Mm-hmm

... pollster, about how Democrats not only overperform generally in polling, but they particularly for reasons that I have to go back and read it again to fully absorb, but, uh, particularly overperform well in the summers, and it may be the nature of the voters who ultimately decide these elections.

So ba- his basic supposition is that Democrats are at a high watermark polling-wise right now.

And you do hear, you know, within sort of the Trump world, they, they still profess confidence that they can pull this out.

One of the reasons, you guys, is they're sitting on a billion dollars that they're gonna deploy after Labor Day.

Now, 500 million of it is the president's, and there's no way he's gonna spend all of that money.

But even if he spends half of it, they are going to hit f- you know, 30 districts, 32 districts, and a handful of states with a torrent of spending, the likes of which we have never seen before.

W- uh, Ron, you think that'll be the case this time?

[laughs] What do you think of all that?

that?Um, I think his description of, uh, Rogers is pretty effective with the caveat that you mentioned about, you know ...

Look, this is a guy who in the first debate with Haley Stevens described ...

El-Sayed in the first debate with Haley Stevens described childcare as a gender justice issue.

I mean, he's kind of got to get out of the library a little bit.

And, and look, he has that experience, but, you know, he does have that whiff of kind of the online, uh, uh, self-closeted left, um, uh, or self, you know, kind of reinforcing left.

Um, uh, but I think he, I think that description of Rogers is, is, is effective.

Okay, Ron, so what does the winning coalition look like in granular terms?

So what do you think of all that?

Um, I think his description of, uh, Rogers is pretty effective with the caveat that you mentioned about, you know...

Look, this is a guy who in the first debate with Haley Stevens described, El-Sayed in the first debate with Haley Stevens described childcare as a gender justice issue.

I mean, he's kinda gotta get out of the library a little bit.

And, and look, he has that experience, but, you know, he does have that whiff of kind of the online, uh, uh, self-closeted left, um, uh, or self, you know, kind of reinforcing left.

Um, uh, but I, I think he, I think that description of Rogers is, is, is effective.

But I think like a lot of the Bernie-inspired candidates, he really doesn't want to focus on Trump as a unique threat to the American system.

Okay, Ron, so what does the winning coalition look like in granular terms?

So what does he need to do to, i- as it relates to appealing to Jewish Democratic voters?

Yeah, a- and look, I, I think, a- and there, the problem goes beyond, way beyond Jewish Democratic voters.

Um, first of all, you know, c- support for Israel in the US has broadly collapsed in the last several, several years.

The actions of the Netanyahu government in the region and the way they have participated in American politics has basically incinerated generations of support in the Democratic Party, uh, for Israel.

80% of Democratic voters, uh, in a recent Pew poll said they have an unfavorable view of the Israeli government.

Only 5% have a favorable view of Netanyahu.

So, uh, this is something that goes way beyond Michigan, and ultimately I think is going to lead to a repositioning, uh, w- uh, uh, of most Democratic leaders about the, the US posture, uh, toward Israel.

What are you looking for there?

So h- what does the polling tell us about this, and what's your sort of educated guess as to how that moves over the next three months?

So in Trump's first term, in the exit poll in 2018, 90% of people who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for the House.

In 2020, 93% of people who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for the House.

Over all of the elections, Oliver, all of the Senate elections in '18 and '20 for which we have exit polls, every Democratic Senate candidate, incumbent or challenger, um, won at least 89% of people who disapproved of Trump, except Sarah Gideon against Susan Collins in 2020 in Maine.

Susan Collins in Maine in 2020 was the only Republican Senate incumbent or challenger who won more than 8% of people who disapproved of Trump, according to the exit polls.

And then in 2025, we saw the same thing.

I mean, Cheryl in New Jersey, Spanberger [clears throat] in, uh, Virginia, they won I think nine- roughly 93% each of voters who disapprove of Trump.

North Carolina and, and, and Maine, or whatever order you want to go.

And so I think that if Haley Stevens is able to pull this off, part of it will be because she has gotten a huge amount of support from Black voters.

Yeah.

Stevens, uh, is, as Nancy said, relying heavily on Black voters, but also leading among non-college white voters and older voters.

And El-Sayed's coalition are basic- is basically college-educated voters and young people.

You know, ultimately, in the general election, uh, Democrats are gonna do fine with college-educated voters.

I mean, Trump's approval among them is significantly weaker even than it was in the first term, and I think Democrats are gonna run very well in places where there is a big white collar population.

The problem is they won an awful lot of those places already in 2018.

And so what Republicans are trying to do is say, "Hey, you know, forget what we've done or our record or Trump." I mean, Republicans are entirely in power in Washington, and they're trying to ask voters to forget about that, and then meanwhile, hold up these Democratic socialist candidates, of which, yes, there are an increasing number, but not that many, and sort of hold them up as the boogeyman for the entire Democratic Party, when in reality, the Democratic Party sure has progressives and Democratic socialists, but also just has a lot of centrists.

Ron, let me ask you for your thirty-thousand-foot take on, didn't happen overnight, how, how did a, a relationship whi-which was never viewed as a wedge issue, uh, or a third rail of American politics all of a sudden become one?

Yeah.

It, I, I think first of all, let me, let me...

I, I wanna start by kind of giving a, a level set here.

I mean, the magnitude of the collapse of Israel's standing in the eyes of the American public is virtually unmatched, uh, in modern American history.

I mean, if you look at Gallup polling where they ask, uh, if you have a favorable view of a country, right now forty-six percent of Americans say they have a favorable view of Israel.

That's down from seventy-five percent as recently as twenty twenty-one.

Yeah

But you tell me, you know more about it than any of us do.

Well, you know, I guess I feel like there are, and wrote, as I wrote in June, I think there are reasonable alternatives for main Democrats, you know, it was sort of a concentration or a kind of a concentration of errors that produced this primary, because on the one hand, you know, this outcome, Plattner did touch a chord early on.

Right.

I mean, he did.

I mean, there is a genuine response to him that goes beyond the extent to which I believe national progressive groups saw him as a way to make a point.

Yes, but he ultimately did touch a chord among Maine voters.

But part of what happened was that no organic alternative really emerged because the national Democratic leadership was so invested in the governor, Janet Mills, as, you know, their choice that prevented any anybody else, I think, preempted anybody else from getting in the race.

Oh, Probably both, right?

Where are we right now, a little less than five months, uh, till the midterms? How does this political environment compare to where we were in 2018, which was the last midterm when Democrats faced an unpopular Donald Trump and did quite well?

That is a, a really good place to, I think, uh, the, the r- the right point of comparison.

And I think this election to me is just shaping up as the classic collision between the irresistible force and the immovable object.

And both of them, both the irresistible force and the immovable object, are getting stronger as we go.

The irresistible force is the widespread disapproval of Trump and, um, dissatisfaction with the economy.

You know, if you go back to 2018 in the exit poll, Trump's approval rating was 45%.

Um, it is not going to be 45% in all likelihood on election day this year.

Yeah

Right.

Just to level set real quick again, 25 states voted three times for Trump, 50-0 Republican in the Senate.

19 states voted three times against Trump, 37-1 Democrat in the Senate.

Six states have flipped at any point in Trump's three elections.

Democrats now hold 10 of their 12 Senate seats.

Democrats are defending two in the switcher states.

this time, and you noted John Ossoff looks to be in very strong position in Georgia.

Go ahead.

Don't forget Iowa

... right, you know, the ante for Democrats in, in regaining the Senate is, is Maine because there are 19 states that have voted three times against Trump, and Susan Collins is the last Republican left out of those 38 Senate seats.

So before they can worry about breaking into kind of the red terrain, they've gotta consolidate the blue states.

And if you look back at Trump's first term, I mean, I've looked at the exit polls for every Senate race in 2018 and 2020.

Two things stand out about Susan Collins.

First, she is the only Republican Senate candidate, challenger or incumbent, who won during Trump's first term in a state where his job approval was net negative, where more people disapproved than approved of Trump.

She won 23% of voters who said they disapproved of Trump in the exit poll.

Take care.

Um, Ron, the question has been at some point, and not just for this term, but since the, the president, uh, was, uh, inaugurated back in 2017, what would be the breaking point? Uh, and, and as they at- go to this last midterm, uh, as, uh, in, in his presidency, is this appearing to be it? I mean, half the conference, the reporting says, stood up and said something during this closed door meeting.

Yeah.

Look, this was clearly too much for many, uh, Republicans for, for really obvious reasons of not only, as Mark said, kind of policy and moral reasons, but also political reason.

I mean, Trump keeps giving Democrats bullet port- points for their core argument in 2026.

What is the core Democratic argument in 2026? It is that you elected Donald Trump to solve your cost of living problem, and all he's done is make it worse through the tariffs, the war and gas prices, the cuts in federal healthcare assistance, while enriching himself-...

his family and his allies.

And as Mark said, you know, y- you go through the list, uh, the, the ballroom, now this, uh, slush fund, uh, for including people who attacked police officers on January 6th.

Uh, Tillis warns, "The stupid stuff is killing our chances in the midterms." You talked about Michael Whatley, but talk about the vulnerability of Republicans come November, um, as the calendar is really influencing a lot of what we're seeing.

And, and it seems as though his constituents, they like that about him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, we haven't seen a president try to purge and control his own party through primaries like this really since Franklin Roosevelt in 1938, who mostly failed to, uh, uh, oust southerners who opposed him.

And Trump, as Mark said, has mostly had success.

I mean, those Indiana results were striking.

But there are slivers of cracks in his hold on the Republican Party.

[laughs]

Why, and how much do you think that means that so many of the Democrats on stage tonight at the CNN debate are gonna go after him?

him?Yeah, I think it's pretty clear why he rose.

It was a flight to safety after Swalwell.

I mean, Swal- you know, the big fear among Democrats, which was intense in March, uh, and, uh, and even April, was that the party might get locked out of the top two finish, uh, and thus you'd have a Republican governor.

Even though the two Republicans are splitting only consistently 35% of the vote in the polls, Swalwell was emerging as the front runner, and when he imploded, I think a lot of Democratic voters said, "Okay, uh, Becerra is the safest choice that would ensure that we get a Democrat into the finals, when they will be overwhelmingly favored in a state where Trump is only at 30% of the vote and Hilton has refused to distance himself from Trump in any way." So I, I think Becerra has kind of taken the pole position, but it is not, you know, an insurmountable advantage that he has.

Uh, as you say, Steyer is going after him, and I think you'll see other candidates on stage go after him tonight.

But it's not unlike what happened with Joe Biden, uh, in 2020, you know, after those early primaries when it looked like Bernie was gonna be, uh, the, you know, the candidate, and Democrats worried that he couldn't beat Trump.

Remind our viewers, um, your situation and how you're doing now.

Handled sexual assault issues.

Han- I, I just look at the, the speed at which Swalwell unraveled and was forced out of the race, with pressure from fellow Democrats.

I mean, Donald Trump had two juries, uh, you know, in civil cases, uh, adjudicate that he had committed, uh, uh, sexual abuse, I think is the phrase under New York law, defamed someone by, uh, denying it.

And h- you know, there was ve- there was nothing like that on the Republican side.

And, and that does not only reflect kind of views of elites.

I mean, if you, if you drill down into the way voters in each coalition view allegations of sexual abuse, it is quite different.

Democrats will prevail in midterm and beyond.

To, to the congressman's point about gas prices, I mean, you have to understand where we're starting from on this.

... can't really been swayed, are going that direction.

I still think the circuit breaker here is the number you have to get to to get into this race as a Democrat is pretty low.

Paul Mitchell, who y- who you cite, you know, basically if any Democrat gets to 20%, they are certain, almost certain to be in it.

Because like I said, you have total Republican vote of, like, 35, 36, 37.

So the, the highest the two Republicans could get to would be, like, 18 or 19%.

Um, now, could that happen? Yes.

But I think i- if there is a real risk of it, the pressure would not only be on the lower tier candidates to drop out, it'll be on the party leaders to send a clear signal-

And he's holding up pictures

Yeah.

Because I don't think...

Like, Sherrod Brown and Mary Peltola are candidates who are not going to drive away a lot of the voters who disapprove of Trump.

I mean, they're, they're just, they're not, you know...

The, the Republicans are not gonna be able to demonize them to the extent...

Like, again, like, e- even when they do demonize them, you know, it's not, like, it, you know...

Again, like, it wasn't like, um, uh, who beat Claire McCaskill? Eric Schmitt? Like, it wasn't like he, it wasn't like he won a lot of people who disapproved of Trump.

Yes

Yeah.

And, and look, I, I think most...

I, I did talk to a couple hacks, ha- ha-, you know, yesterday, uh, a- about kind of the political impact of this.

And I, and I think most people agree that, uh, you know, the, the voters who are movable, which is only a certain share of the voters, are focused on their economics.

And, you know, two and a half hours inside the country of Venezuela to, to, to remove Maduro is probably not gonna affect them much one way or the other.

Obviously, there's a risk for Trump if there's any kind of follow-on military action, uh, and I think I'm with Mike.

I mean, you know, I don't think Trump has the stomach or the instincts for, like, an actual occupation and, uh, uh, an Iraq-style, uh, you know, insurgency that he has to, he has to put down.

Happy New Year.

And they have a deeper bench,Which argument is more persuasive?

Wow, that is a great way to frame it, Al.

Um, uh, I think that, uh, it's premature to assume that Trumpism is the dominant force in the country as opposed to the Republican Party going forward.

Um, I think that, you know, we are in a situation where certainly, uh, I can't imagine the Republican Party going back at any point in the near future to kind of a Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney vision.

I think that, you know, uh, revolutions within a party, as you know, are self-reinforcing, uh, you know, the, that, that essentially the primary electorate gets reshaped by the winning force and a lot of the people who resisted it, the kind of the Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney Republicans, they're gone.

They're, they're, they're not participating in Republican primaries anymore, presidential primaries.

Uh, and we saw the '24 primary was to the right of the '16 primary when Trump won, uh, the first time and I think that'll be the case for, for the near future.

Right, right.

Right.

Starting at 20,000 feet, I think the overriding goal of the second Trump presidency is not cutting taxes or cutting regulation, it is shattering the ability of institutions in blue America to resist him and to try to create a permanent advantage for MAGA, uh, in, um, you know, entrenching themselves in power.

And so, that is a campaign that has many elements, from sending the National Guard into blue cities on a routine basis, which is something he talked about explicitly, to what he's doing with law firms and universities and the media.

But an important front in all of this are changing the electoral rules in a way that they think will benefit them.

Uh, you know, and they have, uh, they already tried the executive order earlier this year to require citizenship, uh, to, uh, to register, which has been held up in the courts.

The, uh, Justice Department has, uh, started, as you know, created a unit to, quote, "go after electoral fraud," which is, I think, you know, many, uh, the people who study this, is clearly designed to, uh, intimidate local officials, in particular, to participating in purges of voter rolls that are demanded by conservative groups.

The Brennan Center had an excellent report on, uh, many of these initial steps, uh, that came out about 10 days ago, and now you have kind of the latest front.

Because he looks like he's fighting.

Right. No, and I agree, and I see the same thing, exact same thing you're talking about with CHIPS and Science, right? Trump is obviously speaking to this thing which Biden did too, which is the middle of the country wants its jobs back. It wants its jobs from the 1970s and the 1950s back, and so while Biden had CHIPS and Science which brought some jobs back, but again, you know, it's a real uphill climb to bring back manufacturing of the sort that we have not had in this country in 50 years, right? I mean, that's what we're talking about doing. That is the goal.

As they used to say on CBS, "Let's go to the videotape," right? So, Biden says, "Okay. I'm gonna bring back manufacturing with these subsidies under the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill to promote more domestic manufacturing." It worked to a large extent. He got over one trillion dollars of private sector investment, and over his four years from January of 2021 to December of 2024, happen to have this right here, he increased the total number of manufacturing jobs from 12.1 million to about 12.8 million. At the same time, he added about a million more construction jobs to build all of these plants that Intel was opening in Ohio, or car companies were opening in North Carolina and Alabama, and Georgia mostly red right-to-work states, but that's a different issue. So now, here comes Trump and says, "I don't wanna do any of those subsidies, but basically, I have a different means toward the same end. I'm gonna put up these big tariff walls and I'm gonna encourage companies to build new factories in the US, and I'm going to restore manufacturing jobs." Well, Joe Biden, as I said, I think was pretty darn successful at promoting these core blue-collar jobs of manufacturing and construction. 1.6 million more jobs combined in those two fields when he was done than when he started, and guess what he found out in 2024? It did not matter to the vast majority of Americans who don't work in construction or manufacturing. At best, there are 20 million people-... who work in construction and manufacturing. A lot more people buy eggs every week, pay for gas every week, and I think the bitter lesson for Biden and Harris, and Harris recognized this, was that jobs is not an antidote to crisis, as I said. And I think Trump is, is rumbling down the same track where, you know, if you look at polling, Americans overwhelmingly say that prices are the principal metric by which they're judging the health of the economy, not jobs. Even if you build more manufacturing plants in the Midwest, not that many people will ever work in them. As I said, 20 million, right? And then, you know, we have in polling somewhere around 60% of the country saying they do not believe Trump is focused on the biggest problems facing the nation and as I wrote, his economic approval rating is now, in many polls, lower than it was in any point in his first tom- term. His disapproval rating higher than any point it was in his first term, and mo- maybe most significantly, you know, if you look at CNBC, Gallup, CNN, never did his economic rating come in below his overall approval rating. His economic rating in his first term was always a floor pushing him up. Now, routinely, Gallup, CNN, NBC, Quinnipiac, his economic approval rating is below his overall approval rating. It is a headwind pushing him down, not, you know, a sturdying force pushing him up.

Right, and you have Bassett and Trump going out and saying, "You know, we might have a recession," which is unprecedented for a president, for any number of reasons. 'Cause you don't want a recession and you don't want people saying, "We're gonna have a recession." And when your people go out and say that, it tends to create a recession. It tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah. Well, also the, uh, just the sheer uncertainty on the tariffs and, you know, and, and like I said, eventually he's gonna run through the plate glass window. He's not gonna stop every time. He's, he's, he is gonna run through this window and impose significant tariffs and potentially slow down, you know, the economy substantially. But what I was saying is, you know, in some ways, uh, Trump, unless he is serious about trying to undo the Constitution, in which case it wouldn't be a real election anyway, Trump is not gonna face the voters again. What's more remarkable is that Republicans in Congress who are gonna face the voters in '26, you know, are showing no hesitation. Maybe a little on Doge here and there, but they are basically still running down this track and even toward what I think will be the defining political battle of 2025, which will be the effort to extend the tax cuts and tying that directly to cuts in federal spending, particularly on Medicaid. As I've written, the Republicans haven't directly tied tax cuts and spending cuts since '95, '96. Each of the subsequent tax cuts, the Bush ones in '01 and '03, the Trump tax cut in '17, that was sugar only, Molly. They only did the tax cuts. They kept the spending cuts years away. In fact, under Bush they didn't push for them until Obama came into office. This is a replication instead of the Gingrich strategy in '95, '96, where they're, in one bill, they are likely to say, "Okay, we're gonna cut taxes primarily for the rich and we're gonna cut programs primarily for the middle and working class, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, other things like that." That's how Bill Clinton turned around his presidency, by basically making that argument, that Republicans were cutting programs that benefit you to fund tax cuts for their rich friends. We'll see... You know, right now, Republicans look toward, they're steaming toward, you know, recreating that. We'll see if, if, if they kind of jump off the boat before it hits the falls and, and maybe try to dodge actually doing the cuts, but it's the Congressional Republicans who will face the consequences here. And, you know, while the Democratic image is very weak, I think it is weaker than at any point since before Bill Clinton, and that is a real issue for 2028, it's probably not as big an issue for 2026.