← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
What do you think makes the perfect snack?
- [00:02]
B
Hmm. It's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.
- [00:06]
A
Could you be more specific?
- [00:07]
B
When it's cravinient.
- [00:08]
C
Okay.
- [00:09]
B
Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the street at AM pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at am pm.
- [00:16]
A
I'm seeing a pattern here.
- [00:18]
B
Well, yeah, we're talking about what I.
- [00:19]
A
Crave, which is anything from AM pm.
- [00:21]
B
What more could you want? Stop by AM PM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience. AM PM too much. Good stuff.
- [00:31]
A
Hey, this is Steven. Sarah. Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and, well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure, you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell, oatmeal. So long, you strange soggy.
- [00:49]
B
Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with K tree egg, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit. Am PM too much. Good stuff.
- [01:00]
C
Hey, everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark, and I'm joined by our publisher, Sarah Longwell, because there's just a flood of new polling data that's out there and who better talk about it with than Sarah? So, Sarah, thanks for doing this. I wanted to start with CNN poll this morning because it kind of confirms the other polls that came out over the weekend from NBC and abc, which is Trump's numbers are in the tank. That was a tongue twister for me. I was. I mean, the numbers are really surprising lower than you usually get from Trump. Usually you're at that like 40 to 45 range. CNN this morning had Trump's approval rating at 37%, disapproval rating at 63%. Now, this isn't as low as it gets for Trump because we know that in the aftermath of January6, he had a 29% approval rating at Pew. But that was like, yeah, you just committed an act of insurrection. Maybe you're not, like, doing a great job. 39% is pretty damn low historically, and it's low relative to where Trump's been even in his first term of office. What is your main takeaway here other than this is bad for Trump?
- [02:07]
A
Yeah, it's still not low enough. We need him down in the 32%. That's where it's my magic number.
- [02:13]
C
You're like, I want, I want Bush era post, you know, Wall street, when.
- [02:18]
A
Bush was leaving office, 29%. Because, look, the Pew number of 29% after January 6th. I always like to compare things relative to the same pollster. And so he's right around in the CNN poll. He's just one point above where he was right after January 6th. So in the territory right now of Trump's lowest approval rating. And I want people to take that in for a second, because I do think, sometimes people think like, oh, how can people be tolerating this? Why isn't anything changing? I do want to emphasize a bunch of things that Trump is doing are deeply unpopular. He is most unpopular on what is routinely his best issue, which is the economy. He is way underwater on the economy. And this is really what is dragging him down. Like, if you look at the things that people care about or what they're most concerned about, it is his handling of inflation, affordability, and the economy. This is what ate Joe Biden alive. Because the fact is, for people who are just not paying attention to tons of political stuff, the one thing they are feeling is the fact that prices aren't going down. It's what they hired Trump to do. He is not doing it. And things are getting slowly. I think everybody kind of expected there would be, like, a bottom that dropped out because of the tariffs or things like that. But instead, what you're seeing is a slow decline. The longer people, they give people some. They give Trump time. Hey, like, hey, you know, Rome's not built in a day. That's a direct quote from someone in a focus group. Got to give them time to fix the economy. But people do not feel like he is focused on the economy, and they certainly don't think he's making headway on the economy.
- [03:52]
C
Well, it's almost worse than that, right? Like, if you look at these numbers, I mean, so just going at these polls, to your point, WaPo ABC had 62% of disapproval for his handling of the economy. That's the highest ever in that poll for him on the economy. 59% in that poll blamed him for the current rate of inflation, compared that to 50% who blamed Biden for inflation in February 2022. And here's the CNN thing. So it's not just that they don't think he's doing a bad job, that they think he's doing a bad job on the economy. It's that they think he's actively making it worse. This is, this one jumped out to me. This One seemed really significant, which was CNN had 61% saying that Trump's policies worsen economic conditions in the country. If you're seen as not handling the economy very well, that's one thing. If you're seen as making the economy actively worse, that is a whole nother bag.
- [04:43]
A
And that's where you start to get into individual impressions from different sectors. These are kind of the things that move underneath, which is like farmers who are very frustrated by the tariffs in the focus groups, there are small business owners all the time who talk about the tariffs, people who own a toy store, people who own or make or import things. The tariffs are hitting them hard. And so there are a lot of people who are, who are like, he's making it worse with this. It only gets better when he tacos. Right, Right. But as long as he continues to make decisions that people feel like are actively not just making like the overall big picture economy worse, but their own situation worse, their own ability to run a business worse, that's why these numbers are starting to show up.
- [05:28]
C
The thing, the thing I always, I always get when I have these conversations with people are like, well, yeah, he's doing poorly in, in, in the country. Turns them, but then goes twofold. One is, but still, you know, 40% of the country likes Guy. And you kind of address that. And, but the other thing is like, well, they'll always come back to him in the end, right? Like as if it gets, you know, really down to it in the election years, they're going to come back to him in the end. And so then you got to look at like how the Democrats are perceived and are they capitalizing on this moment? And a little bit of a, sort of a mixed bag here, I suppose, but you have an interesting take on it. So Democratic perceptions, Democrats are like worse than Trump and substantially. And yet they continue to lead on these generic congressional ballot questions. And I think NBC had it at 8, which was a robust lead. Like, that's 2018 style election right there. Not everyone has it that high, but how can these two things coexist?
- [06:26]
A
So right now, right, there's a bunch of different polls that came out over the last week and especially this weekend that shows on the generic ballot, Democrats overperforming Republicans by various margins, but all ahead of Republicans. But then you go deeper and you look at the perception of both parties and the perception, the positive perception of Republicans is much higher than the, the positive perception of Democrats. This is because only 8% of Republicans say that Trump is doing a bad job Right. Where he's losing altitude in these numbers is with independ, with Hispanic voters, with younger voters, people who made an affirmative choice for him in the election. Maybe they were holding their nose doing it, but they made him basically for economic decisions. He's not doing well in the economy, so they're leaving him. The Democrats. The perception of Democrats, though, and the reason it's so low is because Democrats are mad at Democrats. Like, the Democrats are rating Democrats doing a bad job. And the reason that they think they're doing a bad job because they don't think they're fighting Trump hard enough. Like, the Democratic Party right now is taking hits in these polling from their own voters who would vote for a Democrat if you gave them the choice. Like, they would definitely take a Democrat. But they're super mad at the way that Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, and Democrats in general don't seem to be able to stand up to Trump.
- [07:45]
C
It's totally anecdotal, but when's the last time you're at, like, a dinner party with a Democrat who's like, oh, man, yeah, Schumer's killing it. Love it. You know, like, it just doesn't happen.
- [07:54]
A
It's not anecdotal.
- [07:55]
C
I mean, I don't think it's ever one of those.
- [07:58]
A
No, no, no. There, there is certainly within. You know, you're hanging out in D.C. that's true. But, like, you do the focus groups, anybody who's paying attention to politics right now, you just do it with Democratic voters. They're so mad. I talk about this all the time, about how sometimes we've been. We've been cutting people, Democrats into different camps, people who want the party to be more progressive, people want the party to be more moderate. That is not how the voters are viewing this. They just want a Democratic Party that is more aggressive and that is going out and fighting. And until they do that, Democrats are going to continue to lag behind in.
- [08:31]
C
Do you have a subset, though? Do you have a subset of these focus groupies who are like, I'm perfect. They're Democrats who are perfectly content with what the Democratic Party is doing? I don't. Do they exist? Do those people exist?
- [08:42]
A
Well, those people existed when there were people who wanted to sort of make a case for why Biden was better than.
- [08:48]
C
Yes.
- [08:50]
A
Credit for. And so you got a lot of those people. But right now, the overwhelming perception from Democrats is that they're not doing nearly enough to stand up to Trump.
- [09:00]
C
And then we. I think, in these polls, you see, there are. Actually, I shouldn't, I shouldn't just be so negative on them. There has been a improving position on the Democratic Party leadership as this shutdown has progressed. Where they think, yeah, they're happy to see what happens.
- [09:12]
A
But that's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Right. As you see, Democrats, Democrats are pulling. They're doing so much better in the perception over who's winning the shutdown. Right. People think that Republicans are more to blame for the shutdown. But even in party perception, Democrats are improving because they see the shutdown as Democrats finally doing something to fight. What do you think makes the perfect snack?
- [09:34]
B
Hmm. It's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.
- [09:37]
A
Could you be more specific when it's cravenient.
- [09:40]
C
Okay.
- [09:40]
B
Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter available right down the street at am pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at AM pm.
- [09:48]
A
I'm seeing a pattern here.
- [09:49]
B
Well yeah, we're talking about what I.
- [09:51]
A
Crave, which is anything from AM pm.
- [09:53]
B
What more could you want? Stop by AM PM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience am PM Too much. Good stuff. What's that sound? That's the sound of Downy Unstoppable scent beads going into your washing machine and giving your clothes freshness that lasts all day long. There it is again. It's like music to your ears. Or more like music to your nose. That freshness is irresistible. Let's get a Downy Unstoppables bottle shake. And now a sniff solo. Nice. With Downy Unstoppable you just toss wash. Wow. For all day freshness.
- [10:32]
A
Yeah.
- [10:32]
C
So I, I guess I'm confused by this and I don't mean to be like, you know, close minded about it, but like if I were just looking at this objectively, who is to blame for the shutdown? I would say Democrats. Because they shut the government down because they wanted. It's nothing. I'm not trying to like judge the ask or the request. Like they wanted to extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies so they shut down the government for that. I think that's objectively true and you could judge it on its merits. And yet if you look at these, these numbers about who's to blame for the shutdown time and again that people are blaming Trump and Republicans, I suppose it's because they're saying they should, they should compromise the Democrats. They should at least like negotiate or talk to them about these things. But that's not what's happening here. Or do you think that's what's happening here?
- [11:18]
A
No, I think what's happening is, is that. And I said this going into the shutdown. Republicans hold unified control of the government. The one thing that voters really do know is that Trump is in charge, and people will blame the party in power when things start to go wrong. And so if, if you want to get into the news and pull it apart and say, what are Democrats fighting for? And are they the ones who held this vote? That's fine. You then people might start to say, well, I think that, you know, Democrats are the ones who could move here. But just broadly, for people who aren't paying a ton of attention, they're like, if stuff's going wrong, it's going wrong because the people who are in charge aren't doing something right. I don't know what it is, but they're not doing something right. And that's why Republicans are losing.
- [11:59]
C
Yeah. And I guess, you know, we have this sort of DC ITIS thing where we kind of follow things way more closely than a lot of people. All right, I have things I want to ask you about, and then I'll let you go. Well, one thing I want to point out, because you've already really touched on it, and then one thing I want to ask you about. Paul Kane over at the Washington Post had this tweet about the Post ABC poll which pointed out Trump's numbers with independent voters, which is what you say is where he's just losing a lot of altitude. His numbers with independent voters was 30% approval, 69% disapproval. What Paul pointed out was that following the worst debate performance in presidential history, Joe Biden was at 28 approval, 60% approval, approval with independent voters in that same poll. So Trump is doing worse than Biden at literally the lowest point of his presidency. But this is what I wanted to talk to you about, which was the CNN looking at the most important issues facing the country. Not surprising, the top 1, economy, cost of living, 47%. I think we all expect that. State of US democracy, 26%, which I thought was substantial relative to passables. Immigration, 10%. That's what I want to talk to you about. Immigration, 10%. Because so much of Trump's focus, so much of the news is around these ice, deportation, border patrol raids and detentions. And maybe it's just not that big a deal with voters, but it was such a critical part of his campaign that I'm Surprised to see it at 10%.
- [13:24]
A
Not me, because this is the tough. This is. This is actually one of these curious things about Trump. Trump's shut down the border like he has. Their people are not coming into the country anymore. And so when you solve a problem, it's the reason that when the Democrats put forward a bill, when Biden had put forward a bill, and this was only a few months before the election, because they realized how big of a liability immigration was going to be for them. People can be mad about this fact, but it is just true. Voters were deeply upset about the state of immigration, about the fact that the border wasn't secure. And so the Democrats put forward a bill to secure it and negotiated with Republicans. They had Republicans on board like Lankford. Trump was like, nobody vote for this Trump.
- [14:08]
C
He wanted an issue. Yeah.
- [14:10]
A
Wanted the problem he needed. But when he does come here and he shuts down the border, that problem is more or less solved. And so he. That is. That is why. So people just start to care about it less, like, without the issue. And the other thing is, is that I do think people, I hear a lot of people in the focus groups kind of balance this question out. They think Trump is going too far on one hand, but on the other hand, they're glad he closed the border. Like, they feel really good about what he's done. And this is, again, why I don't understand him. He could be declaring victory on the border and, and he could, instead of pushing hard into the National Guard and the other excesses with ICE that voters don't like.
- [14:47]
C
No, I totally agree with you. I, I've been thinking about this, too, like, and I think he was asked about this on 60 Minutes. I'd have to double check the transcript, but they're like, when are you going to declare victory on enforcement issues? And he's like, well, we got a long way to go. It could be 25 million people in here, I think, and whatever. But I'm surprised he doesn't do more victory dancing around this stuff. Borders closed. You know, we've got bad people off the streets. You know, we're going to take the gas off, take the foot off the gas a little bit, just not in it. But it's not what he wants to do. All right, any last thoughts? Or you got.
- [15:17]
A
I mean, did you want to talk about the democracy number? I do think democracy. The democracy and polling is always a very interesting piece to me.
- [15:27]
C
So my suspicion is that some of that democracy number, I mean, obviously it's going to be people who are like, anxious on Democrats who are anxious about what Trump's doing. And, and so. And so. But I think a lot of it is also Republicans who just assume like the vote is being stolen from underneath them by illegal immigrants. But that might not be the case now because Trump is in power. I don't know what your thoughts are.
- [15:46]
A
Yeah. My only thing is that we people should always take the democracy question with a big grain of salt because, you know, I was, there was a bunch of polling and I just had reason to revisit this. And I. And it was. There were a lot of Republicans before the election talking about a bunch of polling that came out that showed independents saw Joe Biden as a bigger threat to democracy than Donald Trump. Americans did not think that Joe Biden was going to throw out the Constitution or wasn't going to abide by the rule of law. That's not what they, that's not what Americans interpret it as. They thought Joe Biden was too old to run the country. That's why he was a threat to democracy. And so democracy is very much in the eye of the beholder, that word. And it's also polarized now. You're right. Like, Democrats think Republicans are a threat to democracy because they didn't accept the results of an election and then they stormed the Capitol. But a lot of Republicans who believe that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, they believe Democrats are a threat to democracy. And so I always take that. Concerned about democracy. Now, I do think in this particular poll, it's pretty much capturing people who think Trump is a threat to democracy, because I think that's just where we are right now. But that question broadly, people should always. People should only, only take it so far.
- [16:57]
C
Yeah. No, I think like a lot of Republicans in the aftermath of January six or whatever we're talking about spring 2021 probably are like, yeah, you know, Joe Biden stole the election. There's real threats to democracy happening here. And that probably skewed some of the results.
- [17:11]
A
Hey, sorry, just before you end. I know, I know. But I also want to just a lot of the reason the polling is coming out is because we have an election tomorrow. Right. The, the only big elections we're going to have, we've got governor's races in, in New Jersey and in Virginia that are, are really going to be watched as bellwether elections. And I think one of the things that's interesting about, like, I don't know how those elections are going to go, I expect Abigail Spanberger is going to do big numbers. I think Mikey Sheryl's race in New Jersey is going to be closer, but I do think she's going to win. But I think that the, there's, there's a lot about, like, okay, now that we're getting into these elections, people are trying to say, well, what, where are we right now going into the midterms, Like a year out from the midterms versus where we were back in 21 or 17. Specifically 17, because that's when Trump was in charge. And back then you were getting generic ballot numbers that were like D plus 10, D plus 11. Just like really big ones. Where now it's more like D + 2, D + 5. The biggest one was a D + 8. Yeah. And so people are like, I don't know, they're not as high as they were back then. Does that mean we're not going to get a blue wave in these midterm elections or in these elections we're about to see? And I think I would just say going back and doing the comparative analysis on especially 17, I think a lot of the pollsters hadn't quite figured out then how to correctly wait for the quiet Trump voters that they have sort of figured out. And so I do think there's a reason you might not see generic ballot numbers be as high now as they were back then, even though they were right back then in terms of the enthusiasm for, for sort of correcting Trump. I think that correction will be there this time, too, despite the fact that the polling's not as high. But that's my hunch right now.
- [19:05]
C
Yeah. And I think the enthusiasm is like when they measure enthusiasm to vote, that's kind of a good, indicative, good measure of how these, these races will go as well. And again, in these holdings all CNN had it at 4010 our enthusiastic support. The Democratic Party's candidate 42 said they're enthusiastic to support the Republican Party's candidate. That's a 5% point delta. So seems to be where we're at. All right. Well, Sarah, thank you for doing this. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. Subscribe to the Bulwark feed. We appreciate that, too. Talk to you later.
- [19:36]
A
Bye. Every now and then I rinse it.
- [19:38]
C
Out.
- [19:50]
A
I don't know what to do.
- [19:52]
B
I'm always in the dark the sweat.
- [19:54]
A
And dance short smells like a dark bar I'm down here.
- [19:59]
C
Downy rinse fights stubborn odors in just one wash. When impossible odors get stuck in.
- [20:07]
B
Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender, juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just $8 only at McDonald's for a limited time only.
- [20:18]
C
Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.
- [20:21]
A
And for delivery.