Just 17 days left until Election Day.

Which means we are nearly running out of Friday nights to talk presidential politics with our rotating group of political scientists.

Joining us tonight, Larry Jacobs.

He heads up the center for Politics and Governance at the U of M's Humphrey School.

The University of Minnesota, also the academic home of Michael Minta.

Welcome back.

Seven.

Pew says 7% of voters are still persuadable in the swing states.

Doesn't that seem like a high number or not?

Might be a little lower, but that seems about right.

What could happen in the next 17 days to change stuff?

Well, I actually think a good number of those people are leaning a certain way.

I think if you're undecided, it doesn't mean you're totally undecided.

You may have a view about the incumbent party.

You may have a view about inflation going up.

And so I would assume that among those undecided to probably, you know, more than not are going to tilt towards the challenger.

Donald Trump.

So if you're looking at polls and saying, oh, they're equal, no, you got to factor in the undecided.

If you don't have a conscious effort to think maybe two thirds of those undecided are going to go for the out party, Donald Trump, then you're really going to be misled.

It's not the polls fault.

It's our fault in how we interpret them.

So where might the leaners, I mean, what, Eric’s question is a good one.

What could happen to really derail everything going into the election?

And where might the leaners then go?

Yeah, I don't I mean, they keep talking about this October surprise.

I don't know if that's going to actually happen.

I mean, I think the the campaigns are really trying to decide how they're going to mobilize these various voters, right?

Are they going to have these, souls to the polls, or are they going to, are you going to have transportation to get people off?

Because, I mean, the decision isn't just between the candidates, right?

People?

It's a decision between whether you going to vote or not.

Or are you just going to stay home.

And so sometimes if it's difficult, I mean, I can't imagine another hurricane coming, but, that's, that's something that's, that's possible too.

Could something in the Middle East really ignite and derail things or no?

I don’t know.

This has been such a happening election.

I mean, we had Trump's convictions, you know, back when, we've had Biden go and then, you know, leave.

you know, there's a lot of stuff happening and and there hasn't been a like a total shake up and particularly with Donald Trump.

So I don't think there's going to be this cataclysmic event that's going to shake things up.

I think the election is set up as a referendum on the in party.

It's not going to be a choice over, you know, Donald Trump and his flaws.

It's going to be you think things are going well?

Well, reward, Harris.

If not, then punish her.

And that's what we're seeing.

We're seeing very high concern with inflation.

We're seeing, you know, very high unpopularity of Joe Biden.

Where did the joy go of the Harris-Walz ticket?

They seem to have cranked up the anti-Trump rhetoric a li bit.

Well, because, negative campaigning works.

Right?

So so Larry was saying that they're trying to make this a referendum on the incumbency, but the Democrats are spending a lot of time trying to make it a referendum on Donald Trump.

And, I mean, it's a very difficult I mean, it's this is a really weird race, right, where you have a former president who's running.

So he's not this outsider.

Then you have a the current vice president and they're both trying to position themselves as the candidate of change.

And so, I think that it's very difficult for any, I think the joy, the joy is probably still there.

The joy of knocking your candidate, the your opponent down as much as you can in order to win.

Yeah, I think, you know, joy took second place to winning.

Yeah.

And I think right now, you know, you're getting down to some really hard numbers.

And for the Harris campaign I think they're they're going negative because they can see that they could very well lose this election.

You know, they fact she took a huge risk of going on FOX to do an interview, which, you know, frankly, this was one of the toughest interviews we've seen of a presidential candidate.

She did fantastic.

And she was very strategic.

She was really hitting Donald Trump hoping to depress the FOX watcher, Republican turnout.

That's that was her strategy.

High risk though.

I wonder what do you think of the gender gap here?

I mean, Harris is in trouble with men, but Trump's in trouble with women.

And, you know, how do you reach those groups in the next two weeks?

Yeah, I think what you're seeing is that Trump and the Republicans, they're saying, you know what Trump just said, I'm the IVF, father of IVF and making these things and then kind of backpedaling a little bit on abortion.

So that's part of a play to try to get women and gain support.

Kamala Harris, she's, you know, going on, on on FOX.

She's also on the, Charlamagne the God.

So she's d all these different efforts to try to appeal to men.

We'll see if it works.

And also particularly there's I mean, you've heard Barack Obama scolding black men, that you're not supporting Kamala Harris at the same rates to black women are doing that.

And so I think she's trying to shore up that because there is somewhat of a gap between black men and black women.

But still, let's not lose sight that black men are the second largest group that's supporting Kamala Harris and the Democrats.

Who might have the better ground game?

Well, it depends what you're talking about.

In terms of.

Get out the vote.

Well, voter registration matters a whole lot, and it looks like the Republicans have the edge.

Their numbers came out on Pennsylvania, and it looks like the Republicans are as close as we've seen in a quarter of a century in terms of voter registration.

Democrats have a slight advantage, and we're seeing that in other states.

On the other hand, in terms of doorknocking and kind of the traditional get out the vote effort looks like Democrats might be a little bit better on that.

But, you know, Kamala Harris needs 2020, sort of, you know, record high, turnout to make this a race.

And, you know, will she get it?

Georgia came out with early, voting numbers, and they were historic.

They never seen those kind of numbers before.

That's what Kamala Harris is going to need.

Well, we only maybe have one more week before the election for a Friday night presidential talk.

We’ll have to enroll in your classes to get more.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Thanks.