The Double-Digit ‘Democratic Penalty’ | The Ezra Klein Show

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 2:42: Democratic Party, Democratic Penalty, Michigan, Pennsylvania

Notable quotes from "The Double-Digit ‘Democratic Penalty’ | The Ezra Klein Show"

• So I want to begin in a recent study you all did where you found something you called the democratic penalty.

  about Democratic Penalty · at 0:00

• Rust belt states. Was your study able to figure out what it is about the Democratic Party label that is dragging these candidates so far down?

  about Democratic Party · at 1:24

• Having ideas that they don't follow through on and not being a party that actually is the party of the working class. And so that tells me that you know while there's a huge…

  about Working Class · at 2:09

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Sherrod Brown — Person · 1 mention

Companies & orgs

• Democratic Party — Company · 2 mentions · first at 1:29

Concepts & topics

• Democratic Penalty — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 0:03
• Working Class — Concept · 1 mention · first at 2:13
• Economic Populism — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

• Michigan — Place · 1 mention · first at 0:56
  The exact same candidates that had an I versus a D did 10 points better in you know Michigan did 15 points better in Ohio. And interestingly in Pennsylvania, we didn't see much…
• Pennsylvania — Place · 1 mention · first at 1:03
  Better in you know Michigan did 15 points better in Ohio. And interestingly in Pennsylvania, we didn't see much of a Democratic penalty. And that's something that we're kind of…
• Wisconsin — Place · 1 mention · first at 1:10
  Trying to think more about. But in the other three states, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, we see these massive penalties, just because of the D next to their name. And so we…
• Rust Belt — Place · 1 mention · first at 1:24
  D around your neck. And it's pretty bad, especially in those workingass heavy rust belt states. Was your study able to figure out what it is about the Democratic Party label that is dragging these candidates so far down?
• Ohio — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 So I want to begin in a recent study you all did where you found something you called the democratic penalty.

0:05 What was the democratic penalty and how did you find it? So you know we were sort of interested in this idea that sherid brown couldn't win in Ohio. Right. It's like oh my god if we're economic populists and uh the greatest economic populist holding on in a red state uh couldn't continue holding on what's going on there? And so we we we thought and uh you know we had good reason to think that that was probably a brand identity problem and we just kind of wanted to look at that in a more uh you know slightly more scientific way.

0:36 So what we did was we had these hypothetical candidates that we gave to Rusbell voters in this survey and they were all economic populists and we we had some of the candidates be Democrats say this is a Democratic candidate and some say that they were independents and the exact same candidates that had an I versus a D did 10 points better in in you know Michigan did 15 points better in Ohio. And um interestingly in Pennsylvania, we didn't see much of a Democratic penalty. And that's something that we're kind of trying to think more about. But in the other three states, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, we see these massive penalties, you know, just because of the D next to their name. And so we were just trying to quantify how bad actually is it just to have the albatross of the D around your neck. And it's pretty bad, especially in those workingass heavy uh rust belt states. Was your study able to

1:28 figure out what it is about the Democratic Party label that is dragging these candidates so far down?

1:34 Well, we did kind of like an open-ended blue sky question about, you know, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the Democratic Party? Maybe it's, you know, you could work somebody up enough to get them to really freak out about the culture war stuff, but is that really top of mind? And so, we had these open-ended questions that we asked, you know, all the 3,000 people in the survey. And um you know we found that you know there was a lot of that of course that some people felt the Democrats were out of touch and focused on the wrong priorities and were you know woke idiots and all that stuff. There was a good amount of that but it was completely dominated by concerns about the performance of the Democratic party and having ideas that they don't follow through on and not being a party that actually is the party of of the working class. And so that tells me that um you

2:18 know while there's a huge mix of things going on and while we can't ignore um the sort of cultural uh you know resonance or lack thereof of the Democratic party in all kinds of different ways not just policies but in affectation and in style um you know a big part of the story here is also people just don't believe that the Democrats are going to deliver on the things that they that they talk about and that's a huge Kelvin

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "The Double-Digit ‘Democratic Penalty’ | The Ezra Klein Show"?

In order: 0:00 Democratic Party, Democratic Penalty, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

What is mentioned in this The Ezra Klein Show episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Democratic Penalty, Democratic Party, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Rust Belt. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Double-Digit ‘Democratic Penalty’ | The Ezra Klein Show"?

The episode runs 3 min; the transcript is about 570 words in 6 timestamped sections.

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