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- [00:00]
Sarah Longwell
I just want to point out that that last voter means that the mainstream media made her like Trump more. She's not saying the mainstream media, like, was against him, is the mainstream media was for him wild. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and this week we're taking a break from the zillion primaries that we've been covering on this show. And we are surveying the national political landscape as we head into the summer and all of these primaries get resolved. In the last few weeks, we have seen the war in Iran drag on and the federal government start a slush fund for their political allies who they say have had their lives ruined by the federal government. Although it looks like in brand new reporting that just came out before we started taping, the weaponization fund may be off the table. So you will know that when this airs. But meanwhile, how does the rest of the country think things are going to. And what do people wish the administration was focused on? My guest today is someone I'm going to be checking in with more and more as we get closer to election day. Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the Cook Political Report, and my favorite nerd friend. Amy, thanks for coming back.
- [01:17]
Amy Walter
Thanks, nerd. Yeah, right back at you.
- [01:21]
Sarah Longwell
I. Do you know what? I. I wear it with pride.
- [01:23]
Voter 1
You too.
- [01:24]
Amy Walter
I'm gonna push up my glasses.
- [01:26]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. Do I want to sit amid reams of. Of cross tabs? I do, because I'll tell you, the state of things is looking bleak. Although, before we get into listening to voters, and I promise I won't, sometimes we, and me in general, can talk for a very long time before we get to voters. And I'm trying to get to voters faster, but, you know, I spent the weekend fighting on the Internet about Graham Platner and James Talrico because everybody's doing that. I know my. I gotta. I gotta get this habit under control. But as you look around the right, lots of people are focused on Maine. So you're wearing your Colby shirt in honor of Maine being at the center
- [02:07]
Amy Walter
of the political universe. It's never been at the center of the political universe. Actually, it used to. Remember, in the long, long, long ago days, as Maine goes, so goes the nation, because they voted earliest. They voted early, before the November.
- [02:21]
Sarah Longwell
I don't remember this.
- [02:22]
Amy Walter
Yeah, well, you wouldn't because we weren't alive. But. And so that's where the saying came from. They were the bellwether. The fact that the Senate race has taken outsized Attention is quite something. Not what we're used to.
- [02:37]
Sarah Longwell
Once again, I've gotten nowhere close to starting the actual voters, but because they
- [02:43]
Amy Walter
didn't talk about that, but they talked about a lot of things there, these are people who, you understand now how challenging it is as just listening to this group, I, you can appreciate how challenging it is as a candidate to try to win over these voters who believe everything is rigged. The media is rigged, the government's rigged, the system is rigged. Nobody's on the up and up, everybody's on the take and they don't believe anything. Right. It's like they are voting for the least worst choice. I think one of the voters said that and I think she said, doesn't everybody do that? Right. That's how you vote. You just pick the least worst candidate. You don't pick someone you like because there's no such thing. And I wouldn't say these folks were nihilists, but because a couple of them were like, oh, my life is actually going pretty well. I just think that the country is not doing great. But they just do not believe that this system is at all worth celebrating.
- [03:49]
Sarah Longwell
Let's get into it. So just to be clear, these are Biden to Trump voters. My, our favorite cohort of swingy voters to be able to sort of rock with. We're also going to listen to some Trump disapprovers later on, but they are distinct, different groups that we, we brought together. So one was actually screened for the fact that they rate Trump as doing a bad job, and then the other group is just your garden variety swing voter, Biden to Trump voter. So we're going to start there. We just did this group and we like every group, we start with the same question. How do you think things are going in the country? And you learn more from this question than you do any other question in the group. So let's listen to how they answered it.
- [04:30]
Amy Walter
I don't see Donald Trump coming into his second term as a leader.
- [04:37]
Sarah Longwell
I just feel like everything had to
- [04:40]
Amy Walter
be turned upside down when he came in. Instead of being more specific and goal oriented, especially when it comes to foreign policy, economic policy, he hit on the issues of trans issues. But that's not the whole fabric of America. We have bills to pay.
- [05:04]
Voter 1
We have health care to think about,
- [05:06]
Amy Walter
college to think about for our kids.
- [05:09]
Voter 1
So I think when politicians play on
- [05:12]
Amy Walter
those social media hot button issues and they can get into office, there has to be like a blueprint for, for the United States.
- [05:24]
Voter 2
I think we've done a 180 from when Joe Biden was there with the boys and girls, sports and the trans. And I think it's a lot better now kind of environment than it was before. I'm loving the kind of the American spirit that we have nowadays versus we didn't have that since 911 that I've seen. We're in the right direction, slowly moving upward.
- [05:44]
Voter 3
I think things are not going well at all. I think that the, the economy is basically is in shambles and it's going to get a lot worse. Everything that's going on with this war that, that we cannot win. I mean, like somebody said about the media, you can't trust anything coming out of the media right now or you basically trust zero because it just changes. It changes by the minute and it changes by the source that you're getting.
- [06:11]
Voter 2
In regards to my own life, things are great. I look at things kind of more like a chessboard, you know, I mean right now there is a lot of chaos, but there's been a lot of chaos for the last 10 plus years and it's only gotten worse. But I think that sometimes you just need to allow things to play their hand.
- [06:31]
Voter 1
I think it's pretty messy. I think we're lied to a lot. I think it just. A lot of people go straight to like social media for their news. And I feel like the White House page specifically is breadcrumbing people to believe all this stuff and distract us from the actual issues. And I think it's all finally coming to light, hopefully, and I hope that we get some justice for everything. But I never really liked Trump and like how he speaks to people, how he treats people. And then this last election, I, I don't know, I just, like I said, I kind of just got sucked into mainstream media and they like to pick sides and I was listening to his points of view and it kind of sucked me into him. And then now I'm, I'm definitely regretting it for sure.
- [07:30]
Sarah Longwell
So I just want to point out that that last voter means that the mainstream media made her like Trump more. She's not saying the mainstream media like was against him, is the mainstream media was for him. Wild.
- [07:44]
Amy Walter
The breadcrumb piece, which I had never heard that term before. Had you?
- [07:49]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, it's, it's the younger. The younger.
- [07:51]
Amy Walter
What does it mean?
- [07:52]
Sarah Longwell
It's a dating thing. Oh, somebody explained this to me once. Like a younger person explained it to me. But it is a like, like if you're texting with someone you like, you like text them. But then you don't text for a little while and then you text again. I remember when they told me about this, I was like, you mean playing hard to get? That's, that's what it seems to me like.
- [08:12]
Amy Walter
You guys didn't invent this learning, right? Like, oh, you invented flirting young people. Wow, look at you.
- [08:19]
Sarah Longwell
Every new generation thinks they invented sex and dating. So I remember that's. That was what the first time I had heard it. I think what she means though is gaslighting.
- [08:29]
Amy Walter
That's what I actually, that when she, when she went through it, it was more like, you know, Epstein files and all this other stuff trying to distract us from. Right.
- [08:38]
Sarah Longwell
But what was interesting is that somehow she knew the White House was constantly putting this stuff out and, and look, increasingly I've been writing about this for a long time and obviously people understand this now, but the extent to which people are getting most of their news. This is why it was funny when someone said mainstream media and I was like, ah, I wish we drilled down and ask what she means by mainstream media because she probably means like Joe Rogan and not ABC News. Somehow this person is, whether it's on Twitter or Instagram or whatever, sees what the White House is putting out and is like, this is nuts. So really dismal marks from these swing voters, many of whom feel just very betrayed. And, and look there this is. Now I've do a lot of these groups. This is a very consistent thread, which is mainly a version of. I wanted him to focus on the things that mattered to my material well being and he's not. And I'm upset about it and I feel like things are chaotic and you know, their frustrations. People didn't bring up tariffs in this one, but a lot of them brought up the war in Iran because that was the thing that we feel like is driving a crisis right now.
- [09:41]
Amy Walter
I mean, I feel like with this group as well as another group with these were Hispanic men who had voted for Trump. And you know, the war comes up without you having to ask about it.
- [09:54]
Sarah Longwell
That's right.
- [09:55]
Amy Walter
In two ways. This is what I think is also interesting. We tend to keep coming back to, well, it's about gas prices and gas so expensive and this is. But what they're all this group especially really homed in on was like, we can't win this war. What are we doing? Yeah, right. Like we can love our military and we're awesome and America's awesome and all of that, but this isn't un winnable position that we're in. So what are we doing here and how are we ever going to get out of this? And I think that too. So it's like a, a double edged problem for the administration because it's not like just a simple issue of, oh, this is increasing gas prices. It's also, this was really bad decision making. And I don't think this is anything that we can succeed in. There is the measure of success cannot be met. Yeah.
- [10:52]
Sarah Longwell
I also just think that the Iran war, sort of, much like the tariffs, sort of struck at the heart of Donald Trump as being sort of good for the economy. I think the war strikes at another central thing, which is that he's a great dealmaker and the fact that he can't seem to get us out of this or strike a deal. And it keeps dragging on like they were very aware and we're going to get to the Iran sound, so I shouldn't preempt it, but they were very aware that it keeps being like we're going to get a deal and then there's no deal. And so like they were following that. Okay, before we get to that, like I said, we had some, some groups that we've done that are Trump disapprovers. So people who voted for him but rate him as doing a somewhat or very bad job. And I want to play for you how they thought things are going in the country.
- [11:39]
Amy Walter
My main concern is the wars, war with Iran and everything. And I think it's very saddening because in my opinion, I think actually there's like, I mean, conspiracy theories here and there. But I think that, you know, realistically, Israel controls President Trump and a lot of the decisions that are made for Americans. And I think that's a hard reality that people are slowly coming to realize. It's hard to gauge him. But honestly, in my opinion, like, you know, I used to be a fan of Trump. I'm not anymore because of like the things that have happened since end of last year, early January. But I mean, I still wouldn't have Kamala Harris.
- [12:19]
Sarah Longwell
My brain is literally spinning with so much, but not in favor of the way things are going. It's a little bit of what every other woman has expressed. I think that he sold us a bag of. I'm not going to curse, but, you know, I do not like the way things are going, even with ice. And border control for me was a very big thing. That was one of my biggest concerns with this election was cleaning up the country and getting these, these dangerous illegals out. But I don't like how innocent people, professionals, have been incarcerated or taken. I feel a lot of us are
- [13:06]
Voter 4
really struggling and we're really looking toward our leaders for help. I don't think he's helping the people that need help right now. He's helping his friends, the rich ones.
- [13:22]
Voter 5
Unless you are like a millionaire. Just like regular, everyday things that used to be very common are near impossible to do, whether it be outings or just going to get something to eat, groceries, like I grocery shop every week. So, like, I know when thing when prices are going down and up. And like, I'm like, he's lying. Like, nothing is checked. Okay, maybe the eggs like have gone down, but like that. I've never paid $9 for ground beef before ever, you know, like even the good kind. So that, that is really, really crazy and getting very scary. And it's just like I really thought that it was going to be about us here at home. He made me feel like he empathized with the plight of what was going on with Americans and, you know, middle class and like, below. But it just kind of feels like it's been involved in other countries and big corporations and all that since then, the beginning and not really focusing on, on us here at home and like real everyday issues.
- [14:34]
Amy Walter
I voted for President Trump and I
- [14:37]
Voter 2
tried to give him the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things,
- [14:40]
Sarah Longwell
but the communication has been beyond poor.
- [14:43]
Voter 2
It's been outright antagonistic at times.
- [14:45]
Amy Walter
It's caused so much division in the country, it's ridiculous.
- [14:48]
Voter 2
And it doesn't even have to be there.
- [14:50]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, inflation's high.
- [14:51]
Amy Walter
It's supposed to help bring it down. It's, I think, worse now than it
- [14:55]
Sarah Longwell
was when Biden was president with the
- [14:58]
Voter 2
gas up real high and stuff. And plus they talked about maybe giving
- [15:03]
Amy Walter
a stimulus payment to help from inflation, and I don't think that's ever even going to happen. I read something interesting yesterday about people were complaining about gas prices and they asked, you know, why is it so expensive in the US if we're not dependent upon the oil Iran, even though the other countries are. And essentially they were saying that, you know, like, BP and all these big corporations are just selling it over there because of course, they can make gazillions of dollars over there selling it instead of keeping prices low for the American people. And I think that really shows, like, what's really happening here is it's these big corporations and things are benefiting and we're suffering because of it. And I'm all for capitalism. I don't want communism and socialism. I don't want what the left wants. I don't want what the Democrats want. But I feel like, you know, when the American people are in these situations, then, you know, it's, it's just we've gone off the rails.
- [16:00]
Sarah Longwell
Since you listened to other focus groups. Would you say this through line? Because I just think it's really consistent in the stuff I'm hearing. These are not the swing voters. These are just Trump voters. But they disapprove of I was doing. And it's almost entirely because of these economic things. And you heard people say it in there like he was supposed the America first thing was meant he was going to take care of us and he's not. Is that consistent with the kind of stuff you're hearing?
- [16:24]
Amy Walter
It is definitely consistent with what I'm hearing and what we're seeing in some of these other polls. Right. I know there are pollsters who now break out the Republican samples into MAGA aligned and non MAGA aligned. And again, these, the non MAGA aligned are not anti Trump.
- [16:42]
Voter 2
Okay.
- [16:43]
Amy Walter
These are people who voted for Donald Trump but do not define their entire identity as a voter around him. And the numbers on Iran, on inflation, on all of these issues that they just talked about are so much lower than those who identify as maga. So this numbers meaning Trump's approval rating on all of those issues. And so the rift within the Republican Party, I, I say to people all the time, Trump is not losing the MAGA base. The Maga base is 100% with him and they will always be with him. It's the other people who voted for Donald Trump who did not wear a MAGA hat, who didn't show up at rallies, but also didn't want to vote for Kamala Harris, don't want to vote for Democrats right now, but they also don't see much of a reason why they should show up this year. I mean, I think that's fundamentally the challenge for Republicans in the midterm is that the MAGA base, like what percent of the Republican base MAGA is it 55? I don't know, but let's just call it 6040 MAGA, non MAGA. And if 40% of your base is saying, eh, you know, you didn't really deliver on the things I thought you were going to deliver on. I. And yeah, I still think Democrats are crazy and socialists and all of that. So, you know, I'm going to sit this one out. Yes, that is a problem. They don't, it would be Better for Democrats if they said, and I'm going to vote for Democrat because that's like a twofer. But even if they stay home, that puts a lot of what should be traditionally safe Republican seats in play.
- [18:28]
Sarah Longwell
You know, over there. Cook, you guys are really good at, you know, thinking about how if the blue wave crashes big, you know, mediums.
- [18:37]
Voter 4
Right.
- [18:37]
Sarah Longwell
Like what does that net in seats? Especially after everything that's happened with redistricting. Yes. Which really put some seats back in Republicans hands. Although you know, you look at a place like Texas and you look at some of the places that they did the gerrymandering in and you're like, I don't know that blue wave is big enough. They might, they might still lose those seats. Do you guys have a sense right
- [18:57]
Amy Walter
now of where it stands, where we put things? You know, based on now that redistricting it looks pretty much done. If the Alabama map ends up passing scrutiny, 205 Democratic seats will be start off. As of today, Democrats are favored. You need 218 seats, of course to be in the majority. There are 18 toss up races. So they'd need to win 75% of the closest races, the ones that we think are 50, 50 to get a bare majority. So on its face you think, wow, 75%. That seems, that's kind of high. Rewind for a minute, Sarah. Before the Supreme Court decision in Virginia and the U.S. supreme Court decision on voting rights, Democrats had 217 seats in that safer category. Right.
- [19:50]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, that's a big change.
- [19:52]
Amy Walter
They went from 1% needing to win for majority to 75%. That's a big change. The fundamental question to your bigger picture question of like how big can the wave get if we just assume it goes in the ways that traditional waves go, which is seats that today are sitting in the sort of lean Republican area but are going to by the time we hit October are going to shift over to tossup. You know, you're getting then into a situation where a net of 15 or 16 seats. Right. Would be. I don't know if that's the ceiling of where they can hit, but I think we did move the ceiling for Democrats down a bit from say the high 20s or mid 20s down to more like 15 or so. The big, big, big million jillion dollar question is how many districts that Trump won by more than 10 points could be at risk.
- [20:59]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [20:59]
Amy Walter
And the wave has to get pretty big because we just don't normally see most of the seats that go in a wave year are those seats that The President either lost election before or he won by less than 5. There are hardly any of those. The next tier would be one with less than 10. They're about two dozen of those. So even if Democrats were to win every seat that Trump either lost or won by less than 10, that's 24 seats.
- [21:30]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [21:31]
Amy Walter
So you know that, that is, yeah, that's a, it's a win. They will win the House, but it is the idea of being, you know, 40, 50 seat pickup, that is not likely.
- [21:47]
Sarah Longwell
That is dismal math. I mean that, that redistricting, I mean, I've known this, but it, when you put it like that, it just reanimates for me.
- [21:54]
Amy Walter
Right.
- [21:55]
Sarah Longwell
How much of a power play that was for them and how it ultimately, with that Virginia decision and the Supreme Court decision, like, man, it shifted.
- [22:05]
Amy Walter
It really did help. And so what I would say, the, the short answer is it lowered the ceiling of gains for, for Democrats. There are still though, for Republicans, too many vulnerable seats out there that Trump carried by less than 10. And remember, the seats that look vulnerable today for Democrats look less vulnerable as well. Because the environment is going to lift. Doesn't lift all votes, Boats, it just lifts the Democrats boat. Yeah.
- [22:40]
Sarah Longwell
Let's go to the war in Iran because obviously that was in some of the earlier clips, but we also asked this group of swing voters, the Biden, the Trump voters, how they were feeling about Iran generally and about the news reports of the peace deal. So let's listen.
- [22:54]
Voter 2
In the beginning of his term, I mean, like the stock market cross 50,000, you know, first time ever, things were starting to really kind of churn out a little bit. And then the war in Iran started and I feel like the way that it was presented on the news, it was kind of like how he was trying to just get in and get out. And I think it turned into something more. I know there was a big announcement over the weekend that pulled Trump and a bunch of people out of their plans, vacation, whatever, pulled them back to Washington. Yahoo reported they were close with the deal. I think actually like about 45 minutes ago they did sign like a 60 day cease fire. But again, it's probably just stall tactics and so forth. So I don't really know what to think about it. I just, I'll never doubt America. I'll always put my back behind our country.
- [23:50]
Voter 3
I mean, you hear that they're closed. How many times have we heard that? And then yet Monday there was bombings. The description on that was like there were bombings so that, you know, the ceasefire could continue. And it's like, what in the world are you people trying to put out there to make us even try to rationalize what's going on there? My personal feeling is you cannot win this war. You know, the harmless, the straits are shut down. And it's like just, you have to work on getting that open because the repercussions of that are unbelievable. What's going to happen because of that? You know, so it's like, I'm just to the point where it's like, you know, oh, we're close to a peace deal. Yep. Here you and how many more days you need to give them.
- [24:40]
Sarah Longwell
All right, so in that group, part of what was funny to me is that there's a lot of different people in the group, but three of them were like pretty middle aged white guys, like Trump's primo demographic. And they were three kind of different guys. One of them was, and he was the guy speaking last was like so angry about how everything was going and was just kind of like throwing his hands up, being like, how insane is all of this stuff? Things are terrible. And then like the most pro Trump person in the group was one of these guys who was like, yeah, I think things are getting better under Trump and kind of wanted to defend him, but you could see that the other guy, I thought at some point they might start talking directly to each other, but they didn't. And then the third guy was the guy who was like, things are bad, but not for me personally and America. Like, I'll always bet on American military. But what he means is if things get really bad, we can blow them up because we have a big, mighty military. And so I just, I thought they were interesting because the, the, the guy who was, you know, backing the military was also talking about, he's like, do presidents really make much of a difference in the lives of people? One of the things that has been wild to me, or not wild, but Trump's losing ground everywhere. But he is also losing ground with white men. And I do think the Iran war and gas prices has a lot to do with that. What have you been seeing in the polling that you guys are doing?
- [26:04]
Amy Walter
I do think that's 100% right. And that straight of Hormuz guy kind of captured it right. Which is, again, I, I voted for this guy. I can't remember what reason he gave to go from Biden to Trump. I think it was overall just dissatisfaction with Biden and the way he was handling everything. And he was one of those like, well, I can't vote for Kamala Harris. So I went to Donald Trump again. There were a lot of people in this category. He's not, he's not anti Trump. He didn't come into this as like, I was duped. He was like, I thought things were going to get better with him. They haven't. I really fundamentally do not understand what we're doing in Iran. And I think to that point, even the one who was saying, well, I always bet on America basically saying, I don't know what we're doing there either. But you gotta trust that at the end of the day, Trump always finds a way. Right? Like just when we think he's down or when we think there's no way this is gonna work out, somehow things work out in his favor or in America's favor. So I'm still gonna hold on to that. But you do wonder at what point, like, what's the breaking point? So I think maybe that's what you have in that group. You had the people who, from the very beginning were skeptical, continue to be skeptical and are. They're just out. And you just had maybe two if that people who are like, I'm willing to give it just like, maybe another week.
- [27:30]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, that's right.
- [27:31]
Amy Walter
One more deal. Maybe this is going to work. I'm not willing to write him off yet, but that's, this is not like support for other things that the president has done. Right. That they maybe didn't 100% buy in on. I'm sure you have some of these early focus groups on tariffs where Trump voters being like, I don't know that I love this idea, but Trump's, you know, he's got a plan and he knows what he's doing. And I'm willing to hold out for a little while because it's true, we are getting ripped off.
- [28:06]
Sarah Longwell
Had a lot of those groups have lots and lots of those.
- [28:09]
Amy Walter
Right? Like, let's give him a little while. Let's, let's, let's let him work his magic. Because we have such recent memory of the quagmire that has been the Middle east for US Military. And because it is such a clean and clear visual to see this waterway, literally blocked and behind it are all the ships that need to go out and deliver oil to. I think for most voters, this is a right. Like, they, they don't need to. You don't need to understand military history or military strategy to understand why this is really hard.
- [28:53]
Sarah Longwell
I do think it's interesting because we actually cut a piece from the show that was about the weaponization slush fund. But what was crazy, again, it is crazy to us. But, like, I do know this about voters. Only a couple people had heard about it in the groups. Right. It was not a thing that they were super tuned into, but they are tuned into the war in Iran, and they do understand the strain of Hormuz.
- [29:16]
Voter 2
Do you know why?
- [29:16]
Sarah Longwell
It's having personal consequences for them. And no matter how much corruption Trump has and people. I think people should make a lot of the corruption, but you do have to attach it to people's lives, because it does not naturally attach to their lives where they see what they are losing out on because of Trump's corruption. Whereas the Strait of Hormuz was open, now it is not. Donald Trump can't get it back open. And our gas prices keep going up and the cost of everything's about to go up more, and people are worried that it's not. It's like, we're not. It's not done yet. Yeah. Like, it's going to get worse. There was a lot of that. Like, there were the people who are like, well, you know, give them some time, because you're right, all of 2025 was A. People kept saying, well, do voters have buyer's remorse yet? Do they have buyer's remorse yet? Everybody, like, you know, on. On the news, they just wanted to hear that. No. People are super mad. And I was like, you know, they're saying things like, Rome wasn't built in a day, and you got to give them time, and they're not happy with it. This was true. They weren't. They were kind of upset that gas prices were going down, but they were giving him the benefit of the doubt, and that is evaporating.
- [30:19]
Amy Walter
Donald Trump talked a lot about tariffs on the campaign trail.
- [30:22]
Sarah Longwell
Right.
- [30:22]
Amy Walter
He talked about how important they were, and they were a critical piece of his economic plan. And so, look, I think voters were somewhat prepared for that. And I think maybe a voter in this group. I can't remember how she said it, but it's kind of like what they were saying. Like, he doesn't seem to have a plan on this. Right. I think that is their biggest challenge, like, I guess on the tariffs. This has always been his thing. He talked about this on the campaign trail. I didn't really understand how it was going to impact me. Now I kind of get it. Don't know that I love it. But Iran, like, where did this come from? How did we even be? How did we get here? Why are we in this at all. And that's the thing that makes it harder to justify. Even if you believe that at the end of the day, Donald Trump can make a really good deal. It is not anything they were prepared to deal with.
- [31:25]
Sarah Longwell
And I'll just add, as a quick note, addendum to the gentleman who said, I think just a few minutes ago they signed the 60 day ceasefire. That did not happen. They didn't get that. They didn't get that deal done.
- [31:36]
Amy Walter
They did not get that done. But his point was, you know, they'll just keep signing it and kicking the can down the road, but they're not solving it.
- [31:43]
Sarah Longwell
I want to end on something that is kind of flying under the radar as a big picture issue for folks in D.C. but I hear coming up all the time in focus groups, which is these AI data centers, I know some people are paying attention to this, but it, I mean, the voters talk about it all the time. And we had an extended conversation about AI in the Biden to Trump swing voter group. And many in the group knew about fights going on about data centers near them. And I want to just play some about how they talked about it.
- [32:13]
Voter 4
I'm in the middle of a huge countywide fight against data centers. People are showing up about their water already and about 40 people are being pushed out of their homes. And it's just very personal. Like, we're in small town Georgia and it's, it's just devastating to see. And I think that kind of took the cake for me on whether or not I might vote. The only reason I'm going to is because maybe when I go to heaven it'll account for something. I have no idea whether it is, but to watch the entire county say we don't want this and it didn't matter. I mean, it just didn't matter. It got approved unanimous, not unanimously. There was like one other person that said, you know, no, but it's very corrupt that like air pollution and water pollution that these are going to cause. And I think just being pushed out of homes, like saying like, hey, you don't have a choice, you have to move. That's so inhumane.
- [33:16]
Voter 2
People are voting here in Pittsburgh in these old mill sites and they're putting these data centers and people are saying, we don't want them, we don't want them, we don't want the pollution, we don't want this, we don't want this anymore. But yet they just keep coming and then there's no stopping. And then it's just like, doesn't matter. Who the governor is, who the mayor is, they're all on board because it's job creation and it's just. It's not job creation. It's short term, for long term pain.
- [33:43]
Voter 4
Someone I went to college with was displaced by AI and she works in IT tech as well and she's been looking for a job for three years. Also the water issue with data centers. Like 70% of this country is in a state of moderate to severe drought, but yet they continually add data centers that are using tons of water. I believe in Fayetteville and Fayette county, they have a data center there that use 75 million gallons of water. Water and were never even charged.
- [34:15]
Voter 1
We're actually having one right now in our town. Everybody voted no on it. And then it turns out it came out that it was already in the process and a done deal thing. Like the farmers had already sold their property and everything for this to start being built. So basically, yeah, like our. Everybody that showed up to the city hall, it was for nothing or word, doesn't matter. I'm kind of like in the middle about it. I think it can do good things, but I think it's being abused and it's. They're not listening to what we want. Like we have neighboring cities that they're saying the noise is crazy and the kids are not being able to sleep and just a lot of stuff and just we're not being heard about it. I think we had a county, it was like three counties away. They all voted no and then the data center ended up suing them anyways and they won the lawsuit and so they built it anyways.
- [35:13]
Voter 3
We had one in our town and it was just a big fight. Like, you know, like everybody's talking about and you know, they actually won. So they didn't. They. The, the people won. But the, but the site that was identified literally just went one town up and it got approved. So it was, you know, they lost the fight to get it, but they got it anyway.
- [35:35]
Sarah Longwell
So I've been really interested in this data center fight because it is one of these local issues that I feel like national politicians aren't talking about much. Although when I was doing the 2025 races, like your Abigail Spanbergers, your Mikey Shearls, it was coming up a lot in those conversations as well. But here's what I want to ask you about it because the through line there was like, we voted, we got them anyway or we didn't want this and we're still getting them. To me, this, you know, we didn't want this, but it didn't matter. Sentiment sort of felt like the way that local politics creates this sense in people that democracy isn't working for them.
- [36:22]
Amy Walter
I was just thinking that because it actually is, is a good bookend to our conversation that starting this with the conversation about these Biden to Trump voters as these folks are pretty cynical. They're pretty frustrated that, you know, the system isn't working and that it is all rigged and all institutions are rigged and that the local government should be the place where they feel like they can make a difference. Right? Like national politics. They're big lobbyists and they get bought off. And Washington's far from me, but this is my county, this is my community. If we just raise our voices, surely we can make a difference. Oh, we can't, right? And that is the sort of full circle piece of that. And it goes to the heart of why so many people feel so disillusioned about our politics, which is if our community gets together and we all agree that this is bad, our local elected officials who also live in this community should at least be listening to us and we feel like they aren't. It also is a stand in. These data centers are clearly a stand in for other anxieties, right? So it's a stand in for the anxiety of like, politics now is so far from what regular people want. It's all about what them, right, the institutions and the rich and the powerful want. But it's also about, look at AI, that woman who said, you know, I have a friend who hasn't had a job in three years that it undergirds that here's this big ugly building that's going to be built in the middle of our town. It's not going to hire that many people. So don't come and tell me this is like some great job creator. And the likelihood is my kid's going to get displaced from whatever job they want to have when they graduate from school. And so I do not see how like, we are literally giving tax breaks to gajillionaires who are, you know, what the Googles and whatever of the world who are building these for them to literally take our water, take our land, and then take our jobs.
- [38:32]
Sarah Longwell
I think that's right. I'm often like, hey, you got to innovate. Like, AI is here. But the anxiety is about both the technology and the infrastructure, right? It's both sides of it. And, and Adam Genelson was on a couple weeks ago and he said something that that like, was just in These focus group which is, this is something that people feel like is being done to them, that they don't have any say over both the technology and the infrastructure. I keep noodling on what is the message that a. Like, does this become a 2028 issue? I suspect it does actually, just as how much it's coming up.
- [39:12]
Amy Walter
Well, if you're a governor running in 20. 20. 20.
- [39:15]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [39:16]
Amy Walter
I mean if you're a governor right now and you're running For President in 2028, you've probably been in some, some way shape or form this data center fight. You either approved tax breaks or whatever legislation that was going through or you vetoed it or maybe you didn't. But whatever it is, you've been, you've been in the middle of it. So if you are a governor, you better have a pretty good answer for why you did or didn't do something on this. But you're right, it feels like it is, it is so much of a stand in for the, the broader conversation that needs to happen. People feeling completely blindsided by AI in general. And that it's not just AI, it's that the only people benefiting are the people who are also super rich and powerful.
- [40:10]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [40:10]
Amy Walter
And that is a sort of deadly combination. And you're right, it felt like it happened overnight. And you know, if you were going to build a prison in my community, I probably would have heard something about it, right?
- [40:24]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [40:24]
Amy Walter
But I didn't hear anything about this till they started building it.
- [40:28]
Sarah Longwell
People do feel like it came out of nowhere and is like happening fast. I'm going to keep an eye on this one because I, I think it's really smart.
- [40:35]
Amy Walter
I do too.
- [40:36]
Sarah Longwell
I think it's going to keep being a bigger and bigger issue. Okay, Amy, Walter, thank you so much for coming back. We will do this again soon because I'm going to keep relying on you to talk to us through all of these races. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. Please remember to go do all the things Become a bulwark. Plus subscriber rate and review us on itunes. Go hit subscribe on YouTube. Whatever you're doing, just subscribe to things. We'll see you guys next week.