It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind America’s Population Shift, Immigration Drop & 2030 Election Shake-Up

0:00This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human. Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gerrowski. Thank you guys for being here. I have a packed show for you. I mean, packed. I mean, packed. I have to tell you whenever Trump does something to irritate man, annoys me. I think this happens with everybody with Trump. You just, you're like, okay, I'm done. I've had enough. I'm tapped out. I can't do this anymore. And then he does something that is, you know, a win that is existential for conservatives where I'm like, all right, he won't be back. That happened over the week. And for those faithful listeners, you've heard me say time and time again, that mass immigration, both legal and illegal are allowing Democrat run states to escape the political ramifications for their bad policy. What does that mean? It means that, you know, every year, thousands and tens of thousands, if not more, Americans are leaving New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois.

1:04They're done. They're tired of bad liberal policies. But what happens is is that those same states are accepting hundreds of thousands of immigrants, both legal and illegal into the country. And so when we have our senses every 10 years, those states don't lose as much electoral power as they should because they're using immigrants kind of to pad their losses. So, you know, AOC has a seat today or or Maxine Waters has a seat today in part because they have enough immigrants moving to those districts and moving to those states where otherwise they wouldn't have had those seats. And by the end, it allows Democrats fail policies in the states to be maximized to the entire country because Washington doesn't feel the ramifications, which they should because of bad state policies. OK, according to new census data, because of the drastic cuts to immigration with legal and illegal, because of the Trump administration,

2:06especially on the illegal side, there's been a little bit of cuts on legal immigration through regulatory reform. There's been obviously nothing to the Congress. There has been a massive reduction in immigration through every metropolitan area in this country, according to the census, every single metro area saw a decline in immigration numbers almost all by over 50 percent in El Paso. There was a 95 percent reduction. That's all illegal immigration by the way in Los Angeles, 67 percent reduction, Denver, 72 percent reduction, New York City, 65 percent reduction, Chicago, 62 percent reduction, Seattle, 31 percent reduction, and this reduction in immigration levels create the blueprints for the 20, 30 census redistricting, which will only be happening in half a decade. It's not that far away, really. I mean, it's as far as 2020 was and that feels like it was 35 seconds ago.

3:07How many blue seats are they going to lose in the house? How many electoral college votes are they going to lose? Likely a lot more than they thought they were going to lose just a year ago. And I want to put this calculation into people's heads. In 2020, in 2024, Kamala Harris had to win every blue wall state to be president, right? Joe Biden had to win every blue wall state to be president. The rate that it is going right now, even if a Democrat were to win Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, they could not win the presidency. Let me repeat that. The blue wall becomes irrelevant the way that the demographics are shaking out. And finally, this number, this census number that just came out, this is the 2024 to 2025 census. This is a census where Biden is still the president for six months of the year.

4:11The 2025 to 2026 census, which will be coming out next year, is going to be a bloodbath. Like if this is the first six months before Trump put in the travel man's on dozens of countries before he increased the H1B, a rate to 100,000 dollars for new H1B employees before really ramping up mass deportations, it's going to be a bloodbath for Democrats next year. 2024 to 2025 was the slowest rate of growth for immigration in this country since the COVID pandemic, with 40% of U.S. counties losing population. Even though the overall population grew by 1.8 million people, which is still a lot for a one-year calendar year, if you think about it, that's bigger than a lot of smaller states in the country. Net migration at the U.S. from overseas fell by more than a million people, and the places that were affected the most are big cities, especially big blue cities.

5:16Net international migration fell by more than 50% in places that had more than a million people living them. People do not want to live in big cities the way that they used to. They prefer excerpts or in suburbs. With the internet the way it is now, you don't need to live in New York to get a good job. It helps to have access to potential clients or to jobs, but you don't have to work there anymore. The way that people have satellite offices is everywhere, and a lot of people don't work in an office at all. They work from home. They work from their computer. They travel a lot more. Here is the list of places that experience the highest number of people with population change. This is negative population change. This is births plus inward migration, both foreign and domestic, minus deaths from outward migration. People who left the state and people who died, minus people who were born and people who moved to the state. The number one place to lose people

6:17lost Angeles. They lost 53,934 people. Folks, LA lost a congressional district in the single year. 53,900 people they lost an entire congressional district in one year. Experts are saying that California is going to lose four seats by 2030. No, they're going to lose six. Unless a Democrat wins in 2028 and in 2029 they kick the doors open, which is totally possible. But going the way things are going, California is going to lose six congressional seats next year in 2030's ripodect. Next up, Penalas, Florida, that is St. Petersburg. They lost 11,800 people. That's a little surprising. I didn't expect to be that high. I've been to St. Petersburg. It's a nice enough place. They've got a great Dolly Museum nearby. Third to go. Miami-Dade, Florida, 10,100 people. This does not surprise me. I have siblings who live in Miami-Dade. I've been there many, many times. They experienced an crazy influx during COVID. I think it was a little unsustainable.

7:25And Miami is just not for everybody. And still Miami still has 30,000 more people who have moved there since before COVID. So it's not like they experienced, you know, they're negative since COVID. It's just that people have changed their minds about living in a big city in South Florida. Next up is my home borough of Queens, Queens, New York, Trump's home borough as well, lost 8,800 people in a single year. This is before Mandani became mayor. This is before all the craziness. The county goes from September to September. So it's not, this is before the election. It's going to get worse. Then Orange County, California, 8,500 people. I'm going to run out of this very quickly. San Diego, 5,300. Shelby, Tennessee. This is where Memphis is located, the most Democratic part of Tennessee 5,200. The Bronx, 4,700. Dallas, 2,600. Ventura County, 2,600. That's the top. Those are the big counties that lost the big population. Other counties lost the population, obviously, but those are the big ones. Where did population grow? Number one,

8:26Harris County. This is the home of Houston, 49,000. Colin County, which is the sub of Dallas, 43,000. Maricopa County, Arizona, home of Phoenix, 35,000. Montgomery, Texas, 30,000. Wake County, North Carolina, 28,000. King County, Washington, which I was actually surprised. This is while Washington still has a no income tax. I mean, they've changed this year. 27,000. Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. This is the home to Charlotte, 26,500. Ben, Texas, 24,000. Williamson, Texas, 24,000. Penal, Arizona, 23,600. Notice a trend there, by the way. Florida is not on the list. I believe that Florida is hitting this kind of reduction in influx in population, one because so many people move there that it jacked up home prices. Secondly, I think part of it from what I've known from people who live in Florida is the insurance rates are just

9:29so high. They are steering people away. And also, Florida has worked harder than any other state. And this is the credit to Ron the San is to deport illegal immigrants. So I think you're seeing a lot of illegal immigrants lead the state. And you're seeing people not move there as high numbers, I think in part because the insurance for hurricanes is astronomical right now in Florida. Home prices have surge. It's very expensive. Other parts of the panhandle in Mississippi, Alabama, and even part of Louisiana have seen population growth. I think as we want to live near the Gulf of America, but that's much more affordable than it is in Florida right now because of the so many people move there. Only one county appeared in Florida, appeared in the top 10, which is Polk County. But anyway, a lot of growth from Texas, Arizona, and the Carolinas, all states have voted for Trump. As far as metropolitan areas go, only two states, blue states experience population growth in a metropolitan county, Washington, DC, that whole area, which is north of

10:33Virginia, southern Maryland, that had a 53,000 people and Seattle added 43,000 Seattle is acting as a sponge for other progressives who can't afford California anymore. And they want to live in a big blue area, the moon is Seattle. On the Republican side, all the rest are Republicans, right? And only one actually are in Florida, not to I'm not bashing on Florida, by the way, I just find it fascinating because Florida was the growth central of the entire country. But only one Florida metropolitan area saw extensive population growth and that was Orlando. Texas made a four of the top 10 with North Carolina, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, and Florida making it the rest. Since 2020, and this is with Biden's insane level of immigration when he kicked open the floodgates, Los Angeles has saw a decline in population of over 300,000 people. Chicago has lost 85,000. Every borough but Staten Island in New York City has lost people. Staten Island gained

11:395,000 while Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx lost 226,000 people. That means all of these big blue cities are losing a congressional representative, a vote in the electoral college. Do you understand what is happening? It's a total reversal of the Biden years, of the Obama years, even of the Bush years. And I would even say of Trump term first term, letting blue cities off the hook for bad policies that drive Americans away. They don't deserve the political capital in Washington that they have gotten over the last few years. They don't deserve to have all these congressmen. While red states with red counties have, you know, real Americans living in them, they're not just immigrants living in them. They have Americans living in them who don't receive the representation that they deserve. Mass migration allows them to not be held accountable. It has been stopping and it's been slowing down and that is a good thing. They're going to lose. I

12:41would say right now Democrats are probably going to lose 12 seats in the 2030 census right now. If I had to guess about 12 seats and Republicans are going to gain in places like North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Texas and Florida, if they can keep those states red, they will control the presidency for the next decade. Who knows they may be able to control the House of Representatives for the next decade, too. We don't know what will happen with all the redistricting, but the presidency certainly looks very fail for Republicans. They don't need these swing states anymore in the sense of the of the heavily unionized, traditionally democratic, rust belt states. They just don't. They've made themselves irrelevant. It's not just because of good weather, too. It's because of favorable taxes. People like AOC, Maxine Waters, Mike Quigley, they're going to find themselves without a job. They're going to find, I mean, maybe they can primary under their Democrat, but it's going to be a smaller and smaller pool out of the congressional districts that are most likely to

13:45to go. They're going to go not only in some rural areas in those days, but definitely in the cities. And it is their own policies that destroyed them because people are banning them. They're dying from it with a whimper or not a bank. Okay. It's fascinating. We have a couple more years of this. I'm breaking down data, but if this is the sign of what's to come from the first seven months of the Trump presidency next year is going to be Democrats are going to be shaking. And that is also why, by the way, you're seeing Democrats change position on housing, which is like a yes and no thing. Yes, housing, blue states are too expensive. Yes, that does drive people away, but no, that's not the only drive people away. Your crime policies are completely inadequate. Your taxes are insane. Your business tax is nuts. There's a lot of things driving you away. It's not just housing. I'm just letting Democrats know it's not just a housing thing, but they are changing their position on it because they realize how many people they're losing. Okay. Next, if I have more interesting

14:47data for you guys on international news and religion, that's coming up next. So there was a story in the New York Times late last week about the number of Catholic churches in the US experienced a surge of conversions. People coming to the Catholic churches, something I've explored a lot on this podcast. You guys know I'm Catholic, born and raised, and I find it very interesting because a lot of you may have been bullish numbers on religion, and I try to find some really good, interesting, hard data to kind of back up where we are as a country because we're probably, we are likely the most religious country in the Western hemisphere, especially of the developed countries. The Times reached out to 12% of dioceses in America that's a large sample size, and they all reported a surge of membership. This is according to the Times. People are joining the Roman Catholic Church in surprising numbers. This Easter, the Archdiocese of Detroit will receive 1,428 new Catholics into the Church. It's the highest number in 21 years.

15:49The Archdiocese of Galveston used him will be at its most in 15 years. The Archdiocese of Des Moines is of 51% from last year, from 265 to 400. The first year after the election of Pope Leo, the first pontiff from the United States, many Catholic churches are across America are welcoming their highest number of new Catholics in recent years. The newcomers are said to officially be received into the Church on Easter vigil mass the night before Easter on April 5th. Of course, we think the Holy Spirit, sorry, of course, we think the Holy Spirit is, Cardinal Robert McCloy of Washington said, we are all kind of stymied. His own Archdiocese is said to receive 1,755 people entering the Church's Easter up from 1,500 the year prior, which was already the highest number in 15 years. This data comes amid, this is by way, this is not the Times, this is just me talking. This article comes amid new data from Ryan Burge. I've had him on this podcast. He explores data behind religion. He said, I like Ryan,

16:49not only because his name is excellent, but I like Ryan because he's a straight shooter. He doesn't BSU. He doesn't tell you what he wants to happen. He tells you as it's happening. And he says, according to the cooperative election study, this is an incredible study that Harvard puts out over a year. Huge sample sizes, something I'm going to explore on our next episode, what their 20, 25 data really looks like. The share of non-religious people in this country has dropped for the third consecutive year. 31% of Americans as a 2025 report to be non-religious, 5% being atheist, 5% being agnostic, 21% being nothing in particular, meaning they haven't really thought about it, but they don't have like a stake in being anti-religious or maybe like atheist do. That's down 5% from an all-time high of 36% in 2023. I think conversion conversations rather about religious revivals can be overstated. People who really want there to be a religious revival, we'll talk about it a lot. The data doesn't show that as much as it shows really a

17:55stop in the number of people being non-religious. The non-religious numbers have come to a halt. The slow, washing away of Christianity America really has rescinded since COVID. It's something that we are not seeing a huge uptick the way we used to see in the number of people saying that they're non-religious. The cooperative study back to that study also says that the number of people identifying as Catholic, identifying with the timespiece, has actually increased over the last few years. It's up to 16% of young people being identifying as Catholic, up from 14% back in 2021. It's very interesting. Maybe the big hope that a lot of socially progressive people had that we're going to see this complete reversal of America's long-standing religiosity is a bet that they shouldn't have made. Who knows what this means for social policy? Who knows what this means for family formation? I do know this. Religious people marry more frequently. They have

18:59children more frequently, and they are more engaged in civic society. Something interesting at the time said, which goes back to the COVID information, is because as the world became more on the internet, percentages of the population, even if it's a minority, wanted human interaction. And religion and church attendance, especially, is human interaction. I mean, I guess you can watch it on television. It is not the same as going to a church. So I find that very, very interesting. And other countries have also experienced this spike, especially in France. It's been a notable spike in number of conversions. Speaking of Europe, and this is my segue to the last topic I'm going to talk about on this podcast, there's been a lot of interesting breaking election stuff coming out of Europe. And I don't really touch on European politics a lot outside of England. Just because it's not for everybody, I get that. But I think enough has happened to give a quick rundown to my audience. The first being that there was an election in Denmark. Now I know, aside from Bernie Sanders praising Denmark, most of you guys were like, I don't even think about

20:01Denmark. They gave us those Zemphing and Legos and nothing else. Fair. But it's important because when it comes to the American foreign policy, you know, a lot of social Democrats in Europe really stake out the hatred for Trump among Europeans as the answer to faltering political support, right? European center left has really saw a massive decline over the last couple of years in almost every part of Europe. People in Europe do not like Americans particularly well, even though I mean, they should. I mean, we're great. But just a joke for my European audience. It's not a very big audience, but they're there. I acknowledge you and I love you for listening. But they really hate Trump. Europeans really, really hate Trump. And when Trump was talking about annexing Greenland, it was this massive backlash in Denmark. Well, the Danish Prime Minister who's been kind of faltering in the polls was like, oh, this is perfect. There's a

21:01rally around the flag effect happening in my country. Her poll numbers went up. The center rights, poll numbers went up and the center moderate moderate up. That's called the moderate party. It's a centrist party. Their poll numbers went up. They said, this is perfect. Well, hold an election of increased my numbers in parliament. And it'll be easier for me to govern. So what happened? The very opposite happened of what she predicted. The governing social Democrats, which is a left wing party, if you couldn't tell, had their worst performance in a century. They lost 12 seats. The center right party was called vestry. They lost five seats. And that was just their worst number of all time. And the moderate party lost two seats. Everyone making a bet that this election be a referendum on Trump lost. The biggest winner with a Danish people's party is a national's party. They campaigned specifically on remitigating people who had immigrated to Denmark and became Danish citizens who are not Western. They were, they ran on. We're going to offer them

22:02an incentive or demand it that they move back to Syria or Morocco or Afghanistan or wherever they came from. They won 11 seats. The green left, which is a very progressive party, which doesn't like how the social Democrats were actually pretty conservative when it came to immigration for a left wing party. They won five seats. And this new party, which is a hard nationalist party called the citizens party, they won four seats. Those were the big winners. The prime minister has to resign. It's a kind of a traditional thing. It's not, you know, don't read too heavily into that. But just to resign and then try to form a new governing coalition. But that will be much more difficult than in the past, given how many parties have seats in parliament and how neither of the center left nor the center right have enough seats for a coalition, for a majority. They have to work with the moderates. They've got other minority parties together. People like people. It's very tense. But that's what's happening over in Denmark. Another prime minister who had a substantial election loss was my girl, George, Georgia Maloney over in Italy. There was a national referendum on the judiciary in Italy and it

23:07lost by seven points nationally. The referendum would have separated career paths between judges and public prosecutors. And it would have split the high counts for judiciary into two distinct bodies. I know that doesn't mean a lot to you guys. Look, this is the simplest way I can explain. The Italian Constitution is a complete disaster. It's written after World War II. And it's to stymie the potential of another leader kind of gaining too much power. And in fact, the bureaucrats in Italy can depose a democratically elected prime minister if they feel that they're working out of interest of Italy. Well, what does that mean? I mean, that could mean whatever they wanted to mean. They have more power than the actual democratic elected prime minister does when it comes to trying to see their goals met. It's why Georgia Maloney can't do a lot of things that I think she wants to do. A lot of things that the people want her to do. And the judiciary also steps in the way quite a number of times. And she's really trying hard with these

24:07reforms to change the Italian Constitution to make it possible to see reforms happen. But like the Italian people, I mean, once I mean, totally screw this election up. They lost by seven points. It was not a big victory. And you know, I talked to one of my friends from Malta the other day about the pervasiveness of institutional socialism in European politics, especially Southern European politics. And he said the most fascinating thing that I had never thought of before. He said, after World War II, you had two choices. You were either a fascist or you were a socialist. And there was nothing in between really in most of these places. And international organizations, especially in America, really invested in socialist as a precaution to having another rise of fascism. We didn't want a third World War right after the second one. And it is why so much of Europe from the European Parliament to,

25:08that was written right after the 40s. But the European Parliament to a lot of these national constitutions to the European right, human rights council, it's all, you know, in reaction to World War II. And it's totally incapable of making sure these countries can govern now. But it's fascinating to think of why we invested so heavily in socialism right after World War II. Anyway, it wasn't all, it wasn't all a loss for the nationalist right across Europe, France and Marine Le Penz party had a series of victories. They won 3,000 council seats throughout their entire country's municipal election. That's a fourfold increase. They also had a big victory for the mayor of Nice, which is the fifth largest city in that country. They had never governed a city or have a mayorship of a city that large. They did experience some losses in some larger cities like in Marseille and in Toulon. But nonetheless, they didn't make that gain in Nice. That's nothing small. They gained a lot of other mid-sized cities. That's not that small. And in the next presidential election, and then happens in 2027, they are, they are still firmly in first place. And

26:14there's really no second close, it's a competition for second place. They don't know who's going to come there. But they have 36% of the vote for the first round. Remember in France, there's two rounds of presidential elections. You have to get 50%. So the first round, they're already a 36%, they've never been that high that early on before. And in fact, it was two presidential election cycles ago where they ended the second round, only a 33%. So they've really made gains. And the last thing I want to address over in Europe was a vote in the European parliament was pretty seen up against the EU. Parliament voted 389 to 206 to endorse tougher deportation methods. This makes it easier for countries in Europe to create offshore detention centers for people to be deported outside of the EU for people who are considered, you know, criminals or just regular legal aliens to go to a country and not be in the EU where they have more EU rights and privileges. This is only that Georgia Maloney and other EU nationalists have really fought for in

27:14Europe for many, many years now. It expands the number of countries acceptable to be outside of the EU that you could deport people to and allows for up to two years in detention, which is the highest that the EU has ever allowed. It is a big victory for EU nationalists, but more importantly, in the European parliament, what has always been kind of the mover and shaker is that the center left and the center right and the centrist always work together to knock out the quote unquote far right and the quote unquote far left. Well, in this case, the center right worked with the nationalists right for the first time really ever to stand up to the left and the centrist who who wanted kind of the business to continue as is and didn't really want to increase deportations. And it's the first time that that wall, that coalition wall, has cracked in a serious way. I want to see what that means. One for Germany, because Germany is the largest block of delegates in the European Union. They are the biggest powerhouse right now in the European

28:19Union. And what they say really does kind of matter in a big way. And they have elections coming up with with local governments where the AFD, which is the nationalist party and an uncle of Merkel's old political party will maybe be able to work together for the first time. They may not be able to box out the nationalists right like they have done for the last 30 years. It could be a major development in Europe that we're seeing right now. Okay, ask me anything is coming up next stay tuned. Welcome back to ask me anything. Second, if you want to be part of the ask me anything segment only Ryan at numbersgamepodcast.com. That's Ryan at numbers for numbersgamepodcast.com. First email comes from Tomasso. He says, love your story about working a victorious secret. I worked at the store downtown not far from Wallshoot. It was my first job and it teaches you skills in dealing and not dealing with people. That is for sure. He's he asked the question. It looks like Hilton is in the lead for the governor of California, but it's early plus they steal votes in

29:21California. What are the odds? Do you think for most pollsters minds? Well, I want to say first I'm not a pollster because I think that people do confuse it. Sometimes I just analyze polls and I pick up on trends, but I think that the odds of Hilton being in the runoff are extremely high. I would say probably 95% chance he's going to be in the runoff and he's going to make the top two in California. The bigger question is can the other Republican Bianco share a Bianco also make the top two. That is a really hard question ask and it depends on two things. One, will the Democrats consolidate, which as of yet they have not? What does the overall electorate look like? If the electorate is 37, 38 or 39% Republican, which is the number between the presidential election and their last two gubernatorial elections, then they have a good chance. I think Republicans need to get as close to 40% of the overall electorate as possible. It's Republicans plus independents and Democrats who vote Republican. It's like a certain percentage of independence and

30:26a few Democrats. As of right now, I would say there's a 20% chance that it's Republican versus Republican and they box at the Democrats, which would be good. I mean, because it would be, one, they'd have a Republican governor, even if it was only a year and a half before they did the whole trying to kick them out, but also because if it's to Republicans, a lot of low-prepensity Democrats who don't have a Democrat on the top of the ticket in the ballot probably will stay home. I mean, it could actually help Republicans down ballot. So it's a big question. Will Porter or Steyer take out Slawwell or will Slawwell search? Slawwell is definitely the Democrat getting the most amount of attention right now, but Steyer has a lot of money, Porter has a lot of money. Slawwell is a very flawed candidate. A lot of other big Democrats are running, so we'll see. Next question comes from Mark. He writes, Ryan, love listening to your podcast and hearing but insensitive insights. I am barred with news from the states such as Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, but becoming more conservative by the influx of refugees from failing blue states. I moved to Arizona in 2020 and live in a retirement community in North Tucson.

31:29Tucson's great, by the way. Food is excellent. A huge portion of new residents are moving here in California, as well as Colorado and Washington. I fear they are bringing the disease politics with them. In Arizona, the Republican Party seems to nominate candidates with no chance of winning. How do you assess the process of Republican Party in Arizona in the near-to-mid term? Are we doomed to become California? I've done some work in Arizona a lot with my school board pack, the 1776 project pack, and a little with Blake Masters. I helped a little bit on his congressional race, his second race, and there are a lot of problems in Arizona. First and foremost is there's a complete breakdown of trust between voters in the party. Voters end the party rather. It's worse than I've ever seen anywhere else in the country, and part of that is because I think in Arizona, I mean, Arizona used to be a very, very rural state, right, extremely rural. So you could really just campaign in country clubs

32:32and win for a very long time, and that kind of political method of country club or republicanism running the inter-workings of the party still is very real in Arizona. Maybe not as real as it was even a couple of years ago, but a lot of prominent politicians in the Arizona Republican Party, Doug Ducey, the McCain's, there's been a lot of them who really had a lot of support from within the country club apparatus, and that built a lot of resentment in the grassroots. That resentment is really reached a boiling part, and especially as the states balloon in population, everyone's like, give me attention and give me equal voice. Also, 2020 election really broke a lot of people's brains. I think Kerry Lake did a giant to service to the voters of Arizona, especially Republican voters, because she's real talent. Like, I'm never going to take away from her. She's a really talented auditor, but she squandered that by running a terrible campaign for governor, and then lying to people saying that her election was stolen. It wasn't stolen. And I think that she's done a lot of things allegedly that have

33:38been at her in hot water with courts, and she put out a lot of fury among the base, who believe that they cannot trust the system in Arizona, and they believe it's not. And Arizona, by the allows of electionism can be improved for sure. I'm not saying it's perfect. However, she has created an anger and a rage that they can't trust anybody. And there's a complete breakdown. There was a breakdown of trust beforehand, and she lit this entire thing on fire, making it all more worse. The good thing for Republicans, I will say, is that the voter registrations in the state have boomed in Republicans favor. Republicans have a 330,000 registered voter advantage that is double what they had in 2022. In 2022, they had 160 something thousand. Had they had those 160,000 Republicans that they have now, they would have won every single statewide race in 2022. So that's the one thing, good thing going. I think in Maricopa counties,

34:39some Democrats have searched recently, but overall the balance has been significant in Republicans favors, which is a good thing. Can they win the governor's election? Bigs, any bigs, who's the Republican like the nominee, he's down single mid digits right now in the polls, but I have to show us there haven't been many polls taken this year. I think there's only been two since December. So we will see. Last question comes from John from Kentucky. John writes, I don't know where you got your information on the strategic, strategic petroleum reserve, the SPR, but it was wrong. The EIA website, the best source of information says that the SPR, when full, holds a little more than 700 million barrels of oil. The chart, he links these to me a chart with the EIA page, shows that the reserve is primarily filled under bush and topped off of the beginning of Obama's administration, Biden depleted the reserve dramatically in 2022, lower prices in advance of the 2022 midterms. Biden began refilling the reserves at a slower rate than he had depleted it and Trump continues to refill it until recently, but at a rate even slower than Biden. Okay, this comes from a question that

35:46I received from a listener several weeks ago. And John from Kentucky, I have to apologize, I looked for where my source was, because you asked me where my source was for my answer, and I couldn't even find the script. I saved all my scripts, so I don't know what happened to it, but I did research on what you said in this, and you are right, I was wrong. I gave people the wrong information. I said that our petroleum reserves were near historic highs as of 2023, and they were not. Our petroleum reserve is actually at the lowest it's been since 1984, which is kind of crazy. So I apologize for that, John, and you are absolutely correct. Our long-term average strategic petroleum reserve is usually 576 million barrels of oil, and right now we're at 415 million, so we're not only not near the highest amount, we're not even near our average of where we usually are, by over 150 million barrels of oil. So that is

36:46that's pretty concerning. During Biden's presidency, we had an all-time low of 348 million barrels, and slowly been increasing, as John mentioned, and Obama's was the highest in 2011 at 726 million barrels. John, thank you for the correction. It's important sometimes that when I get things wrong, I don't know where I did that research from. I usually am pretty methodical, so I apologize for that, and I want to thank you for sending me this email, and I want to thank you for listening. That's this episode. I will see you guys on Wednesday. If you like this podcast, please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Reveacher Podcasts, and on YouTube. I will see you guys on Wednesday.