Bulwark Takes - Democrats’ New Strategy to Win: Hot Candidates

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Sam Stein and Lauren Egan take on a real idea circulating among Democratic operatives: run more “hot” candidates. They discuss what that actually means—youth, charisma, online presence—and whether it reflects a deeper effort to fix the party’s image and win back voters.Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month Shopify trial today at https://shopify.com/bulwarktakes.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stey, managing editor at the Bullwork, and you are watching a very fresh bulwark take with Lauren Egan. And we're going to try not to laugh throughout this, because we're going to be talking about Lauren's latest newsletter, which is objectively it's objectively great. My eyes are like watering.

I know. It's going to be bad. How are we going to get through this? Lauren has decided that, let's just back up for a second. Lauren last week called me and said, I'm going to write a newsletter about how Democrats want to run more hot candidates for office. And I thought it was a joke at first. But then she said, no, this is empirically true.

I've had many conversations in which Democratic operatives have said we need more hot candidates on the ballot. And so me, this is always about me. I said, sure, go for it. Why not? And that's where we're at. So Lauren, I guess like, I want to know how this kind of popped up originally, because we didn't really talk about that. Like, this just comes up randomly that Democratic operatives thinks they need to run like more hot people. Is that really what happens? Truly, that's what happens. So I feel like this started a couple months ago, just like talking to operatives about, you know, this big question. What do Democrats do to win back power? How do you repair the brand? All of that. And at first, it was kind of a joke like, oh, we just need to run more

hot people. And then it actually like kind of turned into a real thing. People are like, no, like this is real. Like we are seen as this like sexless party of a bunch of nerdy teachers, pet's kids and like the best way to sort of shed that reputation is to run hot people. So it's very much a real thing. How real though. Come on. Like when they say run hot people, I mean, are we talking about like, let's just like find, you know,

people on only fans and see if they can hack it. Okay. Well, I think everyone starts with the disclaimer that being hot in D.C., the bar is lower automatically. This is not just D.C. though. These people are running from around the country. Okay, fine. Politics.

Like, in politics, the bar is lower. But I think what this is like really about is like, I mean, it's obviously like kind of ridiculous and we're cracking up and laughing about it. But I do think it's kind of another way. It's a little, you know, it's a weird conversation to be having. I mean, it's funny. But I think it's like a manifestation of this larger post-Biden gerontocracy. Like we want younger people in office.

We want to be the party that's more cultural. relevant again. And I think this is just like an offshoot of some of that. Well, I mean, sure. Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, one of the reactions to your piece, and there's been a lot of reactions we'll get into it in a little bit is a minute a litman who we love here, who runs the organization run for something, which is about getting people to just run for office. She was like, look, this isn't about, you know, physical attractiveness so much as an ability to be charismatic and confident and versent online. And the two overlap a little bit, but they're not, the pen diagram is not completely concentric circles.

So maybe like hotness is just one scale of it and it's also just sort of, you know, exuding an aura. Yeah. I do think a lot of it is about confidence. And people that I talk to were like, look, like your policies still have to be hot, however you define hot. Sorry, what's a hot policy? You know, it depends who you ask. Sam, if you're a Medicare for all kind of guy, then that's very hot. That's, you know, then that's so hot.

So. So, okay, okay. We're going to, yeah, okay. Sorry, what did you ask me? I don't even know. I want to know what a hot policy is besides Medicare for all. Yeah, again, as you would say, it's in the eye of the voter. The bevoter.

So the other thing, though, is that there is actually data. People have done research on this, that voters tend to be more inclined to support candidates who are, I guess, definitionally attractive, stronger jaw lines, more symmetrical faces. I don't know. You know, we live in an obviously materialistic world, but I suppose that's the case where it's just like that person looks youthful and vibrant. And, you know, I'm more inclined to support him or her because of it. Yeah, there has been some political science studies.

talk to one professor who did one of these studies. And he was basically like we, there's so, it's so hard to get information about elected officials. You know, if you're just kind of a normal person who isn't tuned into politics every day, election season comes around. There's this flood of information, all different kinds of sources. There's attack ads. And you're trying to make sense of everything. And so people plug in these physical attributes to help them make decisions. It's almost just kind of like a shortcut to to figure out who you want to vote for. And I know it sounds vain or like so surface level, but it's just kind of like a little bit of psychology and like human nature. It's,

you can apply it to things other than politics as well. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. This all begs the question of who, which candidates have been coming up in your conversations. John Ossoff comes up a lot. People like to point out that he's been hitting the gym more recently. He's beefed up a little bit. Good for him. Yeah. Very good for him. Obviously, Gavin Newsom comes up quite frequently, but that's like almost too obvious. Those are the main two. Warnock has come up a few times as well. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Unexpected. Those are all men. Sorry, I should have mentioned. AOC comes up all the time. All the time. But one of the uncomfortable parts about this is that people, especially I think in the Democratic Party, don't want to feel like they're, you know, talking about women in a bad way.

objectifying them. Thank you. I was looking for that word. Objectifying women. And everyone agrees AOC's hot, but no one wants to say that. So they're more comfortable talking about the dudes that are hot. Graham Platner comes up. Abdullah, Michigan comes up.

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that you need. Everything is all in one place, making your life easier and your business operations smoother. So start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash bulwarktakes. Go to Shopify.com slash bulwarktakes. That's Shopify.com slash bulwarkets. You know, I told myself I wasn't going to name names on this on this video because I don't want to tip my hand one way or anything. And I don't like objectifying men either. It's just not in my nature. I just find it disgusting to talk about this, but I'm doing this for the bulwark.

I will say, I will say there is some history here, like obviously in all seriousness. You know, I don't know if it's hotness or if it's youth and vitality or whatever, but you look at the presidential stuff. And look, I know there's going to be plenty of comments. I saw the comments on the Twitter's already. This isn't like tried and true. Like not every candidate who. is better looking is going to win. Like, it's not 100%, obviously. But I think on the presidential

level, the history here is, you know, it starts with JFK, right? He, you know, good looking dude. Let's just be straight about it. And then, obviously, Bill Clinton had his charisma and his problems. And then Barack Obama, and you and I were talking about this, but when Obama was running in 08, and this is like a constant thing in there is this infamous Obama girl. And, you know, this became like a real, like, cultural phenomenon. This was almost early Internet days. She went viral, singing about her crush on Obama. And then there was like all this talk about Obama in a bathing suit.

And he was this young dude who was, you know, good looking and people noticed it. And his White House, they didn't particularly like all the obsession about it. I mean, they recognized that he was a cultural phenomenon. So that helped. But they also were like, this is a little bit unsurious too. So I guess there's, you got to kind of balance it if you're the recipient of it as gratifying as it is to be considered hot. Yeah, I mean, I think it's different once you're actually in the White House and you want to be taken seriously and, you know, don't want to be talking about his shirtless photos that were on covers of magazines. I think it's totally different when you're in the campaign phase of things.

I don't know. Like some candidates are kind of leaning into this a little bit. Like all the gym videos that we've been talking about. I'm sure funny folks have seen them. The gym video is like a genre of this election cycle so far. And I think at first it was like, oh, post-P Biden, we want to show that, you know, we're like young and healthy or whatever. And these are just like campaign videos like TikToks, Instagram Reels that candidates put out of them like working on the gym. They're talking about whatever it is in their race.

They tend to do well. That's what some campaign operatives told me. Like people watch them. So I think it's different in the campaign phase. And then obviously once you're in office, you probably. probably want to be seen in a little bit of a different light. Yeah, 100%. And that does raise the point.

This is not like a democratic phenomenon either. I mean, I don't want to get into it that much. But RFK Jr. posts tons of shirtless videos and jeans. And women, I don't get it, but women do tend to find him alluring. Some women, the maha. Some. Some. It is what it is.

I'm just here to relay the news. what's the reaction been online? So I was a little nervous when I posted this. I was like, oh, people are going to be like, what the fuck is Lauren writing about? But honestly, everyone's been like, yes, I've been saying this for forever. Democrats need to elect someone hot or nominate someone hot, whatever. So I've been kind of surprised by how many people are into the idea of embracing hotness. Yeah.

How many people, operatives for other can. to have emailed you been like, why is my boss not on your list? Yeah, I've gotten a few texts about how I decided to mention in the article, which some suggestions I would think were fair. Others, you know, I won't name, but maybe not quite as fair. But I'm trying to embrace your not objectifying people's spirit. Sure. I will say the predominant reaction to my post on your article was

gifts of Kamala Harris next to Donald Trump being like, this is not how it works. She was much prettier than he was and she didn't win. And like I said, this is not like, you know, it's not a guarantee. It's just one component, people. Come on. Completely. I mean, yeah, it's a fair thing for them to point out. I will say we're a website of multitudes because your newsletter went out on Sunday evening.

That morning Jonathan Cohn wrote about EVs. in this and Donald Trump's attack on that industry. Yeah, we have a lot of range here. So if you're interested in reading about electric vehicles in the morning and hotness at night, it's really only one place where you can do it. I'm here to deliver. I do appreciate it. This is one of those cases where you know you're going to take it on the chin in the comment section,

but people are going to really love it. And I appreciate that about you. I think that's what makes you a really good reporter. Yeah. Wow. All right. He's never this nice to be offline, you guys, just so you know. I'm not that bad.

I'm not that bad. I'm only mildly bad. All right, Lauren, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Everyone should be subscribing, honestly, to her newsletter. It's so fantastic. The opposition, it's awesome. Legitimately, and I am not trying to be overly nice to you.

I don't have to be mean to even the skills. But I get so many people who are like, this is such a great newsletter, must read. It's awesome in details what's going on in the party and the efforts to win back power by the Democrats. If you are not a subscriber, subscribe to it. It's great. Lauren, thanks so much for doing this. Subscribe to Bulwark Takes as well on YouTube where you get conversations as silly as this. I'll talk to you soon. The Bell Air Direct app includes crash assist, which detects an accident the moment it happens, and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button.

Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply.