While last year’s US presidential election didn’t lack for historical quirks – an incumbent president dropping out of the race soon before his party’s convention; for only the second time, a former president returned to office – opinions differ as to the campaign’s long-term effect on America’s political landscape.
In a special edition of Matters of Policy & Politics hosted by Hoover distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, we hear from a bipartisan slate of leading pollsters on the state of America’s two political parties. They provide perspectives on the 2024 election, including assessments of what did and did not work in terms of messaging, how voting blocs shifted, whether Democrats can rebrand and rebound by 2028 or anti-woke Republicans once again will prevail, plus the chances of Trump-style politics outlasting its term-limited namesake.
This episode is in partnership with the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Bill Whalen (00:00):
Hi, I'm Bill Whalen.
I'm a Distinguished Policy Fellowhere at the Hoover Institution.
The reason why I'm here today is I want toexplain to you what you're about to see.
It's something a little different.
Earlier today, we convened a conference ofpollsters here at Hoover under a program
that we call the center forRevitalizing American Institutions.
That's a very broad title andgoes a lot of directions,
one of which is politics and confidencein elections and our political leaders.
(00:21):
So we thought it was a good idea to bringtogether pollsters of all persuasions,
Democrats, Republicans anda few in between, and
have a conversation aboutwhat transpired in 2024.
And they see the country going in 2026 and2028, the next two elections.
So what you're about to see is a series ofbreakout interviews from the conference.
We brought them together,talked to them for about 5,
(00:43):
10 minutes and took a few selectionsfrom what they talked about.
Now, I'm a political jockey.
So I was very fascinated about this.
And there's some very interestingtakeaways you're going to find here,
one of which is that the Republican Party,
in their estimation,is the party of Donald Trump.
This was not the case in 2016.
But eight years later, Donald Trump hasa definite hold over the Republican Party.
Conversely, the Democratic Party.
(01:04):
What comes next for Democrats?
Well, reports of the Democraticdeath might be greatly exaggerated.
They have a pretty good bench of governorssitting out there and elected officials.
It was a pretty close election, somaybe they'll bounce back in 2028.
But what the pollsters talked about wasjust what issues resonated with voters.
Not just the obvious, such as crime, suchas inflation, such as immigration, but
(01:25):
also certain breakout issues,cultural issues.
So stay tuned,watch the following interviews and
we'll be very curious aboutwhat you think about this.
Give us your feedback, tell us whatyou like, what you didn't like.
Look forward to reading it.
So enjoy the show.
[MUSIC]
Well, that seems to have shifted in the country from Donald Trump's
(01:48):
first election in 2016 to his lossin 2020 to a second victory in 2024.
What changed andwhat got us to where we are today and
what we saw on election night.
>> Patrick Ruffini (01:57):
I believe that there was a, in the wake of Trump's
2016 victory, there was, I think,a misunderstanding of the American
electorate, a widespread misunderstandingthat really peaked during the Obama era,
which said that as the country growsmore and more non white, as by 2045 or
2050, America becomes this so calledmajority minority country, Republicans
(02:20):
just wouldn't have a shot to win electionsbecause the country is just growing so
much more diverse and these diverseelectorates are choosing Democrats.
But what we found in 2016 was, you know,things don't happen until they do happen.
And you saw the blue wall collapse.
You saw Trump really make inroads withwhite working class voters in those
(02:41):
upper Midwestern states that Idon't think anybody really foresaw
the magnitude of before that election.
>> David Binder (02:48):
Trump's success in 2024 was in some part due to failures of
the Democratic Party to connectwith certain aspects of
the electorate that had nothingto do with Donald Trump.
He was able to take advantage ofunhappiness with the status quo and
whether it's immigration, economy, and insome cases some social issues wokeism and
(03:12):
transgender rights and things like that.
The one thing that Donald Trump was ableto do, other than ending taxes on tips,
is there weren't too many peoplefocused on his policy prescriptions.
>> Anna Greenberg (03:26):
Well, the Democratic Party over a number of years has become
increasingly feminized.
And I don't mean feminine, butfeminized in the sense that both
the composition of the party is more andmore female and
the positions that the party takes aremore feminist, for lack of a better word.
And one of the biggest shifts we sawwas in the 2018 campaign when post2016,
(03:51):
you saw the movement of whitecollege educated women to Democrats,
there was a massive shift between 16 and18.
And that shift has really endured.
And you now have moved from a place whereRepublicans would routinely get about 60%
of white college educated women, and
then now Democrats get about 60%of white college educated women.
>> Speaker 6 (04:11):
One of the big differences between 2020 and
the 2020 election cycle and 2024election cycle was the disengagement and
disaffection of a lot of voters in 2024.
That wasn't there as much in 2020,especially among younger voters.
In 2020 with COVID voters were veryattuned to the degree to which government
(04:34):
policy and elected officials couldimpact somebody's life because they saw
it with the mandates, the mask mandates,the school closures, business closures.
It was very evident in 2020 that goingto the polls and electing a leader or
electing a congress or electing a statelegislature had real impact on your
(04:55):
life because they, they just saw inreal life how policies could, you know,
impact the life of a, of a family.
>> Bill Whalen (05:03):
In 2024, there were a lot of issues on the table,
from the economy and inflation to theborder, the war in Ukraine, and so Forth,
you also saw something quite unprecedentedwith President Biden dropping out and
Vice President Harris beingappointed as a nominee.
What should Democrats take away from whathappened this past presidential election?
>> Patrick Ruffini (05:21):
So this election cycle we've had, the Democratic White House had
huge problems with inflation,huge problems with controlling the border.
The perception that the presidentwas not up to the job,
which created the opportunity fora lot of people to move over.
But they're moving over in demographicsthat were historically very Democratic.
(05:44):
The voters in those demographicsare not very liberal.
They're not,they don't really buy into the Democratic
philosophy on a lot of things,especially on social issues.
So I think this particular,the environment this year really created
the opportunity for some big shifts, butthat were probably teed up to happen
(06:04):
anyway over the course ofthe next few election cycles.
>> Anna Greenberg (06:08):
I think the candidate switch is unprecedented.
And so I don't think anybody hadany idea how it was going to go.
And I think on a lot of levels it wentvery well in the sense that the transition
was relatively easy.
The party coalesced.
You saw a big jump inDemocratic enthusiasm.
You saw sort of lower propensity,Democratic lean voters who were holding
(06:30):
back because of Biden kind ofmoving into the Harris camp.
And on a lot of levels,she ran a pretty good campaign.
But I think that shewas no known quantity.
People didn't know anything about her.
I did focus groups where people would say,who is she?
Was she done?
She's been around as vice president forthree years.
What has she done?I don't know anything about her.
And in the context of 107 day campaign,to try to introduce yourself,
(06:53):
not in a vacuum,
introduce you in a context of a verynegative campaign being run against you.
At the same time,it's extremely difficult.
>> Fred Yang (07:02):
I think there were criticisms of the vice president as
a candidate in the 2020 elections.
I think she proved to be a verystrong candidate in 2024.
Obviously, you can argue howeffective she was because she lost.
But I think under most different metrics,she was a better candidate.
(07:24):
They clearly raised a lot of money andran an effective campaign machine.
So I am not one of thesepundits who will criticize,
broadly speaking,the effectiveness of the Harris campaign.
I think some of what went wrong wasnot related to Kamala Harris at all.
Think the continued wrongdirection of the country,
(07:46):
the unhappiness with a voter'spersonal economic situation,
the concern about institutions, a lot ofthat predates the Harris waltz campaign.
And there's various public.
That show in 2024, I think it wasthe first year since the 1950s,
where every incumbent party in the world,not America,
(08:08):
but every incumbent party in the world,was kicked out.
I do think President Biden's unpopularityhas high disapproval rating.
That was probably, I think,
the biggest factor in the Harriscampaign's inability to win the election.
And I think where it went wrong is again,whether fairly unfairly, when
President Biden's job approval rating,Covid Afghanistan, and more importantly,
(08:33):
the economy, that he was a vessel fora lot of voters' dissatisfaction.
And that was conveyed again,
fairly unfairly to the Harris partof the Biden Harris administration.
>> Bill Whalen (08:45):
On the flip side of that coin,
despite not participating inthe primaries, felony convictions and
so forth, Donald Trump walked away withmore electoral votes than in 2016.
And he won the popular vote, somethingno Republican had done in 20 years.
Not to mention that President Trump is nowonly the second president to serve non
consecutive terms.
What made all that possible?
>> Dan Judy (09:04):
I think that what voters are looking for.
I mean, they knew the Biden record onthe economy, they knew the Biden record on
immigration, and that was hungcompletely around Kamala Harris's neck.
I mean,she had no way to escape from that.
The campaign advertised heavily on that.
But I think what they alsowanted to do was say,
here is a California liberal who doesn'tunderstand the values of Americans
(09:26):
outside of San Francisco andwho doesn't care about their values.
The issue of gender reassignmentsurgery for inmates,
of boys playing sports with girls,transgender medications and procedures for
kids, I mean, these are issues that evenmajorities of Democrats disagree with.
The Democratic voters don't thinkthat these are good policy ideas.
(09:47):
And it was an effective way of showinghow these candidates are out of step with
mainstream opinion.
>> Dan Balz (09:53):
Donald Trump's vote was pretty solid.
People knew who he was, warts and all.
And some people who did not feel positiveabout him personally nonetheless
were prepared to vote forhim in spite of that.
That Kamala Harris was not well known andthat some of the people that
she really needed weren't there with heryet, including some young people and
(10:14):
people in Philadelphia,in the African American community.
My sense was that she had a higherceiling than Donald Trump, but
she had to make the sale.
And as we know, in the end,she wasn't able to do that.
>> Speaker 6 (10:26):
When he talks policy,
they're not other than closing the borderand, making America great again,
there wasn't a lot of realunderstanding of what he was gonna do.
But what he did do was that hespoke to the desire of many
Americans to kind ofdo things differently.
He was a change agent in 2024,just like he was in 2016,
(10:49):
where he wasn't in 2020,which is a common thread.
That may explain why he won in 16,lost in 21 and 24,
because in each one of those years,voters were looking for change.
And he's very good at saying,I'm gonna do things differently.
I'm gonna blow up the boxes, I'm gonnaburn the boats, and we're going to start
(11:11):
from scratch, do things differently, andwe're gonna go after government waste.
And we're gonna take a blowtorch tothe status quo that connected with people
because people were unhappy.
When people were unhappy,they listened to people that said,
I'm not gonna do thingsthe way they used to be.
I'm gonna do things differently.
And he was very good at that.
>> Patrick Ruffini (11:27):
The surprising story of 2020 when Trump runs for reelection,
is obviously, he loses that election.
But he makes really strong gains withLatino voters, with Asian voters,
in places like Miami, in South Texas,that also people didn't see coming.
So people have always consistentlyunderestimated both Donald Trump's
(11:50):
ability to pull in new peopleinto the Republican Party.
Everybody thought he was just ginning upthis old base of the Republican Party
with nationalist and nativist,and populist appeals.
But that would not appealto Hispanic voters and
to different members ofdifferent diverse voter groups.
And that's just been shown not to be true.
(12:12):
And resoundingly, over the last, in 2024,
we've seen that realignmentmove even further.
And I think we can say that was whatwas responsible for his victory.
>> Dan Balz (12:23):
Well, he's a master of the new media.
He was a master of the old media, if youwant, when he was a developer in New York.
But I think the difference todayis that he has understood how
to use social media more effectivelythan any modern politician.
And he knows that there are manyways now to reach the people
that he wants to reach without payingany attention to cable TV, the networks,
(12:47):
the Washington Post, the New York Times,any of the traditional media.
And one of the things that Ithink Democrats learned and
they learned it more after the electionthan they did at the time of the election,
is that they don't have a similar kindof set of avenues to reach through
to people who were low propensity voters.
(13:07):
I mean, Donald Trump figured out how toreach young men, young men who were on,
podcasts or sites not looking forpolitical information.
But nonetheless,
he was able to dispense messages to themthat attracted them to him in November.
And the Democrats have notfigured out a way to do that, and
they're struggling at thispoint to make that happen.
(13:28):
But from Clinton forward, everybody'stalked about going over the media or
around the media.
That's not new it's the ability torecognize what are the technologies of
the moment that allow you to do that.
And Trump has been very good at that.
>> Bill Whalen (13:42):
We're now well underway into the second Trump presidency.
Democratic Party appears rudderless, orcertainly at least without a clear leader.
What does the future look like forDemocrats?
>> Speaker 6 (13:50):
When you look at kind of what lessons have Democrats taken from
losing the presidency in 2024, andwhat lessons did the Republicans
learn that might give them someoptimism that they can be.
They can maintain a majormajority status in the future.
(14:10):
A lot of it is communications.
I think one of the reasonsthat Donald Trump won was
because voters wereconcerned about the economy.
Joe Biden andDemocrats came armed with some statistics,
whether they're unemployment statistics,GDP statistics,
(14:31):
that they said indicated thatthe economy was on the mend.
Voters did not believe that.
They said, I don't pay attentionto the stats because in my life,
things are tough.
You can tell me the stockmarket's at a record high.
That doesn't help me at the grocerystore when I have to go and pay,
buy my groceries, and it causes me tohave to worry about paying other bills.
(14:54):
The degree to which Democratsneed to meet voters
where they are is a lesson thatI think that they learned.
And the idea that they have to communicatewith those kind of average working people
in a way that's stronger.
And they attempted to do this in the 2024campaign, but there were some misfires.
(15:15):
And I think Republicans looked on theother side, thinking we can take advantage
of the disenchantment that a lot ofvoters have with their economics.
And especially the degree towhich immigration and crime and
other homelessness and other sorts ofsocial issues played into that anxiety.
(15:35):
And the disenchantment was somethingthat they used to their advantage.
So moving into 2028,I think Democrats would need to reconnect
with average voters, some of whomwere very unhappy economically.
And try to talk to them, try to understandthem, speak to them, and also provide
a policy prescription that would providea sense of optimism about the future,
(15:58):
and then I don't think I have advice for
the Republicans right now about whatthey can do in 2028, the challenge the.
>> David Winston (16:06):
Democratic Party faces now.
And think about what happenedback in the late 80s,
early 90s in terms of, you had twoterms of Ronald Reagan and HW bush.
The Democratic Partyrethought in terms of, okay,
what's the actual kind of what is itthat we're proposing that isn't working?
So how do we come up withsomething that might work?
(16:28):
And so obviously,
what the Democrats came up with atthat point was Bill Clinton, right?
And so Bill Clinton was intended to bea direction, not necessarily a Persona.
And what was the value propositionthat he potentially was offering?
And I think to some degree, you saw thatgoing back with Reagan in 1980, right?
(16:48):
I mean, yes, he had this personality, butultimately he was reflecting a particular
direction and policy construct anda value proposition to the electorate.
And I think you get betteroutcomes when that's the focus.
And my sense is both parties understandthat that's what they're going to be
facing in 28.
>> Patrick Ruffini (17:05):
Well, it's very clear, you know, in terms of the shifts
that we've seen happen over the last,in this last election cycle and
leading up to this last election cycle,that you've seen a migration of Latino,
black and Asian voters away from theDemocratic Party that usually, you know,
maybe identify as Democrats, but
don't think that the current version ofthe Democratic Party represents them.
(17:29):
In the words of Ronald Reagan,I didn't leave my party, my party left me.
And I think that's the, you know,when you talk to swing voters,
you see a very similar sentiment.
But over time, I think thatthe core reason why you've seen so
many people leave the Democratic Partyis that their values are no
longer in line andin step with the Democratic Party.
(17:52):
And then they come to find out overthe course of several election cycle,
maybe there's another political partythat my values are more in tune with.
>> Bill Whalen (18:00):
Is the Republican Party.
Now the party of Trump?
Is JD Vance the heir apparent?
Can Republicans maintain theirmomentum going into 2028 and beyond?
>> Dan Judy (18:08):
Donald Trump is, is the Republican Party now they would,
you could make a case, and I often triedto make this case over the last four years
that it wasn't necessarily anymore,but the party is Trump's.
Now the question is,what comes after Donald Trump?
And that's a question that nobodyknows the answer to at this point.
I do think that the way he has remadethe agenda of the Republican Party
(18:30):
from more of a pro business, tax cut,limited government spending party to
a more populist, you know,anti business, bigger spending party.
I think that is here to stay,at least for the medium term.
I think whoever comes next as the nextRepublican nominee will certainly be in
that, in that sort ofright wing populist mold.
(18:52):
But he has definitelytransformed the party and
he is the leader of the party andthat now is undisputed.
>> David Winston (18:57):
Okay, so who's the next candidate?
What's the next directionthe Republican Party goes?
And that's obviously a major strategiccomponent in terms of how the two parties
interact in terms of 28.
And I think the Democratic Party isfacing some similar dynamics as well.
Obviously they have beentied to the Biden direction.
As much as Harris tried tocreate some separation and
(19:18):
that separation didn't occur.
So what you're looking at in 2028 isthe two parties sort of assessing where
they're at and where they can go and whatsort of candidate best represents that.
And I would venture to guess that bothparties want to find a candidate where
they have more favorablesthan unfavorables.
>> Dan Judy (19:36):
Well, I think Donald Trump won't run again in 2020, 2028.
But let's, let's assume he followsthe Constitution, it doesn't.
His, his imprint will be on the party foryears and years to come.
Really, I, I think, I think the wayhe has remade the party into
a more populist working class partyis not just going to go away.
We're not going to return to a Paul Ryan,Mitt Romney, even George W.
(20:01):
Bush style Republican party in the,in the short to medium term.
Now, what flavor that takes on is goingto depend entirely upon who carries
the torch forward.
And right now it's very difficultto predict who that might be.
I mean, I think JD Vancewill be the early favorite.
But a lot of people thought that MikePence was the logical successor to Trump
(20:25):
before until he was almost murderedby an angry mob on January 6th.
So the fortunes of people in DonaldTrump's immediate orbit can change very
quickly.
But whether it's JD Vance, orwhether it's Don Jr., or Tucker Carlson or
any number of Republican governors orsenators who want to jockey for that.
I think they will certainly be in a morepopulist working class mode than the more
(20:49):
traditional Chamber of Commerce,pro business type Republican.
>> Bill Whalen (20:53):
As both parties seem to be in uncharted historic territory,
what challenges do each face and whatshould they take stock of moving forward?
>> Anna Greenberg (21:02):
Who can both do?
Not an autopsy butdig deep into the kinds of systematic and
structural challenges around new media,around field organizing,
around the changing waythat people are voting, and
be able to set the party upwith a set of learnings and
then rebuilding infrastructure tohave something set up for 2026 and
(21:25):
set up for 2028,including investment in state parties.
Kind of the Howard Dean, you know,
50 state strategy where heinvested in all 50 states.
And so I do think that matters.
I think if you elect someonewho's more of a showboat and
like a celebrity without a lot of, youknow, party experience, I think you're,
you're going to get a very different,who needs an entourage.
You're going to get a verydifferent kind of party.
(21:47):
So I'm hopeful that we're goingto get the first kind of person.
It's not going to be the difference,you know, between winning and losing, but
certainly setting us up institutionally tocompete against the Republicans is really,
really, really important.
>> Fred Yang (22:00):
The 2028 election, I've talked a lot about change.
It's cuz it's true.
But that will be the real change election.
We are likely to have nominees forboth parties that aren't named Trump or
for the Democrats thathaven't held high office.
It'll truly be a change election.
(22:22):
And yeah, I think the imperative for
both parties in the next two,three, four years.
And this, I know this sounds cliche,ish and simplistic, but a lot of
politics is cliches and simplistic iswhich party will own the future, okay?
And clearly the Democrats havechallenges on that score.
(22:46):
I also think the Republicanshave challenges.
And I think one of the challengesis more so than Democrats.
The Republican Party is reallydefined by one person, the president.
How will the Republican Party matureas a party in a post Trump era?
I think that's an important question, notjust for the Republican Party, obviously,
(23:06):
but for America.
>> Anna Greenberg (23:07):
I don't think that the Democratic Party can control the 2028
primary.
So what happens in thatprimary is everything, right?
And I think that we will be best servedby a more insurgent kind of candidate,
somebody who doesn't necessarily come fromthe traditional professional political
establishment.
And if you look at Bill Clinton,he was the governor of Arkansas.
(23:30):
Nobody thought of himas a national figure.
Barack Obama obviously setthe world on Fire in 2004, but
still kind of untraditional to thinkabout somebody with that little
experience in elective office andtime somehow.
And then Donald Trump obviously comesfrom a non traditional background.
And so even George W.
(23:53):
Bush, who was a governor before hewas a governor, he wasn't really.
He was like baseball owner and whatever.
He wasn't really a lifelong politician.
If the Democrats can nominate thatkind of insurgent candidate who can
offer something concrete and not somuch different, but a real answer,
and can sort of not be too far left,which I don't think would happen,
(24:16):
because I think that the Democratic Partyis smarter than that.
I think it could be huge.
It could be Democrats winning in 28.
But that's not somethingthe party can control.
>> Speaker 6 (24:27):
One other thing I would just say to the audience is the participation
in American politics is going tobe something to keep an eye on.
A lot of people are wondering why it wasturned out a lot lower in 2024 than it was
in 2020.
And I think that as people thatare invested in our democracy and
(24:48):
our political system, we need to keepan eye on the proportion of the American
electorate that is withdrawnbecause they don't like politics.
They hate the anger andthe bitterness and the partisanship, and
they're going to withdraw becauseit's not a healthy democracy.
If our turnout continues to godown because voters are saying
(25:09):
politics sucks and I hate it,and I don't want to vote, and
don't tell me you're going to get me tovote anymore, because I ain't voting.
If that takes hold,then we have some difficult days ahead.
[MUSIC]
Hi, I'm Bill Whalen.
I'm a Distinguished Policy Fellowhere at the Hoover Institution.
The reason why I'm here today is I want toexplain to you what you're about to see.
It's something a little different.
Earlier today, we convened a conference ofpollsters here at Hoover under a program
that we call the center forRevitalizing American Institutions.
That's a very broad title andgoes a lot of directions,
one of which is politics and confidencein elections and our political leaders.
(00:21):
So we thought it was a good idea to bringtogether pollsters of all persuasions,
Democrats, Republicans anda few in between, and
have a conversation aboutwhat transpired in 2024.
And they see the country going in 2026 and2028, the next two elections.
So what you're about to see is a series ofbreakout interviews from the conference.
We brought them together,talked to them for about 5,
(00:43):
10 minutes and took a few selectionsfrom what they talked about.
Now, I'm a political jockey.
So I was very fascinated about this.
And there's some very interestingtakeaways you're going to find here,
one of which is that the Republican Party,
in their estimation,is the party of Donald Trump.
This was not the case in 2016.
But eight years later, Donald Trump hasa definite hold over the Republican Party.
Conversely, the Democratic Party.
(01:04):
What comes next for Democrats?
Well, reports of the Democraticdeath might be greatly exaggerated.
They have a pretty good bench of governorssitting out there and elected officials.
It was a pretty close election, somaybe they'll bounce back in 2028.
But what the pollsters talked about wasjust what issues resonated with voters.
Not just the obvious, such as crime, suchas inflation, such as immigration, but
(01:25):
also certain breakout issues,cultural issues.
So stay tuned,watch the following interviews and
we'll be very curious aboutwhat you think about this.
Give us your feedback, tell us whatyou like, what you didn't like.
Look forward to reading it.
So enjoy the show.
[MUSIC]
Well, that seems to have shifted in the country from Donald Trump's
(01:48):
first election in 2016 to his lossin 2020 to a second victory in 2024.
What changed andwhat got us to where we are today and
what we saw on election night.
>> Patrick Ruffini (01:57):
I believe that there was a, in the wake of Trump's
2016 victory, there was, I think,a misunderstanding of the American
electorate, a widespread misunderstandingthat really peaked during the Obama era,
which said that as the country growsmore and more non white, as by 2045 or
2050, America becomes this so calledmajority minority country, Republicans
(02:20):
just wouldn't have a shot to win electionsbecause the country is just growing so
much more diverse and these diverseelectorates are choosing Democrats.
But what we found in 2016 was, you know,things don't happen until they do happen.
And you saw the blue wall collapse.
You saw Trump really make inroads withwhite working class voters in those
(02:41):
upper Midwestern states that Idon't think anybody really foresaw
the magnitude of before that election.
>> David Binder (02:48):
Trump's success in 2024 was in some part due to failures of
the Democratic Party to connectwith certain aspects of
the electorate that had nothingto do with Donald Trump.
He was able to take advantage ofunhappiness with the status quo and
whether it's immigration, economy, and insome cases some social issues wokeism and
(03:12):
transgender rights and things like that.
The one thing that Donald Trump was ableto do, other than ending taxes on tips,
is there weren't too many peoplefocused on his policy prescriptions.
>> Anna Greenberg (03:26):
Well, the Democratic Party over a number of years has become
increasingly feminized.
And I don't mean feminine, butfeminized in the sense that both
the composition of the party is more andmore female and
the positions that the party takes aremore feminist, for lack of a better word.
And one of the biggest shifts we sawwas in the 2018 campaign when post2016,
(03:51):
you saw the movement of whitecollege educated women to Democrats,
there was a massive shift between 16 and18.
And that shift has really endured.
And you now have moved from a place whereRepublicans would routinely get about 60%
of white college educated women, and
then now Democrats get about 60%of white college educated women.
>> Speaker 6 (04:11):
One of the big differences between 2020 and
the 2020 election cycle and 2024election cycle was the disengagement and
disaffection of a lot of voters in 2024.
That wasn't there as much in 2020,especially among younger voters.
In 2020 with COVID voters were veryattuned to the degree to which government
(04:34):
policy and elected officials couldimpact somebody's life because they saw
it with the mandates, the mask mandates,the school closures, business closures.
It was very evident in 2020 that goingto the polls and electing a leader or
electing a congress or electing a statelegislature had real impact on your
(04:55):
life because they, they just saw inreal life how policies could, you know,
impact the life of a, of a family.
>> Bill Whalen (05:03):
In 2024, there were a lot of issues on the table,
from the economy and inflation to theborder, the war in Ukraine, and so Forth,
you also saw something quite unprecedentedwith President Biden dropping out and
Vice President Harris beingappointed as a nominee.
What should Democrats take away from whathappened this past presidential election?
>> Patrick Ruffini (05:21):
So this election cycle we've had, the Democratic White House had
huge problems with inflation,huge problems with controlling the border.
The perception that the presidentwas not up to the job,
which created the opportunity fora lot of people to move over.
But they're moving over in demographicsthat were historically very Democratic.
(05:44):
The voters in those demographicsare not very liberal.
They're not,they don't really buy into the Democratic
philosophy on a lot of things,especially on social issues.
So I think this particular,the environment this year really created
the opportunity for some big shifts, butthat were probably teed up to happen
(06:04):
anyway over the course ofthe next few election cycles.
>> Anna Greenberg (06:08):
I think the candidate switch is unprecedented.
And so I don't think anybody hadany idea how it was going to go.
And I think on a lot of levels it wentvery well in the sense that the transition
was relatively easy.
The party coalesced.
You saw a big jump inDemocratic enthusiasm.
You saw sort of lower propensity,Democratic lean voters who were holding
(06:30):
back because of Biden kind ofmoving into the Harris camp.
And on a lot of levels,she ran a pretty good campaign.
But I think that shewas no known quantity.
People didn't know anything about her.
I did focus groups where people would say,who is she?
Was she done?
She's been around as vice president forthree years.
What has she done?I don't know anything about her.
And in the context of 107 day campaign,to try to introduce yourself,
(06:53):
not in a vacuum,
introduce you in a context of a verynegative campaign being run against you.
At the same time,it's extremely difficult.
>> Fred Yang (07:02):
I think there were criticisms of the vice president as
a candidate in the 2020 elections.
I think she proved to be a verystrong candidate in 2024.
Obviously, you can argue howeffective she was because she lost.
But I think under most different metrics,she was a better candidate.
(07:24):
They clearly raised a lot of money andran an effective campaign machine.
So I am not one of thesepundits who will criticize,
broadly speaking,the effectiveness of the Harris campaign.
I think some of what went wrong wasnot related to Kamala Harris at all.
Think the continued wrongdirection of the country,
(07:46):
the unhappiness with a voter'spersonal economic situation,
the concern about institutions, a lot ofthat predates the Harris waltz campaign.
And there's various public.
That show in 2024, I think it wasthe first year since the 1950s,
where every incumbent party in the world,not America,
(08:08):
but every incumbent party in the world,was kicked out.
I do think President Biden's unpopularityhas high disapproval rating.
That was probably, I think,
the biggest factor in the Harriscampaign's inability to win the election.
And I think where it went wrong is again,whether fairly unfairly, when
President Biden's job approval rating,Covid Afghanistan, and more importantly,
(08:33):
the economy, that he was a vessel fora lot of voters' dissatisfaction.
And that was conveyed again,
fairly unfairly to the Harris partof the Biden Harris administration.
>> Bill Whalen (08:45):
On the flip side of that coin,
despite not participating inthe primaries, felony convictions and
so forth, Donald Trump walked away withmore electoral votes than in 2016.
And he won the popular vote, somethingno Republican had done in 20 years.
Not to mention that President Trump is nowonly the second president to serve non
consecutive terms.
What made all that possible?
>> Dan Judy (09:04):
I think that what voters are looking for.
I mean, they knew the Biden record onthe economy, they knew the Biden record on
immigration, and that was hungcompletely around Kamala Harris's neck.
I mean,she had no way to escape from that.
The campaign advertised heavily on that.
But I think what they alsowanted to do was say,
here is a California liberal who doesn'tunderstand the values of Americans
(09:26):
outside of San Francisco andwho doesn't care about their values.
The issue of gender reassignmentsurgery for inmates,
of boys playing sports with girls,transgender medications and procedures for
kids, I mean, these are issues that evenmajorities of Democrats disagree with.
The Democratic voters don't thinkthat these are good policy ideas.
(09:47):
And it was an effective way of showinghow these candidates are out of step with
mainstream opinion.
>> Dan Balz (09:53):
Donald Trump's vote was pretty solid.
People knew who he was, warts and all.
And some people who did not feel positiveabout him personally nonetheless
were prepared to vote forhim in spite of that.
That Kamala Harris was not well known andthat some of the people that
she really needed weren't there with heryet, including some young people and
(10:14):
people in Philadelphia,in the African American community.
My sense was that she had a higherceiling than Donald Trump, but
she had to make the sale.
And as we know, in the end,she wasn't able to do that.
>> Speaker 6 (10:26):
When he talks policy,
they're not other than closing the borderand, making America great again,
there wasn't a lot of realunderstanding of what he was gonna do.
But what he did do was that hespoke to the desire of many
Americans to kind ofdo things differently.
He was a change agent in 2024,just like he was in 2016,
(10:49):
where he wasn't in 2020,which is a common thread.
That may explain why he won in 16,lost in 21 and 24,
because in each one of those years,voters were looking for change.
And he's very good at saying,I'm gonna do things differently.
I'm gonna blow up the boxes, I'm gonnaburn the boats, and we're going to start
(11:11):
from scratch, do things differently, andwe're gonna go after government waste.
And we're gonna take a blowtorch tothe status quo that connected with people
because people were unhappy.
When people were unhappy,they listened to people that said,
I'm not gonna do thingsthe way they used to be.
I'm gonna do things differently.
And he was very good at that.
>> Patrick Ruffini (11:27):
The surprising story of 2020 when Trump runs for reelection,
is obviously, he loses that election.
But he makes really strong gains withLatino voters, with Asian voters,
in places like Miami, in South Texas,that also people didn't see coming.
So people have always consistentlyunderestimated both Donald Trump's
(11:50):
ability to pull in new peopleinto the Republican Party.
Everybody thought he was just ginning upthis old base of the Republican Party
with nationalist and nativist,and populist appeals.
But that would not appealto Hispanic voters and
to different members ofdifferent diverse voter groups.
And that's just been shown not to be true.
(12:12):
And resoundingly, over the last, in 2024,
we've seen that realignmentmove even further.
And I think we can say that was whatwas responsible for his victory.
>> Dan Balz (12:23):
Well, he's a master of the new media.
He was a master of the old media, if youwant, when he was a developer in New York.
But I think the difference todayis that he has understood how
to use social media more effectivelythan any modern politician.
And he knows that there are manyways now to reach the people
that he wants to reach without payingany attention to cable TV, the networks,
(12:47):
the Washington Post, the New York Times,any of the traditional media.
And one of the things that Ithink Democrats learned and
they learned it more after the electionthan they did at the time of the election,
is that they don't have a similar kindof set of avenues to reach through
to people who were low propensity voters.
(13:07):
I mean, Donald Trump figured out how toreach young men, young men who were on,
podcasts or sites not looking forpolitical information.
But nonetheless,
he was able to dispense messages to themthat attracted them to him in November.
And the Democrats have notfigured out a way to do that, and
they're struggling at thispoint to make that happen.
(13:28):
But from Clinton forward, everybody'stalked about going over the media or
around the media.
That's not new it's the ability torecognize what are the technologies of
the moment that allow you to do that.
And Trump has been very good at that.
>> Bill Whalen (13:42):
We're now well underway into the second Trump presidency.
Democratic Party appears rudderless, orcertainly at least without a clear leader.
What does the future look like forDemocrats?
>> Speaker 6 (13:50):
When you look at kind of what lessons have Democrats taken from
losing the presidency in 2024, andwhat lessons did the Republicans
learn that might give them someoptimism that they can be.
They can maintain a majormajority status in the future.
(14:10):
A lot of it is communications.
I think one of the reasonsthat Donald Trump won was
because voters wereconcerned about the economy.
Joe Biden andDemocrats came armed with some statistics,
whether they're unemployment statistics,GDP statistics,
(14:31):
that they said indicated thatthe economy was on the mend.
Voters did not believe that.
They said, I don't pay attentionto the stats because in my life,
things are tough.
You can tell me the stockmarket's at a record high.
That doesn't help me at the grocerystore when I have to go and pay,
buy my groceries, and it causes me tohave to worry about paying other bills.
(14:54):
The degree to which Democratsneed to meet voters
where they are is a lesson thatI think that they learned.
And the idea that they have to communicatewith those kind of average working people
in a way that's stronger.
And they attempted to do this in the 2024campaign, but there were some misfires.
(15:15):
And I think Republicans looked on theother side, thinking we can take advantage
of the disenchantment that a lot ofvoters have with their economics.
And especially the degree towhich immigration and crime and
other homelessness and other sorts ofsocial issues played into that anxiety.
(15:35):
And the disenchantment was somethingthat they used to their advantage.
So moving into 2028,I think Democrats would need to reconnect
with average voters, some of whomwere very unhappy economically.
And try to talk to them, try to understandthem, speak to them, and also provide
a policy prescription that would providea sense of optimism about the future,
(15:58):
and then I don't think I have advice for
the Republicans right now about whatthey can do in 2028, the challenge the.
>> David Winston (16:06):
Democratic Party faces now.
And think about what happenedback in the late 80s,
early 90s in terms of, you had twoterms of Ronald Reagan and HW bush.
The Democratic Partyrethought in terms of, okay,
what's the actual kind of what is itthat we're proposing that isn't working?
So how do we come up withsomething that might work?
(16:28):
And so obviously,
what the Democrats came up with atthat point was Bill Clinton, right?
And so Bill Clinton was intended to bea direction, not necessarily a Persona.
And what was the value propositionthat he potentially was offering?
And I think to some degree, you saw thatgoing back with Reagan in 1980, right?
(16:48):
I mean, yes, he had this personality, butultimately he was reflecting a particular
direction and policy construct anda value proposition to the electorate.
And I think you get betteroutcomes when that's the focus.
And my sense is both parties understandthat that's what they're going to be
facing in 28.
>> Patrick Ruffini (17:05):
Well, it's very clear, you know, in terms of the shifts
that we've seen happen over the last,in this last election cycle and
leading up to this last election cycle,that you've seen a migration of Latino,
black and Asian voters away from theDemocratic Party that usually, you know,
maybe identify as Democrats, but
don't think that the current version ofthe Democratic Party represents them.
(17:29):
In the words of Ronald Reagan,I didn't leave my party, my party left me.
And I think that's the, you know,when you talk to swing voters,
you see a very similar sentiment.
But over time, I think thatthe core reason why you've seen so
many people leave the Democratic Partyis that their values are no
longer in line andin step with the Democratic Party.
(17:52):
And then they come to find out overthe course of several election cycle,
maybe there's another political partythat my values are more in tune with.
>> Bill Whalen (18:00):
Is the Republican Party.
Now the party of Trump?
Is JD Vance the heir apparent?
Can Republicans maintain theirmomentum going into 2028 and beyond?
>> Dan Judy (18:08):
Donald Trump is, is the Republican Party now they would,
you could make a case, and I often triedto make this case over the last four years
that it wasn't necessarily anymore,but the party is Trump's.
Now the question is,what comes after Donald Trump?
And that's a question that nobodyknows the answer to at this point.
I do think that the way he has remadethe agenda of the Republican Party
(18:30):
from more of a pro business, tax cut,limited government spending party to
a more populist, you know,anti business, bigger spending party.
I think that is here to stay,at least for the medium term.
I think whoever comes next as the nextRepublican nominee will certainly be in
that, in that sort ofright wing populist mold.
(18:52):
But he has definitelytransformed the party and
he is the leader of the party andthat now is undisputed.
>> David Winston (18:57):
Okay, so who's the next candidate?
What's the next directionthe Republican Party goes?
And that's obviously a major strategiccomponent in terms of how the two parties
interact in terms of 28.
And I think the Democratic Party isfacing some similar dynamics as well.
Obviously they have beentied to the Biden direction.
As much as Harris tried tocreate some separation and
(19:18):
that separation didn't occur.
So what you're looking at in 2028 isthe two parties sort of assessing where
they're at and where they can go and whatsort of candidate best represents that.
And I would venture to guess that bothparties want to find a candidate where
they have more favorablesthan unfavorables.
>> Dan Judy (19:36):
Well, I think Donald Trump won't run again in 2020, 2028.
But let's, let's assume he followsthe Constitution, it doesn't.
His, his imprint will be on the party foryears and years to come.
Really, I, I think, I think the wayhe has remade the party into
a more populist working class partyis not just going to go away.
We're not going to return to a Paul Ryan,Mitt Romney, even George W.
(20:01):
Bush style Republican party in the,in the short to medium term.
Now, what flavor that takes on is goingto depend entirely upon who carries
the torch forward.
And right now it's very difficultto predict who that might be.
I mean, I think JD Vancewill be the early favorite.
But a lot of people thought that MikePence was the logical successor to Trump
(20:25):
before until he was almost murderedby an angry mob on January 6th.
So the fortunes of people in DonaldTrump's immediate orbit can change very
quickly.
But whether it's JD Vance, orwhether it's Don Jr., or Tucker Carlson or
any number of Republican governors orsenators who want to jockey for that.
I think they will certainly be in a morepopulist working class mode than the more
(20:49):
traditional Chamber of Commerce,pro business type Republican.
>> Bill Whalen (20:53):
As both parties seem to be in uncharted historic territory,
what challenges do each face and whatshould they take stock of moving forward?
>> Anna Greenberg (21:02):
Who can both do?
Not an autopsy butdig deep into the kinds of systematic and
structural challenges around new media,around field organizing,
around the changing waythat people are voting, and
be able to set the party upwith a set of learnings and
then rebuilding infrastructure tohave something set up for 2026 and
(21:25):
set up for 2028,including investment in state parties.
Kind of the Howard Dean, you know,
50 state strategy where heinvested in all 50 states.
And so I do think that matters.
I think if you elect someonewho's more of a showboat and
like a celebrity without a lot of, youknow, party experience, I think you're,
you're going to get a very different,who needs an entourage.
You're going to get a verydifferent kind of party.
(21:47):
So I'm hopeful that we're goingto get the first kind of person.
It's not going to be the difference,you know, between winning and losing, but
certainly setting us up institutionally tocompete against the Republicans is really,
really, really important.
>> Fred Yang (22:00):
The 2028 election, I've talked a lot about change.
It's cuz it's true.
But that will be the real change election.
We are likely to have nominees forboth parties that aren't named Trump or
for the Democrats thathaven't held high office.
It'll truly be a change election.
(22:22):
And yeah, I think the imperative for
both parties in the next two,three, four years.
And this, I know this sounds cliche,ish and simplistic, but a lot of
politics is cliches and simplistic iswhich party will own the future, okay?
And clearly the Democrats havechallenges on that score.
(22:46):
I also think the Republicanshave challenges.
And I think one of the challengesis more so than Democrats.
The Republican Party is reallydefined by one person, the president.
How will the Republican Party matureas a party in a post Trump era?
I think that's an important question, notjust for the Republican Party, obviously,
(23:06):
but for America.
>> Anna Greenberg (23:07):
I don't think that the Democratic Party can control the 2028
primary.
So what happens in thatprimary is everything, right?
And I think that we will be best servedby a more insurgent kind of candidate,
somebody who doesn't necessarily come fromthe traditional professional political
establishment.
And if you look at Bill Clinton,he was the governor of Arkansas.
(23:30):
Nobody thought of himas a national figure.
Barack Obama obviously setthe world on Fire in 2004, but
still kind of untraditional to thinkabout somebody with that little
experience in elective office andtime somehow.
And then Donald Trump obviously comesfrom a non traditional background.
And so even George W.
(23:53):
Bush, who was a governor before hewas a governor, he wasn't really.
He was like baseball owner and whatever.
He wasn't really a lifelong politician.
If the Democrats can nominate thatkind of insurgent candidate who can
offer something concrete and not somuch different, but a real answer,
and can sort of not be too far left,which I don't think would happen,
(24:16):
because I think that the Democratic Partyis smarter than that.
I think it could be huge.
It could be Democrats winning in 28.
But that's not somethingthe party can control.
>> Speaker 6 (24:27):
One other thing I would just say to the audience is the participation
in American politics is going tobe something to keep an eye on.
A lot of people are wondering why it wasturned out a lot lower in 2024 than it was
in 2020.
And I think that as people thatare invested in our democracy and
(24:48):
our political system, we need to keepan eye on the proportion of the American
electorate that is withdrawnbecause they don't like politics.
They hate the anger andthe bitterness and the partisanship, and
they're going to withdraw becauseit's not a healthy democracy.
If our turnout continues to godown because voters are saying
(25:09):
politics sucks and I hate it,and I don't want to vote, and
don't tell me you're going to get me tovote anymore, because I ain't voting.
If that takes hold,then we have some difficult days ahead.
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