This week on Sea Change Radio, more of our discussion with Democratic strategist and data analyst Tom Bonier. In this part of the conversation, we talk about the importance of a political campaign’s so-called “ground game,” look at the predictive value of early voting numbers, and examine whether Donald Trump would actually have steamrolled Joe Biden as so many were assuming. Then, we take a peek back at our 2019 interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin to learn a thing or two about leadership.

Narrator | 00:02 - This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

TB | 00:17 - And so on one side, Americans were saying, no, we don't want either of them. And so one side says, okay, we'll give you someone else. We'll give you someone who is going to wage a historic candidacy and can break the glass ceiling and, and is running a joyful, hopeful campaign. And on the other side, you're going to still have that guy.

Narrator | 00:36 - This week on Sea Change Radio, more of our discussion with Democratic strategist and data analyst Tom Bonier. In this part of the conversation, we talk about the importance of a political campaign’s so-called “ground game,” look at the predictive value of early voting numbers, and examine whether Donald Trump would actually have steamrolled Joe Biden as so many were assuming. Then, we take a peek back at our 2019 interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin to learn a thing or two about leadership.

AW | 01:30 - I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Tom Bonier. Tom is a Democratic strategist and he's with the Tara Group and TargetSmart. Tom, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

TB | 01:38 - It's great to be here.

AW | 01:40 - Tom, any podcast you might listen to or any piece you're reading, almost always to the t prefaces it with, this is a very close election. You have to say that it seems like a contractual obligation. I was completely wrong in 2016. I, if I owned my home, me too. I would've bet my mortgage that Hillary Clinton was going to win. So everybody should take my analysis with a huge grain of salt. And I'm not discouraging anybody from going out and knocking on doors like I'm going to do. We should not take anything lightly. We keep talking about Pennsylvania being the crux of this election, but I think there's much more to this election than just Pennsylvania. I don't think this is going to be as razor thin as everybody is assuming.

TB | 02:23 - Well, I think there's a good amount of evidence pointing in that direction. You know, again, as I said earlier, I, I understand the tendency for some people to talk about it being incredibly close. And let's not take anything for granted that Donald Trump could win. Don Donald Trump could win. But if we're going to assign probabilities to that, that's a much lower probability outcome. Then there's the probability of Harris winning by a narrow margin, and then there's a probability of Harris winning by a wider margin. And I'm not going to assign percentages to any of those. But I would say in aggregate there's a far higher percentage of Vice President Harris winning because of all that data, uh, that, that you mentioned in terms of the intensity and the gate and engagement. We are looking much more like 2008, you know, where you have a candidate who's inspiring and enthusiasm and energy running against a candidate who is not running a very vigorous campaign and is deeply flawed, which John McCain was, and with Sarah Palin, I'm not saying McCain and Trump are the same, that's a sacrilegious thing to say at this point, given, especially how Donald Trump has attacked John McCain…

AW | 03:35 - But he was a known quantity. 

TB | 03:37 - That's right. And in terms of the contours of the, the candidates and, and the candid season campaigns, there are similarities there. And so yeah, from that data perspective in 2016, again, everyone was wrong , uh, but, it didn't lend itself to that type of analysis because we didn'...