Transcript

Thinking Like a Supermajority | The Ezra Klein Show

From The Ezra Klein Show · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 56 min · 10,827 words · 104 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Thinking Like a Supermajority | The Ezra Klein Show", an episode of The Ezra Klein Show published November 10, 2026 (56 min, about 10,827 words). It mentions 79 people, works and ideas, including Democratic Party, Senate, Supermajority Thinking, Ezra Klein, Adam Jentleson.

What this episode is about

The episode examines how Democrats, riding a broad coalition from the center to the left, could capitalize on a favorable midterm outcome to secure a long-term governing majority, including a possible filibuster-proof Senate, and what that implies for party strategy, nomination dynamics, and campaign approaches. It explores tensions and potential synthesis between the party’s pragmatic center and its more progressive wings.

Key takeaways

  • Supermajority thinking reframes elections as mandates, not margins, unlocking durable power beyond 50-plus-one victories.
  • Democrats’ Kansas pivot proves ideology can collide with geography; voters respond to tailored candidates, not monolithic platforms.
  • The real surprise: broad coalitions can emerge when campaigns mirror states and districts, not their stereotypes or Trump's shadow.
  • Center and left reconcile by pursuing a shared, durable agenda; the synthesis may outpace Twitter debates and pundit doom.
  • A long-horizon strategy beats sprinting for wins; governing ambitions demand map-spanning competition and ambitious reforms.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Democratic Party, Senate, Supermajority Thinking, Ezra Klein
  2. – 10:00: Democratic Party, Senate, Kansas, Supermajority Thinking
  3. – 15:00: Democratic Party, Heterodoxy, Republican Party, Donald Trump
  4. – 20:00: Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Authenticity, Heterodoxy
  5. – 25:00: Democratic Party, affordability, Republican Party, Donald Trump
  6. – 30:00: Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Adam Hamilton, Political Capital
  7. – 35:00: Democratic Party, Senate, Filibuster, Supermajority Thinking
  8. – 40:00: Democratic Party, Senate, Supermajority Thinking, Filibuster
  9. – 45:00: Democratic Party, affordability, Israel, Ezra Klein
  10. – 50:00: John Fetterman, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Heterodoxy
  11. – 55:00: Democratic Party, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Michigan
  12. – 55:42: Adam Jentleson, Ezra Klein, The Gay Place, Lyndon B. Johnson

Notable quotes from "Thinking Like a Supermajority | The Ezra Klein Show"

  • So, as we speak, Democrats are on track to win 56 seats in the Senate. Crazy.
    about Ezra Klein · at
  • In both the way the party is running campaigns and the way they might govern in the coming years. Adam Jennison is a founder and president of the Searchlight Institute. He…
    about Adam Jentleson · at
  • Yeah. Supermajority thinking is thinking beyond the idea that the best we can do is win narrow majorities. It's a different way of thinking about electoral politics. It is an aspiration.
    about Supermajority Thinking · at
  • And that means that, we should construct a Democratic party that runs from, DSA members in parts of Brooklyn that they call the commie corridor to, Bobby Paleo in.
    about Democratic Party · at
  • Do as a party to bring people along but that's different right I mean Republican the Republican party disputes the existence of trans people at all [snorts] and actively wants…
    about Republican Party · at
  • One's from the left, one's from the right. You put them together, what you have is heterodoxy. So heterodoxy accommodates big, bold ideas in a way that moderation doesn't. But…
    about Heterodoxy · at
  • Approach for this is Zoran Mandani. when he was running for election, it became a joke how he could turn any question back to the subject of affordability. And at Searchlight, we this is a theory of ours that we call crowding out where it's.
    about affordability · at
  • You can lose Joe Lieberman. It doesn't matter. You can lose Ben Nelson. It doesn't matter. I think one reason the whipping has gotten so much more intense in the Senate in…
    about Senate · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Ezra Klein — Person · Host · 4 mentions · first at
    Interviewer guiding the conversation, framing questions about Democratic strategy and supermajority thinking
  • Adam Jentleson — Person · Main guest · 3 mentions · first at
    Author and former Senate staffer presenting the supermajority framework and advising Democratic strategy
  • Chuck Schumer — Person · Referenced leader · 5 mentions · first at
    Senate Democratic leader whose leadership and future are debated as Democrats consider how to manage a larger majority and generational transition
    People right these were very smart decisions that he made and for those reasons I do think he deserves to be reelected as leader but obviously there is this tension about you…
  • Donald Trump — Person · Referent / political opponent · 19 mentions · first at
    Framed as the polarizing incumbent whose behavior and unpopularity helped Democratic gains and reshaped competitive dynamics
    Right. money is finite. You're not going to spend it in Kansas to lose. And one perspective on this election is the only thing that changed is Donald Trump is such a hideous…
  • Adam Hamilton — Person · Case example / successful heterodox candidate · 8 mentions · first at
    Cited as the Kansas Senate winner who combined faith-based authenticity, pro-life personal stance, and liberal policy on affordability — exemplar of heterodox/fit-to-state candidate
    Hearts if you went to Hotchkiss. you get it by being an independent thinker. Adam Hamilton came across as authentic to the voters of Kansas, right? Because that's who he is.…
  • John Fetterman — Person · Referenced politician · 6 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as someone for whom Jentleson served as chief of staff and as an example in conversation about heterodoxy and party dynamics
    Up at the at President Trump's kind of big midterm rally. Is John Federman, is he part of the big tent? Is he a model of a heterodox Democrat? How do you see John Federman now?
  • Harry Reid — Person · Referenced mentor / example · 3 mentions · first at
    Former Senate Democratic leader for whom Jentleson served as deputy chief of staff; used as a governance and leadership reference point
    Founder and president of the Searchlight Institute. He spent 20 years working in politics, served as a deputy chief of staff to former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.
  • Mitch McConnell — Person · Opposition strategist reference · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as architect of hyper-partisan Senate strategy that Democrats navigated and as the reason bipartisanship became rare
    But also, I think there's just going to be this feeling like Mitch McConnell pioneered the strategy. You don't give the opposition president big bipartisan achievements. You don't show that Washington is working under the other.
  • Bernie Sanders — Person · Reference point (left-wing of party) · 5 mentions · first at
    Mentioned to illustrate the ideological range within the Democratic coalition and to show agreement on some goals despite differences in policy design
    Common ground also happen to be the things that draw the strongest contrast with Republicans. Right? Every single Democrat in this Big 10 caucus wants to expand healthcare access and achieve the goal of universal health care, right?
  • James Talarico — Person · Case example / model candidate · 3 mentions · first at
    Cited as a Texas winner who combined industry outreach (fossil fuel) with economic populism to win in a challenging environment
    Think that's really healthy. I think that you needed, again, you needed both things, right? James Taller Rico won in Texas by embracing the fossil fuel industry and saying this…
  • Roy Cooper — Person · Referenced politician / case study · 3 mentions · first at
    Used as an example of a successful state-focused Democrat (North Carolina governor) whose local appeal helped win statewide support.
    You had folks like Rob Sand running for governor in Iowa who just focused entirely on the state. Roy Cooper did not get the amount of national attention as some candidates, but…
  • Joe Lieberman — Person · Historical example / cautionary figure · 3 mentions · first at
    Referenced to illustrate intra-party betrayal and the consequences of hostile splits within a party during key legislative moments (public option debate)
    Manage these dynamics or just like somebody in them is, these are very tough issues. I was furious and said things that I kind of basically stand behind about how I think ugly…
  • David Hopkins — Person · Referenced academic expert · 1 mention · first at
    Quoted by the host as a political scientist whose work on polarization and geography informs the episode's argument about focusing on economics to reduce geographic polarization.
    About how durable the change in the political map might be, he said, Look, all of my research and many others just shows that the geographic polarization is driven by more…
  • Joe Biden — Person · Referenced political leader · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned in discussions about the presidency, 2009-era politics, and the concept of being a 'bridge to the future.'
    In the Senate in particular is because it is so hard to lose members under the current rules. But if you were able to act, you had a 55 vote majority and that mean you have…
  • Abdul El-Sayed — Person · Referenced political figure · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as an example of the left end of the Democratic coalition when describing the party's breadth.
    Nominate the divides in their party? the breadth now of a party that stretches from people like Abdul sayed and Zoram Mdani and AOC and Bernie Sanders on the left to people like you know Adam Hamilton and Mary Pollah on the right. This week.
  • Zohran Mamdani — Person · Example of progressive elected official · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as part of the left wing of the Democratic coalition that the big tent would encompass
    Nominate the divides in their party? the breadth now of a party that stretches from people like Abdul sayed and Zoram Mdani and AOC and Bernie Sanders on the left to people like you know Adam Hamilton and Mary Pollah on the right. This week.
  • Rob Sand — Person · Referenced candidate · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as a candidate who focused on state-level campaigning and performed well by staying out of national noise.
    You had folks like Rob Sand running for governor in Iowa who just focused entirely on the state. Roy Cooper did not get the amount of national attention as some candidates,.
  • Sherrod Brown — Person · Referenced senator · 1 mention · first at
    Democrat senator mentioned as part of coalition examples
    Adam Hamilton or a Scott column, or a Josh Turk. Look at the rest of the caucus. You still have to get a Mark Warner, a Tim Kaine, a Chris Coons, right? so there is very…
  • Alyssa Slotkin — Person · Referenced incoming/outgoing Senator example · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned among incoming senators and as an example of differing views within the party on leadership choices
    Sherid Brown, brought in Mary Poto, like and they got a gigantic Senate majority under him. On the other hand, you've already seen, say Abdul Sayed and Alyssa Slotkin, the…
  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Person · Referenced political figure · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned (as 'AOC') as an example of the left wing of the Democratic coalition when describing party breadth.
    Nominate the divides in their party? the breadth now of a party that stretches from people like Abdul sayed and Zoram Mdani and AOC and Bernie Sanders on the left to people like you know Adam Hamilton and Mary Pollah on the right. This week.
  • Mary Peltola — Person · Referenced incoming senator · 2 mentions · first at
    Senator referenced in discussion of recruitment and party strategy
    I think Chuck Schumer has some real bragging rights after this election. He was he had some recruiting misses, but he also, brought in Roy Cooper, brought in Sherid Brown, brought in Mary Poto, like and they got a gigantic Senate majority.
  • Bobby Pulido — Person · Illustrative local-fit politician example · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as an example of a Democrat (in Rio Grande Valley context) who would look and act differently from national Democratic stereotypes
    From, DSA members in parts of Brooklyn that they call the commie corridor to, Bobby Paleo in the Rio Grand Valley in Texas. And, we shouldn't try to police out certain types of people because we disagree with them on certain things.
  • Andy Kim — Person · Referenced legislator · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as author of a Medicaid bill used as an example of legislation that could advance towards universal health care without requiring single-payer consensus.
    Let's do things like Andy Kim's bill on Medicaid, let's do things like free primary.
  • Senator Mark Warner — Person · Referenced senator · 1 mention · first at
    Named as part of the group of senators illustrating the ideological breadth that must be bridged to form a governing majority.
    Adam Hamilton or a Scott column, or a Josh Turk. Look at the rest of the caucus. You still have to get a Mark Warner, a Tim Kaine, a Chris Coons, right? so there is very…
  • Chris Coons — Person · Referenced senator · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned among senators (as part of examples of caucus members) when discussing the need to assemble broad coalitions in the Senate.
    Adam Hamilton or a Scott column, or a Josh Turk. Look at the rest of the caucus. You still have to get a Mark Warner, a Tim Kaine, a Chris Coons, right? so there is very…
  • Daniel Schlozman — Person · Referenced author / scholar · 1 mention · first at
    Co-author (with Sam Rosenfeld) of Hollow Parties, cited as a recommended read that analyzes party deterioration and the vacuum left in political organization.
    A common thread through his early career. second book is a book called Hollow Parties by the political scientists Danny Schlasman and Sam Rosenfeld which is one of the most…
  • Sam Rosenfeld — Person · Referenced author / scholar · 1 mention · first at
    Co-author (with Daniel Schlozman) of Hollow Parties, cited as a recommended read about party decline and organizational change.
    Career. second book is a book called Hollow Parties by the political scientists Danny Schlasman and Sam Rosenfeld which is one of the most thoughtful illustrations of how we've…
  • Billy Lee Brammer — Person · Referenced author · 1 mention · first at
    Author of The Gay Place, recommended as a political novel relevant to the episode's reflections on Texas and political storytelling.
    Gay Place by Billy Lee Bremer. it is sort of the lost classic of American political novels. Billy Lee Brammer was an aid to LBJ and a journalist. and it's sort of this great…
  • James Madison — Person · Historical reference · 1 mention · first at
    Quoted to support the idea that assembling a majority in a large, diverse country requires building broad coalitions.
    To count the votes, it is actually quite hard to get to a majority in this country. And in fact, James Madison's faith in majority rule was undergurtded by this notion that…
  • Scott Colom — Person · Referenced senator example · 1 mention · first at
    Example name used for illustrative purposes in discussing political figures
    Know, or a Josh Turk. Look at the rest of the caucus. You still have to get a Mark Warner, a Tim Kaine, a Chris Coons, right? so there is very difficult to build a majority…
  • Tim Kaine — Person · Referenced senator · 1 mention · first at
    Listed as an example of a moderate senator who would be part of a governing majority coalition the party must assemble.
    Adam Hamilton or a Scott column, or a Josh Turk. Look at the rest of the caucus. You still have to get a Mark Warner, a Tim Kaine, a Chris Coons, right? so there is very…
  • Lyndon B. Johnson — Person · Historical reference · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced (as 'LBJ') in relation to Billy Lee Brammer's biography/experience and broader mid-20th century politics discussed in the episode.
    Gay Place by Billy Lee Bremer. it is sort of the lost classic of American political novels. Billy Lee Brammer was an aid to LBJ and a journalist. and it's sort of this great…
  • Josh Turek — Person · Referenced politician example · 1 mention · first at
    Candidate example used in discussion
    Gotten cha him chased out of the party, in recent years or, a Josh Turner.

Books & papers

  • Supermajority: How Democrats Can Build Lasting Power — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at
    Adam Jentleson's 2026 book framing the episode's argument about 'supermajority thinking' and Democratic strategy.
    You've been thinking for a while about and arguing for supermajority thinking.
  • Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy — Book · Referenced work (author's previous book) · 1 mention · first at
    Jentleson's prior book on Senate procedure and the filibuster; provides background to his arguments on reforming Senate rules
    Things. And yeah, listen, I a believe very strongly that we should get rid of the filibuster. This was the topic of my first book, and you and I have discussed it at length.…
  • Bernie for Burlington — Book · Recommended reading · 1 mention · first at
    Jentleson's pick illustrating Bernie's early heterodox, class-first politics — used to show historical examples of heterodoxy
    And that's a place to end. Then always our final question. What are three books you'd recommend to the audience? So, I just finished a book called Bernie for Burlington, which…
  • Hollow Parties — Book · Recommended reading · 1 mention · first at
    Recommended by Jentleson as a scholarly account of party deterioration that helps explain modern party dynamics
    Fascinating to see how this was sort of a common thread through his early career. second book is a book called Hollow Parties by the political scientists Danny Schlasman and…
  • The Gay Place — Book · Recommended reading (fiction) · 2 mentions · first at
    Jentleson recommended this political novel as an evocative portrayal of American political life and Texas-era politics
    About Texas recently, and being a big fan of political novels, I would highly recommend that one to people.

Companies & orgs

  • Democratic Party — Company · Primary political organization · 47 mentions · first at
    Central institution under discussion — its strategy, coalition-building, and governing approach are the episode's focus
  • Senate — Company · Institutional setting · 16 mentions · first at
    Primary legislative body discussed: its rules (filibuster), composition, and the implications of Democratic seat gains are central to the episode
  • Republican Party — Company · Opposition party · 8 mentions · first at
    Contrast and foil to Democratic strategy; cited as the party that nationalizes politics and opposes many of the Democratic goals discussed
  • Searchlight Institute — Company · Affiliation · 2 mentions · first at
    Jentleson's organization; source of research and polling referenced in the episode
    It became a joke how he could turn any question back to the subject of affordability. And at Searchlight, we this is a theory of ours that we call crowding out where it's very…

Concepts & topics

  • Supermajority Thinking — Concept · Core topic · 13 mentions · first at
    Jentleson's framework advocating Democrats build broad, durable coalitions beyond bare majorities to govern long-term
  • Filibuster — Concept · Key institutional barrier · 7 mentions · first at
    Discussed as a procedural obstacle that forces tight party discipline and constrains big-tent governing; Jentleson argues for ending or reforming it
    You can lose Joe Lieberman. It doesn't matter. You can lose Ben Nelson. It doesn't matter. I think one reason the whipping has gotten so much more intense in the Senate in…
  • affordability — Concept · Campaign focus / core message · 7 mentions · first at
    Identified as a unifying, electorally potent issue (cost of living, economic/populist framing) that Democrats can center to broaden appeal
  • Heterodoxy — Concept · Strategic principle · 6 mentions · first at
    Jentleson's proposed approach for candidates: avoid rigid ideological orthodoxy, combine positions across traditional left-right lines to reflect voters' mixed views
  • Big Tent Party — Concept · Organizational strategy · 2 mentions · first at
    Describes Jentleson's advocacy for an inclusive Democratic coalition that tolerates diverse views while anchored by core liberal commitments
    And that means that, we should construct a Democratic party that runs from, DSA members in parts of Brooklyn that they call the commie corridor to, Bobby Paleo in.
  • Universal Health Care — Concept · Policy objective · 4 mentions · first at
    Framed as an area of broad agreement across Democratic factions and a pathway for spending political capital to demonstrate governing competence
    Common ground also happen to be the things that draw the strongest contrast with Republicans. Right? Every single Democrat in this Big 10 caucus wants to expand healthcare access and achieve the goal of universal health care, right?
  • Economic Populism — Concept · Policy framing / electoral strategy · 2 mentions · first at
    Described as a unifying economic message embraced across Democratic factions that helps broaden appeal in redder areas
    Even as you argue with people, you might see that they have some points that are correct. and I think from the moderate wing, there's been an embrace of economic populism on a…
  • Authenticity — Concept · Candidate attribute · 2 mentions · first at
    Framed as crucial for voter trust; authenticity (being independent and reflective of local values) helps heterodox Democrats win
    It's much more the latter, right? I mean authenticity means thinking for yourself. It means being independent.
  • Political Capital — Concept · Governance resource · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced as the resource Democrats must build and spend wisely to translate electoral gains into durable governing achievements
    You build political capital in order to spend it. And I believe that very firmly. And what we've built for ourselves as Democrats right now is a lot of political capital. Now, we need.
  • Permitting Reform — Concept · Legislative test case · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of a bipartisan bill that could lower energy costs, advance clean energy, but also enable fossil fuel projects — a cleavage point in the coalition
    Moving forward. And you already see it beginning to split the Democratic party because, it makes it easier to build clean energy, but it also makes it easier to build dirty…
  • Big-Tent Absolutism — Concept · Normative slogan / principle · 4 mentions · first at
    Phrase Jentleson used to describe the idea that the Democratic party's only litmus test is having no litmus tests — a rhetorical shorthand for maximum inclusion
    Big 10 absolutism says the only litmus test is that there are no litmus tests.
  • Nationalization of Politics — Concept · Structural trend · 4 mentions · first at
    Describes a broad political shift discussed in the episode
    Idea of a 50-state program. And yes, money is finite, but a lot of these states are not expensive places to run a campaign. you look at a state brutal Montana market there in 2028, there are Senate races in.
  • Crowding Out — Concept · Framework / strategy · 2 mentions · first at
    Term used by Jentleson/Searchlight to describe concentrating voter attention (e.g., on affordability) to prevent other issues from diluting a campaign's message.
    Question back to the subject of affordability. And at Searchlight, we this is a theory of ours that we call crowding out where it's very easy for other issues to creep into the…
  • Geographic Polarization — Concept · Key argument / phenomenon · 1 mention · first at
    Central explanatory concept in the discussion about why parties have become more regional and how focusing on economics might reduce it.
    Political map might be, he said, Look, all of my research and many others just shows that the geographic polarization is driven by more cultural issues being at the forefront…
  • Social Promotion — Concept · Signal issue / heterodoxy example · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as an unexpected issue a Democrat can take (opposing automatic promotion) to signal independence from party orthodoxy and connect with voters' values.
    You just you know promote kids to the next grade regardless of whether they failed the tests or not. being against that is something that people don't expect to hear from…
  • Medicare for All — Concept · Example policy (progressive aim) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an aspirational policy with limited co-sponsorship illustrating the difficulty of converting progressive goals into majority-supported legislation
    Not everybody's sold on doing that via singlepayer, but everybody's sold on that broad goal. So, you can advance legislation that says, Let's do things like lower the retirement age to age 50.
  • Fossil Fuel Industry — Concept · Policy interest / local political factor · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced as a factor some Democrats (e.g., James Talarico in Texas) embraced to align with local economic realities while combining that with economic populism.
    Think that's really healthy. I think that you needed, again, you needed both things, right? James Taller Rico won in Texas by embracing the fossil fuel industry and saying this…
  • Woke — Concept · Cultural/political label referenced · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a criticized label ('woke') that has been used against Democrats and as part of debate over nationalized partisan messaging.
    Has like a lot of also cultural commitments it's not always but the focus on affordability and the sort of pushing aside you know woke one was crazy and the focus on Donald…
  • Medicaid — Concept · Policy instrument · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as a legislative lever (Andy Kim's bill on Medicaid) that could be used to expand healthcare access as part of a supermajority governing agenda.
    Let's do things like Andy Kim's bill on Medicaid, let's do things like free primary.
  • Obamacare — Concept · Legislative reference · 1 mention · first at
    Shorthand used for a major healthcare policy referenced in discussion
    Weren't going through budget reconciliation. In a world where there was no filibuster and he could have passed Obamacare with a public option with 51 votes, you can lose Joe Lieberman. It doesn't matter. You can lose Ben Nelson. It.
  • Pro-Life — Concept · Cultural/policy stance · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced when discussing candidate fit (Adam Kinzinger/Adam Hamilton being personally pro-life while supporting policy positions consistent with the Democratic coalition).
    That differ, right? We used to see that used to be pretty common in the party. You had candidates who were personally pro-life but you know voted pro-choice and you know I…
  • Voting Rights Act — Concept · Historical legislative example · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned when discussing exceptions to majority-rule dynamics; used to note where Senate procedural issues historically intersected with civil rights.
    80s when the filibuster, as we know, it started to emerge and become more except it wasn't majority rule on race, right?

Places & events

  • Kansas — Place · Case study / battleground state · 6 mentions · first at
    Highlighted as a state where Democrats unexpectedly competed and won with a heterodox/fit-to-state candidate, illustrating supermajority opportunities
    And simple majority thinking is looking at Kansas and saying there's no point in competing there because Trump won this state by double digits.
  • Israel — Place · Policy flashpoint · 3 mentions · first at
    Used as an example of a divisive international policy where Democrats have genuine intra-party disagreement
    So let's let's let's anchor on Israel on that one. What's happened over the last few years is you've seen a really distinct evolution among Democrats on that position specifically. Now, a lot of that has been driven by horrific.
  • Texas — Place · Competitive battleground / example · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of where Democrats can compete with the right candidate and where candidates like James Talarico and others tailored messaging to local political realities
    They're going to govern in Texas in a way they didn't get to govern for a long time. So, what are you saying it should do differently as it tries to get from the foothills of the supermajority to.
  • New Deal — Event · Historical touchstone · 2 mentions · first at
    Used as the archetypal example of a durable supermajority era that reshaped the country and informs Jentleson's ambition for Democrats
    The best example of a supermajority that we have in our recent history because, Democrats took power. They held on to it for a long time. They were able to enact an agenda that…
  • Michigan — Place · Electoral example / state context · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced regarding incoming senators/representatives (e.g., mention of Michigan's incoming senator and fund deployment) and as part of the expanded map Democrats can contest.
    And they got a gigantic Senate majority under him. On the other hand, you've already seen, say Abdul Sayed and Alyssa Slotkin, the sitting and incoming senator from Michigan…
  • Iowa — Place · Case study location · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as a state where state-focused campaigning (Rob Sand, Roy Cooper analogies) and affordability messaging mattered.
    You had folks like Rob Sand running for governor in Iowa who just focused entirely on the state. Roy Cooper did not get the amount of national attention as some candidates,.
  • Fontana — Place · Electoral battleground example · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as an example of a state with few people (less costly to run) and where Democrats could potentially compete with the right candidate.
    Know, you look at a state brutal Montana market there in 2028, there are Senate races in North Dakota and South Dakota. each of those states has about the same number of people as a congressional district, right? you know,.
  • Brooklyn — Place · Cultural example · 2 mentions · first at
    Used as shorthand for very progressive urban districts (the 'commie corridor') to illustrate party breadth and heterodoxy.
    And that means that, we should construct a Democratic party that runs from, DSA members in parts of Brooklyn that they call the commie corridor to, Bobby Paleo in the Rio Grand Valley in Texas. And, we shouldn't try to police out.
  • North Carolina — Place · Electoral example (state) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced in relation to Roy Cooper's victory and as an example of state-level dynamics and identity.
    Cooper did not get the amount of national attention as some candidates, but won that the state of North Carolina by 20 points, right? And so, and there's, Roy Cooper sort of…
  • Alaska — Place · Potential battleground example · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of several states Democrats aim to compete in as part of a supermajority 50-state effort.
    It's an incredible place for them to be, but it's not where they ultimately want to go. They want the presidency. They want a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate. They…
  • Oklahoma — Place · Potential battleground example · 1 mention · first at
    Listed among states Democrats aim to compete in under an expansive supermajority strategy.
    To go. They want the presidency. They want a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate. They want to be able to compete in places like Kansas and Texas and Alaska and Oklahoma…
  • North Dakota — Place · Future Senate race example · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a low-population state with a 2028 Senate race that Democrats could contest under a 50-state program.
    Know, you look at a state brutal Montana market there in 2028, there are Senate races in North Dakota and South Dakota. each of those states has about the same number of people as a congressional district, right? you know,.
  • South Dakota — Place · Future Senate race example · 1 mention · first at
    Paired with North Dakota as an example of less-expensive, lower-population states to contest for Senate seats.
    Know, you look at a state brutal Montana market there in 2028, there are Senate races in North Dakota and South Dakota. each of those states has about the same number of people as a congressional district, right? you know,.
  • Rio Grande Valley — Place · Local constituency example · 1 mention · first at
    Geographic region used to illustrate district dynamics
    From, DSA members in parts of Brooklyn that they call the commie corridor to, Bobby Paleo in the Rio Grand Valley in Texas. And, we shouldn't try to police out certain types of people because we disagree with them on certain things.
  • Massachusetts — Place · Electoral safe seat example · 1 mention · first at
    Invoked to note that in safe liberal places (e.g., Massachusetts) candidates can be as liberal as they wish without electoral penalty.
    Single issue. And again, this is mostly about how you win, in these more challenging states. If you're from Massachusetts, be as liberal as you want, but if your listeners…

Full transcript with timestamps

So, as we speak, Democrats are on track to win 56 seats in the Senate. Crazy. Sorry, I should have at the beginning.

Don't edit that out. Keep it unfiltered. So, Democrats won far more power in the midterm election than really any of them thought possible. They're looking now towards 56 seats in the Senate, very possibly, you know, more than 250 in the House. They're going to have a majority of governor's mansions. It's an incredible place for them to be, but it's not where they ultimately want to go. They want the presidency. They want a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate. They want to be able to compete in places like Kansas and Texas and Alaska and Oklahoma in elections where Donald Trump has not done so much of the work for them. So, how do they do that? And how do they nominate the divides in their party? the the the breadth now of a party that stretches from people like Abdul sayed and Zoram Mdani and AOC and Bernie Sanders on the left to people like you know Adam Hamilton and Mary Pollah on the right. This week

on the show I want to do two episodes. One with somebody who's more from you know you could call it maybe the center swing of the party, the pragmatist wing of the party. Uh and another with somebody much more from the left wing of the coalition because one I want to see how much they actually differ. I think some of these uh disputes seem deeper when you're say on Twitter X than they really are. And two, because I I do think you see a synthesis between these wings beginning to emerge in both the way the party is running campaigns and the way they might govern in the coming years. Adam Jennison is a founder and president of the Searchlight Institute. He spent 20 years working in politics, served as a deputy chief of staff to former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.

He was a chief of staff to Senator John Federman, sort of more when Federman had just gotten elected before he took some of what is his current form. And Jlesson is also the author of two books. Killsw switch, the rise of the modern senate and the crippling of American democracy, as well as supermajority, which is a book that really grounds this conversation in his theory of what it would look like for Democrats to try to act, think, and govern in the way that could once again make them an enduring supermajority party. a party able to compete anywhere in this country at any time. He joins me now.

Adam Gentlesson, welcome to the show. Thanks, ma'am. Good to be here. So, as we speak, Democrats are on track to win 56 seats in the Senate. That is a crazy number. A year ago, 51 seemed functionally out of reach. They're looking at between 250 and 260 in the House, depending on who you ask. biggest majority since 2009, if not larger than that. I think you could call this the foothills of a supermajority. You've been thinking for a while about and arguing for supermajority thinking. And so I want to know what supermajority thinking is and how it is in your view different than what Democrats were doing at least before this particular cycle.

Yeah. Supermajority thinking is thinking beyond the idea that the best we can do is win narrow majorities. It's a different way of thinking about electoral politics. It is an aspiration to represent more than the minimum number of people necessary to win an election. Right? And that's been the experience of our politics the last 10 years. Right? It's that elections are won by getting to 50 plus one. If you win control of the House or Senate, it's by a vote or two. and the best you can do is try to hold on to power for a couple years, maybe four, before you turn it back over to the other side. And I think this has led to an incredibly unhealthy dynamic both in our politics and the way that we operate as a as a government, but also in the way that we conduct political business in interpersonally. I think it's an incredibly unhealthy and divisive way of being as a country. And so supermajority

thinking, it's saying, listen, I don't want to just get to 50 plus one cuz that will get me into power. I want to build a real mandate. I want to build a real big tent coalition and represent more people than the minimum necessary. Now, I think there's a moral argument for that. You know, in a democratic society that thrives on pluralism, that is a moral aspiration. There's also a sort of hard-nosed political aspect to it, too, which is that if you win power on a broader scale, you're going to be able to hold it for longer. you're going to hold power not just from one election to the next, but over a decade or more, which is the amount of time that you really need to enact a big bold agenda that all Democrats want to see happen here. And the sort of touchstone era is the New Deal, right? I mean, this was the best example of a supermajority that we have in our recent history because, you know, Democrats took power. They

held on to it for a long time. They were able to enact an agenda that reshaped the country. On a political level, it's aiming bigger. It's saying that the battleground can be the entire map of the country. There's not a single state in which we can't compete if we run candidates who reflect the states and districts that they're trying to win. And I think that's what you saw happen on Tuesday night. You know, Democrats were competing in states where we haven't had a Democratic member of Congress or Democratic senator in decades. And you know that

in Kansas in nearly a century. Exactly. Right. I mean, I think it's what 1932. No, I mean it's it's wild. And you know, simple majority thinking is looking at Kansas and saying there's no point in competing there because Trump won this state by double digits. Supermajority thinking is looking at Kansas and saying we can win there if we run the right kind of candidate.

So I think you're in a way selling this too softly. Democrats didn't It's not like they didn't want a Senate seat in Kansas.

Their view on some level was that there was nothing they could do about it. Right.

Right. money is finite. You're not going to spend it in Kansas to lose. And and one perspective on this election is the only thing that changed is Donald Trump is such a hideous president that he made possible things that should have been impossible. That I think may actually be on at least halfway a true take on this election. I mean, Adam Hamilton does not win without Donald Trump. But what I think is interesting right now, what I think is sort of interesting about your take on politics right now is it's like Democrats now have their foot in the door.

Yes. In places they didn't have it before. They're going to be able to raise money in places they couldn't raise it before. They're going to govern in Texas in a way they didn't get to govern for a long time. So, what are you saying it should do differently as it tries to get from the foothills of the supermajority to like an actual, you know, 60 or 62 seats come 2029 in the Senate. [snorts] They should not place any limit on the states that they can compete in. I think, you know, we should go back to Howard Dean's idea of a 50-state program. And you know, yes, money is finite, but you know, a lot of these states are not expensive places to run a campaign. You know, you look at a state

brutal Montana market there in 2028, there are Senate races in North Dakota and South Dakota. You know, each of those states has about the same number of people as a congressional district, right? I mean, you know, functionally, and this sort of gets out of my area of expertise, but I, you know, I have worked on campaigns. It is not that expensive to run campaigns in states that don't have that many people, right? But you have to find the right kind of candidates.

What does that mean? It means a candidate who fits the state, right? And it means breaking away from some of the rigidity that's sort of captured our party in the last decade or so. I think the most refreshing thing about what happened on Tuesday to me is that I think you saw a movement away from a lot of the factional fighting that's really been dogging the party for the last 10 years. And I think some of that fighting and arguing may have been necessary, but to get to the point that we're at, uh, even as you argue with people, you might see that they have some points that are correct. Uh, and I think from the moderate wing, you know, there's been an embrace of economic populism on a scale that you haven't seen before. And I think that's really healthy. I think that you needed, again, you needed both things, right? James Taller Rico won in Texas by embracing the fossil fuel industry and saying this is a an

industry that produces hundreds of thousands of working- class jobs here in Texas. But he also ran aggressively on economic populism. And it was both of those things together and faith. I mean, you look at someone like Adam Hamilton, he, you know, was made no bones about being pro-life. He was an Episcopal minister. He wore his faith on his sleeve. He talked a lot about bipartisanship and, you know, not uh judging Republicans for their views. So, you know, this is a very different tone from a Democrat.

Not a 2018 resistance candidate. Yeah, exactly. You know, but on the other hand, you know, stuck to core liberal values like [clears throat] expanding healthcare, raising taxes on rich people, you know, and expanding

protecting choice. It's worth saying, right? the he's sort of in this older school of Democrats who will sometimes have a a personal view and a policy view that differ,

right? We used to see that used to be pretty common in the party. You had candidates who were personally pro-life but you know voted pro-choice and you know I think in some ways this debate is basically over. I think it's resolved. I think that you know people have seen how this works in states like Texas and Iowa and Kansas. And you know look it takes some give from both sides right? I mean, you have candidates sort of moving to the right on some issues in a state like Texas or Iowa, but at the same time running aggressively on economic populism and, you know, that's a sort of combination that I think all factions of this party can get behind.

You have at different points argued for something you call Big 10 absolutism. Yeah.

What is Big 10 absolutism? Big 10 absolutism says the only litmus test is that there are no litmus tests. And that means that, you know, we should construct a Democratic party that runs from, you know, DSA members in parts of Brooklyn that they call the commie corridor to, you know, Bobby Paleo in the Rio Grand Valley in in Texas. And, you know, we shouldn't try to police out certain types of people because we disagree with them on certain things.

Okay. But this feels a little bit like a dodge to that rule to me. I Bobby Pledo, I'm a huge Bobby PTO fan. This is a Bobby Plato stand account. But Bobby Pledo is not that far to the right. Like when do you say there's no limit?

Well, I don't know about that. Bobby PTO has taken positions that would have gotten cha him chased out of the party, you know, in recent years or, you know, a Josh Turner.

Bobby Pled is not a white supremacist. Oh, absolutely not. Bobby Pledo, I I don't even know I don't even want to invoke his name in this context because when you say there's no litmus tests, I think that the obvious question here is well then what is the Democratic Party about? Can you be in this party and, you know, be genuinely anti-trans, not just, you know, have a particular view on sports, but you don't think you think discrimination against trans people should be allowed? Can you be in this party, this economically populist party, and think actually billionaires should have lower tax rates, right? When you say no litmus test, do you do you really mean that? I mean it within the context of what we stand for as Democrats. So, what do you stand for as Democrats?

Sure. So I mean, you know, we as Democrats stand for steadily expanding the circle of civil rights protections to more and more people, right? And so it is it is a very different, you know, every single Democrat in this big tent believes in aggressively protecting civil rights for trans adults across the board, right? uh where there are some disagreements are on specific questions that apply to kids where I think people of good faith can admit that there are complicated questions a lot of which don't have easy answers and which as long as you come at from a place of compassion can be addressed and probably there's some more persuasion we need to do as a party to bring people along but that's different right I mean Republican the Republican party disputes the existence of trans people at all [snorts] and actively wants to roll back rights for transameans. So, you know, within this big tent rooted and anchored

by core liberal principles, we need to say there is room for disagreement at the fringes of some of these issues. So, you know, every single Democrat in the Big 10 wants to move towards universal access to healthcare. Every single Democrat in the Big 10 wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. There are going to be differences in how we execute these things. the degree to which, you know, we we go maximalist or try to move in a more moderate direction. These are disagreements we can hash out in a good faith way, but we're not going to chase people out for having those disagreements. And every single one of those issues that I just listed are things that draw a bright line between Democrats and Republicans. So, yes, you know, we are liberals within that broad liberalism broadly defined. We should not be chasing people out of the party because disagreements on things that really come down to a matter of degree.

Is this an argument for the Democratic party to moderate? No, absolutely not. Because, you know, I I talk a lot in this book about this concept of heterodoxy. So, this is a word that uh I would like people to model, but I don't ever want to hear a candidate say, you know, I don't want if there's a candidate out there who describes themselves as heterodoxy, I'm going to come track them down. Uh, you know, but I want them to model heterodoxy. You know what it means? It's the opposite of orthodoxy. It is getting away from purity tests and getting away from rigid ideologies and just thinking for yourself and developing a mix of policy positions that reflects the heterodoxy of the American voter. And the reason this is important is that the American people do not form their world views strictly from a liberal perspective or a conservative perspective. They look at the world and they take a little bit from column A and

a little bit from column B and they smush these positions together and they get an incredibly unique mix. And you know, one of the most educational things you can do if you're interested in politics is just to watch focus groups because you will have a voter who says in one breath something like, you know, I want every tech CEO thrown in jail for what they're doing to our kids and I also want everybody who came over the border illegally deported. Right? Those are not moderate ideas on either front. One's from the left, one's from the right. You put them together, what you have is heterodoxy. So heterodoxy accommodates big, bold ideas in a way that moderation doesn't. But it does say you can't just come forward with a rigidly leftwing ideology. You're never going to win in a state like Montana.

You know, I was thinking about this um chart I saw from I think it was Juliet Morris. And he was showing that, you know, you could see overperformance from blue dog Democrats and you could see overperformance from DSA Democrats.

And I think you can misinterpret that chart a bit because they are overperforming in very different kinds of districts, right? overperformance in Kansas is meaningful to the size of the Democratic majority in a way that overperformance in Brooklyn may not be.

Right? That said, I do think something you see there is that almost more than most voters are liberal or conservative or moderate, they really really really don't like politics and party hacks,

right? And one thing that I think is interesting about you know the various ways you saw different Democrats breaking from democratic molds be it in who they were right I'm a pastor I'm a seminarian I'm a parolympian I'm a you know a navy pilot [gasps]

you know all the way to what they were saying right James Tarico running as a um Christian populist who embraces the oil and gas industry

right is that part of the message is simply like I'm not like those Democrats over Right.

And so how much is like the work here aligning to public opinion and how much is it just like sending a signal that I'm independent from party opinion?

It's much more the latter, right? I mean authenticity means thinking for yourself. It means being independent. And so when you come to the voters, and it just so happens that all of your opinions line up exactly with the Democratic party brand, voters are going to be rightly suspicious of you as an independent thinker and they're going to rightly suspect that you're not a truly authentic thinker. And so, you know, this idea of authenticity is sort of, you know, the golden goose in American politics right now. It's what we're all chasing after and we're all trying to to generate as politicians. But you don't get it, you know, by by wearing car hearts if you went to Hotchkiss. You know, you get it by being an independent thinker. Adam Hamilton came across as authentic to the voters of Kansas, right? Because that's who he is. And he talked about politics and he talked about things in a moral language that

resonated with people that, you know, brought in issues of faith and theories of faith that, you know, made people think, okay, I know what your values are. I recognize you. I recognize some of the way I look at the world in you and [snorts] I trust you to go to Washington and to make decisions based on values that I have in common. You've done some interesting research where you know bu building on big and more complex than normal survey design but talk me through at least a little bit of that that research and and what you all found about the way people's opinions organize in the real world versus the way the Democratic and Republican parties kind of insist opinions should be organized.

Right? So one of the things that we found in our research is that there are issues that would never pop in sort of your average poll of top voter concerns that nonetheless are extremely powerful signals to people that you have a heterodox point of view and that you don't think in a rigidly ideological way. Right? So one example is the issue of you know what's called social promotion in schools or the idea that you just you know promote kids to the next grade regardless of whether they failed the tests or not. being against that is something that people don't expect to hear from Democrats these days. You know, they think de Democrats is sort of everybody gets a trophy squishes. And so if you say, you know, if kids fail the requirements of their grade, they should not be promoted, that sends a really powerful signal to voters that you're a different kind of Democrat. Being against homeless

encampments, right, is a very powerful signal. um you know being open to things like spanking there's a those issues are incredibly culturally loaded uh but I think you know sort of connect with voters on a values basis so we don't always have to be talking about you know trans sports or climate change or the border security there are lots of ways for people to develop these complicated appeals that reflect the complex way that voters interact with the world beyond these sort of you know four or five issues that we're always talking One thing I just noticed though about that list was those were all kind of issues where partly on cultural dimensions Democratic parties move left

right do you when you when you did this research I'm not asking you when you did this research

are did you find issues the Democratic party was too far right yeah I mean people you you really can't go far enough on economics I mean people are very you know into Democrats proposing big bold ideas on economics the key is to just combine those economic points of with some level of texture that shows you're not rigidly ideological on every single issue. And again, this is mostly about how you win, you know, in these more challenging states. If you're from Massachusetts, you know, be as liberal as you want, but if your listeners, you know, think to themselves, I'm sure there are issues that they diverge from sort of Democratic orthodoxy on. And I think that's true of candidates, too.

You know, it is more authentic to show the world issues where you disagree with your party or where you you disagree with your side's orthodoxy than to pretend that you agree with them on every single issue down the line. Is what we're talking about here heterodoxy, which is a slightly uh academicy word for voters don't have fully, you know, aligned with any party political opinions or we just talking about a Democratic party about a party that varies a lot by place. And what has kind of happened is that the media nationalized the political money nationalized the we got social and algorithmic media.

So everybody's kind of in the same thing and the parties are the more of the same thing everywhere. And I can't really tell if in this environment, this media environment, you [snorts] can really turn that clock back because maybe this ability to have politicians in a single party who vary dramatically state-to-state to state was simply a function of the states existing in differentformational universes, having very different political cultures and having many much more of their attachment to politics being local.

Yeah. I mean, you know, you know what's something that varies region to region? The United States of America, you know, and and I think this is a super majority thinking is a vision of politics that reflects that difference. And I think that, you know, we have sort of taken for granted for a long time that everything is nationalized. And I think part of what we're seeing is that that's not necessarily true. And a lot of the candidates who performed best on Tuesday were not ones who got a ton of national attention and in a lot of ways who shied away from national attention.

I mean, you had folks like Rob Sand running for governor in Iowa who just focused entirely on the state. Roy Cooper did not get the amount of national attention as some candidates, but won that the state of North Carolina by 20 points, right? And so, and there's, you know, Roy Cooper sort of embodies the Tarheel persona, right? So, I think that as you know, things go in cycles and there's undoubtedly been a cycle of nationalizing American politics and that will always partly be true. Um, but part of this is Democrats sort of contrasting themselves against that nationalization, right? Using that as a way to differentiate themselves from the party brand by breaking away from their party's orthodoxy and saying, "I'm not, you know, that same kind of Democrat.

I'm my own Democrat. I'm a Roy Cooper Democrat. I'm a Rob Sand Democrat. I'm a James Talerico Democrat." Right? And so as nationalized and sort of homogeneous as things have become in our politics that presents people with an opportunity because you know you can come across to voters in in surprising ways if you say things that they don't expect to hear from a Democrat and they you know they have a very fixed idea in their mind of what Democrats are. A lot of that is a function of Republican advertising and things that aren't true. So you know you can sort of play off those stereotypes ways. Not all of it. some you know is often rooted in quotes and things that we've actually said and you know woke one was a

party that is actually imposed right exactly you know woke one was a is a gold mine for Republican researchers you know not just because Democrats were saying these things but because there were outside forces you know working on them to sort of take these positions uh and and enforce this rigidity I was emailing with David Hopkins who is a political scientist at Boston University wrote this great book polarized by degrees and another one called red fighting blue that's more about geography and and politics. And one thing he said to me when I was asking about how durable the change in the political map might be, he said, "Look, all of my research and many others just shows that the geographic polarization is driven by more cultural issues being at the forefront of politics. And the way to reduce it, to be more competitive in more places, is to focus politics more on economics."

And what's funny is right now that feels to me like a uniting thought in the party. right? It's not really that sounds like maybe a leftwing thought that you know it should be about class conflict but because the left actually has like a lot of also cultural commitments it's not always but the focus on affordability and the sort of pushing aside you know woke one was crazy and the focus on Donald Trump I think created a a an ability in the party to put the version of itself forward that was the least polarizing. Well, that's right. And and what's really interesting is I think the candidate who best embodies that approach for this is Zoran Mandani. You know, when he was running for election, it became a joke how he could turn any question back to the subject of affordability. And you know, at Searchlight, we this is a theory of ours that we call crowding out where it's very very easy for other issues to creep

into the picture for voters, right? if you spend time talking because as a politician voters's attention is an extremely finite resource. you only can command their attention for a limited amount of time and it takes time and money and effort to get that attention, right? And when you have their attention, if you say, "Okay, I want to do affordability, but I also kind of want to do these two or three other things," it's easy for that to cloud the picture for voters. There's really no way to overfocus on affordability. And I think that's an area of broad agreement for that all factions of the Democratic party can get behind. You know, we we just released a poll this week that shows that voters did think Democrats were more focused on affordability than Republicans. And that's a big reason.

They were. But but when you ask voters, were they focused enough on affordability? Were they as focused as you wanted them to be? Even Democrats still fell short. So, you know, the best optimal strategy, right, if you could just sort of, you know, wave a magic wand is to pick, you know, two or three issues on which you are strongest with voters and talk about that and nothing else, right? And then once you get power, you're going to have to do a lot of things. There's a million things before Congress. You know, they they run a big country. Um there's lots of pathways to make progress on legislation across a wide range of issues. You know, the challenge of how to keep progress going along those tracks while keeping the public's attention focused on the things that are strongest for you politically is a challenge, but life is all about challenges. And that's a challenge that's worth aiming at as

Democrats. And I think one of the things that we can do here is try to sort of start to differentiate between the issues where Democrats, you know, have strong deeply held principles and are also politically popular like healthcare and issues where we want to make progress but the public is more mixed and look at pathways to keep advancing those issues but not pushing them to the center of the conversation. And both things are possible.

So, this to me is maybe a more precise way of of getting at I think the push you're making on the party, but but you know, you can tell me if that's untrue, which is that running as the opposition party in an election when your party has no power, that's actually the easiest moment for variation,

right? because you're really just talking about Donald Trump and then when you get asked, "Do you hold the least popular positions in the Democratic party?" you say, "No."

Right? It gets harder when you have to vote on bills that are being whipped. It gets harder when you have to vote on bills that have a lot of moral force behind them and and you know are very tough decisions. And so I guess my question here is how does supermajority thinking turn into supermajority governing? What does it take to act like a supermajority in construction?

You you build political capital in order to spend it. And I I believe that very firmly. And what we've built for ourselves as Democrats right now is a lot of political capital. Now, we need to spend it in ways that show what we're about. You know, we are on a first date with a lot of voters after this election. Um they are open to us, but they're not committed yet. And what we need to do is spend that capital in ways that show them why they should form a committed relationship with us, why they should stay in our coalition,

not just a situationship. Yeah. Exactly. You know, I mean, we we want to turn these folks into a long-term uh uh uh commitment here. And you know, that is about doing things that all Democrats can agree on. And I think for all the factional fighting that's taken place within our party over the last decade or so, it's sort of masked the fact that there are broad areas of agreement, you know, from Bernie Sanders all the way to Adam Hamilton, right? And so as what I would do in terms of governing with this power is to really try to focus on those areas of broad agreement. Those those areas of common ground also happen to be the things that draw the strongest contrast with Republicans. Right? Every single Democrat in this Big 10 caucus wants to expand healthcare access and achieve the goal of universal health care, right?

Not everybody's sold on doing that via singlepayer, but everybody's sold on that broad goal. So, you can advance legislation that says, "Let's do things like lower the retirement age to age 50. Let's do things like Andy Kim's bill on Medicaid, you know, let's do things like uh free primary."

Kind of like a Medicare program for kids. That's right. you know, you can start to move towards this goal of universal health care that have agreement within the entire caucus and that's both, you know, an expenditure of political capital that is useful. It's an investment because you're showing people what we will do if you give us more power. So it's interesting because the the theory emerging here has a like an interesting paradox at its heart which is on the one hand we're talking about a more focused Democratic party a party more focused on particularly its more popular issues the version of itself that is less geographically and politically polarizing on the other hand the point of a big tent party a party that includes Abdul Seed and Adam Hamilton Zoran Mdani you know and in some other condition. Joe Mansion is that you will have more disagreement, right? This sort of both more focused party, but a party where

you should expect more defection. So, in this more big tent vision, how do you handle defection, disagreement, like or maybe a different way to put it is how has the Democratic Party been handling that? You were in the Senate. Mh. [clears throat]

Um, what kinds of things did you see when you were in the Senate in in these moments and how do you want to alter that approach?

I mean, it's it's really about what will we do differently, right? We came in in 2009 and we had, you know, 60 Senate seats at one point, you know, 250 plus seats in the House and a Democratic president, right?

[snorts] Um, and you know, we got a lot done, but we left a lot of people disappointed and we probably could have done more. And so I think a lot about that. And a big thing that we did in 2009 that I would not do again is sort of trying to get Republican engagement on every single thing that we did. You know, it's hard to go back to that moment in time and realize that there was actually a good chance of getting Republican support. It wasn't completely naive to think that that was possible. You know, this was the era when Mitch McConnell was turning into the Mitch McConnell that we all know today, but it wasn't clear he was going to win. You know, he was aggressively whipping members of his caucus who wanted to work with Democrats and twisting their arms to get them not to do it. and he did win and he made us waste a year, you know, on sort of this side quest of trying to get Republican

support. [snorts] I think what Democrats should do differently now with this power is come in and aggressively pursue the agenda that the American people elected them to enact. And if Republicans want to join them, they absolutely should. That door should always be open. but we shouldn't treat it as a necessary precondition of getting things done, which is one of the things that really held us back in the Obama era.

I think there's a bunch of interesting lessons from the Obama era, but but one worth thinking about here is they got a super majority, but it was actually like they had a bare majority, right?

They had 60 votes. You needed 60 votes to break a filibuster so they could lose zero people, at least on things that weren't going through budget reconciliation. But most of the things weren't going through budget reconciliation. In a world where there was no filibuster and he could have passed Obamacare with a public option with 51 votes, you can lose Joe Lieberman. It doesn't matter. You can lose Ben Nelson. It doesn't matter. I think one reason the whipping has gotten so much more intense in the Senate in particular is because it is so hard to lose members under the current rules. But if you were able to act, you had a 55 vote majority and that mean you have five votes to spare. Well, you could lose five members on every vote,

right? But if you're not in that world, then it becomes so so so important. You hold everybody on everything and you can't do things that are risky. And so I think there's an interesting question here whether or not the big tent we're talking about actually requires a more radical approach to the rules than we've seen Democrats willing to consider.

100%. I mean, you know, look, I think there's a moral case for supermajority thinking. I think it is a moral good to aspire to represent more people than you need to to win an election. It's morally good to hold a majority that is broader than, you know, 51 or the minimum necessary you need to have power. But there's a politically hard-nosed pragmatic aspect to it, too, which is that you need votes to spare to do things. And yeah, listen, I a believe very strongly that we should get rid of the filibuster. This was the topic of my first book, and you and I have discussed it at length. Um, and part of the reason is I think it just creates a healthier system. Uh, you are able to deliver for the American people on the things that you said you were going to do and then the American people can decide whether they like it or not. Uh, and you don't get to sort of hide behind this supermajority threshold uh, as as

insurance or as a as a cover. But the other thing that it does is it allows you to, you know, just from a caucus management perspective, looking at this as a Senate leader, if you only need 51 52 votes to pass something, you can let people break away from the party. You can let them preserve their independence and it doesn't affect the final outcome. So, you know, and and that's the kind of thing that allows them to continue to win re-election in these deep red states. This to me is a pretty subtle point but I think it's very important so I want to stay on it for a little bit which is when we talk about parties in the past because the parties were so much less polarized and there was so much less penalty for voting with the other party it was very normal. there was a lot more fluidity. And so you could be a Democrat who just routinely did not vote with the Democratic party and that was normal and it was fine and

the Democratic leadership could accept that you acted like that because there were Republicans who did vote with the Democratic party. But in this world where bipartisanship is not completely absent, but it is much rarer than it used to be and you have constant filibustering in the Senate, the parties have almost been forced into imposing much harsher party discipline because their room for coalition building is so constrained. But that then means when you get to election time, you don't have as many people who can honestly say, "Yeah, I'm a different kind of Democrat." because you're not a different kind of Democrat. You might want to be a different kind of Democrat, but Chuck Schumer or Harry Reid or whoever it is twisted your arm so you weren't one. And so, weirdly, I think that part of the pathway here is getting serious about filibuster reform so that if you have 57 Democrats, that is seven Democrats on

any vote in the Senate who can say, "I think Chuck Schumer is wrong, right? And I'm not going to vote with him." and then they can go back to their constituencies and say, "See, I voted against Chuck Schumer 50% of the time, whatever it might be."

I mean, supermajority coalitions in an era of majority rule uh legislating is, I think, the healthiest dynamic. And it also happened to be the dynamic that was in place during the most productive periods of American history and during the times of greatest progressive achievement. You know, I mean, not to get deep into Senate history here, but the Senate was a majority rule institution for almost all of its existence, really up until the 70s and 80s when the filibuster, as we know, it started to emerge um and become more

except it wasn't majority rule on race, right? To stop anti-ynching, civil rights law,

and that was the exception that proved the rule. Basically, on any other topic, any bill that came to the floor got a majority rule vote except anything related to civil rights, very broadly defined. Um but but at the same time you had you know supermajority democratic control of Congress for most of the 20th century and this was a this was a healthy dynamic and it allowed Democrats to pass things like the New Deal achievements like Medicare like the Voting Rights Act but then have some of their party break away and define themselves as independent and you know authentic to themselves on issues where they disagreed with the national party and that created a virtuous cycle.

that reinforced itself where we were getting big things done for the American people and you had parties that were sort of regionally distinct sometimes in bad ways when it came to the south but you know also distinct in the west and the north and the midwest and they're able to define themselves not just by the national party brand I think that to take the other side of the argument just for the sake of argument one case that more centristy Democrats will make for the filibuster is that if Democrats do get a big majority you know 57 seven votes, 60 votes, um, and they have the presidency, and then you don't have a filibuster. Well, isn't it easier then for every like extremely left-wing group who in truth, like Democrats are fairly sympathetic to, to come and say, "You got to do my thing." And there there's not this disciplining mechanism to say, "Well, we don't have the votes."

Because now you probably do have the votes in a in a time of, you know, fairly good party discipline. And that is how you get this dynamic where parties gain power and then repeatedly overreach. Or maybe a different way of asking the same question is if the filibuster is not the thing and your slim majorities are not the thing keeping you from overreaching in a way where you're doing what you want to do, not what the public wants you to do, what is keeping you from overreaching? What does create the discipline needed to create your kind of party? If you try to count the votes, it is actually quite hard to get to a majority in this country. And in fact, James Madison's faith in majority rule was undergurtded by this notion that forming a majority in a country as big and diverse as America will always require you to assemble a coalition of different interests, right? And this was, you know, at the time when the country was

much smaller and remains true today. So, it's not just that getting to a majority in the Senate will require you to get an Adam Hamilton or a Scott column, you know, or a Josh Turk. Look at the rest of the caucus. You still have to get a Mark Warner, a Tim Kaine, a Chris Coons, right? You know, so there is very difficult to build a majority coalition that ranges from Bernie Sanders to Mark Warner to Chris Coons to Scott Colum to Adam Hamilton, right? And that in and of itself is a force that mitigates against these sort of radical swings. And you know, you you look at a bill like Medicare for all, right? Last I checked, it had something like 17 co-sponsors. So I don't think that we are in danger of if we move to a majority rule system of having you know this sort of rush to the left and you know passing exclusively leftwing positions because you're still going to have to assemble a majority

coalition that includes members who aren't far to the left and you know really at the end of the day you have to decide you know there's risk in both directions right the risk of the supermajority threshold is gridlock and you know that's not a uh hypothetical risk. That's an extremely real risk. We live it every day. It's gotten impossible to get things done. It's so bad that, you know, the only way things pass in Congress is these mega bills where you lump everything together and just jam it through, which is like a nightmare for transparency or any semblance of regular order. Uh so gridlock is real. That is a risk that has been realized. The risk on the other side is yeah, you do have some overreach, but the upside to that is that the party in power actually gets to get things done. And when they do overreach, probably the American voters will respond and, you know, vote them out. But that to me is a much healthier

system. It's a much more responsive system to the American people. And it's a much more transparent system where each party says, "Here's what I want to do now. I'm going to do it." Then you, the American voter, get to decide what you think about that. you know, there's going to be a big tension between the parts of the party that want to sort of just oppose and um enforce accountability and investigation on Trump and the parts of the party maybe now coming from redder districts. They're going to want to show they can work in a bipartisan fashion. They're going to show they can can get things done. You know, one place this is going to come out really quickly is there's this big bipartisan permitting bill moving forward. And you already see it beginning to split the Democratic party because, you know, it makes it easier to build clean energy, but it also makes it easier to build dirty energy. It's, you

know, good for affordability. People are debating is it good for climate change. Some of the most of the analyses I've seen say yes, but not everybody buys that. But also, I think there's just going to be this feeling like Mitch McConnell pioneered the strategy. You don't give the opposition president big bipartisan achievements. You don't show that Washington is working under the other side, right? You stop them and you show that Washington is gridlocked and dysfunctional under them and that is how you win power. It's like how do you think about something like very direct and and soon to come up like the permitting bill?

Yeah, there's a there's a there's a dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee aspect here, right? where should you pass a bipartisan permitting reform bill that's never going to get a ton of national attention but will bring down energy costs and by the way those lower energy costs will probably kick in somewhere around 2029 or 2030. So, I think there's sort of a tactical and strategic advantage to getting this done and just getting it out of the way so that the next president doesn't run into the same permitting constraints that held back Biden's climate investments.

That I think is a smart area to get something done that validates our promise of affordability and also sets up the next Democratic president for success. [snorts] But then when there's a monumental fight like a Supreme Court seat opening up which could start to shift the balance back to a liberal majority, Democrats should go to the mat and hold that seat open. You know, and this it's look, it's the it's the right thing to do. We should not let this president, this mentally unstable, lame duck president fill another seat on the Supreme Court.

That would be a bad thing for America. But it's also a fight that will absolutely rally our coalition together. So, and and will show people that Democrats are willing to put, you know, and we'll show people that Democrats are willing to fight hard.

What do you do about places where you don't have agreement on directionality? So for instance and also places where you have real uh conflict in terms of different values jamming into each other. So for instance there could be some of these in bills that on the one hand you know if you restrict fossil fuel development you can to some degree slow greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand maybe that's bad for affordability or a different version Israel. there are genuinely just irreconcilably different views about whether or not the US should support the state of Israel. So yeah, how do you see that?

So let's let's let's anchor on Israel on that one. What's happened over the last few years is you've seen a really distinct evolution among Democrats on that position specifically. Now, a lot of that has been driven by horrific outside events that have caused people to re-evaluate stances that they had in the past, but it's also been driven by coalitional dynamics within the party. And I think the place where the party is moving to is is reflects that dynamic and is the right response to all of those forces acting on it. So I think that, you know, you got to give some room for growth, for change, for evolution, uh, you know, for the idea that activists may sometimes represent the leading edge of a moral issue, even if we disagree with some of their approaches or the maximalist stances they'll take on something. Uh, and then you process that through, you know, the legislative process, writing bills,

seeing how many votes you can get for it, reflecting public opinion, changes in that, how is it evolving on an issue like Israel. Um, but you know, you try, look, big tents are messy, right? Big coalitions uh are hard to steer. So, it's not going to be a sort of easy or neat process. But the job of leaders and ultimately the job of a presidential candidate is to try to sort of, you know, allow some of those, you know, uh, chemical reactions and those those changes to take place within this body while generally trying to steer it towards a direction that is focused on the things we have in common and is broadly appealing to the American people and is continuing to invite more and more people into our coalition.

So, here's a good specific question about that. You were chief of staff to John Federman.

Sure was. And you could say, you could look at John Federman and say, "Now there you have a heterodox Democrat."

Sure do. He has sure there's a lot in that sure do right there. He has a lot of opinions that many other Democrats don't share. Yeah.

Uh he kind of mixes and matches views in an increasingly unusual way. He showed up at the at President Trump's kind of big midterm rally. Is John Federman, is he part of the big tent? Is he a model of a heterodox Democrat? How do you see John Federman now?

I see Senator Fedman as uh a cautionary tale. Um, you know, I I think that heterodoxy is an extremely powerful political force. I think we saw that in the election on Tuesday and candidates who embraced it, you know, did very very well. But it can also turn on you if it becomes the entire point. For Federman, it's become clear that he's no longer guided by principle or broad goals that he's trying to achieve for the people of Pennsylvania, but just seeking fights. And you know, that is heterodoxy gone wild. And I think it's become sort of sad because it's become the whole way he identifies himself in public and it's the entire goal of his life in public service right now. But I I actually think this gets to something interesting and and Federman is an extreme case and and you would understand better than me how much had to do with his stroke and and other dimensions of his psychology.

I I've never quite known how to totally understand his arc. But one place where I have seen the relationship between politicians who are maintaining a distance from their own party's main brand, one one place where I've seen that turn toxic is when the relationship between them and the mainstream of their party becomes fundamentally hostile. Right? That happened with Joe Lieberman and the Democratic party. Uh that happened with has happened very much with Federman and the Democratic Party. Federman radiates a dislike of much of his own base. And to be fair, the Democratic base doesn't like John Federman.

Yeah, it's mutual. And so, one of the I think quite difficult things when you're, you know, a congressional leader trying to kind of manage these dynamics or just like somebody in them is, I mean, these are very tough issues. I was furious and said things that I kind of basically stand behind about how I think ugly the actions of Joe Lieberman were during the public option debate and because like people's worlds were in the balance. I mean, when you're talking about healthcare, when you're talking about authoritarianism, when you're talking about Israel, when you're talking about immigration, when you're talking about this range of of issues, you know, when you're talking about discrimination, it it's very hard to say sometimes, well, we all just agree to disagree because the stakes are so high. And I think it's harder in an era of social media, harder in an era of algorithmic media, harder in an era of nationalized

groups, harder in an era of nationalized media where it's not like, you know, Joe Mansion's decisions primarily get coverage in West Virginia, right? Like, you know, he becomes like known to every member of the Democratic party when he is like pushing back. So that's part of the structure here that I think makes it tough. It's very hard to keep that cycle from escalating out of control. I don't think anybody has managed to hold together a big tent party in this era. And I don't think it's totally accidental. I think it reflects like how hard it is to keep those dynamics from spiraling into to enmity. I mean, you see, you are part of how hostile the fighting between quite liberal and then somewhat leftist people is on X and on Twitter and on Blue Sky and and others.

I mean, those are debates between people who are all to the left of the median-American voter by quite a lot. When you actually start getting into debates between like the people who are truly, you know, maybe even a little bit to the right of the median American voter, it gets very very very hard to hold a [gasps] a fundamental generosity together,

right? It's going to be hard, but it's worth it to try. And I think part of what underlies all of this for me is an embrace of this underlying tension. Not tension in an antagonistic sense, but tension in a, you know, just the idea that there is there are complicated dynamics at play here. And there is going to be tension between pursuing goals and going as far as some folks on the left want you to go. But I think acknowledging those tensions and trying to deal with them in as constructive a way as possible is part of what's necessary for managing a big tent supermajority coalition. I think part of what we've tried to do in the past is to wish them away and to say that there's no tension between American public opinion and all of the big things we want to do from a left perspective, right? And that's led us to, you know, into a bubble basically and to fall dramatically out of step with the

American people. We're going to get a lot of big things done if we keep going in this direction. And then we're also going to be some disappointments, but it's going to be worth it because we are going to change the face of this country and we're going to change the lives of millions of American people if we can hold this big tank coalition together and you know do things like expand access to universal healthcare and expand the social safety net with the threat of AI coming down the pike. Just also drawing on your background in the Senate here, one of the the early decisions Democrats are going to have to make is who leads him in the Senate. And you know, I think Chuck Schumer has some real bragging rights after this election. He he was I mean, he had some recruiting misses, but he also, you know, brought in Roy Cooper, brought in Sherid Brown, brought in Mary Poto, like and they got a gigantic Senate majority

under him. On the other hand, you've already seen, you know, say Abdul Sayed and Alyssa Slotkin, you know, the uh sitting and incoming senator from Michigan and from very different parts of the party say they don't want Schumer to to run again. There's a question of, you know, [snorts] establishment versus anti-establishment, age, like all these things are in the swirl of the of the Democratic party. What should they do? Well, there's two decisions that need to be made. There's whether Schumer should be re reelected as leader, and then there's whether he should run for reelection in 2028.

Right? One of the things that Joe Biden did was he said, "I'm going to be a bridge to the future." And I think everybody took that to mean he was just going to run for one term. And then he failed to be a bridge to the future and to the next generation. I think Schumer has an opportunity here to be the bridge to the next generation. And what he he look he it's hard to argue with winning the biggest victory since Watergate. Uh when you ask is he up to the job as leader? Like that is an incredibly impressive achievement. We wouldn't be here without some of the recruiting successes he had uh and a lot of the things he did behind the scenes including you know investing $50 million in Michigan to help Elsa Edwin after a contentious primary

moving money into Mississippi which a lot of people thought was he was he was on Mississippi before many people right these were very very smart decisions that he made uh and for those reasons I do think he deserves to be reelected as leader but obviously there is this tension about you know are we still putting you know octo are we moving to the next generation of leaders if we have an oxygenarian in leading us. And I think the smart thing for him to do would be to get reelected as leader, but say that he's going to pass the torch in the next generation and not run for re-election in 2028. This is what my former boss, Harry Reid, did uh announcing his retirement. It is something we see very rarely these days in politics, which is going out on top and going out gracefully. Um, it's the right thing to do, I think. So, I think there going to be some tough conversations. Democrats don't hold

these elections until December. But uh I think you know really putting his money where his mouth is and saying I will actually be that bridge to the next generation uh would be a smart thing for him to do.

And that's a place to end. Then always our final question. What are three books you'd recommend to the audience? So, I just finished uh a book called Bernie for Burlington, which by Dan Chias, which is a biography of Bernie's early years uh that I found incredibly revealing, you know, very interesting and honestly how heterodox he was in his in his approach to politics. Uh great read. Um

give me an example. Uh okay, so uh at one point after he was reelected, there was a weapons plant outside Burlington. uh and the anti-war community in Burlington, which was very active, as you can imagine, staged a protest to try to shut down the weapons production facility. Bernie, [snorts] having been elected as a socialist, sided with the workers at the plant against the anti-war activists. So, you know, there was a lot a sort of class first approach to Bernie's politics um that I think got lost in the sort of modern era, but you know, it was really fascinating to see how this was sort of a common thread through his early career. Um second book is a book called Hollow Parties uh by the political scientists Danny Schlasman and Sam Rosenfeld which uh is one of the most uh thoughtful uh uh illustrations of how we've how the parties themselves have deteriorated over the last few decades and that's left a space for uh you know

activists and uh sort of the paraparty infrastructure to try to fill. I talk about a lot of this in in my own book, you know, their sort of successes and failures at trying to fill that, but uh it looks at both parties, you know, from the 19th century uh up until modern times and shows how they deteriorated and left this massive vacuum in our political space. Um the third book is a fiction uh work of fiction called um The Gay Place by Billy Lee Bremer. Um it is uh sort of the lost classic of American political novels. Uh Billy Lee Brammer was an aid to LBJ and a journalist. Uh, and it's sort of this great synergy of like Gonzo era atmospherics and LBJ politics. So, having been thinking a lot about Texas recently, um, and you know, being a big fan of political novels, uh, I would highly recommend that one to people.

Adam Jennison, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Thinking Like a Supermajority | The Ezra Klein Show"?

Adam Jennison (Host).

What is "Thinking Like a Supermajority | The Ezra Klein Show" about?

The episode examines how Democrats, riding a broad coalition from the center to the left, could capitalize on a favorable midterm outcome to secure a long-term governing majority, including a possible filibuster-proof Senate, and what that implies for party strategy, nomination dynamics, and campaign approaches. It explores tensions and potential synthesis between the party’s pragmatic center…

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79 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Democratic Party, Senate, Supermajority Thinking, Ezra Klein, Adam Jentleson, Republican Party. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Thinking Like a Supermajority | The Ezra Klein Show"?

The episode runs 56 min; the transcript is about 10,827 words in 104 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 10, 2026.