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A
The big takeaway was in real life, among real voters, you only have about a third of people that are either hard left or hard right that basically are the kinds of people who agree with the party no matter what on pretty much every issue. And you have two thirds of people who have some form of mixed views. Or you can appeal to the more on populism issues, or you can appeal to the more on social issues. And you really have to mix up your message a little bit. But it feels like the entirety of Politics Right is geared towards that one third of voters who tend to be very overrepresented online.
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B
Hello and welcome to the GD Politics podcast. I'm Galen Drouke. When President Trump became the first Republican in 20 years to win the national popular vote in 2024, one Republican pollster was in a position to say, I told you so. Patrick Raffini, the co founder of Echelon Insights, had written a book the year prior titled Party of the People Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the gop. He wrote, quote, the Republicans used to be seen as the party of wealthy elites and the Democrats the party of blue collar workers, and now that's being turned upside down because of this. The demography is destiny. Ideas of eternal Democratic majorities never materialized and now it's Republicans who are on offense with voting blocs who represent a decisive majority of the country. He went on to say, contrary to media myths, the old divisions that separated Americans politically and in other ways by race and ethnicity are gradually fading. This is what's making Republicans competitive in areas they never dreamed of winning before, end quote. This was hard to deny. In 2024, Republicans made decisive gains with voters of color and young voters with eye popping rightward shifts in places like Florida, Texas and the urban Northeast. But if Trump's already souring polling this year hadn't been reason for pause, this fall's elections certainly were. As we discussed on last week's podcast in New Jersey, there appeared to be something of a snapback amongst Hispanic and young voters to to coalitions resembling the 2020 election. In light of that, I wanted to invite Patrick back on the podcast to talk about the ever shifting American political coalitions. Patrick Raffini, you joined me to talk about your book on the forebear to this podcast, but welcome to your first time on GD Politics.
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A
Thank you Gillen. It's great to be here.
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B
So you've also got some great work.
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C
Cooking at Echelon Insights, highlighting the diversity.
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B
Of opinion that sits below the polarized red blue surface of American politics, which we are also going to get into.
- [02:49]
C
But let's begin with the state of Trump's con coalition.
- [02:52]
B
So the day after election 2024, you wrote, quote, if you thought 2016 and 2020 were a fluke, yesterday confirmed they.
- [03:00]
C
Were almost certainly not.
- [03:02]
B
The realignment is here to stay. I want to ask, do you feel any differently about the idea of a.
- [03:09]
C
Working class populist realignment today than you did on November 6, 2024?
- [03:18]
A
Well, I think this shows that this voting bloc, this group, is even more essential right to the future politics than maybe even than we thought at the 2024 election. In that if you have swings in these towns in New Jersey that swing 40 points in 2024 and then swing 40 points back in 2025, that tells me that this is a very, very up for grabs voting block if that can happen within the space of a year. And so, as you know, Republican coalition, that needs to absolutely be a focus right of the Republican Party to keep those voters, as many of those voters who voted for Trump in 2024 on side. You know, I read in really chapter one in my book, you know, when I'm talking about Hispanics and I'm talking about the evolving coalitions, it's not that I think we'll see necessarily these groups, you know, they're migrating from the left all the way over to the right. I think they're migrating from the left to the center. And we're no longer, I don't think we can know, we can any longer say that they a locked in Democratic group a la the emerging Democratic majority a la these ideas of a rising American electorate that we saw and that voters of color are this rock solid pillar of the Democratic coalition. We've seen how that's not the case. Right. We've proven that's not the case. But they will flip back and forth. They still will flip back and forth. And the fact that they are just so much more elastic than the rest of the electorate means if you have a state like New Jersey where Hispanics are about 10% of the off year electorate, but they're about 30% of the swing back and forth, that means if you are a candidate, you should be spending 30% of your time. And that goes for Democrats or Republicans. I think for Republicans there's no real winning without this coalition or doing well enough in this coalition. And the same is true for Democrats. So, you know, I think they took advantage of a favorable environment with a very, very swingy voting block. The Other thing I will say though is it's always a little bit hazardous to compare an off year electorate to a presidential election because what you saw in particular in 2024 were swings to Trump among these young, low propensity, these young men. Right. These low propensity voters who I don't think were in the 2025 electorate. So you basically are taking, you know, a big part of the swing out off the table. And you saw this a little bit in the New Jersey exit polls where the recall vote, recall among Hispanics in the 2025 exit poll was Harri 25. A year earlier it had been Harris +9among Hispanics in New Jersey. So right then and there you have 16 points of shift just based on who turned out and the different electorate that you had in this year. And then you had a further 12 points. Right. Where Mikey Sherrill did about 12 points better than Harris. Right. But how different is that than a down ballot Republican would have performed in 2024? I haven't looked at all the numbers like, but you normally see this gap between Trump and the down ballot candid. I think Trump has been continuously improving his numbers. Also the down ballot Republicans have been continuously improving their numbers. They're on just different trajectories. So if you look at like comparison to the 2017 election, there's been an 18 point swing right. Among in those Hispanic heavy towns between 2021. So the really kind of if you just compare the same like for like the same candidate Jack Cittarelli, he did about as well actually with Hispanics as he did in 2021. Not nearly enough. Right. To win 10 points worse overall. Right. So these tectonic plates are still moving. But I think it is absolutely true in 2024 you just, with these eye popping gains, a lot of that was probably political environment. It was kind of temporary factors related to dissatisfaction with the Biden administration. So it's just, it's important to tease out all the different components.
- [07:16]
C
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about the trajectory. You said that support amongst Hispanics for Trump has continued to grow. I think polling suggests that in this year itself it has dropped off pretty significantly.
- [07:30]
B
But I do want to ask, you.
- [07:31]
C
Know, from the results that we got in 2025, maybe what evidence most challenges.
- [07:38]
B
Your idea of a realignment in American politics and what evidence backs it up?
- [07:44]
C
Sort of the strongest you have to.
- [07:46]
A
Tease out, I think the different definitions of realignment because I feel like there's been a lot of, you know, in some, by some definitions it's not a realignment. And some definitions it is. So what are the two main definitions? Historically, the way political scientists have used the term realignment is things like, all right, you have the 1932 election, or you have like these momentous elections in American history where everything goes, you know, it's all Republican before, and then it goes Democrat. The country just moves. Right. And that's really kind of the political science definition. Right. And, and some people have used the, like, 1968, an election like this where, like every 30 years we have this huge realigning election, the country goes from Democrat to Republican or Republican to Democrat. I don't think we're in that phase in this moment in politics where it's just an extremely close division. And I don't use the term realignment in that way. The other definition, the one I kind of prefer, because I think it just aligns with what we actually see happening is, yes, we have a very closely divided electorate, but the coalitions continue to shift. We've undoubtedly seen a realignment in the Trump era, specifically of working class voters, starting with working class white voters, but then followed to some extent by working class non white voters into the Republican coalition. At the same time, you've had compensating gains for Democrats in the suburbs among well educated voters. So in the sense, the parties have absolutely realigned in this Trump era. Now the question is, how sticky are some of these later gains? Right. The gains that materialized only in 2020, you're talking about, all right, we're reverting back to 2020. My book was written prior to the 2024 election. It was written mostly about the 2020 shifts. And I wrote, you know, it's a huge shift from 2016 to 2020. 2020 itself itself reflected just a huge shift in the Hispanic vote, a huge shift in the Asian American vote, continued progress, Republican progress with African American voters. So even if you returned back to 2020, that's not the same as returning back to 2016. It's not the same as returning. You had these predictions of eternal Democratic majorities based on strength with non white voters.
- [09:59]
C
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about that. The competition to win voters over through innovation means that no party can really rest on its laurels. Democrats were guilty of that when they got seduced by demographics as destiny. The argument during the Obama era.
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B
Do you think Republicans have been similarly.
- [10:15]
C
Seduced by Trump's 2024 victory?
- [10:18]
A
Well, I think you can take nothing for granted. It was still a very close victory. And in Particular, you know, I wrote prior to this election, like fully expected, you know, we would see erosion with minority voters just because I, you know, I think partly just off the turnout trends, I think. Yeah, to some extent. Right. I think they have claimed a mandate in the immediate aftermath. With that said, I think, you know, most presidents who are reelected claim a mandate and you know, maybe can be tempted to overreach in some sense. You know, there's always a, you know, everyone's kind of proclaiming this permanent vibe shift. Then you start getting election results and you know, you tend to get the normal midterm correction. So there is to some extent at the same time, I think there is a realization among Republicans that being kind of this low propensity voter party, being a party that is more dependent on low propensity voters is a challenge. Right. Because you can't necessarily rely on these same voters to turn up in every election. That is particularly the case if you are actually building a base of support or had built a base of support in the last election among minority voters who are extremely susceptible to dropping off. And you know, if all the low propensity voters in that cohort kind of supported you and then they just don't show up, those numbers are not going to materialize in the same way. I always think this narrative has been a little bit, was always a little bit overplayed as it relates to white working class voters because actually their turnout is actually pretty good. But if you start getting, if Republicans start getting more support with working class non white voters, that's when it sort of becomes a problem. You already started to see prior to 2024. Right. Where the 2324 cycle was actually pretty good for special elections for Democrats. And that's why a lot of people were claiming Biden's stronger than, than people think because Democrats are doing great in these off year elections. And you know, this there being this high propensity voter party and that actually turned out normally that the off year elections or the elections are good signal of the political environment in the fall and that turned out not to be the case. So I think you're absolutely like in 2025, Republicans got their asses handed to them in these elections. But historically those off year, those off off year elections tend to be a little bit of an exaggerated version of what happens in the midterms.
- [12:41]
C
Yeah. So we've been talking about election results and you make a good point that who turns up to the polls in off off year elections can be pretty fickle. So I want to Talk about some national polling for a second. The polling firm Signal put out a new poll last week. I'm sure you saw it. They have an A rating per friend of the Pod, Nate Silver's pollster ratings and have been a pollster for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
- [13:04]
B
Their polls showed Democrats leading by six.
- [13:06]
C
Points in the generic ballot, which for non nerds means Americans choose Democrats over Republicans to basically control the House by six points.
- [13:13]
B
That was the largest single month shift.
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C
Towards Democrats since Biden dropped out of the ra.
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B
And for the first time in two.
- [13:19]
C
Years, voters whose top priority is inflation and the economy now prefer a generic Democrat for Congress by 13 percentage points over a Republican. To add to that, Trump's approval is at its second term low, negative 14 on net percentage points in the averages. I'm curious how you diagnose the problem in this moment. Obviously we've diagnosed it a little bit when it comes to the actual elections, but when it comes to the national mood more broadly, I think the shutdown.
- [13:47]
A
Definitely took a toll on the numbers. And I'd be very interested to see like we have a couple weeks of non shutdown polling to see if that recovers at all. I mean, typically those are pretty disruptive. If you just look at historically those do create a, disrupt a disjuncture in approval numbers and ballot and generic ballot numbers. And so I think if you're, you know, very specifically looking at particularly the news coverage in the latter half of the shutdown, which really focused on the snap cutoff or air traffic going down, I mean, I think Republicans certainly have a strong case to make that yeah, Democrats were at fault, like literally didn't vote for the bill that would have shot stopped the shutdown. But voters are not necess keyed into those legislative maneuverings and they're really blaming the party that's in power. Right. Or the party that has maybe historically done the most shutdowns. So I do think like we'll have to see one of the things I expect fully expect to see in our polling. You know, we shift to a likely kind of 2026 electorate model as opposed to looking at either the universe of broad registered voters or the kind of voter who turned out in 2024. What that's going to mean most likely based on all the turnout trends that we saw in Virginia and New Jersey, is it's going to be a Democratic friendly electorate. You know, our best estimate in the Virginia governor's race was that about 80% of Harris voters turned out and about 70% of Trump voters turned out that is going to inevitably have an impact right on the bottom line. Numbers and what we saw. Right. And it was the very opposite. Right. Going back four years when it was a good environment for Republicans. About 80% of the Trump voters turn out, about 70% of the Biden voters turn out. And usually, you know, those off year elections are maybe there may be, you know, like I said, a little bit more of an exaggerated version of what may happen in the midterms. But on balance, those likely voter models as we get closer to the election are going to probably tend to favor Democrats.
- [15:54]
C
Okay, so the elections were not good for Republicans. Polling nationally also not great for Republicans. There may be some quibbles with methodology there, but generally not great. I want to read for you. This is the New York Times, so you can quibble with it, but I want to read for you the title of a recent article and their lead so they write America First.
- [16:16]
B
Some Trump supporters worry that's no longer the case.
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C
The article goes on to read, President.
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B
Trump has been dining with Wall street bigwigs. He has embarked on an opulent revamp of the White House at a time when Americans are struggling to pay their bills. He has expressed support for granting visas.
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C
To skilled foreigners to take jobs in the United States.
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B
He approved a $20 billion bailout for Argentina, helping a foreign government and wealthy investors at a moment when the US.
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C
Government was shut down.
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B
For a president who returned to office promising to avoid foreign entanglements, make life more affordable, and ensure that available jobs go to American citizens, it has been a significant departure from the expectations of his loyal base. And it is starting to open a rift with his supporters who are counting on a more aggressively populist agenda.
- [16:58]
C
So as we've discussed here, thermostatic public opinion is not new. The public often turns against a newly elected president once they're in office.
- [17:07]
B
But is there something more going on there? Does it seem that Trump is not.
- [17:10]
C
Even really trying to play good politics in abandoning what appears to have been the most appealing part of that populist message and that populist coalition that you wrote about?
- [17:23]
A
There are a lot of issues that are raised by this. I really do think that the core of the issue with the polling right now goes to the economy in terms of, look, I mean, people had a very strong even in Trump 1.0. Even if Trump's numbers weren't always terribly high, they weren't really terribly high at all. Throughout his term, people gave him good ratings on the economy. Now it's sort of the opposite his numbers are about the same, but they're rating him lower on the economy. Now, when you look at the groups of voters, you know, who specifically prioritizes the economy, it's really more that independent voter. It's more that low propensity voter. It's that voter who maybe surged to Trump in 2024 or will swing back and forth between the parties. And they're the voters right now who are most upset about the cost of living, who are facing the most cost of living pressure. They're often the voters who are at the margins of the economy. They're lower income and, you know, really feel, feel this issue a lot more than the partisan bases on either side. And I thought there was a very interesting number in the YouGov polling that they had released last week. When you actually look at the composition of Trump's approval, Republicans are actually much stronger in a second term than the first term, but independents are weaker. Right.
- [18:47]
C
In terms of their support for Trump.
- [18:48]
A
In terms of their support for Trump. So it's like even if you have the same, roughly the same approval number, more of Trump's support. Trump had not consolidated his base at this point in his first term. He has consolidated his base now, but his numbers are the same. And that means that. That the numbers have eroded with those independent voters, with those floating voters in the middle again who flip back and forth. And that's what you saw to some extent in Virginia and New Jersey. So it's just a different breakdown. I tend to underrate all the other issues you brought up, like the America first thing. There was some grumbling right in the people said, oh, there's a MAGA civil war about whether Trump should have gone after Iran. But that was actually pretty popular. It turned out to be pretty popular when he did it after a few weeks of polling. His moves in the Middle east have been extremely popular. Right. In terms of securing a peace deal. So I actually don't buy that there has been any significant erosion with Trump's base within his MAGA base related to these kind of foreign policy questions. But I do think there's been erosion with. Absolutely been erosion with independence over cost of living issues.
- [19:55]
C
As we talk, there's a lot of narratives being formed in particular around Marjorie Taylor Greene's split with Trump and whether that's emblematic of something larger happening within the party, whether there is a crackup of the MAGA coalition. It sounds like you're saying no.
- [20:16]
A
Well, I would want to see it in the polling. I won't buy it until like maga, Republican approval for Trump declines, or to say you want something that's independent, maybe those people don't identify as MAGA anymore. Okay, just look at very conservative Republicans. You know, the way we kind of like, like to divide up a Republican primary elector. You have very conservative, you have somewhat conservative, then you have your moderates. So let's look at that, those kind of very conservative voters. Is their support for Trump declining in any meaningful way? I don't think so. Right. I mean, I, I, I mean maybe, you know, we have to continue to track it, but I have not seen any evidence of that, that so far where we are seeing the erosion. Right. Is among those, you know, more moderate and again those lower propensity voter groups who, you know, maybe didn't vote for Trump all three times.
- [21:08]
C
Yeah, I think, I think that's a really interesting point because it's maybe sort.
- [21:11]
B
Of the MAGA coalition seems to be cracking up a bit, if not the.
- [21:15]
C
Self identified MAGA voter, if that makes sense. And you know, I mean, one part of this, I want to just bring up more data here. There seems to be something of a dual track situation going on in the economy. According to the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, sentiment is at a three year low and close to the lowest ever recorded in their latest numbers.
- [21:35]
B
The only exception to the trend is among those with large stock holdings. And so that just doesn't really seem.
- [21:42]
C
Like a populist agenda or at least a populist outcome. When you look at sentiment with the economy right now, I think you always.
- [21:51]
A
Want to look at what are the outcomes for people like really in those bottom three quintiles. Right. Because that's really kind of determines, I think, the political direction of the economy more than, let's say what an aggregate statistic was. So I think that there have been various points throughout history that you could say, yes, there's an economic recovery, but it's being led by maybe the top 20%, the upper end of the economic spectrum. That was sort of what you saw in the early 2000 and tens where it was good enough to get Obama reelected. But there was still a lot of discontent, particularly in 2016, about a slow recovery among people sort of more at the bottom end of the economic spectrum. Late in the Obama era and into the first Trump term, that actually tends to reverse. And you actually see, okay, the people who are, you know, in that, at that median level are actually seeing their, their wages rise. You saw a pretty like about I think a 20% real wage increase, roughly a period or that was mostly late Obama into Trump among Hispanics, among Asians. And then when Trump goes up for reelection. Right. Those are the groups that swing towards him. So I really pay attention to. It's not just what the aggregate statistics say. It's what are the aggregate, what are those outcomes look like for, let's say, the median person, as opposed to just sort of what the broad averages are. And I think that really, kind of politically, that's what really is going to determine the direction of the economy very clearly, you know. Right. I mean, there has been something off and broken about our economic gauges, I think, since COVID frankly, where I think the Biden administration certainly felt this. They were like, well, everything's fine because the sort of. We're recovering in the aggregate. In the aggregate. But again, with the cost of living concerns being so dominant and, you know, I think that taking more of a toll than even, you know, kind of a rise in the unemployment rate would. That certainly has carried through to some extent. And that's, I think, what they have to work hardest to fix.
- [23:53]
C
Yeah. So the White House says it's embarking on an affordability campaign. Trump's reversing course on some food tariffs. He suggested a 50 year mortgage and floated sending $2,000 checks to Americans. You know, again, I think you would say this as a sideshow, but getting at maybe some populist themes. For what it's worth, Trump has also said this morning that he's pivoting from arguing against releasing the Epstein files to now saying the House should support it.
- [24:16]
B
We can put that to the side or we can talk specifically about it.
- [24:19]
C
I mean, do you think that any of this will work?
- [24:24]
A
Well, look, I mean, I think there's no substitute for people feeling that the economy's getting better for them. I mean, I think that's gonna determine the outcome. Now, do I think in the absence of, I mean, obviously, like, that's what any administration, that's what any president would want, you know, is really to improve those kind of economic perceptions. In the absence of that, I think you actually need to be talking about the issues and you actually need to be drawing a contrast with the other side on those issues. There's been a lot of talk, right, oh, Trump's gonna pivot to affordability, he's gonna pivot to these proposals. I don't think it's gonna stick necessarily, unless he feels like he has a good message to go up against the Democrats on. Cause I think we know what he relishes the most is the Sort of, you know, bare knuckled combat. So can you fashion a message on affordability issues that really takes on the Democrats either on the basis of some of the policies that they had put in place when they were in also, you know, frankly think that there's a message related to red states and blue states, right? You look at the, the states that have the worst affordability, the worst inequality, the worst kind of economic outcomes, it has been the blue state. So is Trump going to foreground that as an issue? Because, look, this is not going to be, I mean, we all know what the midterm dynamics are, right? It's not, it's not. People aren't going to vote in the midterms to say thank you. But if Republican voters have, feel like they have a stakeholder in opposing Democrats on, you know, the most salient on these economic issues, if they have a narrative, if swing voters have a narrative, that makes the election a little bit more of a choice from the perspective of the White House as opposed to a referendum, certainly have their work cut out for them. But that's the playbook, I think, for any party in the White House. In the same way was the playbook for, you know, some, you know, in 22 for Joe Biden, it wasn't convincing people like things were great. It's how can we rally just enough Democrats in the right races and concentrate our resources in the very small number of swing districts to mitigate our losses? And that can certainly be a strategy they follow.
- [26:42]
C
If you look at the betting markets right now, roughly the money says there's a 70% chance that Republicans keep the Senate and there's a 70% chance that republicans lose the House. Those are not, well, saturated markets. I mean, there's only like half a million dollars currently being bet on those things. Do you think that money is relatively smart? How would you place the odds?
- [27:03]
A
Similarly, I think relatively, I mean, I think that the Senate is the bigger question mark because I mean, you have to do some work to basically assume that, okay, in an Ohio, like in an Ohio or in Iowa, I mean, these are, that have perennially been. First of all, you have track records in those states, at least, especially in Ohio, of Democrats being able in a good year to overperform and to come close but never quite getting over the hump. You could say there were candidate quality issues in Ohio dating back, you know, in the last few election cycles. But you know, when you're talking about states that you have a federal race in where there's going to be saturation on money on both sides where both Republicans and Democrats are going to be mobilizing their bases to turn out. There's just not a very good track record, except for maybe Doug Jones in Alabama of a party being able to flip a state that is that, you know, for a Senate seat that voted 10 or 12 points to the right. Right in, in the last election. And I think it's a very different situation than in Virginia where Republicans, I mean, I think it basically conceded the governor's race. So there wasn't, I mean there was a pretty big financial disparity and I think Republican voters did not really have this sense of, you know, we have to turn out like it's existential. You had some, some of that is going on in the attorney general race, but you can never really mobilize in a down ticket race than you can for the top of the ticket. But I think like when you just consider the amount of money that's going to get poured in to these races, you really have to change the electorate pretty significantly, I think for Democrats to have a shot. So I, I, I kind of maybe take the, maybe a little bit of the over for Republicans, but just in the Senate, but just realize that it's, it's pretty high variance. Still a year out.
- [29:11]
C
Yeah. All right, I want to move on and talk about some of the polling work you've been doing at Echelon. But first, a break.
- [29:17]
B
Today's podcast is brought to you by you, the listeners. Without paid subscribers, GD Politics wouldn't be possible. Your support means that we can continue making an independent podcast guided by curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. Paid subscribers also get about twice the number of episodes, access to the videos and can join the paid subscriber chat. You can also connect your personal feed to your favorite podcast player so you get every episode wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, a reminder, we now have merch, so head over to gdpolitics.com merch for that and gdpolitics.com to become a paid subscriber.
- [29:53]
C
See you there. If you regularly read political news, it.
- [29:57]
B
Can seem like Americans are hopelessly divided into two camps.
- [30:00]
C
But this fall's elections, as we've discussed.
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B
In some ways remind us that the political environment is more fluid than that portrait suggests. And if you dig a little deeper, there's a lot of variation within the two parties. At Echelon Insights, you've dug into this diversity of sentiment to paint a more nuanced picture of the American electorate with your political tribes analysis that now people.
- [30:20]
C
Can Participate in by taking an online quiz.
- [30:22]
B
But can you explain a little bit.
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C
About what the political tribes are and how you map them out?
- [30:26]
A
So we started out with this idea, and you have these political compass tests that map people on multiple dimensions of ideology, but typically two dimensions. You've got an economic dimension, then you have, like, this social, cultural dimension. And some people call this authoritarian versus libertarian. Right. People have different flavors of this. But going back to 2016, political scientist Lee Drotman put out a chart similar to this that really showed that there were a lot more voters in this, what we call the upper left quadrant, which would be this economically liberal but socially conservative quadrant of the electorate. And if you identify the voters who flipped to Trump in 2016, a lot of those voters were really concentrated in that electorate, which was, you know, it's very different than, you know, the politics you might see in a place like D.C. where a lot of people, like, say, well, I'm more socially moderate or progressive, but economically I'm fiscally conservative. Right. It's the complete opposite in the real election. So we've been building out these political quadrants, always finding the same thing. That you have this very large populist quadrant that tends to swing back, right? That tends to be pretty swingy between the parties. And that's really, I think, what Trump succeeded in doing was aiming squarely at that voter. We took it a little bit further this year in terms of we can use kind of these cluster analysis techniques to figure out, just at a more nuanced level, how voters group themselves based on how they answer a bunch of questions and issue questions that relate to, I think, the big issues of the day. And, you know, we have about 25 questions. We also added a series of questions here, recognizing that it's not just economic and social issues, but this sort of idea of trust in institutions, trust in the establishment, whether you kind of tend to believe things that are more elite opinions or align against those. And so by bringing all these questions together, we came up with this idea of eight tribes. We can drill down on any specific one. But the big takeaway was in real life, among real voters, you only have about a third of people in those groups that are either hard left or hard right that basically are the kinds of people who agree with the party no matter what on pretty much every issue. And you have two thirds of people who have some form of mixed views, or you can appeal to them more on populism issues, or you can appeal to them more on social issues. And you really have to mix up your message a little bit, but it feels like the entirety of politics right is geared towards that one third of voters who tend to be very overrepresented online. So that was one of the things and now we put out a quiz that people can take it and we have a whole bunch of ways people you can compare yourself to what the average voter thinks.
- [33:21]
C
I'm curious where some of the biggest areas of cross pressure are for the 2/3 who don't fall squarely into hard right or hard left or solidly right or solidly left left. Is it say a lot of Democrats who are, you know, maybe more left leaning on things, but they don't really trust institutions so that aligns them more.
- [33:42]
B
With the Trump coalition. What are some of the biggest areas.
- [33:45]
C
Of cross pressure for those two thirds where if the parties want to pursue them, they would focus?
- [33:51]
A
I think the biggest thing there are a few blind spots that you have if you're online and I think this is true across for both right and left leaning voters online. In our poll so far we have about 57,000 responses where you find the online people across issues over indexing the most is on having these more pro establishment or pro elite positions right in this disposition, whereas in the electorate and this is true, there's this, this kind of, this group of people we call the young and disillusioned, which they're not necessarily all young, but they tend to be young where it's kind of they have fairly economic progressive views. They actually have pretty socially progressive views. It's a little bit heterodox within that. But they're very distrustful of elites and very distrustful of institutions. It's about 10% of voters now when you get into who votes in maybe these midterm elections, maybe they don't vote as much, but they do show up in presidential elections. And you know, I would say it's probably a group that was still mostly democratic on the basis of you think about maybe this is your voter who wasn't really happy with the Gaza war or you know, was discontinued, just generally disenchanted with the establishment. And this is where we kind of have this. Those voters are kind of invisible. I think if you're kind of closely following politics online because you don't really encounter them very much.
- [35:18]
C
I think a lot of the, the tribes people might have a general familiarity with I'll just name them. So you have hard right, moderate right, new Republican populists, middle American optimists, young and disillusioned American institutionalists, electability Democrats and hard left.
- [35:35]
B
There's another one in there that I.
- [35:37]
C
Want to talk about because like the young and disillusioned, it's more swingy or more heterodox, but leans right. So the young and disillusioned are a little more heterodox, swingy but lean left.
- [35:48]
B
Who are the middle American optimists.
- [35:51]
A
Yeah, I mean, so this is actually the swingiest voter group. And when you think about centrism, right. I mean this sort of, this, this definition of centrism where it's like, o, this is just an extremely thoughtful voter who considers both sides and just has pretty moderate. Is pretty moderate both dispositionally and kind of in their views. And that's not what a centrist is in real life. And a centrist isn't what a centrist is in real life is maybe they're taking a left wing position on one issue and a right wing position on another. And in the aggregate they're, they're kind of centrist and moderates. They may be pro life on abortion, but on other issues they're they lean left. The interesting thing is, you know, those are just voters who tend to be low information. One thing they share in common and one thing we found that was kind of differentiating about them was they still believe in hard work as an ideal. Like if you work hard, you can get ahead. And that's why we call the middle American optimists. But overall their opinions are pretty heterodox. What you don't see, you know, people who live and breathe politics online mostly, their views follow kind of a logical pattern. Right. You know, even if, you know, they're either hard right or hard left left or they tend, they really lean in on these institutional issues, you don't have this sort of, you know, I, I would say the same heterodoxy. And that's where you see kind of the big drop off in these groups. So, you know, it's kind of like, I think, you know, you really find, this is where you find the biggest gaps, I think, between online and real life is, you know, most people aren't paying very close attention to politics. They don't know what necessarily what the party line is. They may prefer a party, but they don't know what the party line is on each of the 24 topics that we ask about. And they tend to fall in these middle groups that don't tend to manifest as much in our quiz responses.
- [37:39]
C
Relatedly, before I let you go, I want to do a quick good data, bad data, not data question so last week, Blueprint, which is a Democratic strategy and polling firm, published their findings from what they're calling a Mad Libs style.
- [37:51]
B
Conjoint test test to find the, quote, pollster, optimized Democrat.
- [37:56]
C
They asked respondents about a hypothetical candidate based on their biography, their record, and the issues that they might focus on in a campaign. And this is what they found the ideal Democrat would look like in a general election. So they, they ranked all of the different biofax record issue focused things from most appealing to least appealing. And I'll just say the top three, three most appealing for biography were a.
- [38:22]
B
Veteran who's working class or middle class.
- [38:26]
C
That was the most appealing biography.
- [38:27]
B
The least appealing was a billionaire podcaster who's a socialist.
- [38:32]
C
Great.
- [38:34]
B
So when it comes to record, the most appealing was guided by their commitment to science, evidence and the facts, believes it's important to find common ground, and.
- [38:42]
C
Has created jobs in the private sector.
- [38:44]
B
Again, least appealing appealing was that they've changed their mind on important issues, have been targeted by the Trump administration or served in the Biden administration. And then lastly, on the issue focus, most appealing is focused on protecting Social Security and Medicare, bringing down the prices of food goods and services, and making healthcare and prescription drugs more affordable. And then least appealing were advocating for Israel, protecting the rights of the LGBTQ community, and advocating for Palestinians.
- [39:14]
C
So is this good data, bad data, or not data?
- [39:19]
B
And they say here, they say they're doing a conjoint test.
- [39:22]
C
They did not describe exactly how they got these results. But in any case, good data, bad data, or not data, good data, good data.
- [39:29]
A
I love it. I love it. I mean, it's a polling technique that you don't, I mean, not. You can do it, but it's hard to describe. So I really give them kudos for explaining it. If you think about, like, how marketers test products, actual, like, products out in the real world, they'll do these things where I was like, all right, let me give you a car that's like a red car with, you know, it's got a V8 engine versus, okay, you have the safe, reliable minivan and has all these attributes. And then you just ask people to randomly vote in between those two, and you're varying them randomly. So it's not just like, okay, it's a fixed. It's two fixed options like you have with most polls. That is the technique that they're using. And it's a, you know, it's a proven technique. Now, now my question, right, is, okay, what if I'm not a Middle class veteran. Right. What do I do with this data? I mean, there's certain things you can't change about yourself if you're a candidate, if you happen to be. Okay, maybe if I'm a billionaire, I'll quit my podcast. You know, in terms of, I think, like, but, but like, I mean, I just think you have to figure out, okay, how do you apply this data in the real world where you have actual candidates and the billionaire podcaster, okay, maybe they start out at a deficit, but guess what? They have a billion dollars, so they can solve a lot of their problems. They usually are able to solve a lot of their problems by having that money in the political arena. Maybe not as much with Democrats. The only issue I would take with the design was that I think they tested this among Democrats and independents. I would have tested it with, maybe not tested it with Democrats. I mean, if you're talking about the general election, I think you test it with persuadable, just persuadables only. But it aligns pretty well. Well, right. With stuff we see in the real world, it aligns with all the, you know, I know there's people pushing back against this, but moderation tends to win. More moderate candidates tend to win. Candidates who emphasize sort of general benefits to certain policies or talk about how you can help the middle class more broadly benefit, you know, do better than candidates who are narrowly focused on specific groups. And candidates who are ideologically extreme. Extreme don't do as well. So I think we saw this in the last election. You have more moderate Democrats win in Virginia, New Jersey, and you have Zoran Monda, me kind of underperform like the Democratic baseline in New York City. He still, obviously still won. It's good enough for a win. But, you know, I think a lot of what they're, you know, a lot of this data that they produced really aligns pretty well with, you know, what we see in our polls and what you see in elections.
- [42:08]
C
Yeah. So the numbers, the appealing descriptors that I read were based on Democrats and independents, I believe together. When you look at just Democrats, which I guess would. Would be sort of in a hypothetical Democratic primary, what people are looking for.
- [42:23]
B
There aren't dramatic, dramatic changes. But one of the biggest differences is.
- [42:28]
C
That the least appealing issue when it comes to record is that the person is guided by their religious faith. And then in terms of issue focus, one of the least appealing is securing the border. So the bottom three were securing the border, then advocating for Palestinians and advocating for Israel. So relatively similar, except securing the border.
- [42:50]
B
But like, when you think about who.
- [42:51]
C
Would you want to run in a general election in a competitive district or a competitive state, you might choose somebody who leans into their religious faith, who has a record of securing the border or something like that.
- [43:02]
B
So I thought the difference between the.
- [43:05]
C
Democrats and, and the electorate that includes independence was interesting.
- [43:10]
A
Well, I think what we would do in a campaign is say, okay, yeah, there's going to be issues that, that are going to be diverged between those two platforms, but you really find to find the Venn diagram between, you know, what do independence like and what do, what do members of your party like and really emphasize those things. Yeah, and there's going to be a ch. There absolutely is going to be a change in emphasis when, if you make it out of the primary into the general election, but you're not completely having to change up your entire message. You're finding, I mean, it seems like there's more than, than enough things that are in common between the two parties where you can actually kind of run with the same message throughout the race.
- [43:44]
C
All right, well, good data awarded by Patrick Raffini.
- [43:47]
B
Patrick, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [43:50]
A
Thanks so much, Galen.
- [43:51]
B
My name is Galen Druke. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Better yet, become a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and you can also join our paid subscriber chat and pass along.
- [44:05]
C
Questions for us to discuss on the show.
- [44:07]
B
Most importantly, you ensure that we can.
- [44:09]
C
Keep making this podcast.
- [44:11]
B
Also, be a friend of the POD and go 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.