Make Elections Fun Again.
Who will take the House of Representatives? Who will take the Senate? More importantly, will your local radio host have to run a “naked lap” based on the outcomes? That’s what really matters in our local elections!
I hope you can read the sarcasm.
But seriously, how can you keep your audience engaged beyond just the X’s and O’s of a Midterm? In a world where the election results can be found on one’s TV, radio, newspaper and phone, with opinions coming from all of the above, what makes them tune in to “you”?
Well, I can personally speak to a story that forced me to pay off a bet I never expected to have to pay off and led to a memorable moment for yours truly and the audience.
The origins of the story date back two years when I promised a “naked lap” around our studios if Donald Trump lost all of the swing states, which was being projected by 538’s Nate Silver. I made it a bit, and it got picked up by local media. I felt very confident in knowing I would not need to do this, as Trump would have to lose all 10 battleground states of Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio and Georgia.
It was highly unlikely, but it made for a fun ongoing joke, and thankfully did not happen. It was a major long shot anyway.
So as we went down the home stretch of this 2022 election cycle, the idea of a “naked lap” came up again, since thankfully the bet did not pay off in 2020.
Being the good sport that I consider myself, I wanted to find something that also was highly unlikely to happen but would create good radio fodder.
Enter: Kansas’ Third Congressional district. This district was getting an enormous amount of attention as a classic swing district here in the Kansas City area. It was the most-watched district in the KC Metro this election cycle. We had an incumbent Democrat in Sharice Davids going up against Republican challenge Amanda Adkins.
There was a New York Times poll that showed Sharice Davids leading by 14 points, despite other polls showing it to be a very tight race, decided by one point in either direction.
I said on my show two weeks ago that if Sharice Davids even won by double digits, I would run a naked lap around our building. She won by 10 points two years ago, but there was no way in a year that was supposed to be good for Republicans she would win by the same, or a greater, margin. No way!
Once again, it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it would make for some good radio fodder down the home stretch of the election, get listeners engaged in a different way, make it a running joke and have a good time overall.
Well, then Election Night happened.
And Democrat incumbent Sharice Davids won by 12 points on Tuesday night in a stunner.
Naked lap was officially on.
The lap was completed before the show on Thursday, November 10th, prior to showtime, and was posted on social media. If you want to torture yourself, the video is here. I had my producer follow me around with his phone camera as we shot the video and we bantered back and forth so it would work for radio as well as just an audio play.
And the icing on the cake? Democrat congresswoman Sharice Davids joined my show to rub salt in the wound. It was her first-ever appearance on the program as we had a good-natured conversation about her big win resulting in my embarrassing performance.
Overall, the audience feedback on the air and social media exceeded our expectations. It certainly wasn’t one of my proudest moments, but in terms of cutting through the political noise locally and creating a “place to be” to have fun discussing the election results in a different way, I’d say we accomplished our goals.
What’s in store for 2024? Time will tell!
Pete Mundo is a weekly columnist for Barrett Media, and the Vice President of News/Talk for Cumulus Media, while also hosting “Mundo in the Morning” and programming KCMO Talk Radio in Kansas City. Previously, he was a fill-in host nationally on FOX News Radio and CBS Sports Radio, while anchoring for WFAN, WCBS News Radio 880, and Bloomberg Radio. He’s also the owner of the Big 12-focused digital media outlet Heartland College Sports. To interact, find him on X @PeteMundo.
