11-06-25 *INTERVIEW* Mike Nellis on the Democrats' 2025 Blue Wave

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Old enough to have done that.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am so pleased to welcome to the show for
the first time, Mike and Ellis. I already feel like
we're friends, even though we've never talked before, because I
see him so much on my buddy Leland's show on
News Nation. Leland actually was on the show yesterday, and
I've been really looking forward to this because Mike is
an aggressive, unabashed hardcore Democrat activist fundraiser who really understands

(00:30):
the party and politics and policy. And we probably don't
agree on everything. We probably agree on some stuff, but
there's not that many people who are strong in all
of those areas. Like you'll get someone who's good on
party politics, but he's really bad on policy. But I
find Mike good at all this stuff, even if I
don't agree with him. He's a good analyst and a
good talker. So with that, it's very good to have

(00:51):
you on the show.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Mike. Thanks for making time for us.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Be true nice.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
So, but before we get into all the stuff I
just said, your Twitter profile says you have raised over
a billion dollars with a bee for Democrats and nonprofits.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
How do you do that?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
And was that your profession at fundraising like previously to
being so politically active or is it part of really
the same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, I've been.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
I've been politically active since I got out of high school.
I dropped out of college short for Barack Obama in
two thousand and seven. I grew up in Nebraska and
he was running the Iowa Caucus and I drove out
to his first event and.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Never really looked back. So I joke, I've never had
a real job, but I'm one.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Of the sort of first people that helped build online
fundraising and digital advertising for the Democratic Party. And so
in the course of doing that, I've helped raise a
ton of money for candidate's like and a bunch candidates
you're not gonna like, but Adam Schiff, Gretchen Whitmer, Corey Booker,
Lauren Underwood here in the Chicagoland area, a bunch of others.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I've got a great team with people that work with me.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
You're right, I don't like them at all.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
But it's not really It's not really important in the
sense that I admire your success. It's much more important, like,
you know, just the fact that you figure out how
to do something and you know, put together numbers like that.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, I mean I would, well, I was gonna.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
In a way, I was going to say, I wish
you were doing it for my side, but I don't
feel like I have a side right I'm an unaffiliated
libertarian and I don't feel like I have a.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Side right now. Okay, So.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
How much better were you feeling or are you feeling
this morning versus Tuesday morning before the elections.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
Yeah, well I felt pretty good Tuesday morning. I kind
of got what I expected. Tuesday night, I had a
good sense that people were really frustrated that Democrats has
done a good job to set Abigail Stamberger, Mikey Cheryl
up for success.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
I didn't know how good the night was going to be.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Like I was surprised to see Democrats defeated the super
majority in the state Senate in Mississippi. I was excited
to see them win twesday wide races in Georgia by
thirty points. It was a big night for the Democrats,
and I think for me it was we get to
wash away a little bit of the stension of twenty
twenty four off our backs.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
I'm going to make this a question great and you
implied it already. But for me, I wasn't surprised that
Democrats did well. I was surprised how well they did.
So could you just elaborate on that a little bit?
And also one specific thing. Were you surprised that j

(03:28):
Jones won the Attorney General's race in Virginia?

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, I was surprised that J. Jones won.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
I really thought that that was going to be one
where Republicans were going to get But that's how big
of a blue wave that it was. And I know
this something to you and I were probably gonna get into.
It is one of the reasons I reached out to
you to do the show, because you were talking about
it with our buddy Leland last week. But I think
people are so frustrated at the Republican Party right now,
so frustrated with inflation and grocery prices and housing that
they just looked past what J. Jones said and they
were like, forget it, I want a Democrat in here.

(03:55):
I'm not voting for the Republicans.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I partly agree with that. I don't I don't disagree
with any of it. I think I would add to it,
and I will in a second. But let me just
tell listeners, because I should have said this to begin with.
You can and should follow Mike Nellis on x formerly
Twitter at Mike Nellis n E L L I S
and his substack, which has like eight hundred billion followers

(04:21):
or something like that, is called endless Urgency, And you
don't even need a substack link. You can just go
to endless urgency dot com. I'm just trying to get
my own substack going, and it occurs to me I
already own Rosskominski dot com, So I guess I could
just redirect it to that kind of like sort of
what you're doing, so you can.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Do it in the back end. It's super easy. I'll
help you when we're not on the radio.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Okay, all right, that'll be good.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Okay, we're gonna do it on the radio. Probably wouldn't
be sun.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Listen, no, right, Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
So you said that part of what happened was was
frustration about cost of living in particular, and I think
that's exactly right. And I said on the show that,
first of all, unsurprisingly the exit polls showed cost of
living and stuff kind of around that as by far

(05:11):
the most important issue to people, right, And you have
a lot of Republicans and MAGA people jumping up and
down and cheering about how happy they are with the
closed border.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
And I'm okay, and I'm.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Very happy with getting immigration under control, although i think
some of the other scenes surrounding immigration in America probably
turn off some Americans. But I'm happy with the closed
border thing. But that's not what most people care about.
Most people care about can they afford to put food
on their family?

Speaker 1 (05:36):
As George W.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Bush said, right, yeah, But I think what I would
add to what you said is separate from.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
The issue and the policy. I think in a lot
of places.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Including here in Colorado, there's just a ton of people,
including moderate Democrats and unaffiliated voters, who despise Donald Trump.
And we saw this in the twenty eighteen elections here
in Colorado. Really really well qualified and well liked Republican
incumbents lost to Democrats that nobody ever heard of, in

(06:14):
an absolute wipeout because people hated Trump so much that
they just went through and voted straight D. So I
would I'm not disagreeing with your explanation, but I would also.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Add that, yeah, I think that that is right.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Like people do not like Donald Trump, which by the
way it should be noted like he won in a
last election, won the popular vote, didn't get a majority,
but won the popular vote.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
I think what does that say about the state of.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
The Democratic Party a year ago that people brought back
somebody that they really don't like. And if you look
at the exit polls from a year ago, people would
tell you they liked Kamala Harrison where they like Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
They just didn't think she'd be able.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
To get anything done, and they were pretty frustrated with
Joe Biden his presidency.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
On the economy, Trump won last year.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
The more main promise that people paid attention to was,
and this is a quote, grocery prices will go down
on day one when I'm president. He said that basically
every day of the campaign. They ran TV ads on it.
He said it on Meet the Press like a couple
of days after he got elected president re elected president,
and he hasn't done anything about that. Instead, he's made
everything a lot more expensive and then denied that it's
a problem and that's going to drag people down. And

(07:16):
you're right that they're going to be highly qualified, good
you know, not bad Republicans Like look, I'm a partisan
but if you put a good Republican in front of me,
I can have a conversation with them, might even consider
voting for them every now and again, but you know
they're going to drag them down. I think Trump is
generally speaking a net negative to the Republican Party electorally.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
He's bad at picking candidates, and.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
That's why, like Democrats should not have John Fetterman shouldn't
be in the Senate right now. But Trump got behind
doctor Oz instead of getting behind a normal Republican candidate,
So I think it's a real.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Problem for them, and he drags them down significantly.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Okay, so I will say I think Trump is much
better right now at choosing candidates to endorse than he
was in the past. He had more success, you know,
a couple of years ago than he did in the past.
But still, what I said on my show, yes about
Trump is and again, an election is a choice, so

(08:05):
we have to get back to comparing to Democrats, but
just looking at Republicans in a sense, I feel like
Republicans can't win with Trump there, but they also can't
win without him because you know, with him, they pick
maga candidates who turn off a lot of normal people
and would and without him, Republicans don't turn out.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
In the general election like yesterday, like Tuesday.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
I actually disagree with that take. I think if they
had run Nicki.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Haley in the last election, she might have won forty
eight states against Show Biden nor Kamal Harris. I think
people were starved for a normal, relatively kind of Republican
who had guided the country forward. She would you guys
would have won back er, it's not you, guys said,
don't want to plump people with all the Republicans, But
Republicans would have won a lot more like suburban voters
in that last election. But Trump turns them off so much.
So I think it's like a double edged sword. Yes,

(08:54):
he brings out a lot of people that don't vote,
part of the MAGA coalition. But in this last election,
in particular, Nikki Haley wins in a landslide in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Okay, so I should clarify because I don't disagree with you.
What I should have said was as long as Trump
is on the scene, right because I was a Nicky
Haley supporter. Actually, I was a Nicky Haley supporter. I
really wanted her. I mean, she's not it.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Was my dad.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
My dad really wanted Nicky Haley. I want Trump back.
My dad's a huge Republican.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Right and next time. I mean, we don't know who
all is gonna run and whatever. But if you you
look at the at the landscape right now, if I
had to pick someone, I think I think my guy
would be probably Marco Rubio. I cannot, I cannot fathom
jd Vance. I want to play something for you now,
and this is this is something that you can imagine,

(09:42):
just just makes my just sets my teeth on edge.
And I want to talk about the direction of the
Democratic Party after you hear this from the newly elected
mayor of New York City.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Okay, there is.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
No a little too large for government to solve and
no concern to.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Care.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Okay, So in case it was hard for you to
hear Zorn, Mam, Donnie said, We're going to prove that
there is no problem too big for government to solve
or too small for government to care about. And that
scares the be Jesus out of me. What's your how
do you just your gut reaction? How do you feel

(10:28):
about what he said?

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Well, I think.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
It's we're living through this weird moment where I think
the Republican Party believes in big government and a lot
more Democrats believe in smaller government than you would can
then you would believe obviously, Mom, Donnie is not one
of those. My issue here is that I think in
the last twenty years of our politics, government has withdrawn
from solving any problems, and you don't have enough political
leaders that are trying to solve anything, and because of that,

(10:53):
everything's spiraling out of control. My assumption, Ross, and I
don't know you super well, is that your expectation as
community can solve it, corporations can solve it, business, and
the free market can solve it.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
You correct me if I'm wrong about that. I think
it's both.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
I think it's how do you get into a place
where we started having this conversation of what can the
government actually be useful and helpful to solve and how
do we create the conditions for society, community, business to
actually solve those problems. Because I don't think corporate America
is solving a lot of problems either, unless there's a
ton of money to be made in it, and that's
a problem too.

Speaker 5 (11:21):
My viewpoint is more like this, I think you all
know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words
in the English language are I'm from the government and
I'm here to help.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
So that's that's how I am, right And just so
you know, I'm a lot older than you, my first
vote for president was for Reagan in his in his
re election. But do you you're probably more or less
fairly characterized my viewpoint. I'm not an anarchist, so I do.
I do think that there could potentially be some legitimate

(11:56):
role for government. For example, we were talking about food
stamps because you got all this food stamp problems with
the government shutdown, and I said, look, I would I
would eliminate food stamps if I could for most people
because right now what happens is and this sounds like
an argument a leftist would make in a way, but

(12:16):
right now what happens is a government partial subsidy of
somebody's food expenses allows businesses to pay those people less,
and I'm not down with that.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
So what I.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Said is is eliminate it. I don't mean if I
were trying to make a practical solution, i'd say, over time,
eliminate it. But I could live with having something like
food stamps or we call it snap now for people
who really can't help themselves, really can't work, or disabled physically, mentally, whatever.

(12:49):
So I'm not looking for people to starve in the streets.
I just don't want government to even think it could
solve all the problems. But I think that's a fundamental
philosophical difference between me and you, or me and people
to my left.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah, well, I think you would be surprised that you
and I would probably agree on more because I actually
consider myself a libertarian on a ton of different issues.
Generally speaking, I want the government to leave people alone
unless there's a clear public safety issue. Now, I believe
in a really strong social safety net that supports people.
So I do believe in universal health care and make
sure everybody has access to healthcare. I'm a small business owner.
I run five small businesses myself. I make sure all

(13:25):
my employees self health care. I think it's ridiculous that
it's my responsibility to provide healthcare for my employees.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
I think it drags my business.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Down, and in every other major country, small businesses don't
have to do that.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
That's why there should be some kind of public option
or access to Medicare or Medicaid people to be able
to get that on SNAP. I agree with you.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
I think the current way that the SNAP program works
is it is subsidizing companies like Walmart and McDonald's and
other businesses so that they have to pay people less.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
If you've got rid of food stamps.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
To phase them out over time, the result would be
either a lot of people would start or you would
have to start forcing companies like Walmart to pay people
a living wage.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
And the problem is this version of the Republican Party.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
They want to eliminate, but they don't want to do
anything about the fact that we're subsidizing low wages for
major corporations.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
So and where again, this is kind of interesting, like
you and I will start on the same thing, and
then we'll diverge a little at the end, because I
would not end up saying we then need to force
the corporation.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Right, So a lot of people on my left.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Would start with the argument that I made that you
agree with, and then they would end up saying, and
therefore we need to increase the minimum wage. And I
think I'm against the very existence of a minimum wage,
and I do think the market will take care of it,
and I do think private people and charities will take
care of it when the when the private market doesn't.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Anyway, let's keep going. So if you're just joining we're talking.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
With Mike Nellis, you got to check out his sub
stack at endless Urgency dot com and follow him on
Twitter at Mike Nellis an e Llis. So back to
party politics for a minute. Dems did really well.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
I don't know that.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
You know the first year after a presidential cycle that
it necessarily presages a lot four next year or three
years later. But I'd rather, you know, I'd rather have
be a Democrat than a Republican after that. But the
Democratic Party still remains in polling more.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Unpopular than Republicans.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
So if you were advising Democrats, and you are advising Democrats,
how do you advise them to not suck so much.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
In public perception.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
I think it's funny that you say that sucks so much,
because I say that at every private meeting I have
with my class. I've often joked that if I stopped
doing my career, if I just didn't have my career,
I'd be an independent voter like the next day, because
the party drives me crazy too.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
So here's what I would say.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
I think one, Democrats have to be really careful having
looked at Tuesday's results and make.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
The assumption that we're back, right.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
I see a lot of people going the Democratic Party
is back, we got our mojo, And I'm like, no,
we did it, Like we ran good quality candidates for
their districts that did better than the party brand, Abigail
Stamberger and Mikey Cheryl.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
And so I'm ONNDNI that for that matter, ran.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
Really good campaigns that overperform the expectations of where Democrats are.
The Republicans are giving us a ton to work on
right now. From affordability, everything's more expensive. Donald Trump is
underwater on security issues. He's underwater on crime, He's underwater
on immigration. You brought up the border earlier today. I'm
with you on keeping the border secure, one hundred percent
with you. I'm one hundred percent with you on removie
violent criminals. I think the Democratic Party's policy on immigration

(16:24):
has not made a lot of sense, but Donald Trump
has taken it way too far with these ice raates.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
I live in the city of Chicago.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
Yesterday there was a daycare worker who was grabbed in
front of her kids and thrown into the back of
an unmarked car by unidentified Ice agents. And I don't
think people like that. I don't think people want that.
To me, that's the definition of fascism. That's what a
fascist country does. If we heard about that happening in
another country, we'd be really really alarmed by that. We
should be alarmed that it's happening in major American cities.
So they're going to give us plenty of work, with

(16:51):
plenty to talk about. But Democrats still have to run
better candidates with better messengers. Democrats have to be smarter
about the kind of campaigns that were running. It' to
be smarter about how we use power and get back
to delivering for people. And we have to be disciplined
in the issues that we talk about Democrats. I think
to your point about the mom Downie quote, one of
the things that gives me pauses, there's no issue too
small for the government to solve. Well, that seems to

(17:13):
me like you're creating the conditions where the government's going
to be trying to solve everybody's little problems every single day.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
And what I worry about is I want the Democratic.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Party focused on three things right now. I want them
focus on affordability. I want the focus on keeping people safe,
and I want the focus on rooting out corruption in
this government. If they focus on those three things, both
in this election and when we take power again in
twenty twenty seven, when we take back the House to
send it, and in twenty twenty nine when we send
to the presidency, hopefully if things go well, if we
focus on that, we're going to win and we're going
to be in a good position.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
In my opinion, I'm tempted to bet you a beer
on the Senate thing. I do think you'll take back.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
I wouldn't bet senate. It's tough, Yeah, putting any money
on that.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Okay, you know, so one last thing. I got about
a minute left here. So I like your list of things.
If I were a Democrat, I would like your list
of things there. So I think though, that part of
the problem from the Mamdanni wing is that they think
they can make things cheaper by making them free. But

(18:08):
that's when things are most expensive. Right, So when Mamdani says,
you know, I'm gonna freeze your rent, or I'm gonna
make buses free, or we're going to have government owned
grocery stores. All of those things are either going to
fail outright or be so expensive that they're gonna they're
going to cause either tax increases or budget cuts in
other areas because all of that. And you were talking

(18:30):
about this in your conversation with Don Lemon as if
these are sort of new ideas that haven't been tried,
and people should be open to bucking the establishment and
trying new things. But all of these things have been tried,
and they almost always fail wherever they're tried. So I'll
give you the last twenty nine seconds because I like
prime numbers.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
Yeah, I don't think that's a fair characterization of it,
because what I would say is, like, one, there's plenty
of cities in America that provide free transportation of people,
So I don't think a free bus idea is like
the worst idea in the world for fort city like
New York that has so many working class people.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Who move from one borough to another.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
So I think that's like not the worst idea on
government run grocery stores.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
There's large parts in New York that don't have a
grocery store right now.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
And if you don't like the idea of putting a
government run or a government subsidized grocery store in that neighborhood.
Come up with another idea proposed Andrew Cuomo and Curtiusly
why did not have any ideas to solve that problem?
And this is part of the problem is, Yes, you
might not like saraun Mon Donnie's ideas.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
I don't agree with all of them either.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
He's not for my wing of the Democratic Party, but
at least he's proposing some new and different stuff relative
to what both establishments and both political parties do.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
So I'm okay if they subsidize a grocery store, but
see how it does. It's okay if it fails.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Interesting. Yeah, look, I'm really torn.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
As a guy whose son's middle name is rand I
feel like we're living through Atlas Shrugged, you know, and
that mindset without getting too randy in is kind of
like sometimes things need to get much much worse than
you think they can get before voters wake up and
make things better.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
And part of me like, I'm trying to decide.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Whether I wish Mom Donnie's success because it is a
great city and the city where I was born, or
whether I wish him to fail so people learn once
and for all that his ideas are not just wrong,
but reprehensible.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
So we'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
We'll see.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
I want him to succeed, but I want every politician
to succeed, like I hope Donald Trump would make grocery
prices cheaper too, because I got to manage my household
budget fortunately where we are.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, So what I will say, and I mentioned this
on the show.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yesterday, is very very smart of him to campaign on
that because it was a pain point for everybody, grocery prices.
But in reality, it's not a thing a president can
do almost anything about.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
So it puts himself in a really tough situation.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
And it's smart of you guys to say, well, Trump
promised that, and if he doesn't get grocery prices down,
then you should oppose him and other Republicans. It's very
smart of you guys, because Trump really doesn't have anything
he can do to get gross grocery prices down. It's
the market, it's the weather, it's all kinds of things.
So anyway, look, Mike Nellis.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Is significantly with the tariffs, yes.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
No doubt, no doubt. I hate the terrorists, hate him.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Mike Nellis is one of the most important and influential
Democrat fundraisers and and I don't think activist is quite
the right word. Consultant in the country. What do you
call yourself about town? What do you call yourself?

Speaker 3 (21:16):
I just say Democratic strategist, strategist.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
There you go, strategist. That's a better word. Consultant sound
is a little bit insulting. I take that back, strategist.
Mike Nellis on Twitter and endless urgency dot com. Great
to talk to you for the first time. Thanks ros
I enjoyed this a lot. Okay, great, me too. We'll
be right back on KOA