Run for Something

In that sense, it really is a no-win situation for these Republicans stuck between an unpopular president and the voters who are fed up with his policies.

Uh, Manda Litman is a co-founder and president of Run For Something.

Jake Weisberg is the board chair for the Committee to Pro- Protect Journalists and author of the new book, Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, and they join me now.

Um, really fascinating insights in this book and, and, and I wanna start with you on, on one of them which is it seems to me you're almost at the point with Republican politicians-

So you mentioned Amanda Lippman, who I worked with in 2015 and 2016 for Hillary Clinton.

Amanda now runs an amazing organization called Run for Something that I actually, spoiler alert for the end of the book, after the last page of the epilogue, there's a note from me to readers saying, hey, I think you should think about running for office.

And here's the website of an organization that will help you.

But Run for Something has amazing candidates running for local and state office all over the country.

I would recommend looking at their website and seeing who's running near you.

Amanda also did a great post on her Substack, which I think is just amandalipman at substack.com. She did a roundup of where to donate, but I would say, which is also where to volunteer, right? Of a lot of like specifically really important races in terms of flipping house chambers, state house chambers, in terms of breaking up super majorities and in terms of particularly impactful local races, right? And then I would say, look local, right? Like I live in Los Angeles.

All right.

And now it is time for The Assignment Desk, and with me I have co-founder and president of Run For Something, Amanda Litman, founder of Ahmed Baba News on Substack and independent journalist, Ahmed Baba, Gen Z political commentator and founder of Mokler Media, Adam Mokler, and senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion and MS Now political analyst, Timothy O'Brien.

It's so good to see all of you guys this Sunday afternoon.

Thanks for being here.

[laughs] 'Cause Donald Trump keeps singing the same song.

He also refuses to admit that he lost the 2020 election.

You know, Run For Something, the organization I ran back in 2022, launched a program called Clerk Work.

It was our fun name for a very serious program to get pro-democracy election administrators in office on the local offices that actually administer elections.

Instead of trying to make a big deal about, "Hey, make me the first gay president." Voters were less likely to pick a transgender candidate, with Democratic voters about 5% less likely while GOP voters were 17% likely, all else held equal.

And on the age thing, Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits candidates under the age of 40, said when the group started its work nearly a decade ago, younger people were seen as risky bets electorally.

Uh, Ms. Litman now says, "I think people are starting to see that's not true.

They're really hungry for change and hungry for somebody who didn't get us into this mess." [laughs] The political poll did not find differences based on a candidate's race or gender overall outside of gender identity.