Bulwark Takes - Democrats Aren’t Winning Because They’re Brilliant. It’s Trump.

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Tim Miller, Sam Stein, and Democratic strategist Lis Smith join a live audience at Dartmouth for a spirited debate about Trump’s collapsing political fortunes, the GOP’s future under JD Vance, the Democrats’ struggle to rebuild their coalition, and the wide-open 2028 presidential race. Plus, a sobering question: What happens if Trump loses Congress and decides to go rogue?

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the bulwark. I was up at Dartmouth. I was an Ivy Man. Thanks to my colleague, Sam Stein, and my friend Liz Smith, who are actual Dartmouth grads. The three of us were invited up there to do a little panel for the students in the community. And it was super fun. We discussed state of the Democratic Party stuff where the Republican Party is going, our thoughts about what lessons can be taken from this midterm, took some Q&A, it was great.

I don't know. I mean, maybe it's self-selecting, like the type of student that wants to come see me is going to be great, obviously. And so maybe it's just that. But I feel like every time campus doing these things, like all of the discourse around what's happening on campus

seems so silly to make. It's always people that are thoughtful and it varies different. views and willing to share them. And I don't know, all the woes, the youth stuff never really lands to me when I'm actually hanging out with youth. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did to be up there. Stick around for me, Sam Stein, Liz Smith, live from Dartmouth College.

Hi, welcome, everyone. So thank you so much for being here with us this afternoon to participate in this conversation as part of the Rockefeller Center's 2026 midterm programming. My name is B. Reikman. I'm a 27 studying government and Middle Eastern Studies, and I'm the president of the Dartmouth College Democrats. So the Rockefeller Center is grateful to its partners in planning tonight's program, including Dartmouth Dialogues, the Office of Dean and Faculty Arts and Sciences, and the Office of the Associate Dean for Social Sciences. We would like to welcome our virtual attendees who are joining us today via live stream. For those joining us in person, when we reach the audience Q&A portion of the program, please raise your hand and come to the aisle when a staff of

approaches your row. Please be sure to wait for the microphone before speaking to make sure that everyone in the room and on live stream can hear you. As a reminder, Dartmouth is committed to protecting free speech and expression and peaceful dissent. We encourage you to ask questions during the Q&A, but ask that you do not interfere or disrupt today's program, which would include preventing attendees from seeing or hearing the guest or moderator or interfering with our guest and moderator's ability to speak and be heard. This conversation is moderated by Professor Russ Mearhead, Robert Clemens Professor of Democracy and Politics, and co-director of the Political Economy Project. I am honored to introduce this evening's guest speakers, two of whom

are Dartmouth alumni. So first, we have Tim Miller. He is the host of the Bullwark podcast. He's also a political analyst at MS Now, and previously was the communications director for Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential campaign. and spokesman for the RNC during Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. Liz Smith is a Democratic strategist and communications expert with experience on more than 20 political campaigns nationwide, from local races to the presidential level, and she's the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Any Given Tuesday and a 2005 graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam Stein is managing editor for the bulwark, and prior, he was deputy managing editor for politics at Politico.

He held similar posts at both The Daily Beast and the Huffington Post, where he founded the Sites Capital Bureau, and has been a longtime contributor at MSNBC and a 2004 graduate of Dartmouth College. Please join me in welcoming Tim Miller, Liz Smith, Sam Stein, and Professor Russ Mearhead to the stage. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. Welcome back. And let me start out by asking.

I'm curious. I mean, I think we're all reading the polls. We're thinking not wave. We're thinking tidal wave. We're thinking tsunami. But I'm not so much interested in your prognostication about what's going to happen the election is I'm interested in what lesson do you think, or lessons do you think the Democratic Party will take away from election 2026?

So, like, I'm a lifelong Democrat, and I know that we're very good at taking the wrong lessons away from elections, but it is my hope we take the right lesson away from this one. And you and I were talking before about this, but there has been a really dangerous myth that has been peddled in the Democratic Party for the last nearly 20 years. And it's that mobilization alone matters. Why do we need to persuade people? Just turn out our base. Have our candidates adopt the most maximalist positions on issues.

And of course, that 2008 coalition that materialized for Barack Obama and helped him win North Carolina and Indiana and Ohio and Florida and Iowa, that it would keep on rolling. And, you know, it was based on a lot of things that clearly are problematic that you take the farthest left position and that that coalition of college educated voters, of black voters, of Latino voters, of younger voters, that, of course, they're all going to go along with you. because why would black voters think differently from Latino voters or think differently from young voters? And why would young black voters think differently from older black voters? And why would Venezuelan Americans think differently from Cuban Americans, from Mexican Americans? So obviously we know that hasn't panned out because we went from having 60 Senate seats in 2009, Democrats did, to, what is it, 48 now? We went from having, I think, close to 260 seats in the House to having,

many fewer than that. I'm not going to butcher the numbers. I could go through... And if you look down the list at state legislatures, it's even worse. So what you will hear is you will hear people the day after the election say, this proves that mobilization works. This proves that only bold progressives can win and that we're the people who turn people out. And I have no problem with progressives. I have no problem with them. I know that they feel like I do, that we have a lot of problems that we need to address. But The reality is this. If we win back the House of Representatives, if we win back the Senate, it will be because we got back in the listening business and we got back in the persuasion business.

That's wrong. You said one wrong thing. That's good. We can start disagree. And this is the thing. We can't prejudge. We don't know what's going to happen. But I do know this. If you look around at the battleground seats for House, for Senate, you can count on one hand, fewer than five fingers. How many people are running on the most maximalist positions? And so the House and the Senate, should we win them, are going to be won by Democrats who are trying to persuade people back to their side, whether they're independent or they're Republicans. And it means that there's no one way to be a Democrat.

A Democrat in the Rio Grande Valley is going to look very different from a Democrat in South West Washington, very different from a Democrat in New York City. And guess what? That's okay. We do not need every Democrat to subscribe to the same positions. What we do need to understand is that there is no one way to be a Democrat, and if we want to be a majority party, that we've got to really embrace that big tent thinking. All right, let's talk about our differences. First, I want to say, I'm so happy to be here. Dartmouth, never been. Been to hit over town hall a few times, so I was down the block. But, you know, I didn't even come close to making it in here. I didn't do my homework in high school. And so Liz, look at Liz. This is the prep Liz did for this panel.

This is why Liz made it to Dartmouth, and I didn't. But 20 years later, though, I'm here. We're in the same place. So it's all that worked for nothing. Anyway, I think what I disagree with you about is, I think, our core fun disagreement these days, which is if the Democrats start the Senate in the House with big margins in November, it's mostly going to be because Trump stepped on his dick so hard. and it's not really going to be kind of, I mean, I think that some, the Democrats ran good campaigns,

a better campaign in some places than others, but I think a lot of Democrats who run bad races are going to win. I think that there's some good examples of Democrats winning races and, like, you know, had the Texas Senate been inverse, right, and had the Republicans put up John Cornyn and the Democrats put up some, you know, lunatic lefty, they probably wouldn't have won that race. But you could say that with a lot of these races. You could. Sure. And, of course, the anti-Trump stuff is a big factor. But let's say across the board, the candidates who won hadn't won a lot of these primaries, we would be having a slightly different conversation.

Maybe, yeah, maybe. I just think that, like, I don't know that, for example, like Sherrod Brown, I think will probably win in Ohio. I think this is a good example because he doesn't really fit in the factional fight part of this in the way like Abdul or Roy Cooper does. But he'll probably win in Ohio. Like, is he doing anything meaningfully differently than he did when he lost six years ago? Like, not really. Like, I think he's going to do better this time because the environment's so bad and because Donald Trump made so many mistakes.

And so to me, I just think that I think it would be wrong for the Democrats. I think that there's some good lessons I think that they should learn. Like, for example, the part we did agree with before you got to the end there, was that persuasion does really matter and they're going to win. And holy shit, it's possible they could win Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, Texas. Like, even if they don't win, even if they get very close in those states. It's like that should be a lesson to the Democrats. Like they can actually go into communities

where they've not been done very well for the last 15, 16 years and do well. And so I think that that is a lesson that they should take and will. I also just think that like off-year elections are just so different than presidentials in this day and age. And I think that you can kind of over,

obviously Joe Biden way over-interpreted his mandate after a kind of successful 2022 where the Republicans actually won the House popular vote, but then the Democrat somehow Biden took that as a mandate for what he was doing. And so I think that you can overinterpret this sort of stuff. But 2028, I mean, it's just a very, like the types of people that vote, the types of people that you have to talk to, the types of media outlets you have to do,

it is super different in presidential years than in midterms. First of all, it's 47 seats, not 48 in the Senate, so you should just count everything that's just said. You're not counting Bernie. No, no, it's still 40. It's still 47. It's still 47. That's why they need to.

My map is. See, this is why I don't give them. This is why I didn't get a moment. It's 47 plus three, 50. You guys, doesn't this whole conversation make you feel like anxious? Like, well, why are you guys? I know the question was posed to you, but I'm sitting here mildly petrified that we have a massive polling misinterpretation again. I think it's very, like, Iowa, I saw something today.

Iowa farmers are not actually answering the phones and the polls might be just overstating. Well, there's a lot of literature that if your party's doing really poorly, you're not inclined to answer a pollster. I just think, I guess if I had to take a side here, one, as I would never talk about this because I'm superstitious, two is I sort of agree with Tim, and it's not because I work with him, although I do want to keep the piece. Yeah. But it's, sometimes you look up and you forget that the macro picture is so bad. and it's it's almost like in 2020 I think back to 2020 fair bit where it's like oh my god we had just there was one month where we lost 20 million jobs there was a pandemic that was about to kill a million people everyone was losing their mind and living at home and going crazy and Joe Biden eeked it out it's like how did he just eke it out because there's a lot of serious forces that do work against the Democrats and I think those forces have been negated a lot by what Trump has done, to Tim's point.

You look and you say... Stepping on his own dick. I would not put it that colorfully. But yeah, I mean, so the atmospherics are a big thing. Are they going to be there in 2028? I don't know. Democrats have amazing capacity to fight amongst themselves, and there will be factionalism to a degree that I think will be uncomfortable for everyone in this room.

And we'll live with it, but I'm like, let's not talk about that now. It was long by the month. And speaking of factions, do you have any sense of which factions within the Republican coalition might gain traction after the mid-terms? I have a very...

Yeah, that's way easier. It's this, we're not going back. Let's just be real. Yeah, this is what it is. That's it. Yeah, no. It is what it is from the standpoint of they want, Republican voters want, like, nationalism, for sure.

And I think that people could say, you know, I think critics would say they want white nationalism, and, you know, Republicans say they want sovereignty or whatever, but, like, they're not going back to this idea, you know, see what you want about kind of the, whatever, like our lifetime, you know, Ford to Bush, like, Republican candidates. like there was like some fundamental like underlying classical liberalism not like liberal like democrat liberal but classical liberalism of like believing in you know free trade and free markets and free movement of people and like some you know quasi liberalization of immigration and you know basic belief in rule of law and like this republican party is not interested in any kind of liberalism classical or otherwise like they are they're going to look like a blood and soil party like the right-wing parties in every other country, basically, except in Australia, except in the Anglosphere, basically, every other in the world, the right-wing country, excuse me, the right-wing party is a nationalist party, it's religious,

and some of it is like kind of state economic, and it's not necessarily like free markets and the way that you think about it here. That's what they're going to go, and they're all going to fight over it, and JD will be the kind of standard-bearer of that kind of nationalist movement, even if Marco or someone challenged him,

like, look at it out, Nikki Haley basically ran a kind of a quasi-nationalist campaign last time when she was trying to challenge Trump. And somebody might challenge from the even bigger side. So that's just what people, yeah, that's what the voters want. And they're much more homogeneous. You know, like the Republican voters are basically all on board with that. Like there's like a small category of like rich Republicans that just want tax cuts and

support for Israel. But like 80% of the party is basically a lot. Like they have little differences. So it's very different than the Democratic coalition in that regard. Yeah, interesting and is diversity a weakness in the Democratic coalition? It makes it more challenging, right? It definitely makes it more challenging to to build a coalition when you have all these different you know all this diversity, right? And I think that's a challenge that has presented itself to the Democratic Party when you're trying to build a big tent and I think the debate, and look, I totally agree that the anti-Trump sentiment is what the overwhelming thing is driving this, but in terms of the Democratic Party and the candidates who are going to overperform,

the candidates who are going to underperform, the candidates who are going to determine how Democrats do, it is going to be the type of candidates that I discuss. But to your question about the diversity in the Democratic Party, the big thing that we've got to reckon with, the big thing that we've got to figure out is, okay, so we've hemorrhaged in all these rural states or have hemorrhage in all these rural areas, how do we come back there? And it's going to require some difficult conversations. And their disagreement is difficult and sometimes painful. And I think the big reckoning, you know, after this cycle, not, and the presidential is sort of its own beast, but I think as we look how to rebuild over the next generation is how much disagreement

can be tolerated. Because a lot of people are like, fine, oh, you can disagree with me on this, but absolutely not on that. Yeah. And it just doesn't really work that way because there are going to be Democrats who maybe disagree with this sort of, you know, standard position on abortion or on gun control or on oil and gas or climate. And to someone in the coalition, they're going to be really pissed off about that.

So I think that's going to be the biggest, messiest challenge. What I hear you say is you want a Democratic legislative coalition that can contains more disagreement in it. I want a Democratic Party across the board. There's no choice but to do that. Here's the thing. This is kind of the funny thing about the Democratic coalition. Everybody from every faction is talking about how we can win this other group of people that is not them.

Right? And like the median voter in the country, if I got into Dartmouth, I would have gotten the actual number of this. But I'm pretty sure the median voter in the country is like 62 white and didn't go to color. college. Okay. So that's like in a presidential year, that is like the median voter demographic. And like the Democrats don't have a ton of, like suburbs, like, yeah. And the Democrats like aren't very well represented. The Democrats are super diverse in a bunch of other demographics, but like they're not very well represented and kind of the plurality group in the country still. It's not as big as it was in 1984, but like non-college white working class people is still the

plurality demographic group in the country. And for Democrats to, win, especially with the way that the electoral college and the Senate biases towards that group even more, they have to figure out how to get more of those people in. And, you know, I think everybody has different theories with the case about how to do that, like whether that be economic populism or moderating more on social issues. But like that, like the Democrats, you know, just because of the nature of how the coalitions break down, the Democrats need to broaden out more. And when I look at, I mean, I'm not really an expert.

I think, as you are, about the specific races out there, especially, say, congressional races in the country. But when I kind of glance at it, I see some interesting characters, like a smoke jumper in Montana, a Navy helicopter pilot running for Congress in Florida, a small town mayor in North Carolina. I mean, when you look at the specific races,

does it give you hope? Are you on the bench.com before you came here? You're starting out all of Liz's candidates. Oh, is that right? I just love your candidates. Well, I mean, And that's, I think, an incredible thing, right? Because, look, I love lawyers.

Lawyers play a really important role in society. They're, like, a little overrepresented sometimes in politics. And we need to, like, branch out a little bit. And one thing I love about this election cycle, I'm part of a group called The Bench that went out after 2024 and said, you know what, we're sick of losing. Let's start looking for different types of candidates. And among our candidates, we have a smoke number in Montana,

someone who jumps out of planes to put out fires. We've got a Tejano music star in the Rio Grande Valley, Bobby Polito. He is awesome. And he is, I'm not going to jinx anything, but he is running a fantastic campaign. We've got a farmer and small businessman in Western North Carolina who's doing really well. We've got a woman leader in the Special Operations who is running in the Hudson Valley of New York. And I think that's what's incredible. And part of the thing, too, is when you were running a woman like Kate Conley,

She's running the Hudson Valley. And her opponents just calling her a DSA every day of the week. It's pretty hard for that caricature to stick. When you look at her bio, she was in special operations, deployed six times to war zones to hunt down terrorists. And only that, before that, she was a cop. So she was a cop in the military, went to hunt down terrorists. You're not going to say that this is like AOC Jr.

It just doesn't work. A lot of the attacks just don't work on people like this. And I think that we've got to realize that we need different types of candidates with those sorts of bios. Because one, I think they're a little more relatable or a little bit, you know, less political seeming. And two, they're harder to care. It seems like there's got to be sort of a, you know, a generational change in the ranks of elected officials coming from really both parties. But, I mean, when you see this younger generation that's activated that wants to pay the enormous personal price running for office, do you see, you know, signs of hope a different type?

No, Sam, you're sick. No, I'm just thinking the DSA plays the long game. You know, you pretend to be a smoke jumper and then you show your real colors when you get elected. So you've got to do better vetting, Liz. I sort of always wonder who would want to subject themselves to this nonsense. Like your whole life gets just absolutely turned over. Every little misstep or, in this case, social media posts that you've made. It's going to be unearthed.

you have to have not just incredibly thick skin to get into politics, but you have to be sort of masochistic in a way, and you have to be, and frankly, you have to be a little bit egotomaniacal. Like you have to believe that you are the solution to people's problems. So, you know, it draws interesting characters, to say the least.

Surprise you never took a pass. I fit off those. I'm here to announce, actually. It is, I will. say there's something valuable to bringing in these new perspectives, though. I'm married to a lawyer, so I do have to say I do love lawyers, too. At least one. At least one. But, you know, it's, I think having people who have come through different upbringings and who bring to the Congress different perspectives can create interesting coalitions and interesting debates. Sometimes it's

very frustrating. I was mispronounce her name, but who is the Congresswoman you love up in Washington? Mary Glucicampra does? Yeah. I mean, she's just on my nerves a little bit. I love her too. I love her. She's great. She's got different.

She's just unique and interesting. I purchase from, so I'm different than them. I've never run campaigns or been involving campaigns, but I cover them. And those are the type of people that you sort of, as a journalist, gravitate to because not only are they good characters who you can write about who bring a different biography to Washington. You see if they're elected, but they provide better quotes, honestly. They're not as poll.

And I do think there's a little bit of chicken naked because I think it's that lack of polish the ability to at least scan as authentic that is a real currency in the modern political age. We need weirder people that fit weird or ideological valence, by the way. Like, I mean, if you looked at the last couple of years and you said, like, who in Congress has done anything? Like, I feel like everybody's answer would be like, nobody, right? But then it's like, okay, but really, like, if you had to name somebody, who would you come up? with, like, I think a lot of people would say Rokana and Thomas Massey, like, actually did things together. And they're both very strange.

Like, Thomas Massey has some views that are, like, completely crank and kooky. And, you know, like, if your daughter was like, hey, I'm dating Thomas, with Thomas Massey, you'd be like, go by. But, okay. But, like, he was a different kind of Republican, broke the mold, and they, you know, they broke through an Epstein files, worked around Iran, and some other stuff. and kind of Rokana also has like a quirky background where he like is doing the populace Bernie thing

but also is in Silicon Valley and has tech bro. You know what I mean? Like sometimes that kind of unpredictable, I do feel like one potential way out of this morass is like you can't draw it up. You know what I mean? I think a lot of times people say like, oh, I want more moderation

and somebody like I think interpret what sometimes Liz is saying may be a little wrong because they're like, oh, that means I want the moderate Democrat I have in my head. head, like Evan by, and like the moderate Republican I have in my head, Bill Scott. And it's like, well, that's... I also, whatever to say is, like, I think that the idea of centristism is so out of date and so not where people are, right?

When, the reality is that most voters have pretty complex views. And, you know, they don't fit neatly on an ideological spectrum. And, you know, if you... Some of them are really far left on economics, but really far right on cultural issues. Some people are just like all over the map on different things. I think what we just need to embrace is not saying, you have to be a down-the-line moderate, you have to be a down-the-line progressive,

and understand that maybe having some more of these unconventional candidates who have sort of messy political views that, frankly, map more neatly with the American voters, I think is smarter. I'll just add, because I keep coming back to authenticity. So it's like, let's say AOC decides to run for president or whatever, and Gavin Yuson decides to run up the president. My guess is they'll probably end up arguing for about 97% of the same things. But you're going to probably be like, okay, she's way more authentic

because she actually was a bartender, whereas he literally operates a venue. Right? Like there's like some sort of, there's some sort of prism through which you... And their fans online will act like it's Stalin versus Matt. Right. Right, exactly. Yeah, they're going to be, oh, my God. But it's really the ability of voters to sort of ascertain who is being genuine, which I think is really important these days.

And when you cover politics, when you're inside a campaign, when you see it up close, is it more like VEP, like sort of so... Yes. Yes. Next question. It's not West Wing. No. It's being direct. It's literally a documentary.

Yes. Truly. No, really. It's a documentary. Every day, I'm like, I cannot believe. Because Veep came, Vee kind of came out around the same time as that Kevin Spacey show. House of Cards.

I was like, oh, Washington's like, it's not even remotely. It's VEP. Like, these people are idiots. Hapless idiots. They are hapless idiots. Yeah. So we should be, I should teach a course on VEP if people really want to understand the truth of politics.

I mean, yeah, have you watched the Trump out? One of the students asked us earlier is they're like, I'm concerned. Yeah, she was concerned about, like, the people running behind the scenes might make it hard. I was like, there are, the man behind, it's, it is Wizard of Oz and Veep. It's like, the man behind the curtain has nothing. There's nothing there. Yeah.

I promise. And, and, I mean, a lot of us, you know, both, we're, a lot of people are idealistic about politics. I mean, how do you reconcile that the way it really is with the idealism that motivates a lot of interest in politics and passionate about it? I understand. I understand this is contradictory. But I do think. think, because there are moments where you can be idealistic. I'll just say from the vantage point of the bulwark,

it's obviously media and our politics, but we're kind of in the cross sections. After the killing of Renee Good and Alex Prattie, obviously it was a deeply troubling time. And I'm not comparing this to Veep, obviously. It was horrible. It's tragic. But one of the things that we did at the bulwark

is we, and this was Tim's idea, we went out to Minneapolis immediately. and we decided to have a live show there. And it was just a simple act of being like, hey, we're going to meet as a community. And we sold out within like 24 hours. And we're like, okay, we got to do a second show. So we sold that out too. And you meet these people who have had to do unthinkable things to keep their community together.

I remember talking to this one guy who was retired. And he had basically been like, I'm going to just have my retirement. And then this thing happened to his community. And he started waking up every day at 6 in the morning so that he could be a human shield for kids going to elementary school because ICE agents were descending on them. And you look at that and you're like, oh my God, like that act, the ability of a community to come together

to affect political change on their own because the politicians have decided that they're going to actually turn against the community. that is inspiring. Obviously, it was in this milieu of horrible human tragedy and inspeakable government policy, but I left that feeling so grateful that these acts of courage still could make a difference,

maybe not nationally, but certainly in that Minneapolis community. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, yeah. Sure. Look, life is messy and complicated, and like there are a lot of buffoons and politics, a lot of things that make you.

you angry, but, you know, there are moments of, of, you know, of progress, you know, that, like, that's why we all got into politics. Like, we all, at heart, you know, our softies underneath, you know, our hard candy shells up here. And I don't, you know, I do worry about kind of the kids in school now and, like, their view on this of, like, feel, you know, like, if you, you know, were whatever, if you're a freshman now here at Dartmouth, you know, you were, like, younger than my daughter when Trump came down the end. escalator, right? So you remember nothing else. And it doesn't really feel like there's been many positive progress. And so I understand like a disillusionment part of that, but like that

wasn't our, you know, like chugy millennial experience, right? I mean, like my family was illegal when I was in college. Like literally, like my current family was not legal. So I mean, there was lots of progress that happened over a period of time. Obviously for older folks in here, there's tons of progress that happened before that. And so, and I think we have little moments of progress. and you mentioned Minnesota, but the other immigration thing, for example, is that I always come back to that we talked about a lot on the show, was the El Salvador Goulog. And, like, they wanted to expand it. Like, they sent a bunch of people illegally to a foreign country to a gulag that they were

going to leave there to die. And there was a bunch of outrage, a bunch of pushback, and the Venezuelans that were in there are now not. They're free. Like, one of them still messages me. And there's nobody in there from us. So it's not, like, a huge win, you know? like in the grand scheme of things, no.

But like, that's meaningful. Like, they're meaningful ways to engage. Yeah, and quickly, I mean, I think so much of the news that we consume, it seems to just, like, revolve around six national politicians, like, six to eight, right? And a lot of them, like, including so on, why start, like, you know, notably Chuck Schumer, like, not that good, right? But, like, not that good. And they're not going to, like, give you that thrill up your leg.

But I think what the thing that keeps me going, and some days it's hard, right? I read the news. I'm watching these campaigns. I'm seeing all the horrible stuff that Tim and Sam are covering. But then, you know, I remember one day I saw on my calendar a call with Adam Hamilton. And I'm like, who's Adam Hamilton? And they're like, oh, he's running for Senate in Kansas. I was like, Jesus Christ, guys, like, you're putting this on my calendar?

Like, I'm having a bad day. And I remember Todd. My colleague couldn't make it. I ended up talking to him for about 45 minutes, and I left the call absolutely buzzing and feeling like, oh, my God. You know, this is exactly why I do this, is because, you know, outside of those six to eight sort of lacklesser people in national politics, there are like all these really good, like, I mean, good with a capital G, people who want to step up for whatever reason it is

and run for office. Run for office statewide in Kansas, a place that hasn't sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, since the 1930s. And so that's what I always encourage people to do, is when you get sick and tired of these, and my mom's back there, right? She's always like, oh, I gave this money to this person. I'm like, no, no, no, no, look up this person.

Look up this person. Because I promise you, like our politics is so much better than the leaders in our parties often are. Let me invite your mom and others to ask questions. And if you have a question, raise your hand. We have people with microphones that come around. let's take some questions from people in the audience. You know, I, there's a lot of emphasis.

I'm going to be ranking your questions, by the way, so make them good. Hold up a number, 6.5 from the, you know, in a campaign, it's zero sum. You're either going to, you win everything or you lose everything, and it's a fight. And that maybe contributes to the kind of banality of a campaign. But in the university, and universities all over the country, leaders of universities are trying to cultivate dialogue. And while the, you know, conservative or Republican Party in the United States is becoming a permanently MAGA party in many ways like AFD, like right-wing parties and your, and the Democratic Party tries to make, tries to become something out of all of its diversity, is there, you know, do you believe that there's an occasion? Does dialogue possible? Is dialogue something that...

Liz loves dialogue. I do. Do I think it's possible? Yes, I think it's possible. I think right now it's more possible on the local level. I think it's more possible on the municipal level. I'm just going to be realistic, right? But I don't think that just because things are bad right now

means that we have to say that this has to be what politics is forever. And there are some people who I think really thrive and their business model depends on it just being this endless warfare. And I think some people actually sickly like it. But I'm a softy. I'm an optimist at a heart. And I do think that there can be dialogue. There should be dialogue.

But it's difficult. I think our business will be fine either way. But I will be in the old folks home pointing a bony finger at people and being like they were for Trump. Sorry. I'm not sitting next to you. We're not going to forget. Yeah, not at my table. Sam, are you an optimist at heart?

I'm serious, so it's not a joke. No, not really. I mean, at heart I am, I don't know. I guess everything's cyclical, and eventually there will be enough of an appetite for a different type of, not moderate, but like, you know, calmed down politics. But then I'm like, I look at stuff right now, and it's just, you know, it's like, we always joke about...

The chatbot's going to kill us before that. Yeah, it's going to take us out, thankfully. No, I don't want us to die. He and I always talk about RFK Jr., because I just can't take it. But, like, I look at the stuff that's like, you know, RFK Jr. has, like, unleashed measles on America. And, like, the guy who gave him to us, Bill Cassidy, who got wiped, whose seat is, like, no longer up for grabs, who has no incentive whatsoever to play nice. Like, even he cannot, like, get off the Trump reservation at this moment.

And that is just shocking to me. So that gives me very little hope that there's going to be that kind of cross-pollination that you're talking about. Well, you know, maybe you have to start somewhere. Question over here. My question is for Liz, because we kind of began this whole seminar on this idea, especially, like, whenever you're answering question, the thing about centrist's versus populace

and this polarization, we talk about it. And I mean, even in Michigan, as you can see, I mean, El-Said, even in the primaries, it was kind of polarizing because people, there were a group of people within the Democratic Party that didn't want him to win because they thought he would be a weaker candidate

in the general election, right? And my question to you is Michigan being a swing state right now. If El-Sahid loses, you can say, look at me, I was right. But what would you think, what did you make of it if Elside wins in Michigan? So I don't think, I can't speak for other people.

I certainly am rooting for Abdul Al-Sayed. And I think he ran a really impressive primary campaign. And he is starting to work to build a broader coalition, which I think is really smart. If he wins, I think it's a mixed, a mixture of the two things that we said. And like, look, this is, when you were talking about the Republican Party before, and those two answered, I, I, Mike Rogers actually popped into my head, right,

as one of these candidates, because I feel like if you were going to break with Donald Trump, like this would sort of be an election year where you do it, right? Because he's so incredibly impopper. His numbers are worse now than they were after January 6th. And then the fact that you have guys like Mike Rogers in Michigan and just like clinging to him and like maybe a little bit saying, okay, we need to end the Iran war as soon as possible. Like that's the biggest daylight he can put between them. So I think I look, I think he's running an energetic campaign. I also think that Mike Rogers is an incredibly weak candidate. Someone who's been living in Florida for a long time. He has been a lobbyist all up in the D.C. swamp. So I think it's a combination of, of, of, you know, El-Sayed running an energetic campaign and Mike Rogers being really, really being just, I just don't understand why it is so hard to really stake out a different position. But I do think that that is going to hurt a lot of Republicans and races like that.

My one observation about Michigan is when we were talking about the middle, as an example from earlier, is I feel like every time, if I'm on a panel like this, people hear the middle and they think about, like, what's the old, like, eye-rolly thing? I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal, and that's moderate, and those people are the swing voters. And it's like, that's like kind of true. And like that was more true in the past and it is now. And there are still those people that still exist. But there's like the inverse side of people that have like opposite views to that.

People that are maybe socially conservative, but very anti-war. And I think that Elsaid's speaking to those people. I think you can see in the polls, he does some well with some Trump voters. and I would love for somebody to try to get both of those groups of swing voters, you know? And I think that Elsa Ed is really kind of locked in on a certain type of voter, and I think it'll be enough for him to win. And, you know, I just, yeah, I think that there's more groups to think about that are persuadable than sometimes, like, Democratic strategists think about that.

Question from this side. Hi. So I think we have been, like, witnessing a popular. subsurge from both the left and the right, very interestingly, and whether it is against economic elites or against political elites. And I'm just wondering, like, how do you think the Democratic Party should, like, approach or confront this kind of, like, populist sentiment? I mean, I think it's going to continue. You know, if you look at, saw some data today about, like, real wage growth is now down. Stock market is up, huge. We're going to have

have ungodly amounts of wealth that are concentrated among a handful of rich weirdos in Silicon Valley. And so I just, I think that the Democrats have to embrace some kind of, I think that there is a way to do kind of a healthy type of politics. It's populism that's not demagogic. It's risky, though. I mean, you know, populism usually leads to demagoguery, certainly on the right, of course, but it can happen on the left too. plenty of examples of that.

When you say demacoggi, do you mean sort of trading and angry passions? Yeah, trading and angry passions. You know, li-fueling, hate, demonization, scapegoating, conspiracy. Sometimes it overlaps into that, like, yeah. And I also think that their, populism takes many different forms. And I, I think one sort of populism that a lot of Democrats are latching on to that I think is really smart, is institutional populism, saying that, you know, there's a lot of corruption in our government right now.

The system is not working for people, whether it is, you know, whether we need political reforms or we need, you know, to ban, you know, stock trading or crypto scams, whatever it is. I think it is really smart for Democrats to understand that, like, the system is broken, that there are not enough rules in place to prevent corruption. And they're being very smart in tying that frustration with the system to a lot of the economic, outcomes that people are seeing. I would only add that it kind of feels like more of a necessity

now for Democrats to do it than maybe a little bit in the past. By that, I mean, I think, like, the big lesson that a lot of Democrats have internalized from the era of woke 1.0 was that identity politics was toxic for a lot of people. And if you flash back to that primary, all the questionnaires that they were answering, all the stuff around criminal justice reform, I'm not saying it's bad or good or anything like that, an immigration and should the border be decriminalized and things like that. Those were the things where they all felt like they had to take outwardly leftist positions. It becomes a little bit easier if your primary focuses on economic populism. And I guess the best template to kind of think about this is Bernie

Sanders' two presidential campaigns. Because in 2016, his platform on immigration was, I mean, it wasn't Trump like, but it was like actually immigration. It's the right of me. Yeah, it was like immigrants, we need to like think about how immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans. Like that, you go back and look at it. Yeah, and he wanted to reduce like unskilled immigration. Right. And he barely talked about any of the cultural issues and he was kind of pro-guns.

And in 2020, that wasn't Bernie. I think it becomes more unifying in a way for Democrats to think about just structuring everything around corruption, around the elites and the weirdos in Silicon Valley, just absolutely profiteering while you're struggling around the price of gas. Those are things that are simple and unifying. Do we have another question? Is there a microphone? I would just like to ask the opinion of the panel as to what will happen if indeed there is, is a blue wave or blue tsunami, what is Trump going to do? How will he react to that both immediately

after the election and in the two years he has left in his term? We'll probably take it pretty well. Work across the aisle. Find some common ground. Acknowledge his defeat. Man, I look, obviously this was unsuccessful, but on every interview, Anytime I was talking outside of like a liberal bubble in 24, like I tried to make the case that the best reason to vote against Trump was that the tail risk of what he does is just so great. Like he's so unpredictable. And I think that in the face of having no congressional power, like he's going to do what he's been doing, which is try to do stuff by himself and run roughshout over the government. And whether that is like, how could I get into his brain and predict what it is? Like is that invading Greenland or Cuba or is that, you know, Bill then putting his face on Mount Rushmore or whatever?

whatever. Like that's the kind of stuff that he's been focused on now, I think he's going to continue to focus on. And I think he'll probably escalate the war in Iran after the election. And I think that he'll try to do as much as he can in the areas where he can act unilaterally. You know, the only variable I'd add is that I don't, and I really don't think he's going to try to run again. So, but you never know, right? He might start, in theory, thinking about, about what the... Heaven. He's already not. He's not going to. He really should have let you in. I got to work on the heaven.

I got to work on the heaven. No, I think, you know, but like corruption might actually become even more, like, in your face, where he's like, I got to get my beak wet even more. Partons for everybody. really trying to lay the groundwork for prosecuting his political opponents in a way that's much more vicious than now. Not good, right? But also at the same time, he is going to step off the stage eventually. And other Republicans are going to try to take his place.

And I know we just said Trumpism is not going to die. I don't think this is in contradiction to it. But there's going to be a lot of kind of woe moments for Republicans in those two years. where they're going to have to decide, is this like, you know, can they get behind this or what is actually happening in a way that I don't think we've properly conceived of yet? Yeah, I mean, I think he's shown he's a pretty lawless guy. And when he's cornered, he seems to get even more lawless. But I'm not sure that anyone's going to step up to challenge him, even on his way out.

Okay. I mean, in the, you know, when I'm hanging out in private with my Republican friends at the state level, they all reviled Trump and they'll say, you know, can't stand the guy. Yeah. In public, you know, especially since he's delivered them to electoral victory and power, they're all for them. And, you know, wouldn't a decisive electoral defeat break the fever? No, because the people, like, no offense, but the people you're talking to are not representative of the Republican Party as a whole. Uh-huh. We also live through January 6, man.

Yeah. Like, they, he sick the mob on the Capitol, and they're like, oh, well, maybe he's worth another shot. Yeah. The normalization of that is the thing that makes my head explode. I mean, you can debate immigration and borders. It can debate trade. That's interesting.

Debate civil rights on the margin, and those are interesting discussions to have, and there's reasonable disagreements in them, but the idea that when you lose an election, you know, you should walk away. That, I just don't see the other side of that argument. I don't see where the dialogue is in that. And the normalization of his effort to corrupt the electoral college and reverse the outcome of the 24 elections, the thing that just...

Yeah, it was pretty depressing. Yeah, and it's now built in. This is what we saw the other day, with a crazy talk about, did you attend a basketball game in Atlanta? It's the back story there is we're normalizing what Jack Smith investigated, which was the effort to return the election. Question over here. Yeah, my question is just about, you know, looking forward to 2028.

And I think Sam and Tim might be able to answer this a little bit more honestly than maybe Liz can in her role as a campaign consultant. But I'm curious, just looking forward to the 2020 election. Rank your top 2028ers. Yes. One to 10. Was that really the question? Sorry? Was that really the question?

Yeah, I'd be curious to like who you think, you know, especially like being on the right, like the most dangerous candidate for Democrats to nominate would be. and then maybe also who you think the most likely candidate would be. And then also kind of what that process is going to look like for us, like the voters that are going to see these people throw their names in and like with just how wide open it's going to be, it's going to be more wide open than a lot of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes, like kind of what that's going to look like. Do you want to go first?

Sure. So when you said dangerous candidate, you mean from a democratic perspective, who would be the riskiest? Is that what you meant? strongest. Strongest, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm not really good at these prediction games, I suppose.

I will just say, like, we definitely, the pundits especially, like, we don't have a crystal ball, and we're often quite wrong, so don't listen to me. The history, but I will say I come back into my. first presidential election I covered was the 2008 Democratic primary. And like the entire conversation in that moment was really, it's really risky to nominate a black man named Barack Obama. Like that's a huge risk. And the country was just like, Bush was not Trump level, like, problematic for Democrats. But if you guys are being honest, like, you all hated Bush. And so everyone was, like, fixated on this.

And of course, Obama was able to not only sort of transcend that, but he put together this incredible coalition. I don't know. There's no Obama out there, and I don't want to give shine to the guy that these two love the most. But, like, I look at a Pete Buttigieg, and I'm wondering about, like, are we just sort of overthinking it, right? Like, oh, yeah, he's young and gay.

And, man, we can't possibly, Democrats can't possibly win with someone like that, but, like, why not? Yeah. I have probably a more satisfying answer about the rep—or not satisfied because you're not going to like it. But I have a more clear vision of what's happening on the Republican side. I just think that a lot of progressives and people on the left just underrate J.D. Vance because he's so unappealing. Like, I mean, you just look at him and you just feel like, I just want somebody to slap you in the face. And, you know, and so he's just, you know, like the physical revulsion that comes with J.D.

makes it hard to kind of assess him. But he, like, has been very deft at navigating the Republican internal issues, you know, and deft at navigating Trump and also kind of separating with him on the war. I got to kind of a – I got a little too hot with Jonathan Swan on a podcast. Recently, I had some regret because I was just like, he's getting away with that. It wasn't Jonathan Swan's fault, but I was, like, venting my frustrations. He's kind of getting away with this, like, being the VP during this war and also kind of being the one that was against the war. So I think JD is better than people think, and I think he'll be the Republican nominee, and I think it'll be harder to beat than people think.

And on the Democratic side, I just, like, somebody's going to have to rise to the moment. Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not, nobody really is not, like, obviously Pete has a lot of skills, no doubt. But, like, you have to win black voters to win the Democratic nomination. That'll be a huge challenge for him. Asaf. Asov has a lot of skills. Ossoff is like goes against what a lot of the other conventional wisdom is though. A lot of people have said since Kamala and Trump,

like you really need somebody that is very comfortable in their own skin on social media and can communicate, can go on podcasts. John Ossoff isn't good at any of that. John Ossoff's good at like 2008 politics. Like he's really good at speeches, you know, and I think that he's skilled, obviously, at winning in Georgia. But I don't know. Can he do a presidential?

The presidential campaigns are very different than Senate campaigns. I think he's super talented. Or somebody else could kind of emerge and demonstrate it. I don't think there's any clear person right now on the Democratic side that is, to me, that stands out. Yeah, and I would be, I'm not going to ring. I'm very biased, but I like, the candidates I like are tend to be. You can tell everyone who you're biased for it. They may not know.

I was a senior advisor for Pete Buttigieg in 2020. I did as really put these media. The campaign team was Chastin, Pete, and Liz. Yeah, it was. And Liz called me and I was like, are you having a psychotic break? Yeah. Yes. But to that point, how the 28 primary will unfold is this.

And I think that we don't, to that point, we don't know what's going to happen. And there are a lot of big names who are being floated right now. A lot of people at the top of polls right now. And it's going to change. And the one thing I learned from the Pete experience, and we talked, about this, you know, backstage before with a group of Dartmouth Dems is that, like, when I started working for him, Tim thought it had a psychotic break. Other friends of mine thought I'd, like, lost a bet. But the, but you just, you just don't know. And so as you're

evaluating candidates, you know, and the amazing thing about being here in New Hampshire that I saw up close to Dartmouth is you can actually, like, go up to them and, like, literally touch them. That's how close you get to them here. It's, like, go up and, you know, see all of them. Can I interject a quick question here? Don't touch you. You think it's as long as there's consent. Do you think it would be good for the Democratic Party to have first in the nation primary in New Hampshire? Of course, yeah. I'm completely biased. I, you know, I've worked with four years ago when the Biden administration, when the Biden White House was moving South Carolina to the front, I worked with the New Hampshire Democratic Party. But the, you know, the goose was sort of cooked.

I can't imagine why. But when it comes to all this, is to understand that whoever is in the lead right now may not even make it to New Hampshire and like take the opportunity. This is the most wide open presidential primary in the Democratic Party that we've had in decades. Really, I think it's the most wide open we've had since 92.

Because I think in 2008, you essentially had a de facto incumbent with Hillary Clinton. her husband. Three candidates. Yeah, probably 92. Yeah. So, and, and so take the time to go, yeah, a little bit. So I would just, what I was just, I'll finish my point quickly, is take the opportunity

to go and see everyone and understand that someone who you may have never heard of, you might not have heard of right now, that that person could end up being the nominee. And so I think it's really, really important for everyone to keep an open mind, go out, because you have the luxury and ability to, go out and see them. personally and go from there. Well I want to thank all of you for coming and for joining us today. Thank you. Really appreciate it.