Pod Save America - The Trump Voters Who Are Sick of Trump (Ep. 2)

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

Jon is joined by longtime pollster Sarah Longwell and former Republican strategist Tim Miller to get inside the minds of two-time Trump voters who are no longer sure if they’ll vote for him again. What’s changed? Well, January 6th, a few criminal trials, and some obviously bogus claims that the election was stolen. But is that enough to get them over the line for Joe Biden? Jon, Tim, and Sarah listen to a focus group tape of these voters to figure out how they’re leaning in 2024 and then Ben Wikler, Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, joins to help teach you how to persuade the Biden-curious Trump voter in your life. Take action with Vote Save America: Visit votesaveamerica.com/2024  Pre-order Democracy or Else: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps at crooked.com/books or wherever books are sold. Out June 25th.

They are, in a sense, January 6th Republicans. People who may have been staunch Republicans for a long time, they may have voted for Trump twice, but now they have this deep feeling that he's crossed a line, that he's lost it, that he is broken with them in a way that they can never accept again. You may recognize that voice as Ben Wickler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party

and one of the country's best political organizers. I called up Ben earlier this week so we could talk about a group of people who may decide the election in Wisconsin and all across America. Trump voters who no longer like Trump. Of course, in a close election, there are many groups of voters who could decide the outcome. And we'll be talking to a lot of them over the next few months. Black voters, Hispanic voters, young voters, people who aren't even sure if they're going to vote at all. The anti-Trump coalition we're building has to include as many voters as possible, whoever they are, wherever we can find them. In 2020, a small percentage of people who voted for Trump in 2016 switched to Joe Biden. And that made all the

difference in a state like Wisconsin that was decided by about 20,000 votes. In 2024, not only do we have to keep these voters, we also have an opportunity to pick up some two-time Trump voters who just don't think they can bring themselves to support him again for all kinds of reasons. There are different flavors of soft Republicans, different types of folks. They're often very different from most swing voters. They're often high-information voters. There's a lot of military veterans and military families,

like people who put their lives on the line and wrapped their whole family around service to this country who feel a sense of deep betrayal from Trump, both from January 6th and what he said about our troops. There are some voters who are Dobbs voters who voted Republican for economic reasons, but they don't like the idea of the government making private medical decisions in their families. The voters who have made it a part of their identity that they're Republicans and now walk away, these are people for whom it's often a big deal. It's a big deal in their kind of soul and in their lives that they've decided that he's gone too far

and that they can't go there with him. I realize that for some of you, it might be hard to understand this kind of voter. How is it worth our time and energy to persuade people who might want to vote for Donald Trump again after all that he's said and done over the last eight years. But remember, these aren't MAGA diehards. They aren't going to Trump rallies and posting crazy shit online.

They are genuinely wrestling with the decision. We don't have to understand why they voted for Trump. We just have to convince them not to do it again. Maybe you have one of those voters in your life, a family member or a neighbor. Maybe you don't know anyone like this, but if you volunteer, you might end up talking to one of those gettable Trump voters.

So in this episode, we're going to help you figure out what to say and how to say it. And to do that, we've brought in my two favorite Never Trump pals, former Republican strategist Tim Miller and longtime Republican pollster Sarah Longwell, who's constantly doing focus groups with these voters as part of a project she runs

called Republican Voters Against Trump. You'll hear our conversation next, and then Ben Wickler will help us wrap things up with more advice about what it'll take to get these Biden-curious Trump voters off the fence. Let's get into it. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to the wilderness. All right. Excited to kick things off with my two favorite Never Trumper pals

and two of the smartest political nerds I know, Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. What's up? Yeah, thanks for doing this. Obviously, we all have a lot of work to do with a lot of different groups of voters who aren't yet sold on casting a ballot for Joe Biden. But today, we're focusing on a group that's near and dear to your heart, Republicans and Trump voters who don't like Trump. So you guys talk about these voters all the time on your various

bulwark pods. Sarah, you're hearing from these voters in focus groups as part of a separate campaign you're running called Republican Voters Against Trump. Can you start by talking a bit about that campaign and what your strategy is? Yeah, look, we did this campaign in 2020. When it came to the center-right, right-leaning independents, soft GOP voters, getting them to not vote for Trump and vote for Biden, it wasn't enough to do these kind of hard-hitting ads that went viral on Twitter. persuasion of your target audience. Because if a bunch of progressives are smashing the share button, there's a pretty good chance that it doesn't land persuasively with swing voters. And so we were really trying to figure out what would move. Because we heard from so many voters who were Republicans and didn't like Trump and didn't want to vote for him again, but they just, they weren't Democrats and they didn't quite know how to get over the tribal hurdle of voting for a

Democrat. And when it comes to trust with voters, one of the other things you heard very clearly was they didn't trust any institution. They didn't trust Democratic messengers. They trusted people like them. That was their main trusted source of information. And so we went and found people like them, Republican voters who weren't going to vote for Trump. And we got them to make little video testimonials explaining why. And so they just hold up the phone and they'd say, I'm John from Texas. And because I'm a Christian, I cannot vote for Donald Trump again. And they talk about why. And the ones that actually were the most persuasive were the ones where the person would talk about why it was hard for them to vote for Joe Biden, but they were going to do it. Like the more difficult it was for them, the more persuasive it was, because that's what a lot of

Republicans were doing. They were grappling with it. And so we took these testimonials, we turned them into TV ads, into radio ads, into digital ads, into billboards. And we create these surround sound campaigns where you don't just see one voter saying it. One of the, I think the things that really work about this campaign is that we have hundreds of voters who, and in 2024, were focused on people who voted for Trump twice, or at least voted for him once, but really voted for him twice, explaining why they can't vote for him again. Because you are trying to peel off voters who have voted for this guy twice, but because of the coup, because of January 6th, maybe because of abortion, they refuse to do it again. And even if they just leave it blank, that's okay. We are trying to diminish enthusiasm and pull people off. So that's the campaign.

Tim, do you have a sense of who these voters are demographically, where these voters are? And can you explain to all the potentially skeptical libs out there why these voters are worth trying to win over? Well, I'd start by saying our voters are the ones that are the most solid at this point. So, you know, I'm glad you're having us on the wilderness, but we really need to do more work with young voters, working class, black and Hispanic voters. If you just look at the numbers, I was just looking at analysis right before I got on. And right now, again, and some of this is a little fuzzy because of polls, but like direction you know, directionally speaking, if Biden is doing a little bit better among rural voters than he was in 2020, a lot of these are some of the people

Sarah was just, I think, referencing, which are maybe two-time Trump voters that are not evangelical Christians, that are not Fox News watchers, that rural communities, like being for Trump is just sort of part of the water they swim in. I'm stealing a Sarah phrase there. And the abortion thing really matters to them. A lot of these people are women, but not all. And they can be moved, you know, off of Trump. Some of these are the infamous Obama Trump voters, and we're moving them back, you know, over abortion, right? So that's one category of people that I think get underappreciated in the media. The other category of people who Biden's lost a little bit of ground with is suburban college

educated voters. That's more of the me and Sarah types, the Mitt Romney Biden voter, as opposed to the Obama Trump voter. And the Mitt Romney Biden voter, huge gain with them. The increase offset is why Biden won, frankly. It's like the Atlanta suburbs. And it turned out among black voters, if you just look at Georgia, right, why did Biden win Georgia and Hillary didn't? Well, did better among black voters, did better in suburban Atlanta. Like it's like that simple.

It's not like these are new people that appeared out of nowhere. There are people that used to vote for Republicans and switched. And so those are kind of the two groups that are in our bailiwick. I wanted to talk about that because I do think there's a couple categories of soft Republicans that we're talking about here. There's sort of the Romney Clinton or, you know, Trump Biden voters. Romney, Gary Johnson, Biden types. Right. Yeah, that whole type. And then we're going to talk more about the two-time Trump voters who are considering maybe not voting for him in 24. Sarah, how much backsliding are you worried about with the, specifically the Trump Biden voters, the people who switched over to Biden in 2020? I'm super worried about it. I hear it in every group. It's not the majority of people in every

group, but let's say we just did this. So we had a group last week and five of them were going to stick with Biden and three were going back to Trump, Or they were kind of RFK curious. I will say it's not just that they're going back to Trump. It's more that they are turned off from Biden. Like they got there for him in 2020 and they can't get back there. And this is why, you know, when I talk about the persuadables this time around, I talk so much about the double haters because the double haters can be across all kinds of demographics. But a lot of them are these sort of Trump to Biden voters who took a flyer on Biden because they really didn't want to go with Trump again. But now they're mad at Biden after four years of Biden because they're not Democrats. So that's why they're more like a lot of them are these RFK curious types.

And that's OK if there are people who are going to vote for Trump and they vote for RFK. It is bad if you could get them there on Biden and they're going to go for RFK. Because as I talk about all the time, the biggest coalition in American politics is the anti-Trump coalition. It's not a pro-Joe Biden coalition. It's an anti-Trump coalition. And anything that splits the anti-Trump coalition is bad. But if RFK is going to be in this race, you better make it anti-Trump coalition is bad. But if RFK is going to be in this race, you better make it work for you because there are a lot of natural overlaps between RFK curious voters and people who were willing to vote for Trump because he's not a regular politician, but are now kind of out on Trump. Is there a difference between or how much of a difference is there between the Trump Biden

voters who are now thinking of going back to Trump and the two-time Trump voters who are like, I might be moving on from Trump altogether. They're not that different, actually. The two-time Trump voters who are out on Trump are just people we just didn't get over the line in 2020. They always were holding their nose voting for Trump. And like their line just happened to be January 6th and the coup attempt. My dad finally got him over the line in 2021. So there's one. Okay. There we go. Your dad. Okay. That's a one person focus group. Hey, dad. And actually, let me tell you about this group because it's a little counterintuitive. They are old and they are white and they are Ronald Reagan Republicans who came for a different reason who

they do care about the constant. It's funny because people don't care about democracy per se, care about the constant. It's funny because people don't care about democracy per se, but like Donald Trump's coup attempt matters a great deal to these voters. And it is a non-starter. Even if you can't get them there on Joe Biden, I'm going to bet that one of the things we see as a trend in 2024 is a shocking number of people leaving the top of the ticket blank from these Republicans who just refuse to vote for Trump, but can't get there on Biden. And if they were two-time Trump voters, that's good. Yeah. Well, let's talk about these two-time Trump voters who are now pretty down on Trump. You've done several focus groups with these voters. As you mentioned, one of the most common reasons they're questioning their support for Trump is January 6th. Let's listen to what one group of two-time Trump voters

said about that. I think he, you know, really kind of got off on the whole situation. That he had to be convinced later in the day to even issue a statement about it just made my blood boil. And do I think a lot was made out of, out of what actually happened in the building? I do think a lot was, was, was exaggerated about what happened in the building, but they were concentrating on a couple events. I mean,

people died one way or the other. They died. I don't care how they died. I just think there's so much more he could have done on that day, you know, to kind of, you know, I think we've said it before,

but to be the adult in the room, to try to calm things down. that day, you know, to kind of, you know, I think we've said it before, but to be the adult in the room to try to calm things down. I think, you know, the large majority of the people that, you know, stormed the Capitol that day probably, I think, would have listened to him. You know, but that being said, I do think the coverage of it was, you know, over the top. It was Trump's responsibility to stop that kind of mob mentality that pushed forward. But on the other hand, I also blame a lot of the media for portraying the events as they did. Definitely a Republican group. No doubt. So you can be mad at Trump for how he acted on January 6th, even as you might think the media exaggerated its importance as some of these people did.

Or you can be so mad that you think it makes Trump unfit to ever hold office again. What's your sense of whether the salience of January 6th can become a deciding issue for these two-time Trump voters? I think it can be. Here's one of the key elements of January 6th can become a deciding issue for these two-time Trump voters? I think it can be. Here's one of the key elements of January 6th. It happened after they voted for him the second time, right? So they don't have to go back and say, I was wrong. Like with the information they had, they felt like they made the choice. This is new information since they voted for him last time. And I think that one of the things right now in like this very moment that is a struggle for really getting those people to get their blood back up against Trump is that him being in court talking about Stormy Daniels is incredibly backward looking. I'm not

saying it helps him the way some people do. I'm just saying that it is not allowing people to look forward. And what you need is to sort of take January 6th as your jumping off point, and then you need to paint a picture of the future of Donald Trump, a lunatic surrounded by lunatics. But January 6th has to be at the center of why you cannot trust this guy in office again, because there are a lot of people for whom when they see that footage and when that salience is high for them, they go, oh yeah, I can't do it again. If you're struggling to convey the stakes of 2024 to someone in your circle, this show is perfect for you.

But for those persuadables in your life, it might be best to give them an actual book they can follow to get ready for this election year. Love it. Tommy and I wrote one, our first book. It's called Democracy or Else, How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps, coming June 25th. And it's the perfect first step to getting your friends and family off the sidelines and engaged. We know that election years can be overwhelming, but that's why we gathered all of our political insights from Pod Save America and our smartest friends in politics to write this funny, useful guide to help you and your friends through 2024. Plus, when you pre-order, you're not just getting a book, you're already making a difference because Crooked is donating all of its profits to Vote Save America and 2024 campaigns. Head to crooked.com slash books now to preorder your copy. Tim, I was going to ask you that, too, because

you hear from a lot of like pundits and pollsters, especially Democrats who say that, you know, January 6th is backwards looking and it's already baked into people's views about Trump and what most people care about is the future and what's going to affect people's views about Trump and what most people care about is the future and what's going to affect them. Like, how do you make Trump's actions on January 6th an issue that is something that could affect people's lives in the future if he wins again? Just really quick, though, I think this offers a psychological misunderstanding of these voters.

These people just want to have excuses to come back home to being republicans like these are republicans they watch fox obviously as you could tell uh by that group we get into a little bit of their media diet more i think but um they though when they get reminded of things about trump that make their blood boil like it moves them again like they have to get re-reminded and i like i've lived through this for eight years i've lived through this for nine years like people in my life will like message me when he does something terrible he's like that's it i'm done i'm sick of it you were right like i don't get you were right as much so i'm like in your head that's what they're saying yeah yeah the subtext was that i was right yeah and then a couple weeks go by something else happens they go to the grocery

store butter's costing a lot they get employed and like they're back you know what i mean they're back to like not liking trump like these aren't mega people but they're back to like oh well the democrats and socialism and all that so yeah you have to be constantly reminding them about why they hate him like he's got to be in their face and um i think this was a big difference in 16 you know in 16 he was like out of their face the last two weeks because of hillary you know the the emails and, you know, we don't need to trigger everybody with that. So I think that just using opportunities to remind people of the nature of the threat of him, but also about what they hate about him. Some of that can be future looking, right? Some of that can be like, remember that thing you really don't like, like that could happen again. Something

similar to that could happen again. That could have a real impact on your life. I think that that is worthwhile and doing I understand why like logically, you're like, why would you do an ad about January 6 on Halloween of 2024? But it's like the people, they need to be triggered, we got to trigger them into not voting for him. Yeah, it makes me think of, you know, in that long interview with the New Yorker, Mike Donilon, who's Biden's chief strategist said, you know, it's all about like what you want people to have in their mind when they go to the polls and we want them to have Dobbs and democracy January 6th in mind as they go to the polls. Yeah. Sarah, do you agree with that? I a hundred percent agree. And I talk about this with abortion a lot. When we do the focus

groups, we always open with the same question. how do you think things are going in the country? And people are always like, bad. And they talk about inflation, and they talk about the price of their houses, and they talk about crime, and they talk about immigration. And then you ask about abortion. And all of a sudden, this happens every time, especially the women in the group, suddenly people are talking about the abortions that they had. They're talking about their own catastrophic pregnancy. They are crying and bonding with one another. And you're like, make abortion, put it at the top of their minds. The salience of these things, the salience of January 6th, the salience of reproductive rights. If you take your foot off that, if you let this

be about Biden and you let it be about the economy, even if the economy is good, like that is not good for Biden. If you make it about Trump, if you make it about abortion, if you make it about January 6th and you raise the salience of those things so that that's what people are thinking about when they go into the voting booth, like, I just we just can't have that again. That's where you got to get people. Yeah. So the issue that precipitated January 6th is Trump's attempt to overturn a free and fair election that he still says he won, even says he won states like Minnesota that Joe Biden won by 7%. Sarah, you guys have done groups with two-time Trump voters who don't believe the election was fraudulent. Let's listen.

Maybe this is a bit cynical or a lot cynical that at a federal election level, we've been doing this for 200 years and dead people have been voting for more than 200 years. And I don't know that that's going to change ever to be blunt, whether you got to show a driver's license or not, or whatever the technology leads us to in that regard. So I think there's always some amount, but I don't think it was enough to swing at any particular state, maybe a precinct, maybe even a municipality, but I don't think enough to change the election itself. There's always some votes that show up bundled or people get a couple of copies of mail-in or what have you.

I don't think that's fraud. I think that's just bureaucracy. That's just what happens. We're not very good at that. Nobody think that's just bureaucracy. That's just what happens. We're not very good at that. Nobody is. All the paperwork. So I don't think there was an effort to throw the election, and I don't think there was enough that did throw the election. It was like 62, I think, different lawsuits to prove that there was something wrong with the elections, and he lost them all. So there was no evidence.

There was only evidence of him tinkering around and trying to do illegal things to change, you know, I need 11,780 votes. There's always a little bit of, I don't know if it's on purpose or if it's mistakes or if it's whatever, but the number was so small. It was something like 0.002% that happens all the time. I think they will involve a challenge to all elections in the future. And I also believe that groups of individual citizens will always strive to disrupt the certification of the elections because it's proven that that can be tested. And the only mistake that they made was they didn't have enough military might to go in and actually make it more severe. Yikes. So it seems from the polling that there's roughly 30% of Republican voters who believe the truth about the election that Joe Biden won. Tim, similar to what I asked about January 6th,

well, I guess what I want to know is, do you think both those issues are just the same, January 6 6, and him trying to overturn the election in the minds of these voters? Or like, how would you make that a big issue for people? Or do you think it will be a big issue for people the idea that he continues to say that he won the election? Yeah, I think that this is more of, you know, effect than cause it's sort of inverse. I don't know that like him talking about it, that matters more, but these voters reveal themselves as potentially gettable, right? Like the people that believe that the truth about the election, I think are a ripe target for

Biden at very least to get them off of Trump. And then I think that, you know, the democracy and the January 6th elements are arguments that you can use with those groups. I love hearing that because 30%, like on one hand, it's like shockingly low, right? 30% of Republicans believe the truth about the election. That's like pretty alarming. That's a ton of people. That's like 30 million people, right? And so I love hearing from these groups as a reminder. It's like, oh yeah, here are people that believe that bureaucracy is bloated, dead people vote. There are a lot of fraud in elections, but Donald Trump's still a liar, right? Like you don't think about that person in your mind's eye, right? The person you're thinking about is either like, I think

Donald Trump's a liar or I'm wearing the red hat and like listening to Maria Barrett Romo, right? And so like that type of person, I think if you keep them in your mind's eye, they can be persuaded on this stuff because they've lost trust in him. And at minimum, they can be moved off of him into this anti-Trump coalition Sarah's talking about. I think that then there's other challenges related to how you can then persuade them conceivably to come to the other side. Sarah, what else have you heard from these voters about how they view the salience of Trump's election lies? they view the salience of Trump's election lies. Yeah, well, I've been obsessed with this 30%, both the number, because it shows up in other places. Like a lot of the polls that ask,

would you vote differently? Would it impact your vote if Trump's convicted of a crime among self-identified Republicans? Roughly 30%. In states where Nikki Haley was actively contesting the election, self-identified Republicans, she was getting about 30% of the vote. So like, this is the persuadable people. So I live with these people in my head. Who are they? What do they think? And as I was digging in on the election stuff in particular, you know, it was a little disheartening because you sort of wanted to hear them say, yeah, this guy's insane. And of course, the election was free and fair, but like, that's not what they say. They say dead people vote. Of course there's fraud, but they basically say like not enough to really turn this over. But what was

interesting is that this 30% of people or these people who don't think it was stolen have a few things in common. One, they've got a diverse media mix that they ingest. And by diverse media mix, I don't mean Fox News and then Steve Bannon and then, you know, Tim Pool. I mean that they flip around from Fox and CNN and their local news. And local news is really big. And one of the things we've just found is people who are in this persuadable category tend to be less plugged into cable and a little more plugged into their local channels and what's going on in their home state, which has an advertising opportunity. I think about that when I think about how to reach these folks. The other thing that's jumped

out is that if they really believe the election was free and fair, they tended to have either proximity to people who worked on elections. Like they're like, I know somebody who worked on the election. One guy was in Maricopa County. He'd worked on the election himself, or they'd had states with these recounts. This ones where they'd had a ton of recounts, which are in the contested swing states. They were like, I don't know. They looked at this a hundred times. There was no fraud. Nobody could find it. The cyber ninjas didn't catch anybody. The bamboo wasn't there. And so they're like, I think that it was fine. And then the third thing that was interesting about them is they just had a higher level of trust in the system overall. They tended to talk about checks and balances. Like, I don't know, this is America and we do

elections okay. And it probably aren't switching the votes with the machines. And so that is sort of something that they all have in common that I think is an interesting picture of who our voter is to persuade. I saw you quoted in this Bloomberg piece this week about the possibility of Trump serving a third term or maybe forever. And that's something that's coming up in different focus groups that different people are doing from undecided voters who are actually, that's like one of their big concerns that either he'll stay forever or there'll be a Trump family monarchy and we'll be doing this till Barron's president. Do you, what's your

sense of how salient that could be as an argument, how effective that could be? Yeah, I mean, because people are I mean, it is coming up in groups where they're just like, I'm not sure he'll leave or like he might run again. And sometimes there's actually some people who say that and it doesn't matter that much to them. Like, it's fine. And and cool Trump forever. But for a lot of people, this idea of he won't leave, he won't abide by the rules matters. And that is a January 6th argument. And this is what I mean about like January 6th salience. It's not just about January 6th.

It's not just about the visuals of the cops getting hit and things we've seen sort of over and over again. It's this is the kind of guy he is. He is a lunatic who will be surrounded by other lunatics and he won't leave. And you tell people that and they're like, yeah, that's that'd be a real problem if he just didn't leave. Maybe I shouldn't vote him in. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like like liberal alarmism to be like, oh, God, this could be your last election and the last time you get to vote and he'll be there forever. But it does feel like, A, it has the benefit of being potentially true. Uh, and B, we do have some evidence that he tried to do that last time.

What do you think, Tim? Yeah. Like, and this is where I think the RVAT project is important. Having this come from regular people's voices rather than like Barack Obama's spokesperson. I don't,

I probably don't think you're that compelling of a messenger. We won't want to put you on TV in Maricopa County. Uh, excuse me, speech writer. Sorry. That was Tommy. It's Tommy.

It's my bad uh so i think messenger matters here and i you know i think that a compelling persuasion message is more like risky it's like think about how nicki haley talked about this chaos risky like mighty stay i don't like isn't the fact that we're talking about this ridiculous that you might be worried about this like isn't this a risk that's not worth taking and so i think if you kind of combine that with maybe somewhere in their periphery they like they're seeing ads on social media that feature donald trump making jokes about this like sticks in their head i think that could be a potent kind of one-two combo to try to just make the pitch to these voters that this isn't worth the risk and make it really back to being an election about Trump, right? Not like

a choice, not a Biden-Trump choice election. And I think that also goes back to the salience. And not democracy. Like saying democracy doesn't mean anything to people, but like dude won't leave means something to people like they get that like we might yeah the capital might get charged like who knows like he might put his family in charge of the military like you just don't know like risky like it's just like is this worth it right like yeah less than these you know high-minded principles you know john meachum i love john meachum but you know yeah no i don't think he i don't think he's going to be a persuasive messenger to these voters either no all right so we are are we are on the verge of a verdict in what

may be the only Trump criminal trial that happens before the election. Polling suggests that most voters aren't paying close attention. And the fact of Trump being on trial for felony charges hasn't really changed many opinions, though. There's also a good deal of polling that suggests that may change if he's found guilty. Sarah, you guys asked some Trump voters who supported Nikki Haley in the primary about these trials. Let's hear what they had to say. The most damaging case will be the trying to overthrow the election. That is hard to prove. So, but all the other cases are just overreaching and I don't think it's going to go anywhere. And I don't think it's going to go anywhere.

And I don't think you're going to get conviction. It's just a waste of taxpayer money. When he became president, there were Democrats in Congress saying they wanted to impeach him before he'd even served one day in office. And there's been nothing short of that effort to, you know, muddy the waters and make him look bad from the very beginning. Of all the cases, the one that I think probably is the most serious is the classified documents one. But then Biden had classified documents and even Pence ended up with saying, oh, wait, I found one in my house, too, which just makes me think they're all rather careless. It seems to me like liberals in the country are saying Donald Trump's a criminal. Let's find a crime to pin him with. Let's throw all this stuff against the wall and see what sticks. Because I think it's all politically motivated. Clearly, you look at the platforms of the state prosecutors and attorney generals who because I think it's all politically motivated, clearly.

You look at the platforms of the state prosecutors and attorney generals who ran and won and who ended up prosecuting them. That was their platform. I'm going to get Trump. Vote me in. I'm going to get Trump. I don't know how you do this, Sarah.

I just honor you every day. Kidding, I love it. I do too. I think it's so fascinating. My blood pressure has gone up 20 points. I just honor you every day. Kidding, I love it. I do too. I think it's so fascinating. All right, let's say- My blood pressure has gone up 20 points in the last minute. I can feel it. Let's live in a wonderful world where Trump is found guilty in the Manhattan case.

We got a convicted felon running for president. Is that not an argument we should be making to those undecided voters? Like, what do you guys think? 100%, 100%. Here's, people are doing a weird thing right now. So first of all, if he is acquitted, it is an actual disaster. Like the downside of acquittal, so much bigger than upside of a conviction, which is just the terrible world that we live in. However, a conviction matters. And one of the things that I'm kind of pushing people on on TV, there's this like way that people say, well, you know, this is all just helping Trump.

All helps Trump. If he, even if he's convicted, it helps Trump. That's primary analysis. Yes, with base voters, this stuff who think that it is rigged, who thinks it's a two-tier justice system and thinks that they're out to get Trump, helps them. Those people are all going to vote for Trump anyway. Doesn't matter. These swing voters and the people who are on the fence who have to hold their nose,

him being a convicted felon will matter and does matter. And look, you can tell me that it's marginal and I'll tell you, cool, because margins are going to decide this entire ballgame. So I'll take marginal as a marginal effect. Yeah. Tim, what do you think? I got no fucking idea. I honestly just don't. I don't know. It's not what I'm supposed to do, but I just I don't know. I've got no idea. I could see it making a difference. I could see it not. These voters don't know either. Right. Like the focus groups actually don't tell us anything on this, really. And you learn a little bit about how they think, which I think is important. But like the specific question, like you heard that guy, he was like, I don't even think he's going to be convicted. So like,

what is that? What does it, do they do any of them again, not the magus, do any of the people that have a media mix, most of these folks are college educated, you know, like the types,

most people have people in their lives that are not Republican. Like does that group, do any of them start to see him differently when he's a felon, start to think about it differently? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe not. Ion, start to think about it differently? Maybe. I don't know. Maybe not. I really, I think it's very hard to say.

And it's annoying. It's frustrating. I mean, you know, and there was some really damning testimony here in this thing, like about how Stormy Daniels talking about how he like essentially coerced her into sex with a security guard standing outside. Like you would think people would not want that person to be president. But I don't know.

I don't think we have a lot of evidence for that at this point. But part of this is, let's say there's a guilty verdict. It's all over the news for a couple days. It even filters down to local news, right? It breaks through everywhere. And then the question is, do Democratic campaigns, does Sarah's campaign, do other groups, do you keep pushing that message to keep reminding people of it between now and November? Because then by September, it's like, oh, yeah, he's just a convicted felon, but we don't really talk about that anymore because we've all moved on. That's sort of the question that I have. Sarah, what do you think? Well, we would be making a mistake if we failed to mention it.

If he's a convicted felon and we're not talking about that, that's on us. You absolutely should be talking about it. Joe Biden should be talking about it. A lot of good material in this guy. A lot of orange jokes, orange jumpsuits. I mean, I'm just, there's, yeah, but being able to, and again, this is why I go to like the acquittal is so much worse, like a conviction, it does give you something to push. And also get this guy out of the courtroom, get him out there so that he is in people's faces. Tim was talking about this before. I also think it's very important that Trump be high salience because if it's a referendum

on Biden, Biden loses. If it's a referendum on Trump, Trump loses. And so we got to get Trump talking to us. The media has got to cover him. They got to take the insane things that he's saying at these Trump rallies live, but get him out of court with a conviction. And he will be, he'll be nuts about it. He will be so upset and then push him on it all the time. I do think it matters to these marginal swing voters who are not paying attention. Listen, here's the thing about this. This is what I was going to disagree with Tim about.

Nobody's following this case, the court stuff. I mean, they're just like, and they can't follow it. They don't know who these people are. They don't know the characters. I mean, unless you're upset. And because they can't see what's happening in the courtroom, they're getting the stuff filtered. And so one of the most interesting, I was talking to a group the other day, and the

woman was talking about how, well, I turn on Fox, and I think the case is going to get thrown out. And then I turn on ABC, and Trump's going to jail. And, like, she's like, what is even happening here? What's going on? Because they're getting it through these media filters. And so I think that people still trust the courts and jury of your peers more than they trust other things. I'm not saying it's, like, the highest thing, but they trust it. more than they trust other things. I'm not saying it's like the highest thing, but they trust it.

And to say a jury of his peers convicted him of this on top of the E. Jean Carroll stuff, but this is like a real, you know, that was a civil case. This is a criminal case. And so like, I just think it matters. I do. I think it, again, not to everybody, but you are talking about 10,000 votes one way or the other across six states. Before we move on from this group, these were voters who cast their ballots for Nikki Haley in the primary. There's been a lot of excitement in the anti-Trump universe about the, you know, even after she dropped out, she's still getting like 15, 20% in some places in some of these primaries. What's your sense of, okay, some of these voters could just be, I mean, there is the like, yeah, Democrats just voted in the Republican primary. There's also a, you know, a lot of these voters

could just be Republicans who already voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Um, and so they're just, you know, continuing, uh, with, with just voting against Trump. What's your sense of like how many are truly just like maybe these two-time Trump voters who were like potentially done with him. And that was their, and the signal for that is that they were voting for Nikki Haley in the primary. Tim and I sort of disagree on this. We've been fighting about this on our show for a while. And here's what I'll say. Look, in that Nikki Haley cohort, there are people who already voted for Joe Biden. There are people who are going to go home to Trump and the rest are the double haters, right? That you were trying to get, make them hate Trump more

than they hate Biden. Right. And that's who you're fighting over. Here's what I have found encouraging about it is that in these states where they are closed primaries, meaning that, you know, libs can't vote. No, there are people who are motivated enough. Nikki Haley's not on the ballot and hasn't been on, or she's on it technically, but she hasn't been in the race for months. And people are getting up to go out and vote against Trump. They're not voting for Nikki Haley. This is not a pro Nikki Haley coalition. They care enough to go vote against Donald Trump. And I think that that expresses something about enthusiasm, meaning sort of enthusiasm against Trump. And I think that

that matters. I have found that encouraging. I don't think that every person in that cohort, you can just be like, oh, well, this means 150,000 people in Pennsylvania. We've got our lock on. But I do think it matters. Yeah, I'm just not as excited about this as everybody else. I'm sorry. I hate to be the Debbie Downer. There's some good part. Here's the good part about it. And this is what I'm saying. Our people are solid. My people, Sarah's people, like the, the college educated, highly engaged, reading the news, anti-Trump Republicans. Most of them already voted against him in 2020. Most of them have been turning out to vote against Carrie Lake and Blake Masters and doug mastriano in the midterms and they're also and they're turning up again to vote against donald trump in the primary and so like that's good news like there is like one of the most highly engaged

demos against donald trump is our people so so like our people do matter um in that sense i just like the number isn't as big as it seems. Right. Like so when you look at that 20 percent, it's like, well, that's not 20 percent of the whole Republican electorate. That's 20 percent of the people that turned out. Right. Right. And as Sarah said, the anti-Trump Republicans are very excited to turn out.

So our people are turning out at a disproportionate rate. And many of them already voted for Joe Biden. Many of them already voted for Democrats in the midterms. And so that's a good thing that they're still motivated. Right. Could be worse. Right. They could be not not motivated. They could be mad about Joe Biden because of student loan bailout or whatever. They could be mad, you know, that Joe Biden hasn't been nicer to BB or whatever and not turning out anymore. So it's good news that they're still engaged um but uh it's just not quite as good news as it might like seem on its face i think that there are other people there are double haters in there there are people that voted for trump twice in there that are gettable i think that joe biden um like like has this awesome now group in all these states of anyone that voted by mail you know okay we now know that these are rational people. You know, like,

if you looked at Pennsylvania, it was crazy, like Nikki Haley got like tied among the mail voters and then lost 90 to 10 on election day, you know, so now we know, you know, if you look at who requested a mail ballot, like that's somebody that Joe Biden people can go knock on their door and think that these people, you know, don't believe that Hugo Chavez and like the pillow man, you know, stole the, you know, know like we're part of a plot to steal the election so that's good um so there's some good parts it's just not quite as good as i think that maybe it's made out to be all right let's wrap up with um how to actually communicate with these gettable two-time trump voters um we've been talking a little bit about media diet and how that differentiates them um

let's play a clip of one of the groups talking about their media diet i don't have a single source i don't really trust anybody um usually what happens is i'll i'll either hear of something i've deleted all of my social media because i'm just i'm tired of algorithmic news and so if i hear something i'll look up you know information about it and try to get multiple sources because it's there's usually a spin in one way or the other and so the truth is somewhere in between there. Primarily NPR, but I switch between different channels and just comparing news. So I know that some media are leaning toward Republicans, some leaning toward the left.

And it's good to listen to both channels and then formulate your own opinion. If I see a story that interests me, if it leads me to CNN at first, I'll go to like Fox News after and maybe check like some of the other ones like BBC or NPR or whatever. The process I have to go through is to filter the news from each source as to what their agendas are, how thorough they are, how balanced, what agendas they have, what the editorial bias is, what agendas they have, what the editorial bias is. And then you have to filter that and form your own thoughts in addition to some anecdotal things. Sarah, you were talking about this a little bit earlier, but what does this tell you about their media diet? What does that tell you about where and how to break through to these voters? Yeah. So can I just tell you one thing that I find to be a conundrum or an enigma about these folks

is that I don't know if they seem more rational to us. I think that some of those people are lying about their media consumption. So I will say the number of times that people say BBC in the groups, I'm like, no way. Come on. No chance that this many people watch BBC. This happened in all the wilderness groups I did last season. I heard BBC all the time. I was like, what is going on?

It sounds good. It sounds smart. Like the one guy said NPR, then the other lady's like, you know, I look at other things like whatever, like NPR. Like, you don't have to go to NPR. I'm sorry. So like there's some mistrust happening. So I think that's true, Tim, that they are reaching in this moment to be like, I want to sound smart. And like I, you know, whatever. That being said, I think there is something about people who are, and this is where I was going to

say the enigma is like the chicken or egg. Are they naturally curious and therefore seeking out more, you know, disparate opinions and I want to see things that might disagree with me, or are they changing their mind because they go around, you know, checking out other things? You know, like I sort of don't know which is the driver of it. I suspect it's a little bit of both that they are like naturally curious people who want to see what. OK, well, I know that Fox News is biased to the right. I think MSNBC is biased to the left. I'm going to go watch both and like see if I can figure it out for myself.

That's good to know about a person, though, because it means that those are the types of people who are open to persuasion. They pursue persuasion, right? They pursue alternate set of details to learn a lot about it. And so if you know people like that are sort of watching local news or they're checking things, that's good for knowing how to target them and how to think about like, we run a lot of ads now on local news because I've been listening to voters talk about a media diet that includes local news. And that that is like one of the

number one things that indicates they don't believe the election was stolen. Like I watch more local news than cable. So Sarah, you've said before that we're not building a pro Biden coalition. We're building an anti-Trump coalition. So obviously it's a win if we get someone to just leave the top of the ballot blank. It's even better if we can get someone to actually vote for Joe Biden. What are the biggest reservations about Biden with a lot of these voters? And what do you think is the best way to help these voters overcome these reservations? And what do you think is the best way to help these voters overcome these reservations? It's going to blow your mind with this take. It's because he's old. I mean, that's it. And left, right, and center, people talk about just feeling like they can't connect with him.

Like, you know, he's old. They don't think he's up to the job. And that's just what you hear. There's a reason the media talks about it because that's what voters talk about. Even the ones who are deeply sympathetic to Joe Biden do this thing where they, like, crouch and they say, I just get so worried when he talks and when he walks, like I want to make sure he's okay. I want to like help him. They like, you know, they can see them like reaching for him to steady him. And so look, I think that that's a big part of the problem, which is why I do think it's much more about a negative campaign on Trump this time. And I also think,

here's the other thing, though, that voters really understand. They understand the president doesn't do it alone, which is why for Trump, you have to make sure they know he is a lunatic who will be surrounded by other lunatics, and that Joe Biden is an old but good man surrounded by young and good people. I'm just a big advocate for a much more robust surrogate game, a much more investment in voters knowing who the people are who are around Joe Biden, because voters talk about it all the time, that they know it's not just him. And so you got to sort of give them a sense that, because they're just afraid, does he have it for the next four years? The world feels dangerous. The economy feels precarious, whether that's true or not, that's how they feel about it. And so they want somebody who can do the job.

And even though Trump is not that much younger, he does have big lunatic energy. And so when people are just like smelling the vibes, they see Trump and they think he seems not sane exactly, but more up to it. Yeah. Tim, is it pretty much just age or what else are you hearing in your many chat groups with people who are still Trump curious Republicans? Yeah. I mean, I think it's selection bias. And I think that there is a small but vocal group of people that are upset with him about Israel. I don't know that that's very representative about what's happening in Arizona. I trust Sarah's focus groups on this more than people that text me that used to work for Mitt Romney or whatever. I don't think focus groups on this more than, you know, people that text me that used to work for Mitt Romney or whatever. I don't think that's representative of the mean voter.

Look, I think this, like the sister soldier thing is so stupid and so overplayed, people don't even remember what really happened. That's a side thing that, you know, folks can Google the real story there. Joe Biden reassuring people that he's not going to go in with the far left would help. There's like a weird, like media driven view that Joe Biden's to go in with the far left would help there's like a weird like media driven view that joe biden's big problem is with the progressive left he's got some problems over there but like if you just look at the data his problem is actually with centrist black and latino people you know mostly that's like the group who some people don't even think exist right especially so some liberals right they exist and he's down like 20 with them like

if you look at where he was in 16 versus now you just look at the again polls caveat but like you i just based on all the data we have like that's the group like center left black and latino people are the ones that he's he's down with the most so that's also true about our people are mostly center folks and so just kind of reassuring that he's not, you know, going to be a socialist, I think would be helpful. We all know that, you know, we know that's kind of silly to be concerned about that, but people need to hear it. And besides that, it's just anti-Trump. I'm sorry, like Trump has to be disqualified, period. People have to be too freaked out. That's the campaign. I like winning people over for Joe Biden. I think spending a lot of effort and energy on that is probably a fool's errand.

And like almost all of the energy needs to be on totally disqualifying Trump in these people's eyes and making them feel like they're too scared to vote for him. All right. Final question. You have someone in your life who is a past Trump voter, either two time Trump voter, or maybe they voted for him once and then went to Biden. And now they're not sure what they're going to do they're still undecided you got a couple minutes to persuade this person to not vote for Donald Trump uh what do you say I've got a system Sarah you can think

about yours because here's mine so far we'll see if I don't know yet I've been stress testing this but I say what do you think the chances are that Donald Trump won't leave I'll let them answer the question a lot of times people like come on and I'll be done like what do you think the chances are that donald trump won't leave i'll let them answer the question a lot of times people like come on and i'll be done like what do you think the percent chances are zero percent and they'll say like oh i don't know maybe five and i'll say that's too fucking much five is too high we've never had a five percent chance that's too high of a chance if you believe that there's anything more than a zero percent chance that donald trump wants to become a dictator you cannot vote for him Vote for every other Republican that you want. Close your ears, progressive listeners. You know, things are like the Senate's going to be Republican next time.

Sorry, guys. Close your ears. Close your ears. Vote Save America crowd. Like you don't have to worry. Socialism's coming. You do have to worry that Donald Trump's going to be a dictator. That is my message. Again, now my group, people in my life, this over-indexes on, again, that kind of college-educated Romney Biden crowd. I would probably make a different pitch if it was, if we were talking about the more working class Trump types. Sarah? Yeah. I would say, first of all, if I had to make the pitch, I would make it not me. Like I shouldn't be the one pitching. And my most fervent hope actually is that one of the things that manifests as we get closer is that people who worked

alongside Trump, the generals, that they come out and tell people what they saw. I think that those as surrogates would make an enormous difference to kind of the Wall Street Journal crowd. And I mean, don't go on background in the Atlantic. I mean, hold a press conference and say with together with Kelly and Mattis and say, we cannot do this. Like I sent young men and women to die for this democracy. And I will not allow this election to happen without me saying what I saw and how dangerous I think it would be to return this man to power. And so that I think would go a long way. I also, there's a category of people who are making me though, particularly insane that I want to fight with all the time. And it is the category, it's the anti-antis kind of, that create the permission structure for normie Republicans to not vote for Joe Biden. And they do some version of this. Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy, but I can't vote for Joe Biden either. And so neither. And I find this to be, this is a John Bolton argument, or we've got many friends who kind of do this. And I'm like, well, this is insane. If you believe that Donald

Trump is an existential threat to democracy, you vote for the one person, the tomato can, that is standing between him and the White House. That's what you do. Otherwise, you are a coward and you don't care about the country and you are just not an adult capable of making hard choices. I love Sarah. I just want to interfere. I don't think you should call the person in your life a coward, though. I don't think that. Like Sarah was doing two things there.

She gave a first strategy. I was talking to John Bolton. And then she was talking to John Bolton. I do think if you have a pundit in your life. If the person in your life happens to be Chris Sununu. Yeah, that's right. You can call him a coward. Absolutely. Absolutely.

But if your person in your life is like an accountant or something, probably don't call them a coward. All the rest of that they'll ignore.

Okay, that's good. That's good advice. Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for giving us some of your insights

and sharing some of the focus groups with us. And appreciate you guys. Yeah, thanks for having us. Sorry, Vote Save America people. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm still pulling for Sherrod and Tester. I think they might be able to pull it out. I think they might be able to. Great, Sherrod. I hope it happens.

I hope it happens. Bye, guys. Before we move on, I just want to strenuously object to Tim's prediction that Democrats will lose the Senate. We may, and it's certainly an uphill climb, but there's absolutely a path for candidates in the toughest races like Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown. And the best way to help them is by going to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to donate or sign up for a volunteer shift. Then, if you feel so inclined, go ahead and tweet a thank you to Tim for encouraging you to sign up. And if you want to walk away with some hope about the campaign that Ben Wickler and other Democrats are building in Wisconsin, here it is. We just opened our 47th office. We have a presence all over the state, in every region of the state, in rural areas and suburbs

and exurbs, small towns and big towns and the cities of the state, everywhere. And that means that we're able to build these neighborhood teams where folks are talking to people in their own communities. And when you talk to someone that you know from church or from high school or from, you know, work or because you're at your cousin's wedding together, then you can start to have a conversation that goes off script. As you heard from Sarah, Tim, and Ben, these conversations won't be easy, whether they're with perfect strangers or your closest family members. But they're important.

These should be longer conversations. This is not just checking in, making sure someone knows what the election is about. It actually starts with eliciting, asking people questions, listening to them, and asking follow-up questions, finding points of common ground, finding values that they have in common. Maybe that seems a little scary to you. Maybe it seems a little cheesy. Maybe it just seems exhausting.

But whether or not we keep Donald Trump out of the White House depends on how many of these conversations each of us are willing to have between now and November. And thankfully, Ben has a roadmap for us. Well, the first thing is that it's okay to reassure people. You don't want to make people feel guilty for being where they used to be. You want to make them feel safe and celebrated and not judged for being where they're coming to now. So having those conversations in a tender and open and curious way can pave the way for them to have further conversations with you.

Do not immediately come in and impose a giant purity test where you're asking them to agree with you about everything. Instead, really start with asking questions where you're trying to get at the root of why someone came to feel this way and go there and you can reflect back to them the values that you're hearing and what you appreciate about those values. But you're really looking for, you know, what is it that cracks this open for someone? What happens ultimately for some of these voters is it's like squeezing through a keyhole, and then they come out and suddenly feel like they're 3D on the other side of it, because they pop into themselves and feel like it's okay to try out a bunch of different opinions that didn't feel safe to try on before.

I'll leave you with that. Yes, it'll be hard to go out there and persuade the persuadables in your life. But hopefully, after what you just heard, it may be just a little bit easier. The Wilderness is a production of Crooked Media. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. Our senior producer and editor is Andrea B. Scott. Austin Fisher

is our producer. And Farah Safari is our associate producer. Sound design by Vassilis Fotopoulos. Music by Marty Fowler. Charlotte Landis and Jordan Cantor

sound engineered the show. Thanks to Katie Long, Reid Cherlin, Matt DeGrotte, and Madeline Herringer for production support. To our video team, Rachel Gajewski, Joseph Dutra, Chris Russell, Molly Lobel, and David Tolles, who filmed and edited the show.

If the wilderness has inspired you to get involved, head on over to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to sign up and find a volunteer shift near you. Terima kasih.