Analyzing Political Shifts and Faith's Influence on Voter Turnout - with Steve Deace

How could the 2024 election reshape America's identity? Join us for a deeply insightful discussion on "The Intersection of Faith and Culture" as we confront one of the most critical elections in modern American history. With candidates openly endorsing communistic, socialistic, and Marxist principles, the stakes have never been higher for our nation. We delve into historical precedents where past presidents uniformly opposed such ideologies, and why today's political landscape demands an unprecedented turnout from active churchgoers. We provide crucial data from a recent George Barna poll, emphasizing the need for the faith community to rally and uphold pro-liberty and anti-woke values to influence the election outcome.

We're also thrilled to welcome Steve Deace, a leading political analyst known for his intellectual honesty, to explore the unpredictable terrain of the 2024 election. We dissect the iron laws of American politics, the formidable Democrat ballot harvesting operations, and what Republicans must do to improve their get-out-the-vote strategies. From the critical states like Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, we analyze the path to securing 270 electoral votes. Through grassroots efforts and strategic voter mobilization, we underscore the importance of each party presenting a compelling vision for the future. This is a conversation you won't want to miss.

Chapters

• 0:07 The Intersection of Faith and Culture
• 7:04 Election Outcome and What it Could Mean
• 17:29 Election Strategy in Battleground States

Transcript

Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilder Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. We're just a few weeks out. Everybody says it every year biggest election, most important election of our lifetime and certainly the most important election this year and maybe in the last hundred years. I don't know guys. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. By the way, we got Steve Deace coming on later to do a little election analysis. I think most people do realize we we're in a precarious position and whoever wins this election, it is going to change the trajectory of what America looks like. So I think it is fair to say most important election of certainly our lifetimes anyway.

Tim Barton

I think it definitely is, because we've never had a time where you have candidates that are so openly promoting communistic ideas and ideologies, where you've never had a side that was so openly pro-socialism, pro-marxism as you do now. Before, if you go back to World War II whether you're talking about FDR, harry Truman, even Dwight Eisenhower afterwards even though Eisenhower was Republican and Truman and FDR were Democrats all of them acknowledged that we had to fight communism and that Christianity is what made America different and Christianity is what set us apart from communists. And now you have Kamala Harris who is promoting the idea of embracing some of these communistic strategies of price controls, et cetera, et cetera, things that would devastate the economy, continue with inflation and again just et cetera, et cetera, all these issues. So it's the first time in our nation and dad you might can correct me on this because we can have other conversations too We've talked about guys like Andrew Jackson, who fundamentally changed America, and we've gone through several of those presidents, some of our least favorite presidents because of what they did altering America.

But I think if we embrace communism, marxism, socialism, some variant or combination, collaboration of those, then America might cease to be America and that's why this election is different than any other before, even though you might could argue President Obama was kind of leaning socialism. Leaning is very different than openly promoting the ideas of communism or even having people surrounding her. I mean, when Bernie Sanders is an open socialist and when Kamala Harris was a senator, she was more liberal than Bernie Sanders, the open socialist.

Again. 

Rick Green

And the weaponization Right. I mean because once the weaponization is put in place of the agencies, it becomes harder and harder to have real elections and take the country back right. So it's not even just the philosophy. I think that is the right word the weaponization of the agencies and the system.

Tim Barton

Well, and then, of course, the irony that they're accusing Donald Trump of being not only a threat to democracy, but that he would weaponize the DOJ against his political opponents.

Rick Green

I wonder what that would look like, tim, I wonder what it? Looks like to weaponize the DOJ.

Tim Barton

 yeah you know there's the ironic statement that the left accuses other people of what they're actually doing, and that's exactly right. We've seen this weaponization. We've had radio programs talking about this. Our shows cover this many times with people's stories where they were targeted by the DOJ. So again, I think, fundamentally this election is different than any other we've had in American history.

Rick Green

Yeah, yeah, David, Steve Deace is going to be with us in a few minutes. We're going to break down some of the analysis of the election. I mean, you're out there and it seems like you go to four cities a day. I don't know how you do it or what kind of jet pack you wear to get from each one place to the next, but you're talking to a lot of people on the ground and seeing a lot on the ground, especially in battleground states. What are you seeing out there?

David Barton

Yeah, the thing you see across the country is a lot of hopeful things, but there are also a lot of question marks. I mean, if you look at what's happened two years ago when people started reacting to Bud Light, and two years ago with Disney, et cetera, you see this massive, massive outpouring of grassroots saying we're not going to put up with this kind of woke nonsense. Well, now we've got a whole campaign that's completely woke on one side, and so what will the American people do now? And I think the biggest concern that I have, we've commissioned George Barna to do a massive poll and I got the results back just in the last day or two and looking over them and corresponding back and forth, I'm asking him actual questions last night night and I have email right in front of me where he just replied and this is this is a really large poll, has a very small margin of error because it's such a large poll and what? What he's got in front of me right now is among those who are people, who are church goers, those who go to church, and that would be really the anti-woke folks in a large degree.

At this point in time, only 57% of active church goers plan to vote in this election.

So if you're going to say you know 42%, 43%, don't vote. You're talking about losing 20, 30, 40 million people staying at home who have these anti-woke values, who didn't reward Disney, who didn't reward others, but at the same time they're planning to reward Kamala by staying home, and so I don't know. It's a real interesting thing. I hope people are driven to the point that I will make sure I vote, I'll make sure my Sunday school class, my fellowship group, whatever it is, make sure they vote, because that's where this thing, I think, is going to hinge. It's going to come down to whether people of faith who have the anti-woke values and, as Tim was saying, the anti-communistic, anti-socialistic, the pro-liberty, pro-freedom values, whether they vote, and the polling we're seeing that we got just in the last couple of days is not good for that. I think the nation does not want to go that direction, but I think it may choose to go that direction by non-involvement of people who can make a difference.

Rick Green

All right, we're going to get some analysis from Steve Deace when we return. Stay with us folks. You're listening to the WallBuilder Show.

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back to the WallBuilder Show. Thanks for staying with us. Steve Deace, back with us. It's been way too long, man, one of the most intellectually honest guys on the planet and such great analysis of the election all the way through. It's been too long since we had you man. Good to have you on and thanks for coming on right before the election, or a few weeks out anyway.

Steve Deace

You bet Rick, anytime, brother, I love you guys.

Rick Green

Well, love your show, love what you do, and, man, what a wild ride 2024 has been and just seems to continue to be that way, going into the final weeks of the election. What's your lay of the land right now?

Steve Deace

I have no idea what's going to happen, Rick, and you know I love to make projections and you know my maps have maps and my predictions have predictions and my analysis has analysis.

Rick Green

Yeah, but we're not talking football today. I'm just kidding.

Steve Deace

But I don't know. Here's what I can tell you. These are iron laws of American politics. Whenever elections are about issues, republicans win. Whenever they're about personalities, democrats win. And it doesn't matter who the candidates are, it doesn't matter what the cycle is. Those are iron laws, metaphysical certitudes of American politics.

And here's another one, and that is whichever side since the advent, the dawn of the modern media era with the Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, whichever side best argued the future, has won every single time, every single time, all right, and so I can tell you that Now, how those blanks are going to get sealed in here the next 49 days, that I do not know, I don't well, let's, let's just dive into a few of those, because I mean obviously definitely a clash of personalities, um.

And then you do have a large segment of the population that it's all about the issues because of the border and all the chaos and the economy, um, and so you know which one weighs more on the scale, right?

Rick Green

I guess that's what it really comes down to, because the you know, huge personality, more on the scale, right, I guess that's what it really comes down to, because huge personality, obviously on the Republican side, and a lot of people that are going to vote no because of the personality, and then a lot of people that see the future of the country tied to him and whether or not he can in fact restore order in Washington DC. But then for a lot of people, man, it's like a lot of Democrats that are coming to the Republican side saying, you know what, we just don't care about the personality stuff. We can't believe the chaos is what it is. So so now take it, take those two together on the scales, and what do you think?

Steve Deace

I think that these are such refined people in the minds of many Americans and that, even though Kamala is not nearly as well known as Donald Trump, she has been vice president for the last four years and therefore has 100% name ID. I think, and I think, if you're in one of those two camps, you're not moving. I don't think, no matter what happens, you're moving and I think we're beyond polarization. Polarization would be more flexible than where we are now we're at. Balkanization is where we are now. Okay, you know that's.

Rick Green

That's how I felt after the debate, because it was like no matter how bad trump did that night, um, it was like that wasn't going to move any mega people. It was more important for for for harris to do well so that she convinces her base

Steve Deace

It was about her all along and that yeah it wasn't that thought trump necessarily did that poorly.

It was just that he allowed them to craft a narrative with her where she could be seen as a credible presidential figure by enough Americans to vote for. And that's what could not happen. But it did, and so here we are. What I think will determine this are two things. One, we know what the Democrats have at their disposal with their ballot harvesting scheme, and it was also every bit as effective, if not more so, in 2022 in the midterms. For example, Gretchen Whitmer was up by one point in the RealClearPolitics polling average on election day 2022 over Tudor Dixon. That's not one poll, that's the RealClearPolitics polling average aggregate of all the polls, and she ended up winning. That's not one poll, that's the RealClearPolitics polling average aggregate of all the polls, and she ended up winning that election by 10 points. In the off-year midterm, off-cycle elections in 23 and the first half of 24, whether they won or lost on average, democrats outperformed either the polling or the partisan demographic of that race by nine points. Whether it's Franklin Tennessee mayor, where they hadn't won that mayorship in over 60 years, they won that.

There was a, to me, the scariest thing I saw during this process, with what their turnout operation can now do is there was a special election in Ohio a couple of months ago reddest district in Ohio. Our people have total control of the machinery. This is not Wayne County, michigan. This is not Maricopa County, arizona. This is where our people have total control of the machinery. Trump won this district by 22 points in 2020. We won that special election for a congressional seat by eight points. Because that tells me, if they have a turnout operation that can move that many numbers in a place where they don't have advantages, where they're not going to get away with boarding up windows and counting ballots until Thanksgiving, if they can do that there, then they could pretty much do it everywhere. On the other hand, on our side, there is no Republican get out the vote effort. Trump has just given up on it. I can't necessarily blame him for that, having been in this party longer than Donald Trump has.

On the other hand, he's outsourced this to a bunch of third party groups that just we don't know, and two of those groups Elon Musk's group. I know the people doing that group Jared Peck, Ryan Tyson. They were people very prevalent on the DeSantis presidential campaign and Ron's reelection for governor. They're helping to oversee that effort. I know Charlie Kirk very well. Tpusa is another group that they've outsourced here. These groups. It might be a stroke of genius to try these groups, but we don't know. They've never had to perform on a game day, so it's like a recruit in football. You can think that's a five-star guy, you can think that's a fringe top 100 guy, but the truth is we don't know until they go out there in a real game and have to do it on game day.

The other factor is what we cannot foresee that may impact the race or may not be allowed to, for example, at 20,.

And if I had to guess, this will be the big thing above the surface that we will see. And then maybe the turnout stuff is what we'll look at after the election below the surface and say Trump's decision to do that, to farm that out, worked out or it didn't. But above the surface, my guess is there will be some form of a Comey letter, like we saw the final week of 2016 or 2020, when you had Hunter Biden's laptop and all of the treasure trove of globalist blackmail material and the Biden sitting there on that laptop. They completely snuffed and lied that it wasn't real and a Russian op. Until now, we all know that was a lie and not true and, who knows, it could have moved the 2020 election. You're talking about 60,000 votes in six states decided this, and so does that swing enough voters? We'll never know. My guess is, ultimately, the outcome above the surface will be determined by that Either a Comey letter we do see or a Hunter Biden laptop that people are not allowed to see.

One of those two things think that we cannot foresee what that actually is right now.

Rick Green

Again, October surprise. Now to the, to the voter turnout and the ballot harvesting and all that. I had been thinking of Charlie's efforts as being an add on. I had not realized it was really a replacement for what the party used to do. You know and I applaud him for staying on message with that Like every time something would go up or down in the campaign he'd just say get back to chasing ballots folks. That's what. That's what's going to win or lose this thing. So hopefully they continue that. But man, I didn't realize the RNC was that bad on the voter turnout side of it, and I didn't even know about the Elon Musk effort. That's really interesting that some of the old DeSantis machine is helping with that. What, for you, does it come down to as you analyze it? Is it still the same seven states everybody talks about? Do you think it's really three or four of those? Where do you think we need to be watching the most?

Steve Deace

I think it's those seven states. Wisconsin has been the worst polled state in the last two presidential elections. The polling there has not even been close. Ryan Tyson told me when he started polling that state for Musk's group that state had the worst voter rolls of any state he's ever been in ever. You know he's worked with, you know DeSantis and Susie Wiles and all those people on several election cycles all over the country. He oversaw, helped oversee black voter outreach for the Trump campaign with Jared Kushner in 2020. So that speaks volumes to me.

Wisconsin's just a total, complete mess. I wouldn't believe anybody's polls there or any side's polls there, simply because I just think their voter rolls and files are so bad. And that's what we're pulling off of. We just don't know Arizona because we've got two Republican candidates there on the undercard that are very well known statewide and are seen as offshoots of Trump, and they're performing very poorly. Well, one's performing semi-poorly right now in Kerry Lake. The other one is performing like triage bad in Mark Robinson. And the concern I have is you know, I just don't believe Kerry Lake's going to lose by nine or 10 points and Trump's going to win that state, and I just don't.

And North Carolina has a state has a history of split ticket voting in presidential elections. It's the rare gubernatorial state that has the same schedule as a presidential election in a major swing state. So it's voted overwhelmingly for a Democrat governor and George W Bush, for example. But in this case we've got, you know, a guy who's pretty MAGA certified in Mark Robinson, you know. So we have this booming, you know elder in his black charismatic church versus this very secular Jewish guy. I just you know, you see what I'm saying. Is this very secular Jewish guy? I just you see what I'm saying. They're so different candidates, rick, that if Robinson loses by double digits, I just don't think there's enough people that are like, yeah, give me the left-wing secular Jewish guy who hates his own country of Israel, but Donald Trump, I don't see there's a lot of those people. You know what I'm saying.

Rick Green

Well, it's shocking that they are doing that bad right. I mean, I really expected Lake to do better in Arizona. I expected him to do better in North Carolina. I thought there was more pushback against the chaos of the last three and a half years, and so,

Steve Deace

 yeah, I don't know.

I'm not on the ground there either. I don't know. I will tell you, I did a bunch of barnstorming, campaigning in North Carolina for a few groups leading up to the 2022 midterms and everywhere I went across that state everybody's like. You got to know Mark Robinson. You got to meet Mark Robinson. Our people loved him. So I don't know what's going on there. I'm not on the ground there, but from a campaign standpoint, my concern because I just don't think there's any way we can get to 270 without Arizona and North Carolina. Then you've basically got to sweep all of those election fortification, ballot harvesting states in the Rust Belt man. And that's a high, that's high cotton. Okay, yeah.

Rick Green

Yeah, I heard somebody say you can't expect the Republicans to win without North Carolina and you can't expect the Democrats to win without Wisconsin. Is that you think that's a fair summation?

Steve Deace

I would probably substitute Pennsylvania for Wisconsin. On the Democratic side.

Rick Green

Okay, yeah, and that one you think is more in play Pennsylvania.

Steve Deace

I do. I do Now listen. Josh Stein just won his gubernatorial reelection by 15 points there, okay, and Republicans have made real significant inroads in voter registrations there. Republicans have made real significant inroads in voter registrations there. However, we're still behind by about 370,000 voter registrants in that state. That was over. It was almost a million five, six, seven, eight years ago, so that's significant progress, but we're still behind, well over approaching 400,000 registrations there, you know. So here's something to keep in mind, though. Yeah, yeah, interesting michigan I wouldn't spend a dollar in you think it's just?

too corrupt. I mean, she's basically criminalized. Whitmer has it's. It's a crime to report people stealing elections in michigan. Now, um, our sarah gonzalez went up to michigan earlier this winter for the blaze and did a a deep dive on what on their new election laws and and everything. And and you know basically her text to me after she finished, it was I'm cutting myself. Okay, I mean, and you know basically her text to me after she finished, it was I'm cutting myself.

Okay, I mean, I told you, you know what she learned when she was up there.

I mean, I just that is some Huey long, you know um.

Rick Green

Louisiana has come to uh to Michigan.

So so what I'm hearing you say, brother, is uh, get to work, people, we got. We got serious work to do in the next few weeks, and this is no time. I was joking. Before the election I was like our side is sitting around in their echo chambers watching the mashup videos of Harris cackling and word salads and assuming that it's over, and she's behind closed doors in a theatrical set with a stage, practicing, practicing, practicing, practicing, and we're asleep at the wheel. On that part of it, we cannot take it for granted. And it really does come down to the ground game and the turnout and getting churches and everybody else awake. That's one bright spot I've seen is churches that were not involved even two years ago in the election certainly not four years ago that have awakened and are now, you know, turning out abysmal compared to what it should be in terms of the church with what we're facing in our country, but big progress moving on that side of things. Are you seeing anything like that?

Steve Deace

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the main things we did in my home state of Iowa to make it one of the reddest states in the country is, yeah, everybody always talked about the evangelical church turnout dominance of the Iowa caucuses every four years, but they just never showed up for anything else, and so for the last 10 years, we've worked on changing that, and the results are what you see in Iowa, and that's also a group of people that I mean polling is incredibly hard nowadays anyway, even if you've got six figures to spend on it, but those are also the people that are going to be the least inclined to respond to polls. They're going to be the least inclined to be getting polling contacts, because you're talking about low propensity voters anyway. So those are things that can be done. If you go back to 2004, everybody always forgets in the exit polling that year, that's the last time one of our candidates won the popular vote in a presidential election. Everybody remembers forgets, though, that the number two issue in the exit polls in 2004, moral values, and there were marriage amendments on the ballot in Florida and Ohio that really, insanely, drove up the turnout of our people in defense of those things.

And so those are things, because I'm telling you right now, looking at this and looking at the data man we're, you know I'll use another football term we're dealing with sub packages here. Okay, I mean, we're not even talking about men. You know the gender gap for Kamala with men and women with Trump. We're not talking about, you know, suburban voters, one way or the other. We're talking now about who votes more white men with bachelor degrees or white men without one. All right, we're down in like fourth layer demographics here, into how close this is and and that is why I think how much these new third party groups can cut into their ballot harvesting leviathan, and then the unpredictable event that swings just a point, maybe a half a point, of people one way or the other could ultimately determine this.

Rick Green

Steve Dace, the Joe Rogan of elections. I'm hoping on election night you have one of those moments, like Joe Rogan and those guys, when they're shocked that they're all hitting each other in the face, going, wow, that was amazing. They did that with Benil Dariush knockout one time. So, Steve, I hope that's happening to you and Todd and the rest on election night.

Steve Deace

Thank you because I hope it's nothing like the last two election nights, when we all wanted to kill each other.

Rick Green

Hey, looking forward to having you down at the Patriot Academy campus November, what is it? 16th, 17th, 18th, whatever it is? Anyway, looking forward to having you and Daniel Horowitz join us. And regardless of what happens in the election, everybody needs to get trained and we're looking forward to some good fellowship with you, brother.

Steve Deace

You bet Same here. See you then, brother. Thank you.

Rick Green

All right, that's Steve Day. Stay with us folks, we'll be right back with David's.

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on the Wall Builder Show. Thanks to Steve Dace for joining us. You can listen to him over at the Blaze and also get his articles there as well. All right, David and Tim, some of that bleak, some of it's just the reality on the ground and the reason it is so important for people not only to go vote you mentioned it earlier, David but, man, get your Sunday school class out, get the people in your family, get people in your neighborhood. You've got to be a force multiplier in this one. You can't just. You know this whole silent majority thing is not going to work. We have to be a vocal majority and use our voices and our votes.

David Barton

And understand that the polling that Steve is talking about, that's political polling on likely voters.

So his polling is showing and he's talking about things that literally reflect what happens if 43% of Christians and active church members stay home. Those numbers would not be close at all if those 43% who have said they're not likely voters in this election are going to sit out. If they were to step up and say you know what? I'm going to get involved. I may not like the candidates individually, but I know that I'm voting for a team and that we've got to take small steps to get back in the right direction. If they go through that reasoning process and say neither candidate is perfect, we know that, but I can stop the most damage I can. I may not be able to get the guy I want, the person I want, but I can stop the most damage. If that 43% would vote, the things that Steve were talking about would not be bleak at all, but he is looking at the reality of what it looks like when 30, 40 million church-going people have decided to stay home this election.

Rick Green

All right, folks, lots of work to do. Let's get out there and spread the word. Make sure that you're voting and you're being a force multiplier, letting others know as well. Make sure you go to . and get some of those voter guides. Get iVoterGuide.com and get some of those voter guides. Get some registration drives going at your church. Not much time left to do that. In some states you got to do that 30 days out and some you can do it all the way up to the election. But find out in your state. Go to iVoterGuide.com today to find out more. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilder Show. T