Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump HUMILIATED in Shocking Election Result

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer break down voters abandoning Donald Trump, his flailing approval ratings and Melania Trump hanging out with a robot. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED CHAPTERS 0:00 - Democrats Win Trump’s Mar-a-Lago District in Florida 4:51 - Male Voters Are Abandoning Trump 8:24.- Trump’s Worst Ever Approval Rating In Wisconsin 9:48 - Ad Break 10:43 - Trump’s Attempted Manipulation Of Oil Markets 15:13 - First Lady Melania Trump Walks With AI Robot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a rees. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heighten taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a recess. So we have a ton of new polling and even some election results for you guys, and the story is universally bad for President Trump.

Let's start with this shocking election result, literally in President Trump's backyard. On Tuesday night, Emily Gregory flipped a Florida legislative district that includes Mar-a-Lago. This is a major upset. It's also a clear shot across the battle for President Trump as we head into the 2022 midterms. Here's CNN's election expert, John King, talking about those implications. Let's watch. The facts just speak plainly.

The math speaks plainly as day. Democrats have huge enthusiasm behind them right now, and Republicans keep losing in places where just in November of 2024, they were winning big. And so Democrats believe that they had a good year set up because it's a midterm year. You have a Republican president. His poll numbers are down.

They thought they had a good year, and they think actually as we start to move through the early spring here, the opportunities are getting even bigger and wider, broader, if you will. So I'm lucky to be joined by the smartest polling and political analysts. I know, Dan Pfeiffer. Don't laugh at that. That's true. He's the host of Polar Coaster, a truly excellent subscription offering from Crooked Media. If you want to watch it, go to crooked.com slash friends to become a friend of the pod subscriber.

You get access to polar coaster. You get ad-free episodes. You get bonus episode of POTT of America and much more. Dan, how big a deal is this win? And what do you think the broader implications are for the midterms in your view? I mean, it's a huge win. It is just yet another example of Democrats dramatically overperforming in special elections across the country.

We've seen this starting in 2025. It's continuing here. This is the fact that it's Florida matters a lot because Florida has been a place that has sort of resisted national trends as they've been bluer in recent years. It matters at it's Trump's district. It also matters not for nothing that Trump did vote in this district. And you know how he voted Tommy? Did he go down to the point place and vote?

No. No, how do you vote? He voted by mail. Oh, I thought that was bad. Good thing you could get it in before the Save Act banned all mail voting. And it is, so two other points on this. This was not actually the only win Democrats had in Florida. They also flipped a state Senate seat in the Tampa area.

There was a Trump plus seven district. This was in this race, this was a Trump plus 10 to 11 district. Democrat won by one and a half points. That's a 11 to 12 point swing, which is in line what we've seen. And what I think is really important in both of these districts. And I think John King's analysis, in that clip you see is not exactly correct because yes, Democrats have an enthusiasm advantage. But when the folks at Vote Hub looked at the partisanship of the electorate in both those districts,

they were plus nine Republican in both cases, which is in line with the partisanship of the district in 2024. So we're seeing high Democratic enthusiasm, but you're also seeing a fair amount of persuasion. And that was also a trend that we saw in that Texas state Senate seat the Democrats flipped a couple months ago. Yeah, that's interesting. And I saw the time said since 2004, Democrats have flipped more than two dozen races in battleground states or red states. Republicans have flipped zero. So this is not just a one-off thing. Everyone's freaking out about. Maybe there's a better candidate. But as you mentioned, this is a Trump plus 11 House district. And we were able to persuade a bunch of Republicans to come to the Democratic side. So, Dan, you know, the turnout and the makeup

of the electorate is wildly different in a presidential year as compared to a midterm. And then again, as compared to a special election like this, which is why we are always caution. about, you know, drawing to direct a lesson from these outcomes. But I don't know, how similar do you think the turnout in a special election is compared to a midterm six months later? Is there more you can divine there, do you think? Well, there's sort of like Russian nesting dolls of turnout. So special election is the smallest. And that's where Democrats are going to do best. And the midterm is going to be a little bit bigger than that. But it'll still contain a disproportionately large percentage of highly engaged people, which trend to be Democratic. And then when you get to our

presidential, you add in about 40% of the electorate who do not participate in any of these other elections. And that benefited Republicans in 2024, although it had previously benefited Democrats. So I think it does not mean that Democrats are going to win Florida in 2026, although it's an indication that if we have a good candidate and we are well funded, we might have a shot there, like that Florida is in line with some of these other states that were in terms of the margins that Trump won by in 2024 that we're already talking about in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, et cetera. And so like, these are all positive data points. They don't, they're not predictive, but they are informative. Yeah. And look, polling is great. And we're going to tick

through some polling, but nothing is better data than election results. And when you win, a lot of people who are making financial decisions about where to invest in races are looking at this data and thinking, Okay, what does this tell us about where we should be putting our money? We're going to be covering the hell out of all these races. So if you're watching this and you're not subscribed to Potta of America on YouTube, please subscribe. It helps us grow the show. It helps us displace all the right wing crap you see from Fox News and the Daily Wire that's flooding YouTube these days,

especially with pro-war propaganda. So please subscribe to Potta of America on the polling front, Dan. So let's start with this analysis about Trump's plummeting approval rating with men. This is CNN's Harry Enten walking through some of the numbers. Let's watch. Donald Trump and Republicans won in 2024 because of support from male voters. The only way they can win given the gender gap

in this country is support from male voters and male voters are abandoning Donald Trump. Take a look here, this gives the game away. Okay, Trump's standing with men. In November of 2024, he beat Kamala Harris among them by 13 points, by 13 points. Look at where he is now on his net approved rating. Down he goes, it's a 20-point shift away from Donald Trump.

He is now seven points underwater at this, particular point among men. I think it is very difficult for Republicans to do well in this midterm cycle. If Donald Trump is underwater with men, as my uncle once wrote, where the boys are, where the men are, they are underwater when it comes to Donald Johnson. I don't even understand what he is talking about there. I have no idea what Harry's talking about, but no one delivers polling data with as much pinash and style and hand movements. It's so good. So look, again, it's a long way from now until election day. But do you think Harry's right that Republicans get clobbered in the midterms if Trump's numbers

with men remain seven points underwater? Yes, they absolutely do. Now, there are some caveats here that we can get into, but 2024 was Trump's ceiling. And so there's a world in which he were to just lose some of those voters he added in 2024, like young people, Latinos, some, you know, married women who flipped. And then he gets back to sort of where he was in 2020. He's not, the reason he's below his 2020 numbers is because he is losing men. Young men were the first ones out the door because they were the last ones in the door,

but he's also just losing men and particularly working class men across the board because their primary number one issue is cost of living. Right. And his number started to go underwater when the tariffs hit in the spring of last year. They've continued underwater. And we're seeing in other polling, a tremendous focus on high gas prices now. in the Reuters poll today, you have more than two-thirds of Americans who are very or somewhat concerned about high gas prices. Trump has reached a new low on his approval on the economy, and all of this affects men disproportionately. And when men, you know, just there are more women than men in this country.

There are more women than men who vote in elections, particularly more women than men who vote in midterm elections. And so if Trump loses with men, that's when the bottom falls out for him. Yeah. And Harry goes on in that segment to point out that with young men, so men under 45, Trump's net approval rating is 19 points underwater. As you said, Dan, the driver is cost of living and inflation. Trump is 30 points underwater on his approval on the cost of living. Yeah, I saw that that Reuters Ipsos poll that was out today or yesterday. It has Trump's approval on the economy at 29 percent, which is lower than Joe Biden's worst rating. That is terrible.

Yeah, the Reuters poll tends to be Trump's worst poll. It's the only poll before the Iran war that had him under 40, the only poll of consequence. But he's a lot of. also under 40 in the AP poll out today. And I think it may be more of a leading indicator than an outlier. You know, is Trump, it all, you have to judge these things based on the, the poll itself, right? Is he down from where he was before? Right. And all these polls show him continue to go down. Whether his real number is 41 or 38 doesn't really matter. What matters is that he is moving in the wrong direction. Yeah. And so on that point, there is a poll of Wisconsin voters out today. It's from Marquette University law. It is like gold standard in Wisconsin. They found Trump at 42% approval,

56% disapproval. So he's 14 points underwater. This is the worst number as Trump has ever gotten in a Wisconsin poll by Marquette during his two terms. They've done 28 polls. And they say the erosion has been slow and steady. It's not precipitous in the second term. And that seems pretty significant here. Because like, look, we're comparing these numbers to polls in the darkest days of the pandemic. And he's doing worse now. And also, there's a Wisconsin Supreme Court election coming up in April that is very important and worth watching and getting involved in if you live in Wisconsin. It's on April 7th. But, you know, that's just another data point, Dan, from a quality pollster that shows that trend line you were talking about. Yeah. And these things are all states are correlated, right? If he's at 42

in Wisconsin, he's probably at 45 in Ohio. That's bad news for Republicans. Can they win if Trump's in 45 in Ohio? Yes, but it makes it much harder. Yeah. You know, so, thing in Texas, right? Iowa, Wisconsin have generally traveled similarly and, uh, and sort of how politically, like obviously there's a partisanship gap between the two states, but it's just an indicator that his numbers are down everywhere. And it may not, it may be there's not a single state in the country where Trump is above water. That is, that is possible at this point. Pod Save America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What's the latest trend in hiring? It's skill-based hiring, which emphasizes capabilities over education and direct experience.

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And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. That's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Look, I'm loat to make predictions because we all remember 2016 and we were not very good at them. But like you said, with gas prices, there was a CBS poll over the weekend. 85% of people say gas prices are going up in their area. 67% say Americans should not be willing to pay more for gas during the Iran war. 60% disapprove of the Iran war.

So that's that is the mood music today. Now, it's Wednesday. I'm an Iran, look, foreign policy geek. So Ben and I were talking about all this stuff yesterday, following it closely. Trump did some market manipulation on Monday where he suggested to the oil markets and the stock market that there were talks were happening and the U.S. and Iran were close to a deal. I think he literally made that up. It is total bullshit. Today, Wednesday, Iran has released like their five point demand list and Trump has released his

15 point demand list and figuring out how they get an agreement that that meets the demands of each feels very, very difficult in the near term. All of that is a way to say it feels like this war is going to be going on for a while and this rate of Hormuz is going to be closed for a while, which means gas prices will remain up, if not go up from here. And that just, it just seems catastrophic. And it's not just gas prices. It's other commodities like fertilizer, which, will increase the price of food. Like every single thing Donald Trump ran on when it comes to the cost of living is likely to go up in a meaningful way in both the near term and then stay up in the long term.

And that just feels like political catastrophe for him. It is. There are limits on how many seats Democrats can win just because of how gerrymander the House map is because this happens to be a very tough Senate map for us. Like in a different year with a different set of states up, we would, you know, with Dave McCormick and what Ron Johnson were up. These would be the kind of places where you'd have a chance to pick up more seats. So they have that going for him.

But Trump's best case scenario before the Iran War was that the, that inflation slowed. Prices weren't going to drop, but inflation slowed. And gas prices were his one singular thing he could point to and say was actually lower costs when he took up for Biden. And now that is much higher. Like just you were just doing a political science class exercise and you're like, what is the best way to lose an election? It would be to start a protracted regime change war in the Middle East that spite gas prices six months before the election.

Yeah. And that's what Trump did. Yeah. So I was listening to our buddies over the bulwark talk about this. And, you know, Tim Miller is more where I am, I think, which, again, I don't like to make predictions. But I really do feel like Trump is like let the toothpaste out of the tube on Iran. And it's really going to be almost impossible to put it back in or at least get things back to where they were. I suspect it'll get worse.

But Jonathan Van last JVL, he is more of a Trump doomer. And he sort of thinks that look for the last decade, Trump has been able to spin his base on anything and convince them that black is white, up is down. There was no collusion, whatever it might be. And that he suspects he'll be able to do this on cost of living and gas prices and just claim victory. Say he fixed Iran. Say everything's better and gas prices are going to be better. do you think that's feasible here when you're talking about something as like directly you know as direct an economic hit as gas prices can he make the hardcore mega base believe everything's okay or at least

tell pollsters everything's okay and still turn out yes he has some tools in the toolkit to to jack up republican turnout i am anxiously awaiting a retirement announcement from sam alito or clarence thomas so there can be fall supreme court hearings don't do that to me but but the damage is already done in terms of breaking up the coalition that powered Trump in 2024. This idea of this permanent Republican majority that would include this multiracial working class coalition, these young people who are flooding to the Republican Party for the first time. That promise is dead. That is gone. Those people have left. They haven't come to us, right? That is the other caveat here is that Democrats still have work to do. The opportunity is historic, but we have not yet done what

it takes to seize it. Even if you look at as bad as Trump's approval rating is, when you can pay a Republican and Democratic approval rating on key issues, we're basically tied on inflation. You know, could that get better with gas prices going up? Maybe. But right now, we have not yet convinced a lot of these people who have left Trump to come to us. And that's the work that still needs to be done. Yeah, a lot of work to do. I mean, you know, the good news is we got some good candidates and some targeted races who could hopefully pull it off. Finally, Dan, I just wanted to leave listeners with something beautiful, something inspiring, something that might give them hope. Let's watch.

Honestly, my heart. It's like a, she's like a Disney princess. So that was first lady, Melania Trump. I just, look, after all those years being trapped in a loveless marriage, Melania finally found her person. And I think we could just celebrate that. You know, you told me you're going to surprise me with a clip at the end here. And I thought that might be it.

And I had not, I had seen the tweets about the clip or the Trump, that I just saw Maloney had walked out with a robot, but I intentionally did not watch it so that I could enjoy it for the first time here with you, Tommy, with everyone watching. And that was the right choice because that is truly, I remember the thing I said earlier about both were what? You know, the bright and the story. The story of this ends, Melania finds a heart for the robot. Yes. She rips it out of Donald's chest. I don't know. Actually require him to have the heart. All right, Dan, thank you for walking through all these polls with me. Thanks for having some fun at the end. Subscribe to Pod Save America here on YouTube and we'll talk to you guys soon. Bye everyone.