Bulwark Takes - Democrats Are Winning… Now What? (w/ Josh Shapiro)

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Sarah Longwell talks with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro about what Democrats’ big election wins really mean, how Trump’s tariffs and shutdowns hurt his own voters, why voters are rejecting chaos, and how Democrats can win by simply making people’s lives better. They also discuss the divide over Israel and Gaza, the future of the party, and what moral clarity looks like in politics today.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Oh, my gosh, everybody. I am so excited. Obviously, I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark, but I am here with Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania,

my home state. Josh Shapiro, how are you, man? Sarah, I'm doing awesome. I'm so happy to be on with you. We got to talk Pennsylvania. Where are you from in Pennsylvania? Montgomery County, just outside Philly. And now I live there in Harrisburg.

So how about you? Oh, Harrisburg. Okay. Well, so I grew up outside of Harrisburg, but I grew up in Perry County in Millerstown. Yeah. In a Hamlet of. of 700 people.

Yeah, not many people there and no traffic lights. No, do you know? So this is one of my favorite stories when people asked me where I'm from. I say one time they had to fix a bridge. So they had to put up a stoplight. And when the stoplight came down, the whole town threw an ice cream party. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where I'm from.

Not a lot of that kind of infrastructure in Perry County. Some beautiful covered bridges, though. Very, very pretty. It's a lovely place. Pennsylvania, you know, people, the turnpike gets a bad rap, but it's beautiful going up and down the term pike. It sure is. Listen, I'm happy to do this interview, but the next one, you better come back to Pennsylvania. We'll do it in Perry County. How about that? I would love to. I've been meaning to go back because, you know, I get notes from people now who say,

like, oh, somebody came to a show recently. It was great. I love everybody down there in Perry County. But here's my first question for you. Are we so back? Are we back? Look, I think we're back. And I think what's clear is that voters kind of sent a similar two-part message in a whole bunch of states, including mine yesterday. Number one, we are rejecting the chaos and extremism of Donald Trump. And number two, we're voting for candidates that are actually going to make our lives better, right? Who are actually going to deal with the issues in our communities and our commonwealth and across the country. And I think you saw that across the board. And I like how you kind of said that the war back thing, because I don't know about you. I've been getting a little

sick and tired of how many people kept looking backwards, how many people kept wanting to talk about what happened yesterday? I don't want to think about the past. I want to think about the future. And I think yesterday helped propel us forward and puts us in a really strong position for the midterms, not just to win a bunch of races, or maybe even reelect a governor of Pennsylvania, but what it really, really says is we've got a path forward that is about rejecting chaos, being pro-freedom and pro-problem. And that's what I think these candidates show. showed yesterday all across the country. Were you surprised by the margins with which Mikey Scherl and Abigail Spanberger won?

I mean, I bet my team. So I told my team if Spanberger was plus 13 and Cheryl was plus seven. If they beat those margins, I'd take them to Vegas thinking that Sheryl wasn't going to get to that 10%. And now I got to take them. I got to take them. It's a real hardship for me, actually. Really sad about it.

But were you surprised by those margins? I mean, look, I was on the ground. with both of them, campaigning with them, really, I guess, just in the last week or 10 days or so. And I saw a lot of enthusiasm for them. I saw a lot of folks showing up to hear about how they were going to make their lives better and also showing up to send a message to Donald Trump. So, look, did I know exactly what the margins would be? No, but I felt good about both those races.

And while those two races obviously capture a lot of attention, you know, two big governor's races, probably less interesting to your national audience, but something I do want to mention. In Pennsylvania, we not only held our Supreme Court, but in the three Bellwether counties that Donald Trump won in the swingiest state in the country last year, we won every race on the ballot there. We're talking DA, sheriff, county council, county executive, mayor's races in those Bellwether counties, that's a big, big deal. And it's an example of not only elevating really good candidates, but sending a message to Trump that we're against your chaos, we're against your freedom. And we are against you taking away our freedoms. You know, I promise, I was going to ask about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race. That was, I was, I care about what's happening there in Pennsylvania.

I know there was a bunch of races there. And I guess you just ran us through, you know, what happened and that's great. But like, what does it feel like on the ground in Pennsylvania right now? You know, you say, okay, they're rejecting chaos. But Pennsylvania, you know, it's a swingy state. And it's always loved. Something I always say about Pennsylvania is it was actually somebody who liked its sort of contradictory politicians. When I was growing up, you know, they love to have their pro-life Democrats or like they sort of did always like their moderates a little bit.

But it went for Trump twice and then one time not. And so what is it? But are people, do you get the sense that people did it because of affordability and, you know, okay, Joe, Biden was old, and now they're like, why did I do that? Or do you, and they're ready to move on to something else? Like, what's your sense of people? Let me give you two examples that I think kind of sum it up. Yesterday, when I was going to a polling place in Philadelphia, in one of the neighborhoods of Philly, on my way there, I saw this long line of people, probably, I know, two, almost three blocks long, and then it turned the corner and it kept going as far as I could see. Some

people had the, you know, the I-voted stickers on, and some people didn't have them yet. And when I looked, I realized they were lined up at a pop-up food bank. These are people who presumably lost their SNAP benefits because Donald Trump and the Republicans who control Congress shut down the federal government. I mean, this is serious stuff. People who can't eat because Donald Trump's policies in D.C. have taken away the money that they need to be able to go buy groceries. Then in a rural community. I was with a farmer the other day who voted for Donald Trump, voted for me as well, who was complaining about the fact that these tariffs have both shut down markets for them and also caused their operation cost to go up. The feed, the soybean

feed that they purchase for their farm costs more now because of Donald Trump's tariffs. And because of Donald Trump's tariffs, the markets that these Pennsylvania farmers rely on, in Mexico, in Canada, are being shut off. So whether you've got this farmer that voted for Donald Trump or these folks in Philly who are hungry because of Donald Trump, what you're seeing is Trump is Trump is doing things that are directly hurting people in my state. And that's before the health care premiums double. And that's before the rural hospitals closed because of the Medicaid cuts.

I think what's clear is that people are feeling like, wait a minute. And by the way, 50% of the people who are going to see their health care costs go up are in counties that voted for Donald Trump. I think a lot of these people are like, wait a minute, this guy voted for screwing me over. He's like making my life harder. And our job as executives in government is to chip away and make your life a little bit better, right? Make your health care a little bit more affordable. Make your housing a little bit more accessible. Make your government just work more efficiently.

These are things I take pride in doing as a governor. or president should be doing the same. And I think folks are seeing that actually he's making their lives worse. And they sent a message yesterday in many states, including mine. I'm obsessed with the Trump-Shapiro voters, of which there are a lot. There's a lot of overlap there. And, you know, I guess because I just want to actually get into something you're just saying, but ask it a slightly different way.

Do you think yesterday was a referendum on Trump? Or do you think it has something to do with the makeup of off-year voters? Or is it both? Look, there's no perfect answer. And I'm not a pundit. I'll just kind of tell you what my vibe check is on the ground. I think it's an annoying pundit question. I'm sorry. A little bit. Look, you're going to give the answer. You're far better at this than I am. I just think it was both a rejection of Trump. But I don't think you should sleep on the fact that there were really good candidates running who wanted to make people's lives better. Really good counties running for sheriff or DA or county executive.

And these are people who are talking about substantive changes that they could make. in people's lives. I saw that with Mikey. I saw that with Abigail. I should say Governor's elect Cheryl and Governor-elect Spamberger. But what we're seeing is really, you know, good candidates running at a time where folks are also making clear that they don't like what Donald Trump is doing to them every day. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. Okay, so are we going to win all four of the swing seats in Pennsylvania? Because you do have these, you know, Ryan McKenzie's seats. That's a Trump plus three. Shapiro plus 12. You have a Harris plus one in Brian Fitzpatrick's district, and that's a Shapiro plus 20 crushing there.

Do you think those are going to be pickups in the midterms? You brought that up at the top? I do. And I'm working really hard with Leader Jeffries and others to make sure we have all the resources we need in the best candidates to be able to compete and win in those districts. I mean, I will tell you that if you look at what Texas is doing on the redistricting side, right, they think they're going to pick up three, four, five Republican seats. And then, of course, what Gavin was successful doing last night in California, we're probably pick up four or five Democratic seats. You know the math a little bit better than I do. But assuming that kind of

cancels each other out doesn't give Trump the advantage he wanted by rigging Texas, then I think the ballgame is going to be here in Pennsylvania, where we're going to have more competitive seats in our Commonwealth than any other state in the country. And with a razor-thin majority, for the Republicans in Congress right now, this is going to be the state where folks are going to have to focus to win these races so you can stop Donald Trump's dangerous legislative agenda and instead begin to have Congress do what they're supposed to do, which is to be a check on the executive branch, to be able to control the purse of the United States, and to be able to have some more sanity in our process in D.C.

Hey, what do you make a Trump trying to get rid of the filibuster? Yeah, because it's convenient for him now. And I think there's a through line in everything Trump does. He tries to rig the rules to suit his immediate needs. I think you're seeing that in so many different ways. And the filibuster is just kind of the next thing. All right. So I do have to ask you this question.

And actually, I'm pretty interested in your answer. But I feel a little bit about asking it because this is what everybody wants. Actually pretty interested. Not, I'm super interested. Well, when you hear the question, basically, what's your take on Zoron? I mean, look, I think he was the unique. figure for that state, just like Abigail was and Mikey was. And I think what is kind of an interesting throughline between all of them is that they focus their campaigns on making your life

better, right? I'm not the expert on the issues in New York City, but he spoke over and over and over again about the affordability of housing, the affordability of health care and child care and everyday services, access to busing and infrastructure and mass transit. And these are all like everyday issues that matter to people. Go to New Jersey. Mikey was talking about utility costs and driving down those costs. Abigail was talking about increasing energy production in order to reduce costs there. So in many ways, these are really different candidates, obviously, but a similar through line throughout. And they fit their district. They fit their, you know, their communities. Yeah, I mean, how, and do you feel open to this? I guess I've been trying to balance the fact that, you know,

I was a Republican like 20 minutes ago, and now I'm in what I would call the big broad pro-democracy coalition. I am much more drawn. And people who watch this show know this. I have somebody who talks about you quite a bit. You are kind of my type of bulwarky candidate, partly because you're from Pennsylvania, partly because you win in the largest swing state in the country, which I think is really important. And Zoron, not my cup of tea.

And some of his old stuff, some of the river to the sea stuff, not a huge fan of it. That being said, I, if I have one thing that drives me every day, it is how do we bring the country back from the brink where Donald Trump has taken it? And just the toxic forces he's unleashed on our country. And so that requires building a big tent, a really big tent. And so do you feel good? I felt like last night was kind of interesting because it felt like it represented the big panoply of things that Democrats have to offer. And do you feel like that's a good thing? Or do you think that there's ways in which the party would thrive, because there's this ongoing.

Should it be more moderate, like in a Josh Shapiro, Andy Bescher got away? Should it go more DSA, Zoron? Or is it just everything for everybody? What do you think? I totally reject the premise that we have to make a choice. But let's take individuals out of this, right? Just the broader theme. I reject the choice that we've got to choose to be progressive or moderate.

I think what instead we need to do is elevate great candidates who are going to make people's lives better. And look, I think in many ways you saw yesterday. kind of local issues coming to the top, whether in the governor's races, mayor's races, county executive race in Erie. But you also saw a through line of a rejection of Donald Trump. I think for us, we need a party that is broad, a party that compete everywhere. But we also need a party that isn't simply defined by a rejection of Donald Trump. We need to be a party that's for something. And I think you saw in a whole bunch of candidates yesterday, then being for something. And I think maybe another through line throughout is all those candidates who ran in one, they're for freedom and they're for democracy.

Whether I agree with every point they're making or I agree with, you know, individual things that were said, I think those are fair through lines that you can see in the victories the Democrats had. And if we're going to build a successful party going forward, we have to have a party that is big, that finds ways to be united and that makes people's lives better, that we don't define ourselves just simply. around being anti-Trump, but instead around pro-you, around pro the people that we're trying to serve. Yeah, I'm 100% on board with that, but what do you make of the Jay Jones thing? Like, that's obviously for in my feed of sort of anti-antitrumpers, the big focus is on how could Democrats elect this guy? And sort of as a prudential matter, I think if I was Abigail Spanberger, I would ask that guy to maybe take leave. However, he did just win. And so the voter have spoken. But is it, do you find, do you feel like Democrats are saying, you know what,

because I do hear this a lot in focus groups. I run a lot of focus groups with voters. And there's a real rejection of the, when they go low, we go high mentality now. Like I hear from a lot of Democrats, they're like, no, they're so low and I'm not, I'm not accommodating that anymore. Right. Do you feel that? Or how do you think Democrats should approach things like this? I mean, look, the moment I learned about Jones's, you know, text messages and all, I immediately condemned it. I mean, I think there is no place in our politics and our society for that type of violent rhetoric. I mean, my family and I have witnessed it directly that, you know, this kind of violent, dangerous rhetoric can lead to dangerous attacks and violence in our communities or in our

case at the governor's residence in Harrisburg while we were asleep. That is not okay. And yes, the voters chose him. And I think now he is the burden of responsibility to, to speak directly to all Virginians and let them know why he did what he did, what he learned from it, and how he's going to be a better person going forward. But what he did was not okay. And I think he needs to, you know, offer an accounting for that. Yeah. Okay. So when you are a top tier candidate in 2028 and everyone's looking at you and thinking, okay, do we like this guy? You're in a Democratic primary. All hypothetical, of course. Do you feel? feel like there is a way to heal the divide in the party around sort of Palestine, Israel,

and the way that Democrats feel, it's sort of the number one thing I hear in focus groups where people feel like the party is in tension. Do you feel like you have a specific positive role you could play in healing that divide? Look, forget the sort of forecasting of what politics looks like in 2028. Let me just tell you what I do now. I mean, I spend a considerable amount of time in our Muslim communities and our Arab communities, our Palestinian Christian communities, listening to people, understanding the pain that they feel when they see what happened in Gaza. I also listen to American Jews in Pennsylvania, who obviously expressed the pain they feel, the pain I feel on what happened on October 7th and thereafter. And I think when you

actually listen to people and you figure out ways to bring them together, as I've tried to do as governor, you can do some of that important healing work that has to happen here. And you can do that important work of building what I try and build a commonwealth in William Penn's vision, which was going to be a place for all people, of all different walks of life, of all faiths. I'm not sure Penn ever imagined there'd be a Jewish governor in the land that he created, but he'd probably be pretty proud. He'd probably be damn happy that I'm having an IFTAR at the governor's residence and discussing these issues really directly and openly and in a raw and honest way with people. So I think it is really important that we create space for those honest conversations. And I do that work as governor every

day. I think that's one important conversation. And I think there's another important conversation, which is what is our relationship going to be with the leaders in Israel? What is it that we're going to say about? And I've been very, very honest and open about my frustration. with Netanyahu. My view that he is a leader who has created many dangers for Israel, that he is not the leader for the future, and that what Israelis need to do, I believe, I don't have a vote there. This is up to them, is to chart a path forward that is going to create peace and stability in the region. Now, the only way they can do that is if they have someone to do that with on the other side. And it can't be Hamas. They are a terrorist organization.

They must be disharmed. They must be out of power. And there needs to be an opportunity to give rise to leadership there where you can then finally have a dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians in creating what my hope would be is a two-state solution where you can have a lasting peace in the region. And when you have that and people have hope about their future and they think about their future in the context of not, in Hamas's case, trying to kill Israel. is part of their charter, right? That is like right in there and their charter. Then you can create an environment where hopefully you can have some stability in the Middle East. Now, I realize there's a longer answer than maybe you wanted, but it's an important issue here. No, I think it's a really important. We've got to figure out ways to have two conversations. One, here in this country on how to heal our communities that feel this division. And I try and do that work every day. And then two, what do we want our foreign policy to look like going forward? what's in America's strategic interests? And I would argue it's in Israel's strategic interests

to have peace, you know, in the region as well. And so to me, it's both those conversations and you've got at both of them. And I think it's important that even though there is a ceasefire now, even though the hostages have come home, there is a lot more work to do. Hamas is still armed. They're not killing their own people. They're continuing to destroy, you know, communities and areas in Gaza, we have got to get Hamas out of power and you've got to begin to rebuild that region with the entire Arab world, working together with the Israelis and the Americans providing leadership. I think that is what we need right now. We've got to be able to carry on both conversations at the same time. No, I appreciate the long answer. This is really

important. It's a nuanced issue and it requires things that are not just emotional, short, you know, everybody react to retreating to their corners. And so I appreciate it. You use the word nuance. And I think it's a really important word. I just want to make sure I'm stating this. I think it is really nuanced when you think about the future of the Middle East and you think about the kind of negotiations from a foreign policy perspective that need to happen. Here's what is not nuanced. We cannot allow differences on how we view the region to be an excuse for anti-Semitism in this country, to be an excuse for Islamophobia in this country, or any form of hatred and bigotry. Because here's what is not nuanced.

Hate is not nuanced. We cannot allow space for that. And I think all leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity, to call out that hate, to call out that bigotry, to call out that anti-Semitism and that Islamophobia. And on that conversation, Sarah, I think there should be no nuance. I hear you. And I'm with you. Last question, because I know you got to wrap, like, okay, we're so back.

What do we do next? How do we, what is the way we, what is the posture, Democrats, should have. I use the term we advisedly. But I would like to see some accountability for Donald Trump, some oversight. So how did Dems proceed for the next 12 months to take back the House at minimum, if not the Senate? Govern effectively.