historic year, the nation experienced a political earthquake and pennsylvania was at the epicenter. the year of change and look forward to what's happened. holiday debt hangover, we have expert advice how to pay off your debt before more attacked on. managing your minutes, we're giving you strategies to help you use your time more wisely in the new year and make every second count. >> good morning, i'm trafscy davidson. we want to look at the year in politics and talk about how the events we just went through will shape the road ahead. the nation starts the year very divided in an nbc news wall street journal poll, 52% of

republicans say it's headed in the right direction and 5% felt that way in december of 2015. on the other hand, only 18% of democrats say it is headed in the right direction, that's compared to 37% of democrats who responded that way a year ago. joining me to discuss all of this are two local political science professors from villanova. welcome to both of you. >> thank you. >> let's start by talking about donald trump. he defied the odds and proved a lot of experts and pundits wrong. on election night everything changed. everybody has been talking about since then what happened. your takes? >> well, the polling didn't understand the electorate that turned out or didn't represent the electorate that turned out. if you looked at the data prior to the election, i believe both campaigns were working from some of the same data. it appeared that hillary clinton was going to win the election. in the national popular vote, she did win the election but

democratic constituencies tend to be clustered along the coast and in areas that are urban and suburban. and as a result of that, the electoral college allocates votes by state and in pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, states where democrats have done well for a very long time, and states where the polling suggested that clinton was going to do well, she lost. there was a trump vote that wasn't captured in the polling and it was just enough in those states to put donald trump over the top in the electoral college. >> what do you think? >> yeah, i completely agree. the biggest problem i think we had in predicting this result was that we live in such segregated bubbles. we live in a partisan bubble and get our news in a fairly partisan way. we're not talking to each other really well. i think neither side fully understood what the other was feeling and in particular, the

democrats underestimated the resentment of the rural areas of republicans we -- have seen the tea party movement flourish in the last couple of years and that's related to the resentment about obama and about the policies of more government intervention in people's lives. but the resentment did not show up in the polls and i think it's a failure of polling. >> let's talk about those bubbles that you were just talking about. because we're sitting here looking back at what happened and looking forward and trying to talk about what's coming ahead. but it's hard because the nation is very divided still. it's hard to have the discussion. when you sat down first thing you said to me was it's hard to have these discussions was still the sides don't agree on the facts. >> it's very difficult to have a discussion when people don't agree on the facts. we're living in the moment right now where we live in the media

environment where if you would like to find facts that support your point of view, it's easy to do it. and there's very little to balance that out. so i think that makes it difficult to have a conversation and i think we're living in a time where so much of our politics is zero sum, where people feel if one side wins, it comes at the expense of the other. it's hard to hear each other. so it becomes difficult to have a conversation when we have difficulty hearing what other people are trying to say. >> and i wanted to add this is not new. it does feel to a lot of democrats especially that trump's win is a bolt out of the blue and a lot of my students, for example, were looking to me, like what just happened? and particularly black and latino students who right now feel very upset. they are looking to us to try to

figure this out. and one of the things that i keep saying is that this is -- this may be the result was unexpected because of our failures in polling. but the resentments, the inability to talk to each other, the rural versus urban split, the way that we live in kind of segregated bubbles, somewhat by race but especially bipartisanship, and our different opinions about what the role of government in our lives should be and what taxes should be, all of those -- in fact the taxes in the role of government issue, i've said to my students, that goes back to the new deal. this is a backlash, a longstandi longstanding backlash to what government is and what the role of the federal government should be. vis a vis the state. a lot of these are longstanding issues. >> if you look at what appears

to be emerging as a possible agenda for the new administration, certainly for republicans in congress, charla mentioned the new deal. we hear talk of privatizing medicare, social security, certainly the promise to repeal and replace obamacare, all of this is really a reaction to the developments of a social welfare state was expanded by obama care in the last administration. if you look at the political battles to come, it's not at all surprising that the fault lines run along these new deal programs. >> right. let's talk about pennsylvania. we always -- we always say pennsylvania is a battleground state. but until mr. trump came along, republican presidential candidate hadn't won the state since 1988. this a temporary switch or more permanent, new direction? >> that's a great question.

the weird thing about the pennsylvania reresults as far as i can tell is that -- you would have had to have people who voted for obama twice. and then voted for trump. and that frankly i don't totally understand. unless it has to do with particularly in obama's first term, he was the outsider candidate. in this election, trump was the outsider candidate. that speaks against the politics of people who feel left out or don't trust -- trust that the federal government is historically low right now so that would make sense. but i think it also -- it suggests that people are voting on personality rather than policy. >> the way democrats win pennsylvania hadn't changed. so democrats win pennsylvania in philadelphia, pittsburgh and especially in the suburban counties around philadelphia. so i think future democrats are going to run in pennsylvania the same way in the past.

one of the things different about this election, the rural vote, the vote in count tip iesh are less populated which has not been large enough to overcome the vote in the suburbs and cities, this time it was. and so to your question, will that happen again? and obviously we can't know that but i would certainly imagine that for republicans running in pennsylvania, they see that as the way to win in the future. for democrats they obviously need to pay more attention to those voters and one of the things the clinton campaign did not do this cycle was to speak to the voters, particularly voters who may feel left behind by the economy. >> let's talk about moving forward. donald trump ran against the establishment now he's in washington and made a lot of promises and plans. but he has to work with the establishment, some that's there. where is he going to butt heads? what promises is he going to have a difficult time with?

>> why are you both laughing? >> this would be like a three-hour conversation. >> a long talk. pick one. >> right before the election, trump said one of his top agenda items for first 100 days was going to be term limits on congress. and to nobody's surprise, mitch mcconnell and people in congress say, no way, that's not going to happen. he talked about the campaign about building a wall. that's never going to happen. i think even his voters knew that wasn't going to happen but the resentment against immigration, it was playing to people's kind of anger and fear rather than an actual policy position. he's going to run this presidency i think like he's still campaigning, that's what i can guess. >> the thing about the presidency an institution, for all of the president's tremendous powers there's less to the office than meets the eye, constitutionally the president has to deal with congress certainly for most

matters of domestic policy and in some cases foreign policy as well. i think the issue for the incoming administration is what kind of relationship are they going to have with a congress of their own party? remember, what makes this a little unusual, to a degree donald trump ran against the republican party. he ran against the republican establishment. he was going to drain the swamp. and republicans are part of that swamp in the sense that they have been in charge of congress the past few years. and in order for anything to happen on the legislative front, there's a process involved. democrats have very little say over that process except to publicize things they'd like to resist and in the senate, if they continue to have the power to filibuster, they can slow things down. the system is designed to slow things down, not to move them very quickly of the donald trump in the business career is used to getting things done by saying this is how it's going to be.

one of the things that we don't know yet is what happens when that management style meets up with a political process designed to resist it? >> the presidency in the constitution is really limited. one of our most famous presidential analysts says that the real power of the president is the power to bargain. we have not yet seen if trump is able to bargain with republicans. >> we'll see what happens. hillary clinton loss pennsylvania and pat toomey held off mcginnty but josh shapiro, how did that happen? >> i had to look at the numbers. there are two possible ways that could happen. one way is that people showed to vote for president and didn't vote as much down ballot. and then he could have won with a different electorate. that's not actually the case. so shapiro, i even brought the

numbers, shapiro got more votes than trump, right? so it's possible, i guess that some people voted for trump and other people for attorney general but that's unlikely. i think instead people split their votes. you had a lot of people voting for trump and shapiro, which is a weird split unless you think people don't trust the federal government right now. so you've seen them go blue in the state lately, right, with our -- with the governor in pennsylvania, now with shapiro, but red with both federal offices, president and senate. >> there's a lot to talk about as we move into the new year. thank you both so much for being here. i always learn a lot when i listen to you two. >> ahead "nbc 10 @ issue." dealing with holiday debt. a plan to pay for them all. expert advice coming up.

the present have been opened and some returned and in next few weeks it will be time to face the bills. the average consumers spent almost $1,000 on holiday shopping. it's easy to swipe the credit card to get shopping done. but a recent survey found 25% of consumers will take three months or longer to pay off those bills. it's sometimes referred to as the holiday debt hangover, it's hard to face. joining me to make it easier for you is patty hasen, the president of the non-profit resource, clarify, and thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> you've got to face t don't put your head in the sand, look at the bills. >> open the envelopes and oep the e-mails, today a lot of people get their statements e-mailed and it's probably easy to delete because you don't want to face it. open that e-mail, make sure you read your statement and understand what you owe. >> and lay it out, look at the due dates, right? >> right, you want to create a

list, right? how much you owe, who you owe it to and what the interest rate is on that card. that's going to help you develop a plan to pay it back. and the plan has to include the interest rate, right? you want to pay off the ones with the high interest rates and some of those, the store credit cards that are really high, you need to pay those off first. >> if you're looking at credit card statement, even if it's 18%, some credit cards can be higher, department store ones tend to be a little higher. 18 and you've charged up $1,000 on 18%, if you pay the minimum, you're going to be paying that back for nine years. >> the balance is $1,000, interest is 18%. if you only pay the minimum, which is tempting, only cost me this much money, nine years to pay off $1,000. and $900 in interest on $1,000 bill. >> you've effectively paid double for everything you purchased this holiday.

>> you make a plan, look at the date and look at the interest rate. you want to tackle the higher interest rates first, right? >> you want to pay more than the minimum. however, when you look at it, if you have a certain amount of money to pay, pay the minimum on the lower interest rate ones and get that high interest one paid off early. >> so let's say you lay it out, which is good, don't put your head in the sand. then you say i'm overwemd, i need help. what does your organization do? >> we are a non-profit and we provide financial counseling. we have certified financial counselors who will work with you and first they help you look at maybe ways to increase your income, which might be a good way to get these paid off, it's not a long-term solution, don't have to do it forever, might be a good way to get it paid off earlier. we'll look at your income and look at your expenses and help you tackle your debt. see what's left over to make sure you have enough money to handle your day to day and get

it paid off and get it paid off faster. >> that's the trick. >> right. >> thanks. >> patty hasen, president of clarify, you can tap our nbc 10 mobile app if you want to learn more. we posted a link to learn more about the services offered by the non-profit. if one of your new year's resolutions is to manage your time better, we have a segment that will be a good use to yours. how you can maximize every moment coming up.

well, if you haven't made them already you may be thinking of new year's resolutions today, healthier eating, more time at the gym. maybe time management to fit everything into your life you say you want in your life. laura wrote the book, i know how she does it, how successful women make the most of their time.

it's available in paper back starting january 23rd. she joins me now to talk about making better use of your time in 2017. thanks for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> the first thing is you have to know where your time goes, right? talk about that. >> if you want to spend your time better, the first thing is to figure out where it's going now. if you don't know, how can you make changes? i suggest that people try keeping track of their time for a few days, ideally a week so you know where it goes and how much you work and sleep and time in the gym if it's there or time watching tv, time with the family, time in the car. see what you like and don't like and what you can change. >> even though this is the start of 2017, look to the end of 2017 and envision what your last year looked like. >> if you want to spend your time well, you need to look forward and figure out what is a priority for you. you can do professionally and personally of the on the plofgsal side, pretend it's the end of 2017 and you're giving yourself a performance review.

you're popping the champagne cork because it's been an amazing year. what three to five things did you do? you can do this in your personal life too. over the holidays many people got those cards with the folded up sheets of colored paper, family holiday letter, right in they serve a purpose. they tell your friends and family what you did and what mattered to you. you can picture it's the end of 2017, you're writing this family holiday letter. been an amazing year, what three to five things did you do? >> in planning out you want to spend your time where you say your priorities are. look at the whole week, some of us plan our days and fit everything in but now there's not enough time. >> there are not enough hours in the day to get to everything you want to do but we don't live our lives in days, we live our lives in weeks. if you look at the whole week you can plan if in. a good time to do this maybe friday afternoon looking to the next week, maybe yourself a

short priority list, career, relationships, self, look out over next week to see where you can plan them in. >> you have an idea about moving tiles around, you can't fit it in there but maybe you can put it here and move this down? >> things don't have to happen at the exact time every day to count in your life. if you want to exercise, they want to exercise but then they talk themselves out of it because there's not a perfect time every single day. there doesn't have to be. maybe first thing in the morning one day, over lunch another day. one evening, once on the weekend and we just xer iced four times a week. >> even when you look at that, still, i have too much on your plate, there's something to do about that as well? >> when things are not the best use of our time, we can ignore or minimize or outsource. get it off your plate, in the outsourcing front, do this at work with delegation. at home, people tell me it costs

money to outsource household chores butt it doesn't cost anything to lower your standards. i would highly recommend that. >> you have to change the story that you tell because you hear it all the time, don't you? i'm just too busy. i'm just too busy. >> that's how people answer the question of how are you doing today? i'm busy, right. that's not really an answer. let's change our story. instead of saying i'm so busy, say i have time for the things that are important to me. and if you tell yourself that story, you'll look for evidence to support it and have a much better life. >> even if you can't say it out loud. >> inside you're saying it, that's not a priority to me, but instead of saying i don't have time, think that, it's not a priority because we can make choices of how we spend our time. >> thanks for joining us. once again the name of the book is "i know how she does it, how successful women make the most of their time" available in paper back starting january 3rd.

>> paying more at the pump. see how gas will cost more in one part of our area starting today. that's coming up.

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there's a tax change today, get ready to pay more for gas across pennsylvania. the third page of a gradual gas tax increase takes effect today, drivers will pay 8 cents more per gallon, making it 76 cents a gallon. new jersey changed its taxes on november 1st and the money raised will replenish the transportation trust fund paying for road and bridge repairs and transit improvement around the state. >> that's this edition of "nbc 10 @ issue." i'm tracy davidson. thanks for joining us.

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