April 14, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode, Ryan interviews Brent Buchanan, founder of Cygnal Polling, discussing the intricacies of polling, public sentiment towards Trump, immigration, AI, big tech regulation, and the implications of tariffs on domestic jobs. Brent shares insights on how polling works, the importance of understanding public opinion, and the evolving political landscape in America. It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Girdusky is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is a numbers Game with Ryan Gardusky. Welcome back.
I appreciate you all being here again this week. I
know that everyone's busy with work and family and school
and laundry and all the rest of it, and I
know that you have very limited time sometimes, so listen
to this podcast means quite a lot to me. I've
realized being built that the amount of hours needed to
have a clean house, decent body, and good at your
(00:24):
job is like four hundred hours a week. It is
not fair whatsoever. So I know that I know that
many of you have not had the opportunity to like
and subscribe to this podcast and give me a five
star rating. But there's always time this week, and I
hope you can find the time. You will all be
my best friends. That's what I would say growing up.
All the time people are like, oh you my best friend,
(00:46):
Get me a soda, but please give me like and subscribe,
like and subscribe, give me a five star review. It
would mean a lot. Okay, I always start this podcast
off with a cultural reference, and I'm going to use
the movie Arthur, which is my favorite comedy of all time.
Dudley More looks at a prostitute. He just picked up
off the street and he says, well, Princess Gloria, tonight
is New Year's Eve, third time this week. It's not
(01:07):
the most famous line in the movie, but it invokes
a general amount of happiness, and he has in this moment.
He's drunk. He's what the things are great, very little
things in life. Get me that excited, get me just
that happy on a normal basis, and for me, because
I am incredibly nerdy. That is, polls like really good polls,
polls that are interesting, polls that that you know, tell
(01:31):
a good story with the national environment, I had the
opportunity this week. I was reached out to by a
polster to ask questions for a national polling survey. Now,
this is like something that costs a lot of money
to do. When they were offering to do it, to
be on the podcast and talk about it to my audience.
So this is something very exclusive. There's something very special.
(01:52):
The polster is Signal, which is Active Vote, which kind
of ranks all the polsters that come out during an
even year. They ranked Signal is number twenty seven at
one hundred and thirty six. That's very good, that's a
very high number. They are a very well accredited Republican firm,
probably one of the top three if you separate all
the Polsters, probably one of the top three or four
Republican pulling firms in the business. Did a good track record,
(02:14):
So I solidly believe in them, and I'm excited to
sit there and talk to them. Our guest is Brent Buchanan,
founder of Signal Polls, and I want to talk to
the audience first about what questions I chose to ask
and why I chose to ask them. So first and foremost,
the first question I asked was America brings in about
one million legal immigrants per year. Is that number too high,
(02:36):
too low? Or about right? Then I asked how many
legal immigrants should America bring in per year, with the
options being zero, one hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty thousand,
five hundred thousand, one million, five million, or unlimited. Okay,
here's why I asked that question. A lot of Polsters
talk about immigration in esoteric you know, I like, as
(02:59):
if they don't give the information before, and they talk
about the idea without giving the information give people the
hard numbers. It's like when they say do you support amnesty?
They all speak English and go to church and pay
their taxes and have never committed a fel any. Well,
then like, yeah, a majority always say yes. But that's
not how how the actual process works. I want to
talk about the actual thing, the actual hard numbers. So
(03:19):
that's why I did. There's only one polster recently in
the last few years to ask a question like that.
Believe it was Cato of All Places, which is a
libertarian thing tank which dreams of the day that America
will have no borders and we look like Angola or
Honduras or something. They're the ones who asked the question,
and they found in twenty twenty one that nine percent
(03:41):
of Americans wanted no immigration at all. They wanted a
complete and utter freeze, forty four panted a ninety percent
reduction or greater, and sixty one percent a fifty percent
reduction or greater. So we'll talk to signal and we'll
see what it looks like now with Donald Trump in
charge and the border's much more secure. The second question
(04:01):
I asked was about the future of artificial intelligence. This
is a question that is really important to our nation
because we're going to be the United States is supposed
to be on the forefront about artificial intelligence, and there's
almost no polsters asking about how Americans feel like it's
not ass and I think that I think that your
opinion of it based either on your how you think
(04:24):
you'll thrive in the environment or what you think the
future looks like, Like does it look like Rosie the
robot from the Jetson's doing chores? I mean, who wouldn't
want that? I would? Are we going to get the terminator?
And is everyone you know going to be in really
rough shape on judgment day? I don't know. AI makes
me nervous, but I don't know how the rest of
the country feels. And I would love to know if
(04:46):
that I'm it's just me being crazy, or how everyone
else's opinion is on it. I need a pulse check.
The last question was also about tech, and somebody was
about AI and tech and there's our big tech in
social media. The question was is social media social media
has almost no regulations on it people. I want everyone
to realize that there's almost no regulations on social media.
(05:08):
Utah became like the first day to say like kids
under eighteen can't access social media, can't make a social
media account. But I think that's a basically that's very
close to being basically it. I mean, you can't obviously
sell things illegally on social media. You can't like put
you know, child's pornography or something like that. That that's
a national regulation. But as far as like regulating anything
(05:32):
Section two eighty or suing them or what they own
of your data or reselling your data, there's no regulations.
And big tech is very very, very very few. So
I asked the question of should be big tech be
more regulated because in an era of Elon Musk, it
used to be that Democrats are very poor regulations. You know,
(05:52):
you have the caras Wishes of the world. The very
liberals were like, yeah, let's let's uh, you know, regulate
big tech. Those are the same people who are very
excited about big tech, you know, when Steve Jobs was
alive and now Republicans who blamed everything on the twenty
twenty election on zuck Bucks, they're very pro big tech.
So did people change sides? It's a good analysis of
how do people feel on this issue. And the last
(06:15):
question I asked is with trade, I didn't want to
use the word tariff just because it's Trump said the
most beautiful word in the English language. I had to
like parse through how to approach the idea of tariffs
and about Trump's push for tariffs without saying the word tariff.
So the question I said was, would you be willing
to pay higher prices for more American jobs? Would you
(06:38):
trade prices for jobs? I think this is very important
because regardless of what happens ultimately with these tariffs, I
don't think this is going to go away. During the trumdministration,
Biden was very supportive tariffs. China is a very our
is our geopolitical adversary, and we need to be more
conscious of reindectrializing the United States. So what can people,
(06:59):
what can politicians get, what is their ultimate how much
can they can they push out on this without getting
slapped backed by voters? So those are my four questions,
and I am very excited to hear what the responses
were and I talk to Brent Buchanan. So coming up
next is my conversation with Polster Signal owner Brem Buchanan.
Stay tuned. My guest this week is Brent Buchanan. He
(07:23):
is the founder of Signal polling firm. Thank you for
being here.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Brent, Hey, great to be with you all.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Ron Brent, When did you found Signal and why did
you start in the polling industry?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Well, I actually didn't start in the polling industry, oddly enough.
I started just running campaigns, which is I think a
lot of people's story who are in this world is
they just volunteered. At some point thought this is pretty fun.
Maybe I could make a living with it, and so
that that's where my story started, actually started in a
mayoral campaign in Montgomery, Alabama. We got absolutely trounced. They
(07:54):
don't elect Republicans of Montgomery, and I was too naive
to know that and just how we could will our
way into winning the election, and we did not. And
then went on to work for a Greek restaurant runner
who was running for county commission against a Republican incumbent
and he was a Republican too, and we beat the guy,
and that was my second taste of a campaign was
(08:14):
actually victory. And he paid me in cash and bac
la bah, which was a pretty good arrangement for a
single dude.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
But can I just tell you for one second, I
worked for a guy named Stamataslacaccas who ran for the
State Assembly and every third day, I think we went
to a Greek pastry. I mean I was eating so
much Greek food for the entire summer. I guess it
was twenty fourteen and it was a million Greek pastries.
So this is a this was this, I feel this.
(08:43):
I feel this story for sure right now, one hundred percent.
So that was your first race ever worked on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It was and then ended up starting a firm. We
were kind of a jack of all trades. Basically, if
you were willing to pay us for it and it
was legal, we would do it. And realized that you
can't really take that model outside of your home state.
This is back in still living in Montgomery at the time,
and really land it on polling after the twenty ten
cycle when I saw that it was getting more expensive,
(09:10):
it was getting harder to do. I loved the strategic
aspect of what you get to do as a polster,
and it was more scalable. You know, I could work
on a lot more races as a polster than I
could managing or running or being the consultant on a race.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
That is in my mind, there's so many negative connotations
to polling. You're pulled it firmed it very well in
the last secle on the twenty twenty four cycle. How
does one manage a firm well? How do you create
a formula that works, because very few do well.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
The first is to separate private from public polsters, because
we're not the same. So when you see a Marist
poll or you know somebody who's only doing polling to
release it and get attention, which I mean, we put
out a few poles, but you're singing barely the scratching
of a surface of what we're doing. And so that's
the first thing is that we are not a public
pol so we actually have an economic incentive to be right.
(10:04):
Some of these public pollsters, they can be wrong over
and over again. They get coverage over and over again,
and I don't know who really funds them. That always
makes me ask that question when I see certain numbers
come out. But those of us who do private polling,
who were being hired by campaigns and corporations and committees
and caucuses to help guide them through, what do I say,
Who do I say it to? How do I say
(10:24):
a best So that's a big differentiation between the two.
The second is that one of the most important pieces
of polling is the actual getting respondents from voters, and
that is in our world and our competitors, most people
outsource that function. So they write a script and then
they send it off to a call center and a
texting vendor, and then they wait for those people to
(10:45):
do the survey collection, and then it comes back and
they build their reports, give it at the clients. We
decided over a decade ago that that was such an
important piece of the process that we needed to control
every aspect of it. So our firm is larger than
I think any other Republican polling for him by headcount,
because it takes a lot more effort in people to
control that part of the process, and that is really
(11:08):
the magic piece of.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
All what and so you okay, this the whole basis
of this podcast episodes. You did a national poll. It's
is it released publicly? It will be probably released publicly
by the time we come to air, which will be Monday.
So what are some general themes that you've seen about
how people feel at President Donald Trump performance in this poll.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I think the first is that there's not this massive
elasticity in his image and if you were watching public polling.
You would think that Donald Trump started out really good,
everybody loved him, and now everybody hates him. But that's
just not what our polling data shows.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I got I got a call today from a friend
who's was a Republican republic like that official, and he's
very pusel with the tariffs, and he said to me
Trump's approval is probably thirty two percent now. And I
was like, now, ah, sorry, go ahead, go ahead, but
you're one hundred percent right, very little elasticity. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, we've seen a slight degradation in his image from
you know, a couple of weeks after his inauguration to now.
But I think if he'd literally just gotten into office
and sat in the oval office and done nothing, we
would have seen a degradation in his image because there's
there's a sugar rush. There's a high that comes off
of a campaign and of the attention you get from it,
(12:29):
and then you got to go govern. And I think
considering that all that he has done and all the
topics that he's broached in this time that he's been
in office for less than three months at this point,
that the fact that his image is still you know,
hovering around forty six percent favorable, is way better than
he ever was, even at the beginning of his first term.
And that's that's one thing people forget about polling is
(12:52):
is polling is not just a data point in time.
A poll is a data point in time, but polling
is different, and that is watching what happens over time
and comparing it to things that matter. And so when
you look at things in terms of his first term
and his second term, he is doing significantly better now
in his image than he was at this point in
(13:12):
twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And even though the tariffs aren't popular, certainly not, but
in the media standards, it has an overall I mean,
people have a much more positive opinion of him than
they do some like the tariffs for example, right.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Completely, and a lot of people just trust him that Okay,
he said he was going to do this during the campaign.
I don't really understand why he's doing it, but I
trust that he's got a reason for it.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, Okay. So now I want to get to the
questions that I asked, because this is what I'm so
excited about because I worked on campaigns for almost twenty
years and just I'm a nerd, so I get really
excited by it. So I went over the top of
the show the questions that I asked, but I want
to go first to it and we'll talk about it.
So the first question being the question over levels of
(14:00):
legal immigration in the country. This is something that I
don't think Bolsters ever asked enough about. Galub does once
a year or twice a year, but that's about it regularly.
So the first question was do you think that the
levels of legal immigration are too high, too small, or
just right? Thirty eight percents that they were they were
fine with the current levels, thirty seven percent they wanted
(14:21):
to reduce, eleven percent they wanted to increased. But when
you ask the actual number desired, it was a very
different result. So almost nine percent eight point five percent
of Americans wanted zero immigration, none at all, a total freeze.
Seventeen percent wanted a ninety percent reduction about one hundred
thousand a year, because we've currently taken a million in total.
(14:43):
Forty three percent of Americans wanted a fifty percent or
greater reduction of legal immigration, which is if you said
that on the news, you'd be called an extremist. I
know I've been called an extremist, but forty three percent
of the country say that, and about sixty percent of
the country want somewhere between, like a fifty to ninety
percent reduction, So somewhere more than forty percent of them
are current numbers, but less than we currently have. I
(15:06):
know that sounded confusing, So sixty percent they'll favor some
sort of reduction of legal immigration. I just want to
break it down really quickly and we'll talk about it.
Fifty five percent of women, sixty one percent of men,
seventy one percent of Republicans, fifty seven percent of independence,
forty seven percent of Democrats, sixty percent of whites, fifty
seven percent of blacks, fifty three percent of Hispanics, fifty
(15:27):
eight percent of swing voters, and seventy three percent of
all Trump supporters. Does that shock you.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Not in the least. And this is why I really
love that we did this as two separate questions, because
I think it suses something out that we see a
lot of times in polling, is it's a lot easier
to get agreement on a concept, and then when you
go throw numbers behind it, people's it's like you fry
their brain and they don't know how to answer it
per se, because if you look at these two questions,
(15:55):
they actually somewhat conflict. Where you have thirty eight percent
of PEECE people say that it is about right at
a million legal immigrants a year. But then when you
go look at the number of people who said a
million to five million, five to ten are unlimited, it's
less than thirty eight percent. So you even have a
(16:15):
differential there of the number of people who, as you mentioned,
are more likely to be Democrats or or left leaning
voters are saying, yes, it's the right amount, or we
need more. But then when you get to the actual numbers,
even though we just told them the number in the
last question, like the question itself said a million legal
is this just right? Too little? Too much? And then
(16:37):
when we break out the numbers in the exact next question,
you get even fewer people that tell us it's a
million or more that they're good with. And I think
this is one of the challenges with communication in general,
and it's one of the things that Donald Trump is
really good at. Is we like to talk about, especially
those of us who enjoy policy. You know, what should
the number be about abortion? How many weeks is that
(17:00):
it should be legal at and voters don't think in
terms of these hard construct numbers. They think in terms
of principles and of concepts, and these two questions that
you had us ask, I think plays that out perfectly
that if we're going to win messaging battles, let's not
get bogged down in numbers.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
That's so interesting, now there was I think the thing
I found super interesting was that there was really not
huge stark differences between groups aside from partisanship. So Hispanics
are very close to blacks, Blacks are pretty close to whites,
men were fairly close to women. There wasn't this huge
surge in one area as I expected, And even among Democrats,
(17:41):
forty seven percent of Democrats is a lot. That's not
what you would assume by hearing the media narrative. And
then you'd watch clips of like, you know, you know,
black voters in Chicago, who were I mean ninety nine
times out of one hundred a Democrat sitting there and
demanding that the illegal immigration legal immigrants to be deported.
You see the white people up in up in Cape Cod,
(18:03):
you know, waving goodbye to Leegal immigrants that Joe Biden
brought in. So there's just a constant conflict between what
is being presented and then these numbers over here and
what you kind of see from these the news clip
that's you're like, there is supplicing bigger than this.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, And a lot of it plays into educational attainment.
And this is something I talk about a lot, the
diploma divide, and that is that thirty years ago, Republicans
were the party of the highly educated, higher income individuals,
and those folks are more likely not Democrats now, and
Republicans are the party of the working class. And when
you do look at this question on construct of educational attainment,
(18:40):
you start to see a big divide almost as much
as you see on the partisanship, because they're so intercorrelated now,
this diploma divide and partisanship. So if you're a non
college educated voter, then you are thirty over a third
of those voters are saying one hundred thousand or less,
which there's not a lot of other groups that we
(19:01):
look at where you would say, have a third of
the voters saying one hundred thousand or fewer to none
one hundred thousand to none. And then when you look
at college educated voters, that's where you start to get
more that are saying that it should be somewhere between
half a million to five million, But there's very few
who say any number beyond that. And that's I think
(19:25):
the story here is that you've got two Americas, and
it's the tariff argument I think is too Americas. Also,
if you're highly educated and highly invested in the stock market,
then yeah, you're freaking out. Well, you may not be
freaking out today because it's April ninth, you were freaking
out yesterday in April eighth, you know, third massive four
figure dropping in a day. But regular Americans aren't worried
(19:46):
about that. But they are worried about this immigration topic
because they see it as supplanting their ability to earn
an income.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, and so before we get to a tariffs, So
that's one of the questions. But the thing I wanted
to ask was, so your firm says, quote for Republican
members of cong is concerned of being primary. A majority
of Republican voters want to see legal immigration reduced to
two hundred and fifty thousand or less annually. You also
wrote Trump made major inroads in November with non white
(20:13):
men seventy three percent of non white men who voted
for Trump favor immigration reduction. That is something that I
did not expect that number for non white men to
be that.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I owe.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
I know Republican voters, I know them my gout, I
know how to had a campaign to Republican voters. It's
very It's something that I just was born, bred and
you know, and lived my whole life as a Republican voter.
But the non white number being non white men who
voted for Trump, it feels like ideology is surpassing race, surpassing.
(20:51):
I mean, maybe there's college attainment is having some differential
but forever racial identity superseded that of partisanship, and now
or political ideology. Now political ideology supersedes that of race.
That's actually I feel like a good thing.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Completely. And going back to the first race that I
worked on for a mayoral campaign in Montgomery, Alabama, I
went knockdoors in the one hundred percent black part of
town thinking I could earn votes there twenty five years ago.
And that was so dumb of me, because I guarantee
our Republican leaning Canada got none of those votes that
I went and worked so hard for. But if I
(21:28):
did that exact same thing today, they're willing to have
a conversation. And it's because Democrats have gone so far
to the left on all kinds of topics, and because
you've got these highly educated white voters that are now
more the base of the Democratic Party than anything else.
They are so liberal and progressive, and these non white voters,
(21:50):
there are very few of them that consider themselves liberal
and progressive. They're much more likely to say they're moderate
to somewhat conservative. And so it's kind of like that
meme that Elon Musk before he got involved in politics
last year or the year before, whenever it was, where
he shows himself as a stick figure in the same place,
and the left keeps moving further away from him and
calling him a radical and calling him a right winger.
(22:12):
And that's really what's happening with these non white populations
is they're sitting there saying, we're moderate to somewhat conservative,
and you used to be moderate to somewhat conservative, but
now you're insanely leftist and you left us right.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
And they're economically centrist. In the Republican Party has become
more economically centers under Trump. The yeah, I mean I
can't believe LATINX didn't really work to win over hispanics.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I'm shocked by that or anything else.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
The Okay, the second thing that I asked you guys about,
which was I'm very anxious about is AI. I don't
think it's aside from corporations pulling on AI. I never
see a question about AI ever being asked. So your
poll found that thirty three percent of respondents when I asked,
when you asked, how does the future of AI make
you feel? Thirty three percent said nervous, twenty six percent
(23:02):
of curious. I guess that means like they want to
see where it goes, eighteen percent said anxious, and twelve
percent that excited, eleven percent were unsure. That's a lot
of that's more negative connotation I expected. What are your
fifty one.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Percent negative emotions? I mean to the emotions were obviously negative.
One is kind of up in the air. The curiosity
is more a positive emotion, but I wouldn't say it's
anywhere near like excited from an emotional standpoint. And so
fifty one percent of voters answered nervous are anxious, which
are both negative emotions and one of the most fascinating
(23:39):
things is that is really driven by a gender gap.
So women are much more likely to say nervous thirty
six percent of women said nervous, only twenty nine percent
of males did. And on curiosity, thirty one percent of
males curious, twenty two percent of females curious. So there's
a real gender gap here. And then taking that further
(24:00):
into what we were talking about earlier on the diploma divide,
there's also a really big diploma divide on this question.
If you were non college educated, then you are about
thirty eight percent said that they were nervous about this.
And then when you go look at college educated voters,
especially college educated males, thirty four percent, so they were
(24:20):
curious about this. So I think if we were to
really go Freudian on this, this has to do with
like where do I fit in when AI comes in,
and college educated voters feel more prepared for that than
non college educated voters, which is fascinating because it's not
going to replace a plumber, right, I always.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Say, because it's going after white collar jobs AI primarily,
and that's who would be affected. The other population I
was excited about this were parents. Why do you think
that is.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I think part of it is that the demographics, and
that's one thing when you're reading a poll, you have
to ask yourself, is this cause relative or correlative? And
I think that that is more posative that they parents
just happen to be younger. So if you go look
at young youth answering these questions, you're going to see
about as high numbers as you do in the parents,
(25:14):
because parents are younger than you know, some seventy year
old answering the survey.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I thought maybe because they don't want to do the
homework with their kids anymore, and they were like, oh,
this is great. But I think it also goes back
to like, what's your vision of AI. Is at Rosie
the robot who's going to make you dinner every night
and do the dishes? Or is it the terminator? And
that's really where I think that's where the mentality divide is.
I hope this question is asked more because it is
part of our future and we we don't, uh, we
(25:41):
don't talk about it so enough. I think I think
people are talking about, you know, Jadbanski, that specioism and
we're going to be a leader in it and kind
of I guess there's no way to avert it, but
I don't talk about it enough as like what the
ramification would be. Speaking of tech. The other question I
asked was, because this is something I've also become very
passionate about and last a year or so, I asked
(26:04):
it should big tech and social media companies do they
need more regulation because they have virtually none. Now people
don't sit there and says there's virtually no regulations over
big attach or over special social media. Sixty nine percent
of women, sixty four percent of men, sixty one percent
of Republicans, sixty nine percent of independence, seventy one percent
of Democrats, sixty seven percent of white voters, sixty three
(26:25):
percent of Black voters, sixty eight percent of Hispanic voters,
sixty six percent of Hispanics, seventy four percent of Harris voters,
sixty percent of Trump voters, and sixty seven percent of
Swing voters. Said yes, it is overwhelmingly on one side.
The one thing that was like glaringly obvious to me, though,
is that sixty percent for Trump voters versus seventy four
(26:46):
percent for Harris voters. I is that the Ela Musk
effect Because Republicans were gung ho on regulating big tech,
breaking up some tech companies, making Twitter a public platform
twenty twenty, Like that was not that long ago.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I think you've got to rewind the clock even further
than that. Like, imagine if we'd asked this question about
almost any emerging industry thirty years ago, and you would
have seen Democrats saying, regulate the heck out of it,
and Republicans saying regulation is bad. I don't care who
it's on. And so the way I read this question,
the results of this question when it came back is
(27:26):
we now have a unique issue where Democrats have always
been for regulation, you know, if it walks or moves regulated,
and Republicans who are now former Democrats have taken some
of their ideology on certain things with them when they
left the Democratic Party. And I think regulation and the
fact that big fill in the blank anything is negative
(27:50):
is really a carryover from these former Democrats now Republican
MAGA voters on this issue. And now big tech and
really business in general finds itself on an island because
Democrats still hate big everything, and Republicans, these newer Republicans
have taken with them this you know, you know, if
it's if it's big, it's probably bad mindset with them
(28:12):
from the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I hear you, but I think that you know, the
twenty sixteen election was so blamed on Russia buying Facebook ads,
and the twenty twenty election was so blamed on a
Musk but not Musk, duck Bucks Zuckbucks, and twenty twenty
four had to do with Elon Musk. Like, that's three
elections in a row where tech played some part in
(28:37):
the narrative is why one side lost over the other.
And interestingly, in your survey, college educative voters were more
likely to support regulations on big tech, which they likely
either have stock in or work for or could work for.
Then non college educated voters who would who were more
for more nurse at ai. There's a lot of inverse
opinions about the two Junescy weren't going with us?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, yeah, I do. You also got to look at
you know, the highest number here is female college educated voters.
That's also the largest demographic that votes Democrat. So this
is another causation correlation conversation where they are just much
more likely to be Democrats the higher educated you are
(29:20):
than the lower educated you are.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
But I think if we were to ask a question
on the next survey and have a conversation of do
you think big tech and social media is good or
bad for us, that we'd probably say most people, even
though they use it all the time, they may be
watching us on a big tech platform right now, would
also agree that they don't think it's positive for them.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Oh, I know, one hundred percent, I completely agree with you.
That's the people who sit there and say McDonald's terrible
as they're ordering a big mac. The last question I
that was able to ask was about would you support
it has to do a lot with tariff, would you
support increase prices for more jobs domestically? And here were
(30:01):
the findings. This was more split than the other answers
forty seven percent so that they would support higher prices
for more domestic jobs, forty three percent that they were
against it, And there was a huge gender gap. Fifty
eight percent of men, seventy three percent of Republicans, fifty
one percent of white voters, fifty percent of parents, and
forty percent of spend voters were for it to only
twenty sorry four higher prices for more jobs. Only twenty
(30:26):
one percent of Kamala Harris supporters were for it. Only
thirty two percent of Black voters were for it, and
women were very against it. Is this has to be
a partisan thing related to Trump, right, or is it
an ideology thing?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
That was one that I asked myself that exact same
question before this interview in reading the results, and I
could not come up with an answer for it, because
you would think that Republicans who are saying jobs and
economy and inflation are their top issue, are going to
not answer another question where they say I'm willing to
pay inflated prices for some other benefit that I will
(31:02):
trade off higher cost for something else. But these independents, man,
they split right down the middle. Forty five percent support this,
forty six percent oppose this. They just kind of prove
their name right there that they're independent, because on the
partisan edges, you've got a complete inversion of support and oppose,
whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. And I would
(31:25):
have thought, you know, every time we do a poll,
I like to read through the script and in my mind,
guess what I think the responses are going to be,
and if they don't come back that way, that's the
first place, I go dig into information to figure out why,
and I still have not come up with an answer
as to why seventy three percent of Republicans say that
they're willing to pay higher prices for goods and services
(31:45):
to bring back jobs. But when you think about it
in the context of what is Donald Trump doing with
tariffs and how is he messaging tariffs, that aligns so
much with this this survey response where people are willing
to Republicans are willing to pay higher prices if it
means more American jobs, and Democrats do not want to
(32:05):
pay higher prices if it means American jobs. I think
the big takeaways Democrats hate American jobs. That's where I'm.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Gonna that is that is a great way of pushing
as a slogan. Uh do you think that it's also
the sense of the country too, like as far as
feelings towards the country go. Because I read through your
other your other questions that you had that I didn't ask,
(32:31):
and I won't go into all those, but one was
interesting was on the economy, where it was either a
majority or plurality of Democrats believe we were currently in
a recession, which like we're not. I mean, you could
sit there and say the market's down, markets up whatever,
or like you know, like Trump's tariffs, but we're not
in a recession. So is this just what they believe
because they hope that they're hoping for it to come
(32:52):
through to or they read a lot of narratives on
on MSNBC and CNN. What do you like, do you
have any thoughts on that? Well?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Magically, their response was that fifty six percent said it
happened within the last three months, which, hmm, I wonder
what happened in the last three months. Maybe we've got
a new president. Yeah, And so it is. It's a
gut response and reaction to Trump. It has nothing to
do with the fact that they actually believe we're in
our procession. They just don't like the fact that Donald
(33:22):
Trump's in charge.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
What's the one thing before we wrap up, what's the
one thing about polling that Americans should know that they
don't What's the one thing they could sit there and say,
because I mean, I love crossed abs, but everyone says
don't read them, and I'm like, I'm able to parse
them a little better than the average person. I always
say there was a snapshot on time, they're not, you know,
the prediction of the entire future. But what's something that
(33:46):
people could take. We are in a nation that is
obsessive polling, despite we were sess at polling and then
we love dismantling polling when it doesn't say what we like.
What is what is people should know about the polling
industry and polls in.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
General, Well, what's the saying lies, damn lies and statistics?
And I think that's where most people end up landing
on polling a poll some of them are just flat
out wrong. But what I would say is, yeah, become.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
As said that senior citizen women were voting seventy percent
for Kamala Harris White evangelical senior system women. I was like,
this poll is not correct. I'm sorry, go.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Ahead, Yeah, no, no, you're spot on. And so I
think it's one become a better consumer of polling. So,
if you're going to pay attention to poles, learn how
to read them, because the top line is a very
small portion of the story. The thing that I always
recommend to folks is start at the bottom of the
pole and work your way up. And what I mean
by that is, look at the demographics if you look
(34:45):
at the demographics and they don't pass the smell test,
don't even look at the rest of the pole. And
so if you start thinking about polling from the terms
of is this a good poll to start with, I
think you'll understand polling better. The second is pay to
trends over time, not just small data points, because even
the best pollsters, there's a reason that in polling you'll
(35:07):
see a margin of air, which is whatever your number
you're looking at, it can be that percent higher or lower.
And that's another piece of reading polls. People say, well,
the polls got it wrong. They never get it wrong
if you look at it within a margin of error.
So if the pole says Donald Trump's going to get
forty five percent, and it's a three percent margin of air,
If he gets forty eight percent, that poll was actually
was statistically correct. The second is that there's always a
(35:30):
ninety five percent confidence interval on public opinion polling, and
that means that if you ran that poll one hundred times,
ninety five percent of the time, you're going to get
the same results within the margin of air. It also
means that five percent of the time you are going
to get numbers outside of the margin of air, and
even the best polster cannot one hundred percent of the
time replicate everything. You know, we see this sometimes in
(35:52):
our polling where we'll collect a flawless sample look exactly
like the demographics and population that we're intending to survey,
and then we look at a number and we're like,
that just doesn't seem right and we cannot explain it
in statistically and scientifically. That is likely a five percent
instance right there, right the other ninety five percent of
the time it's going to be right. And so you know,
(36:15):
don't don't look on all of polling is this horrible
industry that gets stuff wrong all the time. And then
the last thing I would recommend is if you get polled,
take the freaking poll. Like that is how you help
poll and get put it.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Participating this dad all the times, like I got a
call for a poll, I hung up the phone. I
go why, He's like, I was like, well, why, I
have a friend who does the same thing. I'm like,
what are you doing? I would I would have run
over someone to answer a poll, but I'm I'm built differently,
And that's one hundred percent true with the numbers you
know when the when the polls were coming out in
the twenty twenty four election, and there was like six
(36:47):
public polls that had Trump at like nineteen twenty percent
of the black boat. The first like three times was like, ah, whatever,
this is kind of off, and then like the fourth time,
I was like, maybe this is right, and then the
sixth and I'm like, okay, this is probably And when
there was I think it was the ABC the Its
is Full, which was black only voters, and they were
coming out with the same numbers, like this is actually
probably real. Like at this point, it's probably real when
(37:09):
it's happened six times across different firms and they're all
coming the same thing. And there's there's institutions that are
solely looking at you know, this one or that one.
But anyway, where can people learn more about signal polls?
They can contact you if they want to hire you,
what should they reach out to?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
So our website is cygn dot al, so it's our
company name, which is spelled differently than most people spell
the word signal and then also on social at cygn al.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Brent, thank you for being on this podcast. I really
appreciate it's a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Well, thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Run you're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky.
We'll be right back. Our question this week from the
Ask Me Anything segment of the podcast, which, by the way,
please join. Ask me anything about politics or social media,
or culture or the economy. If I don't know the answer,
I will look up the answer and I'll give you
(38:00):
the best analysis possible. Email Ryan at Numbers Game podcast
dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural Numbers Numbers Game
podcast dot com. This question actually was texting me repeatedly
by my aunt Carol. So I have to answer it
because I think she's going to blow a gasket if
I don't. She's listening right now, so thank you, Carol,
(38:20):
she says to me. Her question was, and she lives
in New Jersey, why have property taxes increased to fund
our schools while test scores have declined? That is a
Since getting involved in the seventeen seventy six Project Pack
and then the Foundation and dealing so much with education,
it's hard to even put this into words, how frustrated
(38:42):
people feel, especially people who have maybe more adult children
or our younger adults, themselves who remember education being much
better twenty years ago or fifteen years ago. And there's
not a simple answer for it. There's not a simple
answer why test scores have declined. Part of the reason
is that the bulk of money going to schools is
(39:03):
not going to things that make people smarter. There's a
lot of money and administrators and vice principles in outside
tech companies being involved in, you know, with the idea
of it improving, and teachers' unions, which is the largest
organization or anything to do with schools, does not advocate
on part of children. They advocate on behalf of adults,
(39:24):
people who work in the buildings, and a lot of
administrators have used education as guinea pigs. And there is
there's as much as people. When I started the seventeen
seventy six Project Pack, there was a lot of people saying,
why are you politicizing education? I to quote Billy Joel,
I didn't start the fire. It has been politicized for decades,
(39:44):
going back to when George W. Bush was trying to
put phonics in classrooms and liberals opposed that the pledge
of allegiance to the Prayer, I mean everything. There's a
lot of politics in it, and there's a lot of
nonsense in it, and I think that's hurt kids too.
But I think that the funding, how all this new
money he has gone into schools has not always been positive.
I don't think it's always been not for the benefit
of the kids. I think that the main drivers are
(40:06):
lack of parental involvement, especially as people have to work
more just to survive. I get that, but I think
that also a big part of it is the way
that struct schools are structured for their funding schools. If
a school, if a school is like, okay, we're not
going to past kids forward. If it's if they're failing,
we're going to sit there. And but a hard stop
and a school in Chicago or a school in Baltimore
(40:29):
failed ninety nine percent of all students from one year
to the next, that principle will probably be fired. That
school will probably be shut down. The incentive is to
look at graduation rates or college admission, which is for
some places not that hard to do. Not to look
at hey, can they read, can they do math? Can
they do science? If we got to a place in
(40:51):
our country where ninety percent of the country could do
eighth grade, math, reading, and science. We would be in
the smartest nation in the We're already one of the
smart nations in the whole world, but we would be
arms and leans above everybody else in a way that
we're not now. So I think that that is a big,
big part of it. Is the incentive is to pass
kids forward even if they're failing, because they don't want
to show what failing grades actually look like. That's a
(41:12):
big part of it. And then I think the DEI structure.
I think that the influence of unions and the influence
of politics in the way that's been going from the left,
because for the right it's always been at school choice,
school choice, school choices. Maybe I'll do an episode school
choice soon, and it's not been about the eighty five
percent of kids who go to public school. I think
(41:33):
that that's I think that that's really the main, main
part of it. But failing kids forward is a huge,
huge part of the problem, and that's dealt with a
lot of the financial structure of schools. Anyway, Thank you
so so much. I appreciate you listening to the episode.
Education is not about money, it's about how it's applied.
So that's what you should learn. That's so what we
(41:53):
should take away from all the stats we've seen in
the last few years. Anyway, please like and subscribe on
the iHeartRadio app podcast wherever you get your podcast. I
will see you guys. Letter this week
This is a numbers Game with Ryan Gardusky. Welcome back.
I appreciate you all being here again this week. I
know that everyone's busy with work and family and school
and laundry and all the rest of it, and I
know that you have very limited time sometimes, so listen
to this podcast means quite a lot to me. I've
realized being built that the amount of hours needed to
have a clean house, decent body, and good at your
(00:24):
job is like four hundred hours a week. It is
not fair whatsoever. So I know that I know that
many of you have not had the opportunity to like
and subscribe to this podcast and give me a five
star rating. But there's always time this week, and I
hope you can find the time. You will all be
my best friends. That's what I would say growing up.
All the time people are like, oh you my best friend,
(00:46):
Get me a soda, but please give me like and subscribe,
like and subscribe, give me a five star review. It
would mean a lot. Okay, I always start this podcast
off with a cultural reference, and I'm going to use
the movie Arthur, which is my favorite comedy of all time.
Dudley More looks at a prostitute. He just picked up
off the street and he says, well, Princess Gloria, tonight
is New Year's Eve, third time this week. It's not
(01:07):
the most famous line in the movie, but it invokes
a general amount of happiness, and he has in this moment.
He's drunk. He's what the things are great, very little
things in life. Get me that excited, get me just
that happy on a normal basis, and for me, because
I am incredibly nerdy. That is, polls like really good polls,
polls that are interesting, polls that that you know, tell
(01:31):
a good story with the national environment, I had the
opportunity this week. I was reached out to by a
polster to ask questions for a national polling survey. Now,
this is like something that costs a lot of money
to do. When they were offering to do it, to
be on the podcast and talk about it to my audience.
So this is something very exclusive. There's something very special.
(01:52):
The polster is Signal, which is Active Vote, which kind
of ranks all the polsters that come out during an
even year. They ranked Signal is number twenty seven at
one hundred and thirty six. That's very good, that's a
very high number. They are a very well accredited Republican firm,
probably one of the top three if you separate all
the Polsters, probably one of the top three or four
Republican pulling firms in the business. Did a good track record,
(02:14):
So I solidly believe in them, and I'm excited to
sit there and talk to them. Our guest is Brent Buchanan,
founder of Signal Polls, and I want to talk to
the audience first about what questions I chose to ask
and why I chose to ask them. So first and foremost,
the first question I asked was America brings in about
one million legal immigrants per year. Is that number too high,
(02:36):
too low? Or about right? Then I asked how many
legal immigrants should America bring in per year, with the
options being zero, one hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty thousand,
five hundred thousand, one million, five million, or unlimited. Okay,
here's why I asked that question. A lot of Polsters
talk about immigration in esoteric you know, I like, as
(02:59):
if they don't give the information before, and they talk
about the idea without giving the information give people the
hard numbers. It's like when they say do you support amnesty?
They all speak English and go to church and pay
their taxes and have never committed a fel any. Well,
then like, yeah, a majority always say yes. But that's
not how how the actual process works. I want to
talk about the actual thing, the actual hard numbers. So
(03:19):
that's why I did. There's only one polster recently in
the last few years to ask a question like that.
Believe it was Cato of All Places, which is a
libertarian thing tank which dreams of the day that America
will have no borders and we look like Angola or
Honduras or something. They're the ones who asked the question,
and they found in twenty twenty one that nine percent
(03:41):
of Americans wanted no immigration at all. They wanted a
complete and utter freeze, forty four panted a ninety percent
reduction or greater, and sixty one percent a fifty percent
reduction or greater. So we'll talk to signal and we'll
see what it looks like now with Donald Trump in
charge and the border's much more secure. The second question
(04:01):
I asked was about the future of artificial intelligence. This
is a question that is really important to our nation
because we're going to be the United States is supposed
to be on the forefront about artificial intelligence, and there's
almost no polsters asking about how Americans feel like it's
not ass and I think that I think that your
opinion of it based either on your how you think
(04:24):
you'll thrive in the environment or what you think the
future looks like, Like does it look like Rosie the
robot from the Jetson's doing chores? I mean, who wouldn't
want that? I would? Are we going to get the terminator?
And is everyone you know going to be in really
rough shape on judgment day? I don't know. AI makes
me nervous, but I don't know how the rest of
the country feels. And I would love to know if
(04:46):
that I'm it's just me being crazy, or how everyone
else's opinion is on it. I need a pulse check.
The last question was also about tech, and somebody was
about AI and tech and there's our big tech in
social media. The question was is social media social media
has almost no regulations on it people. I want everyone
to realize that there's almost no regulations on social media.
(05:08):
Utah became like the first day to say like kids
under eighteen can't access social media, can't make a social
media account. But I think that's a basically that's very
close to being basically it. I mean, you can't obviously
sell things illegally on social media. You can't like put
you know, child's pornography or something like that. That that's
a national regulation. But as far as like regulating anything
(05:32):
Section two eighty or suing them or what they own
of your data or reselling your data, there's no regulations.
And big tech is very very, very very few. So
I asked the question of should be big tech be
more regulated because in an era of Elon Musk, it
used to be that Democrats are very poor regulations. You know,
(05:52):
you have the caras Wishes of the world. The very
liberals were like, yeah, let's let's uh, you know, regulate
big tech. Those are the same people who are very
excited about big tech, you know, when Steve Jobs was
alive and now Republicans who blamed everything on the twenty
twenty election on zuck Bucks, they're very pro big tech.
So did people change sides? It's a good analysis of
how do people feel on this issue. And the last
(06:15):
question I asked is with trade, I didn't want to
use the word tariff just because it's Trump said the
most beautiful word in the English language. I had to
like parse through how to approach the idea of tariffs
and about Trump's push for tariffs without saying the word tariff.
So the question I said was, would you be willing
to pay higher prices for more American jobs? Would you
(06:38):
trade prices for jobs? I think this is very important
because regardless of what happens ultimately with these tariffs, I
don't think this is going to go away. During the trumdministration,
Biden was very supportive tariffs. China is a very our
is our geopolitical adversary, and we need to be more
conscious of reindectrializing the United States. So what can people,
(06:59):
what can politicians get, what is their ultimate how much
can they can they push out on this without getting
slapped backed by voters? So those are my four questions,
and I am very excited to hear what the responses
were and I talk to Brent Buchanan. So coming up
next is my conversation with Polster Signal owner Brem Buchanan.
Stay tuned. My guest this week is Brent Buchanan. He
(07:23):
is the founder of Signal polling firm. Thank you for
being here.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Brent, Hey, great to be with you all.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Ron Brent, When did you found Signal and why did
you start in the polling industry?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Well, I actually didn't start in the polling industry, oddly enough.
I started just running campaigns, which is I think a
lot of people's story who are in this world is
they just volunteered. At some point thought this is pretty fun.
Maybe I could make a living with it, and so
that that's where my story started, actually started in a
mayoral campaign in Montgomery, Alabama. We got absolutely trounced. They
(07:54):
don't elect Republicans of Montgomery, and I was too naive
to know that and just how we could will our
way into winning the election, and we did not. And
then went on to work for a Greek restaurant runner
who was running for county commission against a Republican incumbent
and he was a Republican too, and we beat the guy,
and that was my second taste of a campaign was
(08:14):
actually victory. And he paid me in cash and bac
la bah, which was a pretty good arrangement for a
single dude.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
But can I just tell you for one second, I
worked for a guy named Stamataslacaccas who ran for the
State Assembly and every third day, I think we went
to a Greek pastry. I mean I was eating so
much Greek food for the entire summer. I guess it
was twenty fourteen and it was a million Greek pastries.
So this is a this was this, I feel this.
(08:43):
I feel this story for sure right now, one hundred percent.
So that was your first race ever worked on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It was and then ended up starting a firm. We
were kind of a jack of all trades. Basically, if
you were willing to pay us for it and it
was legal, we would do it. And realized that you
can't really take that model outside of your home state.
This is back in still living in Montgomery at the time,
and really land it on polling after the twenty ten
cycle when I saw that it was getting more expensive,
(09:10):
it was getting harder to do. I loved the strategic
aspect of what you get to do as a polster,
and it was more scalable. You know, I could work
on a lot more races as a polster than I
could managing or running or being the consultant on a race.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
That is in my mind, there's so many negative connotations
to polling. You're pulled it firmed it very well in
the last secle on the twenty twenty four cycle. How
does one manage a firm well? How do you create
a formula that works, because very few do well.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
The first is to separate private from public polsters, because
we're not the same. So when you see a Marist
poll or you know somebody who's only doing polling to
release it and get attention, which I mean, we put
out a few poles, but you're singing barely the scratching
of a surface of what we're doing. And so that's
the first thing is that we are not a public
pol so we actually have an economic incentive to be right.
(10:04):
Some of these public pollsters, they can be wrong over
and over again. They get coverage over and over again,
and I don't know who really funds them. That always
makes me ask that question when I see certain numbers
come out. But those of us who do private polling,
who were being hired by campaigns and corporations and committees
and caucuses to help guide them through, what do I say,
Who do I say it to? How do I say
(10:24):
a best So that's a big differentiation between the two.
The second is that one of the most important pieces
of polling is the actual getting respondents from voters, and
that is in our world and our competitors, most people
outsource that function. So they write a script and then
they send it off to a call center and a
texting vendor, and then they wait for those people to
(10:45):
do the survey collection, and then it comes back and
they build their reports, give it at the clients. We
decided over a decade ago that that was such an
important piece of the process that we needed to control
every aspect of it. So our firm is larger than
I think any other Republican polling for him by headcount,
because it takes a lot more effort in people to
control that part of the process, and that is really
(11:08):
the magic piece of.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
All what and so you okay, this the whole basis
of this podcast episodes. You did a national poll. It's
is it released publicly? It will be probably released publicly
by the time we come to air, which will be Monday.
So what are some general themes that you've seen about
how people feel at President Donald Trump performance in this poll.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I think the first is that there's not this massive
elasticity in his image and if you were watching public polling.
You would think that Donald Trump started out really good,
everybody loved him, and now everybody hates him. But that's
just not what our polling data shows.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I got I got a call today from a friend
who's was a Republican republic like that official, and he's
very pusel with the tariffs, and he said to me
Trump's approval is probably thirty two percent now. And I
was like, now, ah, sorry, go ahead, go ahead, but
you're one hundred percent right, very little elasticity. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, we've seen a slight degradation in his image from
you know, a couple of weeks after his inauguration to now.
But I think if he'd literally just gotten into office
and sat in the oval office and done nothing, we
would have seen a degradation in his image because there's
there's a sugar rush. There's a high that comes off
of a campaign and of the attention you get from it,
(12:29):
and then you got to go govern. And I think
considering that all that he has done and all the
topics that he's broached in this time that he's been
in office for less than three months at this point,
that the fact that his image is still you know,
hovering around forty six percent favorable, is way better than
he ever was, even at the beginning of his first term.
And that's that's one thing people forget about polling is
(12:52):
is polling is not just a data point in time.
A poll is a data point in time, but polling
is different, and that is watching what happens over time
and comparing it to things that matter. And so when
you look at things in terms of his first term
and his second term, he is doing significantly better now
in his image than he was at this point in
(13:12):
twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And even though the tariffs aren't popular, certainly not, but
in the media standards, it has an overall I mean,
people have a much more positive opinion of him than
they do some like the tariffs for example, right.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Completely, and a lot of people just trust him that Okay,
he said he was going to do this during the campaign.
I don't really understand why he's doing it, but I
trust that he's got a reason for it.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, Okay. So now I want to get to the
questions that I asked, because this is what I'm so
excited about because I worked on campaigns for almost twenty
years and just I'm a nerd, so I get really
excited by it. So I went over the top of
the show the questions that I asked, but I want
to go first to it and we'll talk about it.
So the first question being the question over levels of
(14:00):
legal immigration in the country. This is something that I
don't think Bolsters ever asked enough about. Galub does once
a year or twice a year, but that's about it regularly.
So the first question was do you think that the
levels of legal immigration are too high, too small, or
just right? Thirty eight percents that they were they were
fine with the current levels, thirty seven percent they wanted
(14:21):
to reduce, eleven percent they wanted to increased. But when
you ask the actual number desired, it was a very
different result. So almost nine percent eight point five percent
of Americans wanted zero immigration, none at all, a total freeze.
Seventeen percent wanted a ninety percent reduction about one hundred
thousand a year, because we've currently taken a million in total.
(14:43):
Forty three percent of Americans wanted a fifty percent or
greater reduction of legal immigration, which is if you said
that on the news, you'd be called an extremist. I
know I've been called an extremist, but forty three percent
of the country say that, and about sixty percent of
the country want somewhere between, like a fifty to ninety
percent reduction, So somewhere more than forty percent of them
are current numbers, but less than we currently have. I
(15:06):
know that sounded confusing, So sixty percent they'll favor some
sort of reduction of legal immigration. I just want to
break it down really quickly and we'll talk about it.
Fifty five percent of women, sixty one percent of men,
seventy one percent of Republicans, fifty seven percent of independence,
forty seven percent of Democrats, sixty percent of whites, fifty
seven percent of blacks, fifty three percent of Hispanics, fifty
(15:27):
eight percent of swing voters, and seventy three percent of
all Trump supporters. Does that shock you.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Not in the least. And this is why I really
love that we did this as two separate questions, because
I think it suses something out that we see a
lot of times in polling, is it's a lot easier
to get agreement on a concept, and then when you
go throw numbers behind it, people's it's like you fry
their brain and they don't know how to answer it
per se, because if you look at these two questions,
(15:55):
they actually somewhat conflict. Where you have thirty eight percent
of PEECE people say that it is about right at
a million legal immigrants a year. But then when you
go look at the number of people who said a
million to five million, five to ten are unlimited, it's
less than thirty eight percent. So you even have a
(16:15):
differential there of the number of people who, as you mentioned,
are more likely to be Democrats or or left leaning
voters are saying, yes, it's the right amount, or we
need more. But then when you get to the actual numbers,
even though we just told them the number in the
last question, like the question itself said a million legal
is this just right? Too little? Too much? And then
(16:37):
when we break out the numbers in the exact next question,
you get even fewer people that tell us it's a
million or more that they're good with. And I think
this is one of the challenges with communication in general,
and it's one of the things that Donald Trump is
really good at. Is we like to talk about, especially
those of us who enjoy policy. You know, what should
the number be about abortion? How many weeks is that
(17:00):
it should be legal at and voters don't think in
terms of these hard construct numbers. They think in terms
of principles and of concepts, and these two questions that
you had us ask, I think plays that out perfectly
that if we're going to win messaging battles, let's not
get bogged down in numbers.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
That's so interesting, now there was I think the thing
I found super interesting was that there was really not
huge stark differences between groups aside from partisanship. So Hispanics
are very close to blacks, Blacks are pretty close to whites,
men were fairly close to women. There wasn't this huge
surge in one area as I expected, And even among Democrats,
(17:41):
forty seven percent of Democrats is a lot. That's not
what you would assume by hearing the media narrative. And
then you'd watch clips of like, you know, you know,
black voters in Chicago, who were I mean ninety nine
times out of one hundred a Democrat sitting there and
demanding that the illegal immigration legal immigrants to be deported.
You see the white people up in up in Cape Cod,
(18:03):
you know, waving goodbye to Leegal immigrants that Joe Biden
brought in. So there's just a constant conflict between what
is being presented and then these numbers over here and
what you kind of see from these the news clip
that's you're like, there is supplicing bigger than this.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, And a lot of it plays into educational attainment.
And this is something I talk about a lot, the
diploma divide, and that is that thirty years ago, Republicans
were the party of the highly educated, higher income individuals,
and those folks are more likely not Democrats now, and
Republicans are the party of the working class. And when
you do look at this question on construct of educational attainment,
(18:40):
you start to see a big divide almost as much
as you see on the partisanship, because they're so intercorrelated now,
this diploma divide and partisanship. So if you're a non
college educated voter, then you are thirty over a third
of those voters are saying one hundred thousand or less,
which there's not a lot of other groups that we
(19:01):
look at where you would say, have a third of
the voters saying one hundred thousand or fewer to none
one hundred thousand to none. And then when you look
at college educated voters, that's where you start to get
more that are saying that it should be somewhere between
half a million to five million, But there's very few
who say any number beyond that. And that's I think
(19:25):
the story here is that you've got two Americas, and
it's the tariff argument I think is too Americas. Also,
if you're highly educated and highly invested in the stock market,
then yeah, you're freaking out. Well, you may not be
freaking out today because it's April ninth, you were freaking
out yesterday in April eighth, you know, third massive four
figure dropping in a day. But regular Americans aren't worried
(19:46):
about that. But they are worried about this immigration topic
because they see it as supplanting their ability to earn
an income.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, and so before we get to a tariffs, So
that's one of the questions. But the thing I wanted
to ask was, so your firm says, quote for Republican
members of cong is concerned of being primary. A majority
of Republican voters want to see legal immigration reduced to
two hundred and fifty thousand or less annually. You also
wrote Trump made major inroads in November with non white
(20:13):
men seventy three percent of non white men who voted
for Trump favor immigration reduction. That is something that I
did not expect that number for non white men to
be that.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I owe.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
I know Republican voters, I know them my gout, I
know how to had a campaign to Republican voters. It's
very It's something that I just was born, bred and
you know, and lived my whole life as a Republican voter.
But the non white number being non white men who
voted for Trump, it feels like ideology is surpassing race, surpassing.
(20:51):
I mean, maybe there's college attainment is having some differential
but forever racial identity superseded that of partisanship, and now
or political ideology. Now political ideology supersedes that of race.
That's actually I feel like a good thing.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Completely. And going back to the first race that I
worked on for a mayoral campaign in Montgomery, Alabama, I
went knockdoors in the one hundred percent black part of
town thinking I could earn votes there twenty five years ago.
And that was so dumb of me, because I guarantee
our Republican leaning Canada got none of those votes that
I went and worked so hard for. But if I
(21:28):
did that exact same thing today, they're willing to have
a conversation. And it's because Democrats have gone so far
to the left on all kinds of topics, and because
you've got these highly educated white voters that are now
more the base of the Democratic Party than anything else.
They are so liberal and progressive, and these non white voters,
(21:50):
there are very few of them that consider themselves liberal
and progressive. They're much more likely to say they're moderate
to somewhat conservative. And so it's kind of like that
meme that Elon Musk before he got involved in politics
last year or the year before, whenever it was, where
he shows himself as a stick figure in the same place,
and the left keeps moving further away from him and
calling him a radical and calling him a right winger.
(22:12):
And that's really what's happening with these non white populations
is they're sitting there saying, we're moderate to somewhat conservative,
and you used to be moderate to somewhat conservative, but
now you're insanely leftist and you left us right.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
And they're economically centrist. In the Republican Party has become
more economically centers under Trump. The yeah, I mean I
can't believe LATINX didn't really work to win over hispanics.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I'm shocked by that or anything else.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
The Okay, the second thing that I asked you guys about,
which was I'm very anxious about is AI. I don't
think it's aside from corporations pulling on AI. I never
see a question about AI ever being asked. So your
poll found that thirty three percent of respondents when I asked,
when you asked, how does the future of AI make
you feel? Thirty three percent said nervous, twenty six percent
(23:02):
of curious. I guess that means like they want to
see where it goes, eighteen percent said anxious, and twelve
percent that excited, eleven percent were unsure. That's a lot
of that's more negative connotation I expected. What are your
fifty one.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Percent negative emotions? I mean to the emotions were obviously negative.
One is kind of up in the air. The curiosity
is more a positive emotion, but I wouldn't say it's
anywhere near like excited from an emotional standpoint. And so
fifty one percent of voters answered nervous are anxious, which
are both negative emotions and one of the most fascinating
(23:39):
things is that is really driven by a gender gap.
So women are much more likely to say nervous thirty
six percent of women said nervous, only twenty nine percent
of males did. And on curiosity, thirty one percent of
males curious, twenty two percent of females curious. So there's
a real gender gap here. And then taking that further
(24:00):
into what we were talking about earlier on the diploma divide,
there's also a really big diploma divide on this question.
If you were non college educated, then you are about
thirty eight percent said that they were nervous about this.
And then when you go look at college educated voters,
especially college educated males, thirty four percent, so they were
(24:20):
curious about this. So I think if we were to
really go Freudian on this, this has to do with
like where do I fit in when AI comes in,
and college educated voters feel more prepared for that than
non college educated voters, which is fascinating because it's not
going to replace a plumber, right, I always.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Say, because it's going after white collar jobs AI primarily,
and that's who would be affected. The other population I
was excited about this were parents. Why do you think
that is.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I think part of it is that the demographics, and
that's one thing when you're reading a poll, you have
to ask yourself, is this cause relative or correlative? And
I think that that is more posative that they parents
just happen to be younger. So if you go look
at young youth answering these questions, you're going to see
about as high numbers as you do in the parents,
(25:14):
because parents are younger than you know, some seventy year
old answering the survey.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I thought maybe because they don't want to do the
homework with their kids anymore, and they were like, oh,
this is great. But I think it also goes back
to like, what's your vision of AI. Is at Rosie
the robot who's going to make you dinner every night
and do the dishes? Or is it the terminator? And
that's really where I think that's where the mentality divide is.
I hope this question is asked more because it is
part of our future and we we don't, uh, we
(25:41):
don't talk about it so enough. I think I think
people are talking about, you know, Jadbanski, that specioism and
we're going to be a leader in it and kind
of I guess there's no way to avert it, but
I don't talk about it enough as like what the
ramification would be. Speaking of tech. The other question I
asked was, because this is something I've also become very
passionate about and last a year or so, I asked
(26:04):
it should big tech and social media companies do they
need more regulation because they have virtually none. Now people
don't sit there and says there's virtually no regulations over
big attach or over special social media. Sixty nine percent
of women, sixty four percent of men, sixty one percent
of Republicans, sixty nine percent of independence, seventy one percent
of Democrats, sixty seven percent of white voters, sixty three
(26:25):
percent of Black voters, sixty eight percent of Hispanic voters,
sixty six percent of Hispanics, seventy four percent of Harris voters,
sixty percent of Trump voters, and sixty seven percent of
Swing voters. Said yes, it is overwhelmingly on one side.
The one thing that was like glaringly obvious to me, though,
is that sixty percent for Trump voters versus seventy four
(26:46):
percent for Harris voters. I is that the Ela Musk
effect Because Republicans were gung ho on regulating big tech,
breaking up some tech companies, making Twitter a public platform
twenty twenty, Like that was not that long ago.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I think you've got to rewind the clock even further
than that. Like, imagine if we'd asked this question about
almost any emerging industry thirty years ago, and you would
have seen Democrats saying, regulate the heck out of it,
and Republicans saying regulation is bad. I don't care who
it's on. And so the way I read this question,
the results of this question when it came back is
(27:26):
we now have a unique issue where Democrats have always
been for regulation, you know, if it walks or moves regulated,
and Republicans who are now former Democrats have taken some
of their ideology on certain things with them when they
left the Democratic Party. And I think regulation and the
fact that big fill in the blank anything is negative
(27:50):
is really a carryover from these former Democrats now Republican
MAGA voters on this issue. And now big tech and
really business in general finds itself on an island because
Democrats still hate big everything, and Republicans, these newer Republicans
have taken with them this you know, you know, if
it's if it's big, it's probably bad mindset with them
(28:12):
from the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I hear you, but I think that you know, the
twenty sixteen election was so blamed on Russia buying Facebook ads,
and the twenty twenty election was so blamed on a
Musk but not Musk, duck Bucks Zuckbucks, and twenty twenty
four had to do with Elon Musk. Like, that's three
elections in a row where tech played some part in
(28:37):
the narrative is why one side lost over the other.
And interestingly, in your survey, college educative voters were more
likely to support regulations on big tech, which they likely
either have stock in or work for or could work for.
Then non college educated voters who would who were more
for more nurse at ai. There's a lot of inverse
opinions about the two Junescy weren't going with us?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, yeah, I do. You also got to look at
you know, the highest number here is female college educated voters.
That's also the largest demographic that votes Democrat. So this
is another causation correlation conversation where they are just much
more likely to be Democrats the higher educated you are
(29:20):
than the lower educated you are.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
But I think if we were to ask a question
on the next survey and have a conversation of do
you think big tech and social media is good or
bad for us, that we'd probably say most people, even
though they use it all the time, they may be
watching us on a big tech platform right now, would
also agree that they don't think it's positive for them.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Oh, I know, one hundred percent, I completely agree with you.
That's the people who sit there and say McDonald's terrible
as they're ordering a big mac. The last question I
that was able to ask was about would you support
it has to do a lot with tariff, would you
support increase prices for more jobs domestically? And here were
(30:01):
the findings. This was more split than the other answers
forty seven percent so that they would support higher prices
for more domestic jobs, forty three percent that they were
against it, And there was a huge gender gap. Fifty
eight percent of men, seventy three percent of Republicans, fifty
one percent of white voters, fifty percent of parents, and
forty percent of spend voters were for it to only
twenty sorry four higher prices for more jobs. Only twenty
(30:26):
one percent of Kamala Harris supporters were for it. Only
thirty two percent of Black voters were for it, and
women were very against it. Is this has to be
a partisan thing related to Trump, right, or is it
an ideology thing?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
That was one that I asked myself that exact same
question before this interview in reading the results, and I
could not come up with an answer for it, because
you would think that Republicans who are saying jobs and
economy and inflation are their top issue, are going to
not answer another question where they say I'm willing to
pay inflated prices for some other benefit that I will
(31:02):
trade off higher cost for something else. But these independents, man,
they split right down the middle. Forty five percent support this,
forty six percent oppose this. They just kind of prove
their name right there that they're independent, because on the
partisan edges, you've got a complete inversion of support and oppose,
whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. And I would
(31:25):
have thought, you know, every time we do a poll,
I like to read through the script and in my mind,
guess what I think the responses are going to be,
and if they don't come back that way, that's the
first place, I go dig into information to figure out why,
and I still have not come up with an answer
as to why seventy three percent of Republicans say that
they're willing to pay higher prices for goods and services
(31:45):
to bring back jobs. But when you think about it
in the context of what is Donald Trump doing with
tariffs and how is he messaging tariffs, that aligns so
much with this this survey response where people are willing
to Republicans are willing to pay higher prices if it
means more American jobs, and Democrats do not want to
(32:05):
pay higher prices if it means American jobs. I think
the big takeaways Democrats hate American jobs. That's where I'm.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Gonna that is that is a great way of pushing
as a slogan. Uh do you think that it's also
the sense of the country too, like as far as
feelings towards the country go. Because I read through your
other your other questions that you had that I didn't ask,
(32:31):
and I won't go into all those, but one was
interesting was on the economy, where it was either a
majority or plurality of Democrats believe we were currently in
a recession, which like we're not. I mean, you could
sit there and say the market's down, markets up whatever,
or like you know, like Trump's tariffs, but we're not
in a recession. So is this just what they believe
because they hope that they're hoping for it to come
(32:52):
through to or they read a lot of narratives on
on MSNBC and CNN. What do you like, do you
have any thoughts on that? Well?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Magically, their response was that fifty six percent said it
happened within the last three months, which, hmm, I wonder
what happened in the last three months. Maybe we've got
a new president. Yeah, And so it is. It's a
gut response and reaction to Trump. It has nothing to
do with the fact that they actually believe we're in
our procession. They just don't like the fact that Donald
(33:22):
Trump's in charge.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
What's the one thing before we wrap up, what's the
one thing about polling that Americans should know that they
don't What's the one thing they could sit there and say,
because I mean, I love crossed abs, but everyone says
don't read them, and I'm like, I'm able to parse
them a little better than the average person. I always
say there was a snapshot on time, they're not, you know,
the prediction of the entire future. But what's something that
(33:46):
people could take. We are in a nation that is
obsessive polling, despite we were sess at polling and then
we love dismantling polling when it doesn't say what we like.
What is what is people should know about the polling
industry and polls in.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
General, Well, what's the saying lies, damn lies and statistics?
And I think that's where most people end up landing
on polling a poll some of them are just flat
out wrong. But what I would say is, yeah, become.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
As said that senior citizen women were voting seventy percent
for Kamala Harris White evangelical senior system women. I was like,
this poll is not correct. I'm sorry, go.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Ahead, Yeah, no, no, you're spot on. And so I
think it's one become a better consumer of polling. So,
if you're going to pay attention to poles, learn how
to read them, because the top line is a very
small portion of the story. The thing that I always
recommend to folks is start at the bottom of the
pole and work your way up. And what I mean
by that is, look at the demographics if you look
(34:45):
at the demographics and they don't pass the smell test,
don't even look at the rest of the pole. And
so if you start thinking about polling from the terms
of is this a good poll to start with, I
think you'll understand polling better. The second is pay to
trends over time, not just small data points, because even
the best pollsters, there's a reason that in polling you'll
(35:07):
see a margin of air, which is whatever your number
you're looking at, it can be that percent higher or lower.
And that's another piece of reading polls. People say, well,
the polls got it wrong. They never get it wrong
if you look at it within a margin of error.
So if the pole says Donald Trump's going to get
forty five percent, and it's a three percent margin of air,
If he gets forty eight percent, that poll was actually
was statistically correct. The second is that there's always a
(35:30):
ninety five percent confidence interval on public opinion polling, and
that means that if you ran that poll one hundred times,
ninety five percent of the time, you're going to get
the same results within the margin of air. It also
means that five percent of the time you are going
to get numbers outside of the margin of air, and
even the best polster cannot one hundred percent of the
time replicate everything. You know, we see this sometimes in
(35:52):
our polling where we'll collect a flawless sample look exactly
like the demographics and population that we're intending to survey,
and then we look at a number and we're like,
that just doesn't seem right and we cannot explain it
in statistically and scientifically. That is likely a five percent
instance right there, right the other ninety five percent of
the time it's going to be right. And so you know,
(36:15):
don't don't look on all of polling is this horrible
industry that gets stuff wrong all the time. And then
the last thing I would recommend is if you get polled,
take the freaking poll. Like that is how you help
poll and get put it.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Participating this dad all the times, like I got a
call for a poll, I hung up the phone. I
go why, He's like, I was like, well, why, I
have a friend who does the same thing. I'm like,
what are you doing? I would I would have run
over someone to answer a poll, but I'm I'm built differently,
And that's one hundred percent true with the numbers you
know when the when the polls were coming out in
the twenty twenty four election, and there was like six
(36:47):
public polls that had Trump at like nineteen twenty percent
of the black boat. The first like three times was like, ah, whatever,
this is kind of off, and then like the fourth time,
I was like, maybe this is right, and then the
sixth and I'm like, okay, this is probably And when
there was I think it was the ABC the Its
is Full, which was black only voters, and they were
coming out with the same numbers, like this is actually
probably real. Like at this point, it's probably real when
(37:09):
it's happened six times across different firms and they're all
coming the same thing. And there's there's institutions that are
solely looking at you know, this one or that one.
But anyway, where can people learn more about signal polls?
They can contact you if they want to hire you,
what should they reach out to?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
So our website is cygn dot al, so it's our
company name, which is spelled differently than most people spell
the word signal and then also on social at cygn al.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Brent, thank you for being on this podcast. I really
appreciate it's a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Well, thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Run you're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky.
We'll be right back. Our question this week from the
Ask Me Anything segment of the podcast, which, by the way,
please join. Ask me anything about politics or social media,
or culture or the economy. If I don't know the answer,
I will look up the answer and I'll give you
(38:00):
the best analysis possible. Email Ryan at Numbers Game podcast
dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural Numbers Numbers Game
podcast dot com. This question actually was texting me repeatedly
by my aunt Carol. So I have to answer it
because I think she's going to blow a gasket if
I don't. She's listening right now, so thank you, Carol,
(38:20):
she says to me. Her question was, and she lives
in New Jersey, why have property taxes increased to fund
our schools while test scores have declined? That is a
Since getting involved in the seventeen seventy six Project Pack
and then the Foundation and dealing so much with education,
it's hard to even put this into words, how frustrated
(38:42):
people feel, especially people who have maybe more adult children
or our younger adults, themselves who remember education being much
better twenty years ago or fifteen years ago. And there's
not a simple answer for it. There's not a simple
answer why test scores have declined. Part of the reason
is that the bulk of money going to schools is
(39:03):
not going to things that make people smarter. There's a
lot of money and administrators and vice principles in outside
tech companies being involved in, you know, with the idea
of it improving, and teachers' unions, which is the largest
organization or anything to do with schools, does not advocate
on part of children. They advocate on behalf of adults,
(39:24):
people who work in the buildings, and a lot of
administrators have used education as guinea pigs. And there is
there's as much as people. When I started the seventeen
seventy six Project Pack, there was a lot of people saying,
why are you politicizing education? I to quote Billy Joel,
I didn't start the fire. It has been politicized for decades,
(39:44):
going back to when George W. Bush was trying to
put phonics in classrooms and liberals opposed that the pledge
of allegiance to the Prayer, I mean everything. There's a
lot of politics in it, and there's a lot of
nonsense in it, and I think that's hurt kids too.
But I think that the funding, how all this new
money he has gone into schools has not always been positive.
I don't think it's always been not for the benefit
of the kids. I think that the main drivers are
(40:06):
lack of parental involvement, especially as people have to work
more just to survive. I get that, but I think
that also a big part of it is the way
that struct schools are structured for their funding schools. If
a school, if a school is like, okay, we're not
going to past kids forward. If it's if they're failing,
we're going to sit there. And but a hard stop
and a school in Chicago or a school in Baltimore
(40:29):
failed ninety nine percent of all students from one year
to the next, that principle will probably be fired. That
school will probably be shut down. The incentive is to
look at graduation rates or college admission, which is for
some places not that hard to do. Not to look
at hey, can they read, can they do math? Can
they do science? If we got to a place in
(40:51):
our country where ninety percent of the country could do
eighth grade, math, reading, and science. We would be in
the smartest nation in the We're already one of the
smart nations in the whole world, but we would be
arms and leans above everybody else in a way that
we're not now. So I think that that is a big,
big part of it. Is the incentive is to pass
kids forward even if they're failing, because they don't want
to show what failing grades actually look like. That's a
(41:12):
big part of it. And then I think the DEI structure.
I think that the influence of unions and the influence
of politics in the way that's been going from the left,
because for the right it's always been at school choice,
school choice, school choices. Maybe I'll do an episode school
choice soon, and it's not been about the eighty five
percent of kids who go to public school. I think
(41:33):
that that's I think that that's really the main, main
part of it. But failing kids forward is a huge,
huge part of the problem, and that's dealt with a
lot of the financial structure of schools. Anyway, Thank you
so so much. I appreciate you listening to the episode.
Education is not about money, it's about how it's applied.
So that's what you should learn. That's so what we
(41:53):
should take away from all the stats we've seen in
the last few years. Anyway, please like and subscribe on
the iHeartRadio app podcast wherever you get your podcast. I
will see you guys. Letter this week
Host
Gill Alexander
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!