news today. They were talking about the race in Mississippi. I cannot imagine a Democrat in Mississippi. And they were talking about South Carolina. Now, South Carolina is my money to watch one, which is really interesting. This is where Darlene Graham, who's the sister of the late Lindsey Graham, Has sort of taken over his seat and is now trying to fight it, whilst admitting she knows absolutely nothing about foreign policy. And she's up against this paediatrician, Annie Andrews, who by all accounts is neck and neck in South Carolina. I mean, that would be an extraordinary upset if you're talking about... But, you know, what is so potent in the mind of Democrats today is what happened 10 years ago, where there were very similar conversations. Hillary Clinton was running for president against Donald Trump. No one, not even those of us in the Republican Party, working under House leadership at the time... Thought that Donald Trump would win that race. Hillary Clinton was pushing into deep red areas. They were convinced they could flip red states into blue states. It was going to be a blue wave. And of course, it ended up being a rout. And that's what's got Democrats very nervous today as they're looking at some of these races. They're not as convinced that even if the numbers are good, that they have it in the bag. And then this is not the conversation they want to be having the day before the vote is about a potential race in Alaska where the Democratic candidate might have meddled Confusion. They don't want to be talking about infighting in Michigan. This is not where they wanted the conversation to be. So you're going to see a lot of that nervousness play out over the next 24, 36 hours as we get closer to some of those returns coming in of folks saying, I've seen this show before. I don't want to count my chickens, but let's just try to get people to the polls. You may be wondering where Mr. Lewis Goodall is. He is in Texas and on Saturday night dressed Most unbelievably, He was at a Halloween party. Party. . . . Dude, I'm 3% of the world population, and my vote's ******* up England, it's pissing off Canada. In America, there are a lot of scary, very scary places to end up on Halloween, Wait. but I think I might have found the worst yet. Yeah, even the jet could go out, yeah. Me and other Trump voters are only 3% of the world population. Yet my vote is like Mr. Worldwide, bro. It's *******... What is in the power that you have? The power, bro. Dude, I'm 3% of the world population. And my vote's ******* up England. It's pissing off Canada. Because I'm pissed off, bro. I'm pissed off about these governments, these bureaucrats, these globalists, who don't give a ---- about me. They never gave a ---- about me once, but now they do. So you're pissed off, so you want the rest of the world to be pissed off? I just want the world to know that I was pissed off. I was pissed off, bro. What are the outfits here? I'm just an ice agent. Oh, you're an ice agent? Yes. Um, not a naturalized, not a naturalized agent. Huh? Not a naturalized agent. Oh no. You're not going to deport me. I wish, right? I'm I'm Nicholas Maduro, the night he was arrested by President Trump, or kidnapped by President Trump. You, some people may say that, but he was wanted for good reasons. So, if you would like to be in the costume contest, the grand prize is a $250 gift card. Oh, let's see your nickname. Hello, I'm your host Nigel. I'm a specialist in the Middle East and who believes in somewhat high-tax socialism. Can you understand why, given that he talks about Muslims so much in such pejorative and mocking ways, you could understand why Muslim Americans might really feel targeted by the guy? Well, you know, we felt targeted when they brought down the Twin Towers. That wasn't American Muslims, was it? That was Al-Qaeda. Not the American Muslims, Al-Qaeda, backed by the Saudis. I mean, you wouldn't associate, I mean, the KKK, the KKK were really Protestant, but you wouldn't, you wouldn't criticise all Protestants for what the KKK did. If they're not denouncing it, if they are... Promoting these types of teachings and wanting to... I think most Muslim Americans would denounce 9-11. Well, then they're not practicing Muslims. They're not following the Quran and the Hadith as it teaches. And before we go, we're off to the Lincoln Memorial, because we want to pay homage to Donald Trump standing. I don't know whether he'll be at the foot of the memorial or whether he'll be sort of by the great big statue of Abraham Lincoln. I'm going to put my little hands through the American flag paint and see if it's still sticking to the bottom of the reflecting pool. Well, and I'll just say this. Donald Trump is closing this campaign. Really where it began, which is behind us, you see that ballroom being built. It's been hailed as one of the vanity projects of the Trump administration. It's one of the things his Republican candidates don't want him talking about, but he can't help talking about the gold trim at the White House and the drapes. And now he's going to go and make his closing argument for these midterms in front of one of his other vanity projects. And in the background, you will see the Lincoln Memorial. But if Donald Trump has his way in the next two years, You will see a soaring arch. Eclipse the Lincoln Memorial built in his own honour. And trust me, his opponents are going to be using that to great fanfare for their own closing arguments in this race. And you know, talk about closing arguments, where you two are going to take me for dinner? Oh, really? Busy, I'm sorry. The Cheesecake Factory. The Cheesecake Factory. We've booked our table. All right, we'll see you tomorrow on polling day. Bye-bye. Bye for now. The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK. Opening up a world of opportunity. This has been a Global Production.