Transcript

Political Experts Break Down the 2025 Election Results

From Pod Save America · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 4 min · 13,115 words · 140 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Political Experts Break Down the 2025 Election Results", an episode of Pod Save America published November 16, 2025 (1 h 4 min, about 13,115 words). It mentions 75 people, works and ideas, including Donald Trump, Polling, Democratic Party, Focus groups, Crooked Media.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Donald Trump, New Jersey (Jersey), Georgia, Polling
  2. – 20:00: Donald Trump, Focus groups, Crooked Media, Mint Mobile
  3. – 30:00: Cost of living, Barack Obama, Climate Change, Democracy
  4. – 40:00: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Focus groups, Squarespace
  5. – 50:00: Donald Trump, Argentina, Crooked Media, Magic Spoon
  6. – 1:00:00: Democratic Party, Focus groups, Swing voters, Elon Musk
  7. – 1:04:15: Polling, Crooked Con, Crooked Media, HIT Strategies

Notable quotes from "Political Experts Break Down the 2025 Election Results"

  • Of the very best opinion researchers in the business to talk about what happened on Tuesday, what the polling is telling us about 2026 and beyond. Joining me are Sarah Longwell…
    about Polling · at
  • Lot of people on both the Democratic and Republican side had convinced themselves that Donald Trump had rewritten the rules of politics. and I was wrong.
    about Donald Trump · at
  • Though is along with black voters are men of color who we have seen eroding from the Democratic party more rapidly than any other group. I have argued that men of color have…
    about Democratic Party · at
  • And when you do the focus groups with Democratic voters, they want their leadership to match the moment and they do not feel like that is what is happening. They want wartime generals.
    about Focus groups · at
  • Shutdown, like one year ago when you asked voters, what party do you trust more on the cost of living, Democrats or Republicans? Only 38% of Americans picked the cost of living…
    about Cost of living · at
  • Party made. We're seeing this across Western democracies, right? We're seeing it in Argentina and Brazil and we're seeing it now in Canada where it hadn't held, in Portugal where it hadn't held.
    about Argentina · at
  • Is people who have donated to a democratic campaign in the last year. now for them, climate change is number one and then it's democracy and whatever. and like look, that group, it's about 1% of the population, maybe 90% of crooked you.
    about Climate Change · at
  • We saw Elon Musk's wealth go from $10 billion to $44 billion in 8 months.
    about Elon Musk · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Donald Trump — Person · 19 mentions · first at
  • Elon Musk — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Joe Biden — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Since the '8s. which is that, voters see the Biden administration as a failure. Joe Biden when he left office was more unpopular than Donald Trump after January 6th. and that's just where the voters are. I think.
  • Barack Obama — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Know, after in the Bush years, in the Trump one, the previous, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, they had been incredibly popular people and then the Republicans won due to some…
  • Bill and Hillary Clinton — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Know, after in the Bush years, in the Trump one, the previous, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, they had been incredibly popular people and then the Republicans won due to some…
  • Dan Feifer — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Sarah Longwell — Person · 1 mention · first at
    On Tuesday, what the polling is telling us about 2026 and beyond. Joining me are Sarah Longwell of the Bullwork, Terren Terrence Woodbury of Pit Strategies, David Shaw of Blue Rose Research, and Carlos Odo of Ekis Research.
  • Terren Terrence Woodbury — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Us about 2026 and beyond. Joining me are Sarah Longwell of the Bullwork, Terren Terrence Woodbury of Pit Strategies, David Shaw of Blue Rose Research, and Carlos Odo of Ekis Research.
  • Abigail Spanberger — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Listened to Democrats be, I bet my team that I would take them to Vegas if Abigail Spanberger beat 13 plus. Okay, if she went above that and if Mikey Cheryl went above seven plus.
  • John McCain — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Bunch of people like me, sort of moderate Republicans, maybe they voted for John McCain, maybe they voted for Mitt Romney, they live in the suburbs, they're college educated, they are now like angry wine moms who want to like stomp.
  • Mitt Romney — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Moderate Republicans, maybe they voted for John McCain, maybe they voted for Mitt Romney, they live in the suburbs, they're college educated, they are now like angry wine moms who want to like stomp on the neck of any Republican and they.
  • John Lovett — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Running. 60-day money back guarantee so you can try it and see the difference for yourself. John Love It certainly has. He set it up himself and boy is he happy. So, it's a…
  • Kamal Harris — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Analysis is that people are very meh on Joe Biden me to nah. and it did help with Kla Harris but that hole was pretty big.
  • Steven Miller — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Referendum on Trump. My true dream, if I had a magic wand, is a referendum on Steven Miller.
  • Rahm Emanuel — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Little bit. which is, in 2006 it was true that, Nancy Posi and Rahm Emanuel could like get in a room and be All right, these are the five things that are going to define the Democratic Party. We don't live in that world anymore. I think.
  • Carlos Odio — Person · 1 mention
  • David Shor — Person · 1 mention
  • George W. Bush — Person · 1 mention
  • Mikie Sherrill — Person · 1 mention
  • Nancy Pelosi — Person · 1 mention
  • Peter Thiel — Person · 1 mention
  • Zohran Mamdani — Person · 1 mention

Companies & orgs

  • Democratic Party — Company · 9 mentions · first at
  • Crooked Media — Company · 7 mentions · first at
    We are live at Crooked Con. I'm so pleased to see so many data nerds here.
  • Squarespace (company) — Company · 3 mentions · first at
    All-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform.
  • Blue Rose Research — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Sarah Longwell of the Bullwork, Terren Terrence Woodbury of Pit Strategies, David Shaw of Blue Rose Research, and Carlos Odo of Ekis Research.
  • US News and World Report — Company · 1 mention · first at
    It's named best home security systems by US News and World Report for 5 years running. 60-day money back guarantee so you can try it and see the difference for yourself. John Love It certainly has. He set it up himself and boy is.
  • HIT Strategies — Company · 1 mention · first at
    I'm sorry, in 2025. So, the best thing that we are doing at Hit Strategies right now is a very loose screen on turnout. if you have voted before, no, seriously, I just think likely voter screens are very risky.
  • Equis Research — Company · 1 mention
  • ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) — Company · 1 mention
  • Supreme Court of the United States — Company · 1 mention
  • The Bulwark — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • Mint Mobile — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    Drawer or in the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house. Not this one. Mint Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. That's their…
  • Magic Spoon — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    Zero sugar cereal and treats reinvented from your childhood. The nostalgia. I love Magic Spoon. It is delicious.
  • Simply Safe Home Security — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Today's presenting sponsor is Simply Safe Home Security. Are you feeling particularly anxious lately, unsettled, afraid? One small thing you can do right now to at least provide a sense of.
  • Polar Coaster — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Yeah, this is I'm so glad you brought this. This is like the like this is the mantra of my podcast Polar Coaster, which is polls are not supposed to be predictive, right?…
  • Pod Save America — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

  • Polling — Concept · 11 mentions · first at
  • Focus groups — Concept · 8 mentions · first at
  • Swing voters — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
    Also, I'll just say because I wanted to get my Vegas anecdote in, but I also swing voters exist like and there was 7% of Trump voters turned out and voted for the Democrat in New Jersey and in Virginia.
  • Cost of living — Concept · 4 mentions · first at
  • Democracy — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
    And it's nice to see democracy working.
  • Climate Change — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • Media environment — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
    And I think that a lot of the changes in the media environment over the last 10 years have kind of given them a strangle hold over you know the Democratic party. and I think that's mostly been bad. And to be.
  • Polarization by political engagement — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Story. I think that the big story of 2024 was that among these groups there was this enormous polarization by political engagement where most of the young voters that became…
  • Popularism — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Messaging strategy is that David is sort of the person seen as the big advocate for something called popularism which is where you really talk about popular issues only which…
  • Base electorate — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Invest in the base you win. we saw the a reassembling of our base electorate where we did 20 points better amongst young folks in Virginia, 20 points better amongst Latino voters in Virginia, 11 points better u amongst black voters in.
  • Prop 50 — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Trump voters in New York crossed the aisle to vote for Mom Donnie and in California for Prop 50. 23% of Latino Trump voters voted yes for Prop 50 after just having voted for Donald Trump a year ago. And so we've seen this in our own polling.
  • Partisanship — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Trump voters. So I want to manage expectations. A lot of things are just Partisanship is a hell of a drug. It's hard to change people. 11% is a lot, especially when you…
  • Assimilation — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    So a feeling of the identity of being Latino still being politicized. People talk a lot about assimilation.
  • Affordability crisis — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Know conflate that with the economy but specifically with young men it is affordability crisis. is it is increasingly a healthcare crisis. and I think that we saw Democrats really coales around those two issues.
  • Healthcare policy — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Become much more about self-expression of values as opposed to the material you know material needs healthcare policy and unemployment and all this other stuff and that's just…
  • Popular issues — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Advocate for something called popularism which is where you really talk about popular issues only which has been treated as sort of a centrist approach to politics like that's…
  • Microtargeting — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Well, I just, I really I think that microtargeting is just one of the most overrated concepts in politics where, everyone wants to say, Oh, we're going to give this thing to this group and this thing to.
  • Algorithmic prioritization — Concept · 1 mention
  • Ballot proposition — Concept · 1 mention
  • Identity politics — Concept · 1 mention
  • Likely voter screen — Concept · 1 mention
  • MAGA — Concept · 1 mention
  • Polling error — Concept · 1 mention
  • Special election — Concept · 1 mention
  • Zero-sum politics — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • New Jersey (Jersey) — Place · 7 mentions · first at
    Swing voters exist like and there was 7% of Trump voters turned out and voted for the Democrat in New Jersey and in Virginia.
  • Virginia — Place · 5 mentions · first at
    Of our base electorate where we did 20 points better amongst young folks in Virginia, 20 points better amongst Latino voters in Virginia, 11 points better u amongst black…
  • Argentina — Place · 3 mentions · first at
  • Crooked Con — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    We are live at Crooked Con. I'm so pleased to see so many data nerds here.
  • Georgia — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    Communities on Tuesday? Yeah, look, we saw tremendous turnout in the black community. I was in Georgia on election. They actually just came from Georgia yesterday and where we won two statewide public, commission.
  • New York, New York — Place · 1 mention · first at
    In New York, Mandani, it was around also actually it was 18% for Mikey. it was 15% for mom Donnie. 15% of Latino Trump voters in New York crossed the aisle to vote for Mom Donnie and in.
  • Brazil — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Party made. We're seeing this across Western democracies, right? We're seeing it in Argentina and Brazil and we're seeing it now in Canada where it hadn't held, in Portugal where it hadn't held.
  • Canada — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Western democracies, right? We're seeing it in Argentina and Brazil and we're seeing it now in Canada where it hadn't held, in Portugal where it hadn't held.
  • Portugal — Place · 1 mention · first at
    It in Argentina and Brazil and we're seeing it now in Canada where it hadn't held, in Portugal where it hadn't held.

Sponsors

  • Squarespace — Sponsor · 3 mentions · first at
    This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get.
  • Mint Mobile — Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
    There's no safe like Simplysafe. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Most holiday gifts end up in a drawer or in the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house. Not this one. Mint Mobile is.
  • Magic Spoon — Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
    This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon makes high protein zero sugar cereal and treats reinvented from your childhood. The nostalgia. I love Magic Spoon. It is delicious.
  • Simply Safe Home Security — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    Today's presenting sponsor is Simply Safe Home Security. Are you feeling particularly anxious lately, unsettled, afraid? One small thing you can do right now to at least provide a sense of.

Full transcript with timestamps

Hello everyone. Hi. I'm Dan Feifer. We are live at Crooked Con. I'm so pleased to see so many data nerds here. This is very exciting.

In this panel, I'll be talking to some of the very best opinion researchers in the business to talk about what happened on Tuesday, what the polling is telling us about 2026 and beyond. Joining me are Sarah Longwell of the Bullwork, Terren Terrence Woodbury of Pit Strategies, David Shaw of Blue Rose Research, and Carlos Odo of Ekis Research. Okay, the mood in this room, as you can tell, is pretty good because of what happened on Tuesday.

Why? What happened? The Sixers won. Actually, actually, I think actually think they lost on Tuesday. Um, and but I want to talk about like why we should be happy about it, maybe why we should trim our enthusiasm. I'm going to go down. We're going to start by asking each one of you to take give me just one takeaway you have from the results either across the board or in the race that you think is interesting and maybe tells us something about what's to come. Sarah,

Democrats are super mad. Uh, and they showed up to say how mad they are. I bet my team I didn't even as mad as I've listened to Democrats be, I bet my team that I would take them to Vegas if Abigail Spanberger beat 13 plus. Okay, if she went above that and if Mikey Cheryl went above seven plus.

So I have to take my whole team to Vegas now. Are you hiring? Uh let's see. Uh you know when you invest in the base you win. you know, we saw uh we saw the a reassembling of our of our base electorate where we did 20 points better amongst young folks in Virginia, 20 points better amongst Latino voters in in Virginia, 11 points better u amongst black voters in Virginia. And we have seen cycle over cycle erosion with many of these base voters. And so to see us not only recover what we lost in 2024, but to actually build on some of that coalition gives me a lot of hope about what we could do in the future.

To me, the the real takeaway, I think a lot of people on both the Democratic and Republican side had convinced themselves that Donald Trump had rewritten the rules of politics. Uh, and I was wrong. Uh, gravity is real. If you do a bunch of unpopular things that piss off a lot of people, then you get punished for it. And it's nice to see uh democracy working.

Yes, he he has bent the rules of politics, but he hasn't broken them. He is incredibly unpopular. And guess what? It mattered.

We've gotten so used in the years of Trump to believe that nothing matters. And we saw on Tuesday, no, it still has consequences and we still have the power to hold him accountable.

Sorry. Yeah. Yes. Also, I'll just say because I wanted to get my Vegas anecdote in, but um I also swing voters exist like and there was 7% of Trump voters turned out and voted for the Democrat in New Jersey and in Virginia. Um maybe I don't know Carlos maybe you can talk a little bit about how much you think like obviously there's some persuasion but how much do you think there's a turnout persuasion particularly in with Latino voters particularly in New Jersey I think where we have a little more data.

Yeah. What I'll say is I've spent the last year trying to convince people that Latino voters are winnable.

I feel like now I'm going to have to spend the next year convincing you all that they're still losable. Um so I do want to temper expectations um a little bit. Right. What we saw in New Jersey was um levels of support closer to what we had seen in 2021. So higher than 2020 or certainly 2024 in the most Latino areas, but still lower than 2016 or 2017. So what essentially you're doing is rewinding the tape. So going into 2026, 2024 levels of Latino support, so the Harris election are not the right benchmark for thinking about 2026, but neither is 2018, right? A blue wave election. It's more like 2022, like a year of stability. And Dan, to your question, um it is of course always both.

Yeah, it is vote switching and it is turnout differentials. Um that's what you expect when you have the public reacting um to the occupant of the White House is that it comes out in both. there's a false wall between persuasion and mobilization. They tend to point in the same direction and we did see a lot of crossover voting. I like record this. I don't like to cite the exits, but for lack of other data, I will say suggestively um it does hold up that um in New Jersey um something like 15% of Latinos who had voted for Trump crossed and voted for Mickey Cheryl.

In New York, Mandani, it was around also actually it was 18% for Mikey. Um, it was 15% for mom Donnie. 15% of Latino Trump voters in New York crossed the aisle to vote uh for Mom Donnie and in California for Prop 50. 23% of Latino Trump voters

voted yes for Prop 50 after just having voted for Donald Trump a year ago. And so we've seen this in our own polling where we have seen Latinos saying uh who had voted for Donald Trump, I will vote for Democrats in 2026. It's about 11% of Trump voters. So I want to manage expectations. A lot of things are just Partisanship is a hell of a drug. It's

hard to change people. 11% is a lot, especially when you consider that what we saw in 2024 was something like 9% of Latino Biden voters crossing over to vote for Donald Trump.

And Carlos, I think there's Oh, go ahead. Good. Go ahead. No, I I just want to jump jump in with some nerdy numbers here. Uh, you know, this is fresh off the presses. I did these queries, I think, right before I walked over here. You know, our uh in order to really decompose this support versus turnout question, you have to know the individuals who voted. and some members uh of our staff actually just called the election offices uh last night in order to get the lists. And so our best guess is that it was about 50/50 turnout versus persuasion. It turns out both things matter a lot. Uh it's not a false choice. Uh but you know to throw a little bit of cold water on the Latino story and and the young voter story. Uh I think that the big story of 2024 was that among these groups there was this enormous polarization by political engagement where most of the young voters that became that you know

went for Trump are uh and this is true for Latinos as well are were the voters who don't care very much about politics. Uh that's where the bulk of these losses were and most of those people just didn't turn out to vote uh you know on Tuesday. uh they're they're not exactly, you know, trying to get on off-year elections, but one, that's a great bull signal for 2026. Uh they're probably not going to vote in 2026 either. Uh and then even on top of that, there still were large persuasion gains. And so I think this is the best thing we could have hoped for.

One of the things you heard, Carlos, uh from people after, you know, people were talking about the Latinos persuasion in this election is that is, you know, this is what happens with the ICE raids and the mass deportation. I know we don't know exactly what caused these voters to split. But you did a lot of research about what was causing Latino voters who voted for Trump to back away. It like what is the issue that's making them away? Is it is it immigration? Is it ICE? Is it just affordability? What are you hearing?

Yeah, we get asked is it immigration? Yes. And yeah, right. Part of this is immigration. We'll say we had a different debate about immigration in 2024 that was about the border. On the border, Latinos are a lot like most other Americans. when you have a debate about people who've been here a long time. Latinos are a little different from the rest of the electorate and these raids have challenged um fundamental views um especially because they have extended like the debate's not just about um undocumented immigrants. It is about US citizens who the Supreme Court says uh ICE agents can legally profile. Um and so a feeling of the identity of being Latino still being politicized. People talk a lot about assimilation.

Assimilation is a real thing, but when the identity keeps me being the subject of political debate, you get pulled back. But it's not just immigration. Of course, it's not just immigration. Latino voters are not extraterrestrials live in all the same communities and experience all the same things. It is the economy. Of course, it's the economy. And it's the chaos of it all. And it is the extremism and the abuse abuse of power. It's kind of everything happening all at once when it comes um to Donald Trump and not isolating any one element. Let's not make the mistake we've done in the past of flattening any voters down to one dimension. It has been a challenge of engaging Latino voters of treating them as one-dimensional that they only care about immigration and the most liberal possible policy on immigration every single time.

We got to think about all of our voters as full human beings um with a more complex issue set and ideology. Yeah. And you know the other thing I want to throw in here is you know he uh Carlos was just talking about how the difference between you know people who have come here recently versus people who have been here for a long time. But you know in all the testing that we've done uh there's also the people who are literally citizens you know who are uh being harassed because of the color of their skin and that's something that plays pretty poorly with everyone.

Yeah. Terrence anything you saw related to the black vote or other based communities on Tuesday? Yeah, look, uh, we saw tremendous turnout in the black community. I I was in Georgia on election. They actually just came from Georgia yesterday and where we won two statewide public, uh, commission. Look, in I was also in Georgia in 2024 on election day on behalf of the common.

So, you're not necessarily good luck. That's what you're saying. That's right. Um, and look, in 2024, we saw the black turnout underperform white turnout by 15 points. Um on last Tuesday we saw black turnout overperform white turnout in Georgia by one point. And so again when our when our base shows up we win. Um the other group I do want to talk about though is is along with black voters are are men of color who we have seen eroding from the Democratic party more rapidly than any other group. I have argued that men of color have emerged uh as the new swing voters and I believe that they determined the outcome of the of the 2024 election and we saw them once again turn out in higher numbers, swing in higher numbers and uh you know and we are beginning to bring them back into the coalition because the number one issue again not just economy the number one issue is cost of things um and we kind of inflate we kind of you

know conflate that with the economy but specifically with young men it is affordability crisis. is it is increasingly a healthcare crisis. Um and I think that we saw Democrats really coales around those two issues.

You know Sarah the and this Sarah then everyone should jump in here. The the big conversation before Tuesday that people were having is about the sort of the toxicity of the Democratic brand, how unpopular the party is, how the basis disenchanted with our leadership. Democrats, you know, there all these polls came out over the weekend with Trump with really low numbers. When you dig into it, Democrats are are also quite unpopular. They even weren't that popular in Virginia, New Jersey on uh on Tuesday. I was on your podcast a couple weeks ago. We listened to Democratic voters. They were not happy with their party. Yet, they turned out and won.

Like, does are we overly worried about the Democratic brand in a world where people are so motivated by Trump?

No. Because it's a long-term problem Democrats are going to have to correct. I mean to do sort of a root and branch removing of MAGA and the toxic forces that Trump has unleashed on the party like Democrats can't just have a party that is based on being opposed to Trump right there have to there has to be a party that where people are like hey I know what these guys are for and when I talk to Democratic voters all the time and man are they mad I mean we we've been doing these groups uh where we ask Democrats do you want the party to be more moderate or do you want the party to be more progressive because that mirrors this big debate that's sort of happening ing online and everything else. Guess what? If you didn't tell me which focus group the voters were in, I wouldn't be able to tell because they all just want them to be more aggressive. And so, like I got to tell I I I don't know if um this might not be

good because maybe Hakee is here, but like Hakee Jeff did our did our um like our podcast the other night when the election was coming in and people were not being nice to him uh in the chat. And when you do the focus groups with Democratic voters, they want their leadership to match the moment and they do not feel like that is what is happening. They want wartime generals. Uh they want wartime generals. Just going back though really quickly to see to to sort of the different demographic groups um and how thatffect impacted these off-year elections. One of the things that's happened in the political realignment that Donald Trump has sort of forced into our politics is that a bunch of people like me, sort of moderate Republicans, maybe they voted for John McCain, maybe they voted for Mitt Romney, they live in the suburbs, they're college educated, uh, they are now like angry wine moms who want to like stomp

on the neck of any Republican and they turn out to vote in these in droves. And so, um, you can see there's sort of like the persuasion effect, but a lot of the numbers when you look at it, it's going to be relative to turnout. And so, the trade where Donald Trump brought in all of these low propensity voters and then even was able to take low and this is something Democrats I I really want to them to understand that if the turnout was bigger in 2024, Donald Trump would have won by more. And so like this idea that sort of like oh the bigger the turnout the better it is for Democrats has it has been inverted and now in a midterm in an off year you have all these college educated suburban voters many of whom would have shown up in a republic voted for a Republican they vote for Democrats now the low propensity voters they don't show up uh which bodess well for 2026

but it's a long-term problem but it's a long-term problem that is where I started yeah um and and look and and some of it and look this is where I'll say some really unpopular stuff. Some of it people are like, "Well, is it substance? Is it style? Is it our messaging? Is it our message? Is it our messenger?" It's all of those things, right? It's obviously all of those things. And there's a bunch of things that Democrats are just going to have to correct to get to going back to the immigration thing. I talk to Democrats all the time, uh, including Hispanic voters all the time, and they want a secure border. They just do because Donald and Donald Trump has done something and and you talk about storytelling a lot. It's one of my favorite sort of themes that you you talk about the way that Donald Trump was able to take crime, immigration, terrorism, and jobs and turn them all into one issue around immigration. He

collapses them together and then tells a story that kind of hits people in a gut a gut level where they believe in it. And what happens is when they have fear, right, they're afraid because of crime or they're because then they that's why you see all the Fox News stories about this person was killed by an illegal immigrant. It overrides the ability to access compassion because you're like, well, if unless I'm safe, I can't be compassionate about other people. And Donald Trump really was able to do that. And so until like Democrats are going to have to find a way to be like, no, we need a secure border, but these excesses and this is we it's not just that Hispanic voters are like, "Oh, um I'm seeing this like broadly like ICE is in their communities in the focus groups.

If you talk to Hispanic voters, the ICE is showing up at the schools where their kids go to school to drag people off and that's what's changing their minds. The direct personal consequences because it's always direct personal consequences.

David, what do you think about the Democratic Party brand? Well, obviously there's a lot of work to do. Uh but I do I do want to say that uh you know to give a little bit of credit to leadership uh things have really gotten a lot better in the last year. You know, just to put some numbers on this, uh you just even just since the shutdown, uh like one year ago when you asked voters, what party do you trust more uh on the cost of living, Democrats or Republicans? Only 38% of Americans picked uh the cost of living and today that number is 48%. It should be above 50%, but that is pretty massive progress. Trump's approval rating is quite a bit lower than it was uh 2 months ago. Uh the Democrats are performing quite a bit better on the generic ballot. Uh, and so I don't I don't want to be too hopeless. Like, you know, I like to tell people, you know, we are not fighting against a hyper competent Borg. Uh, the other side is is

making a bunch of mistakes and I do think Democrats have have been exploiting at least some of them.

You know, go ahead, Terrence. I I just want to I just want to add to the list of uh, you know, immigrants and crime and that list of things that Donald Trump is blaming for all of our problems and make sure we don't forget gays on that list because very importantly that is a part of the foil. Um, but all of that together is is is the zero- sum politic, right? The zero- sum politic that says that you have less because those people that don't deserve it have too much. And a part of what Democrats do still need to figure out is is is to offer a different reason for the pain that they're feeling. When I'm in focus groups almost every day, I am hearing a level of pain and anger and frustration from voters that feel like they are working two jobs, work, following the rules, doing everything right, and still can't get ahead. And they need a reason for that pain. And and he's and he's giving us the reason

for that pain is all the people that have less than you that he wants to take it from. And I and I would offer that the that the alternative to that is not because of the people that have less than you. It's because of the people that have way too damn much. 73% of Americans believe that the that wealthy billionaires and corporations are rigging the system to keep themselves rich. And they believe that in August of 2023 before the richest men in the world doed our federal government, before a big ugly ass bill took health care and and school lunches away from poor kids. And so we have the fodder. We have the evidence. We now have to to own a narrative that we understand the reason for your pain. And it's not because those trans kids. It's not because those immigrants. It's it's because of those that have way too much that are willing to take from you and from them so that they can have even

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I want to because this is one of the thing I think about a lot because, you know, there are short-term persuasive forces at play, right? who is trusted more on the economy or cost of living is going to be really important when it comes to next year. There are deeper structural issues at play and I think about the story people tell themselves about the parties. You know, people aren't rational actors, right? Like they think of who what party they belong in based on what kind of person they are and the stories they believe about the parties. And there's a party about the story about the Democrats which is uh Democrats look out for the little guy um minorities, working people, those trying to get ahead. Republicans only look out for the rich.

There is the MAGA alternative which is I have been waiting my turn in line for the American dream. There are people cutting in line in front of me

and the Democrats are cheering on the people who are cutting in line in front of me. And the challenge is less than 50% of Latinos right now believe in the Democratic story. It's still there. It's still strong, but it is battered. The MAGA alternative has more adherence than it has in the past. It's around 40%.

Do you have a theory as to why like what happened over the course of time? Because we've had obviously there's a dramatic shift here from 16, you know, 12 and 16 to where we are now.

Well, this this is David Shorbait because it it rhymes with global global divides that are happening, right? Like this is not just something that happened because of a few choices the Democratic party made. We're seeing this across Western democracies, right? We're seeing it in Argentina and Brazil and we're seeing it now in Canada where it hadn't held, in Portugal where it hadn't held. All of a sudden there is a global divide in priorities as the world has become more secularized, more urbanized, more educated, college educated. the priorities shifted and you have a world of people. I guess most people in this room live in this world that has a different set of priorities that is about democracy and rights and the environment and then another set of people who feel passed over by the people who are doing well off and saying in reaction to that becoming far more traditionalist and nationalist. And

that's a really big gulf that exists across national context. And so to to cross that, you don't cross that with one ad in October.

Yeah. You cross that with bigger gestures, with people feeling rep prioritized in your framework. And I'll say the biggest thing in this moment is breaking from the past for Democrats. That the way out of this is you got to break hard from the Biden years because it broke the image of Democrats among many people.

Well, that was set up for you. Yeah. You know, I I I I agree with everything Carlos just said. I uh you know, I just want to emphasize the breaking from the past moment because I think Democrats are in a very weird place that we really haven't been in since the '8s. Uh which is that, you know, voters see the Biden administration as a failure. Uh Joe Biden when he left office was more unpopular than Donald Trump after January 6th. Uh and that's just where the voters are. Uh you know, I think that that's a very different thing. you know, after in the Bush years, uh, you know, in the Trump one, the previous, you know, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, they had been incredibly popular people and then the Republicans won due to some weird quirk of our electoral system. And that's not the that's not the situation we're in here. Uh, and I I want to emphasize that. And then you know I the other thing I I really like the the

framing that uh basically politics has become much more about self-expression of values as opposed to the material you know material needs healthcare policy and uh unemployment and all this other stuff and that's just been a really terrible uh situation for Democrats and you know I think breaking with the past is important but you know I I think that uh a cross tab I really like to look at is you know when you ask voters what issue care the most about almost every single subgroup you can imagine. Picks cost of living is number one. Latinos, young voters, politically disengaged voters, everything except for one, which is people who have donated to a democratic campaign in the last year. Uh now for them, climate change is number one and then it's democracy and you know, whatever. Uh and like look, that group, it's about 1% of the population, maybe uh 90% of uh of crooked uh you know subscribers.

Uh and I I think that a lot of the changes in the media environment over the last uh 10 years have kind of given them a strangle hold over uh you know uh the Democratic party. Uh and I I think that that's mostly been bad. And to be clear, nothing I I don't hate Democratic campaigns. Nothing wrong with that. But I do think that we have we have to use this new found power more responsibly uh and make sure that we're making space for what the other 99% of the public cares about.

And along those lines, let's we can clap for that. um like along those lines, is it the is it the politicians are responding to the incentives of the donor the grassroots donor community and because it is it's not just there's a world in which it's like Democrats are care about these esoteric issues because the bill this what the billionaires care about but it's really not that it's the people who are giving $5 at a time, right? And is it also the media environment? Because like one of the things and you know is like you're a big proponent of this of this idea that we democrats talk about the economy all times right affordability all times and which

every moment for at every single moment uh but one of the challenges is you'll hear this from members of Congress or other politicians is in this media environment which often you know algorithmically based it often prioritizes identity issues first. It's like very hard to get attention on economic issues, right? Like how do you think about that?

Well, I I think that's 100% the challenge. Uh it's not uh it's not anyone's fault. Uh but how you know what stories get put, you know, in front of people's eyeballs is just fundamentally different than it was 10 years ago. But, you know, I think the one of the things I like the best about an obscure politician named Zoron Mdani, uh, is that, you know, I I remember was as soon as his first ads came out, he ran the most economically focused campaign of any politician that I can remember, maybe since Barack Obama in 2012, uh, you know, you go to his website and every single thing was about the cost of living. And, and I think people take for granted how weird that is. You mean, you know, there were meetings where someone was saying, "Oh, let's put climate change in and someone was like, "No, no, we're not going to do that." And then that's the discipline piece, but it's not just discipline. Uh, you know, the

reality is that, you know, there are Democratic politicians talking about gas prices until they turn blue and nobody gets attention to it. But he did a really good job of making videos about things that are impacting people's day-to-day lives and he got eyeballs. Uh, I I'm not saying it's easy. Politics is not easy. Uh, it's very hard to become an elected official, but that is the challenge. There is this I would just note for those people who follow the online debates about democratic messaging strategy is that David is sort of the person seen as uh the big advocate for something called popularism which is where you really talk about popular issues only which has been uh treated as sort of a centrist approach to politics like that's how you like it's it's much more complicated than that but the fact that the person who ran the most David Shorelike campaign in the last 10 years was a Democratic

socialist from New Um, I here's a here's a I want to get back to more about Democratic messaging, but but we're still in 2013 for a second or to I've done this five times. 2025. Uh the um you hear a if the polls had shown that Democrats were going to win by 10 and we won by five, everyone in this room would be screaming about broken polls. The polls in New Jersey said we'd win by five. In Virginia, maybe seven to nine. We won by well a lot more than that. The poll like do you guys have a theory? We're used to the polls underestimating Trump supporters. The polls here underestimated Democratic supporters. What do you think happened?

Yeah, I mean I I think that pollsters are social creatures. You know, polling is extremely hard. And my guess is that after 2024, uh all the public polls uh heavily underestimated Trump. And I'm I'm sure that everyone was trying their best to try to not make their results look too uh look too democratic. But also, it's just really worth saying that we're in a very weird place in our politics right now where there's this enormous polarization by political engagement. You know, my best guess is that if you is that uh the most highly engaged 25% of the electorate is now like 30 percentage points, you know, more democratic than the bottom 25. And so, you know, trying to predict what's going to happen in a general is just a completely different game than what's going to happen in a low turnout primary. And I think that folks are having a lot of trouble with that.

But they were pretty right in 2022 and 2018 right? For sure. Yeah. Like like we sort of felt like we na we had nailed getting high like

though I will say actually the polls did underestimate Democrats in 2022. Maybe not. And but I'd say about the same amount as this time by like you know two to three points on average. Um, but I think it's a big challenge for us, and I just want to really make this point, is that all of those voters who turned against us last year are still here. Uh, and they're not going to make their voice heard. We're not going to see them again until 2028. Uh, but they're going to really still matter. And so, it's really incumbent on us to not forget that they exist just because they're not voting.

Go ahead, sir. Yeah. There's like a reason that I like qualitative work more than polling. And it's the reason is that the polls just cannot capture we'll call it enthusiasm. Um but also it can't capture meh.

And so like uh you know what we had this time was a ton of rage and enthusiasm to go out and vote for Democrats which it couldn't uh quite capture. And I think in 2024 it couldn't capture the meh um as effectively as

that really was the theme of your uh your focus groups pre the candidate switch was meh.

I would say my very yes complicated analysis is that people are very meh on Joe Biden me to nah. Um

and it it did help with Kla Harris but that that hole was pretty pretty big. Can I just say one thing? Nobody. I understand that it feels annoying for the former Republicans to walk into these more Democratic spaces and be like, I have some ideas for you about how you should be, but can I just offer when this this point about break from the past?

I do think I have I I have the weird whether it's luxury or not, but I have been behind the scenes on communications for both political parties and there is a million cultural differences between the way the two of us do things. But one of the things that really strikes me is the way that Democrats test themselves. Like they test ads constantly. They are looking for margins all the time. And Republicans like Donald Trump's big thing in 2016 that allowed him to break through was like, "Build a wall. We're going to build a wall and it's going to have a door in it." And it's like everybody's like, "Who's this idiot?"

Well, the one who wins. Because why don't Democrats just start being like instead of trying to explain to people that they didn't really mean defund the police, say, "We're going to hire a million more community cops, and that's how we're going to start talking about crime. We're going to hire a million new nurses. We're going to hire a million new social workers. We're going to focus on the people who help people. We're going to focus on building these middle class jobs." and just have I mean I just this the like analysis the paralysis by analysis I think really hurts Democrats from being able to be like I'm going to say simple things. I'm not going to talk about how we need to talk about rebuilding the middle class.

I'm just going to be like here's a bunch of middle class jobs and HOW WE'RE GOING TO BUILD those out and that how they're going to make your life better because you maybe person who doesn't care about nursing doesn't like waiting in the waiting room for such a long time. You know all of the places where people are feeling pain points. We could solve this by shifting AI. AI is coming. It's already here. It's going to do destructive things to white collar jobs. Well, there's all these other jobs that need doing. Let's talk about those. And until a Democrat could just sort of find a gut level instinct toward not and even some not don't have a 10 meetings to listen to 10 pollsters. Not you should listen to us, but like you know like like just like don't you can't do that all the time. Somebody's got to in their gut be like directionally. I know what it's going to be. It's going to be about people working. It's going to be about

how that improves everybody's lives in America and the tribe we all belong to as Americans and I'm going to stop breaking you up into little buckets and that's how we're going to move forward.

I I would I would argue that um that directionally it's still got to be about those people that have way too damn much

that are willing to take from you and take from them so that they can have even more. The reason that's so important,

that's not a plan though, it's a grievance. I mean, no. I Well, first I think I think the narrative must start with defining the problem, right? And the problem can

villain. There's got to be a villain. And the right and the problem cannot only be Think about this. What reason have Democrats given for why your life sucks? What reason have we offered? I can offer I could tell you there's been one for the past 10 years.

Donald Trump. Donald Trump. That's it. It is not one. They're not buying it. I could tell you right now in focus groups, racism existed before Donald Trump. This is the I hear every day. Well, they were racist before Donald Trump. They were sexist before Donald Trump. I was broke before Donald Trump. My my hood sucked before Donald Trump. And so to we're going to have to offer something more than that. And I can tell you the thing that 73 73% of Americans believe is that those billionaires and greedy corporations are rigging the system. and and the you know the the the the the wealth divide the explosion in the wealth divide that is happening because of AI is only going to exacerbate this.

We saw Elon Musk's wealth go from $10 billion to $44 billion in 8 months. Let's have a conversation about it because I can tell you they're pretty pissed off and this is the reason for a lot of that pain. you know, there's meanwhile he's building a golden ballroom right now,

you know, and I mean, while the while the federal government is closed, we can have this conversation, guys, and and we can still make it about affordability.

Sarah, I think there's you raise uh two points with Democratic messaging like his or her overpulling over message testing. We can talk about that. We have pulses in message testing here. The other problem is uh we have too many policy people. Like in 2016, I wrote an unsolicited memo to the Clinton campaign about running for Trump and one of the things I put in there was you should fire all the policy staff because it wasn't going to be a white paper election. And and the reason like we talk about like you need like the hard challenge is how do you get affordability breakthrough? Like Zoron Mandami is obviously an generationally talented communicator. He can do all the videos. He's effortlessly charming. He can do all that. But the other thing he did is he had the Democrat, he had policies that were memorable and broke through because they cause controversy, right? Free buses, you know, city-run

grocery stores, rent freeze, tax the rich. Like everyone could do that, you know, four things. That's what the wall was, right? The wall, every voter knew the wall is an idiotic policy, but it signaled something. And so like Kl Harris had a very well done, very smart tax credit for first-time home buyers, but like you're never going to get attention on that, right? So it's like it's not just messages. You have to have like you have to have ideas to break through.

Yeah. I I just want to really highlight I mean I I agree with everything uh there, but I think the important thing is that there were only three or four. I think the biggest problem that Democrats have I mean first a lot of the things we push for are unpopular, but actually I think we just have way too many things. Uh obviously the Zoron example is good but uh my nerdy thing that I like to go go back to is that there is a uh labor prime minister in Australia uh Albanesey's he has uh the labor has been in party for way in power for way longer than they've had any business to. And one of the secrets to how uh they ran is that they picked three issues. They're like we're going to make pensions better. We're going to make it cheaper to go to college and you know we're going to lower crime and that was it.

They just picked three things and they repeated it. There's you can't break through if you're split across a thousand different issues at once.

Yeah, that is that we're sort of in this world in these campaigns of trying to appease every audience, right? Where it's like what's our thing for the climate change groups? What's our thing for this group? Stuff like that.

And I go ahead. Well, I I just, you know, I I really I think that microtargeting is just one of the most overrated uh concepts in politics where, you know, everyone wants to say, "Oh, we're going to give this thing to this group and this thing to this group." But the way that you win is by picking broadly appealing messages that work for everyone. you that I I just think we have to think less in terms of policies and more in terms of fights.

Yeah. What's the fight you want to have? What's the debate you want to be having at any given point? Because if you got a policy that the other side's not going to pick on that there's not going to there's not going to be heat around it, it's just a policy.

But these are easy to weave together like what we're all saying, right? So this idea, okay, Elon Musk yesterday got a trillion dollar package. He got a trillion dollar package. He cut USA ID and 600,000 people have died since he did that. And SNAP benefits aren't getting through. Trump is building a ballroom. Like those are contrast messaging. Look at what they're doing and look at what's happening result of it and here's how I'm going to solve it. I often think Democrats miss the here's what I'm going to here's what I'm going to do to solve it piece. Which is why like this question of what your priorities are. Everybody cares about having a job. Everybody cares that they can afford things, that their streets are safe. Like those are the main things people care about. And Democrats and some of it is by having something that they passionate about that they can say who they're for. We're for everybody who

wants to work at a job and have, you know, and and live a good life. Like all of a sudden that's a big wide open aperture. The second you're like, "Well, here's what we're doing for trans people and here's what we're doing for black people and here's what we're doing for women." Everybody's like, "Well, I'm excluded from that group, so I've stopped listening. And all of those people want to bring down costs. Oh yeah, that's right. All of those groups.

But that is to and that's it. I mean, set some highlevel narratives that you can tag things on to. That's what Trump did with immigration. Immigration became about crime. It became about jobs. It became about grievance. And like you can do all of that with one thing. Democrats just need to do that about jobs and affordability. Jobs and affordability all day long. and don't get distracted by everything else because Republicans want to fight with you about trans stuff.

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There like there is a messaging dilemma every Democrat faces, right? Like we get David's polls, we get Carlo's ps list focus groups and it's like affordability affordability affordability and we know we have this huge like trust deficit on the issues that matter most. But then Trump invades a city, right, with troops or like how do you guys think or like how would you advise your clients on how to navigate that dilemma because you they're like there's a moral obligation probably feel we got to speak up against this stuff.

There's a news incentive probably because it's what they like if you you can tell CNN or POS America that you want to come talk about your affordability and we will ask you the questions give you a chance to do it but also we want to know what you're doing to stop the invasion of the city like how would you advise the folks your clients to think about those things

okay I'll tell you if that like why is Donald Trump sending troops into cities while you guys are getting poorer and can't afford groceries okay

they talk about transports. WHY IS DONALD TRUMP talking about something that happens in like 12 places or like in 12 individual instances when the vast majority of Americans cannot afford groceries? Why is he building a ballroom? Why is he paying Elon 12 trill? Why is he making a trillion DOLLARS WHEN YOU CAN'T AFFORD GROCERIES? YOU, YOU, YOU, you all day long. You person who can't afford things. But you can't be boring about it. You can't do a PowerPoint about it. Okay. YOU GOT TO GET IN people's chili and make it feel like you really care about whether or not they have a job.

You know, the other on one is is the is the obvious. He's he's trying to distract you and make you believe that they're the reason for your problem, right? Which is which is that is the entire zero sum politic. But the other part is that we do have to start future casting. We have to start describing the world as we see it. The world where you know you should be able to work one job, afford to provide for your family and contribute to society. You should be able to send your kids to school and and them not end up like me 20 years later still paying their student loans. Right?

We have to start describing a world and then remind them why that world is not possible. Because those billionaires that have way too damn much are rigging the system, right? Again, we can keep coming back to the same thing as I'm going to continue to do for the next 20 minutes and 17 seconds

on message. And I I'll just say I mean obviously these are hard challenges. Uh politics is really hard. Uh if it was, we wouldn't have lost. Uh but I I think that if we live in a world where Donald Trump can set the issue agenda of what we're talking about in any given time, then we're going to lose. Uh cuz he's always going to put his best issues uh right at the front center and that's what he's been doing. And so Democrats need to actually and it's harder because we don't control the government. So like obviously it's not easy, but we have to make we have to change the issue landscape and zeitgeist ourselves. And I think that there's a lot of examples of us doing this successfully. you know, with the shutdown, we were able to do that and it's translated to immediate uh gains that have been clear in the polling. Uh but I think that, you know, we've managed to break make the uh make the ballroom stuff break through to a

lesser extent. We've made the the Argentina thing break through. These people are making mistakes all the time and we have to figure out how to bring them into the forefront. That's really hard because obviously there's like a multi-billion dollar fight for attention happening. Uh but that's what politics is now and that's what we have to, you know, that's the fight we have to have.

Do you And I think we have an opportunity, right? Because A lot of the disadvantages that Biden had being in the White House, Trump now has too, right? And everybody knows about the ballroom, right? Um there's a chance the reverse UNO um on Trump on a number of things, right? So there was uh an argument that you hear among swing voters was that we were spending all this money in Ukraine that was better spent at home with people who were struggling. There was a broader story about resentment that they drew into a broader story about other people are getting stuff even though you're struggling. You could tie that into the trans argument. You could try that into handouts more broadly. Well, now they're giving how many billion are we at to Argentina or like a $40 billion bailout um to Argentina because of his billionaire friends, right? Um because of his allies. So there are there are opportunities now. Um, I think the

question I have for you guys is how you think about um, some of the more salient issues that are a little bit off topic and how you bring them back. So, I think rich is actually I'm I'm wondering if rich is actually too broad these days and we have to be thinking more about a small wealthy elite, which is my way to ask you, should we be talking about Epstein?

You should always talk about Epstein. Always. Always. Why? because some stories just resonate with people and also he hates it, right? He freaks out. Now granted, he might like invade a country to make us stop talking about it and so there are downsides and costs, but like

he did our country. He invaded our country. He invaded our country. This city right here.

Uh look, I I do think people use the phrase people should be able to walk and chew gum. I I just part of what I want is for people to just mean it really hard. Like if you just mean like you should be appalled that Donald Trump has Congress like he doesn't want them in session so that they don't vote on releasing the Epstein files. And the question is is it's just a matter of if you have enough breath to breathe everything that comes out of your mouth every day should be why is he covering up for pedophiles? Why are your grocery prices going up? every day there are ways you can push this forward and every surrogate and every Democrat and to me what is always crazy again looking at the right is that they know how to and this is where you guys being a big fractious coalition and them being like a personality cult now like works in their favor which is Donald Trump he just walks around being like best

economy for black people best economy for women how's your 401k buddy and everybody's like okay yeah we're talking about the economy and Democrats don't do that they're talking about every little bespoke issue in the world. And I think that Democrats would do better if they just hit some high points. We got our three things, but they talk about affordability. But even your billionaires, it can be about Epstein. WHY IS DONALD TRUMP covering up for billionaires who were pedophiles uh and protecting his rich friends instead of lowering their grocery prices? I mean, that you can do it. They all come back together. I promise. It's just a matter of being able to tell that story.

David, do you feel like the shutdown has broken through to people? Absolutely. Yeah. Uh I know. Look, Donald Trump's approval rating has been in a very narrow band for a lot of the last 5 months. And that caused me an enormous amount of distress. It really you just have to look at the numbers. His approval rating is way down over the last month. Uh our the extent to which people trust us is up. And I think most importantly to me is the percentage of voters who say that healthcare is one of the most important problems facing this country is way higher than it was. Uh and so you know that was the goal of the shutdown. And look I again everybody wants to hate on leadership. Everyone wants to hate on the Democratic party.

This play does seem to have worked and I think it's worth worth acknowledging that and we don't have to doom all the time. I think they that's a really important point about raising the salience of healthcare because I think sometimes Democrats historically have decided to ask voters what their most important issue is and then decide our message is that and even if that issue is the best issue for the other side we and Republicans tend to and Trump really did this quite successfully is they decide what their best issue is and then raise the salience of it. So immigration was not a highly salient issue before Donald Trump ran for president in 2016.

he made it one which was to their advantage because all of a sudden we're talking about immigration instead of the a pretty good economy that Obama was handing over to his successor, right? And like that like just as Democrats, we I think we really have to change our mentality of we have the capacity to affect what people are thinking about and if healthcare is a top issue in 2026, we're going to do much better than if it's the 17th most important issue. Look, I I I knew working on the Harris campaign that if on election day uh immigr we economy was the number one issue for every for every group, economy equals cost, right? Economy means something different in every election, in this election, it meant cost. So, we knew that, but I knew that if the next top issue was immigration and crime rather than abortion and guns, abortion and healthcare, abortion and insert, we have lost. Guess what the top three

issues were? Economy, immigration, crime. We lost. By the way, as we begin to think about 2026, do you guys think Democrats need a six for 26? Do we need like a positive policy agenda as a party to run on or is it better to run simply in opposition to what is happening? Well, I I I think one there's a false choice there, but it's just worth saying why. Uh there is no leader of the Democratic Party. Uh and there won't there won't be for another two years. No one has the authority or legitimacy to be like these are the six things we're going to do. The reality is that there's obviously an enormous amount of disagreement in our caucus. Uh

I mean, the House could do it, right? House but my point my point is that the candidates have to do that. Uh, you know, even in this era, I think that positive advertising is actually just one of the most underrated things in politics. Uh, you know, it's funny. You get on the donor calls and they're like, "Oh, you're letting us walk all over them. You need to punch them in the face." And you're like, "Oh, negative advertising." Never thought of that. We'll get right on it. Uh, like voters really uh like I think I think the big problem uh what I always tell people is that swing voters both hate Republicans less and also like Democrats less uh than we do. And so you just have to do both. Uh like every individual candidate is gonna have a different six things and I think that's okay. Um but it is very important. You know these candidates actually pick a couple of things that they have an affirmative agenda for.

Well, it's like in 2006, right? The Democrat the Democrats running for the House picked six things, right? Minimum wage was a bunch of reform stuff because the Republicans were being arrested left and right and going to prison at that time. Um so like that's a version we could do at least for the people running for House, right? There could be three affordability things, a healthcare affordability thing, and some anti-corruption stuff like as a option. Now, not every candidate would run on it, but there is like some potentially some like very different media environment than 19 years ago, but like you the more people are for it, the more throw weight you get behind it for it actually to break through. Because I guess I guess one of the things and sure what you all think of this that like I worry like I guess it's as everyone knows it's my job to be the glass half full guy on the podcast but you know I'm

very excited about what happened on Tuesday but I do worry that we may as a party use it as an excuse not to answer all the hard questions sort of like 2022 and because we like as you guys have all said we're going to have to win in places a lot redder than Virginia and New Jersey particular We want to take the Senate. And so like the Democratic Party brand, right, is in House, you know, in big Senate races, big governor's races, there's enough ad money that these people can define themselves in opposition to that brand if they want to or fill in the pictures.

In house races, a lot of times it comes down to essentially generic Dan versus generic Republican. And if the generic Democratic brand is that's not good, right? And so that's like one of the things about how you think about improving that. Well,

2026 is going to be I mean we need 2026 to be about Trump, a referendum on Trump undoubtedly.

And you know, I think about the irregular voters. So among Latinos, among others, too. Trump had this strength among a kind of irregular voting Latino. We tend to think of low propensity voters traditionally as being Democratic. That's always been wrong. They're swing voters and they swung toward Trump very heavily. Today, the more irregular voting Latinos are the most dissatisfied with Trump. And so if you just called it tomorrow, you'd say a lot of them are just going to stay home. I'd say that's like a field goal for Democrats to win. They need the touchdowns, which is those people turning out and voting for the Democrat.

And that's going to require not a contract contract for America where you give Republicans a new target where you move the target, the focus away from Trump, but a contrast. You're saying these are the things Trump is doing bad. Let's show a little bit just to at least reassure voters that Democrats understand where you are coming from and that there's a viable alternative.

Does everyone agree that 2026 should be a referendum on Trump? I only think part partly and part of it is because

who else is it a referendum on? Uh no should I mean it of course there should be a referendum on

the billionaires. The problem the problem is the Democrats have their billionaires too.

Northstar guys. North Star. When Trump is no longer on the ballot, why does their life still suck?

The billionaires. Can I offer just a quick messaging frame on that? I would start talking about MAGA billionaires and not just billionaires. It just it just, you know, mega billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Deal because those are weird guys. Uh

we got some good ones. We do have some good ones. I'm just just throw MAGA in front of it. It's an easy, but here the thing about the referendum on Trump is that look, there's there's there's um this is there's a one of the things um that's happening in focus groups. We've been asking Republicans, do you want Trump to run again in 2028? Uh and the answer is no. They don't want him to run again in 2028. Um partly because they like term limits, partly because everyone's like, he's old now. They want something new. Um, but like Democrats aren't going to have Trump to kick around for forever the same way Republicans aren't going to have Trump to turn out low propensity people forever. And in 2030 there's going to be another census and that is not going to be good for Democrats. And so Democrats have got to start thinking long term about what they're going to do to make people understand who they are.

And so at focus groups I always ask Democrats, why are you a Democrat? Like what what makes you a Democrat? And a lot of times there's kind of like a huh? Uh but to the extent that people answer it, they really actually say one thing because I think we're the party that helps people. And so Democrats have got to find a way to lean into that brand in a way that says, "I am here for you. I'm going to help you, but not in a way that feels like a giveaway that isolates other people, right? Everybody wants jobs." And this is where I like popularism, which is I don't like the art that where you just are unable to talk about the things that are unpopular because I think just not talking about immigration was terrible for Democrats.

Um, they had to have a plan. You have to have a strategy. But there's a question about how you play defense on things and what you go on offense on. And I'm saying if you go on offense on jobs and economy and affordability all day long, that's why it shouldn't just be a referendum on Trump. It's it can be a contrast. Trump is making you poorer. He's building a a ballroom while you can't afford groceries. But also, here's what I would do because voters do not know what Democrats stand for.

But wait a second. But if it's a if you look at his approval ratings, you'd say I would like this approval rating to be how people vote. If you look at the favorability of the two parties, you would say this is not how I want people to be voting.

What? The favorability of the two parties? Oh, but that's No, but the Oh, no. Hold on. Do you know why Democrats are unpopular right now? Why their favorability is bad? CUZ DEMOCRATS ARE PISSED AT DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY'RE not fighting hard enough. Like those numbers aren't low.

Shut down the government, Sarah. The Democrat, WHICH IS THE FIRST SIGN of life that you're going to see their numbers go up. The approval rating of Democrats are going to start going up because people are LIKE, "THESE ARE FINALLY FIGHTING FOR SOMETHING, RIGHT? There's I don't want to harp on the problems of the party." Like, yes. What drives us to our record lows is Democrats are very mad at Democrats. Um, but we also are less popular with independents than Republicans. And when you look at the issue by issue Trump,

you stop talking about jobs. Yeah. Yeah. These are I think we agree that there are problems we have to fix. Like

to be clear, my dream is not a referendum on Trump. My true dream, if I had a magic wand, is a referendum on Steven Miller.

That's that's my dream. Oh, I want to Nobody knows who that guy go is. That's just that's that's just Car Carlos's inner self talking. Yes.

So, you know, before we close out, I just want to go back to something that Dan said and put Dan on the spot a little bit. Uh, which is, you know, in 2006 it was true that, you know, Nancy Posi and Rahm Emanuel could like get in a room and be like, "All right, these are the five things that are going to define the Democratic Party." We don't live in that world anymore. Uh, I think that the world we live in is that now you frankly have a lot more control over what the Democratic what the definition of the Democratic party is than uh, Hakee Jeff does. Uh,

awkward, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I use that power seriously. Uh, but look, in all seriousness, there's been this incredible decentralization uh, of the Democratic Party over the last uh, 10 years, and now there are donor advisers and foundations and liberal media outlets, you and Ezra Klein and whatever. And frankly, you all do define the uh the brand of the Democratic Party. Uh and I think you should all kind of get together in a room. I think the six things you mentioned seem pretty good, but that is the actual challenge.

Yeah. No, you're I like it's sort of like a you know, sort of a false choice I'm offering here, but like there is this sense that I I raised the six for six thing just because I'm old first. Um, but also there's a question of like how much we should be defining what we stand for, right? Like publicly doing it. And every candidate should do it. Like I have views on what what it should be. I'm going to say them on the podcast. I'm going to say on my Substack. I'm going to tell every politician you I want to talk to about it. But I think my view is just generally we need a set of ideas. They can be individualized for individual candidates. They can be housewide if you can figure it out, but that are affordability based and reform-based. uh like political reform like I believe very very strongly that we actually like that is a mantle we have to regrab because we have made ourselves sort of inadvertently into the defenders of a

broken system but we need to do that. All right we have a few more minutes here. I I want to end by asking a sort of a nerdy polling question for you guys to think about which is you know the polls are wrong about Trump in 2016. They were wrong about Trump in 2020. They were actually even if the vibes were the vibes were wrong in 2024, but the polls were right. And the way the polls were right was essentially a Trump related hack to weight the polling to the 2024 2020 election. How are you guys thinking about how to try to capture Trump supporters with Trump not on the ballot again? Do you wait it to the 24 election? Do you like how you thinking about it?

I mean, the the silence because we are all dealing with the same crisis, right? Is that Trump has blown up turnout models. He's blown up our ability to predict who is and who's not going to vote when he's on the ballot and when he's not on the ballot, on the left and on the right, right? He's surging the left. Um, and having a 58% disapproval rating became a drag on the right in 2026. So, I mean, I'm sorry, in 2025. So, I mean, the best thing that that we are doing at Hit Strategies right now is a very very loose screen on turnout. Um, if you have voted before, I mean, no, seriously, I just think likely voter screens are very risky because you're leaving out a bunch of vote. Now we can, you know, we can cut them and and cross tab them and see some create some scenarios, but the the the I the belief that we can just predict what the next um uh electorate is going to be is very tough for any pollster right

now. Yeah, go ahead. I think that the big challenge with polling uh is that the two biggest predictors of answering a survey, and this has always been true, is one uh how interested in politics you are, and two is your socioeconomic status/class. And that's always been true. Uh but those two things used to be pretty uncorrelated with who you voted for. And now it has become the entirety of who you vote for. Uh so we live in a world now where answering a survey is an inherently political act. Uh and that makes it really hard. Obviously on our end, you know, I'm proud of our polling record, but it's extremely hard. I think as a public consumer uh it's just going to be really important to try to look back at the fundamentals where you know there was a lot of crazy public polling in uh in New Jersey and you know you just have to go and say all right well parties out of power uh how have the

special elections been going I think we need to you know how is the early vote looking like we have to look at a the reality is public polling is not very reliable right now and we have to look at a broader set of indicators

the question is for me is what are we trying to get out of the polling I realize a lot of us use polling as therapy um to understand should I feel happy or not today? I would say like get a therapist. But but like that's not the main way that polling matters, right? What polling does is help uh is a gut check. It's like to puncture the bubble so many of us live in. Fundamentals end up being incredibly important and then you're using polling to kind of like say do we need to update what we believe going coming into these elections. And so that's where it's very important to understand who is changing, who might still change, but what is the actual percent estimate like this is not about having an oracle. Um this is about guiding strategies over the next year.

Yeah, this is I'm so glad you brought this. This is like the like this is the mantra of my podcast Polar Coaster, which is polls are not supposed to be predictive, right? They're supposed to be a snapshot in time and we as public consumers and everyone in this room uses the polls to manage our emotions. How are we supposed to feel on election day? Are we supposed to are we going to go into it feeling good? And then even you take 2020, Biden won and everyone left feeling depressed because we thought he was going to win by a lot and he barely won. And so it's just like we everyone's just got to chill on the polling. And that is a great way to end our panel on polling. Please thank our panelists.

Thank you here at Crooked Con.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Political Experts Break Down the 2025 Election Results"?

Hakeem Jeffries (Guest), Ezra Klein (Guest), Dan Pfeiffer (Host), Sarah Longwell (Guest), Carlos Odio (Guest), David Shor (Guest), Terrence Woodbury (Guest), Jon Lovett (Guest).

What is discussed in "Political Experts Break Down the 2025 Election Results"?

In order: 0:00 Donald Trump, New Jersey (Jersey), Georgia, Polling; 10:00 Donald Trump, Focus groups, Crooked Media, Mint Mobile; 20:00 Cost of living, Barack Obama, Climate Change, Democracy; 30:00 Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Focus groups, Squarespace; 40:00 Donald Trump, Argentina, Crooked Media, Magic Spoon; 50:00 Democratic Party, Focus groups, Swing voters, Elon Musk; 1:00:00 Polling, Crooked Con, Crooked Media, HIT Strategies.

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

75 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donald Trump, Polling, Democratic Party, Focus groups, Crooked Media, New Jersey (Jersey). Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Political Experts Break Down the 2025 Election Results"?

The episode runs 1 h 4 min; the transcript is about 13,115 words in 140 timestamped sections.

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About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 17, 2025.