Michigan’s Tight Senate Primary

A Senate primary in Michigan comes down to fewer than 10,000 votes and suddenly the whole midterm map feels more fragile and more interesting. We sit down to make sense of what Al Sayed’s narrow win on the Democratic side could mean in a working-class, auto-industry state where turnout, identity, and cost of living decide elections.

We talk through why calling every progressive a “socialist” or “communist” is a blunt tactic that may not land with younger voters, and why a candidate can be progressive without being a Democratic Socialist. Clem lays out the idea that US politics can act like a circle, with populist frustration on the right and left sometimes converging around the same pain points: Medicare cuts, billionaire influence, and affordability. We also dig into Michigan’s unique electorate, including large Arab American communities in Detroit and Dearborn, and how Middle East policy, Israel, Netanyahu, and the Iran conflict could energize or alienate key voter blocs.

Then we get concrete about election mechanics and risk: what the SAFE Act actually requires, why “just bring an ID” can hide a passport or birth certificate barrier, and how that could reshape turnout. We also game out institutional stress tests for the midterms, plus what all this political uncertainty means for investors watching oil price volatility and geopolitics.

If this helped you think more clearly about politics and portfolio risk, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What do you think will matter more in 2026: affordability or turnout rules?

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Transcript

Michigan Primary Sets The Stakes

Steve Davenport 0:26

Hello everyone, and welcome. Today, , this is Steve Davenport from Skeptic's Guide to Investing, and I'm here with Clem Miller. And today we're going to talk about the recent primary for the Senate seat in Michigan, where Al Sayed beat out a pro-Israel candidate for the position on the Democratic side, and it was an election that was decided by less than 10,000 votes. So in a in a state that size, to come down to basically one the last one percent, and they were there was troll trying to decide who who was going to be the best candidate to oppose a Republican candidate that I think they both viewed as beatable. But as as we know with elections, sometimes when one side loses, , they don't come back for the general election. So, Clem, how do you look at this seat and the fact that we have now a candidate that many are calling a socialist or and that how does that affect a working class state and an auto state like Michigan, where I know you grew up and but how does how do you look at El Say as a candidate and as a person that's gonna beat the Republican?

Clem Miller 2:00

Okay, so first of all, as you said, he's you know he he's perceived to be a socialist, but he's not. Okay, he's not a member of the democratic socialists like Zahran Mamdani is. He does consider himself a progressive and and he has expressed opinions against against Netanyahu. Uh and and so and of course very strong opinions against against Tr p and his failure to deliver on on many things. Uh so I my I have a particular view on this, and that is that basically when it comes to American politics, it's not really a spectr , okay, that goes from extreme left to extreme right, but rather a circle. It's like a circle. And I'm sure you've heard this theory before, , where the extreme right and the and the extreme left kind of blend into each other at a certain point. And so my thought is this you got MAGA, make America great again. You got people who have supported MAGA who right now are extremely upset with Tr p for supporting Israel in this war against Iran, right? Very upset with with Tr p for doing that. Uh you have they're very upset with Tr p for making cuts to Medicare. Uh very upset with Tr p for not doing anything about affordability, right? Uh just you know not being not delivering on the promises that he's given. Also this you know, this perspective this perception that you know that Tr p is in hock to the billionaires, that's a an issue when you're talking about a working class state. You know, who you know, who does Tr p, who's Tr p supporting? You know, is he supporting the working class or is he supporting is he supporting the the billionaire class? And and so I see El Said El Sayad as being somebody who's going to peel off support from tr from MAGA and actually take on some MAGA support. And and I I would not be surprised if if there is if there's some analysis that would show that this actually occurred during the primary. The reason I say that is because Michigan has kind of a modified open primary where if you go in and you declare yourself, at least for that, at least for the primary, as one or the other party, you can vote within

Progressive Versus Socialist Labeling

Clem Miller 5:34

that party list. You can't you can't like switch from you know from office to office. But you could have had MAGA people come in and support El Sayed. Now you could say, okay, they came in to support El Sayed to create a candidate that would that Mike Rogers would be better able to be. Uh but on the other hand, it could be, oh, well, we don't like this person. We think Mike Rogers, we don't like Mike Rogers either because he's not MAG, not sufficiently MAGA, right? And and so we're gonna support this other guy because he's talking the language that we believe in. And so maybe they've you know, maybe they came in and and supported him because of that. So I wouldn't be surprised if some MAGA came over and and supported Al Sayed, which is why I think, again, you know, El Sayed, he's he's not a democratic socialist. He is a progressive, and I think Tr p is trying to l p him in obviously with people like Zahran Mamdani and and AOC and and others, Bernie. Okay, although Tr p is has not been so anti-Burney over the years, , because he sees ant he sees Bernie as as a similar populist. That's why I think he's he's on this kick of of calling everybody who's leftist communist, right? And and I just don't think that works with younger people because younger people you know weren't around during the cold war. They were born.

Steve Davenport 7:19

But they don't look at it as a total insult. They say, hey, maybe that person has more interest than the average man. Right, exactly. I think that that's generally the perception that communists and socialists want you to believe, but it's a little more complicated. But if you want to be simplistic, yeah, I think that you know it's it's definitely a way to get younger voters. And , I'm impressed with his background in terms of you know getting his PhD in medical from you know Col bia and then studied abroad, , where it Rhodes or was he?

Clem Miller 7:58

Oxford, yeah.

Steve Davenport 7:59

Oxford. So I I look at him and I think, you know, he beat a very tough candidate, a woman who was very pro-Israel, and they thought that his, you know, his Arab or his, you know, his nationality was going to be a liability. But a lot of working class people in Detroit and the major cities, people of color, really liked his message about affordability. So I think he is sending a message to the Democratic Party of how we can still win and be progressive, because I think that's what the Democratic Party has to figure out by November. What's the theme of their message? That Tr p isn't a real populist, he's really just a proxy for billionaires. That's a pretty good message. Uh he he has gotten close to Netanyahu in this whole effort, and I think he's found that Netanyahu doesn't listen to him. So I can't tell whether the Republicans will generally be anti- or pro-Israel. I think that's a pretty big difference in terms of if you believe the Democrats are the party of Israel, , I think there's gonna be some people in the Democratic Party who aren't gonna like, you know, what's happened in Gaza or what's happening in Iran. Do you think that the Republicans come across as pro-Israel, or do you think they have to watch that because it it could really alienate voters?

Clem Miller 9:53

Well, I think the you know it depends on the on the person, but I think Tr p has you know, Tr p has aligned himself, and again, you know, as I've said in many other of our podcasts, I make a big distinction between Netanyahu's administration and Israel generally, right? And I think Netanyahu has has been a has not been good for Israel and has not been good for the United States. And Tr p's alliance with Netanyahu has not has been basically terrible for the United States. Uh and I think that a lot of people within Tr p's orbit, , you know, former orbit are upset with him, you know, for this alliance with Netanyahu that's got him into this war. I think Tr p himself, at times, although they may he may not show it, I think he's annoyed, let's call it that way, annoyed with Netanyahu as well, right? Um I think with Lindsey Graham out of the picture, who was very pro- Israel, I think that you know Tr p maybe like let's let's put it this way. If let's say this Iran Oman deal becomes the new equilibri in the Middle East, and Tr p is inclined to support it, but Netanyahu wants to try to frustrate it as he's tried to frustrate other ones, , Tr p is gonna be very pissed off at Netanyahu if you know if he tries to to disrupt this, ass ing Tr p signs up because he's gonna see this as being bad for the midterms.

Steve Davenport 11:42

Right. Well, don't you think that Netanyahu has to watch what he's doing? Because he's running for like does he have a completely different goal because he wants to keep the the offensive military actions going because then he's a strong leader and he's the strong guy who's defending Israel.

Clem Miller 12:02

Well, the thing you have to understand about Israel, it's a multi-party it's a it's a it's a shifting multi-party democracy and shifting multi-party system, let's call it that, where where you have , you know, he he's not going to get elected with a broad coalition. There's just no way. So he has to he has to have his extremists, he has to keep them happy. And so far he's been you know doing a lot to try to keep them happy, and I think he will continue to do so, and that is going to run up against Tr p trying to to maintain you know to maintain to try to help his partisans to the extent he wants to help them, and that's a you know an open question, right? Whether he wants but you know another thing I wanted to mention, by the way, about Al-Syed is that you know the thing

Can Al-Sayed Pull MAGA Voters

Clem Miller 13:10

is that Al Sayed in Michigan, you have a large Arab Muslim population. Um historically, towns like Dearborn, Michigan, , large Palestinian population, large Lebanese population, , large Iraqi population inside Detroit. Um actually not too far from where I grew up, large Iraqi population. And and I think that the the fellow we we interviewed, he passed. He was an Iraqi, wasn't he? No. Was he Iraqi or Palestinian? I think he was Palestinian.

Steve Davenport 13:54

Right.

Clem Miller 13:55

Um, so there's a large Arab population. So, you know, then the then the fact that El Sayed has the name El Sayed and is Arab and is Muslim doesn't turn people off in Michigan. It might in some rural areas, maybe, but it doesn't turn it doesn't it doesn't turn people off. So, you know, what Tr p might ass e that it would turn people off. He might try to exploit that, but I think that's gonna work against Tr p in Michigan.

Steve Davenport 14:26

Um I mean one thing I'd like to clarify is you you talked about a circle versus a continu , and I like the image of a continu , but I think it needs to be broken down into different variables. I don't think we can fit everybody on one continu . I think there's probably a continu for economics and money. I think there's a continu for religion, I think there's a continu for parties and politics, and I think there's a continu for, in general, social issues. And those three different or four different continu s, you could be really close here on the left, and then you could move more to the center in the you know, financial areas and more. And so when I think about people getting elected, they usually are in a region, they're not in a spot, you know what I mean? I don't think you could say, hey, he's further left than him, therefore, you know, but I think that socially they might they probably are further to the right than in in a lot of these Arab elections, elections involving Arab Americans or Arab nationals. It's it it to me, it really is across different variables. You're gonna have different parts of the people. And I just look at people of color, I think are gonna gravitate towards him versus the Republican. I think people of Arab descent are gonna gravitate towards him, and I think as long as he continues to you know fight the message that he's a communist or a socialist, I I think he will get garner a lot of support in those working class communities because I still think the issue that Tr p still doesn't want to admit is it's affordability, stupid. And and where we are in affordability right now is it's less affordable for a lot of people. Therefore, his his idea of going into Iran and doing all these things and not affecting affordability or got gas is on a spike for a month, but then it's gonna come right back down, hasn't been the case. And I I I think he really is desperate for this straight of homosexu thing to work. And I kind of wonder whether it will. I mean, I think it's it's possible, it could be a limited solution, like you said, but I think there's so many other variables and so many other things going on. And I do think Netanyahu and Israel are gonna have their impact on this midterm. I think there's gonna be a lot of people who are angry that we're supporting Israel and giving Israel, you know, access to all these weapon systems, and we aren't giving those same weapon systems to you know the Ukraine, right? Or keeping them for our own defense. Or yeah, not running out of weapons because right now we are, you know, I I think there's a lot of misinformation around. And until we get more information when, you know, when we're writing history here, I think we're gonna find out that maybe the reason for this ceasefire and the reason for these things is so that we can start to rebuild some of our inventory. You would never hear that from the Tr p administration because they again, this whole it's a war, so we don't have to share information the way we do normally. But I I think it's a a dangerous time for investors because I think that this movement of oil up and down is just creating uncertainty and making everyone need to hold more in reserve. And I think that greater reserves mean that there's gonna be more demand for oil. Um, even if we can't have China survive with less, I think everybody's gonna want to have their reserves back up again, and that's gonna, you know, cause a a bit of a run on oil in the next two or three months. So I I don't I think that this victory by Mandami and by El Sayed are indications to the Democratic Party that their progressive wing is far from the middle, and therefore it's going to be difficult to see how the Democrats pull it all together with one coherent message at the midterms. Because that's ultimately you know what you're gonna want to have is some national leaders who can come into certain areas and have a consistent message about how and why the Democrats are better than the Republicans. And you can't point 100% at the problems of the Republicans. People unfortunately want solutions.

Clem Miller 19:25

Right. I think you're absolutely right. They want solutions. And and when they look at the existing Democratic Party, they don't see a party that's offering too many solutions. Um, you know, the the current party has sort of sat back and said, well, let's

Israel Netanyahu And US Politics

Clem Miller 19:45

let Tr p self-destruct. Uh, so we're not going to say much that he can criticize us for. And, you know, that that has some logic to it. But at the same time, you don't really know what the Democratic Party stands for when you do that. And now we do, okay, increasingly, right? We see this new wing come forward, and they are the ones with the ideas and the energy. And , and so yeah, are they a majority of the Democratic Party? No. But , do they present a majority of the of the the new ideas and and fresh energy? Yes, they do. So, you know, I think just like you know, MAGA was you know, sort of a leading edge full of energy and led by a you know a populist, let's call them that way. Uh I think you might have now a Democratic Party with a leading edge full of ideas and and itself led by populists.

Steve Davenport 20:53

Right. I mean the Democratic Party made the choice to turn against Sanders and turn towards Hillary in you know in the presidential election two two two two or three times, three, three times ago in Tr p's original presidency, his first term. But I think that we've seen that that group has just gotten stronger. And I think Bernie is kind of the face of that. And what he's always been is I'm I'm for you know free free you know community college, I'm for free healthcare, I'm for, you know, I am for these things and I will fight for you. And that message just isn't there from the Republicans. They are the parting of Tr p and they are fighting for the things that they think he wants them to fight for. Right.

Clem Miller 21:45

And if they nobody's going to believe Mike Rogers or anybody else on the running for office on the Republican side, if they say, Well, I'm going to act independently of Tr p. Nobody's going to freaking believe them, right? Right. Everybody's going to say, well, look at, you know, you know, look at this candidate or that candidate. They've called themselves independent, and yet, you know, they're not. You know, only now, only now with this , you know, with this vote on Todd Blanche does Susan Collins come out and develop a spine. That's because she's got a she's got some you know some opposition now in Maine. Some real opposition.

Steve Davenport 22:28

I think that these elections are going to be interesting because each state is different, and each state has slightly different economic factors, slightly different religious factors, slightly different social factors. That are important. And I know that there's you know a lot of Catholics that are excited about the fact that Tr p's Supreme Court has delivered on abortion, and and I think that overturning Roe v. Wade, and I think that there's you know so much going on in the Middle East that I think it's gonna energize a lot of younger voters and Arab voters and people that and so the question to me is who who comes out? It's not always about who believes what in a poll, but who actually acts. And we know that older voters tend to act, and we know that activists, if you have an activist candidate, he tends to energize the campuses, and I guess he did very well on the Ann Arbor , you know, on the campus at Michigan. So when I look at that and I think, hey, that's in the primary in the s mertime. When they're back to school in November, that's gonna be a much bigger n ber. And I don't think that we've really figured out how social media and some of these actions by these different candidates. I think the L CE could take this. Uh, I think he could read Rogers. And in my opinion, he's a he's a wake-up call to a lot of the Democrats because it's not your daddy's party anymore. It's a different party.

Clem Miller 24:12

It'll be interesting to see if if Tr p has Mike what's his name, Mullins, the secretary of H H Homeland Security. What's his name again? It's Mike, the guy who replaced anyway, will he send ice into the polling places in Michigan? Um good question, right?

Steve Davenport 24:44

Yeah, I think I think there's a lot of things that are gonna be questionable, but I think that Tr p is being rejected on a lot of these save act, safe act, and you know, yeah, I think that the if the courts continue to to refuse to you know require the I mean you saw that article I think that I mentioned earlier where the a lot of the Republican territories or states have the Republican members don't have passports, so the act that he's passing is actually gonna prohibit a lot of his own voters from going to the polls. Right.

Clem Miller 25:24

Well, there's a lot, I'll tell you, there's a there's a lot of confusion out there about that whole SAFE Act and all of that. You know, the the impression that they're trying to give is that is that somehow people without driver's licenses or other ID are voting, and and that the Safe Act simply will require a photo ID. And that's not true. Um, they have in order to vote under the SAFE Act, you'll have to have a birth certificate or a passport.

Steve Davenport 25:52

Right.

Clem Miller 25:53

And and you're right, how many people actually have that? How many people in South Dakota have passports?

Steve Davenport 25:59

Correct.

Affordability Message And Voter Turnout

Steve Davenport 26:00

Really? I mean, those those are the those are the red states that they're saying that he's gonna hurt himself in. And so when you think of the Electoral College, he really needs those sparsely populated states to travel at the polls.

Clem Miller 26:15

Okay, so I'm gonna contradict myself a little bit relative to what I just said. Okay. And that, yeah. Take South Dakota. Regardless of how many people have passports or not, there are so few Democrats in South Dakota that that he's still gonna win South Dakota, or a Republican will still win South Dakota in in 2028, and also in in and south and Republicans will do well in 2026 if Safe Act is is is approved. Where where it it may matter is in some of the some of the majority Democratic states where the Republicans, because they're wealthier states, the Republicans are more likely to have passports than maybe some of the Arizona or New Mexico or something like that? No, I'm thinking Michigan. I mean, Michigan, the wealthier are more likely who are more likely to be Republican are more likely to have passports than Democrats do. So I think it I think in the in the traditionally Democratic states, I think the the birth certificate passport requirement will work against Democrats in those states. Yeah, so but the point is is that look, if we had in the and I'm not advocating for a national citizenship card, but let's say we had a national citizenship card, that everybody got one, that they were relatively easy for a citizen to get, and this national citizenship card you know was able to be used in elections. I might, you know, I might be in favor of that, right? I think it would be hard to say, hard to be against having a national citizenship card for elections. But the I just think the point is we don't have that, right? We don't have that. And and to discriminate against people because they it's hard for them to get a birth certificate, or if they have to wait nine months to get a birth certificate, , then that's a potential issue.

Steve Davenport 28:34

Yeah, I mean, I've always had the problem that we've built this system of this country on identification around Social Security, which is not to be used for the purposes of identification. So everybody is using it for identification. Everybody, when you get a car, credit card, or you go and you try to buy something, they say, tell me your social security n ber. And I say, Isn't that information private, not to be used for identification? They said, Do you want to buy the car or do you not want to buy the car? And then you say, Oh, okay, I'll give you my information. And it's it's it's really a social security system, it does not have a picture, and it is not for identification, it's for the system of social security. Let's just do it right and have a national ID. It's not that, it's not that hard. Most countries, most democracies have that. Correct. Most I mean, some of the democracies I love are the ones that they charge you with tax if you don't vote. Yeah. I mean, I would love that. I would love to say, hey, I'm avoiding a hundred dollar or a thousand dollar tax. And I tell my kids, go to the election because you're gonna pay a thousand dollars if you don't. I I think that you know, if we have to force people to utilize the democracy and have a whole hundred percent engagement or closer to 90, I would love that. I think that we should be engaged. And if we have to be incented to be engaged, because we have to be incented to do everything, we could have a half-off sale and say, oh, okay, this this year we're gonna, you know, we're gonna up it to another thousand because this is a presidential election. And in the after years, you have only a thousand, you know, two thousand for presidential term years and one thousand for other elections. I I think there's a a real benefit to getting more people engaged and getting more people talking about this. After it hasn't brought us excellence.

Clem Miller 30:43

Yeah. So let me let me bring

The SAFE Act Voting ID Fight

Clem Miller 30:45

up before we close off here, let me bring up one more thing having to do with the midterms. Um, so you know, obviously, you know, one can think through certain disaster scenarios about how the midterms might get interfered with. Uh, and , you know, you could bring up ICE, , you could bring up the Iranians. Um, you know, there are lots of things that that you know you can point to. Um, but I'll let me lay out one scenario. Do you remember back when they were vote going to vote on the Epstein files release, and Mike Johnson refused to seat a particular congresswoman whose vote would have been would have put it over the top? You remember that? I forget her name. Um but yeah, he refused to seat her. Well, what happens, you know, given that precedent, what happens if he refuses to seat newly elected Democrats because Tr p alleges or Tr p's DOJ alleges some kind of fraud in a particular race? What happens if he does that? My my understanding is that is that because what happens is that every single person in the House of Representatives has to be sworn in again every year, every two years. And what happens is that there's a clerk of the house who swears them in. And the clerk right now is a kind of a neutral person. I mean, they're it's appointed by by the by the speaker of the house, right? But what happens if you have this election, there's all sorts of accusations about fraud, and Mike Johnson puts into that clerk role a you know a Tr p supporter who is willing to go along with the idea. You're gonna have a repeat of what happened on January 6th, , where you're gonna have people trying to put pressure on this lowly clerk to quote, do the right thing, quote unquote, and and and save your country, quote unquote. Uh or you're not gonna have a country anymore, quote unquote. Uh if you if that person doesn't if that person agrees to to seat the Democrats who are actually winners in those elections.

Steve Davenport 33:31

So I don't I mean, I think there's a lot of scenarios we can imagine. I mean, I I always go back to kind of when I meditate or when I think about things, I think about you know, 90% of the things that we worry about don't occur. And the 10 things, 10% of the things that we do worry about tend to have results that are less bad than we anticipate. We are very good at creating scenarios and ideas, and I'm one of the one of the worst, is that I can imagine, you know, I've I still you know have this idea about China acting on Taiwan some point during this chaos that's involved here in the US. I think the more we get engaged in the Middle East and the more we commit resources, the weaker we are in the , you know, in the Asia region to engage or or push back China if they were to blockade Taiwan. There's a there's a lot of scenarios, Glenn. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not saying they won't happen, but I'm just saying that I kind of still have this idealistic belief that there's enough good people who are gonna act in ways that I don't think it's gonna be that close. I don't think we're gonna be sitting here and saying, well, if this one person doesn't get seated, you know, the majority goes to, you know, I I I saw recent n bers that said it looks like it's 5347 in the in the Senate, and I think it's about a 10-person lead in the House. So it if that's the majority the Republicans had, and you know, or less, and they were able to, you know, to manage, I think that's I think we're gonna see a change in at least the House, and I think we'll probably also see a change in the Senate. And I don't anticipate it being a one, a one-vote majority for any for either of these, because I think there's enough people who are active, and I think that as much as I wouldn't have believed I say this now, I think a progressive candidate like El Sayed, I think he energizes younger voters. And when we have energized younger voters, I think we're gonna have a different outcome than when we had older voters. Uh, you know, Harris versus Tr p was just not set up and not managed the way it should have been. And I think that , you know, Harris wasn't able to get people that energized and excited because she seemed like she was kind of a continuation of Biden. And I think that was what hurt her by not being more independent. I'm I'm interested in the fact that she's saying now she's gonna come into the race for 28, because I'm not sure that's gonna be great for no I think we're gonna see what happens. If this is a Democratic, you know, large victory, then there's gonna be other people who will come forward. If it's gonna be a grind, I think some people who might get involved in the electorate are gonna probably step aside and say, I don't want to get involved in something that's this you know hard to hard to tell or hard to hard to reason with. But that's just my you know, my two cents. I think I think Harris has had her chance, and I think they need the Democrats need someone new. And if it's newsome, I don't know if that's the answer, but I think there's probably enough good people between Buddha Buddhaj and I I think there's some others that I think could be had some national experience and could be very tough to beat in 28 if the Democrats are successful in 26.

Clem Miller 37:26

I think this is going to be an election pretty much like the elections that brought in Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. You're gonna have somebody come in who is less

Midterm Interference Fears And Money

Clem Miller 37:40

well known, who is going to shine and energize people. And you're right, it's not going to be Kamala Harris. And I honestly I don't think it's gonna be Gavin Newsom either.

Steve Davenport 37:56

The other thing against this whole arg ent is I don't know if you saw this week that Musk received a $1.6 billion government contract, and in the same day turned around and said he was gonna commit a hundred a hundred million to elect his candidates. And so I think that the Republicans looked at his 250 million that he used in the last election in a lot of those states that was tight in. And if he puts a hundred million, it's less than 250, but it's not a presidential election, , it's gonna have a lot of influence. Money's gonna have a lot of influence, and Musk has a lot of money, although he has about a trillion less than he had a month ago.

Clem Miller 38:43

But but there are two two problems with that, right? One problem is that Tr p is not running in this election, and so he loses, you know, he loses a lot of people who who get excited about Tr p, right? Uh especially since Tr p, you know, in all likelihood won't run. He's not allowed to, but in all likelihood won't run. And I don't think Republicans are a lot of the MAGA people are terribly excited about about either Vance or or Rubio. Uh so I I don't think there's gonna be a lot of excitement there. Also, I think a lot of the shine has rubbed off rubbed off Musk. And so if they see money coming from Musk, they're they're not gonna say, well, this, you know, they're not gonna say, oh, this is , you know, to the extent they know, even know that the money's coming from Musk, they're gonna say, well, you know, we don't want Musk involved in our in our election.

Steve Davenport 39:45

So Yeah, I mean I think it's it's it's when you look at the 100 million, I think they said 24 million could go to all of the candidates on the Republican side, but but the most majority, 75 million, would have to go to these different groups that are set up as as kind of shadow groups of in support of one side or the other. So I do think it will be hard for people to you know be able to differentiate which group and whether that money is Musk money or someone else.

Clem Miller 40:21

So you know what? The El Syeds of the world who are going to who are very big on trying to figure out what kind of money is influencing elections, they'll be able to figure it out. They'll research it.

Steve Davenport 40:35

Yeah. All right, everyone. Uh I think this is a wrap. Kwan, do you have any last comments? Nope. All right. I I think that what we're trying to do is to get people ready and aware of all these issues so that as things unfold, they can start to understand it better and understand how it's going to affect your portfolios. Um, all of these ideas are for educational purposes, and Clem and I are trying to improve the investment IQ of all of our listeners. Thanks for listening, and , we appreciate your support. Have a great day.