‘I Think The Polls Are Going To Be Wrong—Again’

The roadside restaurant known as Harry and the Natives is an institution along Florida’s Treasure Coast—a family-owned spot in Hobe Sound where you can tuck yourself under a 20-foot tiki hut and order up a plate of coconut pancakes or—if you’re really feeling adventurous—the Gator Hash breakfast platter. They don’t open for breakfast until 8 a.m., but last week they posted a message on their website and Facebook page: “Fox & Friends coming Friday! We will be open at 5 a.m.”

When Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy saw the message, he picked up the phone and called Harry’s to warn them that he wouldn’t be doing live remotes until sometime after 6. “And he said people want to get there early and and get a spot, and I thought, okay, that seems ambitious. But this morning there were people who were lined up at one o’clock this morning just so they could get a table. Which is extraordinary.”

By the time Doocy went on the air, the place was packed:

Doocy’s morning at Harry’s was part of a special “Breakfast with Friends” series that will feature Fox & Friends regulars Lawrence Jones, Pete Hegseth, Rachel Campos-Duffy and Will Cain on location in diners in key states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida.

Doocy thinks the early-morning crowd at Harry’s speaks to the high interest people have in Tuesday’s mid-term elections, especially in a battleground state like Florida. After talking to voters live—and in the breaks between live segments—Doocy believes the pollsters may be missing some of what’s motivating people to go to the polls. “I think the polls are going to be wrong—again,” Doocy told me. “I think there’s an under-count of certain points of view.”

Doocy said 60 percent of the voters he talked to at Harry’s had already voted. Many of them said they were motivated to vote by kitchen table issues like the cost of groceries—or, for one man, the high cost of dating. “A guy named George said that because he’s on a fixed income—he’s retired—the cost of dating is so much higher. He has limited discretionary discretionary income. And so he’s got to be careful about where he goes and how often he goes out on dates and stuff like that. And he said, You know, I’m staying at home a lot. I’d rather go out but I can’t afford it.”

But as much as the Florida voters who got up way too early on a Friday morning wanted to talk about the election, they also wanted to see Steve Doocy and be part of Fox & Friends, which has been a ratings powerhouse for two decades and will soon mark its 22nd year at number one.

Does Doocy ever get tired of sitting on the show’s curvy couch? “It’s fun every day,” Doocy told me. “This is one of those jobs where you thank your lucky stars you wound up going on that interview once upon a time. I get paid to drink coffee on a couch and talk about whatever happened yesterday…I still love doing it.”

Doocy says the simple chemistry of Fox & Friends is what makes it work. “You know we take the news seriously, but we don’t take ourselves very seriously,” he told me. “And you just never know what’s going to be said or what’s going to happen. You don’t know who’s gonna pop in. It’s just the unknown elements. It’s it’s like a talk show about the news but you never know exactly where it’s going. And that’s part of the charm.”