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- [00:00]
A
What are you doing for Thanksgiving?
- [00:02]
B
We're hosting tomorrow. You were invited.
- [00:05]
A
Was I? This is my. This is the first time I'm hearing about it. Well, you were through which do you send a pigeon? You send a telegram.
- [00:15]
B
I told you in person.
- [00:16]
A
Yeah. Hello and welcome to the GD Politics podcast. I'm Galen Druke, and if everything is going to plan, I am on vacation this week. Though fear not, I have recorded podcasts ahead of time. So you will still have two episodes this week on Monday and on Thursday. Just don't be surprised if something crazy happens in the news and you don't hear it mentioned in our conversations. I haven't forgotten. It's just that insert crazy thing here had not happened yet. At the time, we weren't recording. But if past is prologue, hold onto your seats because the news cycle rarely behaves while I'm on vacation. In any case, today we're going to open up the mailbag and sort through our backlog of listener letters. You've been sending in some really great questions, and we're going to get to as many of them as we can. As a reminder, you can always send in your questions in the paid subscriber chat@gdpolitics.com, you can also send questions to galendpolitics.com and you can also reach me in the usual social media channels. So take your pick. But what we have on tap today are questions about the role that celebrity plays in American politics, some questions about local races, like, we might finally get to the Senate primary in Texas between Ken Paxton, John Cornyn and Wesley Hunt. And we got some questions about the electability of folks like Roy Cooper, even the electability of Tyler Perry and a whole lot more. So stick with us. We're going to try to get to as much as possible. And here with me to do it all is Lenny Brauner, data scientist at the Washington Post. Welcome, Lenny.
- [02:03]
B
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [02:05]
A
So we are actually recording this before Thanksgiving, but folks are going to be listening to this after Thanksgiving. So, Lenny, how was your Thanksgiving?
- [02:12]
B
My Thanksgiving was great. I know this. Even though it has not happened.
- [02:17]
A
What was your favorite dessert?
- [02:19]
B
My favorite dessert, I mean, this I can definitely answer, is going to be pecan pie. Will have been.
- [02:23]
A
I mean, it was. It was pecan pie.
- [02:25]
B
Was pecan pie.
- [02:26]
A
Did anybody get into any political arguments.
- [02:29]
B
Knowing the crowd that I'm hanging out Thanksgiving with? Yeah, I think. I think that is quite likely. Yeah. Some foreign policy things I think will come up.
- [02:37]
A
Some foreign policy debates okay.
- [02:38]
B
You know, we're. We're a bunch of, you know, mostly non Americans that are going to be at this Thanksgiving table. And so a lot of opinions on what the US Should. What the role that the US should be having in the world.
- [02:47]
A
Okay. And who won?
- [02:49]
B
We all won because we were together at the Thanksgiving table.
- [02:52]
A
Okay. All right, that's what we'd like to hear. All right, so what I have here are pretty much all listener questions, except the first one is my own question because I personally don't know what to make of it. So, Lenny, I want to hear your take on it, but Democrats are considering using ranked choice voting for the presidential primaries in 2028. Folks who listen to this podcast are probably familiar with this by now, but it's also called instant runoff voting, where, you know, you vote for as many people as you like up to the number of people on the ballot. You rank them first, second, third, fourth, fifth, et cetera. And if nobody has a majority after the first count, you keep eliminating the person in last place until somebody has a majority of the vote. Now, this idea seems to be in motion according to reporting from Axios, but it has a long way to go before it would actually be instituted, because the party would have to decide to do it. The state parties would have to decide to get on board, and there may even have to be election law changes on the local level. But, Lenny, I'm curious what you make of the idea of moving to ranked choice voting in a presidential primary.
- [04:00]
B
I think it's an interesting idea. I also think that there, you know, there's a few things in the political discourse that I think election nerds like us get particularly excited about. Maybe one of them is, like, contested conventions that. That appears every. Every four years or something people get really excited about. One of them is redistricting. That, you know, obviously is really important, and we really love. And we love covering, but, you know, considering the response we get from a lot of the coverage we put out there, like, I'm not sure the rest of the America is that excited about reading what redistricting. And I think another one of those is ranked choice voting. You know, there's a lot of political scientists and a lot of election data nerds that care really, really deeply about the electoral system, obviously, and the effects that that electoral system has on potential results. But it's just one of the things that I just somehow can't get that excited about.
- [04:51]
A
You know, you. You bring up a triggering subject for us in the election nerd community, which is, of Course, contested conventions. Now, a contested convention has not happened in recent memory, but it is a bit likelier to happen on the Democratic side under current rules than it is to happen on the Republican side. Because Democrats a lot delegates proportionally in the presidential primary process, whereas Republicans, it's more winner take all. Which is why Donald Trump was able to walk away with the primary in 2016 more quickly, even though he only was getting a third of the primary support in those early states. But on the Democratic side, if there is a clown car primary in 2028 and you've got 20 different candidates running, I mean, that could extend on for a very long time. But if you have this winner take all system where you're getting to a place where somebody has an outright majority, starting from the very first contest, and everyone else, I guess you still could allocate those delegates proportionally, but everyone else is getting, you know, below a majority and only one person is getting that majority. It could give the sense, either the sense or the reality that the primary is over. You know, very quickly. You get three states or something like that where somebody's won the majority and they have the majority of delegates, and this could be wrapped up before, you know, the majority of folks vote on Super Tuesday. Now, on one hand, I don't know how that, how different that is from any other primary, but would this all just come to a close much faster?
- [06:24]
B
I think that's entirely possible. I, you know, Democrats do. One of the reasons they have proportional allocate the delegates proportionately rather than winner takes all is in order to sort of allow their candidates to build like a broader base of support, you know, to avoid a situation like the Republicans had in 2016, where a candidate that has a minority support but sort of very strong support among his minority can win and take the, the nomination, even though a majority of the party might, you know, be opposed to that candidate. And in many ways, the ranked choice voting has, at least theoretically, is supposed to have the same effect. It's supposed to sort of build broad support for winners. Candidates are supposed to emerge that are maybe less polarizing and like, more acceptable to a wider segment of the party. I mean, at least that's sort of the theory behind how ranked choice voting is supposed to work. It's supposed to force candidates to be more civil, to build coalitions between their own base and like, the base of other candidates. So you could imagine, like the Democratic Party decides that if they implement ranked choice voting, that maybe, you know, they no longer need to have proportional delegate allocation, but rather Instead can move to a, you know, winner take all system. And so you're right, the effect could shorter primaries, though I think there's many people in the Democratic Party that kind of wish that were true. That being said, you know, we off even with their proportional delegate allocation in recent memory, the Democratic primaries may have gone on for a while, but in many ways we sort of knew who the winner was earlier, who will inevitably be the winner. You know, I'm thinking about 2016 in particular here.
- [07:51]
A
Okay, so we will maybe come back to this if the DNC decides to continue to go down this path. But for now, let's move on to questions from listeners. Daniel asks or actually, well, perhaps this is more of a comment. He says, I have a working theory that celebrity status should be rated more highly than the typical name recognition modeling addresses. All this is to say that I genuinely, unironically believe that Tyler Perry could easily win the US Presidency. So, Lenny, I guess the question is here. Could Tyler Perry easily win the US Presidency?
- [08:28]
B
I mean, I think if you believe that celebrity status is in fact sort of undervalued, then maybe, I mean, history doesn't spode super. Well, there aren't the current president notwithstanding, there aren't a ton of examples of celebrities that became successful politicians. I mean, the sort of most obvious example on a sort of, you know, very national level are obviously, you know, Ronald Reagan, though that now is quite a while back. There's Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was an actor, you know, bodybuilder before he became governor. There's Jesse Ventura, who was a professional wrestler before he became governor. Al Franken is another example, who was obviously a comedian before he became US Senator, but after that, the air kind of gets like a little bit thin. Like, I actually couldn't really come up with anyone else who sort of, at least not in recent memory.
- [09:16]
A
Well, don't we have to come up with examples of celebrities who actually ran and then failed to win election, like American, American Idol friend Clay Aiken, who ran for Congress at least once in North Carolina.
- [09:29]
B
Yeah, I mean, we do have quite a few examples of those. I mean, there's Herschel Walker, there's Kanye west, there's Mehmet Oz, there's Andrew Yang.
- [09:35]
A
I mean, I forgot about Kanye West.
- [09:38]
B
We do have a list of celebrities who are.
- [09:41]
A
Keep going.
- [09:42]
B
Caitlyn Jenner.
- [09:43]
A
Okay. Oh my God. That is actually California.
- [09:46]
B
Yeah, that is actually my whole list. That is all the examples I was able to come up with.
- [09:50]
A
Okay, so what you're saying is to our friend Daniel, don't get carried away. But I'm curious. Just like if we want to say, Daniel, you're onto something, take the first part of his comment as the truth. Regardless of the analysis that you just gave, that celebrity is underrated. Would that then lead us to believe that Tyler Perry would make a great candidate for president? And I'm not sure why he went to Tyler Perry, because can you guess who the Most. According to YouGov polling, the most famous person in America right now is?
- [10:27]
B
Who's not the president or even more famous than the president?
- [10:31]
A
No, Donald Trump is the most famous person in America right now. Oprah, Brad Pitt. So interesting that he went to Tyler Perry as opposed to Brad Pitt. But. So this is the list of the most famous people in America today. Number one, Donald Trump. Number two, Brad Pitt. Number three, Morgan Freeman. Number four, Taylor Swift. Number five, Tom Cruise. Number six, Elon Musk. Number seven, Barack Obama. Number eight, Bill Clinton. Number nine, Johnny Depp. So Tyler Perry isn't particularly up there. Let's see, even where he ranks overall, Tyler Perry is number 233 in the list of most famous people in America. But let's move instead to popularity, which is a combination of how famous they are and what their approval rating is. Can you take a wild guess who is the most popular person in America today?
- [11:25]
B
Is that person on the list you just read to me?
- [11:29]
A
Yes.
- [11:30]
B
Taylor Swift. No, I don't even know who else.
- [11:33]
A
Was on the list.
- [11:34]
B
I have the memory of a goldfish.
- [11:36]
A
It's Morgan Freeman.
- [11:37]
B
Oh, you see, I should have actually been able to guess that.
- [11:40]
A
Wait, does Morgan Freeman make a good presidential candidate? Lenny?
- [11:43]
B
I mean, he's played the president in some movies.
- [11:45]
A
I think he has.
- [11:47]
B
Yeah. So, yes, sure, why not? I mean, I have a more serious answer to the celebrity status, which is simply to run for president, you have to be. And to be able to be a competitive candidate for president, you have to be. You have to have very high name recognition. You have to be famous. And so obviously, it is easier for someone who has high name recognition already to poll very well because, you know, especially for on the Democratic side, say, in, you know, if we think back to 2020 or we think about what's happening that happened in 2028, there's going to be a long list of people running for president on the Democratic side, like members of Congress, members of the House, who you may have never heard of before, and then basically immediately forget that they ran until you sort of maybe play a trivia bar quiz years later and go like, oh, yeah, they also ran. And these people will, you know, are hoping to have a breakout moment, maybe they're hoping to sell a book, maybe they're hoping to run for Senate next or whatever, but in all likelihood, you know, actually not be the nominee because you have to be famous to be able to win a presidential primary or, you know, effectively famous. And so on that front, you know, the celebrities who are already famous have an advantage. And so like, you know, they probably have an easier track to winning something like a, or at least to polling well in a, you know, in a primary, whether on the Democratic or the Republican side. Then they obviously have to face both their opponents in a debate and then also obviously the voters during the primaries process.
- [13:09]
A
And I think in some ways for successful politicians, the two concepts blend together between celebrity and politician. I mean, the most effective or successful politicians in recent memory sort of took on a celebrity style cult of personality, like Barack Obama. I mean, you can definitely say Reagan and you can definitely say Donald Trump. I don't know if you can say Bill Clinton was our cult of personality around Bill Clinton, but he had a, like a showmanship to him that maybe blended the idea. You know, he was, he was the late night president or whatever. And you looked at folks like Mamdani today, clearly the camera, the cameras love him and Trump loves him as a result, apparently. But yes, I think, I think that is an important point that you kind of have to create your own style of celebrity to be a very effective politician in a presidential primary system. I wouldn't say that like Keir Starmer or Theresa May or Liz Truss had to become celebrities in order to leave the United Kingdom.
- [14:10]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think the American presidential system selects for that in a way that parliamentary systems probably select for that less. I mean, if you think about other Western presidential systems or semi presidential systems, if we take a look at France, Macron definitely has more celebrity status, say, than, you know, Keir Starmer or Friedrich Metz or whoever else might be, you know, the person running a country in a parliamentary system. And so, yes, I think a presidential system basically lends, lends itself towards that.
- [14:38]
A
Okay, next question from Brian. Trump still wins in 2024, but his promises for things getting better were much more restrained than in our timeline. Although all economic outcomes remain the same, does that change the 2025 outcomes? What I think Brian is essentially asking here is how much do expectations matter in terms of how Americans rate a president's performance?
- [15:05]
B
I would say, I mean, obviously I, you know, have to guess here, but I Might. My guess would be it probably changes them on the margins, but not in reality, not in effect. People, I think, would have had high expectations for change either way. Whether or not that is something that Donald Trump explicitly ran on, the economic change, obviously, the fact that he promised that he would be able to lower prices and, you know, fix the economy and, you know, all those aspects of the campaign, if he would have downplayed that, I think people still would have. And he. And he won. Right. I think he still probably would have won based on a surge of disappointment with the Biden administration on economics. And so there would have been this built in expectation whether or not he had run on this or not. The economy was still like the biggest issue in the 2025 elections that we just had earlier this month. You know, I think 50% of Virginia voters said the economy was the biggest issue. And then I suppose the other part of this question is he's more restrained. Does that also mean sort of the immigration crackdown is more restrained? What do you think?
- [16:09]
A
Well, I think that he behaves the same way once he's in office, but that he makes smaller promises. And my answer is maybe more absolute than yours. I don't think it matters at all. For starters, when Trump says, I am going to, you know, do X, Y and Z, I'm going to make it the best economy that we've ever had. I'm going to have the best trade dealer deals that we've ever had. I'm going to be the most, you know, peaceful president that we've ever had. I think people are pretty used to his superlatives and don't necessarily believe them. Like, Americans get a sense, like you said, that electing somebody different from the incumbent party is going to be a change. And Americans had a sense of what the economy was like when Donald Trump was president from 2017 to 2021. And so in large part, they were voting based off of that. I don't think that voters thought that Trump had special levers he could pull that would suddenly fix everything. I think they were voting on the record that they knew that he had. And just the concept of change now, once he's in office, direction matters more than absolutes in a lot of the things that we're talking about. So is inflation going down or is it going up? Or is the unemployment going down or is it going up? I'm talking a little bit here about the things that folks like, you know, friend of the pod Nate Silver look at when they're doing election forecasting and Looking at the economic factors that help decide elections, and it's not absolute numbers. It's the rate of change that matters.
- [17:38]
B
And so, so generally, I, I totally.
- [17:41]
A
Agree, but inflation is rising, is continuing to rise, means that voters are going to be dissatisfied no matter what.
- [17:50]
B
So I generally agree. I mean, I, you know, I was hedging more, but, you know, I think in reality, you're right. That being said, Donald Trump did explicitly run on lowering prices. Right. So that would mean, you know, actually having no inflation at all. So even just kind of like moving inflation from, you know, whatever, 4% to 3% or 3% to 2%, that would still be rising and rising costs. So I do kind of wonder whether that had an actual effect on the margins, though, generally. I totally agree that people don't. I think maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think people listen to politicians that closely on exactly what they're going to say. For the most part, like you said, they generally were thinking of what, what the first Trump administration was like and they wanted something different. And they look remembered what it was like and they're like, that seemed good. Let's do that again.
- [18:36]
A
Yeah, I mean, I would be curious, I mean, I don't know if you can ask in a poll. I'd be curious to know if Americans thought that prices would get genuinely cheaper under Donald Trump. Perhaps many people did. And I don't know if that would be partisan signaling or if they truly thought that it would happen. It's also worth saying that deflation is not a positive thing for the economy and has a lot of negative consequences. You know, prices of gas going up or down, great prices of eggs going up or down, great prices overall, going down provokes people to save their money because prices will be cheaper tomorrow. So they don't actually want to buy the good today. And that can create pretty dramatic negative consequences for the economy. Okay.
- [19:21]
B
In any case, Economics podcast with Galen Drew.
- [19:24]
A
Yeah, exactly. Today's podcast is brought to you by GiveWell. When you give to a nonprofit, how do you measure success? You'll hear a lot about things like low overhead costs and efficient fundraising. But what about the actual impact on people's lives? GiveWell focuses on that impact. They've spent more than 70,000 hours on research to help donors fund highly cost effective programs that save or improve lives the most per dollar. GiveWell has spent 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation and only directs funding to the highest impact opportunities they've found. Over 150,000 donors have already trusted GiveWell to direct more than $2.5 billion. Rigorous evidence suggests that these donations will save over 300,000 lives and improve the lives of millions more. You can find all of their research and recommendations on their site for free and thanks to the donors who chose to sponsor their research. GiveWell doesn't take a cut from your tax deductible donation to their recommended funds. If this is your first gift through GiveWell, you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. To claim your match, go to givewell.org and pick podcast and enter GDPR politics at checkout. Make sure they know that you heard about GiveWell from GD Politics to get your donation matched again. That's GiveWell.org code GDPolitics to donate or find out more. Okay, next question is from Abigail. I'm curious if there's enough polling yet on the Paxton Cornyn race to see if the divorce affected Paxton's numbers at all. This is kind of an old question that we have not gotten to yet, but but the answer is yes. It now has been long enough since Paxton's announced his divorce that we should be able to look at the numbers and see if it has affected the primary race at all. Lenny, do you want to take a first crack at this?
- [21:22]
B
Yeah. The divorce became public in July, correct me if I'm wrong. And you know, the polling environment in the first half of this year wasn't that great. I mean, there was mostly partisan polls for us to look at. So and you know, we don't love doing that, but let's sort of take those as face value for now. If you squint or so you can sort of see that Paxton is lower in the polls by between 5 and 10 percentage points sort of on average now compared to where he was at, I guess in the first half of this year. But I would be a little careful ascribing that to the divorce in particular. Most people are not tuned in into, you know, their Senate primary poll episode primary race more than a year before, you know, or at least around a year before the primary even happens. Primaries in general, the polling in primaries are generally very fluid environment. Obviously, you know, Wesley Hunt officially joined in the race, you know, recently that, you know, there was a lot of chatter around him doing so in the last couple months or potentially doing so. But that obviously has thrown a wrench in and you know, so it's hard to say I'm comfortable saying is that, you know, Paxton's lead has decreased a little since the beginning of this year. But I, I wouldn't feel comfortable sort of, you know, ascribing that to one particular cause.
- [22:37]
A
I think what Abigail is maybe getting at in a broader sense here is what do the contours of that primary race now look like? I mean, it's the first big primary of the 2026 midterm season. It's going to take place on March 3rd. So we're only now four months away practically from that Texas primary, and it's a big one. I think the. I think there's some sense that if Ken Paxton ultimately wins that primary, and just to flesh it out for folks who haven't been paying a ton of attention, John Cornyn, incumbent Republican senator from Texas, is up for reelection. Ken Paxton is who's sort of more Trumpy firebrand type Republican who has a lot of controversy and scandal has plagued him throughout his time in Texas politics. He's running against John Cornyn. After that dynamic was already set up, Wesley Hunt jumped into the race and formally signed his paper as saying that he's actually running. The filing deadline was December 8th, and I think a lot of folks thought that he would back out at the last minute and not actually do it. But it is now a three way race and of course there's a runoff in this primary. So if nobody gets a majority, there will be a runoff on May 26. But do you have a sense of where things go from here? It's not, I mean, no one's walking away with this right now. According to the DDHQ averages, you know, Paxton leads Cornyn by five points, but they're both, you know, you squint, they're both around 30%. Wesley Hunt's around, you know, 23% in the polling averages and there's a lot of money yet to be spent.
- [24:17]
B
Yeah. I'll also add, though that we really only have had a very few polls since Wesley Hunt officially announced his candidacy. You know, one of the polls we have, he's actually ahead of John Cornyn by 1 percentage point. Again, this is a partisan poll, so like, you know, grain of salt. Grain of salt. So I would want to see like a few more polls since the official announcement that Wesley Hunt is in the race to see whether his 23% that he currently has on the Decision Desk HQ polling average changes. I'll add that on Realclair Politics, he's 19, so a little bit lower than that. And I will also say that Paxton's advantage in the Real Care Politics average is a little bit smaller. I think it's only two and a half percentage points compared to five percentage points in decision desk. So where this goes from here, I mean like obviously it's a bit of an open race right now. It would obviously be incre, like quite embarrassing for John Cornyn and I would say like Senate Republicans broadly if he doesn't make it into the runoff, which doesn't seem like the modal outcome right now based on the polls, but like is definitely a possibility. I mean, you know, there's a lot of time between now and March and also we all know that polling errors in, you know, primaries can be quite large. So. And there's, you know, a non trivial amount of undecided voters still out there. I think the, the polls sort of suggest somewhere between like 15 and 25% of Republican voters are Republican primary voters are still undecided. So. Yeah, unclear exactly what, what, what's going to happen going forward. Unsatisfying answer.
- [25:41]
A
I know the big X factors I think are probably a Trump endorsement. So Trump has not endorsed, you might think Ken Paxton is one of his own, so he would move in that direction eventually. But Senate Republicans are lobbying, you know, John Cornyn first amongst them, lobbying Trump to endorse John Cornyn in the primary. The other big X factor is just what effect all of the ad spending could have or all of the campaign spending could have. You know, Texas is a big state. It's where Republicans go to fundraise. Cornyn has, as a more traditional Republican, has a lot of donor connections and so on and can raise like a ton of money. More than 50 million has already spent, been spent in this primary on ads. And over the next four to six months, I only imagine that that multiplies. So I think it'll get spicy. It's like on one hand, I think from a financial perspective, Cornyn probably has the advantage, but on the Trump perspective, it's hard to say.
- [26:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, cash on hand, you know, if I, at least the last report from September or something, I think John Cornyn had like 6 million of cash on hand and Ken Paxton had around 3 million. So obviously there is an advantage that John Cornyn has compared to Ken Paxton, but when it comes to that, but like 3 million is, is not nothing, right? Like, you know, it's not as if Ken Paxton is like underfunded. I'll, I'll add one more thing here which is kind of interesting to me, which is that Ted Cruz has also declined to endorse, which is, you know, A lot of senators, Republican senators, have in fact endorsed John Cornyn. So I have the list in front of me. You know, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton, Rand Paul, Rick Scott, Tim Scott, Tommy Tuberville, John Thune, obviously. So they've all endorsed John Cornyn. So it is interesting to me that Ted Cruz has not endorsed. I mean, I assume he is worried about the endorsing the candidate that Donald Trump ends up not endorsing here and what that might mean for his own further ambitions. Also, he's probably looking for at his own presidential ambitions in the 2028 Republican primary. But it is surprising that he doesn't endorse his, you know, you know, co senator from, from Texas.
- [27:53]
A
Well, I'm glad that you brought up 2028, because we do have a question from Chad. So a little out there, but Chad asks if Roy Cooper wasn't seemingly morally obligated to run for North Carolina Senate in 2026, which he is doing, do you think he would run for President in 2028 and how do you think he would do? Is there any data polling his national appeal, or is that all just a moot point? I don't know what Chad's, Chad's part of like the Roy Cooper lobby here. I rarely even hear him mentioned all that much. But Lenny, do you have a take on that?
- [28:28]
B
I guess my main take is if he wins, becomes North Carolina's senator in 2026, there is nothing stopping him. I mean, either way, there's nothing stopping him from also running for president in 2028. Obviously, if he loses, I think that ask Beto O', Rourke, like, it's, it's hard to turn a losing campaign in a state that, you know, maybe you could win. Obviously, the situation is different for Roy Cooper versus the situation that Beto o' Rourke was in was in Texas. But it's hard to turn a loss into a presidential campaign. But if he ends up winning, I mean, maybe that turns him into one of the front runners in 2028. But to answer your question in particular, so far, he doesn't seem that interested in running for president. I mean, he, you know, declined being the Democratic vice presidential candidate last year in 2024. He seems to be focused on the Senate in 2026. That being said, that might also be a strategy. I mean, you know, if you take a look at the people that we think are going to run for president on the democratic side in 2028, there's clearly different strategies at play here. If you look at Gavin Newsom, for example, compared To Josh Shapiro, one of them is sort of like trying to put himself out there now versus the other one is sort of holding his powder dry. I mean, maybe he doesn't run, but assuming he does run, holding his powder dry for closer to the actual primary. And that might be what Roy Cooper is up to here too. But you know, for now there's actually not that much indication that he's actually that interested in running.
- [29:45]
A
Yeah, I was going to, I was looking, I was trying to get some sense of what Americans think about him nationally. If it's any indication. It was hard to find a national approval poll for Roy Cooper. So that I think maybe tells you much of what you need to know about his national name recognition, although not everything. Pollsters can sometimes just skip out on polling folks who they should be polling. But a recent Emerson College poll in North Carolina, the headline reads, cooper starts US Senate race with six point lead and clear name recognition advantage over Whatley. And that's Michael Whatley, Republican National Committee Chair.
- [30:19]
B
I mean the old adage, the old adage is we know when any senator looks in the mirror, they, they see a president looking back. But maybe that's not true in this case.
- [30:27]
A
Well, the thing is he gives up all of that if he runs for president. He has, yes, a huge name recognition advantage in North Carolina. But if you look at the race to the White House, you know, averages that have a far too soon Democratic presidential primary average running with Gavin Newsom leading at 24%, then Kamala Harris at 22%, then Pete Buttigieg at 9% and on down from there, you will see Roy Copeland nowhere. So I think that it's not going to happen.
- [31:01]
B
I do think there's an interesting comparison point here to Andy Bashir though, who in many ways plays a, you know, maybe a similar role in, in American politics though again, I mean maybe this is my, my answers of like bad comparisons. The first comparison was, you know, against Beto. Now I'm comparing North Carolina and Kentucky. I mean obviously also very different states. And Bashir's over performance in Kentucky is very, very impressive also compared to where Cooper's performances in North Carolina. But you know, Bashir might take up that mantle. He seems a lot more interested in running than Cooper does.
- [31:35]
A
Well, it's so funny because we got the exact mirror question on Bashir. Mikey asks scenario for Bashir, run for Senate as an independent and decry the radicalism on both sides and focus on economic messaging. Kind of like Osborne. This is in Nebraska, but with name recognition. How viable is that to work or is partisanship already too baked in for him? So people are trying to write fanfic in which Roy Clipper runs for president and Andy Bashir runs for Senate. Because it seems quite clear that Andy Beshear has his eyes on running for president, not least of all because he started his own podcast, but also he's been spending time in the early states fundraising.
- [32:16]
B
And are you telling us something about your own ambition here?
- [32:18]
A
I mean, never say never. You know, I want to serve this country. If asked to serve, I will serve. However this country finds my service best or whatever the trite line is. So basically, if Andy Bashir were convinced to set his sights a little bit lower, would running as an independent in Kentucky for while Mitch McConnell is retiring. So for Mitch McConnell's seat in the Senate, do you think that would work?
- [32:46]
B
So the first thing to say is that he won as governor with a D next to his name. He didn't need to run as an independent to become governor. Obviously, we all know that, you know, there is less partisanship at play when it comes to governor races than when it comes to Senate races. I mean, we can see that in recent history when it comes to a lot of sort of New England governors who, you know, up until very recently, what's. There are a number of Republicans. There's obviously John Bel Edwards in Louisiana. You know, like there are, you know, Roy Cooper is another example. You know, North Carolina has been a close but still solidly Republican state on the presidential level the last couple cycles, and they had a Democratic governor. So like, you know, there is clearly a difference here between governor and senator. But it is important to note that Bashir was able to win this state even though he was a out like, you know, a clear Democrat. That being said, it would probably, you know, gain him some on if he ran as a independent. But the issue is, is that he ran as a Democrat. Everyone knows that he's a Democrat, right? Like Dan Osborne. And he's. He probably. I actually don't know this. I should be able to look this up, but he probably has very, very high name recognition in Kentucky. So, like Dan Osborne was able to run as an independent and sort of, he'd never really, as far as I know, been associated with the Democratic Party and was able to sort of make that pitch. I think Andy Bashir would have a much harder time saying explicitly that he hasn't decided yet who he would vote for for majority leader in the Senate, which is what Dan Osborne did, because he has been the Democratic, you know, Governor of the state in such recent history. So that's, I think, the other side of it, which is maybe he gains a little, but I think it would feel, it's possible that it would just feel dishonest.
- [34:23]
A
I think that's a really important point especially as well. We'll see if we get to it. But one of the questions tackles specifically the idea of authenticity and political campaigns. Do you think though that to sort of take it a step further, if Bashir just were to run for Senate as a Democrat, that given the increased partisanship on a set in a Senate race compared to a state level race, that he wouldn't be able to get across the finish line?
- [34:52]
B
I mean, you know, there's a, a long list of governors, even very popular governors who run for Senate and lose. Even in the last election cycle, we saw that happen and obviously in 2020, we saw that happen also. You know, I do think the Senate has obviously, I mean, I do think this is not just my opinion. The Senate has a higher level of partisanship baked into it. And so I think it would be very hard for Andy Bashir. I mean, I would be shocked if there's not internal polling that tests this either on his end or at least for, you know, the Democratic Senate committee that is probably trying to convince him to run there. And so considering that there probably is some data on this, maybe it's not public like, I think that would probably be the case for him.
- [35:35]
A
Let's continue our tour around the country. James says, I am a Salt Lake county resident. Do you feel like the redistricting in Utah will have a significant effect on who wins in 2026? Well, James, I guess I would say considering that it's one seat, no, there's more that we could probably say about this. But Lenny, do you have a different take?
- [36:00]
B
I mean, I do think it's worth sort of going through the story here real quick for what's happening in Utah. So like all four House districts are solidly Republican or were solidly Republican. Donald Trump won them all by 20 points or more. Maybe one of them he won by 19 points. But all the other ones are very solidly. Oh, they're all solidly Republican. Also a seat that he won by 19 points. In August, a judge in Utah ruled that the map violates a voter approved measure against partisan gerrymandering that had been like on the books or been approved since 2018. So basically said that these were, these, these maps were partisan gerrymander and had to go. So as a result, in October The Republican state legislature passed a map that created two competitive districts out of four. Mind you, Utah has four seats, but all seats still basically favored the Republicans. But you know, it's still a better map, I guess, for Democrats and who are also generally pretty happy. And I will also add that this is moving in the opposite direction. In many ways. Utah is an outlier state when it comes to partisanship. And this is also moving in the opposite direction of many states who are sort of moving to less competitive maps. And now last month, sorry, this month a judge basically struck down that map also and proposed two maps, one of which would create a safe Democratic district. And today we actually, you know, I guess when people listen to this, it'll be a few days old. But like the Republicans announced that they're appealing this decision. But all in all, what we're saying is, you know, the Utah would move from, if this map held, Utah would move from four House districts that are solidly Republican to one that is effectively safe Democratic. So, you know, that all comes to what you just said, which is we're talking about one seat here. So I think the likelihood that this will actually make the difference in the next House election is rather small. That being said, House elections have been very close and competitive. And so like, I guess it is technically possible, but in a world in which this House seat actually makes a difference, there are like a lot of other things at play here because suddenly, you know, House members resigning or falling ill or dying becomes a way bigger issue for who controls the gavel. So like, you know, the, the knock on effects of a, the House election be coming down to one seat would be, you know, huge. So like, I just don't think that's what's gonna happen.
- [38:11]
A
Yeah. In a related question, we, we're getting into the gerrymandering part of the evening, which is Adam asks. I've been thinking a lot about Tuesday's results. This is 2025 elections. I know that the generic ballot is currently saying D +3 or so. And I should say here, I've seen a lot of reporting recently on the shift in the generic ballot polling towards Democrats. The generic ballot of course, being when you ask Americans if you were voting for Congress today, would you choose a Rep or a Democrat? And that's the closest, you know, thing we have to an approximation of what the House popular vote, a projection of what the House popular vote would look like. I've been seeing a lot of reporting on how it's shifting dramatically towards Democrats, I should say. And we brought this up with Patrick Raffini when he was on the podcast a couple weeks ago. A lot of pollsters are also right now shifting to a likely voter model in terms of what they're projecting or what they're saying public opinion looks like. And generally when you shift towards a likely voter model in an environment like this where you expect there to be higher turnout amongst the out party, it would favor Democrats more. So I think people should be on the lookout to note that it's not as if public opinion has shifted like 4 points overnight from the beginning of November to the end of November, but the actual math behind what pollsters are showing has changed because they have. They are using a likely voter model instead of just showing what registered voters look like. Anyway, that's my side note. In any case, Adam goes on to say the results from Tuesday would suggest something more like D plus 10 as opposed to that D plus 3. At what number on that scale does the GOP gerrymandering in Texas and other states backfire? By which I mean if they take a bunch of 70, 30 red seats and make them more like 55, 45 so they can dilute Democratic votes, could they end up endangering a lot of incumbents in a blue wave year? In SparkNotes version, Adam asks, have Republicans put themselves at risk of a dummy mander?
- [40:13]
B
I guess we should start by saying that the new Texas map were overturned for now. So like, you know, that actually hasn't happened in Texas. I'll also add that even without I guess this turning into a potential dummymander, it is possible that these new maps will have backfired. I mean, you know, there's a lot of sort of discourse around the fact that these maps sort of assume that Republicans gains with Hispanic voters that, you know, Donald Trump saw in the last presidential election will move forward in, you know, non presidential elections, presidential elections where Donald Trump is no longer on the ballot. We obviously don't know how that'll play out, but the results from the elections from earlier this month suggest that at least a solid baseline assumption would be there's some snapback of Hispanic voters. And so like it's possible this map that I guess now has been overturned, what would backfire either way? But I do think it's a sort of an interesting question either way. And so I did take a look at a bunch of states that I happen to have the new maps and presidential results for, and I noticed that, you know, the people that make these maps have kind of become a lot better at making these maps and Avoiding these kinds of effects, they are now really sort of moving partisanship from the most partisan districts into the ones that they think they need to shore up. But there are a bunch of districts like Texas 17, Texas 25, Texas 27, Texas 32 that moved from like a, you know, plus 25 to 30 range to being around plus 20, R plus 20. Similarly in Ohio, Ohio 8 moved from R plus 23 to R plus 15. North Carolina 3 went from R 22 to R 15. So like, once you get into a place where, you know, Democrats are winning, I guess, you know, 15 points to the more than they did in 2020, 15 to 20 points more than they won in 2024, which I guess would be a Democratic environment of say D + 13 to D + 18. That's when that might start happening, I guess.
- [42:11]
A
You know, also in a situation, in a situation like that, it. Like, does it even matter anymore?
- [42:16]
B
No, I mean, it doesn't really, because, you know, I. At that point, if Democrats, assuming uniform swing, if Democrats win North Carolina 3, so a district that is R + 14, they will also have won North Carolina 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 15, like all, you know, that are all basically R + 10 to R + 15 or something like that. Um, so no, it basically won't really have mattered anymore. They'll have won a very large majority.
- [42:46]
A
Okay, next question from Lyndon. I recently read about the Supreme Court possibly overturning section 2 of the Voting Rights act, which would enable Republicans to redraw at least 19 districts in their favor. Is that likely? We've talked about this on the podcast before, so I don't want to get into the likelihood of that. But the second question here is, if it were overturned, how much would Democrats need to win the House popular vote by in order to have a break even shot in to win the House? I'll just say here that Nate Cohn at the New York Times did this math and concluded that with the overturning of Section 2 of the Voting Rights act or the current interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights act and further gerrymandering along the lines of what we're seeing right now, Democrats would have to win the House popular vote by 5 to 6 points nationally in order to win a majority of the seats I want. There's a. There is a follow up question here from Lyndon which might be actually more interesting than this, but I want to stop here to ask Lenny if you agree with Nacon's analysis.
- [43:48]
B
I haven't, you know, I mean, I haven't run an analysis like this myself.
- [43:51]
A
I, I, intuitively he's like, I just, you know, I read the story.
- [43:56]
B
It seemed reasonable. I mean, you know, it seemed, it seemed good. I, I, I, I, I have no reason to doubt it. Do you happen to remember what the numbers are right now? Do they have to win by like two or something to.
- [44:06]
A
Currently, according to that New York Times analysis, Democrats need to win by like 1.3.
- [44:13]
B
Okay, so it would be a pretty significant shift.
- [44:16]
A
Yes. Okay, so here's the sort of meat of Lyndon's question. Eventually it's what does a party do when they're totally locked out of power by the structure of the system? House, extreme gerrymandering, Senate, location of voters, President. I guess they mean Electoral College here, Supreme Court, lifetime appointments reinforced by President and Senate. This is a question that I think Democrats bring up a lot when they're arguing to change the rules of the system because they say that it feels unfair. You know, I'll just take a crack at this. Which is by and large, these have been the rules of the system for a long time. There have been periods in American history before when one party has been essentially locked out of power, quote, unquote. They, you know, they haven't won the presidency for decades. They haven't won the House for decades. I mean, that was the case for the Republican Party up until the Republican revolution in the 90s. And the reality is that American politics is a competitive marketplace. And so sort of like in capitalism, you set the rules and that you let people compete within those rules. And because those rules stay constant, there are incentives to adapt your strategy to what those rules are. So I would say what would end up happening is that Democrats strategy is better defined by those rules. I think in some ways that's already, you're already seeing that conversation play out within the Democratic Party and they sort of maybe stop daydreaming about making changes that would require constitutional amendments and not all of them do and start playing within those rules because as recently as 2008 they won a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. And so I reject the idea of being locked out of power. It's just not playing the game competitively the way it was designed. But do you disagree, Lenny?
- [46:07]
B
I don't disagree. Though I will add and say that you mentioned obviously Most of the 20, in most of the 20th century, the Republicans were locked out of power in Congress, both in the House and the Senate, beyond sort of brief periods in time when they, you know, had majorities. That being said, they were never locked out of the presidency during that time. In fact, they were in, you know, especially in the second half of 20th century, were in power for most of the time in, you know, had the presidency for most of this time. And it was, in fact, Democrats who felt like they were locked out of the presidency and needed to, you know, change their entire approach with, you know, Bill Clinton in the 90s, move the party to the center in order to have a chance to win the presidency back after having effectively not held the presidency since Johnson, like, except for Carter, I guess, like one term president. So, you know, the lockout is definitely more absolute now than, you know, the comparison that you mentioned. There have been other times in American history when, you know, there has been a more clear lockout. I mean, after Reconstruction, you know, Democrats had a very hard time or like, you know, during Reconstruction, a very hard time winning majorities. But in general, I agree with you that that parties adjust in order to win back or win majorities based on the rules. I mean, like, that's what we saw the Republican Party do effectively with Donald Trump. I mean, I don't think there was as much discourse around are the Republicans. I mean, there was some actual discourse about are the Republicans locked out of power indefinitely per, you know, emerging permanent majority amongst Democrats? Republicans thought they had to moderate on immigration. It turns out they actually had to do something else. And they were. And they were able to win, you know, sort of like win elections again or it's not that they had to do something else. They did something else and started winning elections. But in many ways, I think you can interpret the Donald Trump takeover of the Republican Party as the party adjusting to a scenario in which they feel like they are locked out of power.
- [48:00]
A
Yeah. Okay. Well, speaking of a party adjusting to make sure that it's not locked out of power, I want to. I looked up and I'm like, we've already been recording as long as we have. I'm just having so much fun chatting with you, Lenny, But I want to make sure that we get to this question before we close, because it was. It's a very long question. But Ben claims that he's been mulling this over for a few months, and it gets at a lot of the themes that we talk about. So I want to do his question justice, and we'll answer this, and maybe we'll have one more fun question to wrap up with. But Ben s. In your Does Moderation Win Elections? Podcast, you discuss and ultimately back the idea that moderates do better electorally. Than progressives. However, while they're often lumped together, I do think there's a big difference between the social progressives of Trump's first term and the COVID era and today's economically populous Democrats such as Senate primary candidate Graham Platner. As has been documented at length previously on FiveThirtyEight and currently by GD Politics, this socially progressive movement was often plagued by unpopular positions such as defund the police, open borders, Latinx and other extreme reactions by the left to the rise of Trump and maga. It should come as no surprise that these positions were slash are a liability in socially conservative states that prior to Trump were swing states such as Ohio, Iowa, Florida and Missouri, or in previously blue wall but now swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In your New York Times piece he's citing all of the sources and the accompanying podcast on how Democrats need their own Trump. You documented how Trump won over the Republican Party in 2016 by going right on some issues and left on others. I think the much more relevant axis describes Trump's success was how he went populist on the establishment populist axis. Indeed. Each position you mentioned Trump taking in 2016 anti immigration, pro border wall, pro infrastructure spending, no cuts to Social Security or Medicare and isolationism was on the populist end of the axis. By contrast, Democrats have struggled to counter Trump's success because they have stayed firmly on on the establishment end of that axis. They continue to preach trust in the institutions and in a status quo that Americans have lost faith in, which comes off as out of touch with middle America. I think a pro worker, anti billionaire, economically populist message would do much better than the socially progressive message that Democrats have tried to sell since the rise of Trump, particularly in the seven states mentioned above. This would not only make the Democrats more competitive in the Electoral College, but but also in the Senate, which you've in the past rightfully pointed out is the bigger roadblock for Democrats ability to effectively pass legislation in support of that. We have this YouGov poll showing that many of Mamdani's economic proposals are popular nationwide. We also know from issue polling in general that free college tuition is very popular. I would like to see that issue polling. While we know issue polling has its issues, we can also look at Prop A where on the same day that Trump won Missouri by a margin of 18 points, 58% of Missourians voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and for guaranteed paid sick leave for all workers, the latter of which was later repealed by Republican legislative trifecta in the state shortly after the election. So, okay, we're finally getting to the question. Is the past underperformance of socially progressive Democrats truly useful in predicting the success for these new economic populists like Mandani and Platner? Can an economically populist message that sticks to kitchen table issues, criticizes Dem leadership for abandoning blue collar, nonconform college educated workers and steers mostly clear of the culture war succeed where social progressives have failed? Okay, Lenny, I'll let you answer that before I even start to weigh in because I've done all of the talking I can do for right now.
- [51:42]
B
I mean, the narrow interpretation of this question, the answer is no, I don't think the past underperformance of social progressive Democrats is truly useful in predicting the success of the new economic populists like Mamdani and Platner. Like, I would, you know, like to see how they do in elections. Basically, before we can say anything, I mean, you know, they, they are clearly running on a different agenda than Democrats. What we would have described as a more left wing Democrat did five years ago. And so I want to see some evidence to see how, you know, that actually does with voters. I think it's entirely possible that they don't underperform or I guess it's also, it's also entirely possible they underperform more. That being said, I think it's important to sort of call back, you know, the discussion that you had with Patrick Graffini, I think, last week, where they polled exactly these kinds of Democrats and it said like, I guess, polled how potentially these Democrats would do. And there was one aspect that is missing from, you know, what moving to the left on economic populism would entail, and that's, you know, cultural moderation. The question asks about steering mostly clear of the culture wars. I mean, I don't even know if that is possible in this day and age for a candidate to effectively ignore the culture wars, especially if they start running in very high profile races. But Platner in particular hasn't really stayed away from those issues, at least not that I can tell of. And so it'll be interesting to see whether the candidates that run on this platform actually do need to also moderate on cultural issues or whether the pure moving to the left on economic issues is enough. If we sort of take an example and take a look at sort of other countries where parties have tried this, it's usually not enough for, or at least if I take a look at the examples that sort of come to mind. It's usually not enough for the left wing parties just move to the left on economic issues because they're not really seen as credible and serious on cultural issues, which obviously matter a lot to a lot of these voters.
- [53:36]
A
Yeah, I think obviously Mamdani won in New York. He underperformed a sort of regular Democrat in a New York City mayoral race, although it was a three way race, so a little bit tricky to. But like he wasn't forced to defend, I mean, he was definitely forced to defend some of his social cultural issues positions and backtracked on the most damaging ones in a place like New York City, which is principally, you know, defund the police. But on, you know, he wasn't really forced in the way that he would be nationally to talk about things like redoing the property tax code and the things that he said about, you know, being more punitive to, to white neighborhoods and giving more advantages to minority neighborhoods and things like that. I mean, just in New York City he's not going to be forced to defend cultural issue positions in the way that he would be forced to defend them in Ohio or Pennsylvania or what have you. So I don't know that that's a great example. And I'll just say you mentioned my conversation with Patrick Raffini. They did at Echelon Insights try to tease this out. Like, how well would a Democrat do if they just took strong populist positions like quote unquote, takes a strong stance against the abuse of corporate power? And what they found is, and they even polled like takes a strong stance against the abuse of corporate power and doesn't talk about culture war issues. They don't tend to perform nearly as well as a Democrat who takes those strong populist positions and then breaks with the social cultural issues. So, you know, I think this is hard to pull and obviously, I mean, I don't know, it's not that hard to pull. We know that some of this stuff is straight up unpopular and unpopular things pull poorly. But obviously we saw Donald Trump in 2016 win while still taking some unpopular positions with a majority of Americans. And so there is also a question of what is the priority? How seriously do you do voters take this person on some of the things that they don't like as much? How much personal charisma does that person have? And on net, do you feel like that person is fighting for you? Have we answered the question from Ben? Is there anything else you want to say on that, Lenny?
- [55:53]
B
No, I feel very happy with our Answer.
- [55:56]
A
Okay, let's wrap on a much shorter, much lighter question, which comes from Amit. What is your favorite election night snack? Money.
- [56:07]
B
Well, in my eternal quest to become, you know, more American, I have to admit to my shame that I don't actually like peanut butter except in the form of when it comes with like chocolate effectively. So, you know, chocolate covered peanut butter cups I do love. And so that is my go to snack effectively always. But in particular on election night.
- [56:26]
A
I like that way to, way to give it a little like patriotic bent there. You know how, you know how to convince the median American. My favorite election night snack is wine. At the end of the night when the election is over and I'm winding down, I can finally just be like, we did all the things we have to do. Now all I have to do is wind down so I can go to bed. Other than that, I would say the key is snack. I don't eat a big meal because then I get kind of tired right as we're going into the time when polls are closing. So you want, I know I want to eat like a power bar or something like that, maybe some chips or whatever while the, while results are coming in. But, you know, keep snacking throughout the evening as opposed to, but if it's a really intense election, you don't even need to eat. You can just run on adrenaline alone.
- [57:16]
B
I mean that, that is actually what I was gonna say. I usually actually don't eat very much on election night because I'm usually, you know, pretty anxious.
- [57:23]
A
But I house food once things are shut down, once I like put the podcast in the feed, it's three o' clock in the morning, I'm getting some white wine, I'm getting like all of the leftovers in my fridge. It's game over. Okay, I hope that answers the question. Lenny, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [57:42]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [57:44]
A
My name is Galen Droock. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and access to the video for the podcast. You can also join our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on shows like this. And most importantly, you ensure that we can keep making a podcast that prioritizes curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. Also, be a friend of the POD and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.