Election Day is here; will rain keep voters from the polls?

I want to go ahead and actually bring in one of our political experts, Mordecai Lee, joining us here on Fox 6 Now. Mordecai, always a pleasure whenever we get to have you. So we appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. My pleasure, Haley. Let's for starters, it's election day. We are here. We have been counting down to this day for well over a year, especially when you talk about the gubernatorial race. So I just kind of how are you feeling today and really what's kind of standing out to you as some of these big races that you'll be paying attention to? Well, I'm glad that you started with the rain because there's a kind of a conventional wisdom about political turnout. And that's that the most mobilized voters, the ones who are absolutely dying to vote, some of them Republicans, some of them Democrats, are gonna be voting regardless of weather, regardless of a hurricane for that matter. But it is possible that some of the less motivated people, the people who sort of, yeah, they know it's an election and they know they're registered, they even know where to vote, but it's such a lousy, dark day. Maybe they don't wanna go and stand in line and get wet. They might not turn out to vote. Now, again, that is probably evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. But if I had to guess, I'd say that the rain, whether it's just in southeast Wisconsin or whether it's statewide, would shave at least 2% to 3% off turnout. And you know, Haley, that Wisconsin elections are sometimes so close that missing what were expected to be 2% Two or three or four percent. Of people actually voting could well be a huge deal for tonight. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, we've talked a lot about voter turnout, even with our political reporter, Jason Calvi, because to your point here, I mean, not even, you know, to be dramatic, there have been races that have been decided by five votes. So every vote matters. And that's why it's important for people to go out and exercise that civic duty. But I guess if you were maybe David Crowley or Tom Tiffany, how concerned are you about voter turnout? Because the Marquette University Law School polls, I mean, it looks. Favorable for David Crowley with people confident that they're going to go and vote, but it's favorable for Tom Tiffany with people who maybe I'll go. I'm not sure. So if I'm Tom Tiffany, are you concerned then about the rain? You know, I think sometimes we misunderstand polling results. And certainly Charles Franklin, the professor at Marquette Law School who releases them, is constantly emphasizing that these are not hard numbers. What's a hard number? Packers beat the Bears, I don't know, 47-46. That's a hard number. But if you read a poll that's, let's say, 47-46, we sort of have to squint at the number. We have to remember that the number is actually a range. I'm sure all your viewers have heard endlessly the phrase about margin of error. Margin of error is a huge deal in polling. In other words, they're trying their best based on laws of statistics. But that they admit that the number they come up with may well be 5% too high or 5% too low. So, Haley, taking the numbers that you correctly summarized just now in your introduction, it could well be that those numbers will be reflected in the final results tonight. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's very different, if it's much closer. And if expectations of who is definitely gonna win or who is definitely gonna lose end up being wrong. And Haley, the example I think is really important to remember about statewide races, going back to the 2020 election for president. President Trump was running for reelection for a second term, and Joe Biden was his Democratic opponent. And the final results after, gosh, what was it? Three, three and a half million votes cast in Wisconsin The margin of winning between Biden, who won, and President Trump, who lost, was about 20,000 votes. Now, imagine what 20,000 votes is statistically compared to, say, three, three and a half million votes. I mean, that's imperceptible practically. And so I wouldn't be surprised I'm surprised if tonight... Based on the polling, did we get something very similar to that? I think Republicans are very excited about finally winning back the governor's office. And I think Democrats are very excited, not just of staying in the governor's office, but showing where Wisconsin stands in terms of how the voters feel about President Trump's second term. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, that's also why they always say polls don't vote, people do. So you can't just let the numbers that come out of those different surveys speak for you. Go and make sure that you cast your ballot. Talking about, you know, some of these important races. Yes, we spend a lot of time talking about the gubernatorial race, but really there are the nation's eyes on some of these House seats up for grabs tonight. I was mentioning Congressional District 1 and 3 before the break. I mean, how does it feel to know that there are so many people invested on what Wisconsinites will choose tonight and if they can flip some of these seats blue as they try, as you mentioned, to get that power back? You know, Haley, you've really put your finger on it. Because once we see all the national results in tonight, not just the Wisconsin results, it could well be that based on the results in the first and the third, that the margin of majority shift in the US House will be two votes. In other In other words, let's say the two Republicans. Get reelected in Wisconsin and they provide the majority ship or the two Republicans lose and the Democrats gain the majority ship. That's how close things are. And it's a good reminder that it's not just Wisconsin that's a kind of a battlefront state because we're such a 50-50 state. But when it comes to the House seats, all 435, that the same thing is true. It's razor thin. Anybody can get the majority. And that's why I think it's always fun to stay up on election night as the results kind of roll in, because, yeah, you don't know what's going to happen. And it could have huge impacts in D.C. and for the country. So, again, definitely tune in tonight as these polls close and we start getting all of the results in. And, you know, it's not a presidential election year, but in some ways, would you argue that's still kind of on the ballot in the way of how we can interpret the results tonight? Oh, Haley, I'm so glad you mentioned that, because there's a very glib comment that we hear from the national news media or from talk TV that this is a referendum on President Trump. And I'm sure there are some voters who will say, I'm not happy with President Trump, and so I'm going to vote Democratic in Wisconsin today. Fine. But if you look at the last results from the Marquette poll, President Trump had a support level of, oh, it was in the mid-30s. The rest was a disapproval. Now, if the voters who are answering the polling questions felt that way about President Trump, then we should have expected that the numbers between Crowley and Tiffany would closely reflect the plus and minus for President Trump. They didn't. Tiffany was roughly 10% higher than President Trump, which means that some of the people who answered the poll were saying, I disapprove of President Trump and oh, by the way, I plan I plan to vote for Tiffany. In other words, in Wisconsin, maybe tonight will be something of a referendum on President Trump. But I always say, Wisconsin voters insist on being unpredictable. And I suspect that some of the votes, whether for Crowley or for Tiffany, will have absolutely nothing to do with how that voter feels about President Trump. Yeah. Again, there's so much to kind of monitor and to look into tonight. We didn't even kind of scratch the surface here on the election. So I'm so glad that you'll be joining us again later on Fox six now, but I guess just briefly talk to me about some of the endorsements that, you know, David Crowley and Tom Tiffany have gotten. And I mean, former VP Kamala Harris came to Wisconsin to campaign for David Crowley Trump while endorsing Tom Tiffany didn't make that trip. Does that play at all into this tonight? I think the correct answer would be, who knows? And by that, I mean that the conventional wisdom of politics is that, generally speaking, endorsements don't matter. In other words, it's not transferable. But on the other hand, you know, when we look at what happened in the Democratic primary for governor in August, where Crowley was behind Ms. Wong, and for And for the last two weeks before the primary, the governor, Started campaigning for Crowley, asked people to vote for Crowley, really put his influence on the line. And amazingly, Crowley just barely won the primary. And so there's a good example of how unpredictable endorsements can be. That was a case where Governor Evers' endorsement made a huge difference in terms of what the outcome of the primary was. Again, we are so grateful to have you here with us today, Mordecai. I find these elections so fascinating, and I love getting to kind of tap into your wisdom there, or sometimes your humor with who even knows, you know? That's the fun of being in a battleground state again. We'll have to just wait and see. You'll be joining us again at 2.15, so we appreciate you taking the time, and we will check back in with you in just a little bit. Very good. See you then. Thanks.