Loading summary
Transcript26 lines
- [00:00]
A
I say this all the time. I'm sure you have to do this as well. All your well meaning friends. I don't understand why more people don't like fill in the blank person. He seems really reasonable, right? And I say to them the reason that those people can't win primaries is because you like them.
- [00:24]
B
Hello everyone and welcome to the focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and this week we're going to do a couple of things. First, first, we are reassessing the state of the political landscape in light of some recent polling that has me mildly nervous, I guess because while the political environment is very good for Democrats right now, their lead in the generic ballot does not quite match the environment. So they haven't closed the deal yet. And there's been some recent history where the out of power party has fumbled some winnable races. Then I want to zero in on my home state of Pennsylvania and do a bit of a case study on a Democrat who is very much closing the deal with his constituen in a big swing state. And I'm talking about Josh Shapiro. My guest today is Amy Walter, publisher of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
- [01:13]
A
Amy, hey, what is up?
- [01:15]
B
My most popular guest.
- [01:17]
A
This is my favorite, favorite way to work through my feelings. In fact, it's like you were in my brain, Sarah, because I am literally writing about just what you raised at the very beginning of this introduction of what is going on. How can the generic ballot be narrowing at a time when the president's approval rating is not improving?
- [01:41]
B
Do you have a theory? What do you, why do you think it is?
- [01:44]
A
My theory is, well, one, to your point, voters haven't really focused in on this election yet. And if you think about what a congressional ballot test is, asking voters is like, okay, in November, are you going to vote for a Democrat or Republican? What they do know is they don't like Donald Trump in the way he's handling the economy or the war, other big issues. But they don't know enough about who the Democratic candidate is. And there is a sense of like this toxic Democratic brand that I think is a real issue and I think is is putting some of that concern in the minds of voters. At the same time, if you look at like generic ballot polls, what you also see is a Republican generic number stuck basically at 45%. So it kind of feels what's happened is that Republicans have gotten all their folks lined up, but I don't know how much more room they have to grow. Actually There are two issues. One is what will this generic ballot look like when we get a likely voter sample where we know Democrats are much more interested in voting and are more, much more likely to show up. And I think this generic gap will increase. So I think that's a, I think B, the other question is, come November, if we are talking about Iran, still gas prices, still more casualties from military operations in Iran, I think you're going to see a lot more Republicans stay home. And so what the sample looks like in a national survey is going to be different than the sample of people who actually show up, Right? Yeah. And so the electorate may be more Democratic ultimately than where we are today. All that to say, Sarah, I do think Democrats do have a brand problem. They do have a toxic brand problem. I think the New York Times polls from July really laid that out. The Senate polls from July laid that out really cleanly. For me to see the President underwater in Ohio, in Texas, in Iowa, the races in all of those states, the head to heads, very close, but the generic Republicans are leading four or five points or so. So they are not convinced that Democrats are going to be the answer to their problems. If the Democrat running in those states can be defined by Republicans as a generic Democrat, I. E. One who is way to the left on culture and social issues, that's how Republicans hold on to the Senate. But they're not going to hold on to the Senate because suddenly the political environment is getting better.
- [04:40]
B
I think I agree with almost all of that. I do think part of what's happening is we don't have candidates yet. And so Democrats are at each other's throats at the moment. Yeah.
- [04:53]
A
And that's what people are seeing. Right?
- [04:55]
B
Right. That's what people are seeing. And I think about in 22,
- [05:00]
A
I
- [05:00]
B
was so deep on all those races, just like you were. And Joe Biden was not very popular. Right. And the state of the country wasn't great. But the abortion decision, and then it was candidate quality. Candidate quality. Right. We're talking about Herschel Walker, talking about Carrie Lake, we're talking about Blake Masters. So many candidates on the Republican side that were election deniers that had really extreme views on abortion and that just, just otherwise seemed nuts and it allowed Democrats to overperform. Because that, I think, coupled with the other thing you mentioned, which is Democrats now have a somewhat of a structural advantage in these off year elections because the people that Donald Trump sort of turns out in all of these national races, they don't show up as reliably in the midterms. I've long thought that the. The negative number for Democrats or the fact that the numbers aren't higher, I know that part of that is coming from Democrats being mad at Democrats for sure. Right? It's people being like, Chuck Schumer's not getting it done. I'm frustrated with Hakeem Jeffries. I'm frustrated with the establishment. And I keep seeing this in the disparity between the money being raised by institutional Republicans, meaning the RNC, the big MAGA PACs, MAGA Inc, whatever, they have so much more money than the Democrats. And the number that I saw was that Republicans had about a billion dollars cash on hand from their institutional groups. Democrats had about 250 million, which is a 750 million dol gap, to be
- [06:35]
A
fair to the Democratic House and Senate campaign arms. The big disparity is really the RNC and the DNC, which is just a chasm. The DNC has $0. The RNC has many dollars. And then if you add into it MAGA Inc. And that's another $400 million that Democrats don't have. And so my question is, well, is that $400 million going to go in to individual races or is it going to sit on the sidelines because President Trump wants it to be used for what he wants it to be used for, not to help other candidates. But, Sarah, here's the thing about candidate quality. All those candidates you mentioned from 2022 were running in swing states that were, yes, unhappy with Biden, unhappy with the economy and inflation, but these were not deep red or deep blue states.
- [07:38]
B
Right.
- [07:39]
A
I think Democrats have strong candidates in these Senate races we just mentioned, but the states themselves are that much harder. Remember the candidates, though, that in 22 that Republicans were pushing right in places like Washington State, we're going to flip. We're going to defeat Patty Murray. No, they didn't defeat Patty Murray because it's a really blue state. I keep coming back to, to me, the real question is, it's a turnout question for Republicans. How many of these disappointed, disaffected Republicans stay home? They are not as motivated to vote as they were in 2018, and they're not as happy with Trump as they were in 2018. And then are these Democrats doing what they need to be doing with persuadable, soft Republicans to convince them that it's okay and safe for them to vote for a Democrat, even though they don't love the idea of Democrats being in charge of stuff?
- [08:46]
B
I was sort of trying to get at this with the money. While the Institutional Democrats are not raising a lot of money because people are mad at Democrats, the Democratic candidates for sure themselves are raising a lot of money. Especially the ones that people think the quality is quite good. Right. So people think that Mary Peltola is good, she's raising a ton of money. John Ossoff, that guy's raising like to the moon. Yeah. You know, Cooper in North Carolina is doing like.
- [09:13]
A
They're all outraged House candidates too.
- [09:15]
B
Yeah, the House, they are outraising their Republican opponents. And so it's interesting to me, when I see the generic ballot, I always end up with two minds, which is, number one, I do exactly what you did, which is I run through all the reasons that I think that number doesn't quite reflect the environment as it will be.
- [09:32]
A
Yes.
- [09:33]
B
On the other hand, and this is the thing I really want to stress, then there's the part of me, it's like, the dude went to war, inflation's really high, they've shot some Americans in the street. Like, what, the Democrats aren't doing better than this? Like, I just, I want people to think for one second about the fact that Donald Trump is so unfit, his corruption is legion and everybody complains about the media and voters are stupid and this and that. And I'm like, have you thought about the fact that, that in this environment, with a president who is this insane, he's like 80 years old, he falls asleep at his desk and what Democrats can't do better than this, that feels like a problem. Like they should be smoking him right now.
- [10:26]
A
But that's what Republicans said in 2022. How could we possibly not crush in a red wave? We've got an 80 year old president, we've got record high inflation. Afghanistan pullout was a disaster. And you're right, where Republicans did falter is, oh, and the answer to this is let's nominate really weak candidates. And I do agree that had the Dobbs decision not happened, it would have been a much bigger wave for Republicans. There's no doubt that that enthusiasm bump, I just don't see that there's going to be a subsequent enthusiasm bump for Republicans. Yeah, right. Trump does really well when there's a foil. And if the foil is, you know, oh my gosh, Democrats voted on some crazy bill and this is who they are and we need to rally against that, or there are caravans or it's the Kavanaugh, I think that helps to generate enthusiasm. I just don't know what it could be out there that would generate that level of enthusiasm to go out and vote against the Democrat.
- [11:36]
B
This is why I'm really looking forward to the primaries being over. Because I do think the one thing right now is that the thing that Republicans can do is they can use the DSA stuff and they are, they are using the far left as a foil to say, look how deranged all these people are. I sort of need the smoke to clear and for them to look at. Oh really? We got Mary Peltola and we got Ossoff. Go ahead and try to paint those guys as socialists but right now they're having a bit of a heyday with
- [12:05]
A
it, 100% and it's, it's what's in the news. And so if you are at all paying attention, what you hear about Democrats right now is exactly that. The rise of mam, Donnie, these socialist candidates winning Colorado, what happened there, right? All this, it all gets mixed into the sense that yeah, Democrats have gone way off to the left. We may not like Trump, but man, Democrats really have lost the plot. And we're not hearing as much about even though the candidates themselves. If you watch campaign ads, especially in competitive races, Democrats are talking about affordability, but you sure don't hear about that. It's mostly Israel right now, right? That's what you hear in the primary debates and Michigan is all about that.
- [12:54]
B
This was the question I was sort of trying to get to is do you think that like Republicans, which I think they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2022 by putting up a bunch of lunatics. Do you think the Democrats are in some ways imperiling themselves at the moment by focusing on an issue that is very important to Democratic primary voters and is very not important to sort of swing voters, low info voters, like a lot of the people who decide elections.
- [13:28]
A
If you look at the people who are winning these primaries, especially at the House level and including on the Senate level and obviously, obviously Michigan is. Let's just sort of put that aside for a moment. I don't think these are the kinds of candidates that are going to be easy for Republicans to say. This is somebody who is like, you know, whacked out, socialist, communist. Are they going to run ads with pictures of mom Donnie and AOC and Bernie Sanders? Absolutely. Every year when you are the party that's in power and you're desperate to change the conversation away from your unpopular presence, you gotta look at the most unpopular person on the other side. So everybody talked about Nancy Pelosi in 2018. You know, there were some People who were voting like Nancy Pelosi or did have positions on ice, abolishing ICE or the police, that made their candidacy sort of toxic. And some of them lost. But with the exception of Michigan, you can't look at those races and say, boy, you know, Democrats really put up some clunkers here. Does the bottom drop out on Republicans to a degree that they can win in a Trump +13 state? Michigan is not going to be our perfect example, because whatever happens there, right? Whether, like, let's say that El Said wins the nomination and he goes on to win, the DSA left is going to say, see, we can win in swing states. And the third way, moderate centrist Dems will say, the only reason you won is because the environment was so blue and good luck winning in a presidential environment with this record. And so both can be right. And we won't have an answer. And I think that's how this election is going to turn out is everybody wants an answer of, like, what does this mean for 2028? And we're not going to get it, and so we have to be okay with that.
- [15:28]
B
I do like answers. That's why I listen to these voters. Let's get to the voters. Yeah. Just so you know who you're listening to, we did a focus group in Pennsylvania with people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024, but who approve of Josh Shapiro's job performance. We will get to the Shapiro of it all later. We asked these Trump voters to give the Trump administration a letter grade, and those ran the gamut from firmly disapproving of Trump to being okay or even better than okay with the job he's doing. Let's listen.