Latest / Pod Save America / What Is the Polling Telling Us About 2026? + Gov. Andy Beshear (Crooked Con)

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What Is the Polling Telling Us About 2026? + Gov. Andy Beshear (Crooked Con) · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: Hello, everyone. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We are live at CrookedCon.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I'm so pleased to see so many data nerds here.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: This is very exciting. In this panel, I'll be talking
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: to some of the very best opinion researchers in the
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: business to talk about what happened on Tuesday, what the
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: polling is telling us about 2026 and beyond. Joining me
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: are Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark. Terrence Woodbury at Pitt Strategies,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: David Shore of Blue Rose Research, and Carlos Odio of
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Eckes Research.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: The mood in this room, as you can tell, is
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: pretty good because of what happened on Tuesday.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Why would it happen?
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: The Sixers won? Actually, I think they lost on Tuesday.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: But I want to talk about like why we should
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: be happy about it, maybe why we should trim our enthusiasm.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go down. We're going to start by
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: asking each one of you to take, give me just
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: one takeaway you have from the results, either across the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: board or in the race that you think is interesting
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: and maybe tells us something about what's to come. Sarah?
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: Democrats are super mad. And they showed up to say
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: how mad they are. I bet my team, even as
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: mad as I've listened to Democrats be, I bet my
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: team that I would take them to Vegas if Abigail
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: Spanberger beat 13 plus, okay, if she went above that,
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: and if Mikey Sherrill went above seven plus. So I
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: have to take my whole team to Vegas now.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Are you hiring?
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: Let's see, when you invest in the base, you win.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: We saw a reassembling of our base electorate where we
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: did 20 points better amongst young folks in Virginia, 20
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: points better amongst Latino voters in Virginia, 11 points better
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: amongst black voters in Virginia, and we have seen cycle
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: over cycle erosion with many of these base voters. And
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: so to see us not only recover what we lost
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: in 2024, But to actually build on some of that
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: coalition gives me a lot of hope about what we
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: could do in the future.
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: To me, the real takeaway, I think a lot of
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: people on both the Democratic and Republican side had convinced
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: themselves that Donald Trump had rewritten the rules of politics.
• 3:53
  Speaker 6: And I was wrong. Gravity is real. If you do
• 3:55
  Speaker 6: a bunch of unpopular things that piss off a lot
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: of people, then you get punished for it. And it's
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: nice to see democracy working.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:05
  Speaker 7: He has bent the rules of politics, but he hasn't
• 4:07
  Speaker 7: broken them. He is incredibly unpopular. And guess what?
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: It mattered.
• 4:13
  Speaker 7: We've gotten so used in the years of Trump to
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: believe that nothing matters. And we saw on Tuesday, no,
• 4:19
  Speaker 7: it still has consequences. And we still have the power
• 4:22
  Speaker 7: to hold him accountable.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: Sorry.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: Also, I'll just say, because I wanted to get my
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Vegas anecdote in, but I also, swing voters exist. Like,
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: and There was 7% of Trump voters turned out and
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: voted for the Democrat in New Jersey and in Virginia.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe, I don't know, Carlos, maybe you can talk a
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: little bit about how much you think, like obviously there's
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: some persuasion, but how much you think of this sort
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: of turnout persuasion, particularly with Latino voters, particularly in New Jersey,
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  Speaker 2: I think, where we have a little more data.
• 4:54
  Speaker 7: Yeah, what I'll say is I've spent the last year
• 4:56
  Speaker 7: trying to convince people that Latino voters are winnable. I
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: feel like now I'm going to have to spend the
• 5:00
  Speaker 7: next year convincing you all that they're still losable. So
• 5:04
  Speaker 7: I do want to temper expectations a little bit, right?
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: What we saw in New Jersey was levels of support
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  Speaker 7: closer to what we had seen in 2021. So higher
• 5:16
  Speaker 7: than 2020 or certainly 2024 in the most Latino areas,
• 5:20
  Speaker 7: but still lower than 2016 or 2017. So what essentially
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: you're doing is rewinding the tape. So going into 2026,
• 5:27
  Speaker 7: 2024 levels of Latino support So the Harris election are
• 5:33
  Speaker 7: not the right benchmark for thinking about 2026, but neither
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  Speaker 7: is 2018, right? A blue wave election. It's more like 2022,
• 5:41
  Speaker 7: like a year of stability. And Dan, to your question,
• 5:44
  Speaker 7: it is of course always both. It is vote switching
• 5:47
  Speaker 7: and it is turnout differentials. That's what you expect when
• 5:50
  Speaker 7: you have the public reacting to the occupant of the
• 5:53
  Speaker 7: White House is that it comes out in both. There's
• 5:56
  Speaker 7: a false wall between persuasion and mobilization. They tend to
• 5:59
  Speaker 7: point in the same direction. And we did see a
• 6:01
  Speaker 7: lot of crossover voting. Like record this, I don't like
• 6:06
  Speaker 7: to cite the exits, but for lack of other data,
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  Speaker 7: I will say suggestively, it does hold up that in
• 6:13
  Speaker 7: New Jersey, something like 15% of Latinos who had voted
• 6:17
  Speaker 7: for Trump crossed and voted for Mickey Sherrill. In New York, Mamdani,
• 6:22
  Speaker 7: it was around also, actually it was 18% for Mickey, Mikey.
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  Speaker 7: It was 15% for Mamdani, 15% of Latino Trump voters
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  Speaker 7: in New York crossed the aisle to vote for Mamdani.
• 6:33
  Speaker 7: And in California for Prop 50, 23% of Latino Trump
• 6:36
  Speaker 7: voters voted yes for Prop 50 after just having voted
• 6:41
  Speaker 7: for Donald Trump a year ago. And so we've seen
• 6:43
  Speaker 7: this in our own polling, where we have seen Latinos
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  Speaker 7: saying who had voted for Donald Trump, I will vote
• 6:48
  Speaker 7: for Democrats in 2026. It's about 11% of Trump voters.
• 6:51
  Speaker 7: So I want to manage expectations. A lot of things
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  Speaker 7: are just, partisanship is a hell of a drug. hard
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  Speaker 7: to change people. 11% is a lot, especially when you
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: consider that what we saw in 2024 was something like
• 7:02
  Speaker 7: 9% of Latino Biden voters crossing over to vote for
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: And Carlos, I think there's... Oh, go ahead. Good, David,
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  Speaker 2: go ahead.
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  Speaker 6: No, I just want to jump in. It's nerdy numbers here.
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: This is fresh off the presses. I did these queries,
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: I think, right before I walked over here. In order
• 7:17
  Speaker 6: to really decompose this support versus turnout question, you have
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: to know the individuals who voted. And Some members of
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: our staff actually just called the election offices last night
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: in order to get the lists. And so our best
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: guess is that it was about 50-50, turnout versus persuasion.
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: It turns out both things matter a lot. It's not
• 7:34
  Speaker 6: a false choice. But to throw a little bit of
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  Speaker 6: cold water on the Latino story and the young voter story,
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  Speaker 6: I think that the big story of 2024 was that
• 7:44
  Speaker 6: among these groups, there was this enormous polarization by political engagement,
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: where most of the young voters that went for Trump are,
• 7:52
  Speaker 6: and this is true for Latinos as well, are, were
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: the voters who don't care very much about politics. That's
• 7:57
  Speaker 6: where the bulk of these losses were. And most of
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: those people just didn't turn out to vote, you know,
• 8:03
  Speaker 6: on Tuesday. They're not exactly, you know, trying to get
• 8:06
  Speaker 6: on off-year elections. But one, that's a great bull signal
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  Speaker 6: for 2026. They're probably not going to vote in 2026 either.
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  Speaker 6: And then even on top of that, there still were
• 8:15
  Speaker 6: large persuasion gains. And so I think this is the
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  Speaker 6: best thing we could have hoped for.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things you heard, Carlos, from people after
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  Speaker 2: people were talking about the Latinos' persuasion in this election
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  Speaker 2: is that is, this is what happens with the ICE
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  Speaker 2: raids and the mass deportation. I know we don't know
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: exactly what caused these voters to split, but you did
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of research about what was causing Latino voters
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  Speaker 2: who voted for Trump to back away. What is the
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: issue set that's making them wait? Is it immigration? Is
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: it ICE? Is it just affordability? What are you hearing?
• 8:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we get asked, is it immigration? Yes, and?
• 8:47
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: Part of this is immigration. We'll say we had a
• 8:50
  Speaker 7: different debate about immigration in 2024 that was about the border.
• 8:53
  Speaker 7: On the border, Latinos are a lot like most other Americans.
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  Speaker 7: When you have a debate about people who've been here
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  Speaker 7: a long time, Latinos are a little different from the
• 9:00
  Speaker 7: rest of the electorate. And these raids have challenged fundamental views,
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: especially because they have extended. The debate's not just about
• 9:10
  Speaker 7: undocumented immigrants. It is about US citizens who the Supreme
• 9:14
  Speaker 7: Court says ICE agents can legally profile. And so a
• 9:18
  Speaker 7: feeling of the identity of being Latino still being politicized.
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  Speaker 7: People talk a lot about assimilation. Assimilation is a real thing.
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  Speaker 7: But when the identity keeps being the subject of political debate,
• 9:28
  Speaker 7: you get pulled back. But it's not just immigration. Of
• 9:31
  Speaker 7: course it's not just immigration. Latino voters are not extraterrestrials,
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  Speaker 7: live in all the same communities and experience all the
• 9:38
  Speaker 7: same things. It is the economy. Of course it's the economy.
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  Speaker 7: And it's the chaos of it all. And it is
• 9:43
  Speaker 7: the extremism and the abuse of power. It's kind of
• 9:45
  Speaker 7: everything happening all at once. when it comes to Donald
• 9:49
  Speaker 7: Trump and not isolating any one element. Let's not make
• 9:51
  Speaker 7: the mistake we've done in the past of flattening any
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: voters down to one dimension. It has been a challenge
• 9:57
  Speaker 7: of engaging Latino voters, of treating them as one dimensional,
• 10:01
  Speaker 7: that they only care about immigration and the most liberal
• 10:03
  Speaker 7: possible policy on immigration every single time. We got to
• 10:07
  Speaker 7: think about all of our voters as full human beings
• 10:11
  Speaker 7: with a more complex issue set and ideology.
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: And the other thing I want to throw in here is,
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  Speaker 6: you know, Carlos was just talking about how the difference between,
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: you know, people who have come here recently versus people
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: who have been here for a long time. But, you know,
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: in all of the testing that we've done, there's also
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: the people who are literally citizens, you know, who are
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: being harassed because of the color of their skin. And
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: that's something that plays pretty poorly with everyone.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Terrence, anything you saw related to the black vote or
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: other base communities on Tuesday?
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, look, we saw tremendous turnout in the black community.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: I was in Georgia on election day, actually just came
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: from Georgia yesterday, and where we won two statewide public commissions.
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: I was also in Georgia in 2024 on election day
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: on behalf of the Kamala Harris.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: So you're not necessarily good luck.
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: That's what you're saying, yes. And look, in 2024, we
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: saw the black turnout underperform white turnout by 15 points.
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: On last Tuesday, we saw black turnout overperform white turnout
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: in Georgia by one point. And so again, when our
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: base shows up, we win. The other group I do
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: wanna talk about though is, along with black voters, are
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: men of color, who we have seen eroding from the
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: Democratic Party more rapidly than any other group. I have
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: argued that men of color have emerged as the new
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: swing voters. And I believe that they determined the outcome
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: of the 2024 election, and we saw them once again
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: turn out in higher numbers, swing in higher numbers, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: we are beginning to bring them back into the coalition
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: because the number one issue, again, not just economy, the
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: number one issue is cost of things, and we kind
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: of conflate that with the economy, but specifically with the
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: young men, it is affordability crisis, it is increasingly a
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: healthcare crisis, and I think that we saw Democrats really
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: coalesce around those two issues.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: You know, Sarah, Sarah, then everyone should jump in here.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: The big conversation before Tuesday that people were having is
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: about the sort of the toxicity of the Democratic brand,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: how unpopular the party is, how the basis is enchanted
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: with our leadership. Democrats, you know, there are all these
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: polls came out over the weekend with Trump with really
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: low numbers. When you dig into it, Democrats are also
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: quite unpopular. They even weren't that popular in Virginia, New
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Jersey on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I was on your podcast
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: a couple weeks ago. We listened to Democratic voters. They
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: were not happy with their party. Yet they turned out
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: and won. Are we overly worried about the Democratic brand
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: in a world where people are so motivated by Trump?
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: No, because it's a long-term problem Democrats are going to
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: have to correct. I mean, to do sort of a
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: root and branch removing of MAGA and the toxic spores
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: is that Trump has unleashed on the party. Like, Democrats
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: can't just have a party that is based on being
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: opposed to Trump, right? There has to be a party
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: where people are like, hey, I know what these guys
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: are for. And when I talk to Democratic voters all
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: the time, and man, are they mad. I mean, we've
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: been doing these groups where we ask Democrats, do you
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: want the party to be more moderate or do you
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: want the party to be more progressive? Because that mirrors
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: this big debate that's sort of happening online and everything else.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Guess what? If you didn't tell me which focus group
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: the voters were in, I wouldn't be able to tell
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: because they all just want them to be more aggressive.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: And so like, I gotta tell, I don't know if,
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: this might not be good because maybe Hakeem is here,
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: but like Hakeem Jeffries did our, like our podcast the
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: other night when the election was coming in and people
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: were not being nice to him. in the chat and
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: when you do the focus groups with Democratic voters, they
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: want their leadership to match the moment and they do
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: not feel like that is what is happening. They want
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: wartime generals. They want wartime generals. Just going back though
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: really quickly to sort of the different demographic groups and
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: how that impacted these off year elections, one of the
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: things that's happened in the political realignment that Donald Trump
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: has sort of forced into our politics is that a
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: bunch of people like me, sort of moderate Republicans, maybe
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: they voted for John McCain, maybe they voted for Mitt Romney,
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: they live in the suburbs, they're college educated, they are
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: now like angry wine moms who wanna like stomp on
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: the neck of any Republican and they turn out to
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: vote in these droves. you can see there's sort of
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: like the persuasion effect, but a lot of the numbers,
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: when you look at it, it's gonna be relative to turnout.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: And so the trade where Donald Trump bought in all
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: of these low propensity voters and then even was able
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: to take low, and this is something Democrats, I really
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: want them to understand, that if the turnout was bigger
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: in 2024, Donald Trump would have won by more. And
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: so like this idea that sort of like, oh, the
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: bigger the turnout, the better it is for Democrats, it
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: has been inverted. And now in a midterm, in an
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: off year, you have all these college educated suburban voters,
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: many of whom would have shown up and voted for
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: a Republican. They vote for Democrats now, the low propensity voters,
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: they don't show up, which bodes well for 2026.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: But it's a long-term problem.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: But it's a long-term problem. That is where I started. Yeah.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: And look, and some of it, and look, this is
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: where I'll say some really unpopular stuff. Some people are like, well,
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: is it substance? Is it style? Is it our messaging?
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Is it our message? Is it our messenger? It's all
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: of those things, right? It's obviously all of those things.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: And there's a bunch of things that Democrats are just
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: going to have to correct to get to going back
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: to the immigration thing. I talk to Democrats all the time.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: including Hispanic voters all the time, and they want a
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: secure border. They just do. And Donald Trump has done something,
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: and you talk about storytelling a lot. It's one of
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: my favorite sort of themes that you talk about. The
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: way that Donald Trump was able to take crime, immigration, terrorism,
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: and jobs and turn them all into one issue around immigration,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: he collapses them together and then tells a story that
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: kind of hits people at a gut level where they
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: believe in it. And what happens is when they have fear,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: they're afraid because of crime. That's why you see all
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: the Fox News stories about this person was killed by
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: an illegal immigrant. It overrides the ability to access compassion.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: Because you're like, well, unless I'm safe, I can't be
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: compassionate about other people. And Donald Trump really was able
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: to do that. And so until, like, Democrats are going
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: to have to find a way to be like, no,
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: we need a secure border. But these excesses, and this is,
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: it's not just that Hispanic voters are like, oh, I'm
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: seeing this, like, broadly. Like, ICE is in their communities.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: In the focus groups, if you talk to Hispanic voters,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: ICE is showing up at the schools where their kids
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: go to school to drag people off. And that's what's
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: changing their minds, the direct access. personal consequences, because it's
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: always direct personal consequences.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: David, what do you think about the Democratic Party brand?
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: Well, obviously, there's a lot of work to do. But
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: I do want to say that, you know, to give
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: a little bit of credit to leadership, things have really
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: gotten a lot better in the last year. You know,
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: just to put some numbers on this, even just since
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: the shutdown, like one year ago, when you asked voters,
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: what party do you trust more on the cost of living,
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: Democrats or Republicans? Only 38% of Americans picked the cost
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: of living, and today that number is 48%. It should
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: be above 50%, but that is pretty massive progress. Trump's
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: approval rating is quite a bit lower than it was
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: two months ago. The Democrats are performing quite a bit
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: better on the generic ballot. And so I don't want
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: to be too hopeless. I like to tell people we
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: are not fighting against a hyper-competent board. The other side
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: is making a bunch of mistakes, and I do think
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: Democrats have been exploiting at least some of them.
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: I just want to add to the list of immigrants
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: and crime, that list of things that Donald Trump is
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: blaming for all of our problems, and to make sure
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: we don't forget gays on that list, because very importantly,
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: that is a part of the FOIA. But all of
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: that together is the zero-sum politic, right? The zero-sum politic
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: that says that you have less because those people that
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: don't deserve it have too much. And a part of
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: what Democrats do still need to figure out is to
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: offer a different reason for the pain that they're feeling.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: When I'm in focus groups almost every day, I am
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: hearing a level of pain and anger and frustration from
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: voters that feel like they are working two jobs, following
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: the rules, doing everything right, and still can't get ahead.
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: And they need a reason for that pain. And he's
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: giving us the reason for that pain. There's all the
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: people that have less than you that he wants to
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: take it from. And I would offer that the reason
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: The alternative to that is not because of the people
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: that have less than you. It's because of the people
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: that have way too damn much.
• 18:53
  Speaker 9: 73% of Americans believe that wealthy billionaires and corporations are
• 19:02
  Speaker 9: rigging the system to keep themselves rich.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And they believe that in August.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: Of 2023, before the richest man in the world doged
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: our federal government, before big ugly ass bill took healthcare
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: and school lunches away from poor kids. And so we
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: have the fodder, we have the evidence. We now have
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: to own a narrative that we understand the reason for
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: your pain. And it's not because those trans kids, it's
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: not because those immigrants, it's because of those that have
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: way too much that are willing to take from you
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: and from them so that they can have even more.
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: And I want to, because this is one thing I
• 19:43
  Speaker 7: think about a lot, because, you know, there are short-term
• 19:45
  Speaker 7: persuasive forces at play, right? Who is trusted more on
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: the economy or cost of living is going to be
• 19:49
  Speaker 7: really important when it comes to next year. There are
• 19:52
  Speaker 7: deeper structural issues at play. And I think about the
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: story people tell themselves about the parties. You know, people aren't.
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: rational actors, right? Like they think of what party they
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: belong in based on what kind of person they are
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: and the stories they believe about the parties. And there's
• 20:08
  Speaker 7: a story about the Democrats, which is Democrats look out
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: for the little guy. Minorities, working people, those trying to
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: get ahead, Republicans only look out for the rich. There
• 20:20
  Speaker 7: is the MAGA alternative, which is I have been waiting
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: my turn in line for the American dream. There are
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: people cutting in line in front of me. And the
• 20:29
  Speaker 7: Democrats are cheering on the people who are cutting in
• 20:32
  Speaker 7: line in front of me. And the challenge is less
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: than 50% of Latinos right now believe in the Democratic story.
• 20:40
  Speaker 7: It's still there. It's still strong. But it is battered.
• 20:45
  Speaker 7: The MAGA alternative has more adherence than it has in
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: the past. It's around 40%.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Do you have a theory as to why, like what
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: happened over the course of time? Because obviously there's a
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: dramatic shift here from 16 you know, 12 and 16
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to where we are now?
• 21:00
  Speaker 7: Well, this is David Shorbate, because it rhymes with global
• 21:03
  Speaker 7: divides that are happening, right? Like, this is not just
• 21:06
  Speaker 7: something that happened because of a few choices the Democratic
• 21:09
  Speaker 7: Party made. We're seeing this across Western democracies, right? We're
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: seeing it in Argentina and Brazil, and we're seeing it
• 21:14
  Speaker 7: now in Canada where it hadn't held, in Portugal where
• 21:17
  Speaker 7: it hadn't held. All of a sudden, there is a
• 21:18
  Speaker 7: global divide in priorities. As the world has become more secularized,
• 21:22
  Speaker 7: more urbanized, more educated, college educated, the priorities shifted. And
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: you have a world of people I guess most people
• 21:30
  Speaker 7: in this room live in this world that has a
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: different set of priorities that is about democracy and rights
• 21:35
  Speaker 7: and the environment. And then another set of people who
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: feel passed over by the people who are doing well
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: off and saying in reaction to that, becoming far more
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: traditionalist and nationalist. And that's a really big gulf that
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: exists across national context. And so to cross that, you
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: don't cross that with one ad in October. You cross
• 21:56
  Speaker 7: that with bigger gestures with people feeling reprioritized in your framework.
• 22:01
  Speaker 7: And I'll say the biggest thing in this moment is
• 22:04
  Speaker 7: breaking from the past for Democrats. That the way out
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: of this is you've got to break hard from the
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: Biden years because it broke the image of Democrats among
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: many people.
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: Go ahead.
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: That was set up for you.
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree with everything Carlos just said. I just
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: want to emphasize the breaking from the past moment because
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: I think Democrats are in a very weird place that
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: we really haven't been in since the 80s. which is that,
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: you know, voters see the Biden administration as a failure.
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: Joe Biden, when he left office, was more unpopular than
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump after January 6th. And that's just where the
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: voters are. You know, I think that that's a very
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: different thing. You know, after in the Bush years, you know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: in the Trump one, the previous, you know, Bill Clinton,
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: Barack Obama, they had been incredibly popular people. And then
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: the Republicans won due to some weird quirk of our
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: electoral system and That's not the situation we're in here.
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: And I want to emphasize that. And then, you know,
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: the other thing, I really like the framing that basically
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: politics has become much more about self-expression of values as
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: opposed to the material, you know, material needs, health care
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: policy and unemployment and all this other stuff. And that's
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: just been a really terrible situation for Democrats. And, you know,
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: I think breaking with the past is important. But, you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: I think that A crosstab I really like to look
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: at is when you ask voters what issue you care
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: the most about, almost every single subgroup you can imagine
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: picks cost of living as number one, Latinos, young voters,
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: politically disengaged voters, everything. except for one, which is people
• 23:39
  Speaker 6: who have donated to a Democratic campaign in the last year. Now,
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: for them, climate change is number one, and then it's democracy, and,
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: you know, whatever. And, like, look, that group, it's about
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: 1% of the population, maybe 90% of crooked, you know, subscribers.
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: And I think that a lot of the changes in
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: the media environment over the last 10 years have kind
• 24:01
  Speaker 6: of given them a stranglehold over, you know, the Democratic Party.
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: And I think that that's mostly been bad, to be clear.
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: I donate Democratic campaigns, nothing wrong with that. But I
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: do think that we have to use this newfound power
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: more responsibly and make sure that we're making space for
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: what the other 99% of the public cares about.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: And along those lines, we can clap for that. Like,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: along those lines, is it the.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Is the politicians responding to the incentives of the grassroots
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: donor community? Because it's not just, there's a world in
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: which it's like, Democrats care about these esoteric issues because
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: this is what the billionaires care about, but it's really
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: not that. It's the people who are giving $ 5 at
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: a time, right? And is it also the media environment?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Because one of the things is you're a big proponent
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: of this idea that we Democrats should talk about the
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: economy all times, affordability all times.
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: Every moment, for sure.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: At every single moment. I'm kidding. But one of the
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: challenges is, you'll hear this from members of Congress or
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: other politicians, is in this media environment, which often, you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: algorithmically based, it often prioritizes identity issues first. It's like
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: very hard to get attention on economic issues, right? Like,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: how do you think about that?
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: Well, I think that's 100% the challenge. It's not anyone's fault,
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: but what stories get put in front of people's eyeballs
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: is just fundamentally different than it was 10 years ago.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: But I think.
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: One of the things I like the best about an
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: obscure politician named Zoran Mamdani is that I remember as
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: soon as his first ads came out, he ran the
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: most economically focused campaign of any politician that I can
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: remember maybe since Barack Obama in 2012. You go to
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: his website and every single thing was about the cost
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: of living. And I think people take for granted how
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: weird that is. There were meetings. where someone was saying, oh,
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: let's put climate change in there. And someone was like, no, no,
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: we're not going to do that. And then that's the
• 26:02
  Speaker 6: discipline piece, but it's not just discipline. You know, the
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: reality is that, you know, there are Democratic politicians talking
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: about gas prices until they turn blue and nobody gets
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: attention to it. But he did a really good job
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: of making videos about things that are impacting people's day-to-day lives.
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: And he got eyeballs. I'm not saying it's easy. Politics
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: is not easy. It's very hard to become an elected official,
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: but that is the challenge.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: There is this, I would just note, for those people
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: who follow the online debates about democratic messaging strategy, is
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: that David is sort of the person seen as the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: main advocate for something called popularism, which is where you
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: really talk about popular issues only, which has been treated
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: as sort of a centrist approach to politics. It's much
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: more complicated than that. But the fact that the person
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: who ran the most David Shore-like campaign in the last
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: 10 years was a democratic socialist from New York.
• 27:00
  Speaker 10: This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile.
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• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I want to get back to this more about democratic messaging,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: but But we're still in 2013 for a second. I've
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: done this five times.
• 28:27
  Speaker 8: 2025.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: If the polls had shown that Democrats were going to
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: win by 10 and we won by 5, everyone in
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: this room would be screaming about broken polls. The polls
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey said we win by 5. In Virginia,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: maybe 7 to 9. We won by a lot more
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: than that. Do you guys have a theory? We're used
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: to the polls underestimating Trump supporters. The polls here underestimated Democrats.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Democratic supporters? What do you think happened?
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think that pollsters are social creatures.
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: You know, polling is extremely hard. And my guess is
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: that after 2024, all the public polls heavily underestimated Trump.
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: And I'm sure that everyone was trying their best to
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: try to not make their results look too democratic. But also,
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: it's just really worth saying that we're in a very
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: weird place in our politics right now, where there's this
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: enormous polarization by political engagement. My best guess is that
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: the most highly engaged 25% of the electorate is now
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: like 30 percentage points more democratic than the bottom 25.
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: And so trying to predict what's gonna happen in a
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: general is just a completely different game than what's going
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: to happen in a low turnout primary. And I think
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: that folks are having a lot of trouble with that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: But they were pretty right in 2022 and 2018, right?
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: For sure.
• 29:46
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Like, we sort of felt like we had nailed getting high.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: Like, though, I will say, actually, the polls did underestimate
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: Democrats in 2022. Maybe not. And I'd say about the
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: same amount as this time by like, you know, two
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: to three points on average. But I think it's a
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: big challenge for us, and I just want to really
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: make this point, is that all of those voters who
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: turned against us last year are still here. And they're
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: not going to make their voice heard. We're not going
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: to see them again until 2028, but they're going to
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: really still matter. And so it's really incumbent on us
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: to not forget that they exist just because they're not voting.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: There's like a reason that I like qualitative work more
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: than polling. And it's the reason is that the polls
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: just cannot capture, we'll call it enthusiasm, but also it
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: can't capture meh. And so like, you know, what we
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: had this time was a ton of rage and enthusiasm
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: to go out and vote for Democrats, which it couldn't.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: quite capture. And I think in 2024, it couldn't capture
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: the meh as effectively.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: That really was the theme of your focus groups pre
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: the candidate switch was meh.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: I would say my very, yes, complicated analysis is that
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: people are very meh on Joe Biden. Meh to meh.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: And it did help with Kamala Harris, but that hole
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: was pretty big. Can I just say one thing?
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: Nobody.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: I understand that it feels annoying for the former Republicans
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: to walk into these more Democratic spaces and be like,
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: I have some ideas for you about how you should be.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: But can I just offer this point about break from
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: the past? I do think I have the weird, whether
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: it's luxury or not, but I have been behind the
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: scenes on communications for both political parties. And there is
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: a million cultural differences between the way the two of
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: us do things. But one of the things that really
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: strikes me is the way that Democrats test themselves. Like
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: they test ads constantly. They are looking for margins all
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: the time. And Republicans, like Donald Trump's big thing in
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: 2016 that allowed him to break through was like, build
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: a wall. We're gonna build a wall. And it's gonna
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: have a door in it. And it's like, everybody's like,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: who's this idiot? Well, the one who wins because, Why
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: don't Democrats just start being like, instead of trying to
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: explain to people that they didn't really mean to fund
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: the police, say, we're going to hire a million more
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: community cops. And that's how we're going to start talking
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: about crime. We're going to hire a million new nurses.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: We're going to hire a million new social workers. We're
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: going to focus on the people who help people. We're
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: going to focus on building these middle class jobs. And
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: just have, I mean, I just, the like analysis is,
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: The paralysis by analysis I think really hurts Democrats from
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: being able to be like, I'm gonna say simple things.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: I'm not gonna talk about how we need to talk
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: about rebuilding the middle class. I'm just gonna be like,
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: here's a bunch of middle class jobs and how we're
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: gonna build those out and that how they're gonna make
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: your life better because you may be a person who
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: doesn't care about nursing, doesn't like waiting, in the waiting
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: room for such a long time. You know, all of
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: the places where people are feeling pain points, we could
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: solve this by shifting AI. AI is coming, it's already here,
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: it's gonna do destructive things to white collar jobs. Well,
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: there's all these other jobs that need doing. Let's talk
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: about those. And until a Democrat could just sort of
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: find a gut level instinct toward not, and even as someone,
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: don't have 10 meetings to listen to 10 pollsters Not,
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: you should listen to us, but like, you know. But
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: just like, don't, you can't do that all the time.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: Somebody's gotta, in their gut, be like, directionally, I know
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: what it's gonna be. It's gonna be about people working,
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: it's gonna be about how that improves everybody's lives in America,
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: and the tribe we all belong to is Americans, and
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna stop breaking you up into little buckets, and
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: that's how we're gonna move forward.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: I would argue that directionally, it's still gotta be about
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: those people that have way.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Too damn much.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: That are willing to take from you and take from
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: them so that they can have even more.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: The reason that's so important.
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: That's not a plan, though. It's a grievance.
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: I mean, well, first, I think I think the narrative
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: must start with defining the problem.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: And the problem cannot.
• 33:56
  Speaker 7: There's got to be a villain.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: And the problem cannot only be. Think about this.
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: What reason have Democrats given for why your life sucks?
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: What reason have we offered? I can tell you, there's
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: been one for the past 10 years.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump?
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. That's it. It is not, one, they're not
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: buying it.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: I could tell you right now in focus groups, racism
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: existed before Donald Trump. This is the shit I hear
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: every day. Well, they were racist before Donald Trump. They
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: were sexist before Donald Trump. I was broke before Donald Trump.
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: My hood sucked before Donald Trump. And so we're going
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: to have to offer something more than that. And I
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: can tell you the thing that 73% of Americans believe
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: is that those billionaires and greedy corporations are rigging the system.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: And the.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: Wealth divide, the explosion in the wealth divide that is
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: happening because of AI is only going to exacerbate this.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: We saw Elon Musk's wealth go from $ 10 billion... to $ 44.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Billion in eight months.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: Let's have a conversation about it, because I can tell
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: you they're pretty pissed off, and this is the reason.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: For a lot of that pain.
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: Meanwhile, he's building a golden ballroom right now. I mean,
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: while the federal government is closed, we can have this conversation, guys,
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: and we can still make it about affordability.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Sarah, I think you raised two parts with Democratic messaging. Like,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: is there over-polling over message testing? We can talk about that.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: We have pollsters and message testing here. The other problem
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: is we have too many policy people. Like, in 2016,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I wrote an unsolicited memo to the Clinton campaign about
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: running for Trump. And one of the things I put
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: in there was you should fire all the policy staff
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: because it wasn't going to be a white paper election.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And we talk about, like, you need, like, the hard
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: challenge is how do you get affordability breakthrough? Like Zoran
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Mandami is obviously a generationally talented communicator. He can do
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: all the videos. He's effortlessly charming. He can do all that.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: But the other thing he did is he had policies
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: that were memorable and broke through because they caused controversy.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Free buses, city-run grocery stores, rent freeze, tax the rich.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Everyone could do that in four things. That's what the
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: wall is, right? The wall, every voter knew the wall
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: was an idiotic policy, but it signaled something. And so
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: like Kamala Harris had a very well done, very smart
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: tax credit for first-time homebuyers, but like you're never going
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: to get attention on that, right? So it's like, it's
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: not just messages you have to have like, you have
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: to have ideas to break through. Yeah.
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: I just want to really highlight, I mean, I agree
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: with everything there, but I think the important thing is
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: that there were only three or four. I think the
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: biggest problem that Democrats have, I mean, first, a lot
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: of the things we push for are unpopular. But actually,
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: I think we just have way too many things. Obviously,
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: the Zoran example is good. But my nerdy thing that
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: I like to go back to is that there is
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: a Labor prime minister in Australia, Albanese. The Labor has
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: been in power for way longer than they've had any
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: business to. And one of the secrets to how they
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: ran is that they picked three issues. They're like, we're
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: gonna make pensions better, we're gonna make it cheaper to
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: go to college, and we're gonna lower crime, and that
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: was it. They just picked three things and they repeated it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: You can't break through if you're split across a thousand
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: different issues at once.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is, we're sort of in this world in
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: these campaigns of trying to appease every audience, right? Where
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: it's like, what's our thing for the climate change group?
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: What's our thing for this group? Stuff like that.
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: And I, oh.
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: Go ahead. Well, I just, I really, I think that
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: micro-targeting is just one of the most overrated concepts in politics.
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: Where everyone wants to say, oh, we're going to give
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: this thing to this group and this thing to this group.
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: But the way that you win is by picking broadly
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: appealing messages that work for everyone.
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: I just think we have to think less in terms
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: of policies and more in terms of fights. What's the
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: fight you want to have? What's the debate you want
• 37:53
  Speaker 7: to be having at any given point? Because if you've
• 37:54
  Speaker 7: got a policy that the other side's not going to
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: pick on, that there's not going to be heat around it,
• 38:00
  Speaker 7: it's just a policy.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: But these are easy to weave together, like what we're
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: all saying, right? So this idea, Okay, Elon Musk yesterday
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: got a trillion dollar package. He got a trillion dollar package.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: He cut USAID and 600,000 people have died since he
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: did that. And SNAP benefits aren't getting through. Trump is
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: building a ballroom. Like those are contrast messaging. Look at
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: what they're doing and look at what's happening as a
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: result of it. And here's how I'm gonna solve it.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: I often think Democrats miss the here's what I'm gonna
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: do to solve it piece, which is why like this
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: question of what your priorities are Everybody cares about having
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: a job. Everybody cares that they can afford things, that
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: their streets are safe. Those are the main things people
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: care about. And Democrats, and some of it is by
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: having something that they're passionate about, that they can say
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: who they're for. We're for everybody who wants to work
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: at a job and live a good life. All of
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: a sudden, that's a big wide open aperture. The second
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: you're like, well, here's what we're doing for trans people,
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: and here's what we're doing for black people, and here's
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: what we're doing for women, everybody's like, well, I'm excluded
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: from that group, so I've stopped listening.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: And all of those people... want to bring down costs.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's right.
• 39:13
  Speaker 7: All of those groups.
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: But that is, and that's it. I mean, set some
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: high level narratives that you can tag things onto. That's
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: what Trump did with immigration. Immigration became about crime. It
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: became about jobs. It became about grievance. And you can
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: do all of that with one thing. Democrats just need
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: to do that about jobs and affordability. Jobs and affordability
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: all day long. And not get distracted by everything else.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: Because Republicans wanna fight with you about trans stuff.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: That's a question. There is a messaging dilemma every Democrat faces.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: We get David's polls, we get Carlos' polls, listen to
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: your focus groups, and it's like affordability, affordability, affordability. And
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: we know we have this huge trust deficit on the
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: issues that matter most. But then Trump invades a city
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: with troops. How do you guys think, or how would
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: you advise your clients on how to navigate that dilemma?
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Because there's a moral obligation, probably, who would feel that
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: we've got to speak up against this stuff. There's a
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: news incentive, probably, because it's what they like. You can
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: tell CNN or Posse America that you want to come
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: talk about your affordable housing, and we will ask you
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: the questions, give you a chance to do it, but
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: also we want to know what you're doing to stop
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: the invasion of the city. How would you advise the folks,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: your clients, to think about those things?
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: OK, I'll tell you.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: Why is Donald Trump sending troops into cities while you
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: guys are getting poorer and can't afford groceries?
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: OK.
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: They talk about trans sports. Why is Donald Trump talking
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: about something that happens in like 12 places or like
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: in 12 individual instances when the vast majority of Americans
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: cannot afford groceries? Why is he building a ballroom? Why
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: is he paying Elon 12? Why is he making a
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: trillion dollars when you can't afford groceries? You, you, you, you.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: All day long, you person who can't afford things. But
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: you can't be boring about it. You can't do a
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: PowerPoint about it, okay? You gotta get in people's chili
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: and make it feel like you really care about whether
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: or not they have a job.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: You know, the other....
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: One is the obvious, he's trying to distract you and
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: make you believe that they're the reason for your problem, right?
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: Which is, that is the entire zero-sum politic. But the
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: other part is that.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: We do have to start future-casting.
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: We have to start describing the world as we see it,
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: the world where you should be able to work one job,
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: afford to provide for your family and contribute to society.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: You should be able to send your kids to school.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: And them not end up like me 20 years later
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: still paying their student loans. We have to start describing
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: a world and then remind them why that world is
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: not possible because those billionaires, that have way too damn
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: much are rigging the system. Again, we can keep coming
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: back to the same thing as I'm going to continue
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: to do for the next 20 minutes and 17 seconds.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: On message.
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: And I'll... I'll just say, I mean, obviously these are
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: hard challenges. Politics is really hard. If it was, we
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: wouldn't have lost. But I think that if we live
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: in a world where Donald Trump can set the issue
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: agenda of what we're talking about in any given time,
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: then we're going to lose. Because he's always going to
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: put his best issues right at the front center, and
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: that's what he's been doing. And so Democrats need to actually,
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: and it's harder because we don't control the government, so
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: obviously it's not easy, but we have to change the
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: issue landscape and zeitgeist ourselves. And I think that there's
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: a lot of examples of us doing this successfully. You know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: with the shutdown, we were able to do that, and
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: it's translated to immediate gains that have been clear in
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: the polling. But I think that, you know, we've managed
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: to make the ballroom stuff break through to a lesser extent.
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: We've made the Argentina thing break through. These people are
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: making mistakes all the time, and we have to figure
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: out how to bring them into the forefront. And that's
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: really hard, because obviously there's like a multi-billion dollar fight
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: for attention happening. But that's what politics is now, and
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: that's what we have to, you know, that's the fight
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: we have to have.
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: Do you think they have an opportunity, right? Because a
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: lot of the disadvantages that Biden had being in the
• 43:23
  Speaker 7: White House, Trump now has too, right? And everybody knows
• 43:27
  Speaker 7: about the ballroom, right? There's a chance to reverse UNO
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: on Trump on a number of things, right? So there
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: was an argument that you hear among swing voters was
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: that we were spending all this money in Ukraine that
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: was better spent at home with people who were struggling.
• 43:45
  Speaker 7: There was a broader story about resentment that they... drew
• 43:48
  Speaker 7: into a broader story about other people are getting stuff
• 43:50
  Speaker 7: even though you're struggling. You could tie that into the
• 43:52
  Speaker 7: trans argument. You could try that into handouts more broadly. Well,
• 43:56
  Speaker 7: now they're giving, how many billion are we at to Argentina?
• 43:58
  Speaker 7: We're like a $ 40 billion bailout to Argentina because of
• 44:03
  Speaker 7: his billionaire friends, right? Because of his allies. So there
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: are opportunities now. I think the question I have for
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: you guys is how you think about some of the
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: more salient issues that are a little bit off topic
• 44:15
  Speaker 7: and how you bring them back. I think rich is actually,
• 44:18
  Speaker 7: I'm wondering if rich is actually too broad these days,
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: and we have to be thinking more about a small,
• 44:22
  Speaker 7: wealthy elite, which is my way to ask you, should
• 44:24
  Speaker 7: we be talking about Epstein?
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: You should always talk about Epstein.
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: Always.
• 44:34
  Speaker 9: Always.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: Because some stories just resonate with people, and also, he hates.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: It, right?
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: He freaks out. Now, granted, he might invade a country
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: to make us stop talking about it, so there are
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: downsides and costs, but like.
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: He did.
• 44:51
  Speaker 10: Our country. He invaded our country.
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: He invaded our country.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: This city right here.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: Look, I do think, people use the phrase, people should
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: be able to walk and chew gum. I just, part
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: of what I want is for people to just mean
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: it really hard. Like, if you just mean it, like,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: you should be appalled that Donald Trump has come, Congress, like,
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: he doesn't want them in session so that they don't
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: vote on releasing the Epstein files. And the question is, is,
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: It's just a matter of if you have enough breath
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: to breathe, everything that comes out of your mouth every
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: day should be, why is he covering up for pedophiles?
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: Why are your grocery prices going up? Like every day
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: there are ways you can push this forward and every
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: surrogate and every Democrat. And to me, what is always crazy, again,
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: looking at the right, is that they know how to,
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: and this is where you guys being a big fractious
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: coalition and them being like a personality cult now, it
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: works in their favor, which is Donald Trump, he just
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: walks around being like, best economy for black people, best
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: economy for women, how's your 401k, buddy? And everybody's like, okay, yeah,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: we're talking about the economy. And Democrats don't do that.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: They're talking about every little bespoke issue in the world.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: And I think that Democrats would do better if they
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: just hit some high points. We got our three things,
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: but they talk about affordability. But even your billionaires, it
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: can be about Epstein. Why is Donald Trump covering up
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: for billionaires who were pedophiles and protecting his rich friends
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: instead of lowering your grocery prices? I mean, that you
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: can do it. They all come back together, I promise.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: It's just a matter of being able to tell that story.
• 46:34
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• 47:43
  Speaker 2: David, do you feel like the shutdown has broken through
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: to people?
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: Absolutely. Look, Donald Trump's approval rating has been in a
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: very narrow band for a lot of the last five months,
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: and that caused me an enormous amount of distress. It really,
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: you just have to look at the numbers. His approval
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: rating is way down over the last month. The extent
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: to which people trust us is up. And I think
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: most importantly to me is the percentage of voters who
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: say that healthcare is one of the most important problems
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: facing this country is way higher than it was. And so,
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: you know, that was the goal of the shutdown. And look, again,
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: everybody wants to hate on leadership. Everyone wants to hate
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: on the Democratic Party. This play does seem to have worked.
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: And I think it's worth acknowledging that. We don't have
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: to do them all the time.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: That's a really important point about raising the salience of
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: health care, because I think sometimes Democrats historically have decided
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: to ask voters what their most important issue is and
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: then decide our message is that. And even if that
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: issue is the message of the other side, and Republicans
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: tend to, and Trump really did this quite successfully, is
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: they decide what their best issue is and then raise
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: the salience of it. So immigration was not a highly
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: salient issue before Donald Trump ran for president in 2016.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: He made it one. which was to their advantage. Because
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden we're talking about immigration instead of
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: a pretty good economy that Obama was handing over to
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: his successor. And just as Democrats, I think we really
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: have to change our mentality of we have the capacity
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: to affect what people are thinking about. And if health
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: care is a top issue in 2026, we're going to
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: do much better than if it's the 17th most important issue.
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: Look, I knew working on the Harris campaign that if
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: on election day, economy was the number one issue.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: For every group.
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: Economy equals cost, right? Economy means something different in every election.
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: In this election, it meant cost. So we knew that.
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: But I knew that if the next top issue was
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: immigration and crime rather than abortion and guns, Abortion and healthcare,
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: abortion and insert, we have lost. Guess what the top
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: three issues were? Economy, immigration, crime.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: We lost, by the way.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: As we begin to think about 2026, do you guys
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: think Democrats need a six for 26? Do we need
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: like a positive policy agenda as a party to run on?
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Or is it better to run simply in opposition to
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: what is happening?
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: Well, I think one, there's a false choice there, but
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: it's just worth saying why. There is no leader of
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: the Democratic Party, and there won't be for another two years.
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: No one has the authority or legitimacy to be like,
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: these are the six things we're going to do. The
• 50:24
  Speaker 6: reality is that there's obviously an enormous amount of disagreement
• 50:28
  Speaker 6: in our caucus.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, the House could do it, right?
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: No, but my point is that the candidates have to
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: do that. You know, even in this era, I think
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: that positive advertising is actually just one of the most
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: underrated things in politics. You know, it's funny, you get
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: on the donor calls and they're like, oh, you're letting
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: us walk all over them. You need to punch them
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: in the face. And you're like, oh, negative advertising. Never
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: thought of that. We'll get right on it. Like, voters really, like,
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: I think the big problem, what I always tell people,
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: is that swing voters both hate Republicans less and also
• 51:01
  Speaker 6: like Democrats less than we do. And so you just
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: have to do both. Like every individual candidate is going
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: to have a different six things, and I think that's okay.
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: But it is very important, you know, these candidates actually
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: pick a couple of things that they have an affirmative
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: agenda for.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: It's like in 2006, right, the Democrats running for the
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: House picked six things, right? It was minimum wage, it
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: was a bunch of reform stuff because the Republicans were
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: being arrested left and right and going to prison at
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: that time. So that's a version we could do, at
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: least for the people running for House. There could be
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: three affordability things, a health care affordability thing, and some
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: anti-corruption stuff as an option. Now, not every candidate would
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: run on it, but there is potentially some very different
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: media environment than 19 years ago. But the more people
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: are for it, the more throw weight you get behind
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: it for it actually to break through. Because I guess
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: one of the things, and I'm sure what you all
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: think about this, that I worry Like I said, as
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: everyone knows, it's my job to be the glass half
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: full guy on the podcast. But I'm very excited about
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: what happened on Tuesday. But I do worry that we may,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: as a party, use it as an excuse not to
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: answer all the hard questions, sort of like 2022. Because
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: as you guys have all said, we're going to have
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: to win in places a lot redder than Virginia and
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: New Jersey, particularly if we want to take the Senate.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: And so like the Democratic Party ran, right? is in
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: big Senate races, big governor's races, there's enough ad money
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: that these people can define themselves in opposition to that
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: brand if they want to. We're filling the pictures. In
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: House races, a lot of times it comes down to
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: essentially generic Denver, generic Republican. And if the generic Democratic
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: brand is shit, that's not good, right? And so that's
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: one of the things about how you think about improving that.
• 52:47
  Speaker 7: Well, 2026 is going to be, I mean, we need
• 52:49
  Speaker 7: 2026 to be about Trump, a referendum on Trump, undoubtedly.
• 52:53
  Speaker 7: And I think about the irregular voters. So among Latinos,
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: among others too, Trump had this strength among a kind
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: of irregular voting Latino. We tend to think of low
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: propensity voters traditionally as being democratic. That's always been wrong.
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: They're swing voters. And they swung toward Trump very heavily. Today,
• 53:11
  Speaker 7: the more irregular voting Latinos are the most dissatisfied with Trump.
• 53:15
  Speaker 7: And so if you just called it tomorrow, you'd say
• 53:17
  Speaker 7: a lot of them are just going to stay home.
• 53:19
  Speaker 7: I'd say that's like a field goal. For Democrats to win,
• 53:22
  Speaker 7: They need the touchdowns, which is those people turning out
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: and voting for the Democrat. And that's going to require
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: not a contract for America where you give Republicans a
• 53:32
  Speaker 7: new target, where you move the focus away from Trump,
• 53:35
  Speaker 7: but a contrast. You're saying these are the things Trump
• 53:37
  Speaker 7: is doing bad. Let's show a little bit just to
• 53:40
  Speaker 7: at least reassure voters that Democrats understand where you are
• 53:43
  Speaker 7: coming from and that there's a viable alternative.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Does everyone agree that 2026 should be a referendum on Trump?
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: I only think partly. And part of it is because.
• 53:53
  Speaker 7: Who else is it a referendum on?
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, of course there should be a referendum on.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: The.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: Billionaires.
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: The problem is, Terrence, the Democrats have their billionaires, too.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: North Star, guys.
• 54:07
  Speaker 7: North Star.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: When Trump is no longer on the.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Ballot, why does their life still suck?
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: The billionaires.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: Can I offer just a quick messaging frame on that?
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: I would start talking about MAGA billionaires and not just billionaires.
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: It just, you know, MAGA billionaires like Elon Musk and
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: Peter Thiel, because those are weird guys.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: We've got some good ones. We do have some good ones.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: Just throw MAGA in front of it. The thing about
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: the referendum on Trump is that, like, there's, there's, there's,
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: is this? There's a, one of the things that's happening
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: in focus groups, we've been asking Republicans, do you want
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Trump to run again in 2028? And the answer's no.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: They don't want him to run again in 2028. Partly
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: because they like term limits, partly because everyone's like, he's
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: old now, they want something new. But like, Democrats aren't
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: gonna have Trump to kick around for forever, the same
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: way Republicans aren't gonna have Trump to turn out low
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: propensity people forever. And in 2030, there's gonna be another
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: census And that is not going to be good for Democrats.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: And so Democrats have got to start thinking long term
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: about what they're going to do to make people understand
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: who they are. And so in focus groups, I always
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: ask Democrats, why are you a Democrat? What makes you
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: a Democrat? And a lot of times, there's kind of
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: like a huh. But to the extent that people answer it,
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: they really actually say one thing, because they think we're
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: the party that helps people. And so Democrats have got
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: to find a way to lean into that brand in
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: a way that says, I am here for you. I'm
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: going to help you, but not in a way that
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: feels like a giveaway that isolates other people, right? Everybody
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: wants jobs. And this is where I like popularism, which
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: is I don't like the art where you just are
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: unable to talk about the things that are unpopular. Because
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: I think just not talking... about immigration was terrible for Democrats.
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: They had to have a plan. You have to have
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: a strategy. But there's a question about how you play
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: defense on things and what you go on offense on.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: And I'm saying if you go on offense on jobs
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: and the economy and affordability all day long, that's why
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: it shouldn't just be a referendum on Trump. It can
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: be a contrast. Trump is making you poorer. He's building
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: a ballroom while you can't afford groceries. But also here's
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: what I would do because voters do not know what
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: Democrats stand for.
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: But wait a second. But if you look at his
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: approval ratings, you'd say, I would like this approval rating
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: to be how people vote. If you look at the
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: favorability of the two parties, you would say, this is
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: not how I want people to be voting.
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: What, the favorability of the two parties?
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, no, hold on. Do you know why Democrats are
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: unpopular right now? Why their favorability is bad? Because Democrats
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: are pissed at Democrats because they think they're not fighting
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: hard enough. Like, those numbers aren't low.
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: They shut down the government, Sarah.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: I know, which is the first sign of life that
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: you're going to see their numbers go up. The approval
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: rating of Democrats are going to start going up because
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: people are like, these fuckers are finally fighting for something.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: There's... I don't want to harp on the problems of
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: the party. Yes, what drives us to our record lows
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: is Democrats are very mad at Democrats. But we also
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: are less popular with independents than Republicans. And when you
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: look at the issue-by-issue Trump.
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: Because you stop talking about jobs for people.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: I think we agree that there are problems we have
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: to fix.
• 57:25
  Speaker 7: To be clear, my dream is not a referendum on Trump.
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: My true dream, if I had a magic wand, is
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: a referendum on Stephen Miller. That's my dream.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Nobody knows who that guy.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: Is, guys.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: That's just Carlos' inner self talking.
• 57:41
  Speaker 6: So, you know, before we close out, I just want
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: to go back to something that Dan said and put
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: Dan on the spot a little bit, which is, you know,
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: in 2006, it was true that, you know, Nancy Pelosi
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: and Rahm Emanuel could, like, get in a room and
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: be like, all right, these are the five things that
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: are going to define the Democratic Party. We don't live
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: in that world anymore. I think that the world we
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: live in is that now you, frankly, have a lot
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: more control over what the definition of the Democratic Party
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: is than Hakeem Jeffries does.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Awkward, but yes.
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah, look, I use that power seriously. But look, in
• 58:13
  Speaker 6: all seriousness, there's been this incredible decentralization of the Democratic
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: Party over the last 10 years. And now there are
• 58:21
  Speaker 6: donor advisors and foundations and liberal media outlets, you and
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: Ezra Klein and whatever. And frankly, you all do define
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: the brand of the Democratic Party. And I think you
• 58:31
  Speaker 6: should all kind of get together in a room. I
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: think the six things you mentioned seem pretty good, but
• 58:35
  Speaker 6: that is the actual challenge.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: No, it's sort of a false choice I'm offering here.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: But there is this sense that I raised a six
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: for six thing just because I'm old first. But also
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: there's a question of like how much we should be
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: defining what we stand for, right? Like publicly doing it.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: And every candidate should do it. Like I have views
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: on what it should be. I'm going to say I'm
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: on the podcast. I'm going to say I'm on my
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: sub stack. I'm going to tell every politician who I
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: want to talk to about it. But I think my
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: view is just generally we need a set of ideas.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: They can be individualized for individual candidates. They can be
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: house wide if you could ever figure it out. But
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: that are affordability based and reform based, like political reform.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Like I believe very, very strongly that we have to
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: actually like that is a mantle we have to regrab
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: because we have made ourselves sort of inadvertently into the
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: defenders of a broken system. But we need to do that.
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: We have a few more minutes here. I want to
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: end by asking sort of a nerdy polling question for
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: you guys to think about, which is the polls were
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: wrong about Trump in 2016. They were wrong about Trump
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: in 2020. They were actually, even if the vibes were
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: wrong in 2024, but the polls were right. And the
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: way the polls were right was essentially a Trump-related hack
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: to weight the polling to the 2020 election. How are
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: you guys thinking about how to try to capture Trump
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: supporters with Trump not on the ballot again? Do you
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: wait until the 24 election? How are you thinking about it?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, the silence, because we are all dealing with
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: the same crises, is that Trump has blown up turnout models.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: He's blown up our ability to predict who is and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: who is not going to vote when he's on the
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: ballot and when he's not on the ballot, on the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: left and on the right.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: He's surging the left.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: And having a 58% disapproval rating became a drag on
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: the right in 2026. I mean, I'm sorry, in 2025.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: And so, I mean, the best thing that we are
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 5: doing at Hit Strategies right now is a very, very
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: loose screen on turnout. If you have voted before. I mean, no, seriously,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: I just think likely voter screens are very risky because
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: you're leaving out a bunch of, now we can, you know,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: we can cut them and cross-tab them and create some scenarios,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: but the belief that we can just predict what the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: next electorate is going to be is very tough for
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: any pollster right now.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Go ahead, Steve.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: I think that the big challenge with polling is that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 6: the two biggest predictors of answering a survey, and this
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: has always been true, is one, how interested in politics
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: you are, and two, is your socioeconomic status slash class.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: And that's always been true. But those two things used
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: to be pretty uncorrelated with who you voted for. And
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: now it has become the entirety of who you vote for.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: So we live in a world now where answering a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: survey is an inherently political act. And that makes it
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: really hard. Obviously, on our end, I'm proud of our
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: polling record, but it's extremely hard. I think as a
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: public consumer, it's just going to be really important to
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 6: try to look back at the fundamentals, where there was
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: a lot of crazy public polling in New Jersey. And,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 6: you know, you just have to go and say, all right, well,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: party's out of power. How have the special elections been going?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 6: I think we need to, you know, how is the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: early vote looking? Like, we have to look at a...
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: The reality is public polling is not very reliable right now,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 6: and we have to look at a broader set of indicators.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 7: The question is, for me, is what are we trying
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: to get out of the polling? I realize a lot
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 7: of us use polling as therapy to understand should I
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 7: feel happy or not today. I would say, like, get
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: a therapist.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: But, like.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 7: That's not the main way that polling matters, right? What
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 7: polling does is a gut check. It's like the puncture
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: of the bubble so many of us live in. Fundamentals
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: end up being incredibly important. And then you're using polling
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 7: to kind of like say, do we need to update
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 7: what we believe coming into these elections? And so that's
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 7: where it's very important to understand who is changing, who
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 7: might still change. But what is the actual percent estimate?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 7: Like this is not about having an oracle. This is
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: about guiding strategies over the next year.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you brought this. This is the mantra
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: of my podcast, Polar Coaster, which is polls are not
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: supposed to be predictive. They're supposed to be a snapshot
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: in time. And we as public consumers and everyone in
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: this room uses the polls to manage our emotions. How
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: are we supposed to feel on election day? Are we
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: going to go into it feeling good? And then even,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: you even take 2020, Biden won and everyone left feeling
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: depressed because we thought he was going to win by
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: a lot and he barely won. And so- Just like we,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: everyone's just got to chill on the polling. And that
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: is a great way to end our panel on polling.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Please thank our panelists. Thank you for being here at
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Crooked Con.
• 1:03:35
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  Speaker 8: Hello, everyone. Thank you for getting up early. Is it early?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 8: I don't know. It's early for me. I'm Alex Wagner,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 8: and we are live at Crooked Con with a Democrat
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 8: who sits in the Statehouse against literally all odds, Kentucky
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 8: Governor Andy Beshear.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 10: Thank you all.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 8: Governor, it is quite a week to be at this convention.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 10: Isn't it a great week after Tuesday?
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 8: And I'm just going to start with a question I
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 8: think everybody's asking elected Democrats is, do you have kind
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 8: of a unified theory of the case in terms of
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 8: what went down on Tuesday?
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 10: Let me start by saying as the incoming chair of
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 10: the Democratic Governors Association, I am so proud of Abigail
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 10: Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill. And While I do have a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 10: theory that I believe is a reality that shouldn't take
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 10: away from either of those candidates who worked hard, who
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 10: took days and weeks and nights away from their family
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 10: and who are going to govern really well. They're going
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 10: to both be great governors in their states. I think
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 10: both won and we won a lot of other races
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 10: because we've now recognized that people aren't as political as
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 10: we think they are. When they wake up in the morning,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 10: we may be thinking about the next election, but they're not.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 10: What they're thinking about is their job and whether they
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 10: can support their family. They're thinking about their next doctor's
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 10: appointment for themselves or their parents or their kids. They're
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 10: thinking about the roads and bridges they drive, the school
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 10: they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 10: safe in their community. When we spend 80% of our
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 10: time on those issues that matter to 100% of the
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 10: American people, we gain extra votes, we win tough elections,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 10: and I think I am living proof the Democrats can
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 10: and should be winning everywhere.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 8: One of the things about Spanberger and Cheryl, since you mentioned,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 8: is their ability in a year to flip a significant
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 8: number of Trump supporters to the Democratic side of the aisle.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 8: I think both of those women flipped 7% of Trump
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 8: voters who voted for Trump in 2024 to be Spanberger
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 8: and Cheryl supporters.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 10: Well, and both races were challenging going in. I mean,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 10: winning a governor's race when you have a still popular
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 10: Republican governor is And then in New Jersey, we hadn't
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 10: had three straight terms of Democratic governors in 60 years.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 10: So not only did they win what should have been
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 10: tough races, they ran away with both of them. Really impressive.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 8: I noticed you didn't mention Zora and Mamdani when we
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 8: were talking about the wins.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 10: That's because I'm head of the Democratic Governors Association.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 10: But same reason. Here's my hot take. I actually believe
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 10: that not only... Did Mondami win for a lot of
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 10: the same reasons that Spanberger and Sherrill won? I think
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 10: they also won for a lot of the reasons that
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 10: Donald Trump won in 2024. I mean, where the American
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 10: people are right now is desperate. I mean, that next
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 10: bill coming due could put them under. One car repair
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 10: could be the difference between making it or not. And
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 10: I get that people care about a lot of issues.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 10: But if you're worried about the cost of your child's
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 10: next prescription, it's hard to get to anything else. And
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 10: so what we saw is voters who are willing to
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 10: vote for the people they think were most focused on
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 10: helping them get through tomorrow and next week. But when
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 10: you look at that 2024 election, Donald Trump made those promises,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 10: and then he did the exact opposite. His tariffs are
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 10: making everything more expensive. That new home, those groceries, his big,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 10: ugly bill. is going to gut rural healthcare and make
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 10: it so hard to see that doctor. So when you
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 10: look at that flip of Trump voters, it's both that
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 10: our candidates were more focused on where people are right now,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 10: on trying to make their lives a little bit easier
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 10: and a little bit better, and Donald Trump has betrayed
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 10: them with the way he's governed this last year.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I remember the table full of sweaty bacon that
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 8: he stood in front of promising to bring the price down,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 8: that bacon's still sweating.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 10: That's an image.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you're welcome, everyone. Sweaty bacon Donald Trump. We are
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 8: in Washington, D.C. You mentioned the price of healthcare, right?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: open enrollment started November 1st. On my podcast, we talked
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 8: to someone whose health insurance is going up from $ 110
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 8: a month to $ 886 a month. These premium increases are real.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 8: The federal subsidies question is urgent. It's whether or not
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: you can afford your child's prescription. What do you make
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 8: of the Democratic strategy on the shutdown so far?
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 10: Well, the Democrats have been very clear that this is
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 10: the issue and that they have been very, very focused
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 10: in ensuring that everyone is carrying the message that is
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 10: the reality that things are already too expensive. Families are
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 10: already struggling to put food on the table even before
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 10: the president refused to pay SNAP benefits when every other
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 10: president in every other shutdown has. If people go hungry
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 10: during this shutdown, it's because Donald Trump decided they should
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 10: go hungry and not for any other reason. By the way,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 10: I was proud to be one of the governors and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 10: a bunch of AGs. We stood up to this president.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 10: We went to court. We got the ruling that at
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 10: least partial payments could come out. And then some of
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 10: my Kentucky employees, when we got the first word at
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 10: 9 p.m. at night, went in, worked till 3 a.m.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 10: We became the first state to put benefits on people's
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 10: cards because of their great work.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 8: I mean, the administration has gone back and forth. They said,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 8: we're going to partially fund SNAP. Now we're going to
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 8: do like three quarters or two thirds. I can't remember.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 10: What I think is rich is a president that will
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 10: do anything he wants, that is sending billions of dollars
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 10: to Argentina during a shutdown, says he can't feed people
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 10: because his lawyers tell him he can't. The USDA had
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 10: up on their website that you can do this. And
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 10: now we have two Court orders saying they could do it.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 10: What's very clear is this president was willing to use
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 10: starving people as leverage for a fight in Washington, D.C.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 10: That's cruel, it's wrong, and we deserve better.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 8: I mean, I gotta ask, so you directed $ 5 million
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 8: from the state budget reserve to feeding Kentucky food banks.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 8: Are people in your state, first of all, do people
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 8: in your state understand that the reason there is this
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 8: crisis is because Donald Trump wants to starve the country?
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 10: Well, I think people are starting to see it. But
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 10: when you're hungry, you're not necessarily even looking for blame.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 10: You're just looking for help. And so what I've tried
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 10: to do is surge those dollars to our food banks.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 10: I'm not worried at the moment about who somebody voted
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 10: for or whether they're going to change their mind. I'm
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 10: worried about their kids having enough to eat tomorrow. And listen,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 10: we've got to be that party that doesn't just support Democrats.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 10: We've got to be that party that believes in the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 10: American dream, that believes that with a hand up, not
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 10: a hand out, that families can do better, that believes
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 10: that there is a better life waiting for people. And
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 10: this is just the basic for me. I mean, I'm
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 10: a guy that's driven by my faith. And in my faith,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 10: the miracle of the fishes and the loaves is in
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 10: every book of the gospel, which means it's pretty darn important.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 10: And in a country where we grow enough food for everybody,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 10: no one should starve. And that shouldn't be a democratic principle.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 10: That should be a basic part of our humanity.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 8: I mean, I would just say, if you look at
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 8: policy alone, the Democratic Party is much more concerned with
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 8: the health and welfare of Trump voters than Trump. If
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 8: you look at where the federal monies have gone in
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 8: appropriations bills, in terms of food stamps.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 10: Look at the big, ugly bill.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 8: Yeah, the big, ugly. I'm so glad you call it
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 8: that because we need one big, beautiful bill.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 10: So just in Kentucky, a Trump plus 30 state. We're
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 10: going to get hit harder than anywhere else. We've got
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 10: 35 rural hospitals. that may close. 20,000 Kentucky healthcare workers
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 10: who helped us through the pandemic, who walked into COVID
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 10: wings when they didn't have enough PPE to protect themselves
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 10: or their families are gonna lose their job. Hundreds of
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 10: thousands of Kentuckians are going to lose their healthcare coverage.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 10: And that's just the healthcare side. Each of these rural
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 10: hospitals is the biggest payroll in their community. They're the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 10: second biggest employer behind the public schools. They close or
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 10: they downsize. You lose the local restaurant, the local coffee shop,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 10: the local bank. What this does is it punches rural
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 10: America in the face over and over. And the pain
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 10: that people are going to feel, we've got to make
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 10: sure they know where it came from. And I'll tell you,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 10: people are starting. There is a business in Western Kentucky,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 10: a small business that gets its materials from different places.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 10: and then uses U.S. labor to assemble their product, and
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 10: they were growing. But guess what? The tariffs have increased
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 10: prices so much they can't pass them on to the consumer.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 10: And so this small business is having to lay people off.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 10: And when you do that in a small business, in
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 10: a small town, you go to church with these people.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 10: Your kids play soccer together, and he is telling every
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 10: single one of them that the reason they're being laid
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 10: off is because of Donald Trump, and he's right.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 8: So just to circle back to the government shutdown, you
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 8: think Democrats should stand strong?
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 10: I believe that Democrats have to force a vote on
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 10: extending these subsidies. And I am worried because open enrollment
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 10: has started. Sadly, the damage might already be done. You
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 10: look at premiums going up for everybody on the exchange,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 10: but also everybody else is going to see their premiums
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 10: go up. And when you think about that rural hospital,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 10: take away that Medicaid funding and they're struggling. but then
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 10: take away the extra people who were covered, that the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 10: hospital gets reimbursed at a higher rate. And suddenly there
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 10: are fewer of those because they can't afford it on
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 10: the exchange. You get hit twice. And so all those
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 10: hits to healthcare and all those hits to the economy
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 10: get even worse.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 8: I mean, when you think about that, well, let's just
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 8: talk about how the dynamics are playing out in your
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 8: own state, right? First of all, you have a Republican supermajority, right?
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 10: Not so super.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 8: Just a term of art. How do you navigate that?
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 8: How do you get anything done?
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 10: First of all, even with all that, I'm really proud
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 10: of what we've done in Kentucky. And I think it
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 10: shows that when Democrats win, we do something that Republicans can't.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 10: We govern well. But with that said, it's that idea
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 10: that most things that matter to people aren't partisan. And
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 10: it's like we've tried to make everything political, and it's
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 10: part of the division that has swept this country. And
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 10: one of the most important reasons that we've got to
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 10: win is to heal the country and to welcome people
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 10: back in, to make sure that our kids have the
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 10: type of America and the stability in America that we had.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 10: You know, in elections, people might be a little more
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 10: this way or a little more that way, but you
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 10: were never worried about the future of the country or
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 10: global stability when we were growing up. But, you know,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 10: I think that Right now, it's just so important that
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 10: we are running the right people, that we are running
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 10: folks that are focused on everyday needs. And in Kentucky,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 10: that's what I've tried to do. I've tried to take
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 10: as much of the politics out and share as much
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 10: of the credit as I can. And part of it
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 10: is that we're winning. Since I've been governor, we've brought
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 10: in more private sector investment, more new jobs, the best
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 10: three-year average for wages, broke our export records, broke our
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 10: tourism record three straight times. Drug overdose deaths are down
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 10: three straight years, thank God. But when you have one
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 10: of these wins, it helps everybody. So I was telling
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 10: you a little bit about this. I still remember there's
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 10: a town and a county in Kentucky called Henderson. And
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 10: Henderson is a former coal mining county. It had been
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 10: blue in the past, and it was trending red. In 2019,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 10: I won it by about 500 votes. I thought that
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 10: would be the last time. And about three months before
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 10: my reelection, we opened the cleanest, greenest recycled paper mill
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 10: in the country in Henderson. And I'll never forget at
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 10: the groundbreaking, the owner, who's an Australian, comes on the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 10: big screen. It had to have been 2 a.m. or
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 10: something there. And he says, we're bringing 350. And then
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 10: he said the phrase, green jobs to Henderson, Kentucky. And
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 10: you know what everybody did? They gave him a standing
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 10: ovation because they paid $ 40 an hour. And so you
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 10: might think that people get caught up in the politics,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 10: but that was a better life for everyone there. Ended
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 10: up winning Henderson by 1,500 votes the second time, three
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 10: times more.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 8: Do people know you're a Democrat? I'm kidding.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 10: If you look at my social media, yes.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 8: Okay, right on. But you've also championed issues like trans
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 8: rights and abortion or reproductive choice and universal health care.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 8: How do you do that in a way that both
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 8: keeps you in office and is palatable to your constituents?
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 10: Well, I think it's primarily two things. Number one, I
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 10: stand up for every conviction that I believe in, but
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 10: I still spend 80% of my time on things that
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 10: matter to 100% of the American people. And so I'll
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 10: stand up for my conviction, but I'll be opening a
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 10: factory the next day. I'll stand up for everybody's rights,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 10: and I'll always stand against discrimination. But I'll make sure
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 10: we're opening a road that week where people save 20
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 10: minutes each way. But the other thing I do is
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 10: I explain my why. You know, Democrats are very good.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: At the what.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 10: We're really deep into the policy. Policy point two, sub
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 10: point three, bullet point four, aye, aye, aye. But how
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 10: often do we talk about our why, what drives us?
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 10: And so I'm running for reelection and my legislature passes
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 10: the nastiest piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation we had ever seen.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 10: They have 10 million dollars of ads ready to go
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 10: and you know what I do? I veto that bill
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 10: because it's the right thing to do. But I also
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 10: explain my why. Now I said I'm driven by my
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 10: faith which teaches me that all children are children of
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 10: God and so I don't want people picking on those kids.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 10: said if the legislature is going to show them hate,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 10: I'm going to show them love. If the legislature is
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 10: going to show them judgment, I'm going to show them acceptance.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 10: If this legislature is going to attack them, I'm going
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 10: to be a governor that stands up for them. I
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 10: didn't lose a single point. I won by more in
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 10: re-election by far than in my actual initial election. But
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 10: can I add one more thing to that? The next day,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 10: I am opening a factory because you always have to be.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 10: And there's a guy in a trucker hat that makes
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 10: a beeline towards me and I thought, oh my goodness,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 10: I know what's coming. And I've been on the other
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 10: end of that. But he sticks out his hand and
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 10: he says, governor, I'm not sure I agree with what
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 10: you did yesterday, but I know you're doing what you
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 10: think is right. And he patted me on the back
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 10: and said, I support you. Well, when we have the
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 10: respect for people who always vote for us or never
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 10: vote for us to explain our why, we at least
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 10: create the opportunity for a little bit of grace and
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 10: a little bit of space for people to think a
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 10: little differently or to have some differences of opinion, but
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 10: understand this is the party with the candidates that believe
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 10: in them and are trying to make their life better.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 8: Can we dig into that a little bit though? Because
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 8: I think there are people that want to explain the why,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 8: but they are Democrats, progressives. but they haven't figured out
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 8: how to do that tonally or in terms of the
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 8: line of communication. I mean, how do you have that
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 8: dialogue when it feels like we live in such a
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 8: bifurcated world where people are marinating in their respective echo chambers?
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 8: How do you bridge that gap? How do you do
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 8: that practically?
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 10: You do it in a way that's real and authentic
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 10: to you. We have a lot of great creators that
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 10: are here with us, and thank goodness. that Democrats have
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 10: now recognized what content creators can do. And they are
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 10: here with us helping to spread the message in their
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 10: own way. We need to make sure we show them
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 10: the respect that their large audiences have earned them and
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 10: recognize how important that communication is. But I think each
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 10: and every one of them would say that their audience
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 10: in part is there because they are themselves. They are real.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 10: I mean, I don't know how to be anybody else.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 10: And certainly I came in as governor and the pandemic
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 10: hit three months later. That is not cause and effect.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 10: But I gave an update every day, every day for
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 10: a year and a half. I read the death list
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 10: every day for a year and a half because I
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 10: didn't want anybody else to have to do it. Hardest
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 10: thing I've ever done. But when you do that, and
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 10: when you have to go out and say things they
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 10: told you you shouldn't say in politics, like I don't know,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 10: or I was wrong, or I'm sorry because of X,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 10: you tear away any facade. that might be there, you
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 10: tear back all the rules and people actually see you.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 10: And so it was about then that people stopped calling
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 10: me governor and started calling me Andy in Kentucky. And
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 10: I love it, right? It's a real relationship with our
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 10: people where we can disagree on things, but also care
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 10: about each other and want to do the best for everybody.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 10: And so I think everyone has to find their why.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 10: It comes from different places, but it's got to be real.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 10: And people have to be vulnerable enough to express it.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 8: I wonder if you think, you know, as we look
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 8: at Tuesday, or just even what you're saying about being
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 8: authentically part of the community, being authentically who you are,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 8: is there any concern that the Democratic tent is so
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 8: big that you can do well at the state level, right?
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 8: But how do you have a national candidate that is
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 8: authentically themselves and appeals to this vast, vast country?
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 10: I love that question because two years ago, we were
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 10: saying the Democratic Party was too small. That if you
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 10: didn't fit every litmus test, that you couldn't be a
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 10: part of it. Elections are about math. You've got to
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 10: be a big tent party to win. And I think
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 10: we as Democrats have recognized that we want people that
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 10: are strong on the convictions that we have. But look
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 10: at what we have in the White House right now.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 10: You know, the most important thing we have to do
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 10: is win. And we've got to win with people that
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 10: are going to lead well. We've got to recognize that
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 10: some people who win won't share every single value that
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 10: we may have, but we'll share a lot of them.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 10: And if the focus is on bettering people's lives, if
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 10: the focus is recognizing that everyone will do better and
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 10: will have less division, if they can pay their electric bill,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 10: if they can send their kids to the after-school program
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 10: they need, if they can afford the therapy for a
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 10: special needs child. If we as a party put all
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 10: of that first, then we can not only be a
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 10: big temp party, we can be one that gets results.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 8: I'm hearing affordability as a central plank for Democrats going forward.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 8: But are there issues you think Democrats should distance themselves from?
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 10: I think if you have a conviction, you ought to
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 10: stand for your convictions. That's part of who you are authentically.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 10: And I don't think we should run from that. We
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 10: should stand up against discrimination. I mean, I vetoed every
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 10: anti-DEI bill that's come to my desk as governor of
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 10: the Commonwealth of Kentucky. And while the other side may
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 10: have demonized a three-letter acronym claiming it's a four-letter word,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 10: diversity is always going to be a strength and always
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 10: has been. I mean, you get to a better solution
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 10: if you have people from different backgrounds offering their experiences,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 10: knowing that we're all shaped by how we've grown up
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 10: and the different things that we've experienced. I mean, how
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 10: can we lift all of our people up if we're
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 10: not listening? to all of our people. I vetoed every
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 10: anti-LGBTQ bill that's come to my desk. I vetoed four
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 10: anti-choice bills that have come to my desk. So I
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 10: think I've shown that you can stand up for your
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 10: convictions and still win. But I'm going to go back
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 10: 80% of our time on things that matter to 100%
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 10: of the American people. See, I believe that if we
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 10: are viewed as distracted, that's when people vote the other way.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 10: They're not voting the other way because they might have
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 10: one different opinion on a culture war issue or a conviction.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 10: They're voting a different way because they believe that's the
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 10: only thing we're focused on, maybe at the expense of
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 10: them being able to pay that next bill or being
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 10: safe in their community.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 8: So you can veto anti-choice bills, just beat a factory
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 8: opening the next day.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 10: It is helpful. A new health clinic's good, too.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 8: Are Democrats too reliant on anti-Trump sentiment as a sort
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 8: of motivating factor?
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 10: I think when you look at the governor's races, they
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 10: each carried their own message. And that's really exciting. I mean,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 10: we as a party have to be more than just
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 10: against someone. We've got to be for something. And yes,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 10: being anti-Trump creates energy, but energy needs direction. You know,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 10: with the American people crying out for a better life,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 10: that's what we need to be talking about. Now the
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 10: two are really closely aligned. because Donald Trump's tariff policy
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 10: is making every day harder and everything costs more. And
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 10: the Democrats can come with that alternative, that we're going
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 10: to try to lower the price of housing, that we're
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 10: going to increase the supply of housing. Now we do,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 10: as we move forward, have to not just win, we've
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 10: got to get results. And I think that means we've
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 10: got to be a little introspective too, maybe even a
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 10: little self-critical. I mean, when we look back, we saw
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 10: some amazing bills passed during the last administration. But we
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 10: saw them take far too long to be implemented. If
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 10: we believe in internet for all, if we believe this
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 10: is something basic that everybody around the country needs, it
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 10: can't take two and a half years and we still
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 10: have no fiber in the ground. And so we've got
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 10: to be a party of results, of the right levels
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 10: of rules and regulations to protect the environment and protect
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 10: our people. but we need to make sure we don't
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 10: overdo it so that we can create that better life
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 10: as fast as we can for our people.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 8: I mean, I'm not suggesting you're going to be running
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 8: for president in 2028.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: I'm sure.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 8: You're just doing all this media and talking about your
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 8: stellar record as a Democrat that can win in a
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 8: red state for, you know, good advice.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 10: Am I doing all that?
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 8: What's that?
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: If, you know.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 8: you were looking at the landscape. How do you think
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 8: running for president as a Democrat in 2028 will be
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 8: or should be different than in 2024, setting aside 107
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 8: days in the actual timeframe of running, right? But like
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 8: what lessons can be learned or should be learned?
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 10: Well, I'm a little biased, but I believe our next
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 10: president should be a Democratic governor.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 8: Oh, interesting.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 10: And I say that because I got a lot of
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 10: great colleagues Now, we've got such a deep bench of
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 10: incredible Democratic governors, from your Gretchen Whitmers to your Josh
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 10: Shapiros to your Josh Steins to Katie Hobbs, who's going
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 10: to have a tough race but is going to win.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 10: Wes Moore is a great friend of mine.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 8: Possible running mate. I'm just here. I'm just here offering
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 8: color commentary.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 10: I mean, but what we have to do is we
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 10: have to get results. We have to be common sense,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 10: common ground, and then we have to deliver for our people.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 10: And I think it's important that the next president, who
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 10: must be a Democrat, is somebody that can not only
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 10: bring our country back together, get us past this us
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 10: versus them, which I believe is one of the biggest threats,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 10: but also has to restore faith in the American dream.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 10: And that's the second biggest threat to our country. You know,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 10: right now, so many people believe if they work hard
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 10: and play by the rules, they still can't get ahead.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 10: And we've got to make sure that we have a
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 10: president that can not only build back the federal government
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 10: in a way that is more efficient, that's quicker, and
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 10: that gets better results, but ultimately has to make sure
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 10: that our people are doing better and has to be
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 10: focused on that every day. I think that means you're
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 10: going to have a cabinet that's going to have a
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 10: lot of governors because it's not just the cabinet secretaries
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 10: that are no longer there with experience. It's ahead of
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 10: each of these agencies. And governors are people who aren't
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 10: just leaders, they have leaders in their states in some
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 10: of these same areas. And I get to talk to
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 10: my colleagues all the time. They love this country. They're
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 10: ready to do everything they can to build a better country.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 10: And so, you know, I'm also the incoming chair of
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 10: the Democratic Governors Association.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah, right, sure. No, it's just a governor's plug.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 10: This answer helps me call each of them and tell
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 10: them I need their help.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 8: Yes, cool. But like, I mean, are there things that
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 8: in the postmortem, first of all, in the context of
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 8: the election win on Tuesday, right? And the loss, the
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 8: profound loss on election day 2024. Like, are there things
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 8: Democrats should not repeat?
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 10: So if you look at 2024 versus 2025, 2024, you know,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 10: I think that the strategy near the end for Democrats
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 10: was we've got to do 84% with this group and
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 10: 76% with this group and 65% with that group. And
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 10: the Trump campaign said, let's do 3% better with everyone.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 10: And what we saw through that is regardless of what
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 10: demographic you fall in, if you can't pay the bills,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 10: that's your number one issue. That yes, we have differences
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 10: in our backgrounds that should be respected, but we're not
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 10: as different as people think when it comes to our
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 10: basic everyday needs. I think how we won this time
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 10: was making sure that we had those one, two, or
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 10: three messages because that's what's so important to the people
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 10: of the country right now. And so I think we
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 10: don't fall back into this idea of the coalition with
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 10: X percent here and X percent there. We go out
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 10: and we fight for every single vote in every single area.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 10: We start talking to rural voters again. We make sure
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 10: that at every level of the socioeconomic that we're working
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 10: for people and that ultimately when we win, we deliver.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 10: We make life better for people. I think those are
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 10: the lessons that we've learned.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 8: I want to ask you, just as we wrap it up,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 8: the idea of, I mean, in politics these days, it
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 8: feels like one of the sort of central organizing principles
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 8: of successful campaigns is people feel an emotional identification. They
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 8: feel community with the candidate and even inside the campaign, right?
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 8: You see that with Trump, right? There's a strong sense
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 8: of identification with Trump, probably a little bit zealous. And
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 8: then there's, you know, even with Mamdani's campaign, right? He
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 8: had 90,000 volunteers. They knocked on 2 million doors. There's
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 8: a huge sense of belonging, identity, camaraderie, community. How do
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 8: you do something like that from the middle, right? Like,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 8: I feel like the sort of more defined your principles are,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 8: the more unifying they are, the cooler they are, the
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 8: easier it is to recruit people to be part of that,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 8: what feels like a movement. Can you do that as
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 8: a centrist?
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 10: Yes, and it's because the most important emotion for people
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 10: to feel about any campaign is hope. It is hope
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 10: for a better country. It's hope for a better life.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 10: It's hope that we won't be arguing with our neighbors
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 10: four years from now. Every campaign ought to be about
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 10: how we're going to do better and how we're going
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 10: to better the lives of the American people. And I
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 10: think when a campaign gets it right, people feel that hope.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 10: I will tell you before Tuesday, What I was trying
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 10: to do traveling the country is give Democrats and people
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 10: who are feeling despondent and scared and worried hope. The
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 10: idea that we got to get off the mat, that
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 10: this country is worth fighting for, that we've got to
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 10: get out there and make sure that we win the
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 10: next election, that we elect people everywhere from school board
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 10: all the way up to make sure that we're delivering
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 10: for the American people. And guess what? Tuesday gave us
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 10: all a whole lot of hope.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 8: One last one. Do you need to be cool? Not
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 8: you particularly, but I do feel like we're in this
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 8: zone where it's like, do you have the right memes?
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 8: Do you have the right suit? Do you have the
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 8: right vibe? I mean, you have the right suit. Does
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 8: that matter? And do you think you have it?
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 10: I think you've got to pay attention more to media
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 10: than ever before. I think you've though got to be
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 10: yourself in different ways. If you watch the videos we
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 10: put out, yes, there are videos on all the different issues.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 10: And then there's a bunch of me being a goofy dad.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 8: Great.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 10: And part of that is because I'm a goofy dad.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 10: You know, I love my kids and I love my family.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 10: And that's, I think, things that people can relate to.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 10: But there's no question you've got to show yourself in
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 10: new and interesting ways. And that's, again, why Crooked Con...
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 10: I think is so important. First, re-energizing everybody that's out there,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 10: but then engaging across all platforms. You know, my kids
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 10: are 16 and 15. Thanks. If we weren't doing podcasts,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 10: if we weren't doing YouTube, if we weren't working with
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 10: these content creators, they wouldn't watch different media.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 8: They would have no idea who you are.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 10: They might not. They would just be Mr. Beast and
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 10: then dad at home. I did make a Mr. Beast
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 10: video once, though.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 8: Well, there you go. Just hitting it on all fronts.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 10: He rebuilt six houses after a tornado in Kentucky.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 8: Wow. That's amazing.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: Pretty grateful.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 8: Right on. We are going to leave it there with
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 8: the Democratic Party's red state sweetheart, Governor Andy Beshear. Thank
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 8: you for your time, sir. Thank you for all you do.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 10: Thank you.
• 1:35:02
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