Pod Save America - How Dems Can Defeat MAGA Once and For All

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

What will it take for Democrats to win not just in 2026, but in 2028 and beyond? What do we need to change to win again in Iowa, Texas, and Florida? What's more important: a candidate's ability to communicate or their ability to govern? Dan talks to David Plouffe, former campaign manager for Barack Obama and senior advisor to Kamala Harris, about some hard truths the Democratic Party needs to get its head around. The two discuss why Democrats need to take a firmer stance on political corruption, how the to-be-determined 2028 primary map could shape that race, and why they're both hoping that an outsider emerges as the party's next presidential nominee.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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best home security system five years in a row. No long-term contracts, no nonsense. Get 50% off any new system at simplysafe.com slash crooked. That's simply safe. com slash crooked, there's no safe like Simply Safe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Back when I work for Barack Obama on his campaigns into the White House, whenever we faced a political crisis, when things felt like they were falling apart all around us, President Obama would call a strategy meeting. They would last all day. Sometimes they're at his house. Sometimes they were at a nearby office. But every single time, they would last hours and

hours. We get the whole gang together to try to figure out what went wrong and how we could fix it. We didn't answer every question, but we always left the meeting with a plan. The conversations around the table, focus my mind had made me smarter. And even as I have celebrated Democratic victories and touted Trump's declining poll numbers in recent weeks, I have had the sinking suspicion that too many people in my party are whistling past the graveyard. Trump's blunders are masking the political crisis the Democratic Party is in. To figure out how to get out of it, I wanted to have one of those strategic conversations like the ones I used to have in the Obama days. And there was no better person to have that conversation with than David Pluff. He was Obama's

campaign manager in 2008, his top political advisor in the White House during the the reelection, my boss in both of those occasions, and with senior advisor to Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign, David is one of the smartest and most strategic people in Democratic politics, and I wanted to sit down with him and talk about these issues. David Plough, welcome back to Pot Save America. Always good to be with you, Dan, go Sixers. Exactly, go Sixers. All right. So you wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, which got a lot of attention, pissed off some powerful people. And I recommend everyone read it, but I just want to give people a flavor of it because it's going to guide our conversation today.

Here's what you write. Right now, Democrats have no credible path to sustaining control of the Senate and the White House. After the adjustments to the electoral college map that most likely come with the next census, the Democratic presidential nominee could win all the states won by Kamala Harris, plus the blue wall of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and still fall short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. The point of your up, ed, is the Democratic Party is in crisis. what caused you to take these thoughts to the New York Times?

Well, Dan, and for me, I mean, I spent a lot of time on the specifics, but the spirit of it is more important to me than any specifics, which is when you think about the Supreme Court, we could have two, three retirements over the next decade. I think that the view that somehow, once Trump leaves the scene, everything will return to normal. I think it's going to get worse after Trump, not better. The only antidote really is sustained democratic control of all chambers, but particularly the president in the White House. And I'm sorry, the White House in the Senate. And when you look at just

how few states were competitive in, in a presidential race or the Senate, the math is just unrelenting. And what also guides my thinking on this is the Republican Party right now is dreadful. They are despised by the American people. The only entity may be more despises the Democratic Party. So when your opponent is in the shitter, that's the time to kind of get out of the shitter you're in. and really, you know, give voters a sense of, oh, there's new people and there's new ideas and they seem different and they're willing to admit their mistakes. There's clearly a huge opening here for us to rebuild our brand, our electoral performance. But if we don't do that, by the way, one thing I think about, you and I both live through Merrick Garland. Let's say we win the White House, but we don't have the Senate. Is there any

guarantee, like if Thomas or Alito, something were to happen to them and they retired, that we could confirm a Supreme Court justice, I wouldn't take that bet to the bank. I would assume no. It's not right. So you can either complain about it, which we should do, or say, how do we make sure something like that doesn't happen so that more elections than not, we have a chance to be 50 plus in the Senate and hold the presidency for an extended period of time. And I think if we do those things, we're probably going to like where we are in the House as well. So I think it's worth just dialing in a little bit on the Electoral College point. We've talked about the Senate.

We'll talk about the Senate some more in this conversation with Electoral College. As we sit here today, and these are all estimates, but we have a pretty good sense where things are headed. The most likely scenario is California, New York, lose somewhere to be combined six to seven votes,

and Texas and Florida gained somewhere six to seven votes, which means that the map that we almost won with in 2016, we did win with in 2020, we came close to winning in 2024. Those are all off the table. You would have to win. in with a map that looked like Obama 2012. You really have to be competitive either in a whole

swath of states in which we're not competitive, or you have to be able to win Florida or Texas or both. Otherwise, there's just no really credible path to getting there on a regular basis. Absolutely. Is that right? I mean, we, the blue wall doesn't get you there anymore, even with that second congressional district of Nebraska, which, by the way, I assume they're going to change or try to again. So, yeah, I mean, we have to, you know, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, all critical. We have to keep trying to figure out how to get more competitive in Florida, eventually break their back in Texas. But we've got to be more competitive than more places than you saw in 24, you know, Nevada and Arizona weren't that close. You know, Georgia a little more competitive.

So the notion that somehow after 20, like Arizona and Nevada are going to be states that we win more often than not, I don't think it's true. We're going to have to really fight to make that true. So we've got to put more targets on the board. And that should scare everybody that we could have a great electoral performance in 2032, as we thought in this last decade, and fall short. So we've got to put more states in play. That's just the reality. And I believe we have the opportunity, too, because I think some of the gains Trump made

with non-college voters, particularly of color, you see them fleeing him. Doesn't mean we're going to get him back, but they're open to that. I think we've got the ability to do better in some rural communities, not by a lot, but by a few points. Clearly, you know, Kamala Harris actually showed real strength with some, you know, college-educated, older white voters. So I think we've got the ability to do that. But it's not something we can say it should happen.

It has to happen. It has to happen. Or we're going to have neither the Senate or the White House for the next decade. And it's not going to be like Mitt Romney in charge. It's going to be a more skillful, more palatable, but super scary version of Trump. And I think it's like there is this paradox we're living in, which is the 2026 midterms look pretty good right now. Not as good as they are in 2018, but, you know, it's a, the House certainly is a map that is very winnable. The Senate map, while hard looks better than it's looked in a long time.

We have good candidates running in places. We have some paths to get to 50 votes there, which seemed a possible year ago. As you mentioned, the polls are pretty clear that Trump's dropped a lot. And, you know, the New York Times poll that came out earlier this week said, you know, very explicitly that Trump's numbers with the coalition that powered and a victory in 2024. Young voters, strictly young men, Latino voters, working class, non-white voters. Trump's numbers with those groups now look exactly like they did in 2020 when he lost, not like when he won in 2024.

And that's all great news. But at the same time, we're looking at this problem where even in today's world, we are capped at like 53 Senate seats if we're lucky, you know, because we only have one, there's only one Republican in a blue seat. It's only two Republicans in a purple seat. If you count four, if you count North Carolina, I say we haven't once since 2008. You know, it's just, there's a very,

we have a low ceiling there. And then you look at 2028, like you could see a world where you could say, a generic, good Democrat can win the White House against the unpopular vice president to an unpopular president. Like, you can see that path. But then that person's going to come in and have to win with a much bigger. Normally, as we know, your first president election, you get to a number.

And your second, you get reelected with a smaller number, and that smaller number is not going to work in 2032. And so the paradox here is things look good in the short term. In the long term, we have some pretty big changes we have to make in our party to be, to have what you argue, which is sustainable control to actually stamp out MAGA. Like, this isn't ignoring all the problems Republicans have. It's that it's not when you're fighting against something that looks like the MAGA movement,

you can't just swap power every four years. We've seen how damaging that could be. And so we are sort of in this like, crisis mode, but it doesn't feel that way in the moment. But when you take a step back, the party really has a ton of work to it, which is why I think Europe is important and probably kind of pissed off some people. But let's begin with the party brand, right? Where we are right now, the Democratic Party brand is in the toilet. It's at around the lowest level it's been in history. And that's concerning for a lot of reasons. But one reason is typically politics is seesaw.

One side goes down. The other one goes up. Trump has come down. We have not gone up. What's your theory as to what's happened to the Democratic Party bring? Because for the most of the 21st century, other than right after 9-11, the Democratic Party has been more popular than the Republican Party. How do we get here? Yeah. So just a second on somewhat you just said. I mean, the Times poll is interesting. Trump obviously doesn't like it. He's threatening to sue them on based on the poll. But if you look at all of his numbers, and by the way, I think one of the task for 26 is, one, make every Republican running for office own all the downside. In a way, I think Trump historically has been stronger than a lot of his candidates. Right now,

I worry the opposite. You've got to make these guys and women pay full price. But secondly, for us, yeah, 26 could be good. But given what you just said, we don't have a Senate race to lose or a House race we can waste. Like, we can't afford it. We've seen they, by nominating a bunch of knuckleheads through the years, have lost Senate races they should have won. We can't do that. So we have to maximize 26 as well. Like, you're a big basketball fan. Like, Michael Jordan never went into the halftime locker room when they're up six happy. Like, why the fuck aren't we up 12? Like, I think we need more of that mentality. So, but that Times poll was disconcerting because you think maybe the generic ballot should be seven, eight, nine points and it wasn't. And if it's

that high, by the way, we can definitely win the House with some marching, but also win the Senate in this tough environment, which I think should be the goal. I think with the brand, I think first of all, there's still a hangover from Biden, both him running and I think people's view that he mishandled the economy and the border. You know, he did a lot of great things, obviously, but right now voters are penalizing them. And I think the Democratic Party, I think, kind of stood by and let that happen. I think there's a sense from voters. I'm just reporting what, you know, great researchers show us when they talk to voters, that we weren't as as maniacally focused on lifting wages and helping people who are living their lives right now,

as opposed to we had, I think people thought we were a little more ideologically focused. There's no doubt that there was a sense from some voters that we were more focused on social issues as important as they are than the economy. And, you know, I think that we haven't had, you know, at the national level, you know, for some time, kind of the exciting candidate.

You know, Joe Biden won, thank goodness. Hillary ran a strong race, calmly did. But we haven't had the Obama, Clinton, Trump, a stride our party, which becomes an avenue for people, I think, to come over to you. So I think, the other thing I think, you know, Mondani's interesting. You've watched him closely as of I. This is another thing. I mean, I've seen focus groups where voters kind of say, listen, the Democrats seem like the taxes we pay. They just kind of think it's their money to spend. They don't accept any criticism of government. They think all the answers are government. And we and I know a lot of

the answers are. But what Mondami shows is even a social Democrat can blow the whistle on government when it's doing dumb things. And I wrote about this in the op-ed. I think Obama did a lot of this with some of our efforts. Clinton did. It's really important for us as the believers in government to be the first one say, hey, when a program's not working or there's fraud, we're going to blow the whistle on it. We're not going to reflexively defend. The other thing I'd point out, I don't think we've walked the walk. I mean, we criticize them for being anti-democratic, for being autocracy-friendly, for not having any norms. But But, you know, when we have a guy in Illinois retire from the House and he slides in at the 11th hour, his preferred, you know, choice to replace them, you know, the leadership says, well, we're not going to criticize them.

You know, even the delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands who got, you know, talking points from Jeffrey Epstein, we rally around. So I think I get on the one hand, there's a view that the Republicans never criticize each other, which I actually don't agree with. I think they criticizes. But, like, if we truly want to tell people we've changed that we are going to defend. them, that we're not going to defend any corruption, we've got to be willing to call it out in our own ranks, in my view. And we have some fresh faces out there. I think Tallarico is running a really interesting race. Obviously, Dane Osborne's back in and I think is doing really well in a tough place. So ultimately, the solution to this is new leaders, new candidates, and ultimately who our nominee is

in 28 will determine so much not just about that election, but the next decade. We really have to get that right. Someone who's a great vote getter and can win by enough. as you said, to give us a margin in the Senate. So I think all you have to do is listen to voters and they talk about what's wrong with the Democratic Party. You get an earful. Now, the good news is they say just as, you know, negative things about the Republicans, but they're in charge. So this is my concern is, I think there was a little bit of after 22. We had a better election than people thought. A hugely after 22. It's like the great sin of the party. It didn't carry forward. It was really

because of Dobbs. I think we could have a very good 26, but that doesn't mean we've healed any of our wounds. And to me, the tragedy would be if, you know, maybe we have a good 26. Maybe, as you said, we even win the White House in 28. But it's because we are the least worst option, as opposed to some voters saying, actually, yeah, I've kind of done with MAGA. And, you know, this Democratic Party or these Democratic candidates, they seem a little bit different, what they're talking about. I think we clearly have to refresh our economic agenda, centered around non-college workers. Those are also the jobs probably leased at risk with AI in the near term until Musk gets always optimist robots everywhere. So I think that anyway, the way I always thought, you and I, you know, went through

the war together in 2012. And one of the things we'd say is even though it was a tough economy, and I think for most of 11, most observers thought we'd lose, every time we did focus groups with swing voters, people were still interested in what Obama had to say. Their ears were open. And I think for a lot of voters right now, they've closed their ears because they just don't believe in what we're saying. They need to hear new things, more compelling things, more honest things, more things connected to their lives. And if they do that, given the weakness of the Republicans, I think we can really profit from it. In your piece, and this is the part that pissed off some people got some members angry at you. You argued that Democrats running for office should call for new leadership in the House of the Senate.

Do you think Democrats really should ditch Jeffries and Schumer in the lot? Well, listen, as you know, after the election, it's an inside game. And I would imagine both of those gentlemen will have, you know, the inside track to leadership of who win back the House and her center. But that doesn't mean that a candidate, the way I always think about this, Dan, is if you're in a room of 150 people in central Iowa, okay, or in suburban Arizona, and a House candidate or a Senate candidate's talking to a group of voters. And you say, listen, I'm running against Trump. I think what they're doing is harmful to the economy, to our country. There's a bunch of institutions that are. aren't delivering for people. But I also think my party has to change. Like, people are going to be nodding their heads, right? So I would just say this. Nancy Pelosi, who's one of the greatest leaders in the history of America, was always very free and open with candidates. You say what you have to say to win, even if they were critical of her. And, you know, these positions aren't about any one person. You know, there's an existential thing hanging over us that we have to at least win one of these chambers. I would argue, too, given some of the structural things we talked

about. So I think there'll be candidates out there that already are, you know, challenging leadership. I would suspect at the end of the day, if we're successful electorally, the current leaders will, you know, ultimately be the successful candidates. I don't know if other people will run or not. As you know, that's still an inside game. But I guess my point is, Dan, we need candidates to just let it rip and kind of burn all the houses down, because that's what voters want to hear. Positive America is brought you by acorns. For a long time, I just put my money under the mattress because I've never taken an economics class. But then now there's a lot of Acorns. So many of us only focus on where our money is today. Acorns is the financial wellness

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Your job is with the majority. You want the majority. That's great. I don't know what will happen with Schumer. you know, that's probably like maybe a tougher bill there. I do think the candidates who run on, this is really important, the candidates who run on, I'm going to vote for someone else, have to actually vote for someone else when they get there because otherwise you are making, you're just, like, then you're just, you're playing the game and you're going to look ridiculous, but you actually have to follow through it.

Because there's a bunch of people. Platner said he's not voting for Schumer, Malamemore, and I think maybe a, I know Malikmuro, maybe Abdul al-Said, others have said they won't support Schumer. There are some people saying that, but then you actually got a, You can't then come here to a photo opission in the vote for them, yeah. But, you know, there'll be a process. And, you know, you know, maybe multiple votes.

We'll see who emerges. But I guess I think, you know, the most important thing in an election is to meet voters where they are, to understand where they are, their concerns. And I think that they're very concerned about Trump and MAGA, the economy. They're very concerned about, you know, Greenland. They're very concerned about a whole host of things, the ice raids. But, you know, they're not sure that we're the remedy. And I think candidates ought to understand that.

One of the things you'll hear from when people like you and I have this conversation in the Savage and Dosa Potsie America all the time, we talk about the problems with the Democratic Party or argue that Democrats should run against the Democratic Party. You'll hear from people in the party, and you probably heard this after your op-ed, that one of the reasons the Democratic Party brand is down is that the people who are most critical to the Democratic Party are Democrats. Do you have any response to that? Well, Dan, I think, you know, people like you and I are kind of,

mostly irrelevant. It's what the Democratic Party voters are saying. You know, they, it's, it's the general public. So swing voters for sure, you know, express strong concern, but also Democrats. So at the end of the day, I just think we have to be honest. And I think our strongest candidates historically, you look at Barack Obama, you look at Bill Clinton, you look at John F. Kennedy, you know, on their side, Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, these people who build electoral coalitions, you know, we're pretty clear about while they were running against Republicans and running against problems in the country, they also wanted to change things about their own party. And, you know, I think it's hard to argue that we don't have some form of market failure if you

use that in a political context, which is voters right now, for the most part, have two choices. That's it. They're dissatisfied with both choices. So what if you strengthen your hand, so they're slightly less dissatisfied with you while your opponent still stuck in the gutter. So I just think that's not healthy. And by the way, I think that's largely a social media, very online discussion. I don't think that's what real people out in the country are talking about. You know, if they actually support the Democratic Party, they want it to be as strong as possible not to convince ourselves somehow we're stronger than we actually are.

I want to get to 28 in the long term here in a second, but let's stick on 26. That's sort of the wolf closest to the door here. You know, in your piece, you argue the Democratic, that we have to make Republicans own all of Trump's problems. I think there's a bit of an internal debate. I'm having it within myself, too, about whether as a party we are too focused on Trump as opposed to Republicans. Because you can see this in the Wall Street Journal poll that came out about a week ago. Trump's numbers are in the toilet on every issue, right? He's barely above water on border security and everything else underwater. But then when you ask people who do they trust more on inflation, economy, immigration, et cetera, a generic Republican in Congress or generic

Democrat in Congress, they pick Republicans by pretty large margins. And so I think we have this dilemma, which is there is a short-term turnout advantage to making our race be about Trump. Like, that will get our people fired up. That will get donations from grassroots donations. But it does have some medium and long-term consequences for the fact that the guy's never on the ballot again. How are you thinking about that question? Well, I'm glad you singled out some of those generic matchup questions with issues because it should scare the living daylights out of us.

That's why the generic ballots five, not eight, right? Not eight, right. So I think that if you think about an incumbent House Republican or even a Republican running in an open seat or certainly, you know, Collins and Cruz and Ricketts, I think the task between now in November is to make them own factories closing, people losing health care. Like, you know, starting in the beginning of February, a bunch of people signed up on the exchanges aren't going to go through of it because it costs so much because the Republicans. Make them own that. Make them own the tariffs and what that's done. So I think that, you know, the way I think you bring

Trump in that is maybe to say they've not stood up to Trump or they've supported Trump, but the most important thing is to make them own it. So if I had to, you know, say, how do you, spend $10 or 10 minutes, you know, I'd spend seven or eight of those dollars or minutes making the case against that Republican elected official or a candidate separate apart from Trump, that they own this, you know, so that I think, you know, you know, you know how these races are, 26. Even if we win back the House, you know, there could be eight, 10, 12 seats we don't win by a thousand or 2,000 votes. If we don't win back the Senate, it could be close. So making them full pay full price. So those swing voters who go into the.

booth say, this person is not separate from Trump. And here's the other reason this is important, Dan, by the summer and certainly by the fall, all of these candidates are going to be lying and talking about where they stood up to Trump or where they disagreed with Trump. And the more that we lay that concrete now and through the course of the campaign, it'll be harder for them to do that. So I'm concerned that some of these, you know, Republican candidates who are on the more skillful side of things will convince some of these voters, well, that's all Trump. You know, my guy or my woman tried to try to basically stop them or had a different idea. Does it affect your calculus at all that the Senate battleground is taking place almost entirely

in states Trump won? And the House battleground, as much as we like to think that this is this favorable territory for us, there are only, I think it has four seats that have Republicans in districts that Kamala Harris won. There's not that many in districts that Trump won by five. Like the true, there's been like a narrow 2024 GOP like majority and an actual, you know, real majority in the House. House, you have to win Trump plus seven plus eight plus ten seats. And that affect how you think about it.

Or is the dissatisfaction with Trump among independence and this seven, you know, three to seven percent slice of 24 Trump voters enough to put those districts in play that you can run against Trump there? No, I don't think so. I mean, I think particularly in those Trump 10, Trump 12 districts, Trump eight, you know, you've got to put the Republican incumbent on trial and they have to own, you know, Your energy costs are up. Your health care costs are up. This big factory closed. You know, your paycheck's not going further and further enough.

I think you've got it. They're the ones on the ballot, not Trump. And so I think you have to make it about them. And your point about these districts and the Senate is really important. Like, this is hostile territory. So even though we have a very good environment, this is another reason I'm very focused on how do we maximize every vote, you know, with repair and refresh and reform of the Democratic offering,

because we're going into some deeply hostile places that we may be able to win just because Trump's so unpopular, people's economic concerns are so profound, but nobody should underestimate the degree of difficulty here. This is going to be really, really hard. To win, but to your point where you could actually maybe get into the mid-220s or high-220s in the House, you're going to be winning a bunch of places that are pretty red. And I mean, this also goes to the party-brand question about why, over the course of the next period here,

people have to fundamentally have a fundamentally different view of who Democrats are, because otherwise we're renting these seats for two years in the House, maybe four years if we can make it through the presidential year. And these are one-term senators, right? This is a, let's say Mary Paltoll is lucky enough to get through in a tough race in Alaska,

or James Telerico or someone else can win in Texas or Sherrod Brown wins in Ohio, is they're winning because they are running in the right year with the right political environment. And the next time they are up, it's going to be in a presidential election year and look very different. And so in 32. And so you actually have to be able to keep these seats, not rent them.

And that requires like not winning on a sort of a black swan event of just the one year of, you know, inflation, Trump being unpopular chaos in the streets. And you win. And so it's just like it really hammers the point that like the like you're winning despite the brand in 26. you have to win again in 32 for these senators or, you know, 28, 30 for the House members. The brand has to look very different to people. It has to be palatable in these states. Right. Or you're right.

You're running and you give it right back in 32. I mean, I think sometimes people think it's crazy to think beyond the next election, but we haven't done enough of that, which is what's the big thing here at play, right? And that's in terms of investing, infrastructure, but also understanding. So all you're trying to do is win the Senate. But to your point, you've got to look down the road because let's say we win a bunch of these places, Ohio, Alaska. I mean, from your lips to God's ears, that would be amazing. But then 32, let's say we win the White House in 28.

So, you know, you have a Democrat running for reelection, tough map, presidential year turnout. Super hard. So that's the test, I think, is can we get to the point where year after year cycle after cycle, we feel that we have a 50% chance at least. to win. And right now, I think you'd say, of course not. I mean, we need to take it, you know, we need to be gifted, you know, political tailwinds. And I just don't think that that is, uh, going to save the country, uh, when we look at the threat. I mean, I, you know, you think about the court, like it's not, maybe it's not likely. It's also not crazy. Like, we could have an eight one

one court by like 2040 if we don't have to stay in political party, eight one. And that's almost like Katie shut the door time. As you think about the strategy for this cycle, and I've had this debate with people in the House leadership. I can't tell if they agree with me or not. But do you think the party needs their version of contracts for America or something that, you know, the six for six from 2006, like a policy agenda of here are the things that we are going to try to do if we win or that we, you know, that we stand for if we win. Like, do we actually need a positive agenda or is that giving the argument against which you hear from a lot of people and a lot of people at a high levels of power in our party is Trump is failing.

He is losing. By putting our own agenda out there, we're giving them a target and making it more of a choice than a referendum and we really wanted to be a referendum. What do you think? Well, it's interesting. So much of this originates back to the 94 race in the contract with America. What people forget is heading into the election, the contract for America was a very minor part of that election.

But as you know, when you win election, you've got to tell the story about why you won. Yeah. So I think we ought to also be grounded in the fact that 94, those results, which were historic at the time, we've had landslide since, was not about the contract with America. And so now what's interesting is, I guess as I think about this question, the most important people to answer the question are the candidates running in tough House and Senate races. and my suspicion is they would rather not have a national Republican versus national democratic campaign, in part because Trump and the Republicans are unpopular, democratic brands unpopular. I can be something different. I don't want to be tied to the party. So, you know, to the extent the House and Senate leadership are thinking about this, I would be in dialogue not with my colleagues in the caucus rooms.

I would be talking to the vulnerable candidates, you know, in House and Senate races and get there for you. My guess is they would say it's not helpful. I think I'll do better kind of flying my own flag than being tied at all to a national Democratic Party flag. But that's my view. It's a tough call. Yeah. So I, like my mind is not made up on it.

I think the counter argument is, one, if you're running in a very red seat, you should run against it. Like, that's also helpful. Is no one has any idea what we stand for. We live in this massive communications vacuum. I mean, if you talk to voters, like ask them when the last time they saw a Democrat who was not AOC or Mamdani or maybe Bernie speak. And not that there's any problem with them speaking. I think that's great.

But just very few of them actually break through. Many of them couldn't pick Schumer or Jeffers out of a lineup. It's just that like the communications asymmetry is so big is one. The other. And so having something that, you know, they're putting throw weight behind a message about something we stand for. Like I'm not saying that you should put like Medicare for all in here. But like an idea of, you know, maybe you could.

I don't know. But just the ideas that you would have is like a handful of affordability ideas and a and some reform ideas. Like this is the part that I think probably get the most pushback from the leadership is I think the huge error. You know, there's two, I think there's three sins that have put us in this place of our own doing. Some of it's some of the reason why the party brands in the toilet is circumstance of being present at the wrong time. Right. during COVID and during sort of the, when people were ready to get out of COVID, but could not yet get off fast enough and then inflation. But it's Biden running again, right?

And then everything that came with Biden's inability to, an unwillingness to communicate basically throughout his entire presidency in a way that voters actually heard. The second is misreading the 2020 election to think it meant that people, that Biden's victory was a validation of institution, norms in the pre-Trump political system when it was just like it was much more, it was not that at all. It was just, it was more rejection of the system than anything else and that people hate the political system and we became defenders of the political system in a very dangerous way. And the third one is misreading the 22 midterms, as we're talking about, as a validation of where Democrats were as opposed to like a blip in time.

On the second one, I do think that one thing the party has to do, maybe this is what the good candidates will do, which is also fine, is actually, and part of this is running against the party, like that gets into that, but also it's how do you get money out of politics? How do you get lobbyists out of politics? How do you deal with corporate power in politics? Like, you know, the most basic thing we can't get, we have been failed to do for years now, some members of Congress some trading stocks. Like, that sort of stuff could be part of an agenda that actually helps. Now, I, obviously, my mind is still not made up here, but I think it is like that's, that dilemma is, do you leave a vacuum for the other side to define, or do you give your, or do you have,

have a, like, a ready-made answer for what you would actually do? Which I know it's hard because you can't do any of the things if you win and they have the White House, right? That is the challenge. Well, and one, I don't know what this is right. I mean, maybe it doesn't have to be, you know, a comprehensive agenda that that tackles and tickles every issue. Maybe it's... No, it shouldn't be. Maybe it's on corruption. And maybe, so our House and Senate candidates, most of who have compelling ideas around this, you know, can say, I've talked to the House and Senate leadership, and they say, yeah, if we went back, day one, banning stocks, crypto, you know, no lobbying, like, oh, this is a place, by the way, where I think voters also,

they don't trust somehow that we're going to be different because we've defended a lot of this stuff. Like, I think on sort of anti-corruption stuff, you can't go far enough. And I think our candidates for the most part will go very far on this. This is where it would be helpful if they can say, no, no, it's not pie in the sky. There's going to be a vote. So, you know, it could be Maybe it's not, you know, our agenda on economy, on health care, on education, on immigration, on corruption. Maybe. But if not, there may be pieces of that that are helpful to the candidates that don't cause them

problems. The hard part with the corruption stuff, because this is another battle I've been having with people for basically since 2020, because I've always believed that corruption is an important part of the story we should be telling. But then you get up, you talk to pollsters and they'll show you voters either don't care about as much you think they do or more importantly, don't trust Democrats to do anything about it. And this is a place, and we'll talk about this little bit when we get the 28, but this is a place where biography, the message and the messenger do it. Like, I would imagine,

Mamdani can come across as a reform-oriented candidate because he is an else. He's seen as an outsider to the system. AOC could. You're typical, you know, maybe Plattner could, maybe somebody's other candidates could, but the establishment democratic politician is not going to be trusted to all of a sudden start caring about, you know, members of Congress leaving to become lobbyists, right? And then coming back, using their four privileges to come back and twist arms. Like, like, that is, that is part of the challenge. You need the right candidate to be able to pull out. Well, outside of a candidate, though, see, I mean, I think that, and I don't think it should be based

on Trump. You can say, listen, we've seen a bunch of corruption. But, you know, this predates Trump. It's Republicans and Democrats. And so. And I think what it is is, is it goes beyond just do people think that's important to them? And I agree, it's not important as, how far their paycheck's going. But it also says, this is an outsider. This is someone who's willing to challenge our own party, the status quo. So there's a credentialing thing. I agree. Someone who's a longtime House member running for the Senate is not going to be as credible as someone who's basically a frustrated citizen saying they've had enough. And they're going to be basically a tribune for people on that issue. And I've mentioned Plattening her a couple times only because

you could do, there are other candidates too, but he's just sort of become the prototypical outsider Democratic candidate. Dan Osborne, who is not actually a Democrat, but is another example like that. And there are a bunch of people, a bunch of House members, you know, House candidates who fit that, you know, the people running who, the woman running in the fire general or fire military officer who's running in South Carolina one. You get a whole bunch of ones like that. But like those are the sorts of candidates. All right, let's pivot to 28 because in the long term here. But before we get to 28, because I know this week, but just so we must suffer a little bit, I want to go back to 24. a little bit because I think there are some less it, you know, just are, I've always found this is a benefit of being working in democratic politics before Obama is I always learned more from the races I lost, so I had a lot of opportunities to learn, you know, and more than the once you win, because when you win, you think everything you did was correct. And when you lose, you'd think you actually picture it. And so you and I, we, we talked on the, on this podcast,

you know, a couple weeks after the election. My brain had not yet processed, and I can't imagine yours had either coming right off that campaign for 100 days, however long you were there. But now with the passage of time, are there things when you look back at that race? And I don't mean the things that I think were beyond the campaigns control, like the Biden's decision to run, the short campaign, or even, and I say that's because she wrote about in her book, Kamala Harris's own unwillingness to separate from Biden in the sort of dramatic way a lot of voters want to do. Are there things like from the campaign strategic execution messaging playbook you look at that you say, I wish we'd done that differently or not that it would have been decisive, but that like now that you've seen how it played out, that makes you sort of question maybe how you've thought about politics or how we should do things differently going forward?

Well, I think, you know, it always sounds defensive to start here, but I do want to start here, which is because I, you know, I've thought a lot about this. I knew you have like, could we have won the race? And I don't think even if a bunch of decisions had been done differently by common, I'm not sure it could. As close as it was, it was still a lot of votes. And the atmosphere was terrible for a Democratic nominee. If Joe Biden got out, not in 24, in 23, and we'd had a full primary, I think whoever came out of that race would still have been the underdog, given the fact that on election day, 50% plus in every battleground state gave Trump a positive approval in the economy. And that's what mattered to voters. I'm not short, but they would have been fully formed. They would have, I think, had an easier way of showing where they would have disagreed with Biden.

You know, as you know, on presidential campaign, you know, you want to get your biography fully in there, and you've got your economic and your health care and your contrast. You know, and that was all condensed. So I'm not sure, by the way, whether it was Kamala or someone else who came out of that primary. I still think you probably would have given Trump the advantage, given all the atmosphere. Yeah, for sure. I 100% agree with that. I think that's the thing that would have made a difference.

So I'm not sure there's anything to facetive. I mean, I look back, you know, after the first debate, which was such a big moment for Harris, we said we wanted to debate again. I think we should have said, we'll see you in two weeks on Fox. He might still not have debated, but we should have been more aggressive about having another big moment or two. You know, she worked at McDonald's. He didn't.

He had the McDonald's amendment. We didn't. I certainly regret that. You know, understand we do live in that kind of world where interesting moments and visuals, even if they're kind of substanceless, but they can be symbolic matter. But the big thing for me is we could have used another moment or two. But I'm not sure at the end of the day, just given the headwinds there. And I think, you know, that's why when we spent time with voters, you know, it's hard sometimes, I think, for Democrats to understand this.

Like, the threat of Trump's return is so real to us. And voters were like, I'm not that really worried about him. I mean, first of all, the economy was better when he was president. All these Democrats are talking about democracy's a threat, but we still have democracy. And you'd say, well, Trump, January 6th, and Trump, well, he left. And I was a little surprised with those young voters. They'd say, and you guys didn't even have a contest. Like, for me, it might have seemed to inside baseball that, okay, Biden left Harris.

They're like, fuck you guys. Don't lecture us. So I think that there was just a bunch of stuff even beyond inflation. concerned. But yeah, I think there's some things. I think that, you know, there was a great team, you know, working on social media, on TikTok, on YouTube and Instagram, but I think it's fair to say that it just comes more naturally to Trump. And I think that's, by the way, those are mediums, not message, not messenger to your point, not who the candidate is. That's still more important than how you get to message out. But I think we will be very well served in 28 of our presidential

nominee is someone who wakes up every day and thinks about the campaign through the prison of TikTok, Instagram yields, YouTube, maybe a little Reddit. By the way, that's hardly anybody in our party right now. PotsA of America is brought to you by Helix. We love Helix mattresses. I got two of my house. My son has one, and we have one in the guest bedroom, and we get rave reviews from everyone who's ever slept on it.

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$60 for 12 month plan required, which is $15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra initial plan term only. Over 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies. C mintmobile.com. I want to get to that for sure, because I think this goes back to both the leadership question to the House and Senate leadership question, because one of the things you hear about them is, you hear one of the criticisms you get of Jeffries and Schumer is that they're not great communicators, right? That they're not natural. They're not. They're not. I think they can be fine at times, but it's like, it's not, they are not, when you're listing

the great communicators on our party, you're never putting them on the list. Now, I think that this is indicative of the way politics has changed because you work for Dick Gaphart when he was the House Minority Leader. I work for Tom Dash and was a set up minority leader. They're both, I would say, with all due respect, them, fine communicators. Give a good speech, fine, but not. If you're listing the best communicators in the party at the time, they probably weren't at top of the list. It's, I guess politics have become much more performance now, right? Like, when you think about those, like, if you were picking a new leader, would communicate, like, we'll get to President of the Kana Sector, but for a leader, like, would you think that their ability to

communicate is as important as their ability to hold the caucus together or count votes or something like? Because Nancy Pelosi, greatest speaker of all time, that was like, she did not spend a lot of time communicating publicly. She'd most of her work behind the scenes, you know? It's a great question. Yeah, the jobs changed. Now, I think Dashel and Gephardt were both examples, though.

Maybe they weren't at the top of the list of great historical communicators. But they were pretty good and they could go anywhere and talk to anyone, right? I don't think that's the case right now. I still think at the end of the day, the most important thing is to be an exquisite leader. To know where your votes are, to be able to cut good deals or not good deals and stand and fight, Pelosi again is the best example of this. So I don't think you should choose a leader. I wouldn't put communication skills at the top of the list because it's become a lot more important, though. It just has.

And so even if it's not you, to think about communications first, to think about, okay, how are we going to get our message out? How do the people who we need to persuade an election, how are they living their lives and are we reaching them? So, yes, ideally we'd have leadership in Washington that was both skilled backroom negotiators, took care of their members, had backbone of steel and were good communicators. I don't think what will work is like the Madison-Cawthron approach, which is you're just a good communicator. and you suck at the actual job. But you have to pay more attention to that. And even if it's not you as the prime communicator, you need to think a lot about that.

So it has changed a lot. But at the end of the day, I think it's less about the specific people than I think just back to this question about should candidates call for new leadership. I just think there's a hunger out there for massive change. And it's 360 degree change. And I think the candidates who embrace that

will probably be the most successful. But again, back to your question of you know, let's say the Democrats decide to have an agenda. Maybe it's every issue, maybe it's just a couple of issues. You know, how are you going to communicate that? Who's going to communicate that? How loud are you going to be? Like, these are really important questions.

So I think there's, as you know, you've spent a lot more time thinking about this than I have. Every week it gets harder to reach audience. So, and I think that, you know, it, again, starts with messenger and message. Without that, it's bullshit. but if you're not delivering message, and listen is hard. Listen, you and I came up in politics where if you had something to say about health care or the economy or corruption or foreign policy, be like, well, let's put the policy together and where are we going to give a speech and who are we going to give the exclusive interview to

and what press conference? And what's crazy is all that should be at the bottom of the pile now. It's like, what's my TikTok play? What's my real? You know, what's my visual representation of that? You know, which influencers am I talking to? and that for people who've come up in a different era, that's like rewiring of the brain.

And I'm not sure most people can do it. And this is another reason why we need younger candidates. Why do we need younger candidates? Well, one, politically I think would be helpful to us. But they also understand how people are living their lives in terms of communication. So from a political campaign angle, it's just going to be much more native and much more genuine. And you're going to wake up every day seeing the world through that. I also think substantively, you know, if you're eight,

80 years old, it's almost impossible to know how a 22-year-old person is living, wants to live what their dreams are. And so Rahm Emanuel's call like to have everybody, you know, can't be served after 75, you know, to me makes a lot of sense, you know, and I know there's exceptions to that. Pelosi, you know, I mean, she's 80, whatever, and, you know, no one can hang with her. So I get that you would be losing some of that. But I think generally that's right, both politically but also substantively. As you look at the communication thing is interesting because I'm assuming that electability

is going to be a huge driving conversation in the 28 primary. Obviously, everyone's afraid to lose. They want, for a good reason, right? The stakes are so fucking high for the country, for the world that you want to get it right. And now, anyone who thinks they have any idea what actually makes someone electable in this day and age, has no idea what they're talking about. It's just like after everything that's happened.

Yeah, we should have some humility, right? I always say that the prototypical, when we came out of the 2004 election, the candidate, every day, you go to any collection of Democratic operatives or donor thing. I'm like, how do we can't lose again? How do we win in 08? We need a governor or a senator from a red state. I work for Evan By. I work for a senator from a red state.

And, I mean, like, this blows people's minds now. We tell him that Mark Warner, who has just recently been elected governor of Virginia at the time, was the toast of the town. He said everyone was trying to get in with. He decided not to run ultimately. But so we all believe that, right? Everyone believed the conventional wisdom was white male Democrat from a red state.

We ended up nominating Barack Hussein Obama from the south side of Chicago via Indonesia and Hawaii. And then he wins the largest electoral landslif. And the secret al-Qaeda. Yeah, all that. Like, it's going to change. But I think electability will be top of mind. It's why Biden won the 2020 primary.

I think in that question of electability, it's not just, are you, you know, what state are you from? What is your bio? You know, how does it look at a paper? It's can you actually communicate? Can you go into all the hostile places and deliver your message? Can you hang and have a cultural conversation on podcasts that resonate with young voters? Can you, do you have a like capacity to get your message out? Are you, to your point, like digitally native?

Do you actually understand how the medium works, which that does benefit. Like, that's a big part of the conversation. As you look at this 28 field right now, I'm not asking you to pick a candidate. Do you see candidates who have that capacity to actually get the message out? Because even if they're not going against Trump, it's still a media environment that tilts very far, right? It's much easier for a public to get their message out. By the time we get the 28, they were going to control most of the major media outlets in this country, several networks, pro-Trump billioners cover the Washington Post, and every single social media

platform of consequence will be owned by a pro-Trump billionaire from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. So, like, do you see anyone out there who you think is showing the chops to do that? Well, first of all, yeah, the ecosystem is completely unbalanced. And they just have command and control from television to radio to blogs to most importantly social media that drive narrative. We don't have that. Listen, I would, you know, Twitter obviously Musk's, you know, that's a toxic wasteland. That's less a business and more of an ideological mission. I still think, you know, despite the foot playing that's happened, you know, whether it's YouTube or TikTok or Instagram, those are businesses, right? And I think Democrats can use

them. I don't think there's going to be dial turning there to suppress us, but we need to maximize it. So, listen, this is less about 28. And I just went before, we have no idea what the Democratic Party primary voters are going to be looking for in the first quarter of 28. No idea. And we have even less of an idea about what general election swing voters will be looking at in the fall of 28. So I think you're right. And that made me very different iterations of that political lifetimes between now and then. You know, obviously Newsom is someone I think who's shown real aggression around social media.

I think, you know, Steve, you know, Andy Bashir has been all. over podcasts, has his own, you know, I think a lot of the governors are leveraging the platforms in smart ways. I think everybody can learn from Omdani in terms of how he's driving message, not as a candidate, but now as a mayor. Like, Dan Lurie, the same thing. By the way, I don't think this is good for our country, but if you're an elected official now, particularly an executive, you know, it's all day long storytelling. You just have to do that. I don't think that's good, by the way. And I think we should audition our presidents much differently than we have, and certainly will this time, which is who's the best performer.

But that's what we have. The biography is important. Their ideas are important. The timing. Do they fit the timing is important? I don't want to say it's all about performance. But that performance is really important, which is, you know, having worked in the White House, on the really dark days and moments, how you perform is less important than the decisions you make. We don't really audition for that, sadly.

But I think that, so I see some Democrats. And the good thing is, it seems like a lot of people are experimenting. But we have to get to the point where our standard bearer, and most of of our candidates, they just wake up every day in the world they think about. How am I going to drive a message? How am I going to make my opponent pay for something? It's not about a speech. It's not about an interview.

It's about, you know, this multi-platformer approach. And as you know, they all need some distinction in how you deal with them. And this is why I think the most important people in campaigns going forward are going to be, you know, 22, 23, 24, 25-year-old creators who understand these platforms inside and out. And they should be given real seats at the decision-making. able in my view. As I look at this field, I can see, and I like a lot of these people politically and personally. Yeah, me too. We've been around long enough. We know a bunch of them now. They have a lot of a bit on the show. I see lots of people who could win in a good political

environment in 2028. Like, I think that's a, I really do believe that's a nomination you're going to want to have, given Trump's unpopularity, the process by which they're going to end up with J.D. Vance as her nominee, who is quite dangerous, but also I think has plenty of flaws and is not wearing well with voters. Like, there are these, the Sarah Longwell put out some focus group results today, which showed that the only thing that Gen Z men wanted less than J.D. Vance was for the United States to invade Greenland. Like, he does not, he has, he has Trump's maga beliefs, but not the charisma that helps

you know, but it's still. know, still it's going to be a, it's a danger. But so I can see lots of people who can win that race. What I'm struggling with is to truly succeed, to actually defeat maggots and not just hand the White House back and forth, is you have to change the political alignment. You get a transformative candidate. Now, the primaries tell us a lot, the people you think are going to be great, like on the Republican side, Ron DeSantis in this election, Scott Walker, 2012 can blow up in their face. We've seen that on our side over the years. People who look great on paper. you know, barely make it out of the starting gates.

But I don't, it's hard to see, like the candidate who can truly achieve a lot of what you're talking about is an outsider. And there's not an obvious outsider in this mix, right? They're all, everyone, if you go through the list of expected candidates, now these people have announced, but we all expect they'll run. Newsom, Pritzker, Whitmer, Shapiro, Bashir, you know, I'm sure I'm forgetting others, but lots of, you know, Mark Kelly said he's thinking of running out. These are all established, Gallego, Gallego, these are all establishment democratic politicians. Like, and I believe our strongest candidate to who truly would have a chance to reset the party, reset the political alignment for a generation of this country, who could do for the Democrats, what Obama did for the Democrats or what Trump has done for the Republicans, has to be an outsider. Like, am I pining away for something that can't happen here? What do you think?

Well, that's a great question, Dan. Are you thinking a particular outsider or two, by the way? No, I mean, look, I think, I mean, I don't have a good answer to this, right? From the people, I don't agree with this one per se, but a lot of people on the right, on the center right of the party, like they threw Mark Cuban's name out there because he's, that's sort of like our Trump version, only in the sense that he's a businessman who's very good with the media and is a reality TV star. You know, the other one you hear, you know, more from the like resistance left is would John Stewart run? Yeah. Right. So I don't have a good answer for that.

I mean, honestly, I'm not arguing for this per se, but the politician within our party who has the best biography to run for president and the best communication skills is AOC, right? She has an outsider, bartender, and she can communicate with the best of them. I don't think she's like, I have no indication he's actually thinking of running. But like, if you were saying, like, what is our version of Obama was elected official, but he'd been elected official such a short period of time that he wasn't defined by that. You know, it's like we just, I don't, I don't see that person. So I'm like keeping my eyes open for who that can be because people weren't talking about Obama actually. People were talking a lot about Obama at this point in 2006, you know, the relevant point in the cycle. But they weren't seriously thinking he was not thinking he was going to run.

Like, is there someone out there that we're not thinking of who could get in the mix? Well, so first of all, I mean, my hope is that we have some of the Cubans and Storitz run in part because I hope this primary is big. and messy and tough and hard because I think if our nominee has to survive the toughest obstacle course possible, that person will be stronger. And it might even be someone who'd say on paper you don't think has the kind of reach to really expand the electorate in our coalition. Maybe if they survive that primary, you know, oftentimes the people who win, they don't just come out whole. They come out strengthened by the primary. I think Trump did. They got to keep put on it.

Right. So I think just it, by the way, the flip side is people who look like tigers on paper, like DeSantis, like John Glenn, like Walker. You know, they get chewed up in their political graveyard. So it works both ways. So I think we should have outsiders run. You know, listen, I don't know what AOC is going to do. And I understand the conventional wisdom would be well, you know, she would get demolished in her general election. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, she's an outsider. And by the way, talent matters. Talent. Talent. Talent. Again, back to like I sound like super luxury old person. Like I wish we elected presidents based on their talent to run the situation room and like work with Congress, but we don't. So the ability to communicate, inspire, reach, handle crisis in your campaign is so important. She's clearly got that. I would say, you know, based on prior election history, and by the way, that doesn't mean anything in a presidential election necessarily. But like, you know, Bashir is overperformed a lot. Shapiro's overperforming. All those Michigan candidates have overperformed. Gallego overperformed.

So there's some people in those races, in those states, who showed the ability to outperform the sort of democratic average. That doesn't mean that translates to a general election. Because I think in a general election, yeah, profile background matters, but it's really that talent. I mean, you know, you've looked a lot at this. I just, you can't overstate it enough. These elections are decided by people who pay little to no attention to politics.

politics. They don't seek out information. You got to find them. And the way you find them is through compelling moments and genuine moments. Some of them plan, most of them not. And so that's what we need in our nominee is someone, yes, who can obviously secure the nomination, build confidence in the party, build a great organization, have the financial resources, but has that athletic ability to capture people's attention whose attention doesn't want to be captured. And the primary in part is for that. And so you're right on paper, I don't think we've got a bunch of people. The other thing, Dan, is I'd be surprised, you and I are political veterans, that there won't be two or three people that run that you and I would not name right now. And I hope that's true. I hope that's true.

I agree very much with you. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-on-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform, whether you offer consultations, events, or other experiences, Squarespace can help you grow your business. Create a professional website to showcase your offerings and attract clients. Squarespace offers a complete library of professionally designed and award-winning website templates with options for every use and category. Squarespace domains make it easy to find the best name for your business at one fair,

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Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash cricket to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com slash crooked. So talent, electability, communications dictate who wins the primary. The other thing that dictates the primary is the calendar. Right now, you know, in our minds, we, because it has always been thus that we would go Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. That would be it.

That's how we've done it. There is currently no calendar. For the first time ever, there was nothing to operate. Biden changed it to South Carolina first, then didn't have a primary. Do you have a view on what the calendar should be? I have some thoughts about the principles. Now, I think there's been 12 states, right, that have basically submitted an application. So you should ignore the other 38.

It is these 12 that will make up the early states. So my principles are the past shouldn't matter. History shouldn't matter. Relationship shouldn't matter. Given the existential nature of what's in front of us, we should have a calendar that we think gives us the best opportunity to produce the strongest nominee to win the presidency. So that would mean to me, I would make sure that the first four-all battleground states. You and I know the value. Why do I want to do that? You get exposure in those states, you build up an organization in those states, but also the nominee gets comfortable in

those states. So other than if Kamala Harris runs, none of these candidates know much about these states. By the way, how much better of a general election candidate was Barack Obama, having spend all that time in Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada. He knew the people. He knew the reporters. He knew the media markets. Like, he knew the economy. So with all due respect to, you know, you and I have deep love for Iowa and for South Carolina.

I would not have a non-battleground state. And the good thing is you've got, you know, Georgia and North Carolina both want to be battleground early. So does Arizona and Nevada. So does Michigan. Northeast, our home state, Delaware, actually, demographically would be a great place to start, actually. But I think New Hampshire probably is the other one in that region. And I would probably start relatively small to big so that you give candidates the opportunity to compete in a state that's not overwhelming in size or expense. I also think you should give a lot of thought to what comes after the first four because it may be we have a political athlete who emerges, who wipes the floor with everybody like Trump did back in 16. And they're going to be the nominee after the first four. And in a way, the calendar wouldn't matter there other than it helps you for the general election. So I think the calendar choice should be,

How does it help you win the general election? How do you put together a good test for the candidates? But then what comes right after is important. Like I would make sure New York's relatively early if you can do that. Like, why in New York? New York's a tough place to compete. And you want to put people through their paces. You know, Texas, some of these places that we want to reach.

But the most important thing for the DNC Rules Committee is these first four. So for me, as hard as it is sometime, we should not worry at all what's happened before, who's done what, who has relationships, what, is the most ruthlessly, non-emotional, surgical thing we can do. And the other thing about it is it's not a one-way door. If we want to change it in 32, we change it in 32, because the roster of battleground states almost certainly will change, as it always historically is done.

So I would go all battleground states early. They're already going to make sure there's geographic diversity. But, you know, those are all states. And ethnic diversity, right. And ethnic diversity. So that's my view of it. And, you know, again, somebody who just has momentum, who kind of overwhelms the field, they'll win regardless of the calendar. But if we have, you know, if we ever, the other thing I'd say is South Carolina historically, other than in 24 when we didn't have a contest, has been the gateway to the nomination.

And other than I think 04 when Edwards won because he was kind of, you know, North Carolina guy. Local. And why is that? because once you come out of the early states, you know, the candidate who wins the plurality of the African-American vote is going to be our nominee. So I still think having a southern state is that last one into the rest of the nomination process is important. Now, in my view, it would be Georgia or North Carolina. But we'll see. I mean, I think that that's important.

So that, to me, is another rule or principle. But to me, the inviolate thing is you just got to put blinders on. don't worry about what's happened. You know, New Hampshire's always had this, South Carolina. Like, what's the right thing to do to produce the strongest Democratic nominee to advantage that person? So we have the best chance not just to win the presidency in 28 as important as that is, but to do it with some margin.

So we begin to build this electoral coalition that can be sustainable and ultimately extinguish the MAGA threat. Yeah, that to me, I 100% agree, the best idea I'd ever heard was from, Kevin Sheeke, Bloomberg's guy, which was you would just take the four closest states from the previous election and do them in the, you know, so in this case, it would be Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, right? Right. Arizona. Whatever. That violates the geographic thing, but that's a fine idea, right?

Yeah. But the basic principle here is, battle is you have the organizing in the primary will help you in the general. And because of changes in the electoral college map since 2012, Iowa and South Carolina, are not battleground states anymore. And so they should be. We should be able to get to place where we can be in either of them. But like I remember like being,

you know, obviously I spent a lot of time in Iowa in 2008. We had, you know, the best organizers in the Democratic Party were in Iowa, organizing that state with an inch of its life, right? Every voter, every community, you know, we knew who they were. You could get it. I was there in 2020, you know,

doing podcasts and covering the caucuses. And then when I let me fly out the next morning, a bunch of those organizers were on my flight to go to the next state, and they were never going to return. Though they were going to close those offices, they were going to leave. And so to spend all millions of dollars and all this time and money and energy to organize a state that you never returned to seems like just a waste of resources. So getting those battleground states makes like a ton of sense to make.

Yeah. And again, I think the voters, whoever as our nominee will have competed in those states, spent a lot of time doing social media interviews, running ads. So you get a head start on your day. definition, but also I'll just repeat this candidate thing. Even though our presidential campaigns have become more national, even though we have an electoral college, your comfort and skill and understanding of these places that will determine the presidency are important. And if you've spent a bunch of time in there, you know, you're a governor or senator or an outsider, you know,

in your state, you don't know these states. But if you've spent a lot of time campaigning there, you'll be a better candidate. And so that's another, I think, principle. in terms of why it ought to just be battleground states, first four. And again, that doesn't have to be something that's a generation. We can change it if we need to as battleground states change. The last thing I want to get to is one in your abed, one of the things you brought up was the democracy to talk about AI. The day is a huge issue.

We need a position on AI. You had Chat Chabit, write a political ad about AI that was actually quite good. I tried to get another AI tool to do the actual visuals of the ad. not so good. So maybe the writers of political ads are in grave danger. Maybe the actual cinematographers are okay for the short term. Maybe at least, you know, maybe, I mean, these things are moving so fast. You might be able to keep your job through 26, 28, you might be fucked.

But AI is the most important technological, economic, cultural, psychological, social issue of our time. My view is in the party has been bizarrely quiet on it, with some exceptions. Republicans have actually been much more vocal and been Republican government speaker have been more vocal critics of Trump's, the Trump's David Sacks, let him cook policy of no regulation. But to the extent we have, you know, the extent the Democrats are talking about, it's mostly people who are doing like bans on data centers.

Where do you think the party comes down on here? Do you have a view of what that messaging or policy position should be? Well, first of all, I just find it bizarre because. I would even say, yeah, David Sacks and the Trump administration, but generally, we're not having a debate about the thing that's going to have the biggest impact on the country for decades. Like, it's insanity. And I think voters express that. They're like, this seems like it's just happening to us. By the way, they feel like social media happened to them.

They didn't have any say in it. Now, this is even bigger and it's happening to them. So, listen, AIs here. Everyone's using it. There's a lot of benefits in terms of health care, hopefully, and education, all sorts of things. So it's not a pro-AI anti-A. I just think given that the Trump administration, a lot of Republicans, it's basically a green flag, no questions asked. And by the way, you know, Elon Musk, who's probably the most prominent outside Republican now, is out there saying there will be no jobs.

Working will be optional. Everyone can like plant flowers and what a great life that will be. Like, people are like, fuck you. Like, it's not realistic. So I think that we're Democrats should say, listen, we need to be China. We want to be the leader. We've always benefited from leading technological revolutions and change. We want to do that here.

We just want to have the right kind of rules and transparency and the right kind of discussions about what kind of economic transition. How do we have to think about changing our education system? So people aren't spending hundreds of thousand dollars for degrees that are unemployable. So I just think we need to lift our voice now. It doesn't have to be against AI. It needs to be, we need to have the right discussion about regulation around transparency, about the adjustments we need to make. but also make the Republicans pay a price for asking none of those questions. Because I think voters, you know, I see this in research.

I'm sure you see this in research. You know, they're getting more and more concerned. At a time, by the way, where they're already economically worried. So they think things are going poorly. And now they got this weighing over them. You see with a lot of parents of school-age kids, you know, they're worried their kids aren't learning, that they're not going to learn deeply, that they're too reliant on AI. we have the mental health crisis. So I think for us, I think candidates should lean into it and say,

if I'm elected, I'm going to put a lot of thoughts on how we handle this, not in a way that like hurts us competitively. Still allows us to flourish. But, you know, this could kill lots of jobs. This is changing education. By the way, this is changing how people, you know, deal. We already have, what, half of men under 30 have never asked a woman on a date. More and more of them are going to have relationships with chatbots. Like, this is big stuff. So to me, there's an opening for leadership that's very much connected to the economy you want to build. And I think, you know, I'm not saying it's going to be the leading issue in 26. I think it will be an issue.

I think by 28 it could be the dominant issue of one of them. And this is a place where J.D. Vance in particular is deeply exposed. And I think could really pay a price by 28 if people's senses this has happened way too fast. No one's asking the right questions. I see the devastation all around me. nobody's thinking about me and my family and my kids. And if we have Democrats at least raising some of those questions, hopefully they have a lot of good answers. But at least willing to raise some of those questions, I think we will politically profit from it. Yeah, it's really, it's, it's,

quite challenging because it's very different than when social media was starting when Obama was running, right? Where like those companies were viewed quite positively by the public as something different, like for all the sketches they had of Wall Street or big oil or big pharma or big, back are all the bigs, right? They, like, there's a sense that these countries run by these new younger people were something different or better. And so Obama benefited a lot from being seen as the tech candidate, right? That's not the same now, right? It is very, it's a much more complicated relationship. This tech is just, in a lot of voters' views, just like a segment of business that they're quite skeptical of and thinking it's fucking them over. And so you got, but you also don't want to be,

like I think our best candidate is going to be seem like they understand the future. Yes. And we have lost some of that like in the post Obama years as Democrats. And so how do you sort of navigate that between, you know, the anti-tech view, but also being seen like you understand the benefits, but you're also very aware and willing to stand up to these companies to protect people from them, I guess, is the sort of territory. You've got to lean into the benefits, both in terms of A. and robotics, right? If no one dies in car crashes anymore, that'd be like the biggest public health benefit in the history of our country, right? Robotics can probably play a role around, you know, senior care and things. But like, so I think, yes, positives. But, but let's think about this.

I mean, the dominant debate, when you listen to, you know, Altman and Musk and even like people like Sachs is, well, don't worry if all the wealth goes to the big companies, they don't even dispute it. Yeah. They'll give it back. So I'm a Democratic candidate, I would say in a room, does anybody believe? Also, by the way, they're like the meritocracy party. You know, Americans are about hard work and drive. Basically what they're saying is you won't have to work anymore. The truth is, some Americans don't want to work.

A lot of people want to work. They get a lot of value and dignity out of it. It really fills them up. And so I think they're really vulnerable here. And part of it is just putting the words back. Does anybody believe that all the wealth from AI should go to five people? People say no. Well, the people who are in charge now are saying that basically, yeah, it may all go to them.

But don't worry, they're going to give it back in a dividend and you'll all get your peace and everything to be okay. Like, it's ridiculous. And so I think there's a big opening there. I think the skill, to your point, will be to not seem like you're a troglodyte, that you have your head focused on the future. You want to make sure that the benefits of this are widely shared and like health care is a great example of that. But, you know, we need to be careful about this in terms of what adjustments we have to make. And also call bullshit on some of this economic model stuff that just does not withstand any scrutiny at all. And then also you're going to need, like, what is truly unsustainable is to be let AI do whatever at once.

But also, we're going to eliminate all of our green energy so that we're just like burning the planet. You have to, like, you need a comprehend. Like, I know this seems hard in this media environment. but you need a comprehensive strategy with nuance to actually do it. And I think people, like from the research I've seen, people are both hopeful and skeptical, and you've got to kind of be able to fit right in that category. Like they have, they're very concerned about impacts on their energy bill, for sure, impacts on their community from these giant data centers being built,

but also, you know, see some benefits in some way, shape, or form of who can make their life easier. So, like, we need an actual policy. And if we are, if the Republicans have no policy, I think they're, where the Republican governors have been better than us is they've been very critical of and focused on the effect on kids. Yes. Right. And we've just, not that we're not focused on.

We're just silent about it. Like we, like we're just, the party just seems to not have a lot to say about it. Maybe there are lots of individual candidates saying individual things, but it's just not being heard by people because we don't have the, it's not the most important people in the party doing it. We don't have presidential candidates doing it. We don't have the megaphone and get it out. But it feel, I think it feels to a lot of others.

And you see this show up is that we don't have anything to say about it. And that's a problem. I agree. We've got to fill that gap in a smart way. All right, David Pluff. I will let you go. This has been fun and illuminating and alarming. As always, good to talk to you. We'll have you back on podcast. That's how our discussions always go, Pfeiffer. Always have for almost 20 years now. See you.

Before we go, some quick housekeeping, friends of the prod subscribers should check out the brand new episode of my show, Polar Coaster. In our most recent episode, we broke down Trump's abysmal polling on Greenland. and we looked at the emerging Democratic primaries in the key states that are going to decide the Senate majority. In addition to breaking down the latest polls in news and politics, in every episode, I answer questions from our friends of the pod subscribers. You know, there are questions about individual races around the country, too. My takes on reality TV and everything in between. There's some reason to become a friend of the pod from ad-free episodes of your favorite

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