Election Polls Were Way Off.  Real  Stats On The Election. David talks about why why Trump won, Hillary VS Trump, Media vs Truth, Real Stats.  Find out why people are not happy with Republicans nor Democrats and why the approval rating of all 3 branches of government is at an all time low.

Air Date: 01/31/2017

Guests: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

American historical events, founding fathers, historical documents, books, videos, CDs, tapes, David Barton’s speaking schedule.

  • Pro-family Legislators Conference.

    • Listen:

    Download: Click Here

    Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast.  However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers.  Additionally, names may be misspelled because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

    Welcome

    Rick:

    You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture! This is WallBuilders Live.  We’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture as well. All from a Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

    Normally we’re in studio with David Barton, America’s premiere historian.  But we’re actually going to go out on location with him today, tomorrow, and the next day. It’s a three part series of David speaking at the Pro-family Legislators Conference just a few weeks back. So let’s listen right now and give you a chance to hear his presentation. Here’s David Barton at the Pro-family Legislators Conference.

    David:

    Tuesday night I was part of the the broadcast team on a couple of cable networks doing live election coverage throughout the night. As we went through what was happening, watched what happened, and made the calls, one of the things we did was a little different.

    We looked at the 154 ballot initiatives that were out there.  37 states had elections and ballot initiatives and even based on ballot initiatives I called Virginia, New Mexico, and Colorado before any of the other networks did because the ballot initiatives are going very liberal in those states. With them going very liberal you know what the states are going to do because ballot initiatives are not partisan.  But they do tell you if they are Conservative or Liberal.

    Out of the 154 ballot initiatives about 51 would be things that I would consider having some type of direct moral implication. In looking at that throughout the night, those ballots covered everything.

    What Americans Voted For In This Election

    In California the whole state voted on whether porn actors should use condoms in porn films. What a thing to vote on.  But in California it makes sense. So you get things like that.  You had five states that had gun control measures.  You had three states on hunting measures.  You had nine states with marijuana.  And you had a death penalty in four states.

    It literally turned out 84 million people voted on marijuana usage. 123 million people voted on tax issues, bond issues and some kind of expense issues.  About 53 million voted on cigarette taxes, and about 52 million on gun control. There’s just a lot of stuff on the ballot now.

    We watched that two nights ago.  We also watched the state legislative races.  We watched bet 22 House races that were toss-up races.  We also watched eight U.S. Senate races which were toss-up races, and so on. So, everybody saw the results that came in on the election map presidential.

    From that, there were actually some interesting lessons. You may or may not have heard about the analysis that kept us up till about 3:30am last night, just crunching numbers from the various exit polls and seeing if there’s any trends. Looking for things that would give me guidance for what we could do in the future, how we plan, how we strategize, and how we move forward.

    I think there are some fairly clearly delivered messages on election night that are buried in the numbers. I”€™m going to go through some of those.  First up, 49% of those who voted said that they were disgusted with the Democrat Party.  They didn’t like it, didn’t like what was going on. Interestingly, 55% of those who voted said that they’re disgusted with the Republican Party. So Republicans had higher negatives than Democrats did in this election.

    Good News For The Republican Trifecta

    In looking at what happened before there were  68 out of 99 legislative bodies that were Republican. We know Nebraska unicameral, that’s why it’s not 100 bodies but 99 bodies. Sixty-eight of those bodies were Republican but at the election 69 are Republican. Republicans lost two or three chambers.  They picked up four or five, and Kentucky for the first time in 95 years has a Republican legislature.

    Before the election, there were 22 states that Republicans had the trifecta, the House, the Senate, and the governorship. There were 9 on the Democrat side. Now the election’s over, it’s up to 24 states on the Republican side and only 6 on the Democrat side.

    There’s only one net chamber pickup for Republicans. There was some consolidation of strength in those trifectas going up and the Democrat trifecta is going down. Up in Vermont, of all places, now has a Republican governor. That’s Bernie Sanders state, where the whole state likes Bernie Sanders but the state also elected Republicans.  So some pretty unusual things happened.

    So, for the high negatives that Republicans had they were able to make some progress in those areas. In the House chamber we started the night being 18 seats ahead in the U.S. House. We ended the night being 14 seats ahead and there’s still 4 undecided, still being determined, and still in recounts, or they’ll have some kind of runoff. So, Republicans control the House chamber.

    Will McConnell Stop This Movement

    In the Senate we started the night with a margin 4 we ended with 3, maybe 2, still doing stuff in New Hampshire.  And we’ll see what happens with that. So, across the board, you have Republicans now having a trifecta in the federal Congress.

    Which becomes significant because last time they didn’t do anything with it. So we’ll see what happens this time now that they’ve got it. I had believed that Mitch McConnell would be the logjam in this thing. If you’re not aware, the House passed 282 measures that McConnell would not take up in the Senate.

    House passed all sorts of stuff.  So people say, “€œCongress is incompetent and they can’t get anything done. What’s more, the Senate can’t get anything done.”€ So, today McConnell actually went out and said, “€œOne of the first things we’re doing is repealing Obamacare.”€ Which they refused to do last time they.  So we’ll see what happens.

    They have some opportunities.  At least he”€™s making the right noise.  And if McConnell will not be the roadblock they can probably get a lot of things done. If he becomes a roadblock we’ll see what happens as a result. So, there’s some in the numbers.

    Now, going back and looking beyond that, what happened with the the two candidates by going through the numbers of who voted for which. These are based on exit polls.  Most networks come together and they have one entity that does exit polling for all the all the major media. They had about 25,000 folks that they gathered, blue states, red states, purple states, and urban or rural suburban areas.

    DVD On Common Core

    So probably enough numbers to have a fairly reasonable cut across the demographic of who supported whom. So, let me tell you the folks that supported Hillary and supported Trump. A lot of it is not what I expected, for example the wealthy Supported Hillary not Trump, I thought that would go the other way. As it turned out the poor and the wealthy were Hillary and Trump had the middle class, which is not what most people expected or predicted.

    Outro:

    Hi, friends! This is David Barton of WallBuilders. The current condition of education in America is abysmal. Not only is educational achievement plummeting, but every year, some 19 percent of high school seniors who graduate is completely illiterate. They can”€™t read at all but it was not always this way.

    For generations, we taught students how to think. But after the progressives took over education in the early 20th century, things began to radically change. Education shifted from thinking to learning, which made the emphasis on the teachers rather than the students. And that elevated indoctrination above knowledge.

    At that time, progressives also made massive changes in the way we tested students. They extended school from 8 to 12 years. They introduced graded education and they added compulsory education. Statistics prove that these changes have harmed education rather than helped it. And now the progressives are pushing common core.

    In our new DVD on common core, we give you eight reasons why this current approach is so dangerous to our kids and our culture. We also show you an amazing history of education. So get this new DVD at WallBuilders.com.

    The Thing That Makes People Vote Democrat Or Republican

    David:

    Trump carried married folks, traditional families. Trump overwhelmingly got that vote. If you were single, particularly single women, overwhelmingly went toward Hillary’s side. What continues to be the single most accurate indicator of whether someone will vote Republican or Democrat in the last five elections has been… anybody know what it is? Frequency of church attendance. The more frequently you attend church the more likely you are to vote Republican, and the less frequently you attend church the more likely you are to not get to vote Democrat.

    So the secularists and the ones that never go to church, I mean Hillary just cleaned house with them. The ones that attended church are who Trump clean house with. It was the highest evangelical voter turnout on record. Trump got 81% of that Hillary got 16% of that. She got 1 out of 6 evangelicals.  He got the others. There was about 5 or 6% of that went and various third party candidates.

    Those that were born inside the United States Trump carried them heavily.  Those that were born outside the United States she carried heavily. Christian religions Trump carried heavily.  Non-Christian religions Hillary carried heavily.

    Trump carried Whites.  Hillary carried Latinos, Asians, and Blacks but not nearly at the margins they have been.  Asians a lot more went Republican and same with Blacks. Thirteen percent of black men went Republican which is really high,  That’s almost twice the number it usually is. Same look with Latinos.  Even with everything Trump said about immigration and the wall, yet he had much higher than expected Hispanic support.

    So she carried those demographics but not with the margin they’re used to. She carried first time voters.  10% of those who voted on election night for the first time, she cleaned up on that. Trump got military folks and independent folks, carried them overwhelmingly. The youth vote- Hillary carried.  Youth vote though is very depressed.  They expected about 41% of the vote would be millennials, as it turned out only 36% of the vote was millennial.

    Communicate With Millennials Or Lose Your Seat

    You will notice that in this conference we’re going to do several things with millennials. Matter of fact, J.P. and Audrey over there, we’ll be talking tomorrow about millennial stuff because you’re at a point now. You look at legislators around, there’s very few millennials in the legislature, very few millennials in this room, and yet 36% of voters are there.

    If you don’t communicate with millennials you’re not going to be in office very long nor is anybody who you know going to be in office very long. Communicating with the millennials is a whole different way then how we do it.  We’re still trying to figure out how to do snail mail. They’re about ten steps beyond that with technology. That’s one of the things we’ll try to cover more tomorrow. Things that you can easily implement into what you do to really reach a different demographic.

    This was of interest to me.  If the economy was your number one issue, overwhelmingly you went toward Hillary. I thought that”€™s where people would head to Trump.  That”€™s not the case. If you were into the economy or foreign affairs, Hillary won that vote. If you were into protecting against terrorism and immigration Trump won that vote. Those were the two biggest issues on either side, which was not as predicted.

    This Is What Won The Election

    The groups that Trump himself won, won very decisively. This is what won the election.   If you thought the national economy was poor, and 63% did, Trump won that group by a margin of 63 to 31, so two to one, if you thought the economy was poor.

    Interestingly 48% of the nation wanted a more conservative president. I haven’t seen conservatism to be that high in any election I know of.  Trump won that by margin 83 to 13. Forty-seven percent of the nation thought that Obamacare went too far.  Trump won that group by a margin 83 to 13. Thirty-nine percent of the nation wanted conservative change.  It wasn’t the Obama change radical transformation, they wanted change in a more conservative direction.  Trump won that group 83 to 14.

    Those who strongly disapprove of Obama, 33% of the nation, Trump won that group 95 to 3. There was another 12% who highly disapproved of Obama, so 45 percent, in total, had really strong feelings of what he’s done.  Trump just cleaned up on that group.

    Twenty-four percent of the nation believes that we’re losing to ISIS.  Another 28% believes we’re not doing well with ISIS.  So 52% thinks we’re not doing good with ISIS. Trump won that group 85 to 11.

    Those who are very angry about federal government were 23% and those who are very dissatisfied with federal government is another 46% which adds to 69%.  Trump on that group 77 to 18. Interestingly, it was only a smaller group that thought the Supreme Court was the most important issue at 21%.  In that group, Trump won.  But not by a large margin at 56 to 41. That could be because those who are for abortion the Supreme Court’s key to that. Of course our guys are on the other side. So 21% from both sides said the Supreme Court was really really important.

    Moment From America”€™s History

    I told you 48% of the nation wanted a more conservative government. I think that’s why that despite the fact that 55% of voters dislike the Republicans, they still put them back in office and actually gave them more margin. Because the dissatisfaction is, “€œWe don’t think you’ve been conservative enough.”€ So the dissatisfaction is not over Republicans. You guys know very well you’re often branded by what happens with the federal Congress.

     

    Moment From America’s History

    This is David Barton with another moment from America’s histo1ry. America has a history of great patriots who love and sacrificed much for their country. One of these was John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

    While President at Princeton he personally trained many who became important leaders in American government including James Madison. How could John Witherspoon tell if someone really loved America?

    He explained, “€œHe is the best friend to American liberty who his most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion and who sits himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God I hesitate not to call him an enemy to his country.”€

    Founding Father John Witherspoon believed that a true American patriot opposed profanity and immorality and promoted true and undefiled religion. For more information on God’s hand in American history contact WallBuilders at 1 800 8 REBUILD.

    What The People Of America Want

    David:

    Federal Congress has not been very aggressive.  They haven’t moved many things forward and people tend to see that. I know Phil over here, when Obamacare came up eight years ago you were getting all sorts of calls in your office, “€œHow are you going to vote about Obamacare?”€ Phil replied, “€œI’m a state legislator.  I”€™m not a federal.”€ People have that disconnect all the time.

    It appears that what they are dissatisfied with Republicans about is that they haven’t been conservative enough and haven’t really made the progress they want to see. That’s that 39% that also want change along with the 48% that want conservatives.

    In the federal Congress there are five pro-abortion Republicans, three in the Senate and two in the house. One of them was up for election last night and was the one seat that Republicans lost, which was the pro-abortion Republican.

    There were two pro-abortion Republican senators not up last night Collins and Murkowski. There were two pro-abortion House members up last night, both of them lost. About three-fourths of the losses that Republican suffered last night were from pro-abortion Republicans. Which, again, tells you something about what the electorate is wanting in the way of change. Why have a fake Republican if I can have a real Democrat? That”€™s what numbers seem to show last night.

    While conservatives did well last night moral issues did not do well last night. We got our clock cleaned. I’d say we lost 80% of the moral issues. Some surprises were in Massachusetts and Rhode Island they actually voted down the gambling casino thing.  Nobody expected that. But in Colorado the over the counter a physician-assisted suicide drugs.  Marijuana passed in eight of the nine states, just so many places it went the wrong direction. Gun control passed, which is not what it’s been doing.  But still, gun control measures passed on the ballot last night.

    Being Conservative Without Morality Just Doesn”€™t Work

    So what it appears to be that the nation wants to be conservative but doesn’t want to be moral.  That’s the European model, and that never works. When you when you separate morality from conservatism it doesn’t work long. I have a friend who serves over in Australia.  And over there he is super super conservative, which means that he’s a member of the Liberal Party.

    That”€™s what it”€™s like in Australia, if you”€™re for traditional values you’re a liberal. So the conservative-liberal thing doesn’t mean anything when you take the moral base out of it. What we’ve a;ways known of conservatism has been based on faith and morality.

    George Washington’s farewell address said, “€œOur political prosperity is the indispensable supports of religion morality.”€ So, now, we’re tending to get into a libertarian thinking mode where we want freedom and we want conservatism but we don’t want morality with it.

    In 28 states they say, “€œLet”€™s smoke dope, but let’s be conservative.”€ Not going to work out well. So that’s a message we’re going to have to work on, teaching why morality is important. Showing the stats on that, how that that does create limited government, and how that when you don’t have that you have more extensive government. So that’s a message from last night.

    It is significant that in all of those minority areas where Trump did really well he went in and engaged all those areas. He didn’t win the vote but he sure brought the margins down. And so that’s something that Republicans have, like in Tennessee we like to sing to the choir rather than to the anti-choir. But he actually went in and engaged the anti-choir and got a lot of respect for it, and the numbers went up as a result.

    Election Polls:Media Had It So Wrong

    Two nights ago there were three really big losers. One was media.  Media was a big time loser.  It was almost embarrassing. As we were doing our coverage we had the other networks on in the background to see what they were doing, and to see national news anchors crying over the results coming in, literally crying on the air.

    By the way, we almost call the election at about 10:30. Nobody else called it til midnight at best. We almost called it at 10:30 because Wall Street called it.  The Dow Jones was down 700 points. So they knew that Trump was going to win. We”€™re small business.  Big business is Democrats like on Wall Street, man they were crying.

    We also knew that Mexico thought that Trump was going to win because the peso went into freefall. So, everybody outside of the media thought that Trump would win.  That was kind of fun watching the outside signals coming in.

    It turns out that so many of the national network anchors admitted over the last two days that they did not personally know a single person who voted for Trump. That tells you your circles is a little small. He”€™s the guy who won with a pretty good electoral college margin and you don’t know a single American that voted for him? You got the wrong wrong friends around you.

    Another big loser were the polls.  The polls were so wrong. I heard Rush Limbaugh say today, “€œWell, the polls weren”€™t that wrong.  It”€™s the way the media reported on them that”€™s wrong.”€ That may be true but I’ll go back to even when I was running Ted Cruz a super PAC back early on. The second primary we had was in South Carolina. At that point in time we had really good polls.

    Everybody said that we had the best ground game. None of the election results matched anywhere close to our polls.  They were way off. One of our friends in Congress is Randy Forbes, great guy, 14 years in the House.  He ran the Republican Party of Virginia before that back when it was really a super power.  He knows politics really well. He went into election night two or three months ago in his primary being 10 points up and lost by 25 points. Now nobody in Congress has a thirty five point error in polling. It was that bad.  That shows how bad the polling was across the board.

    Bring A Speaker To Your Area

    Outro:

    Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders.  And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard a wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, and about all the things that make America exceptional. And you might be thinking, “€œAs incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group.”€

    Whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event, or activity, if you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. If you”€™ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bio’s, to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event, to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties, and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

    Engaging Pastors In Standing Up For Conservatism

    David:

    The third big loser is traditional consultants. Because Trump did everything wrong and won in a big way. He didn’t have a ground game.  He didn’t do the right media game.  And he didn’t do right air wars. Some of that’s good and some of it’s bad. Now everybody is going to say, “€œI can run a campaign any way I want.”€ And that’s not going to be true.  You have to have some discipline in it.

    At the same time, it broke up that that elite consultant class.  It really busted up the, “€œYou have to run a campaign this way.”€ Because now anybody says, “€œ If that”€™s true then how did Trump get elected?”€ So it’s going to be interesting to see what political shifts that brings in future campaigns going forward. Those were three things that will have a paradigm shift.

    The big takeaway for us is articulation of conservative values on a moral basis without making that a stigma.  That’s going to be something we’ll have to work on and have to see how that works and have to how we articulate that message. Pastors have been pretty solid on that themselves. We’ve been really challenging pastors and churches to get back engaged.

    One of the things that we did was we had hired staff on the ground in 12 states going church to church, personally, individually, not doing it electronically.  And we had a lot of churches engaged in this election.

    Having said all that, you saw the numbers and dissatisfaction with Republican and Democrat party in looking at government. Here are some overall numbers.  The public’s view about government in general right now is not good.

    All Three Branches Are At Record Low Approval Ratings

    Job approval rating for Congress has dipped down to 9% and is coming back up to 16%. But single digits has never happened before.  So job approval for Congress is very low. A lot of that’s driven I think by the Senate, but nonetheless there it is. For the president, its record lows and the Supreme Court is at record lows. So all three branches are at record low approval ratings.

    People do not see government in a very positive light right now. When you ask them, “€œIs the country headed in the right direction?”€ Only 22% of Americans think we’re headed the right direction.

    When you ask, “€œAre you satisfied with the current political system?”€ Only 19% like the political system we’ve got. That’s not good. That’s grounds for revolution kind of stuff when you only get 19% that like the system. So there’s a lot of dissatisfaction and there’s a disconnect between government and where people are. What’s the solution to that? Well, we need better politics.

    Rick:

    Well friends we’re out of time for today. You’ve been listening to David Barton speaking at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference. We’re going to pick up right where we left off tomorrow and the next day. This is a three part series which is all available on our website at WallBuildersLive.com. Hope you’ll share it with your friends and family, don’t miss tomorrow.  We’ll pick up with David Barton speaking of the Pro-family Legislators Conference. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live!