In less than a month, a highly contentious – and hotly contested – presidential election will reach a crescendo when American voters go to the polls.
So, it’s no surprise that one could hear a pin drop when one of the nation’s foremost political analysts recently stepped to the stage to deliver a keynote speech at NAIOP’s CRE.Converge at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
Indeed, the several hundred commercial real estate professionals in attendance listened intently, confident that Chuck Todd – chief political analyst for NBC News and the former longtime moderator of Meet the Press – would answer the question on everyone’s mind:
So … who will win?
It took Todd all of 90 seconds to use that metaphorical pin to burst the crowd’s bubble: “I’m not going to be able to tell who’s going to win.”
Todd wasn’t being coy. Rather, he’s just keenly aware of what has been widely reported for the past several months: This presidential race is too close to call – and will remain so up to (and possibly through) Election Day.
This, of course, is nothing new, as Todd was quick to remind the audience.
“Five of the six presidential elections this century have been decided by five points or less – it’s remarkable,” he said. “We’ve only had one election this century in which the winner won by more than five points. That was Barack Obama in 2008, and he won by just six points.
“Before that, in the entire twentieth century, there were five total presidential elections decided by five points or less.”
While he opted not to offer a prediction on who will be the 47th president of the United States, Todd didn’t shy away from sharing his opinion on a host of other election-related topics.
Among them: what Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump must do to sway still-undecided voters; which critical battleground states are trouble spots for both sides; what he believes is the most important issue to all voters (the economy, and particularly inflation); and the power that voters 30 years old and younger hold in this election (should they chose to wield it).
Todd also didn’t hold back when addressing the mindset that a large percentage of voters now adopt when choosing which presidential candidate they’ll support come Election Day.
It’s a mindset that has flipped 180 degrees in recent years.
“If you look at the last three elections, we have not voted for a president – haven’t done so arguably since Obama,” he said. “This time around, whoever wins, it’s again going to be ‘Which one did we not want the most?’ It’s more of a vote against than a vote for.”
Given the current political climate – with an ever-increasing number of impassioned voters on opposite sides of an ever-shrinking middle – that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
Another thing Todd insists is unlikely to change after the upcoming election, no matter who wins? The ideology, philosophy or direction of the party that is defeated.
“I don’t know whether you’ll find this to be pessimistic or optimistic, but this election is going to resolve nothing,” Todd said. “Because when you have elections decided by such a narrow margin – by one or two points – the losing side never believes they lost by enough to [force them to] change.
“When you get walloped in anything – in any part of life – if it’s a close call, you think, ‘I’m going to keep pursuing this’. Only when it’s a wipeout do you reassess and decide if you need to pursue another path to whatever your goal is. That’s why I don’t believe we’re at the end – or beginning – of anything.”
For those fed up with the viscous rancor that’s omnipresent in the current political climate, such an opinion is sure to cause angst. Which probably explains why Todd was quick to follow up with an important reminder – and some sage advice.
“I’m sure all of us in this room are not voting the same way. But all of us in this room who are Americans, we all have to live together,” he said. “So, if you don’t like contentious politics, you can do something about it: You can turn the temperature down.
“We all have to remember that just because somebody disagrees with you, it doesn’t make them a bad person.”
This post is brought to you by JLL, the social media and conference blog sponsor of NAIOP’s CRE.Converge 2024. Learn more about JLL at www.us.jll.com or www.jll.ca.
