Sep 17, 2026 · 59 min · 12 segments
This week, the Way team is in the weeds preparing for the final election day push—so we're revisiting a show from a couple months back with Luke Martin, diving into tough terrain for Dems with…
Our Southern Battleground Poll was conducted mid-March among nearly 1,300 likely 2026 voters across the Sun Belt in Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, and Texas, with an oversample in 14 congressional battlegrounds.
Before we tick through some top lines, Luke, why don't you tell us a little about what stood out to you about the formulation of this poll? Did it feel a little different to you?
I mean, I think it's one of the really interesting things about this research is you know this is designed to be sort of like intentionally tough terrain for democrats um this isn't even like your typical you know like house battleground survey or senate battleground survey these are sunbelt states these are states where you know i think it as a sort of democratic party strategist if you're thinking about you know, where are the states where we need to gain some ground? Where, you know, where do we need to expand the coalition? It is a lot of these states.
I mean, you know, if you want to win Texas, if you want to, you know, make grounds in the deep South and places like Mississippi, you know, if you want to make long-term gains in places like Georgia and North Carolina, like this is the type of sample you want to be looking at.
It is intentionally difficult and we wanted it to be intentionally difficult to show that, you know, in these states specifically, you know, there is a, a different way to talk to voters that's really effective.
So I'm just going to ground listeners in some basics about the findings, and then we'll delve into the juiciest part, which is the messaging bake off that pitted both populist messaging and conventional Democratic messaging head to head against Republican messaging to see which type of Democratic messaging was most effective.
Have you guys noticed that I've had, I've ingested like probably four shots of espresso in the last hour.
I would have, you know, I already finished my latte for the morning, so I would have made it up.
One latte for a morning is never going to do it for me, but I salute you if you are able to do that.
Our Southern Battleground Poll was conducted mid-March among nearly 1,300 likely 2026 voters across the Sun Belt in Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, and Texas, with an oversample in 14 congressional battlegrounds.
Before we tick through some top lines, Luke, why don't you tell us a little about what stood out to you about the formulation of this poll? Did it feel a little different to you?
I mean, I think it's one of the really interesting things about this research is you know this is designed to be sort of like intentionally tough terrain for democrats um this isn't even like your typical you know like house battleground survey or senate battleground survey these are sunbelt states these are states where you know i think it as a sort of democratic party strategist if you're thinking about you know, where are the states where we need to gain some ground? Where, you know, where do we need to expand the coalition? It is a lot of these states.
I mean, you know, if you want to win Texas, if you want to, you know, make grounds in the deep South and places like Mississippi, you know, if you want to make long-term gains in places like Georgia and North Carolina, like this is the type of sample you want to be looking at.
It is intentionally difficult and we wanted it to be intentionally difficult to show that, you know, in these states specifically, you know, there is a, a different way to talk to voters that's really effective.
So I'm just going to ground listeners in some basics about the findings, and then we'll delve into the juiciest part, which is the messaging bake off that pitted both populist messaging and conventional Democratic messaging head to head against Republican messaging to see which type of Democratic messaging was most effective.
Have you guys noticed that I've had, I've ingested like probably four shots of espresso in the last hour.
I would have, you know, I already finished my latte for the morning, so I would have made it up.
One latte for a morning is never going to do it for me, but I salute you if you are able to do that.
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