The DeSantis campaign having now seen this race called for
Donald Trump is calling it the media's election interference,
outrageous. The media would participate in election interference before
tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to
vote. Is that fair? You know, I
have to say I am empathetic to this argument and
I'll tell you why when we do polling, we're
very careful if we're on the east coast not to
release results which would negatively impact people turning out in
the polls in later states on the west coast and
Hawaii and Alaska and elsewhere because of that very reason
. I mean, there's nothing more important in the
democratic process than voting if we are as pollsters to
take the media out of it, releasing results,
which then diminished turnout in later states. I do
think that that is potentially problematic. So all of
which say I will not be surprised if this call
and the timing of this is revisited, maybe in
some, some state houses where they say, listen
, you've got to keep these things and these calls
quiet at least until the polls close. I think
that's a fair trade off myself. I don't think
Rick agrees with me, but, well, here
is this likely to change the mind of anyone who
was sitting in a church in a community room talking
with other people and everybody's checking their phone saying,
oh, they called it for Trump already. Well
, I might as well support that guy. Do
you think it changed minds in real time tonight?
K these are people who just got out of their
nice warm living rooms into a freezing car at 10
below zero, they drove to a caucus site which
is usually a gymnasium of some kind, which is
probably drafty and cold and they did it because they
supported one candidate. And when they got there,
they went through a very quick uh, registration process
and at the same time, filled out a ballot
and stuck in a popcorn box, right? Which
is how they collect these things in some places.
And that means that somebody would have had to have
that information in the very early stages of a,
of a, um, caucus that started at seven
o'clock. So with all due respect to the DeSantis
camp, I mean, first of all, it's
unlikely that someone who's committed to a candidate is gonna
just change because they heard something on A P.
And secondly, most of those ballots were probably done
by 10, by 715, 730 before A P
called it.