Latest / Pod Save America / Black Voters’ Views on Biden
Transcript
- 0:20Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor.
- 0:21Speaker 2: I'm Terrence Woodbury.
- 0:23Speaker 1: We are very excited to have Terrence with us today.
- 0:25Speaker 1: He's a Democratic strategist, pollster, does million-in-one focus groups, the
- 0:30Speaker 1: founder of Hit Strategies, and he is someone who has
- 0:33Speaker 1: a deep understanding of the 2024 electorate and what it
- 0:37Speaker 1: will take for Biden to win, how we can reach
- 0:39Speaker 1: these voters. So it's so great to have you.
- 0:41Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
- 0:43Speaker 1: We got a great show today. So we're going to
- 0:46Speaker 1: talk about how Donald Trump just cannot stop dozing off
- 0:49Speaker 1: during his criminal case in New York City. Meanwhile, sleepy
- 0:52Speaker 1: Joe Biden is barnstorming Pennsylvania and selling his new economic strategy,
- 0:56Speaker 1: which is taxing the rich. feels familiar. We're also going
- 0:59Speaker 1: to dig into some recent polling, whether the industry itself
- 1:02Speaker 1: is broken, what the impact of third party candidates like
- 1:05Speaker 1: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West might be, and
- 1:08Speaker 1: why President Biden seems to be struggling with young voters
- 1:11Speaker 1: and voters of color and what he can do to
- 1:13Speaker 1: fix it. So we have like six episodes to do.
- 1:15Speaker 2: Let's do it. We've got time.
- 1:17Speaker 1: Okay. We have the studio until 8 p.m. So it's
- 1:19Speaker 1: 11 a.m. now. Real quick, just a selfish plug for me, Terrence.
- 1:22Speaker 1: So the foreign policy show I do with Ben Rhodes,
- 1:24Speaker 1: it's called Pod Save the World. We got nominated for
- 1:26Speaker 1: a Webby Award. And I'm trying to juice the stats here.
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- 1:35Speaker 1: how to help people find your show because there's a
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- 1:39Speaker 1: discovery process is bad. So these awards kind of help.
- 1:42Speaker 1: Voting closes April 18th. If you have a minute to spare,
- 1:45Speaker 1: go to vote.webbiawards.com. Search for Crooked Media. Vote for Pod
- 1:49Speaker 1: Save the World. Vote for Crooked Media's social media videos.
- 1:52Speaker 1: We'd appreciate it. Again, that's vote.webbiawards.com. All right. Let's start
- 1:57Speaker 1: with some of the highlights from Trump's time in court
- 2:00Speaker 1: this week. Judge Merchan swore in seven jurors on Tuesday
- 2:05Speaker 1: before adjourning until Thursday morning. It's an interesting kind of
- 2:08Speaker 1: eclectic group. The jury foreperson lives in West Harlem. He's
- 2:11Speaker 1: originally from Ireland. He says his media diet includes the
- 2:15Speaker 1: New York Times and the Daily Mail, which is weird.
- 2:18Speaker 1: He likes to watch Fox News and MSNBC. So I
- 2:21Speaker 1: bet a lot of Our very probably polarized audience hears
- 2:24Speaker 1: this and says, this guy doesn't exist in the real world.
- 2:26Speaker 1: He's lying. You listen to real people all the time
- 2:29Speaker 1: in focus groups. Did this media diet surprise you?
- 2:32Speaker 3: This doesn't surprise me. People that do not consume politics
- 2:38Speaker 3: endlessly the way many of us do, they just don't
- 2:40Speaker 3: live on these partisan ideological lines the way we do.
- 2:45Speaker 3: Many times they're not making decisions based on hardened ideological
- 2:48Speaker 3: positions or I heard someone compare it to like, you know,
- 2:53Speaker 3: if you don't watch hockey and you're picking an MVP,
- 2:56Speaker 3: a most viable player in hockey, you're picking it based
- 3:00Speaker 3: on factors that an actual hockey fan would not consider important.
- 3:04Speaker 2: Like, I like their name. They sound familiar. You know,
- 3:07Speaker 2: I like their mascot. You know what I mean?
- 3:09Speaker 3: And that's a lot of what's happening with some of
- 3:11Speaker 3: the less engaged folks. And so how are they going
- 3:16Speaker 3: to find an impartial jury in Manhattan? They find guys
- 3:18Speaker 3: like this that are you know, consuming MSNBC, Fox News,
- 3:23Speaker 3: and Daily Beast.
- 3:24Speaker 1: Right, right. I love there's a write-up by Just Security.
- 3:27Speaker 1: There was one juror posted a lock him up meme
- 3:31Speaker 1: on Facebook. He got excused. There's another who posted an
- 3:34Speaker 1: AI video of Trump calling himself a dumb fuck. They
- 3:37Speaker 1: got rid of that guy too. One juror called himself
- 3:39Speaker 1: the repost king. So interesting, fun to watch all this.
- 3:42Speaker 1: So we're all trying to figure out how this trial
- 3:44Speaker 1: may or may not impact the electorate views of Trump.
- 3:47Speaker 1: A new poll from AP NORC Center for Public Affairs
- 3:50Speaker 1: Research shows that Americans are less convinced of Trump's guilt
- 3:53Speaker 1: in this first criminal trial, the hush money trial, compared
- 3:56Speaker 1: to the other cases. So while only one third of U.S.
- 3:59Speaker 1: adults believe Trump committed a crime in the hush money case,
- 4:03Speaker 1: almost half think he's guilty in the other three cases. However,
- 4:07Speaker 1: half of Americans would see Trump as unfit for the
- 4:09Speaker 1: White House if he is convicted of falsifying business records
- 4:13Speaker 1: related to this hush money case. So the verdict really
- 4:15Speaker 1: matters is the point here. Has anything in the polling
- 4:18Speaker 1: or focus groups jumped out at you about how voters
- 4:21Speaker 1: feel about this trial and what they might need to
- 4:24Speaker 1: hear during it to influence their opinion when they actually vote?
- 4:28Speaker 2: Well, I am.
- 4:28Speaker 3: Relieved to hear that half of America would see these
- 4:31Speaker 3: convictions as making Donald Trump unfit.
- 4:34Speaker 2: I'm concerned more about the other half.
- 4:36Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish that was higher.
- 4:37Speaker 2: Right, that's right.
- 4:39Speaker 3: Look, I have seen Donald Trump... suggest that this is
- 4:45Speaker 3: going to endear him to some voters, specifically to black
- 4:49Speaker 3: voters that see him as a victim or being unjustly
- 4:53Speaker 3: targeted by the criminal justice system. I have not seen
- 4:56Speaker 3: any indication of that in any of our focus groups
- 4:57Speaker 3: or polling. But what could benefit him, you know, when
- 5:01Speaker 3: we're talking to some of these cynical voters that believe
- 5:04Speaker 3: that the system is the.
- 5:05Speaker 2: Problem, this... appears to be a distraction.
- 5:11Speaker 3: It appears to be they want us focused on these
- 5:14Speaker 3: meaningless crimes so that we're not focused on what really matters.
- 5:17Speaker 2: What really matters, insert the blank, depending on who I'm
- 5:19Speaker 2: talking to.
- 5:20Speaker 3: And so there is some of that, that just endless
- 5:23Speaker 3: coverage of Donald Trump and hush money allegations from years
- 5:28Speaker 3: ago seem like a distraction from what people would rather
- 5:31Speaker 3: be talking about. And so in that case, it does
- 5:35Speaker 3: kind of validate the system is broken message and does...
- 5:38Speaker 3: could appeal to some voters that believe that.
- 5:40Speaker 1: He's also hammering like the system is rigged. This is
- 5:43Speaker 1: a Biden prosecution. This is my opponents coming after me.
- 5:46Speaker 1: Do you think, is your sense that people are receptive
- 5:49Speaker 1: to that kind of messaging?
- 5:51Speaker 2: No.
- 5:53Speaker 3: The people that are receptive to Trump as a victim
- 5:57Speaker 3: and Biden as a bully are the half of people
- 6:00Speaker 3: that are already that are already kind of in bed
- 6:03Speaker 3: with Trump. What concerns me about this 50%, this half
- 6:07Speaker 3: of folks that don't think that this makes him unfit,
- 6:10Speaker 3: is that he doesn't need 50% to win. He doesn't
- 6:14Speaker 3: need half of America to vote for him to win.
- 6:17Speaker 1: He needs 46%, 47%.
- 6:17Speaker 3: And I think that he's well within those margins of
- 6:19Speaker 3: folks that will discredit all of these trials. Now, I
- 6:22Speaker 3: do think that the subsequent trials are going to have
- 6:24Speaker 3: a different kind of impact, and we see that in
- 6:26Speaker 3: the polling as well.
- 6:27Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 6:28Speaker 1: I was reading about this polling experiment that YouGov did.
- 6:31Speaker 1: So in 2018, they did a survey and they asked everybody,
- 6:34Speaker 1: the respondents, if it would be a crime for a
- 6:36Speaker 1: candidate to pay someone to remain silent about an issue
- 6:39Speaker 1: that might impact the election. Clearly, the context at the
- 6:42Speaker 1: time was the hush money case. 56% of respondents said, yeah,
- 6:46Speaker 1: that'd be a crime. 2023 comes along. YouGov does another poll.
- 6:49Speaker 1: They ask the same question over again. This time, more
- 6:51Speaker 1: than 70% of Americans said it would be a crime,
- 6:54Speaker 1: including 73% of Republicans. What changed? Well, the first time
- 6:59Speaker 1: the context was obvious. The second time Republicans who answered
- 7:02Speaker 1: didn't realize that they are basically being asked about Trump.
- 7:05Speaker 1: I think you can hear that experiment and view it
- 7:08Speaker 1: two ways. You can say, OK, that's hopeful. Voters know
- 7:11Speaker 1: right and wrong when it's based on the facts and
- 7:13Speaker 1: the merits. Or you can find it to be depressing
- 7:16Speaker 1: and say, OK, political polarization is driving every opinion about everything.
- 7:20Speaker 1: Do you have a reaction when you when you hear
- 7:22Speaker 1: that experiment outlined?
- 7:24Speaker 3: Definitely the latter, you know, that this is, it's just
- 7:28Speaker 3: indicative of how both political polarization and the Trump indoctrination,
- 7:33Speaker 3: that anything associated with Trump is changing how people even
- 7:36Speaker 3: view the realities of the world. That's what's changing the
- 7:39Speaker 3: dynamics of our conversation. You know, it's not based on
- 7:43Speaker 3: a truth or a fact that we all believe. It's
- 7:45Speaker 3: based on what you believe about Donald Trump.
- 7:47Speaker 5: Right. So frustrating.
- 7:49Speaker 1: Um, Trump, okay, so he's trying to own the narrative.
- 7:52Speaker 1: His first campaign event since his trial started was a
- 7:55Speaker 1: visit to a bodega in Harlem that had been the
- 7:57Speaker 1: site of a fatal stabbing in 2022. Very subtle. He
- 8:01Speaker 1: seems to have a two-part message strategy here. Part one,
- 8:04Speaker 1: attack Democrats as soft on crime. He especially likes to
- 8:07Speaker 1: talk about his new category of migrant crime where he's
- 8:10Speaker 1: demagoguing immigration. Part two is he wants to go after
- 8:14Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg for prosecuting him and not focusing on crime
- 8:18Speaker 1: in the city, violent crime in particular. A couple of
- 8:20Speaker 1: days ago, the Wall Street Journal had a big story
- 8:22Speaker 1: about how homicides in American cities are falling at the
- 8:25Speaker 1: fastest rate in decades to basically pre-pandemic levels. I'm wondering
- 8:30Speaker 1: how salient you think the crime message is with the
- 8:34Speaker 1: general electorate and whether the fact that things are getting
- 8:37Speaker 1: better is breaking through.
- 8:40Speaker 3: You know, I missed this bodega visit, maybe because it
- 8:44Speaker 3: was lost in the Chick-fil-A visit, but I am glad
- 8:46Speaker 3: that he's making his way through, you know, um, local establishments.
- 8:51Speaker 1: Burger King's next. Right, exactly.
- 8:52Speaker 3: I hope he bought a few chopped cheeses at the
- 8:55Speaker 3: bodega since he bought a few milkshakes at Chick-fil-A. The
- 8:59Speaker 3: challenge with crime, look, we all know this. Perceptions of
- 9:03Speaker 3: crime are very different than people's experiences of crime. Overwhelmingly, people,
- 9:08Speaker 3: I think over 80% of people say they haven't experienced
- 9:10Speaker 3: or witnessed crime, but still feel like it's getting worse.
- 9:15Speaker 3: What we have found when it comes to issues of
- 9:18Speaker 3: crime is that Democrats do much better on issues of
- 9:21Speaker 3: public safety than we do on crime. It allows us
- 9:23Speaker 3: to broaden the conversation to things that Democrats actually do
- 9:27Speaker 3: thrive on, like preventing the root causes of crime, like
- 9:32Speaker 3: leaning into addiction counseling, violence prevention, and alternative responses. And
- 9:39Speaker 3: so I think that Democrats do have a winning message here.
- 9:42Speaker 3: I think we have to lean into that message and
- 9:44Speaker 3: begin to broaden the conversation. And of course, What we've
- 9:48Speaker 3: seen the president do effectively, including in previous State of
- 9:51Speaker 3: the Union addresses, is including in crime gun violence, which
- 9:54Speaker 3: is a top issue of voters of color and of
- 9:58Speaker 3: young voters and where Democrats have an overwhelming advantage on
- 10:02Speaker 3: how we would handle guns.
- 10:03Speaker 1: I think that's a really important point. We sometimes talk
- 10:05Speaker 1: about crime in terms of just like sentencing or how
- 10:08Speaker 1: many police on the streets. But yeah, obviously getting gun control,
- 10:12Speaker 1: getting guns off our streets would help reduce violent crime.
- 10:15Speaker 1: So while Trump's, again, snoozing away in court, Biden was
- 10:18Speaker 1: in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to kick off his
- 10:21Speaker 1: three-day campaign swing through Pennsylvania to talk about taxes and
- 10:24Speaker 1: the economy. The swing marks the eighth time the Biden-Harris
- 10:27Speaker 1: campaign has made it to Pennsylvania this year. Biden used
- 10:30Speaker 1: his hometown to frame the election as a race between Trump,
- 10:33Speaker 1: who's this out-of-touch Mar-a-Lago billionaire, and himself, Scranton Joe. Framing
- 10:38Speaker 1: is very similar to anyone who paid attention in 2020
- 10:40Speaker 1: to that race. During his speech, Biden said he wanted
- 10:44Speaker 1: to keep a majority of the tax breaks that Trump
- 10:46Speaker 1: had signed into law in 2017 in place in order
- 10:49Speaker 1: to keep his promise not to raise taxes on people
- 10:51Speaker 1: earning less than $ 400, 000. But he wants to raise $ 4. 9
- 10:55Speaker 1: trillion in revenue over the next 10 years and place
- 10:58Speaker 1: higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. He also got
- 11:01Speaker 1: a few jokes off on stage. Let's listen.
- 11:03Speaker 6: You know, I've already been delivering real results in a
- 11:06Speaker 6: fiscally responsible way. But I know not everyone's feeling it.
- 11:11Speaker 6: Just the other day, a defeated looking guy came up
- 11:13Speaker 6: to me and asked if I could help. He was
- 11:17Speaker 6: drowning in debt.
- 11:19Speaker 2: I said, I'm sorry, Donald, but I can't help you.
- 11:25Speaker 1: I like that petty shit. Keep it up. So Terrence,
- 11:28Speaker 1: the numbers on the economy have been stubbornly bad for Biden.
- 11:31Speaker 1: According to a recent CBS poll, 65% of voters rate
- 11:35Speaker 1: the economy is good under the Trump presidency as compared
- 11:38Speaker 1: to 38% who say it's good under Biden's presidency. What
- 11:41Speaker 1: do you think explains Trump's strength there?
- 11:45Speaker 2: So first, look, I also like that petty shit.
- 11:47Speaker 3: I think that that that Joe Biden being able to
- 11:50Speaker 3: get off some of these jabs does a couple of things. One,
- 11:52Speaker 3: it continues to refute this idea that he's, you know,
- 11:57Speaker 3: that he's losing his marbles. It shows that he's witty.
- 12:00Speaker 2: He's quick. He's still he could swing. He could swing
- 12:02Speaker 2: him as much as he could take him.
- 12:03Speaker 3: But the other thing is that Trump can't help but
- 12:06Speaker 3: to respond to this shit.
- 12:08Speaker 2: Always.
- 12:08Speaker 1: Takes the bait every time.
- 12:09Speaker 3: That's exactly right. Leave the bait for him. Get him
- 12:11Speaker 3: off the message. Keep him responding. Look, economy is the
- 12:16Speaker 3: number one issue of every election cycle. But what we
- 12:19Speaker 3: have seen is that what voters are saying when they
- 12:22Speaker 3: choose economy as their top issue is different each time.
- 12:25Speaker 3: In 2008, you would remember when they were saying economy,
- 12:29Speaker 3: this is at the height.
- 12:30Speaker 2: Of the recession.
- 12:31Speaker 3: They were talking about jobs and foreclosure. In 2012, during
- 12:36Speaker 3: the height of the Tea Party movement, they were talking
- 12:38Speaker 3: about taxes and spending. Well, now when voters are saying economy,
- 12:41Speaker 3: and once again, it is the number one issue across demographics,
- 12:44Speaker 3: across geographics, but what they are really talking about is
- 12:48Speaker 3: cost and price. Overwhelmingly, the economic anxiety that voters are
- 12:53Speaker 3: expressing is about the cost of things, cost of healthcare,
- 12:57Speaker 3: cost of education, cost of food, cost of gas. I
- 12:59Speaker 3: had someone in focus groups talk to me about after
- 13:02Speaker 3: her father died, his social security and VA benefits were
- 13:04Speaker 3: taxed so much that the cost of dying is too
- 13:07Speaker 3: damn high. And so, you know, we have, this is
- 13:12Speaker 3: exactly why we are seeing indicators like lowest unemployment rate,
- 13:15Speaker 3: record job creation. None of these things are changing them
- 13:18Speaker 3: or moving the needle because the challenge is cost. I
- 13:22Speaker 3: think that the Biden-Harris administration has a good track record
- 13:25Speaker 3: on how they, on the efforts they're doing to reduce cost.
- 13:29Speaker 3: things like reducing late fees from $ 33 to $ 8, reducing
- 13:33Speaker 3: insulin costs, capping the cost of insulin, capping the cost
- 13:36Speaker 3: of prescription drugs, and increasing Pell Grants to reduce the
- 13:41Speaker 3: cost of education. But we have to continue to make
- 13:44Speaker 3: the economic conversation a cost about cost and price and
- 13:48Speaker 3: not just a conversation about jobs and wages.
- 13:50Speaker 1: That's such a good point because people assume economy means
- 13:54Speaker 1: the same thing to everybody. And no, of course it doesn't.
- 13:57Speaker 1: It means different things at different points of time and
- 13:58Speaker 1: different people. And you're right. I mean, some of the
- 14:00Speaker 1: things you just laid out there that Biden has done
- 14:02Speaker 1: for seniors in particular are like discreet and easy to describe,
- 14:07Speaker 1: like capping the price of insulin. You feel that in
- 14:09Speaker 1: your life. You see that in your pocketbook at the
- 14:11Speaker 1: end of the month when you're paying bills. It's really
- 14:14Speaker 1: well said. Over the years, a lot of Democrats have
- 14:18Speaker 1: been attacked for being tax and spend liberals. We've lost elections.
- 14:22Speaker 1: Al Gore was accused of class warfare, right? And it
- 14:24Speaker 1: sort of scared him off in an economic message at times.
- 14:27Speaker 1: Biden is obviously leaning into this fight. He's talking about
- 14:30Speaker 1: taxing billionaires more. Do you think that's smart and popular
- 14:33Speaker 1: in this case?
- 14:35Speaker 2: Yes, always, always.
- 14:36Speaker 3: I think you made the joke at the top of
- 14:38Speaker 3: the episode that taxing the rich is the latest and
- 14:42Speaker 3: greatest new policy. I mean, this has been popular for
- 14:44Speaker 3: a very long time. I think this is a part
- 14:47Speaker 3: of what propelled Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in previous primaries.
- 14:52Speaker 3: It is obviously very, very popular in the Democratic base.
- 14:57Speaker 3: It is one that we should continue to lean into.
- 14:58Speaker 3: I don't think that that is people's top priority unless
- 15:01Speaker 3: we can connect it to how does taxing billionaires help
- 15:05Speaker 3: make their lives better, help pay for the things that
- 15:08Speaker 3: they need, help pay for the services that they need,
- 15:10Speaker 3: help fix the roads.
- 15:12Speaker 2: In their communities.
- 15:13Speaker 1: There's a next....
- 15:16Speaker 3: Iteration of that conversation that, yes, we tax the billionaires,
- 15:19Speaker 3: but to do what?
- 15:20Speaker 1: Right. That's a really good point. And also the context,
- 15:22Speaker 1: I think, is Trump is going to these fundraising events
- 15:26Speaker 1: at Mar-a-Lago and other places in Palm Beach, and he's
- 15:28Speaker 1: raising money. He's raising like $ 900, 000 checks from a whole
- 15:32Speaker 1: bunch of billionaires to fund his campaign. And clearly Biden
- 15:34Speaker 1: is saying he's going to wake up in the morning
- 15:36Speaker 1: thinking about those people who are funding his campaign and
- 15:39Speaker 1: do favors for them. I'm focused on you. All right,
- 15:41Speaker 1: so let's geek out on some polling for a bit.
- 15:43Speaker 1: We talk a lot on the show about the accuracy
- 15:46Speaker 1: of polling, what we can and cannot learn from polls.
- 15:49Speaker 1: According to the Real Clear Politics average, Biden and Trump
- 15:52Speaker 1: are neck and neck, with Biden polling at 45.4% and
- 15:56Speaker 1: Trump polling at 45.6%. Trump is beating Biden by 0.2%
- 16:00Speaker 1: in that average. Biden's standing seems to have improved on
- 16:05Speaker 1: average since the State of the Union. Do you think
- 16:07Speaker 1: that's accurate? And do you have any sense of why
- 16:10Speaker 1: he's moving the numbers?
- 16:12Speaker 2: I do think that's accurate. This is my favorite segment.
- 16:17Speaker 3: We joke that after every election, we have to defend
- 16:20Speaker 3: the credibility of this entire industry.
- 16:23Speaker 2: Why does polling even exist?
- 16:24Speaker 1: People get real mad. They remember that one poll that
- 16:26Speaker 1: was wrong and they get big mad about it.
- 16:28Speaker 2: That's right. That's right.
- 16:29Speaker 3: Look, we have seen this uptick in Biden's support since
- 16:33Speaker 3: the State of the Union. I think it is one
- 16:37Speaker 3: thing that he did in the State of the Union
- 16:39Speaker 3: was to undermine his greatest his greatest challenge. And that is,
- 16:43Speaker 3: is he up to the job, right? Does he have
- 16:45Speaker 3: the stamina? Does he have the strength? Does he have the, uh,
- 16:48Speaker 3: the longevity to do the job? Um, and I think
- 16:50Speaker 3: he addressed a lot of that, especially in the, um,
- 16:53Speaker 3: in the, the sparring back and forth with the Republicans.
- 16:56Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. They laid the bait and he
- 16:58Speaker 2: didn't fall into the trap. He, he, he, he walked
- 17:00Speaker 2: them into it.
- 17:01Speaker 3: And so, um, I think that's a lot of what's
- 17:03Speaker 3: contributing to the uptick in Biden's numbers. I would also
- 17:05Speaker 3: argue that being ahead 0.2% means that he's not ahead.
- 17:10Speaker 2: Right.
- 17:10Speaker 1: We're going to lose that election.
- 17:11Speaker 3: That is a tie. And that's a part of the
- 17:14Speaker 3: challenge that we're seeing in polling. We're going to talk
- 17:15Speaker 3: about what is polling here to do better. But that's
- 17:17Speaker 3: a part of the challenge that we're seeing in polling is.
- 17:19Speaker 2: The way it's being reported. You know, a change in
- 17:22Speaker 2: one percent in either direction is a trend.
- 17:25Speaker 1: Right.
- 17:25Speaker 3: Right.
- 17:25Speaker 2: But it's not indicative of who's going to win.
- 17:27Speaker 1: Yeah. So if there's a listener out there who thinks
- 17:29Speaker 1: polling is broken, I don't trust it. I don't know
- 17:31Speaker 1: anyone's been polled. I've never been polled. What do you
- 17:34Speaker 1: say to them? What are the real challenges for pollsters
- 17:37Speaker 1: getting accurate data in the year of our Lord, 2024?
- 17:40Speaker 3: Well, look, one of the biggest challenges right now is
- 17:43Speaker 3: being able to reach the folks whose opinions we're measuring.
- 17:49Speaker 3: At Hit Strategies, we've moved away from simply doing what
- 17:52Speaker 3: used to be the gold standard of phone polling. We're
- 17:55Speaker 3: doing a lot more online and text polling. That's because
- 17:57Speaker 3: we prioritize the opinions of young people and people of color.
- 18:00Speaker 2: That may not sit on the phone for 15 minutes.
- 18:03Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't have a landline.
- 18:04Speaker 2: On a landline. That's exactly right.
- 18:06Speaker 3: I've actually never had a landline in my life, and
- 18:07Speaker 3: I think that's true of most people in my generation.
- 18:09Speaker 1: I had one. That hurts. I did not have one.
- 18:12Speaker 1: I definitely had one.
- 18:13Speaker 3: So, I mean, that's something that we've got to do better.
- 18:14Speaker 3: The other thing that we have to do better are
- 18:16Speaker 3: sample sizes. Anytime I see a poll that includes 100
- 18:21Speaker 3: black people, well, that means that if 10 or 20
- 18:24Speaker 3: of them.
- 18:24Speaker 2: Are a bit weird, then... your poll is off by
- 18:28Speaker 2: 10 or 20 points. That's a lot. That's a lot.
- 18:30Speaker 2: That's huge. That's exactly right.
- 18:33Speaker 3: We don't do any poll of black voters that's less
- 18:35Speaker 3: than 400 to correct for some of that, to mute
- 18:38Speaker 3: some of that noise that can come from just 10
- 18:40Speaker 3: or 20 people being weird.
- 18:54Speaker 1: The three candidates that have a highest chance of swaying
- 18:56Speaker 1: the election are Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and
- 18:59Speaker 1: Jill Stein from the Green Party. Kennedy is the most
- 19:02Speaker 1: well-financed third-party candidate in history. He has enough signatures to
- 19:06Speaker 1: be on the ballot in key states already, like Nevada,
- 19:09Speaker 1: New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan. We were talking before we
- 19:12Speaker 1: started recording, it seems like he'll probably get on every
- 19:15Speaker 1: ballot by the end. Cornel West just announced his running mate.
- 19:19Speaker 1: The Green Party is already on the ballot in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona.
- 19:22Speaker 1: will probably get on the ballot in all of the
- 19:24Speaker 1: swing states. So if you're the Biden campaign, which third
- 19:28Speaker 1: party challenger worries you the most? And do you think
- 19:32Speaker 1: any of them have a shot of beating Ross Perot's
- 19:36Speaker 1: aggregate vote record where he got 8 million votes in 96?
- 19:39Speaker 3: So what will concern me the most, if I was
- 19:43Speaker 3: on the Biden campaign, what concerns me the most is
- 19:45Speaker 3: not any of the individual candidates, it's the collection of
- 19:47Speaker 3: all of them, Donald Trump did not get a majority
- 19:51Speaker 3: of votes in 2016. He won with 46%. In 2020,
- 19:57Speaker 3: he got 47%. In 2024, he does not seem to
- 20:01Speaker 3: be making any effort to get to a majority, to
- 20:03Speaker 3: reach across the aisle, to attract new voters. He is
- 20:06Speaker 3: expecting this to be a base election. He's expecting his
- 20:08Speaker 3: base to do better. then Biden's basing a part of
- 20:11Speaker 3: how they're doing that is by juicing, uh, juicing these,
- 20:14Speaker 3: these third party candidates, namely Kennedy. Look right now, Kennedy is, um, surging.
- 20:20Speaker 2: In the polls.
- 20:21Speaker 3: Uh, he's in, in double digits in some of the
- 20:23Speaker 3: polls that we've seen. Kennedy is also going to be
- 20:24Speaker 3: the best resource and will likely be on all 50 ballots.
- 20:28Speaker 3: That does make him the greatest threat, um, of the three,
- 20:32Speaker 3: but the collection of the three, the ability of, of, um,
- 20:36Speaker 3: Joe Stein, Cornel West, and Kennedy together to get more
- 20:39Speaker 3: than 5% or 6% of the vote, well, that's a
- 20:43Speaker 3: threat that I know the Biden campaign and the DNC
- 20:46Speaker 3: are leaning into. That said, Cornel West is not registering
- 20:51Speaker 3: nearly as much in a lot of these polls. I
- 20:53Speaker 3: think that's because he has a much lower name ID.
- 20:55Speaker 3: But Cornel West, as voters get to know him, especially
- 20:59Speaker 3: the voters, these double haters, I want to talk a
- 21:01Speaker 3: little bit more about the double haters, this new term
- 21:03Speaker 3: of voters that doesn't like Biden or Trump. Well, in fact,
- 21:08Speaker 3: I think that these double haters are a little bit
- 21:09Speaker 3: broader than that. They are just cynics that don't like Democrats, Republicans.
- 21:13Speaker 3: They don't like politicians. They don't like vaccines. These are
- 21:16Speaker 3: all the same folks. The double hater is the same
- 21:18Speaker 3: as the vaccine hesitant. They don't like 5G.
- 21:21Speaker 2: They don't trust any of this shit.
- 21:23Speaker 3: Well, for that voter, who doesn't know Cornel West yet,
- 21:28Speaker 3: he is going to speak a lot of their language.
- 21:31Speaker 3: He's going to... criticize Joe Biden's position in Palestine. He's
- 21:38Speaker 3: going to criticize the two-party system. He's going to adopt
- 21:42Speaker 3: a lot of the Bernie Sanders populism. And this is
- 21:46Speaker 3: how a voter can go from voting for Bernie Sanders
- 21:50Speaker 3: in 2016 to voting for Donald Trump in 2016, is
- 21:53Speaker 3: because they were voting against the system. And as soon
- 21:56Speaker 3: as Cornel West begins to raise, if he is able
- 21:59Speaker 3: to raise his name ID to get in front of
- 22:01Speaker 3: these candidates, to get on college campuses where.
- 22:04Speaker 2: He really knows his way around quite a bit. Yeah,
- 22:07Speaker 2: he does.
- 22:08Speaker 3: Then I do think that he can pose a different
- 22:10Speaker 3: kind of threat. And I also think it's a little
- 22:12Speaker 3: bit harder to disqualify him on some of his positions
- 22:15Speaker 3: as it is with some of RFK's crazy shit.
- 22:18Speaker 1: Yeah, and he has real political talent and he's a
- 22:20Speaker 1: household name in a lot of households and someone who's
- 22:22Speaker 1: been around a while and has a track record and
- 22:24Speaker 1: is a compelling speaker. So yeah, I could see Cornel
- 22:27Speaker 1: West being compelling. I mean, imagine Jill Stein- will draw
- 22:31Speaker 1: from a lot of people who are primarily, I mean,
- 22:32Speaker 1: she's a Green Party candidate, so primarily focused on climate
- 22:35Speaker 1: change in particular. I think you're right. Cornel West will
- 22:37Speaker 1: get a lot of double haters. Bobby Kennedy Jr. will
- 22:40Speaker 1: probably get some double haters too, or just the kind of,
- 22:44Speaker 1: I hate everybody, burn it down, burn down the system folks.
- 22:48Speaker 1: And I don't know that people, I mean, he's got
- 22:50Speaker 1: a famous name, but I don't know that people know
- 22:53Speaker 1: much of anything about him. It seems like his voters
- 22:56Speaker 1: are extremely low information at this point, right?
- 23:00Speaker 3: I mean, that is often right of many third party voters, right?
- 23:04Speaker 3: We talked about how a non-hockey fan is going to
- 23:07Speaker 3: pick an MVP of the Hockey League, right? A lot
- 23:10Speaker 3: of non-political fans, folks that aren't consuming this stuff every day,
- 23:14Speaker 3: are making decisions not based on partisan and ideological factors.
- 23:19Speaker 2: And if they don't like either of the... Look.
- 23:23Speaker 3: For a lot of these cynics, the only thing less
- 23:24Speaker 3: popular than Joe Biden or Donald Trump is the rematch
- 23:27Speaker 3: of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And a part of
- 23:29Speaker 3: why that's so unpopular is because it's indicative of a
- 23:31Speaker 3: system that's broken. This all comes down to the broad
- 23:36Speaker 3: narrative that the system doesn't work for people like them.
- 23:39Speaker 3: And I think Kennedy, all of them, Kennedy, Stein, and
- 23:43Speaker 3: West will all represent options for folks that are shopping.
- 23:46Speaker 3: I don't think that many of them have.
- 23:52Speaker 3: Count it, Joe Biden out. I don't think that they
- 23:55Speaker 3: are never Biden voters, right? They're just shopping for a
- 23:58Speaker 3: better alternative. And we have to show them that the
- 24:00Speaker 3: best alternative is Joe Biden, as opposed to showing them
- 24:03Speaker 3: what's wrong with some of the other alternatives that they're considering.
- 24:06Speaker 1: Yeah. Ben Rose and I talked about this this week
- 24:09Speaker 1: as well. I don't think voters realize how hawkish Robert F.
- 24:13Speaker 1: Kennedy Jr. is on Israel in particular. I was going
- 24:16Speaker 1: through some of the things he said When he's talked
- 24:19Speaker 1: about the war, he says that Israel, quote, does not
- 24:21Speaker 1: have any choice except to eradicate Hamas. And back in December,
- 24:25Speaker 1: he denied that there was a siege on the civilian
- 24:27Speaker 1: population in Gaza, even though the Israeli government had announced it.
- 24:30Speaker 1: He said, quote, the Palestinian people are arguably the most
- 24:34Speaker 1: pampered people by international aid organizations in the history of
- 24:37Speaker 1: the world. That certainly cuts against my understanding of the
- 24:40Speaker 1: treatment of the Palestinian people, especially since there was a
- 24:43Speaker 1: blockade on Gaza put in place in what, 2006, 2007? Yeah.
- 24:46Speaker 1: He opposes even a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. More broadly speaking,
- 24:51Speaker 1: in 2023, he said he opposed Biden getting back into
- 24:54Speaker 1: the Iran nuclear agreement and he kind of regurgitates Trump's
- 24:56Speaker 1: lies about it. So, you know, if you have progressive friends,
- 24:59Speaker 1: if you have leftist friends who are taking a look
- 25:01Speaker 1: at Bobby Kennedy Jr. and they feel like he is
- 25:04Speaker 1: saying the things they want to hear from sort of
- 25:07Speaker 1: a leftist or more progressive candidate, maybe walk him, that person,
- 25:10Speaker 1: through Kennedy's record on Gaza because I don't think they're
- 25:14Speaker 1: going to like what they see.
- 25:15Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right. Look, I think broadly, Democrats
- 25:20Speaker 3: and progressives have to do a better job of messaging
- 25:23Speaker 3: the Israel-Palestine conflict. A part of that is talking about
- 25:27Speaker 3: what Democrats are doing better to avoid some of the
- 25:33Speaker 3: violence and shit, carnage that's happening in Gaza.
- 25:37Speaker 2: Yeah, civilian casualties.
- 25:40Speaker 3: Efforts like opposing Israel's retaliation to Iran, opposing Israel's invasion
- 25:46Speaker 3: of Rafah, putting sanctions on people that commit violence in
- 25:51Speaker 3: the West Bank, that we are taking steps to reduce
- 25:55Speaker 3: the violence. And the other part of that message is
- 25:58Speaker 3: how much worse the alternatives are, how much worse it
- 26:01Speaker 3: is for Donald Trump, who moved the American embassy to Jerusalem,
- 26:05Speaker 3: effectively ending the two-state solution, and especially how much worse
- 26:09Speaker 3: RFK would be. I think we do have to continue
- 26:12Speaker 3: to make that contrast. Again, the contrast has to include
- 26:15Speaker 3: what we're doing better and how much worse the alternatives are.
- 26:19Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. There's a real policy
- 26:21Speaker 1: problem that we got to fix. We got to get
- 26:22Speaker 1: to a ceasefire, get the hostages released, got to end
- 26:25Speaker 1: the war as soon as possible, President Biden does, but
- 26:27Speaker 1: also tell a story about what Trump did while he
- 26:29Speaker 1: was in office and all the political favors he did
- 26:31Speaker 1: for Bibi Netanyahu, because you're right, he took a number
- 26:34Speaker 1: of steps that made a two-state solution less likely during
- 26:37Speaker 1: his four years in office. So let's talk about what
- 26:39Speaker 1: Biden will need to do to win back young voters
- 26:42Speaker 1: and voters of color. Both groups showed up for him
- 26:45Speaker 1: in record-breaking numbers in 2020 and helped him win in
- 26:48Speaker 1: key battleground states. But that support seems to have softened
- 26:52Speaker 1: a bit. More black male voters say they plan to
- 26:55Speaker 1: vote for Trump this year than did in 2020. According
- 26:58Speaker 1: to the Wall Street Journal, they did a poll of
- 27:01Speaker 1: seven swing states. 30% of black men said they would
- 27:04Speaker 1: vote for Trump compared to 12% who did in 2020. So, Terrence,
- 27:08Speaker 1: you guys do your own research. It's strategies and not
- 27:11Speaker 1: in the Joe Rogan way, but like you actually do
- 27:14Speaker 1: real research. You have found that the growing generation gap
- 27:17Speaker 1: between black voters is something that's not being focused on enough.
- 27:21Speaker 1: So 15 percent of black voters under 50 identify as Republican,
- 27:24Speaker 1: while two percent of black voters over 50 identify as Republicans.
- 27:28Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about voters of color first. There
- 27:31Speaker 1: seems to be this consistent trend of black and Hispanic
- 27:34Speaker 1: voters leaving the Democratic Party, especially men. Is that narrative accurate?
- 27:38Speaker 1: And if so, why do you think it's happening?
- 27:41Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's two things happening here, right? There's a
- 27:44Speaker 3: gender gap between women voters of color and men voters
- 27:48Speaker 3: of color that has gotten a lot of attention. You know,
- 27:50Speaker 3: there's been a lot of attention about men of color.
- 27:52Speaker 3: There has been erosion there. And this erosion is not
- 27:56Speaker 3: just a Biden effect. This has been an erosion from
- 28:01Speaker 3: Democrats more broadly.
- 28:02Speaker 2: It's happening up and down the ballot.
- 28:03Speaker 3: It has been happening since Barack Obama exit the political
- 28:07Speaker 3: stage ever since 2012. We have seen 2% to 4%
- 28:12Speaker 3: more men of color voting, supporting Republicans in every single election. Midterms,
- 28:18Speaker 3: down ballot, it is a gradual increase. But the other
- 28:22Speaker 3: thing that you're right, hasn't gotten enough attention is the
- 28:25Speaker 3: generation gap between older voters of color and younger voters
- 28:28Speaker 3: of color. While the gender gap between men of color
- 28:31Speaker 3: and women of color is closer to 4% or 5%,
- 28:33Speaker 3: a notable gap that could contribute to some differences in outcomes,
- 28:38Speaker 3: the generation gap between younger voters of color and older
- 28:41Speaker 3: voters of color is more than 25%.
- 28:42Speaker 2: Wow.
- 28:44Speaker 3: That is where this erosion amongst young people, I think,
- 28:48Speaker 3: is where the greatest threat is. And I do think
- 28:50Speaker 3: we have a lot more work to do there before November.
- 28:53Speaker 1: I know you guys took a look at the state
- 28:54Speaker 1: of Georgia, especially the 2022 elections and black turnout there.
- 28:58Speaker 1: What did you guys find in Georgia?
- 29:01Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you know, what was so interesting in Georgia
- 29:03Speaker 3: is that in 2020, we saw that David Perdue had
- 29:07Speaker 3: gone from 7% of black men's votes to 17% of.
- 29:09Speaker 2: Black men's votes.
- 29:10Speaker 1: David Perdue did?
- 29:11Speaker 2: David Perdue, right?
- 29:13Speaker 3: In the same election, Tom Tillis in North Carolina went
- 29:15Speaker 3: from 5% of black men's votes to 10% of black
- 29:18Speaker 3: men's votes. And so we see this, not just a
- 29:22Speaker 3: marginal increase, they're doubling their support amongst black men. But
- 29:28Speaker 3: that didn't happen in 2022, namely because of Stacey Abrams' campaign,
- 29:31Speaker 3: who saw, you know, Stacey runs a very data-driven campaign.
- 29:35Speaker 3: She saw the impact of that gender gap from her
- 29:38Speaker 3: previous campaign, and they affect closed it, that black men
- 29:41Speaker 3: supported Stacey at almost the same level as black women,
- 29:44Speaker 3: but that that gap amongst younger black voters persisted. And
- 29:48Speaker 3: we see that across the South. I mentioned Tom Tillis
- 29:51Speaker 3: in North Carolina, but we also saw in Florida in 2022. Look,
- 29:55Speaker 3: I worked for Andrew Gillum in Florida in 2018, where
- 29:59Speaker 3: we lost that election by less than one point. Four
- 30:03Speaker 3: years later, when DeSantis won the same race by almost
- 30:06Speaker 3: 20 points, I was very curious to see what is
- 30:09Speaker 3: the erosion, what's happening there. Man, Miami-Dade, 45% of Miami-Dade
- 30:14Speaker 3: voted for Ron DeSantis. 45%, almost half. That's our strongest
- 30:21Speaker 3: stronghold of Florida, is Miami-Dade. And so what we're seeing
- 30:25Speaker 3: is that it's not because DeSantis is switching, is flipping
- 30:28Speaker 3: the votes. in Miami-Dade, it's because of a lot of
- 30:31Speaker 3: the Andrew Gillum voters just stayed home. And so that
- 30:34Speaker 3: is what is contributing to a lot of the increase
- 30:36Speaker 3: that we're seeing Republicans get is erosion. It's not increasing
- 30:40Speaker 3: their margin, it's eroding our margin. And the other thing
- 30:43Speaker 3: that we're seeing more than anything, contributing to increase support
- 30:48Speaker 3: from black voters towards Republicans is that they're spending money trying.
- 30:52Speaker 3: They are, for the first time, Republicans are investing heavily
- 30:56Speaker 3: in targeting men of color and young voters of color,
- 31:00Speaker 3: and they are seeing a return on some of those investments.
- 31:03Speaker 1: Man, that's worrisome because a lot of people thought that
- 31:06Speaker 1: this appeal to black men might be a Trump-specific phenomenon,
- 31:09Speaker 1: but clearly what you found is that it's not. So
- 31:12Speaker 1: you guys did a focus group in 2023 of men
- 31:15Speaker 1: of color who supported Biden in 2020. And now we're
- 31:19Speaker 1: considering voting third party in 2024. Let's take a listen
- 31:22Speaker 1: to a clip from that.
- 31:24Speaker 5: The numbers, I'm not going based off the numbers. I'm
- 31:26Speaker 5: going based off what I feel like that person is
- 31:29Speaker 5: going to bring to the table. Even though I know
- 31:32Speaker 5: the math, Donald Trump's probably going to win. I'm still
- 31:34Speaker 5: going to vote for who I feel like would bring
- 31:36Speaker 5: something to the table.
- 31:37Speaker 4: Anyone else in Howard's position saying I would still vote
- 31:39Speaker 4: third party over Joe Biden if that third party person
- 31:44Speaker 4: aligned with my policy positions?
- 31:46Speaker 2: Better than Joe Biden does.
- 31:47Speaker 4: Anyone else that would do that? Given the calculus we
- 31:51Speaker 4: talked about, would President Trump possibly run it?
- 31:54Speaker 2: So one, two, three, four, five, six episodes.
- 31:56Speaker 4: So all of us are saying, who are on that
- 31:58Speaker 4: side are saying that as well.
- 32:00Speaker 1: So tell us who we're hearing from there and what
- 32:02Speaker 1: your takeaways were from this group.
- 32:04Speaker 2: Yes.
- 32:04Speaker 3: Look, it's shocking to hear six out of seven men
- 32:07Speaker 3: of color who previously voted for Joe Biden say that
- 32:10Speaker 3: they would vote third party here, even when presented with
- 32:13Speaker 3: the with the outcomes. that that could mean that Donald
- 32:17Speaker 3: Trump wins. But what's important is who we're talking to here, right?
- 32:21Speaker 3: This is a group that Hit Strategies recruited specifically of
- 32:25Speaker 3: men of color that voted for Joe Biden in 2020
- 32:28Speaker 3: and were undecided in the summer of 2023. The nature
- 32:32Speaker 3: of them being undecided is what, you know, it doesn't
- 32:36Speaker 3: surprise me that they're shopping for alternatives.
- 32:39Speaker 2: A couple of things I see in that clip.
- 32:40Speaker 3: One, they didn't name, many of them couldn't name the
- 32:43Speaker 3: third party candidate that they were voting for.
- 32:44Speaker 2: What they were really saying is not those two.
- 32:47Speaker 3: The other is that this was in June of 2023,
- 32:49Speaker 3: where many of them did not believe that this would
- 32:51Speaker 3: be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And
- 32:53Speaker 3: they certainly did not believe that America would nominate Donald
- 32:57Speaker 3: Trump again. That has changed. He's now the presumptive nominee.
- 33:00Speaker 3: He's now the existential threat that he was in 2020.
- 33:03Speaker 3: or at least we can make him the existential threat
- 33:06Speaker 3: that he was in 2020. I'm afraid that that's a
- 33:07Speaker 3: lot of what we're seeing right now is that many
- 33:10Speaker 3: black voters don't think that he is as much of
- 33:13Speaker 3: a threat as he was back then. Um, especially because
- 33:17Speaker 3: they survived it, you know, it didn't, it wasn't as
- 33:19Speaker 3: bad as they expected. They survived it. We got to
- 33:20Speaker 3: remind folks of just how bad it was. And then
- 33:23Speaker 3: the last thing I think is important is that this
- 33:25Speaker 3: is these, again, these were not never Biden voters. They were,
- 33:29Speaker 3: they are voters that are shopping for alternatives. Um, The
- 33:33Speaker 3: best way for Biden and for Democrats to prevent that erosion, again,
- 33:38Speaker 3: it's not going to be by telling these men not
- 33:41Speaker 3: to spoil for Biden. It won't be just by disqualifying
- 33:45Speaker 3: the other third party candidates. It's going to be by
- 33:47Speaker 3: telling them why Joe Biden is the best option.
- 33:49Speaker 1: Right.
- 33:50Speaker 3: Because what these men are saying is, regardless of the outcome,
- 33:52Speaker 3: I'm going to vote for who I think is best
- 33:54Speaker 3: for me. Even if that means Donald Trump wins, even
- 33:57Speaker 3: if that means Joe Biden loses, I'm going to vote
- 34:00Speaker 3: for who I think is best. How do we convince
- 34:02Speaker 3: them That Joe Biden is the best option for them.
- 34:05Speaker 3: I think that the way to do that is by
- 34:07Speaker 3: talking about the progress that he's made over the last
- 34:09Speaker 3: four years, by connecting them with that progress from the
- 34:12Speaker 3: last four years before making promises over for the next
- 34:16Speaker 3: four years.
- 34:17Speaker 2: Right.
- 34:17Speaker 1: And because you guys, you hit strategies, shared some more
- 34:19Speaker 1: data with us where you found 52 percent of black
- 34:22Speaker 1: voters say their lives have not improved since Biden became president.
- 34:25Speaker 1: And 28% of those polled under the age of 50
- 34:28Speaker 1: say their lives have gotten worse. So, yeah, of course,
- 34:30Speaker 1: if you feel like things haven't gotten better for you
- 34:32Speaker 1: since Donald Trump left office, why would you view him
- 34:35Speaker 1: as a threat?
- 34:36Speaker 2: That's right. That's right.
- 34:37Speaker 3: Look, again, I am laser focused on this third of
- 34:41Speaker 3: the black electorate that is, you know, the cynical voters,
- 34:44Speaker 3: the double haters, the folks that don't believe the system
- 34:47Speaker 3: works for them. For folks like that, man, the hope
- 34:51Speaker 3: is such a fragile thing. you know, that when we
- 34:53Speaker 3: inspire them, when we, and you, you worked for a
- 34:55Speaker 3: guy that did a lot of, a lot of this
- 34:57Speaker 3: hope work, a lot of this convincing folks that they
- 35:00Speaker 3: can change their system, that they could change their system. Well,
- 35:03Speaker 3: once we do that and convince them that if they vote,
- 35:05Speaker 3: things will get better for them and they don't feel
- 35:08Speaker 3: that material difference in their lives, it creates this hope deficit.
- 35:13Speaker 3: And that is what Donald Trump is, is betting on.
- 35:16Speaker 3: That's who he's talking to. And he says, what the
- 35:18Speaker 3: hell do you have to lose? It's folks that have
- 35:21Speaker 3: felt that erosion of hope, that tried one way that,
- 35:24Speaker 3: you know, this is from a focus group of a
- 35:27Speaker 3: voter who said to me, my hood didn't get any
- 35:29Speaker 3: better under Obama.
- 35:30Speaker 2: It didn't get any worse under Trump. So what does
- 35:32Speaker 2: Biden have to do with me?
- 35:34Speaker 3: That's the cynicism that Republicans and Trump are trying to
- 35:37Speaker 3: lean into. And that's what we have to combat with
- 35:39Speaker 3: the progress that has actually improved their lives.
- 35:41Speaker 1: And it's understandable cynicism, right? Because presidents have a lot
- 35:44Speaker 1: of power, but they don't have unlimited power. Sometimes there's
- 35:46Speaker 1: broader economic forces that impact your ability to improve the
- 35:50Speaker 1: lives of the people you're working for. Sometimes Congress blocks
- 35:52Speaker 1: you from passing things. Sometimes you do a bad job.
- 35:54Speaker 1: That's right. I was in the White House for four years.
- 35:57Speaker 1: I saw us do a little of both. So context
- 35:59Speaker 1: to remember there. Real quick, before we go to break,
- 36:01Speaker 1: if you are in Los Angeles, this Sunday, April 21st,
- 36:04Speaker 1: Pod Save America is live at the LA Times Festival
- 36:07Speaker 1: of Books. Come see us. Hysteria's very own Aaron Ryan's
- 36:10Speaker 1: going to be there. Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, and me,
- 36:13Speaker 1: we're going to have a great show. Go to kirka.com
- 36:16Speaker 1: slash events if you want to get a ticket and
- 36:18Speaker 1: come see us. Also, if you're a listener, you want
- 36:20Speaker 1: to give us a piece of your mind on everything
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- 36:30Speaker 1: to crooked.com slash insiders. Fill out a survey. Please be
- 36:34Speaker 1: as bossy as possible. We want to know your opinions.
- 36:36Speaker 1: That's crooked.com slash insiders. So let's talk about young voters.
- 36:52Speaker 1: So we've seen this trend of young voters hesitating to
- 36:55Speaker 1: come out and support for Biden. One reason is clearly
- 36:58Speaker 1: the stance, the war in Gaza. Only 12 percent of
- 37:01Speaker 1: adults under 30 say they think Biden is striking the
- 37:03Speaker 1: right balance in the Israel Hamas war, while 36 percent
- 37:07Speaker 1: say Biden is favoring Israel too much, according to the
- 37:09Speaker 1: Pew Research Center. We've seen a bunch of voters, significant
- 37:13Speaker 1: numbers in key states vote uncommitted, particularly in Michigan as
- 37:17Speaker 1: a protest vote. I recently watched a focus group on
- 37:21Speaker 1: uncommitted Democratic primary voters in Michigan for Sarah Longwell's The
- 37:25Speaker 1: Focus Group podcast. And it was clear that Gaza was
- 37:28Speaker 1: a driver for many of them for their uncommitted vote,
- 37:31Speaker 1: but it wasn't all of it. There was this broader
- 37:32Speaker 1: frustration with Biden and the Democratic Party, kind of like
- 37:35Speaker 1: what you were just talking about. So big picture, I mean,
- 37:37Speaker 1: what I'm struggling to figure out is whether young voters
- 37:40Speaker 1: are actually more Republican and agree with the Republican Party
- 37:44Speaker 1: on policy or whether they just don't want to identify
- 37:47Speaker 1: with Democrats right now, don't want to identify with Biden
- 37:49Speaker 1: or any political party at the moment, sort of like
- 37:52Speaker 1: a not pox on both their houses, like let's burn
- 37:54Speaker 1: down the whole city kind of feeling. What is your
- 37:56Speaker 1: sense of what's driving this sort of change in sentiment
- 38:00Speaker 1: with young voters?
- 38:02Speaker 3: So there is a bit of this hasten the revolution
- 38:05Speaker 3: that we all remember from 2016, right? Post Bernie, the
- 38:09Speaker 3: Bernie movement, that there was this feeling amongst young people
- 38:13Speaker 3: that the only way to change the system was to
- 38:16Speaker 3: hasten the revolution, was to burn down the two-party system.
- 38:20Speaker 3: As dramatic as that sounds, that is a lot of
- 38:23Speaker 3: what's driving this, right? Young people do believe that the
- 38:26Speaker 3: system isn't working, that this message of defend democracy, that's
- 38:30Speaker 3: not going to work. for young people that have had
- 38:34Speaker 3: mixed results from democracy. This is a part of why
- 38:37Speaker 3: HIT has been recommending shifting from defending democracy to fixing democracy.
- 38:43Speaker 1: For the messaging.
- 38:43Speaker 3: For the messaging, yeah. Democracy is one of the top
- 38:46Speaker 3: three issues that we spent on in 2022 was economy, abortion,
- 38:49Speaker 3: and democracy. I expect democracy to be a top three
- 38:52Speaker 3: issue that Democrats spend on again. So I'm not saying
- 38:55Speaker 3: that we stop talking about democracy. I'm saying that as
- 38:58Speaker 3: long as we're talking about defending democracy to a group
- 39:00Speaker 3: of people that don't want to defend a system that
- 39:02Speaker 3: doesn't work for them, then we can't mobilize them. But
- 39:05Speaker 3: if we switch it, make this slight pivot from defending
- 39:08Speaker 3: democracy to fixing democracy, it allows us to, one, acknowledge that.
- 39:13Speaker 2: It's not working for everybody the way it's supposed to.
- 39:15Speaker 3: And two, it allows us to include a bunch of
- 39:17Speaker 3: disparate policies that we already agree with, getting big money
- 39:21Speaker 3: out of politics, automatic voter registration, election holiday. in order
- 39:26Speaker 3: to make democracy work better for everyone. And a part
- 39:31Speaker 3: of that is going to be including more options than
- 39:35Speaker 3: the two-party system, even if that only happens down ballot.
- 39:38Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is more of a vibe, it's not
- 39:40Speaker 1: a data question, so I'm a bit curious of your take.
- 39:43Speaker 1: And maybe this comes from the fact that I spend
- 39:45Speaker 1: too much time on Twitter, I consume too much sports media,
- 39:48Speaker 1: but I feel like There's like a cohort of young
- 39:49Speaker 1: men that think it's cool to be for Trump. Like
- 39:51Speaker 1: you see Trump at like ultimate fighting events, right? And
- 39:53Speaker 1: like friends with Dana White. There's sort of like that
- 39:55Speaker 1: group of people. He seems to have become counterculture. He's
- 39:59Speaker 1: the one they think will burn the system down for them.
- 40:02Speaker 1: And that is very new for me because like when
- 40:04Speaker 1: I was younger, being a Republican wasn't cool. Maybe being
- 40:08Speaker 1: for Reagan was cool in the early 80s, but I
- 40:09Speaker 1: don't remember that time. But like being for Bush wasn't cool.
- 40:12Speaker 1: McCain was respected, but it wasn't like cool to be
- 40:14Speaker 1: young and a pro-McCain person. Maybe I'm overgeneralizing from my
- 40:19Speaker 1: time as working for Obama and on those campaigns and
- 40:23Speaker 1: his ability to kind of tap into the youth cultural zeitgeist.
- 40:27Speaker 1: But do you pick up sort of this kind of
- 40:29Speaker 1: sentiment in the focus groups you're doing?
- 40:31Speaker 2: Absolutely.
- 40:32Speaker 3: Look, there is a cultural phenomenon of Trump that he's
- 40:35Speaker 3: just existed in popular culture, hip hop culture for a.
- 40:40Speaker 2: Very long time.
- 40:41Speaker 3: And I do think that he does represent the counterculture,
- 40:45Speaker 3: you know, The problem is the system, and I am
- 40:47Speaker 3: your champion against the system. I think a lot of
- 40:50Speaker 3: young people agree that the problem is the system, and
- 40:52Speaker 3: some of them agree that he's the best person to
- 40:54Speaker 3: challenge it. But there's also these other personality traits that
- 41:01Speaker 3: are appealing to some of these young men, and that's
- 41:03Speaker 3: this hyper-masculinity, this patriotism and spirituality. Some of these are
- 41:11Speaker 3: traits and values that Democrats have largely ceded. that Democrats
- 41:16Speaker 3: have to reclaim in order to maintain the coalition of
- 41:20Speaker 3: men and of young people and of people of color.
- 41:23Speaker 3: Masculinity is very important to men of color. Machismo is
- 41:27Speaker 3: very important to Latino voters. My father is the head
- 41:30Speaker 3: of his household, whether Democrats like it or not, right?
- 41:33Speaker 3: He believes that. And so it's not all masculinity is toxic.
- 41:38Speaker 3: We do have to reclaim... some of these values. And
- 41:42Speaker 3: I think doing so is going to help us reclaim
- 41:44Speaker 3: our coalition.
- 41:45Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very, very good point. Okay, this is
- 41:47Speaker 1: a little bit wonky, but stick with the audience. So
- 41:49Speaker 1: we're seeing more and more polls that use a different
- 41:51Speaker 1: type of survey method called online opt-in web panels. These
- 41:54Speaker 1: are surveys. They're not randomized. You basically opt into taking
- 41:57Speaker 1: them usually because you get some sort of incentive, maybe cash.
- 42:01Speaker 1: Some pollsters like these panels because you can get a
- 42:03Speaker 1: big sample for a relatively low cost and you can
- 42:06Speaker 1: do them very quickly. Critics of online opt-in surveys say
- 42:10Speaker 1: they're not statistically sound. You're more likely to get crappy
- 42:13Speaker 1: data because someone's just going to pocket your cash and
- 42:15Speaker 1: say whatever, and they don't care if it's accurate. To
- 42:17Speaker 1: test the accuracy of these kinds of surveys, an organization
- 42:21Speaker 1: called Split Ticket recently did two youth polls. One was
- 42:25Speaker 1: done with more traditional means. The other was an opt-in
- 42:29Speaker 1: online web panel that I just mentioned. So the results
- 42:31Speaker 1: were super different. So the traditional poll had more traditional poll.
- 42:35Speaker 1: It was still like sort of text-based, but it was
- 42:36Speaker 1: more traditional. They had Biden beating Trump 35 to 25
- 42:41Speaker 1: with a big chunk of the vote going to RFK Jr.
- 42:43Speaker 1: and undecided. The online opt-in poll had Trump narrowly beating
- 42:46Speaker 1: Biden 34 to 32, so completely flipped. What do you
- 42:51Speaker 1: make of that split and the accuracy of these opt-in polls,
- 42:56Speaker 1: but the fact that we're seeing them more and more?
- 42:59Speaker 3: Yeah, look, this is why Hit Strategies uses a mixed methodology.
- 43:02Speaker 3: Most of our polls include three ways of collecting data,
- 43:06Speaker 3: online panels, text, and live phone calls. And that is
- 43:11Speaker 3: to try and mute some of the noise that we see,
- 43:14Speaker 3: the variance that we see across each.
- 43:18Speaker 2: Platform.
- 43:19Speaker 3: The other thing I would say is that the online
- 43:21Speaker 3: panels serve, they're faster, they serve a purpose. They are
- 43:25Speaker 3: not going to help us get to the most accurate
- 43:27Speaker 3: horse race. because we can't validate each of those respondents
- 43:31Speaker 3: to a voter file. And so a lot of the
- 43:34Speaker 3: variance that we see, even in some of the most
- 43:38Speaker 3: traditional polls, is the difference between a likely voter, a
- 43:42Speaker 3: registered voter, and an unregistered voter. Well, on a panel,
- 43:45Speaker 3: you can't verify any of that the way that we
- 43:48Speaker 3: do in text and in phone polls. And so when
- 43:51Speaker 3: we can look at vote history over time, not from
- 43:54Speaker 3: self-reported vote history, but look at the actual voter files,
- 43:58Speaker 3: it allows us to make some, getting into the weeds here,
- 44:00Speaker 3: but to weigh some of those quotas to make sure
- 44:02Speaker 3: that this is the most reflective of the most likely electorate.
- 44:06Speaker 3: And we've seen that change the outcome of a horse
- 44:08Speaker 3: race by 20 points.
- 44:10Speaker 2: That's right.
- 44:11Speaker 1: So be wary of these things is all I would say.
- 44:14Speaker 1: So let's close out by talking about what the Biden
- 44:17Speaker 1: campaign needs to do to win and win back black
- 44:20Speaker 1: and young voters in particular. Biden has been on the
- 44:23Speaker 1: road a lot. He recently went to Arizona and Nevada
- 44:25Speaker 1: to reach Latino voters. Last week, he did an interview
- 44:28Speaker 1: with Univision, one of the largest Spanish language news networks
- 44:31Speaker 1: in the country. He's done rallies in every swing state.
- 44:34Speaker 1: He's talked about key issues like organized labor, border policy,
- 44:38Speaker 1: and abortion. This week, he is in Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh.
- 44:42Speaker 1: He's got one more stop in Philly tomorrow to talk
- 44:44Speaker 1: about tax cuts again. And he just unveiled this new
- 44:46Speaker 1: student loan forgiveness plan that could help about 30 million
- 44:49Speaker 1: borrowers erase their college loans.
- 44:51Speaker 2: Let's go.
- 44:52Speaker 1: I wrote down 30 billion. I was like, damn, that's
- 44:54Speaker 1: a lot of borrowers. Um, let's start with young voters.
- 44:57Speaker 1: What message do you think, like, what are they looking
- 44:59Speaker 1: to hear? What wins them back? Is it like policy stuff?
- 45:02Speaker 1: Is it vibe stuff? Is it age? Like, what are
- 45:05Speaker 1: you hearing from voters that they want to hear?
- 45:07Speaker 2: Uh, the vibes, the vibes suck, man. The vibes are bad.
- 45:10Speaker 2: It's a bad vibes election.
- 45:12Speaker 3: Um, look, uh, I get this question from democratic operatives
- 45:17Speaker 3: every single day. What is the message that we need
- 45:19Speaker 3: to win? And there's two things wrong with the question.
- 45:22Speaker 3: One is that it implies that there is a message.
- 45:24Speaker 1: A thing, yeah.
- 45:25Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
- 45:26Speaker 3: As opposed to thinking about which message works and which
- 45:29Speaker 3: message doesn't, we only think about which.
- 45:32Speaker 2: Message works for particular groups of voters, right?
- 45:35Speaker 3: Talking about young people, the message that is going to
- 45:38Speaker 3: be most effective is one is going to be a
- 45:40Speaker 3: message about progress. What have we actually gotten done? And look,
- 45:45Speaker 3: I want to be clear here. The way to deliver
- 45:48Speaker 3: this progress is not just telling them how much we've
- 45:51Speaker 3: gotten done. It is giving them.
- 45:53Speaker 2: Access to it.
- 45:54Speaker 3: It's their ability to access student loan forgiveness, to access
- 45:59Speaker 3: the infrastructure jobs, to access $ 35 insulin.
- 46:02Speaker 2: We call it click here messaging.
- 46:03Speaker 3: When we needed their votes, we put in the palm
- 46:06Speaker 3: of their hand, click here to find your ballot, to
- 46:09Speaker 3: request your ballot. Click here to find your polling place.
- 46:12Speaker 3: Click here to make a plan to vote. Hell, click
- 46:14Speaker 3: here and we'll come pick you up to vote. When
- 46:17Speaker 3: we needed something for them, we knew exactly how to
- 46:19Speaker 3: get them to do it. Well, now they need something
- 46:21Speaker 3: from us and they need to be able to click
- 46:23Speaker 3: here to access student loan forgiveness and click here to
- 46:26Speaker 3: see a list of pharmacies with $ 35 insulin or click
- 46:30Speaker 3: here to see thousands of jobs created by the infrastructure
- 46:33Speaker 3: bill because the absence of that, Tommy, means that... We
- 46:37Speaker 3: are only telling them about how much we've done and
- 46:41Speaker 3: it validates their cynicism that this is a government that's
- 46:44Speaker 3: working for everybody but them. Everybody else got tax credits
- 46:47Speaker 3: and I didn't. Everybody else got student loan forgiveness, but
- 46:50Speaker 3: I still got debt.
- 46:50Speaker 1: Trump sent me a check during the pandemic.
- 46:53Speaker 2: Maybe two.
- 46:53Speaker 1: That's right. You also did a focus group on student
- 46:56Speaker 1: debt relief in particular, right? What did you hear in
- 46:59Speaker 1: that group?
- 47:01Speaker 3: The frustration that young people have around student loan debt,
- 47:04Speaker 3: it's pissing me off because because we know that this
- 47:09Speaker 3: president has forgiven more student loan debt than every previous
- 47:12Speaker 3: president combined. They are very critical of him and the
- 47:17Speaker 3: progress that's been made. And I think student loan forgiveness
- 47:21Speaker 3: is indicative of the problem in connecting that progress and
- 47:26Speaker 3: the opportunities that we have to solve it. One, look,
- 47:29Speaker 3: I have tried to. I've been on studentaid.gov. I've been
- 47:32Speaker 3: on the White House website. I can't find out. how
- 47:35Speaker 3: to apply for student loan forgiveness.
- 47:37Speaker 1: This is a messaging problem.
- 47:38Speaker 2: I do this for a living.
- 47:40Speaker 3: I can't figure it out. We can't expect the cynics to.
- 47:42Speaker 3: But the other is that it's a messenger problem. The
- 47:46Speaker 3: best messenger for all of this progress are people that
- 47:50Speaker 3: have their shared experience, that live their same walk of life.
- 47:54Speaker 3: And so to the extent that this campaign and the
- 47:58Speaker 3: administration can continue to put those people forward, that Joe
- 48:02Speaker 3: Biden can continue to sit on the couches of people
- 48:04Speaker 3: who's student loans he just paid off or can be
- 48:06Speaker 3: introduced at these rallies by people who's, you know, like,
- 48:11Speaker 3: and we see the Trump campaign doing that, centering the
- 48:14Speaker 3: voters that they want to win, even the Proud Boys and.
- 48:18Speaker 1: The white supremacists, right? Yeah, the most cynical ways.
- 48:20Speaker 2: Saluting them before every rally, you know.
- 48:23Speaker 3: We have an opportunity to start showcasing the people whose
- 48:26Speaker 3: lives are getting better and who look like the audience,
- 48:29Speaker 3: the voters that we're trying to go win.
- 48:30Speaker 1: Does it matter if you tell a voter who's frustrated that,
- 48:35Speaker 1: there was all these, there was big expectations about student
- 48:37Speaker 1: debt relief that the reason it didn't go through is
- 48:40Speaker 1: that the Republican Supreme Court struck it down because of
- 48:43Speaker 1: a bunch of lawsuits from Republicans. Does that context make
- 48:45Speaker 1: a difference or are they just like, nah, I'm pissed?
- 48:47Speaker 3: No, I don't think that that makes as much of
- 48:49Speaker 3: a difference as after the Supreme Court struck it down,
- 48:52Speaker 3: Joe Biden said, fuck it, watch this. You know, like that,
- 48:56Speaker 3: that's exactly right. That's the shit that shows he's fighting
- 49:00Speaker 3: for us. You know, he's willing to do what it takes.
- 49:03Speaker 3: You know, there's, That's the other appeal of Trump is
- 49:06Speaker 3: that regardless of what the system says, regardless of what
- 49:09Speaker 3: systems try to stop him, he's gonna do what he
- 49:11Speaker 3: thinks is in his voter's best interest. And Joe Biden
- 49:14Speaker 3: defying the Supreme Court and finding other ways to get
- 49:17Speaker 3: this done reflects that.
- 49:18Speaker 2: It reflects his willingness and his ability to fight for us.
- 49:21Speaker 1: That's great.
- 49:21Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 49:22Speaker 1: That's always the message, right? I'm fighting for you. Here's
- 49:24Speaker 1: the obstacle. Here's what I'll do about it. You also
- 49:26Speaker 1: had some interesting recommendations for how to persuade black voters
- 49:30Speaker 1: based on a ton of surveys and research and focus groups.
- 49:32Speaker 1: Can you sort of walk us through some of those
- 49:34Speaker 1: key messages and how to convince people?
- 49:37Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you know, we've covered a lot of this.
- 49:40Speaker 3: I think there's three things that we got to do
- 49:42Speaker 3: to win. And this is probably true of most incumbents.
- 49:45Speaker 3: You have to talk about the progress you've made. You
- 49:47Speaker 3: got to talk about the threat of your opponent. You
- 49:49Speaker 3: got to talk about your promise for the future, right?
- 49:52Speaker 3: I don't know that we're going to get a lot
- 49:54Speaker 3: of the third one. I don't know that they're going
- 49:55Speaker 3: to believe a lot of the promise for the future
- 49:57Speaker 3: if we don't demonstrate the progress that's been made. And
- 50:01Speaker 3: so we got to keep connecting them to that progress.
- 50:04Speaker 3: The most important thing we could do with the message
- 50:06Speaker 3: is to continue to change the messenger. We're spending a
- 50:08Speaker 3: lot of money talking about the progress, and more and
- 50:11Speaker 3: more I'm seeing the campaign put out validating voices. But again,
- 50:18Speaker 3: for the cynic who doesn't trust politicians and doesn't trust
- 50:22Speaker 3: pastors and doesn't trust athletes, even the ones they like,
- 50:25Speaker 3: they like Barack Obama and they like LeBron James, if
- 50:28Speaker 3: they both showed up in their community and said, if
- 50:29Speaker 3: you vote this time, we're going to get rid of
- 50:32Speaker 3: these student loans, they're not going to believe that either.
- 50:34Speaker 3: They know that there's a system that's bigger than that.
- 50:37Speaker 3: including the Supreme Court. And so continuing to change those
- 50:41Speaker 3: messengers and putting forth people that look like the audiences
- 50:44Speaker 3: that we're trying to talk to is going to be
- 50:46Speaker 3: the best way to break through.
- 50:47Speaker 1: We were talking earlier about needing to make the voter
- 50:51Speaker 1: the hero of the story. Can you talk about that,
- 50:53Speaker 1: what that means, and how to make voters feel powerful
- 50:56Speaker 1: and why that matters?
- 50:57Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
- 50:57Speaker 3: And so pollsters are often looking for proxies to determine
- 51:03Speaker 3: who's going to actually vote. That proxy that most people
- 51:05Speaker 3: are familiar with is voter enthusiasm. How enthusiastic are you
- 51:08Speaker 3: about the upcoming election?
- 51:10Speaker 2: Well, not a lot of.
- 51:11Speaker 3: People are enthusiastic about this election, especially voters of color.
- 51:14Speaker 3: I had a black man tell me in Philadelphia that
- 51:16Speaker 3: voting for him was like taking out the trash. He
- 51:20Speaker 3: didn't always want to do it. But if you didn't
- 51:21Speaker 3: do it, shit starts to stink around here.
- 51:24Speaker 1: That's a good metaphor.
- 51:25Speaker 2: You know, that's a guy that's going to vote.
- 51:26Speaker 1: I like that guy.
- 51:27Speaker 2: Yeah, that guy's going to vote. He might not do
- 51:29Speaker 2: it enthusiastically.
- 51:29Speaker 1: Expectations are in the right place with that dude.
- 51:32Speaker 2: Just get the trash out. That's it, you know.
- 51:35Speaker 3: Well, for folks like that, right, we got to, the
- 51:38Speaker 3: proxy that hit strategies has found that's most applicable to
- 51:42Speaker 3: who's going to vote is.
- 51:43Speaker 2: Perceptions of power.
- 51:44Speaker 3: We ask the question, regardless of how often you vote,
- 51:46Speaker 3: how much power, do you believe your vote has to
- 51:48Speaker 3: make a difference? The higher they rate those perceptions of power,
- 51:51Speaker 3: the less likely they are to waste that vote. And
- 51:55Speaker 3: so the messaging that's most effective are messages that make
- 51:59Speaker 3: the voter feel powerful. And the way to do that
- 52:01Speaker 3: is to make them the hero of the story because
- 52:04Speaker 3: of our votes. Our votes are making our lives better.
- 52:09Speaker 3: That requires taking the cape off of politicians, taking the
- 52:12Speaker 3: cape off of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. But it's
- 52:15Speaker 3: not just them. It's every politician and making the hero
- 52:18Speaker 3: of the story the voters and their ability to stand
- 52:20Speaker 3: together and make the change that they want.
- 52:22Speaker 1: That's such a good point. And I feel like Stacey
- 52:24Speaker 1: Abrams really effectively did this in Georgia, even though she
- 52:27Speaker 1: wasn't able to win, you know, the race and become governor. But,
- 52:31Speaker 1: you know, in 2020, you could look directly at Georgia
- 52:34Speaker 1: voters and say, you elected Joe Biden president, you got
- 52:37Speaker 1: him a Senate that allowed him to do X, Y,
- 52:40Speaker 1: and Z, you know, named Katonji Brown Jackson to the
- 52:42Speaker 1: Supreme Court, passed bigger sort of stimulus checks, right? It
- 52:45Speaker 1: sort of making the voter, the hero of the story. It's, it,
- 52:48Speaker 1: it makes so much sense, but we don't do that
- 52:51Speaker 1: in our political debates enough because it's, well, Trump's a
- 52:54Speaker 1: cult of personality.
- 52:55Speaker 2: That's right.
- 52:56Speaker 1: Right. And we just focus on, you know, it's like
- 52:58Speaker 1: Joe Biden's age verse, uh, you know, make America great
- 53:02Speaker 1: again or whatever. And we're never talking about sort of
- 53:04Speaker 1: what the voters can do to like make their own
- 53:05Speaker 1: lives better. It's about what these politicians do for you,
- 53:08Speaker 1: which you, to your point, people are cynical about and
- 53:10Speaker 1: they don't believe it's going to happen.
- 53:11Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
- 53:12Speaker 3: And, you know, we, uh, one of the organizations that, um,
- 53:16Speaker 3: that pot safe has been supporting his new Georgia project.
- 53:19Speaker 2: And they did a thank you campaign.
- 53:21Speaker 3: To black voters in Georgia of voters from around the country,
- 53:25Speaker 3: thanking black voters in Georgia for tax credits and thanking
- 53:28Speaker 3: black voters in Georgia for, um, for the, for the
- 53:31Speaker 3: two senators that they sent, um, that, that, that allowed,
- 53:35Speaker 3: you know, the infrastructure infrastructure reduction act. And it, again, it's, it's,
- 53:40Speaker 3: it is empowering the voters and showing them that because
- 53:43Speaker 3: of you, this mother in Philadelphia, And this student in
- 53:47Speaker 3: Milwaukee and this single parent in Arizona, all of their
- 53:50Speaker 3: lives are better because of your votes here in Georgia.
- 53:53Speaker 2: It is so empowering. And it leads to the outcome
- 53:57Speaker 2: that we want.
- 53:57Speaker 1: That's so smart. You got to close the loop. You
- 53:58Speaker 1: can't just show up on election day and say, vote.
- 54:00Speaker 1: You got to say, six months after election day, here's
- 54:02Speaker 1: what your vote did. That's right. Terrence, thank you so
- 54:04Speaker 1: much for doing the show, for being here, for the
- 54:07Speaker 1: work you're doing. How can folks find you if they
- 54:09Speaker 1: want to? harass you more or learn more.
- 54:12Speaker 3: You know, Hit Strategies puts out a lot of data.
- 54:14Speaker 3: We believe in data for public good. And so we're
- 54:16Speaker 3: giving a lot of it away. Please follow us on Twitter, HitStrat, H-I-T-S-T-R-A-T,
- 54:23Speaker 3: or go to our website, www.hitstrat.com.
- 54:26Speaker 6: Excellent.
- 54:27Speaker 1: Well, everyone should give him a follow and thank you again.
- 54:30Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I'll come back anytime.
- 54:33Speaker 1: If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,
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- 54:56Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
- 54:59Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira
- 55:02Speaker 1: Wakim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
- 55:06Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
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