It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind Maine’s Ballot Fight, Women’s Sports & 2026 Election Shakeup
3/27/202654 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Welcome back to A Numbers Game.
0:08Thanks for being here. Happy Friday, everybody.
0:11Okay, before we get into some data on the episode, I want to talk about
0:16a little backlash that I'm dealing with.
0:18I landed myself in some hot water, which, you know, so rare for me, but
0:23I have to address. So I wrote an op -ed for The Daily Wire.
0:26My buddy Ben Domenech is the opinion editor there.
0:29He's on Fox. You've seen him probably, you know, if you watch the network.
0:33And he asked me to write an opinion piece, and I was lucky enough to
0:37get to the airport early because of all these lines, and there was no line,
0:40so I had 45 minutes, so I wrote an op -ed.
0:43Regarding the number of, quote -unquote, political influencers who are using their identity as Catholic
0:51converts to make a political statement regarding Zionism and Jews and Israel and the war
0:56and yada, yada, yada. And honestly, I'm like a little sick of it.
1:00So the piece centers around these, I'm not going to go by their name because
1:04they feed for attention, so I'm going to starve the beast.
1:07I'm not going to name them, but you guys can figure out who I'm talking
1:10about. These recent Catholic converts who have created political platforms and social media platforms really
1:17centered around, like, I'm a recent Catholic convert, therefore X, Y, and Z.
1:22And look, a big part of the piece that I wrote, if you haven't read
1:25it, is centered on the idea that I am not here to tell anyone what
1:29to think, right? To quote, like, Fran Leibovitz, or to paraphrase Fran Leibovitz, my great
1:34lot in life is that I'm always a godfather and ever a god.
1:36I can't make anyone believe something that I believe, and I'm not going to try.
1:40I give people the information that I have, I give people data, I let them
1:45draw their own conclusions, because it's not worth it to scream into a microphone until
1:49I have a heart attack like Mark Leibovitz did.
1:52But don't use our shared faith, our shared church as a political platform to ostracize
2:01others, namely Jews. And readers took a lot of offense, especially the two sentences that
2:06I wrote in particular, so I want to go through them and then the overarching
2:10defense of the piece. So the first quote was, unlike many branches of Christianity, the
2:14Catholic Church does not demand that the faithful be committed Zionists to receive God's blessing.
2:19Many prominent members of the church have spoken out about the plight of civilians in
2:22Gaza. Totally true, right? The Catholic Church does not say that the current political state
2:28of Israel, as we know it today, is the same as the biblical state of
2:31Israel, and a lot of the patriarchs and heads of the churches in the Holy
2:34Land have said that Christian Zionism is a false teaching.
2:37That's their opinion. But Second Vatican Council has also said that Israel as, you know,
2:43that we are, the people of the world are the new Israel because of Jesus'
2:47fulfillment, that we are the church, that it's not the physical entity of the country
2:52anymore. Totally in line with Catholic theology.
2:56And there shouldn't be anything controversial if you believe in Catholic theology.
3:00The second part is where they took a lot of offense to certain people.
3:03It says, that's what I wrote, It seems that recent converts of the faith understand
3:07those teachings, but somehow forget that the church also rejects any form of anti -Semitism,
3:13condemns hostility towards Jews, and upholds the enduring covenant with the Jewish people as God's
3:18chosen people. They have already become cafeteria Catholics, picking and choosing which parts of the
3:23teaching they prefer. This got, I mean, people raged against me.
3:29This comes directly from Second Vatican Council.
3:31Quote, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their fathers.
3:35He does not repent of the gifts he makes or the calls he issues.
3:40And from the catechism, the old covenant has never been revoked.
3:44I'm not saying, you know, that Jews are better than, or, you know, whatever.
3:51It's not, that's not the point, right?
3:52It's just citing Catholic teaching.
3:55There's nothing I'm saying in contradiction from what the church teaches.
4:00Pope John Paul II, and St.
4:01Pope John Paul II said the same exact thing about Jews.
4:04My bigger point is this, and this is the whole point of the whole piece,
4:09that people forgot because they kind of went in on these two sentences.
4:13Don't use your platform as identifying as converts or as Catholics, as identifying as, this
4:19is what Catholics believe in, and then immediately rage on Israel and immediately rage on
4:25Jews. Say what you want to say.
4:27Have your position, but don't use the religion as the platform.
4:32If you have a logical case to say about anything, the reason and the logic
4:37will stand on its own.
4:39You don't need to use the religion being the logic itself because then you're saying
4:44to people, well, if you are a member of my faith, you must therefore believe
4:48this as well. That's not the case.
4:50And I think, and once again, this is not a majority of converts.
4:55It's not a minority of converts.
4:56It's like a percentage who are using social media and the ability to be an
5:01influencer and make money through social media and saying, this is how I'm going to
5:05rage bait an audience to build an audience to make money.
5:09Like this is the platform they're using to rage bait.
5:11And I think for some cradle Catholics who have maybe a greater understanding of this,
5:17our long tradition in this country has been one where we have at times been
5:22ostracized. have been othered, have been made to feel a stranger, have been told we
5:26have a, you know, allegiance to a foreign entity.
5:30A lot of the same things that are being said about Jews.
5:33And I think that we should, at this point, just feel a sense of compassion
5:37towards American Jews. And this is really who this piece was for, in the sense
5:42that, like, who I'm asking them to feel compassion towards.
5:45I don't really, I don't think about Israel a lot.
5:48I don't do episodes on it.
5:49It doesn't obsess my mind.
5:51I've never been there. I'm sure I would like it.
5:52I love hummus. Like, I'm sure the street food is amazing.
5:55I want to go for eat.
5:56But like, I would go on a food tour, not even like a religious tour,
5:59but just like, let me eat through Israel.
6:00That'd be great. This is like, I'm a complete foodie.
6:03It's like nuts. But I want you to think of a sense of compassion, though,
6:08for people. Like, think of like the American Jewish experience over the last few years.
6:11October 7th happens. It's horrific.
6:13It is a horror. It's a true horror.
6:16And within 24 hours, as people are still bleeding out across that country, or where
6:23the sites of the attacks were in that country, you have blue -haired they -thems
6:27and Muslim immigrants marching in the streets of some of our biggest cities rallying for
6:33Hamas. This is before Israel responded.
6:35This is before a single bomb was dropped.
6:36You can have all the criticisms you want.
6:38And if they are legitimate, they are legitimate of, you know, whatever was happening in
6:43the aftermath as far as the war goes.
6:46But the war hadn't even started yet as far as an Israeli response.
6:49Like, they marched with terrorists right afterwards.
6:52And I said this in the debate with Michael Tracy.
6:54Some people really do just like dead Jews.
6:58Like, some people have that hatred in their heart.
7:01And that hatred is a sin.
7:03Hate is a sin. And while it's okay to have a disagreement, you know, on
7:08politics and the political state, it is never okay to dehumanize another person, to say
7:14they are less than, to dehumanize Jews, which is what happened over and over and
7:21over again on the left, and then has happened on the right.
7:24It is gross. It is really, really, really gross.
7:28And don't use the religion to justify dehumanization.
7:33And, you know, a lot of people have been saying this, and a lot of
7:36people have been commenting, and they come from a place where they're either Jewish, or
7:39whether they are, like, non -religious.
7:41Like, there's a couple who are, like, nuts on the internet, who are saying things
7:45I know they're not religious.
7:47And they just take this up as their mantra.
7:48I'm coming at this from a very, you know, middle -of -the -road standpoint, in
7:52the sense that I'm not here to police what you say or what you think.
7:57But don't use our shared faith to justify hatred, right?
8:04If you have a logical conversation to make, make it in a logical way.
8:08Bring facts to the table.
8:09And show a sense of compassion to people who are probably going through a lot
8:14in this time. And it makes it much harder for people who do have legitimate
8:22criticisms of the way we're dealing with foreign policy in the Middle East, or maybe
8:26the way that Israel's doing things, because it feels at times like you are jumping
8:31on a bandwagon where there's a lot of hate, and you want to be part
8:34of that. So it makes everything actually much, much worse.
8:37And if you are a recent Catholic convert, or you're about to because Easter's coming
8:41up, welcome. The church is, in my opinion, and I'm very, like, very committed to
8:47this, the church is the greatest civic institution that exists in America.
8:51We have a lot of work to do that.
8:53And you can be part of the work.
8:55Doing good work, being a role model, which is so rare in society, is very
9:01difficult. It's not easy. And there's not a lot of praise in it a lot
9:05of times. And there's certainly not a lot of money in it most of the
9:08times. So I understand why it's easy to be an influencer, why it's easy to
9:12click and rage bait. But doing the right thing is really more important at this
9:17time, and bringing together and doing more to, you know, heal people in this country
9:24who seem like they're all, you know, having schizophrenia at the time.
9:27Now my audience, though, my audience is wonderful.
9:29Okay, so that's my little soapbox of my little, my little article, read it, don't
9:34read it. But that was, I wanted to address the outrage.
9:37Speaking of backlash and outrage, let's talk about recent elections in Florida, because there was
9:42a massive backlash against the GOP.
9:45Florida Democrats won two big state legislative elections.
9:48Democrats won a Trump plus seven state Senate district in Tampa and a Trump plus
9:5211 state House district in Palm Beach.
9:56The good news for Republicans, which is I know it's like a weird coat, but
9:58this is the truth. The swings against the GOP in these two elections were not
10:03as severe as the GOP is experiencing throughout the rest of the year.
10:07So it actually made our, even though we lost these two seats, it made the
10:10average swing towards Democrats much smaller and slightly smaller.
10:16So I guess that's a strange, like a little caveat to, you know, put in
10:20the back of your head.
10:21And I spoke to a politico in Florida yesterday, and I said, what do you
10:25think the reason was that Republicans had this loss?
10:29And he said, no one's talking about this.
10:32But part of the problem is, is that the candidates running for office did not
10:36live in the districts. Some lived like an hour away or something, which in these
10:41Trump districts, a lot of GOP elected officials have taken it for granted.
10:45They can just run, you know, a glass of water and have them win.
10:48And that is not the case.
10:50You have, you cannot take these seats for granted, especially in this kind of election
10:54cycle. You, and, and there's a notion going around online that just Republicans just didn't
11:02turn out. It's not the truth.
11:03Zachary Danini, who I mentioned a lot on the show, he's been on the show,
11:06he's brilliant. He pointed out, actually, Republicans showed up in greater numbers than Democrats did.
11:11Independent, a portion of Republicans maybe voted against the Democrat, but independents voted about two
11:17to one for the Democrat.
11:19That's a blowout loss. Like, it's remarkably high.
11:23Republicans have lost 12 state legislative districts so far since Trump became president in Texas,
11:29Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, and New Hampshire.
11:34All but one of those states voted for Trump in 2024.
11:38The backlash and the anger and the motivation on the part of Democrats is real.
11:44And it's about time the RNC picked up this narrative from all these state legislatures.
11:50You know, you could, this narrative that, oh, these state legislators special elections, they don't
11:53matter. Yeah, they don't matter to a point.
11:56But when it's happening in red state after red state after red state, it does
12:01matter. It does make people feel, like, discouraged or, like, the wave is real.
12:05The Democratic wave, it builds, you know, it builds enthusiasm more amongst Democrats.
12:10And the White House really needs to get heavily into campaign mode.
12:14Like, it is election season, whether we like it or not.
12:17One more backlash that's happening, which is actually favorable to Republicans, is the growing backlash
12:22against Abigail Spanberger and the Democrats' efforts to redistrict Virginia in a referendum.
12:28According to Chaz Netticom of State Navigate, early turnout right now is much higher than
12:34it was in the 2025 gubernatorial election at this point.
12:39We're actually surpassing governor turnout.
12:40It is especially high in Republican areas like Scott County, Lee County, Buchanan County, Page
12:46County, and Tazewell County. The turnout there is over 150 % to 200 % higher
12:53than it was in 2025.
12:56Turnout is not being met in some Democratic strongholds like Henrico, Petersburg, and Richmond.
13:01Just by pure demographics and how the state is voting, Democrats are still favored to
13:06win. It's just, it's a Democrat state, right?
13:09But if the margin stays small in this early vote, Republicans outvote Democrats on Election
13:15Day. Keep the election margin small in the early vote, and Republicans can swamp the
13:20polls on Election Day and defeat this referendum.
13:22It would be amazing considering so much of the Republicans are not doing anything.
13:27Glenn Youngkin, who is enormously popular in Virginia, is doing virtually nothing, according to reports
13:33from Ben Domenech. He is just kind of sitting on the sidelines, letting Virginia go
13:38far to the left. I think this is a really big mistake on his part.
13:41But I think that, you know, if it's defeated, it's because of the efforts of
13:45grassroots Republicans who once again have come through.
13:48Okay, last piece of backlash.
13:50That's the theme of this episode.
13:51This is the backlash episode.
13:53One piece of backlash that should be addressed is the backlash against transgender ideology.
13:59This nonprofit called the Searchlight Institute did an extensive polling data involving 34 ,000 people
14:06and six rounds of polling.
14:07That is very detailed, very expensive.
14:10It's very impressive. It's impressive for any kind of institution to do something like that.
14:15So kudos to them that they did it.
14:18This information I'm about to share with you will not shock a single conservative or
14:22Republican listening to this podcast.
14:24Democrats seem to think if they just keep asking the same question over and over,
14:28they'll get a different answer when it comes to the transgender issue.
14:31And turns out, nope, they got the same result as every other poll.
14:35When it comes to the transgenderism, Americans are the same.
14:39They say no to discrimination.
14:40They don't like discrimination against transgender people.
14:42They don't like bullying of people who identify as transgender, either as children or as
14:47adults. But they want sex -assigned bathrooms.
14:50They want sex -assigned locker rooms.
14:52They want sex -assigned sports in K through 12.
14:54They do not support children getting hormone blockers.
14:57They do not support children getting sexual reassignment surgery.
15:00They do not support women, you know, teenage girls' healthy breasts being chopped off.
15:05They, it's unanimous. It's, it's, I mean, they, this is so conclusive that we could
15:12take a break on polling on this issue for a very long time.
15:15And the funny thing was I was reading some Democrats online who were like, well,
15:19they asked the question, they asked the question wrong.
15:21No, no, they didn't, Stacey.
15:24They didn't ask the question wrong.
15:26Put down the Twinkie and just accept the fact that, you know, no one is
15:32buying this anymore. We don't have to do this.
15:34I don't have to call you a they -them.
15:35You could shave your armpits.
15:36Life goes on. It's okay.
15:38Like, this is fine because this is how people feel.
15:43And the crazy thing is, is that the left in Maine has actually put this
15:48as a ballot referendum for November.
15:51So not only will voters be voting for the governor and the senator in Maine,
15:54the very important Senate race in Maine, but they will be voting for a referendum
15:57asking if they should, minors, this is not for adults, this is for minors.
16:01Minors should be allowed to access bathrooms, sports teams, and public changing rooms for their
16:08gender identity, not their sex assigned at birth or the sex they were born in.
16:14Which is crazy because, I mean, listen, who knows what the turnout is going to
16:18be. Who knows how crazy people in Maine might be.
16:22I'm interested when polling finally comes out, but this has officially made the ballot.
16:25My guess is it's probably going to get voted down.
16:28Remember, Maine was one of the states that voted by popular vote against gay marriage.
16:34Yeah, it was a while ago, but it wasn't that that long ago.
16:37And transgender issues is way less popular than gay marriage was at the time it
16:41was voted down. So with me to discuss this is Steve Robinson from The Maine
16:45Wire. He is coming up, the investigative reporter, very smart guy.
16:48So all things Maine, including this referendum, that's coming up next.
16:55Steve Robinson is an award -winning filmmaker and investigative journalist.
16:58You can read his stuff on the website as Maine goes.
17:01And for The Maine Wire, Steve, thanks for coming on this podcast.
17:04Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan.
17:06Okay, first let's talk about the ballot referendum because this just kind of became breaking
17:10news. Maine will have a referendum on transgender students' ability to access bathrooms and sports
17:17teams on, like, the gender they prefer rather than their biological sex.
17:22How – I mean, was it like a left -wing group that proposed this?
17:26No, actually. This is – it's kind of working in the opposite direction.
17:30This is a referendum to protect sex -based rights.
17:34This is – conservative parents have gotten together to effectively stop the state from compelling
17:42female athletes to compete against male athletes who think that they're women.
17:47That's the law of the land, that's the policy right now.
17:50It's kind of convoluted, but it's a mixture of school districts, the state, the Maine
17:55Principals Association, which is a de facto arm of government that is enforcing this policy
18:01where any high school boy who decides that he wants to play against the girls
18:06can do so. So the – we really triggered a national discussion when Representative Laurel
18:12Libby posted a very telling picture, which showed a young man who competed in pole
18:19vaulting in the men's competition in one year and was on the fifth -place podium.
18:26And then it was less than a year later, after he decided to compete against
18:30women, he was on the first -place podium.
18:33And she posted a picture showing those two images side by side, and a number
18:38of female athletes have come forward who were victims of this, who had a chance
18:43to either medal or to finish in first place, but had that taken away from
18:47them by male athletes who – I don't know if you know much about pole
18:51vaulting, but upper body strength is it.
18:52I don't. I can't. I can't say I do.
18:56Neither do I, to be honest, but I've learned that upper body strength is a
19:00big deal. And if you know anything about human biology, upper body strength is where
19:04males have a serious advantage.
19:06So this guy comes out and shatters the state records for women's pole vaulting, even
19:14though he was a middling pole vaulter as a male.
19:17But that was just one case.
19:18There were four or five other cases of males who were competing in female sports.
19:23There was a cross -country athlete who was just dominating statewide cross -country races and
19:29breaking records. So that kind of pushed it to the forefront.
19:32There were legislative attempts to try to protect women's sports.
19:38Those were all shot down.
19:40President Trump came out with his executive order very early on, establishing that Title IX,
19:46which was created to protect sex -based rights for women, in fact, protected sex -based
19:52rights for women. But the state so far has resisted implementing Title IX.
19:58Some of the school districts have rebelled.
20:00Some of the school districts have decided that they're going to side with Trump on
20:05this. The attorney general of the state of Maine has issued his very astute legal
20:10reasoning, which is that these boys who think they're girls are, in fact, girls, so
20:16they're entitled to Title IX protections because they're girls.
20:20That's the argument that the state is advancing now.
20:23And so it's going to be a ballot referendum in November.
20:27Voters will decide whether or not female athletes should be forced to compete against male
20:34athletes. It looks like it's headed for a pretty certain passage here.
20:38You think that it will pass?
20:40I do, yeah. I mean, Maine is, we're different than the other states.
20:45We're a little crazier. We had - That is an understatement if there was an
20:49understatement. Yeah. I mean, we got a guy up here with a Nazi tattoo running
20:53around, and the Democrats are in love with him for some reason.
20:57So they're a different breed up here.
20:58They're a little crazier. But we also, during COVID, had 25 ,000 of the craziest
21:06libs from Massachusetts and New York and Connecticut.
21:08They all bugged out to Maine and brought their politics with them.
21:12So that's really warped the politics up here as well.
21:16But nationwide, polling has shown that it's an 80 -20 issue.
21:21Most people just understand intuitively that it's a matter of fairness.
21:25Female athletes shouldn't be competing against male athletes.
21:29You can be tolerant and kind and have respect for people if they have weird
21:38sexual identities or whatever. But forcing women to compete against boys is a whole different
21:44conversation. Yeah. I just - I just - I just - It's looking more like
21:47a 70 -30 issue. I broke down the data for this study that just came
21:51out, a very, very detailed study from the Searchlight Institute about this.
21:55And, you know, it's the same as we always see.
21:57Americans are against, you know, open discrimination and bullying, but they are against boys competing
22:04in girls sports and for shared lockers and bathrooms and all the rest of it
22:10and hormone drugs for children.
22:13It's the same data over and over again.
22:15And I think Democrats just keep hoping that one day they'll ask in a certain
22:18way, will it change everything?
22:19Speaking of Graham Plattner, let's talk about it.
22:22So Janet Mills actually had a negative ad, which Janet Mills does not typically go
22:26negative historically in her career.
22:28She's been more of a politician that doesn't do a lot of negative advertising, especially
22:33in Democratic primary. It's unusual.
22:35She got a lot of backlash to it.
22:37Is part of the reason the governor is Janet Mills is not doing well is
22:43partly because of her age.
22:44She would be an 80 -year -old freshman.
22:47I don't think that it's part of her age.
22:49I think that she wore out her welcome in the state.
22:53I think that Democrats really held their nose in 2022 to vote for her because,
22:58you know, she was the incumbent.
23:00There wasn't going to be a primary.
23:01Governor LePage was running for what would have been his non -consecutive third term.
23:06And they weren't totally thrilled with her performance.
23:12There's really no measure of social science, economic science, you know, whatever indicator you want
23:18to pick to measure the changes that have occurred in Maine since she came into
23:22office in 2019. Nothing has gotten better.
23:25Our budgets have gone from $8 billion to $9 billion for a biennium to $12
23:31billion. There's a couple billion dollars in COVID stimulus sprinkled in there.
23:35No one knows where that money went.
23:37The roads still suck. The schools still suck.
23:39Student performance has plummeted. Crime is rampant.
23:43Our cities are like scenes from The Walking Dead.
23:46Nothing has gotten better under Governor Janet Mills.
23:48And no one can even – no one's even making the argument, really, that things
23:52have gotten better. All they're saying is that we need Democrats to protect us from
23:56the, you know, the evil orange man in the White House.
23:58That's the most compelling argument that the statewide Democrats have right now.
24:02So I think that she didn't have a built -in base of loyalty and fandom
24:07going into this primary. And when Graham Plattner showed up, you've got all these, like,
24:12beta male pajama boys in Portland who see this guy and they're like, oh, my
24:16God, maybe some of his testosterone will rub off on us.
24:19Like, here's a – here's, like, a masculine Democrat.
24:23He can be our hero.
24:24He can save us. And they're willing to look past the Nazi tattoo and all
24:29the lies that he's told about this thing, by the way.
24:32You know, I don't know.
24:33You've probably followed some of the national – I did a whole profile on Graham
24:36Plattner. So, I mean, you probably saw he's got a friend who runs a brewery
24:41out in Hancock County who thought he was defending Graham.
24:44And he comes out and does this video and admits in the video that he's
24:50talked with Graham, like, three or four years ago about the tattoo.
24:53So totally – he thinks he's defending the guy but totally undermines this entire lie
24:59he's fabricated about it. So nothing about the guy's backstory makes sense.
25:03He's, you know, just a wealthy – He's a rich kid.
25:07Yeah, that's exactly what he is.
25:09I mean, it's very – when you run a business and you don't make profit
25:13year after year and you don't go bankrupt, it's because you're getting money to fund
25:18that entire – Well, full disability.
25:21Full disability plus, you know – Yeah, but that's not that much money, the full
25:25disability. But that wouldn't explain his business.
25:27I mean, the full disability is not that much money in the grand scheme of
25:30things. But his school he went to for grammar school was $60 ,000 a year.
25:34His grandfather was very wealthy.
25:36His father was no small potatoes either.
25:41There's a lot of money in that family.
25:42I think an average, like, table and chairs that his grandfather made is, like, $12
25:48,000. It's not like – yeah, he's from a wealthy family and he's pretending to
25:53be – he's doing, like, the working man's blackface where he pretends to be much
25:59more. That's exactly what it is.
26:00That's exactly what it is.
26:01And this is kind of local knowledge.
26:03But there's no such thing as an oyster man.
26:05This thing that he came out with, when he started calling himself an oyster man,
26:09all the people who actually work on the coast, like commercial fishermen and lobstermen, they
26:14were like, what the hell is an oyster man?
26:17That's not a thing. It's not a word that's in common use.
26:20No one in Maine describes themselves as an oyster man.
26:23He just invented that term because it sounded cool by the, you know, the California
26:28and New York consultants who recruited him to run.
26:31And that, by the way, I don't know if this has been reported on nationally,
26:34but that's how he ended up in this race was through an amateur acting gig.
26:39He appeared in an aquaculture commercial.
26:42It was, like, a four -minute -long video about salmon farming or something.
26:46And some consultants out in New York saw that video and flew out to Maine
26:50and convinced him to run for office.
26:52So he's literally an actor.
26:54Well, his dad ran for state Senate and either was very good friends or, like,
27:02was on the state committee or he was friends with the chairman of the state
27:05committee, something like that. He was friends with the former attorney general, and he's written
27:09over $50 ,000 in checks to Democratic candidates federally, statewide, probably.
27:14much more so there's some politics in his background but it's certainly not um he's
27:19not this is not um jimmy jimmy stewart goes to washington uh whatever that movie
27:23was uh uh mr smith goes to washington so like it's not like completely i
27:28think you're right though it's dead on to say that this is uh you know
27:32the the working uh downeaster blackface version yeah that's that's what he's doing he's he's
27:38cosplaying uh you know the guy who's actually got calluses on his hands but he's
27:43he's super soft and you can tell that he's volatile you know he's like one
27:48one question he doesn't like away from decking a reporter uh that's what my money's
27:53on is he's he's gonna end up just tweaking out on some reporter punching him
27:57in the face uh but i think yeah exactly you know i would i would
28:02not underestimate uh uh janet mills in this race though uh she's tough she's a
28:09survivor she's got a lot of friends in maine she's been around forever she was
28:13a da she was the attorney general she was a state lawmaker a lot of
28:17people owe her favors she's chuck schumer's favorite and you know she might have been
28:21hesitate hesitant to go negative um in some gubernatorial primaries but she is a nasty
28:28nasty person and she will go cutthroat in this and so will the people around
28:33her who are fighting for their jobs you know they all want to move to
28:37washington dc and you know bb senate staff are bigwigs and those ads that she's
28:42running right now i mean she's blanketing every streaming service uh you know they are
28:47very effective uh from the people yeah and maine's one done maine's electorate is very
28:53female so she's she knows what she's doing it's so obviously well tested like i
28:59don't care what what activist democrats say is a very well tested ad by the
29:03fact that he did say i mean this is also like a problem with like
29:08a certain type of person if you're a man and you're in your mid -30s
29:12which is what he was on on you know on platforms all day commenting and
29:18giving like you know hot takes about rape which is what the comments that she's
29:21bringing on or about how white people are stupid or about like all policemen are
29:26bastards something else that he said there if you're doing that in your mid -30s
29:30like this is not a 15 year old which is what he's trying he's gonna
29:33be like oh i was so much younger no he when he said he was
29:35a full -blown communist he was like 36 when he said that it wasn't this
29:40wasn't a man who was like 12 and like trying to be edgy and in
29:44his high school photos what i mentioned in my episode of him high school photo
29:49he was holding up a sign saying free free palestine free uh free palestine free
29:53uh tibet free uh cashmere some other random places like he was a champagne socialist
30:00from the jump it was never like this weird transformation yes and you know he
30:07also within very recent history like within the last five years was the uh shooting
30:13instructor yes the socialist rifle association in maine uh and you know they've tried to
30:18blur out the faces in those pictures of their shooting uh practices but you can't
30:24blur out that ginger beard and i don't know anyone else who brings a an
30:29umbrella out to the shooting range on a hot day to protect their pale ginger
30:33skin but it's definitely graham plattner in those pictures he and he's never denied it
30:38he's never denied it and they tried to they tried to uh send us a
30:42cease and desist letter for uh referring to the socialist rifle association as a paramilitary
30:47group because the state of maine recently passed a law criminalizing the kind of training
30:53that graham was providing uh to that you know antifa super soldier group uh but
30:59i think it's a pretty accurate description if you've got people with ar -15s in
31:04the prone position taking 100 yard shots at human -shaped targets and doing uh you
31:09know wound trauma wound care like that's paramilitary training okay that's not like defensive pistol
31:15courses uh but that's uh that's that's his uh you know the milieu that he
31:20has been swimming in is radical far left progressivism and so they've plucked him out
31:25of that and i think that his base is not in maine his base is
31:30the progressive diaspora spread out across the country right his base is in brooklyn and
31:36california and so he's got all this online enthusiasm and gq columnists will write these
31:42homoerotic profiles about how what a man he is and how he's hauling a bag
31:47of oyster over the side of the boat it's all nonsense there's there's just a
31:51lot of uh a lot of puffery and i think fake support and hype around
31:55him and i think that these uh the ads that the governor is running are
32:01really going to even this out i still have it at a coin flip i
32:04mean anything anything could happen uh the governor's got her own problems um the the
32:09very serious corruption problems that she's turned a blind eye to uh lots of medicaid
32:14uh uh fraud lots of corruption in the somali community around lewiston uh we've reported
32:20exclusively uh on the chinese organized crime growing cannabis uh throughout the state of maine
32:26uh her brother has actually been a real estate attorney for some of the uh
32:31chinese drug traffickers helping them buy property in central maine she's never commented on that
32:36and never acknowledged that but it's just a matter of fact it's in there's you
32:41can see his say ...on the documents.
32:43Yeah. So she's got problems as well, but I do think that you're going to
32:47see this race even out, and I don't think that they're done with all of
32:52the opposition research on Graham.
32:54Oh, there's so much. I think there's probably some more that's going to come out,
32:57and some more local stuff as well.
32:59So before... Oh, sorry. No, I have one other thing, because we're kind of on
33:04time. I want to have a quick question.
33:05I actually want to point one thing, though.
33:06You can tell when someone is using working -class blackface, as we're saying it, because
33:11working -class people tend to dress up more for important things.
33:16They'll own one good suit or one suit, and they'll wear it very prideful, because
33:20that's their one suit for a wedding or whatever, and people who are faking it
33:25because they're actually wealthy will always dress down, and that's why Plattner dresses down, the
33:31senator from Pennsylvania, Fetterman, dresses down.
33:33He's actually a wealthy guy, too.
33:34So that's a very key indicator.
33:38Working -class people do not actually want people to perceive them as being poor or
33:41on the lower -income side.
33:43Okay. Really quickly, there's three important races in Maine.
33:46The governor, Maine's second congressional district, one of the two districts in the Congress from
33:51Maine, and then Susan Collins.
33:53Just give me a brief rundown of how it looks on the Republican side on
33:56the governor's race, on the House District 2, and on the Senate District, where Susan
34:01Collins is, I think, sixth term.
34:02So I'll take the second congressional district where I grew up first.
34:08That's a district that has no business being Democrat.
34:11It's been held for, I think, three consecutive terms by Congressman Jared Golden.
34:15He was a military guy.
34:17He had tattoos. Everybody oohed and aahed over him being a working -class guy, and
34:22he was great on the campaign trail, but he tried to do this blue dog
34:26thing and walk a line that really wasn't successful for him.
34:30I think he's bowed out for personal reasons.
34:33So that becomes an open seat that was a Democrat incumbent.
34:37Governor Paul LePage is running for that, no primary.
34:41He still has tremendous support in the second congressional district.
34:45He's never lost a race in that district.
34:47You know, even the gubernatorial race that he lost to Janet Mills in 2022, he
34:52won the second district vote total.
34:55So I would expect him to win that handily.
34:58And that's important because, you know, that's from a D plus one to an R
35:01plus one. That's a nice flip for a presidential mid -year.
35:05There's a Democratic primary on that side, but not really worth talking about any of
35:10those candidates, with the exception, by the way, of Jordan Wood, former staffer to Katie
35:14Porter, who has raised like $4 million.
35:17He was running for Senate, has a $3 million home on a coast.
35:22But then when Graham Plattner got in, he got scared out of the Senate race,
35:26jumped into the CD2 race, and like bought a home in Auburn, Maine.
35:30Like just, just bought a $800 ,000 home in one of the congressional districts.
35:36Yeah, just, just, just to run, just to run there.
35:38So I don't think there's, there's not going to be any competition to LePage.
35:43He's going to win that.
35:45The gubernatorial election is going to be pretty chaotic.
35:49We have eight candidates on the Republican side.
35:51I moderated a debate, by the way, last night with the gubernatorial candidates.
35:56I think that herd is going to thin down to probably four, maybe five candidates
36:02pretty soon here. Wait, can I just, can I ask you as a, as, as
36:04a complete political nerd, I've never moderated a debate.
36:07You have to be respectful, obviously, because you're the moderator.
36:10In your head, do you ever hear somebody give an answer?
36:14What on earth are you talking about?
36:16Like, and your head goes to keep a straight face, keep a straight face, keep
36:20a straight face. Do you, does that ever happen?
36:23Yes, it happened last night.
36:25I mean, there were, there were a few flubs that I wanted to make.
36:29I wanted to joke and make fun of them, but I tried to keep decorum
36:32and we actually had a, we, we had a boxing bell that we used to
36:36keep the timer. So when people started going over the time limit, I gave them
36:40a ding, ding, ding, and that moved things along pretty well.
36:43But, you know, we had 400 people there watching and for the most part, you
36:47know, they, they understood when somebody was screwing up.
36:49I didn't need to put an exclamation point.
36:52Okay. So you think the, the candy, I promise no candy Crowley stuff.
36:57Her crew ended up with that too.
36:59Yeah. Yes. When, who, who is the front runner on the Republican side?
37:05The front runner by polls would be Bobby Charles.
37:09Bobby Charles grew up from, grew up in Maine and had a career in Washington,
37:14DC. He was a Naval intelligence officer, worked in the Reagan administration, was a assistant
37:20secretary of state under Colin Powell, and then had a consulting firm and a lobby,
37:25lobbying firm for a while.
37:27How old is he? He's got to be in his sixties.
37:30I think he's probably 65, 66, but you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't tell it.
37:34He's, he's, he's pretty fit and energetic, very knowledgeable guy, very well experienced.
37:39When you say Reagan, I'm like, Oh my gosh, is he living in the 80s
37:41now? Okay. Well, yeah, we have him.
37:43And we also have a Jonathan Bush, one of the cousins of Jeb and W.
37:50He's a healthcare executive who's built a business in Maine.
37:53He's running. Uh, and then there's a few state level politicians who are running and,
37:57uh, Ben Midgley, the former CEO of crunch fitness, uh, is also running.
38:02So it's a, it's a very, uh, big field, but I expect it to thin
38:06a little bit and, and hopefully I did a good job of, you know, throwing.
38:09fastballs right at their heads last night and and the herd's gonna fend on the
38:13democratic side we have uh senate president troy jackson uh the corrupt former senate president
38:19has been in legislature for 25 years uh secretary of state shenna bellows also corrupt
38:27tried to kick trump off the ballot in 2024 and was rebuked by the supreme
38:33court or at least colorado was uh hannah pingree the daughter of the first district
38:38congresswoman she's running for governor she was the top policy person for janet mills for
38:43six years and now is running i guess to continue the the wonderful janet mills
38:48legacy uh and then narav shah is running uh he was the uh director of
38:53the main cdc throughout all of covet so he's the one right helped mandate vaccinations
38:58close schools and then was uh tapped to go beyond uh biden's vaccine committee he
39:04was the deputy cdc director for a little while um so quite the panel oh
39:08i forgot by the way also angus king the third uh you didn't realize this
39:12but there are there are three of them uh so the the uh the senator
39:17king's son angus king the third is going to be running as well so yeah
39:22uh we've got a i'm surprised he's not running as an independent uh yeah i
39:28don't know how much uh how long that shtick goes for i mean angus king
39:32angus king as an independent is uh you know the biggest flimsiest piece of crap
39:37uh ever i mean the guy the guy's just the total leftist he has no
39:41business winning elections in any state uh i i blame it all on the mustache
39:47it's like a win sorry deceiving yeah yeah it is it's just a winsome magical
39:53mustache that like he twitches it and people are like oh he must be you
39:56know normal and reasonable but he's just a far left uh you know pawn for
40:00the defense okay how how is susan collins doing polls have been very tight she
40:06was down all the polls last time and won in a clean sweep a clean
40:09victory outright no runoff how is susan collins doing for this time i i would
40:15caution anybody against doubting susan collins ability to win elections in maine uh she i
40:21mean i think she beat shenna bellows by 30 points uh sarah gideon uh they
40:26had her losing to sarah gideon and she ended up winning by what six seven
40:31nine points yeah yeah uh so you know i i would i would caution against
40:36trusting the polls um but i do think that she's going to be in for
40:40one of the tougher races that she's she's ever had uh i think that she's
40:44her team is accustomed to running uh you know good old -fashioned um races where
40:49you get out you press the flesh you do uh very strong efficient absentee ballot
40:54programs voter registration programs that kind of thing they're very effective at that stuff they
40:59have a very professional well -funded organization uh on the digital side i think she
41:03could probably use some improvements i think she needs to to modernize her campaign a
41:08little bit but um i do think she'll probably win um you know if i
41:12if i had to you know pick a pick a winner today it would definitely
41:16be senator collins because uh one of the things that she's really excelled at in
41:20this state that doesn't always show up in the polls is constituent services she understands
41:25that the job and you know for six years you're not just down there doing
41:28cnn hits and and you know mugging for the cameras in washington dc she has
41:33very good constituent services and i would say 99 .9 percent of the people who
41:38go to a collins senate office looking for help with whatever it is you know
41:43your mail's not getting delivered you know you've got a chinese uh organized crime setting
41:48up in your business well like your security check your spousal disability exactly yeah yeah
41:53whatever it is that matters to people it's top priority she takes care of that
41:58and you help somebody out like that they're they're going to remember that and the
42:03the thing you know the the attacks that the democrats are are pushing on her
42:06are like you know oh she she voted on a procedural motion to advance to
42:11consideration of the save act or something it's you know they have very very flimsy
42:16uh attacks against her and uh i don't think they're going to work i think
42:20if graham plattner's the nominee you're going to see the you know versions of these
42:25ads uh that mills has been running except for on steroids you're going to have
42:30people uh down east people saying graham plattner runs an oyster business what never heard
42:36of the guy oh yeah you'll have people who worked on the docks for 25
42:39years being like i've never seen that i have no idea who he is right
42:43it's offensive that he actually claims to be uh you know a working uh fisherman
42:48uh when there's people who are actually busting their ass uh not to have this
42:51kind of lifestyle he has and i know lobstermen who work a lot harder than
42:55graham and they can't afford to fly out to norway uh just to you know
42:59to ivf yeah but against mills uh probably she does even better um they're they're
43:06actually have had a pretty professional relationship for you know 15 20 years uh main
43:13politics is small uh but governor mills has really nothing whatsoever uh positive she can
43:20say about herself um all she can do is point to well this one time
43:25i made an ass of myself at the white house picking a fight with trump
43:28and told him you know i'll see you in court so literally all she's doing
43:32besides attack ads is saying i said i stood up to trump for trump yeah
43:36to you know to keep to keep uh uh boys and girls sports by the
43:41way and also we probably don't have time to get into this but males in
43:45female prisons we have a a six foot three uh he was 240 pounds when
43:52he went into prison he murdered his parents in cold blood names andrew balser uh
43:57killed his parents and his dog called the police and said hey i did something
44:01bad you should come get me they grab him he decides he's a woman so
44:05now he's in the woman's prison he's ballooned up to 310 pounds and the woman's
44:10prison is overcrowded and we published two weeks ago a letter that we got from
44:14an inmate who has been forced into the same cell as andrew balser who has
44:19been harassed sexually harassed and sexually assaulted by him and that's the official policy of
44:25the state is 300 pounds now you said 310 pounds he's probably as bigger press
44:30he was bigger press than she does um steven we're gonna go to read more
44:37of your stuff you have a lot of great information i love your website we're
44:40gonna go to get your information uh people can find us at themainwire .com or
44:44at themainwire on x facebook and we'll be covering the uh the senate race all
44:50uh all all the way to november and hopefully pretty soon here we'll have a
44:54an interview with senator collins and we'll be able to get into some of the
44:57issues maybe some of the stuff that she hasn't uh hasn't talked about before uh
45:01in public uh you know talk about some of the stuff outside of the beltway
45:05thank you for going on this podcast i really appreciate it anytime ryan thank you
45:09very much now it's time for the ask me anything segment if you want a
45:16part of the ask me anything segment let me ryan at numbers game podcast .com
45:19that's ryan plural numbers game podcast .com love these questions first one comes to me
45:24it says hey ryan missouri i didn't write the person's name down sorry about that
45:28whoever this is hey ryan missouri passed a new 7 -1 map to add a
45:32new republican seat by eliminating the kansas seat of representative emmanuel cleaver recently a court
45:37rule that the new map is good and we can proceed into 2026 a few
45:40said may missouri republicans should have gone for 8 -0 but st louis and suburbs
45:45are still blue enough that in a good democratic year could it have could have
45:49given dems a shot at winning a 6 -2 delegation from st louis what are
45:52your thoughts so um they really couldn't have drawn an 8 -0 map without triggering
45:58a bra section 2 lawsuit which would have demanded they grow a black majority district
46:03in one of their congressional districts and you don't want that because they go through
46:07the whole map out also i've done this i've played around with this map several
46:12times it is extremely difficult given how blue st louis is how blue east st
46:17louis is and how blue the suburbs are and kind of like it's not like
46:20a district in the it's not a city in the middle of the state it's
46:22in the corner of the state and it's very difficult because i don't draw lines
46:26without having to zigzag throughout multiple areas um and it's just it's very very very
46:32hard i think a 7 -1 map is a 7 -1 republican map is much
46:36more doable much feasible and doesn't give the possibility of having a swing district in
46:42case there's a bad democratic year out of st louis so i think it was
46:45a good a good map that that was a great question though next question comes
46:48from sarah sarah writes love your podcast so i have a few more questions on
46:52jd vance and marco rubio do you think jd is the only one who could
46:55trusted to continue deporting illegals and keeping the border secure as a jew i have
46:59planned to vote for rubio based on his support for israel but then i looked
47:02up facebook groups about marco rubio and found out all of his posts were in
47:05spanish that and the amount of donors that support him are alarming to a point
47:10that he's not sincere and changing his stance on immigration do you think jd vance
47:14is the only one who uh can continue trump's immigration agenda i don't know if
47:20he's the only one but i will tell you guys a story that i've never
47:22told on air before right when jd was about to announce his run for senate
47:28he'd come to new york and i picked i was driving him to the airport
47:31and we stopped to get coffee right beforehand and um you know i didn't have
47:36a lot of one -on -one time with jd where it was just the two
47:38of us and he was undistracted and uh there was no like you know other
47:41people calling or trying to get his attention so i said to myself like you
47:45have to really monopolize this time and really try to push something forward that is
47:51important for him to like retain and um and you have to understand from my
47:57position someone who like studies data all the time and reads up on on bills
48:02all the time i know a lot of politicians are not necessarily as well versed
48:07not because they are against something just because you know there's only so much time
48:11in the day to memorize and get information and you have a lot of people
48:15pulling you every which way so i say okay i'm gonna i'm gonna talk about
48:17immigration i'm gonna i'm gonna pass this along i'm gonna fill his head up with
48:21different things about the h1b visa h2b visa h2a visa so i started kind of
48:24going into it it's like a total word vomit and um he and this is
48:29before obviously i worked for his PAC so we were able to kind of speak
48:32freely and he looked at me and he said yeah i just i really think
48:35we should just deport them all and reduce immigration numbers and i was like okay
48:40my work here is done like i don't have to do this anymore i don't
48:44have to i don't have to be a show monkey and it was just very
48:47natural how he said it and uh it came like within a quick instinct and
48:52i i do trust him on this issue there's a lot of things i there's
48:56something it's not a lot of things there's some things i i have issue with
48:59jd's positions on this i do not and i do think that he is sincere
49:02in his commitment about immigration and mass deport patient.
49:05So I do, I do trust him.
49:06And I think that he is sincere.
49:08Uh, I can't speak for Rubio at all.
49:10Um, I, I've only spoken to him one time and, um, and Rubio, I've read
49:16his book and it was fine, but like, I think Rubio kind of always has
49:21a soft spot in his heart for people who are not in this country legally.
49:25Cause I, he's taught, he talks about how he knows them and he's friends with
49:27them and he's a good man.
49:29He's a good secretary of state, but I do have, uh, questions about him.
49:33Okay. Next question comes from Dwayne.
49:35I love your podcast. I continue to listen to it.
49:38Even I'm obviously multiple weeks behind.
49:41I'm just now getting to your February 2nd podcast.
49:43Dwayne catch up today is March 19th.
49:46And you went on a rant about how Texas and Florida are going to deal
49:49with the out of state interlopers trying to get elected in them.
49:52I'm laughing because as a resident of Washington, I watched as a pretty solid conservative
49:56purple state turned to absolute blue due to all the maggots and bean brains from
50:02California moving North, radically changing our political landscape.
50:06Yeah. We're seeing a similar effect right now in New York city where it's almost
50:09like a political sponge effect where people from across the country are, who are very
50:13left are moving to these like left wing meccas for them.
50:17And they are becoming extremely progressive.
50:20So like in the 2022 governor's election in New York, Kathy Hochul's entire margin of
50:25victory came from Brooklyn and Manhattan.
50:27Most of the new democratic voter registration comes from Brooklyn and Manhattan throughout the state.
50:32This is where, you know, we're absorbing the crazy left wingers, um, from Connecticut.
50:38Not that they don't have their own, but we're absorbing some of them or from
50:41upstate New York or from Ohio or Kentucky.
50:43And so those places are becoming redder as we become bluer Washington state.
50:47I think it was in 2014.
50:48The Republicans actually controlled the state Senate there.
50:51Um, I think it was 2014 or 2016.
50:54So yeah, we, I mean, it's been, it's been quite a turnaround in some of
50:58these blue areas, but that's why on such policies, so many policies you're seeing, you
51:02know, California and New York raising taxes as the rest of the country tries to
51:06attract business and people and, and cut them, um, and all this other stuff.
51:10So yeah, I mean, I get it.
51:12People are really, um, people, and look, that's what happened in Colorado by the Colorado
51:16was purple for a long time.
51:18And now it's as blue as Illinois.
51:20It's just California's moved there.
51:22If we didn't have mass immigration, both legal and illegal, California would see the reciprocal
51:28effects politically on, on all these people leaving.
51:32But what has happened before Trump, before this year, um, California just filled their population
51:37with, you know, fill their state with new residents from across the world and they
51:41get equal representation as they normally did.
51:44Had we had reduced immigration, California would have lost seats as other states kind of
51:49gain them, um, and more balanced out instead of rewarding blue, blue states through, uh,
51:54mass immigration. Okay. Last question for the show.
51:58Forrest writes, Hey Ryan, what do you consider the percentage odds to be a candidate
52:04that was not JD Vance or Marco Rubio at the top of the 2028 ticket?
52:09Should we have any concern that a conventional politician like Kemp becoming a contender in
52:14a reverse 2016 situation where Vance's front rider status fades, the base gets split up
52:18four or five candidates and there is no politician clogging up the moderate lane.
52:23That is a very interesting kind of idea.
52:27Um, here's the thing about JD or Rubio, if it's him, but most likely JD,
52:34the Trump machine is still in place, right?
52:38The Trump campaign machine is still in place.
52:40That's why you're still getting fundraising text messages and emails.
52:42That's why they're still raising money for the Trump reelection campaign.
52:45Eventually a lot of that will become the JD Vance or Marco Rubio, Mike's Lee
52:50JD Vance, but Marco Rubio, JD Vance machine that operates in all 50 states that
52:54has building this giant cash reserve.
52:57So if someone wants to challenge, they have to make an organization that is equal
53:02in size or compelling to the operation being built out by Trump.
53:06And that's very difficult. Even if multiple people split the ticket, I don't, I haven't
53:13know who are multiple people.
53:15I mean, I guess we'll from Trump world, but they're not interested.
53:18Glenn Youngkin has already said he's endorsing JD Vance.
53:21Um, I'm trying to think of people like who Carrie Lake.
53:26I mean, Bannon maybe. I mean like who would honestly run against JD?
53:30There will be a lot of people who are against him quietly who don't want
53:34him to run that that's already going on, but publicly out there people to really
53:39build a machine to contend with what Trump has built.
53:43I find that hard to believe.
53:44I don't think we have to worry about it as of now.
53:47Obviously if there's corruption scandals, if there is the impeachment trials, if there are, you
53:53know, or actual impeachment, if there is, uh, people going to jail or there's a
53:57death or whatever, you know, things we can't foresee, then I'll revisit this question.
54:02But as of right now, the chances are probably less than 1%.
54:05But anyway, that's this episode guys.
54:07Have a great weekend. Happy Friday.
54:08Once again, if you like this podcast, please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app,
54:12Apple podcasts, where we get this podcast, YouTube too, and give me a five -star
54:15review. It really means a lot to help get the show seen by other people.
54:18So I appreciate you all.
54:19I'll talk to you guys on Monday.
54:21Bye. This is an iHeart podcast.
54:25Guaranteed human.