Transcript
Mark Halperin (0:02)
Welcome in, everybody. Thank you for joining NextUp. I am your host, Mark Halperin, editor in chief of the live interactive video platform 2way, and your guide as always to everything that is coming. Next up, joining me in just a bit, one of my all time favorite people, Megan McCain, my colleague at Two Way. She'll be here. She's very fun to talk to. She knows about politics, celebrities and best of all, on any topic, Megan knows what's what. We'll talk about the news and also some relationship issues that I'm dying to hear. What Megan thinks. She's been talking on her own show about the Sydney Sweeney matter and I plan to hold her account for some of the things she said. Don't miss that. Then later in the program, we're going to talk about the topic that's always on everybody's minds, the US Economy. It's super confusing right now. It's a bit of a riddle wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a riddle wrapped in some bacon. And for that conversation to try to figure out whether the economy is on the rise or dangerously imperiled, we'll be joined by the very brilliant David Bonson. David will be here to explain it and he's the exact person I'd want to talk to about all of that because David understands both economics and politics and what happens at the intersection of the two. So we'll have a conversation about fun stuff, serious stuff, interesting stuff and two of my favorite people. So stay tuned for that. But first, I now have something first for you exclusively as a premiere for you Nexters, which is my 2028 invisible primary rankings for the Democratic Party as they search for a presidential nominee. Not too soon to talk about it. There's lots of 2028 news swirling about this week. First of all, Kamala Harris decision to skip running for governor of California in theory opens the door for her to run for president. I'm still not sure she will. There's not much enthusiasm amongst people I talk to about her prospects of her running. But had she run for governor and lost, I think that would have shut the door on running for president. And if she'd run for governor and won, also probably shut the door. To think that she could turn right around and start a presidential campaign with the rigors of trying to govern a very large state seems impossible. So we'll see what happens with her. Politico had a story this week. Their reporter went to a governor's meeting governors around the country and talked to a lot of the Democrats about what they're Seeing. And Democratic governors, as often happens when the party has screwed up a presidential race and most Democrats think they screwed up in 2024, is they look to the governors. You want an outsider. You want someone with executive experience. You want someone who understands how to run and fight decisively. And the two governors that people were talking about at that meeting were the governor of Maryland, Westmore, the governor of Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro. Those two guys, very accomplished. They have a lot to recommend them, which we'll talk about in a moment, but they're also well liked. And part of the game at this phase is to be well liked. And so people who are what are called the great mentioners will mention you. The person who at that meeting was not particularly well liked was the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, because he does not play well with his fellow governors, at least not as well as Maury and Shapiro do. As I said, not too early to talk about this because people are gearing up to run. It's an open seat. And. And you've got a lot of democrats in their 40s and 50s and 60s who really want to run this time. There's no obvious front runner. And so one of the things that anyone serious about running for president has learned over the last few cycles is run when it's your moment. And the poster child for that amongst Democrats at least, is Barack Obama. Really no reason to think he would have run in 2008 was not, quote, unquote, his time or his turn, rather. But he became convinced in talking to some of his fellow senators that it was his time, if not his turn, and ran in a very tough field, not just Hillary Clinton, but John Edwards and Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson. And he won the nomination. My first campaign that I covered was 1992. I was working in journalism in 88, but 92, I covered Bill Clinton. And he was not given that great a chance by some people to run. And after he did win, I started to think about, was that something we could predict? Could we predict that he'd be the Democratic nominee based not just on the kind of gauzy way people evaluate presidential candidates, but with a more rigorous style? I'm not good at very much, but here's three things I'm good at. Great at making bacon and pepperoni for my son, great at outfoxing the Delta frequent flyer program, and I think I'm pretty good at least at sizing up presidential candidates in both parties. Today we're going to talk about the Democrats, because I think the Republican side, although it's an open race, is going to be dominated by J.D. vance. But on the Democratic side, it's super interesting. And what I'm offering you today, classes in Session, is a free education for how you should actually think about who's got the best chance to be the nominee. We're not talking about winning a general election today. We're talking about who's going to be nominated by the Democrats. And the way to do that, in my experience, is through something I call the invisible primary rankings. This is super important. And I started in the 2004 cycle. I started in 2002. And it involves thinking about, looking at history and thinking about what are the areas, what are the individual categories that you need to excel in to win the nomination. Now, not all categories are created equal, and someone could be first and someone could be second, and the gap between them could be huge. And things can change over time. But what I do, starting now, and I'll do this throughout the cycle here with you, is I look at the categories I think matter most, and then I say who's ahead? And it's not just who's ahead right now, it's who's got a strong history in that area, who's ahead now, and then project forward a little bit. As I wrote back then, when I started this in 2002 for the 2004 cycle, it's how the candidate's doing currently, what potential they've shown, and based on everything we've seen so far, what are their prospects of excelling in the future. So these numbers, these rankings measure past, present, and future all at once. Now, the interesting thing when I look back at the first time I did this in 2002, is the categories can change, some stay the same. Raising money is always important, and yet raising money is different now than it was in 2002. 2002. For the 2004 cycle, you basically wanted to raise maximum checks, about a thousand bucks from rich people in big cities. That's where most of the money came from. What are the changes now? Well, of course, online fundraising. If you're not a great online fundraiser, you're unlikely to be a great fundraiser as a candidate. And super PACs play a huge role in presidential campaigns, which they didn't back then. Back then, in my first 2002 ratings of the Democratic Party rankings, the two top finishers in the various categories in the combined scores were John Kerry and John Edwards. They ended up finishing 1:2 in the process and, of course, forming a ticket. So I started off pretty well, and I Think this works again, Things change. In previous cycles, being really strong in Iowa to do well in the caucuses was amongst the most important. And yet now we're not even sure who will vote first in the primary category. So this process is one that has some things that carry over, some things that are very fluid. What I'm going to do for you today is not rank the whole field. We'll get to that eventually, I think. But just tell you who I think is one and two. Number one, top candidate, number two in what I think are the most important categories. And I'll say again, these things can change over time, but this is my projection of where we'll be. And of course, some of the people I talk about today will almost certainly not run for president in the end. And some of them, some people who might run aren't included here because they're not on my radar right now, or I don't think they will run. But I've included in here people who I think have a decent chance of making the race. And this is an interesting time to do this evaluation because no one's a declared candidate, no one's out there, but there is a lot of activity. You see people traveling to states where they think will be important on the calendar. You see people trying to meet with donors, doing media, developing policy ideas, and of course, trying to define themselves in the news as in juxtaposition to Donald Trump, even though he won't be the Republican candidate in 2028. I don't think, nonetheless, that's the contest right now to prove to Democrats that you're serious about running. So we'll run through what I consider to be some of the most important factors and would love to have you think about these ways, these prisms to evaluate. It makes me very frustrated when I hear people say, oh, such and such and so and so is such a strong candidate, or I really think this person's going to do well. And I always either ask them explicitly or just think in my thought bubble head, what are you basing that on? It's some sort of amorphous sense that they'll be strong. I prefer the rigor of thinking about the categories that matter most. If in presidential politics, regardless of party, there's something called the virtuous cycle. And the virtuous cycle is, if you look at history, the nominee generally dominates the virtuous cycle. What does it involve? It means you try to raise some money by going to people who support you even before you really have gotten in the race, and then Somebody will write a story about how much money you've raised, an impressive number, and that story will cause you to get more publicity and your poll numbers will go up. And when your poll numbers go up, then you go back to the donors and you say, hey, look at this new poll. Or you, or you email your list of people for grassroots fundraising and say, hey, I've risen from 2% to 6%, give me more money so we can continue the momentum. They give you more money. You spend that money on advertising or voter contact of some sort, your poll numbers go up again, you raise more money, you get better press coverage that that virtuous cycle, which is not linear, right? Because sometimes you can raise more money off of the poll, the polls, or the advertising, regardless of the press coverage. But that virtual cycle is what all these candidates need to get going. Now, some of them don't even know about it unless they listen to this show or they've thought of it on their own. But that's what's going on right now, is they're all trying to get the machinery moving. So let's talk about the factors that I think are most important now and who's doing well. And we start with money. Money is a funny thing in presidential politics because unlike in every other race, House, Senate, governor, money matters less because there's so much, what's called earned media, so much press coverage, podcast, TV, etc. That you don't need advertising. Voters get a very high percentage of their information both in the general election and the primary process, from media, not paid ads, but from media. And so the ads matter less. And yet fundraising is extremely important in presidential politics. First of all, you need a minimum amount of money to build a staff, hire people in the states and nationally and do some advertising. But money to me is most important as a badge to get that virtuous cycle going. So when you think about money, as I said, it's different than it was when I started this in 2002 for the 2004 cycle, and certainly different than 1992. The amounts of money that you need to raise are greater, much greater. Bill Clinton in 1992, his top fundraiser was a guy named Rahm Emanuel. And I think he raised like several million dollars in the beginning of the campaign. And that was considered, you know, miraculous and a sign of Clinton's support. So how do you raise money now? Three basic buckets. You have to have so called bundlers. So you call someone who's supporting you in New York or Atlanta and, and you say, have a fundraiser for me. And they got to call their Rolodex and everybody in their Rolodex, their contact list, has to call somebody else. And you try to raise as much as he can in maximum checks, about $2,000 a check. And maybe you say have your wife write a check or your husband, or have your kids write checks if they're, if they're, if they're over 18. That process, so called bundling, is a big way to get money. Second way is low dollar contributions on the Internet through email solicitations, texting, that's hugely important, costs virtually nothing to raise the money. It used to be done through the mail. You had to send people an actual letter with a stamp on it, and then they had to mail you back a check or their credit card information. Now, of course, just a couple of taps on a phone or on the Internet, that's an important way to raise money. And if you don't have the capacity to raise grassroots money, it says something about your appeal to the voters, right? About how much enthusiasm there is for you in a broad way. And of course, the other big thing about grassroots fundraising, if somebody gives you 100 bucks, they can keep giving you 100 bucks every month. You can keep going back to them until they reach that maximum of a couple thousand dollars. And Then lastly, super PACs, super PAC spending is not as efficient, but again, it's another sign to folks that you've got broad Support and super PACs can do things like run negative ads. So those are the three buckets. And I'd say right now, here are my two front runners. And the first one, the person who probably will have the most money is Jay Pritzker if he runs governor of Illinois. Now, that's not because he's a great fundraiser, it's because he's a billionaire. And if he does run, he'll put in his own money. Now that's not as good as the grassroots money because it doesn't demonstrate support. And the fact is, when you spend your own money on a campaign, it tends to deter people from giving you money. That's why Donald, one of the reasons, besides the fact that he doesn't like to spend money, that Donald Trump was reluctant to self fund his campaign. Because if you're a student of this, you know, if you're a millionaire or a billionaire and you start to fund the campaign yourself, it's very hard to get people to give money because they say, why should I give a billionaire or a billionaire money when they've got all the money they need. But if Pritzker runs, I think he'll. He'll raise some. He has a lot of rich friends. I don't know how good a grassroots fundraiser will be, but he'll raise a lot. Rahm Emanuel is number two on my list, also from Illinois. First of all, he's one of the best fundraisers in the history of Democratic politics, starting with that Bill Clinton campaign. But raising money for himself for the dccc, when he did that for raising money for House candidates, he knows almost every rich Democratic donor in the country in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, New York, Chicago, of course. So I think he'll, he'll be a big bundler. And then his brother, Hollywood super agent Ari Emanuel, I suspect will run a super pac, help to raise money for a super PAC for that campaign. Now, will he be a good grassroots fundraiser? I don't know, but I know he'll help. He'll try hard to do that. So those are my top two for money. Number two in the rankings is the question of the record and the issues. What have you done in office that you can take to the voters and say, here's how I can help you. Here's how I can make your education more affordable, housing more affordable. And the people who tend to do better in this category are governors or former governors because they've run something, they've had their own agendas. Harder to do this if you're a member of Congress. Not impossible. So my top two in this category are two guys who are in office now. Josh Shapiro, who's up for reelection in, in 2026. And in that campaign, we'll get a sense of his abilities in general, but also his ability to sell the Pennsylvania record. What is he going to talk about as he runs for election? That speaks to the question of will he be an effective messenger for the Pennsylvania miracle. That's when most governors who run call their state's performance and their policy positions. And then Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, Democrat in a red state. Shapiro governs in a purple state. Bashir is term limited. So he's not running for election. And he's got an opportunity to talk to people about what he's done in Kentucky. A lot of interest in his record in Kentucky in the abstract. Right. A Democrat who's done well in a state that's moved decisively red at the federal level and most of the state offices. So what was Sandy Beshear going to talk about? What's he going to sell? Right now he's selling more vagaries. What specifics will he talk about? Next category in the rankings, the visible primary. Here, the primary below the surface is the story, the bio. What do you say to people? You think about Bill Clinton, the man from Hope. You think about George Bush talking about giving up drinking on his 40th birthday and turning his life around. Barack Obama, grandparents from Kansas, growing up in Hawaii. These stories are important for the American people to get to know. You see you as a three dimensional person, but they're most effective when you can connect the story of what you've done, how you've lived your life, your bio before you ran for office with what you've done in elective office. And my top two here are two guys with incredible bios, incredible stories. It helps if your wife is involved too, or your spouse, I should say, to fill out your bio, maybe your kids as well. Wes Moore, governor of Maryland, has a great story, grew up on challenging circumstances in Maryland, in the military, worked in Robin Hood foundation, private sector, wrote an incredible book, and then is now in his first elective office. The governor of Maryland, Ro Khanna, congressman from California, originally from Pennsylvania, from a family with great immigrant stories on both his side and his wife's side, and a family that's got mixed political views and who understands the economy from the point of view of both Pennsylvania, which of course is Rust Belt and Silicon Valley that he represents. Now, I think both those guys have the ability, not just on paper, to have great bios, but they, they tell their stories well and they do a great job of integrating their personal histories with what they want to do for the country. All right, the next category is Early States. Here I got Wes Moore as number one, Gavin Newsom, California governor. Number two. What is it? It's about early states. We don't know what the calendar is. Back in 2002 and in the modern era, since President Reagan, the early states were clear. The early states were Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. Then there's been a little bit of mix after that Super Tuesday got created. But the importance of those first few states is massive. And Joe Biden exploded that a little bit. He moved the calendar around and then he didn't do well in the early states, but he still became the nominee. Typically, though, you need to win one of the first two, maybe one of the first three at most of the early states to win a nomination. We don't know what the early states will be. So how can I rank Westmore 1 and Gavin Newsom 2? I can do it because they are active in the states that they think will be early, particularly South Carolina. And they have the kind of operations that have shown the ability to try to game this out and say, we don't know what will be the early states, but whatever they are, we understand the early state game. What's the early state game? Courting the local political reporters, courting the local, federal and state elected officials whose endorsements and political operations will matter. Spending time on the ground with grassroots. So watch those two guys. As the early state calendar develops and clarifies by the DNC process, where do they go? And am I right that they're the ones who are going to have the ability to get traction there? All right, next factor, electability. I got Josh Shapiro, number one, and then Gina Raimondo, number two, former governor of Rhode island and former commerce secretary for Joe Biden. Very popular with the business wing of the Democratic Party. Why do I put these two. Shapiro? 1 Raimondo 2 because they've got a history of getting elected in general elections. Shapiro in a purple state. Raimondo in a in a Republican in a Democratic state, but with a lot of business support. And as I talk to the kind of donors and politicians and some folks in the activist community who care about electability, they're not looking for someone they agree with on every issue. They're not looking for someone who has the ability to tug the heartstrings of the base of the party. They're looking for somebody who can win 270 electoral votes. Shapiro 1 Raimondo 2 are the are the people whose names I hear the most. Okay, next is the hang test. Who do you want to have a beer with? Or if the candidate doesn't drink, who do you just want to hang on the corner with? Maybe go to Disney World with number one. For hang test, I got Pete Buttigieg, number two, Josh Shapiro. These are two guys who are not afraid to go on conservative media, whether it's Fox or conservative podcasts. They're likable. They can talk like real people. And the hang test is key. If you look at people who who do well in politics, people want to be ability to think about somebody they like. At the same time, they do want the president up on a pedestal a little bit. So I I would see, based on what we've we've observed so far, that Buttigieg and Shapiro are going to be one and two and knowing how to appeal to people in kind of a personal and human way. All right, the next category made for tv Gavin Newsom, number one, Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez what's this about? This is just, can you go on different television programs or YouTube programs and do well? Do you handle yourself well? Fun questions, challenging questions, policy questions. Do you come across in that medium as likable? Now, again, TV means different things to different people these days. In this case, it means anything with video, right? Anything where you're, you're going to be interviewed or, or people are going to be asking you questions or giving a speech, whatever it is. Those are two, I think are the top red light performers when the camera's on. All right, next category. Commander in chief. President's different than anything else. It's an electability question. Republicans will come hard at any Democrat who doesn't seem qualified to make the tough calls as commander in chief. But also voters in general want somebody who can do that part of the job. It's unlike any other job. Wes Moore and Mark Kelly, 1 and 2. Wes Moore served the military as did Mark Kelly. They both understand the customs and policy issues related to national defense. So I make them one and two. And this issue receded a little bit after the Cold War when Bill Clinton was able to get elected even though his commander in chief credentials were pretty limited. We're in a different time now. It swung back a little bit because of Putin, because of Iran, because of North Korea. Commander in chief matters a lot to voters. Next, media coverage. Who can get good coverage? Number one, I have Gavin Newsom. Number two, Rona. Two Californians. Both those guys are extremely savvy about how the press works. They talk regularly to reporters offline. They know what shows they want to be on. They know they monitor their coverage closely. They both understand that earn media press coverage across the board. And again, this has changed. In the old days, that was, you know, Washington Post columnists and Des Moines registered news reporters and the major networks and news magazines. Now media coverage spans across lots of platforms, Digital platforms, linear platforms, offline, online. Both those guys are very savvy in that area. And both tend to get relatively positive coverage. Not uniform, but mostly. All right, next category in the rankings, Buzz and momentum. Who understands how to be the IT candidate? Who understands how to be considered hot with the capacity to say that person's on a roll? The virtual, the virtuous cycle is as much about anything is about momentum. Gavin Newsom and Westmore, number one. Number two, right now, both those guys, if you look at the press clippings, if you look at the coverage, both those guys seem very hot, very aware of the need to be seen as the IT Candidate and body, political body in motion tends to remain in motion. And I think because we're at a phase now where people aren't really going after other candidates, even below the radar, at least as far as I see it, they are still in motion. Both of those guys are doing very well. And success begets success. Once you get a good. A good set of coverage, once you have a good fundraising report, once you do something that gets attention, more people want to see a. More reporters want to interview you, more bookers want to book you, more folks want a piece of you. And those guys have done a good job of getting that process going. Okay, this is a category that didn't exist in 2004 when I started this, which is the digital game. It means a lot of things. And number one, I have AOC. Number two, Gavin Newsom. It means making your own TikTok videos. And it means knowing how to take someone's tweet attacking you and turn it around, it's something positive. If you ask all these folks and say, what kind of digital game do you have? Or maybe their staff, you know, you got to be on every platform. You can't just have a game on X. You got to have a TikTok game. You got to have an Instagram game. And you have to know what to do to make that your own. The New York running for mayor, he set the standard. But AOC and Gavin Newsom are both extremely savvy. AOC has just. Just owned a digital space ever since she got into politics. It's part of how she got elected originally. And Gavin Newsom wrote a book about this. He understands in this day and age, like, sure, go on Meet the Press, sure, but that's not what it's about. It's about creating digital content that captures the public imagination. People talk about stuff that goes viral, and of course they want to go viral, but they also want the capacity to consistently communicate with people. Not viral every time, but consistently use digital to communicate. All right, couple more categories. Polling, a name id. Extremely important. People don't want to give you money unless they know you are. Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom. Two Californians, California, of course, our biggest mega state. They're both well known. She was vice president, he's governor, and have frequently presence on tv. And that helps a lot. You'd be amazed at how people who've been governor or senator, how hard it is to get well known, particularly in the early states. People may be vaguely familiar with their names, but they don't know anything about them. Now, in the case of some candidates and Harrison Newsom, both have their detractors name ideas and necessarily all, all positive. But that's a key one. And those two, I think, are head and shoulders above, above the others. And. And that's partly why they do well in the polls. Okay, fire in the belly. Extremely important. Amy Klobuchar, number one, Pete Buttigieg, number two, both of whom ran in 2020, both of whom did very well and chose to get out of the race in 2020, even though they were doing quite well. And they might have been able to beat Joe Biden, but Barack Obama and others convinced him to step aside. And this isn't. This means you really want to be president and you really want to win the nomination. And if you decide to run, and I think, I think in the end they'll both run, would be my hunch. You got to wake up every morning and ask yourself, what are the 10 things I need to do to get elected president? And then you got to do them. You have to burn for it. And I can't tell you the number of presidential candidates in both parties I've covered over the years who. They're just not. They're just, they're ambivalent. Their family's not sure about it. They're not sure. They're not sure they can win. You need the eye of the tiger to do this. And both Klobuchar and Buttigieg have that. All right. Lastly, is staff and consultants. Candidates matter most. But I don't believe that Bill Clinton would have won necessarily without Carvin Bagala, George Bush without Karl Rove. Donald Trump's an exception. He had some good people around him, but he was his own consultant. David Axelrod, David Plouffeth, Obama, Barack Obama, extremely important to be able to hire great people. And a lot of the challenge now in this cycle is so many of the experienced people been there, done that. They're at an age and a point in their careers where they don't want to do it. So you're going to have to find amongst the few people with experience who do want to do another presidential the best people. And you need a combination of people you've worked with in the past who know you and are loyal to you, but also some new people. And I put Gavin Newsom, number one, Rahm Emanuel, number two. They both know who the right players are. They both know who to look for, who to hire. And I believe that if they run, they'll be able to have amongst the best consultants out there. All right. That's my first take on the invisible primary rankings. This is going to be something we revisit. I think if you go through that, you'll see there's a way to think about accumulating those results and say who the front runners are. Just at a glance, you'd say that Newsom and, and Westmore and Shapiro are the top three. And not by coincidence, those are the three who I think are the most likely to be the nominees if they do run. We'll see. Tell me what you think about today's monologue. You can email me atnextstoppalperinmail.com you can find this show always on x Instagram and TikTok. Go to NextUpalperin and of course, watch us on YouTube at YouTube.com@nextupply halperin. Listen to us, watch us, whatever you prefer. 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