Pod Save America - The Wilderness Chapter 3: Disconnected Democrats in Pittsburgh

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

How can Democrats reach disconnected voters? We talk to Biden voters in Pittsburgh who are fed up with national politics. Jon breaks down their responses with Pennsylvania Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, data expert Dan Wagner, and John Fetterman senior campaign strategist Rebecca Katz.New episodes of The Wilderness drop every Monday. Subscribe to The Wilderness wherever you get your podcasts.Apple: apple.co/thewildernessSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6JfsJlD5sBhVpEQEALNw4UStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-wildernessIf you want to learn more about how you can take action in the fight for our democracy, head over to Vote Save America and Pennsylvania United: https://votesaveamerica.com/midterm-madness/https://www.mobilize.us/paunited/event/493306/

Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! Photos put Senator Doug Mastriano in DC on January 6th. In fact, he organized a bus trip to go down there. He's been asked to hand over documents and information about efforts to- Undo the certification of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania, which he called compromised and corrupt. I pray that we'll seize the power that we had given to us by the Constitution and as well by you, providentially. I pray for the leaders in the federal government we have given to us by the Constitution and as well by you, providentially.

I pray for the leaders in the federal government, God, on the 6th of January that they will rise up with boldness. You'll bless these letters. Meet Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of American democracy. Mastriano is a state senator who tried to help Donald Trump overturn the results of the last election. And he was at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. As governor, he'd have a lot of power over Pennsylvania's elections. Including what happens to the swing state's 20 electoral votes. Electoral votes that could easily determine the next president.

I'm Doug Mastriano, and I get to appoint the Secretary of State who's delegated from me the power to make the corrections to elections, the voting logs and everything. And we're going to clean it up. I might even have to reset voter registration and start all over again across the state. At the stroke of a pen, I can decertify every single machine in the state. Doesn't seem great. Also, Mastriano has ties to extremist Christian nationalist groups, opposes same-sex marriage, and says he'd sign a law to ban abortion with no exceptions. My body, my choice is ridiculous nonsense here. But wait, there's more. In 2014, Mastriano posed for a faculty photo at the Army War College, where he taught for a few years.

For some weird reason, everyone in the picture was given the choice to dress up as a historical figure. Guess who was the only faculty member to choose Confederate soldier? That's right, Doug Mastriano. The state senator who represents Gettysburg. So yeah, that's the guy running for governor of Pennsylvania. And even though the polls currently show him down by a few points, he could absolutely win. In 2020, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by a little more than 80,000 votes, even though he turned out more Democratic voters than any presidential candidate in history.

That's because Trump's MAGA base broke turnout records too. Not sure if you've noticed, but they still seem pretty fired up. Hello, Pennsylvania. Hello. I'm thrilled to be back in this incredible commonwealth with the thousands of proud, hardworking... So once again, Pennsylvania will be one of the country's biggest battlegrounds in this election. The campaign between Mastriano and Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro is one of the most consequential races in the country.

Meanwhile, control of the Senate could come down to the contest between Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, a quack TV doctor from New Jersey, and Democratic nominee John Fetterman, A quack TV doctor from New Jersey. And Democratic nominee John Fetterman. Pennsylvania's 6'8 lieutenant governor. A hoodie-wearing, goatee-sporting progressive who was described in The Atlantic as hacked together from spare parts in an oil-streaked Pittsburgh chopper garage. So far, it seems to be working for him. He has been leading in the most recent polls, and some of them by quite a bit.

The stakes in Pennsylvania, and for democracy, are huge. The question is, do enough people know that? Are enough people paying attention? Can John Fetterman, Josh Shapiro, and other Democratic candidates motivate enough of the voters who came out to defeat Trump in 2020? Especially when a lot of those voters are feeling disconnected from politics and disappointed with the direction of the country. 2020, especially when a lot of those voters are feeling disconnected from politics and disappointed with the direction of the country. Our organization started because we are working class people and we come out of real life.

And we saw that nobody in Western Pennsylvania, from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party to whatever political party you're coming from, right, was actually talking to people in a day-to-day way about what their life was like. That's Alex Wallach-Hanson, the field director for Pennsylvania United, a group of nonprofit organizations who helped flip Pennsylvania to Biden in 2020. Elections are a choice on one Tuesday in November where you got to wake up and you go pick between two people, right, or you pick to not vote. The vast majority of people in our community are not waking up with a preformed and prefigured analysis of politics and connecting it to their lives and how they see the world

because they're not in organizations. They're not connected to the political establishment. They're not connected to any way where they touch power and see it show up in their lives. So when political establishment people, the media, when they tell this story of, oh, voters in Pennsylvania have been persuaded by the Republican Party message or have been persuaded by the, you know, the politics of fear and hate and division, that may be true for some people, but the vast majority of people who are voting

are just showing up and picking between two people on that given day. And there's so much complexity that goes into that. I went to Pittsburgh earlier this summer to talk to some of the voters that Wallach was talking about. They're people who aren't that connected to politics and aren't following the news that closely, but people who still usually show up on election day

to pick between two candidates. They're the kind of people that political scientist Diana Krupnikov was telling us about in the first episode. In order to understand the divide between the parties, Democrats and Republicans, we have to understand this divide between those who pay a tremendous amount of attention, really focus on politics, and those who pay much less of attention politically. In this focus group, I spoke with nine disengaged Democrats. All were from the Pittsburgh area, none were daily news consumers, and while all of them were leaning towards voting in the midterms, only three said they'll definitely cast a ballot. All of them voted for Biden in 2020, but two of them voted for Trump in 2016. For context, I talked to these voters a few days before the start of the January 6th hearings.

We spoke about the hearings, democracy, abortion, the economy, inflation, guns, and of course politics, including Pennsylvania's big midterm races. A few weeks later, I sat down with a group of experts in Pennsylvania politics to help break down what the voters said. So I'm Malcolm Kenyatta. I'm a state representative here in Pennsylvania. And just not too long ago, I finished my bid for the U.S. Senate in the Democratic primary. I was the first openly LGBTQ person of color to run for U.S. Senate in American history. My name is Rebecca Katz. I am the founder of New Deal Strategies and a chief

advisor to Senate candidate John Fetterman. Nice to be all. My name is Dan Wagner. I'm the chief executive officer of Civis Analytics. We're a multipurpose data science technology and analytics firm, and we do a lot of work supporting political campaigns, advocacy groups, etc. with their analytics challenges. Before this, I was the chief analytics officer for the 2012 Obama campaign, and that's it. After the break, we hear from Malcolm, Rebecca, Dan, and nine Pennsylvania voters. Rebecca, I can't believe this is our first time meeting with all these guys. We didn't even have our own coffee a moment.

We were doing it with the pod safe. You brought the whole crew together. I don't think I've seen you in like 15 years. I mean, maybe more, but I don't want to say how old we are, so I'm going to stop it. I literally just had this conversation with Tommy in the office. I went to Pittsburgh to talk with voters who Democrats absolutely need if we want to win in November. People who cast their ballot for Joe Biden in 2020, but aren't totally sure what they'll do in the 2022 midterms. As you'll hear, they feel pretty down about politics and the state of the country, and they're not following the news as closely as you probably are.

Afterwards, I got together with Dan, Malcolm, and Rebecca to talk about what we heard. Thank you all for doing this. together with Dan, Malcolm, and Rebecca to talk about what we heard. Thank you all for doing this. Dan, I will go out on a limb and say that most wilderness listeners are very politically engaged voters who follow political news quite closely. How do you think they compare with the broader electorate? They look nothing like them. I mean, part of our job, unfortunately, is to be analytical,

and part of it is to stereotype. The average Pod Save America listener is probably late 30s, probably 80% are likely white, probably 50-50 male-female, is probably concentrated 50% plus in urban areas, is probably entirely college-educated, fill in the gaps. They probably share a similar cultural standard,

same standard of living standard, same feelings of anxiety about recent policy, etc. And the average non-Pod Save America person probably has not gone to college or has gone to part of college and is living through debt right now. They consume their news through some combination of cable news, but more likely through Facebook. They are looking at the political process right

now through deep anxiety because they're going through a historical collapse in their standard of living as a result of inflation and rising home prices. And they are thinking about how their families are going to get by and politics is last, not first. Yeah, I think that's about right. This guy's good. You pretty much nailed our audience. Malcolm, you just ran in a statewide campaign in Pennsylvania. How important is it to reach voters who aren't frequent Twitter users or cable news viewers, in your opinion? What was that like?

Our challenge was that there were a lot of voters who did not know who we were, who in a huge state like Pennsylvania, if you are not able to engage folks who fall into those buckets, which Dan's just so accurately described, where politics is last, not first. And that's the type of family I come from. You know, I lived six different places by the time I graduated high school. My mom worked all of the time. And so, you know, she was a good Democrat, but she was like not paying attention to all the twists and turns of politics, except for the real quality of life concerns that were front and center. You know, the levels of gun violence in our communities. And frankly, if you, you know, know folks from North Philly, gun violence was a crisis before it became something that national folks wanted to cover. We're dealing with mass shootings multiple times in the year. I think we benefited from me being able to just talk honestly and openly about my experience,

in some cases to the chagrin of my staff. I'm not like a fucking talking points person. I just kind of say what I think and it'll work or not work. And what I think is that we are not delivering on a government that actually works for those working families. You know, all they got is me. And so that's why I have a big mouth about the needs of working people. Rebecca, how important is it to reach voters who aren't frequent Twitter users or cable news viewers? How does that factor into your campaign strategy? It's very important. You know, we always say campaigns are not won or lost on Twitter.

You have to actually go out and talk to the people. They consume news differently, and you actually have to talk about things that they care about, and you have to make them believe that you will do something for them. Right now, the biggest problem we have is no one thinks anyone's going to do anything for them. All right, let's get to the first clip. I asked voters how they feel about politics, media, and the way things are going in America. Here's some of what they said. Scale of one to ten, how important are politics in your life? I want to say zero, but I'm going to say two. Okay, that's okay.

Two, six, six. I just, I can't watch the news. I stay out of it, but I have to just not have it as an influence in my life. It's just very important to me. Since this whole pandemic started, my whole thing was just stay in your lane. Be the best you can be.

You're not going to fix this political shit show. My husband and I, we hardly ever watch the news anymore because it's so negative. A lot of it's, you know, kind of drawn along the party lines, whether it's abortion, guns, COVID. It just feels like everything's kind of split these days. You're afraid to talk up to your neighbors, not knowing what side of the fence they're on. Is anyone else afraid to talk politics with people that you know, and your neighbors, friends, family? I would agree with that.

It seems like a lot of people have pretty hard stances, but you never know. I feel like it's uncomfortable now. No matter what you think, it used to be, I think, a lot easier to talk about stuff like that. I always just say that politics divides people, so that's why with family and stuff like that,

I don't even get into it because there are certain people, man, you could just give two words and just take off. I agree with that. It's exhausting. I tend to go down the middle a lot. You would think that that would make it easier to find common ground, but it seems more and more that if you are not 100% in agreement with someone, they're just completely irate and everybody's always so

warped up and angry. So knowing that these are all registered Democrats who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, did these comments surprise anybody? Nope. They're not surprising. They're just depressing, right? I mean, I think we all know that this is going to be a tough year. Those voters are confirming it. I mean, John, you know better than anybody how important it is for voters to have hope

and to look into the future. And they don't have trust in government. They don't believe anyone's fighting for them. It's bleak. Malcolm, you've been an elected official, but you've also been an organizer for most of your life. What strategies have you found helpful in reaching disengaged voters like these? I always think it's a one-two step, right? First, we should acknowledge the fact that people have every right to be frustrated. And listening to that, the thing that stuck with me was the woman who said, I'm just exhausted. And I think people are exhausted in terms of just things in their

daily life that government is not helping with. And they're exhausted by this constant political conversation that's about what's the next news clip on, you know, whatever your favorite nighttime talk news show is. And so the first thing is to really acknowledge that pain. But then you have to talk to people about the possibilities when you have a government that is more reflective, when you have candidates who are going to do something, and they're going to do something because they understand what you're going through. They're talking to you from a real place. And I always feel like voters can feel that. Dan, why do you think that most Democratic messaging fails to reach or move these voters? I'll answer it a little bit backward. But the most interesting statistic that came out

of the 2020 election was that when you looked at Democrats' vote for issues in ballot elections relative to support for Biden, in many cases you saw support for Democratic ballots positions up by 15% versus Democratic candidates. Medicaid, minimum wage, credit rates on things like payday loans in Nebraska. And this happened all over the country. Alignment in terms of voting behavior with Democrats, but not supporting presidential candidates or Democratic candidates. And so the question you have to ask yourself is, why is it that voters are so misaligned between support for an issue, which is the product,

and then the candidate, which is functionally the brand? And I'd probably be interested more in hearing Rebecca's feelings about this. But in terms of like the core diagnosis, 10% of these people probably highly represented that room. They're aligned with Democratic positions, but aren't aligned with Democrats because what has become really a broken brand over the last 20 years. Yeah, Rebecca, what do you think about that? Because one thing that struck me, and we'll listen to some of this in a bit, is they'll say that they don't like both sides, that both sides are extreme. But then when you get into the issues, they seem a little more solidly Democratic than you'd think from how they describe themselves. Right. I mean, I think they don't like a lot of the leadership in Washington, and they don't think those people are relatable. It's almost like they think everyone in Washington

is like a let them eat cake to the masses. Democrats should be the party of working people, and we cannot connect the way that we used to. I think it's because, honestly, that a lot of the folks have been in Washington have been in Washington for many, many, many decades. And it's like, you know, Roe will get overturned and a Democratic leader will say, what? We expected that to happen. There's no passion. There's no sense of urgency. They're just watching everything kind of fall apart. And normal people are watching it too. And they're losing their minds and like screaming into the void. And we have to find candidates who give a damn and who can show them that they give a damn.

Yeah. So like we said, you know, it was clear from this group that even though they felt disengaged from politics itself, they had very strong feelings about a lot of political issues that started with the economy and inflation, which was on just about everyone's mind. Let's take a listen. A lot of food items seem not only in short supply, but you just watch them weekly go up and up and up. Yeah, my chicken wings anymore. It's like filet mignon. Yeah, I would say feeding my family and two boys has definitely impacted us over the past month or so with the grocery store. Yeah, my rent is going up significantly.

The uncertainty of empty store shelves and gas prices to go get the things. So yeah, it's sad for especially those who don't have the means. And I mean, I'm being a lot more frugal than I was before. That's for sure. Especially with the cost of gas, it's very expensive now. It would cost over $100 to fill up my Jeep. So it's gone up quite a bit. So gas prices and inflation have come up in every single focus group,

usually unprompted, usually early on in the discussion. Heard a lot about health care, housing, rent, the baby formula shortage. Malcolm, when you were on the campaign trail, what did you tell voters who were annoyed, to say the least, that these economic problems haven't been fixed with Democrats in charge of Washington? The truth, the fact that big oil companies are raking in more money than they've ever made, that all of these meat processors are making so much money. Forget which union it was, but they tweeted out record profits are stolen wages from workers. And I think that's exactly right. I do think that people, they want somebody to blame when there's a big problem. And I don't think we've done enough to tell people the truth about where the blame should lie in corporate greed that is out of control and that gets to run unabated.

And here's the challenge for President Biden. Everybody knows President Biden. Everybody doesn't know the CEO of ExxonMobil, right? No Democrat should be out there talking about inflation without talking about corporate greed, right? We have villains out there and people need to know who they are. And we need to be crystal clear about like, it didn't have to be this way. These executives are making money on the backs of working people and nothing is changing. And until we have real messaging coming out of D.C., people are going to blame Democrats because Democrats are the ones in control, even though Republicans are the ones making things worse. Here's my question, though. I feel like we get to this point every cycle. Like, why don't Democratic politicians focus enough on economic issues? Because even if you are someone who just wants to win and you're just looking at the polls and you're just listening to focus groups and you're listening to your advisors, they're going to tell you that economic issues are top priority for most voters.

And yet we always have this problem where it seems like Democratic politicians do not focus enough on economic issues. That's because they're not real people. Like, they're not, like, they're not, they're so programmed and poll tested and they talk like robots, right? I mean, like, John Fetterman, the reason that people like him right now is because he's talking like a normal person. And that seems to be this, like, crazy, like, head-exploding thing among folks. Like, look, he's at Costco too. You know, we have programmed so many politicians that you have to have this like rich donor network and come from a law firm and do all these things that they've lost touch with regular people. That is the problem. I think

if we get more candidates out there who understand what folks are going through, I think we're going to win more elections. I just hope democracy is still here at the end when that finally happens. I would just underline that. I said this every day on the campaign trail. If we want to change the Senate, we have to change the senators. And I think that that's true for all of these positions. Like, what the hell are we doing? I mean, our candidates should be like working mom. It should be the actual people who we are trying to reach because there is a fluency there that you cannot learn. You have to know that stuff and communicate with people, as Rebecca was saying, and just as a person. I don't know why that's so hard. I don't know why that's hard. Well, so there's definitely the normal person problem that

Democratic politicians have. I think another problem is Democratic politicians can sometimes talk about economic issues, but those issues don't always break through the media filter. The media doesn't love to cover economic issues, economic debates, at least anymore. But how should campaigns handle

that sort of media reluctance to actually cover economic issues? They should make it part of their message and hammer it every damn day. I mean, this is the problem. Like, we don't have a message right now. If it's the only thing they were to be talking about, that would get covered, right? And the problem is that everyone's just trying to do, you know, whatever Sunday press conference to just get in the news and get a hook and be exciting.

And at the end of the day, you got to connect with people and you got to make it in a way that reporters will care about. And it's just about, it's packaging, honestly. Dan, what do you think? There's a few problems. One is I'll disagree with the premise that Democrats don't talk about economic issues. I think they do. I think that the delivery is poor, routinely poor. Second, they do. I think that the delivery is poor, routinely poor. Second, they are often caught in the cultural debate promoted by the media. So they'll say, like, I believe that minimum wage should go up. Well, what do you think about trans people in bathrooms? What do you think about whatever? Because that's the thing that's going to raise the ratings of those different media

channels, because there's revenue attached to a cultural battle. And you have people on both sides that will engage in that. And they'll raise advertising revenue for their different channels. And so unfortunately, the media capitalist track prevents a lot of the solid delivery from Democratic candidates because these cultural things, they have incentives to run against those. Just to interrupt for a second, but Democrats always take the bait, though. That's the problem.

It's not just that we're having cultural issues thrown at us. It's that they are weak about it, and they don't address the bully head on, I would say. But the majority of news consumption is not done through the news media. It's done online. And they've done a very good job creating simple messages that elevate cultural differences between Americans with consistent, overwhelming delivery through their parties, through their PACs, etc., that do a really good job of reinforcing a brand of super out-of-touch, fancy elites that even though they're promoting the delivery of their economic argument, get smoked out by the amount of content that they're putting on the internet that is

really, really effective in how it brand sets the Democratic Party. So here's a real world issue that sort of comes into play here. Like one issue that's received a lot of coverage in the media recently is gun violence, unfortunately, because we've had so much of it in 2022. A deadly shooting at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. Investigators called the shooter a white supremacist who targeted black people. In the last 30 minutes, police... What is the deadliest school shooting in state history? The 19 children who were killed, the Uvalde community also mourning two teachers.

It also came up in this group. Here's a clip. I'm Jewish and I had friends who passed in the Tree of Life Massacre. Oh, sorry. And, um, anytime anything's on the news, just as triggers, just, yeah. Yeah, sorry. Do you think in general we should have more gun laws, fewer gun laws, or the same as we have now? Smarter gun laws. I mean, I believe in people having the right to bear arms,

but when you have a weapon that is made to mass kill people, nobody needs that. I'd say more strict and statewide, government-wide ones with more strict background checks, waiting periods,

application fees or something. I think people should still be able to keep their guns or get them but it should be a lot more complicated. In your opinion, why do you think we don't have new gun laws? The gun lobby. The gun lobby. They're very very powerful. A lot of money being thrown around. I think it's a voting issue too for people. I have a lot of friends that are very passionate about no more gun laws or no change in gun laws and so I think it's a platform that they would vote on

for representatives that would either refuse or or block legislation that would increase regulations around sale of guns. I have a lot of friends and family members that fall into that category as well. But if I ask them directly, do you think that there should be universal background checks, they would probably all say yes. So I think that it gets lumped in with these more extreme things, and people get afraid then that it's going to kind of tumble and spiral from there instead of taking it piece by piece and really looking at what might be effective without actually infringing on people's rights.

I don't think they should ban AR-15s, but I think it should be a lot more difficult to get one. Dan, how do you think this group of disengaged Democratic voters matches up to the broader electorate on gun control? Hi. Yeah, I would say that their opinions match up with around 60% of American voters. I was actually surprised, maybe in a good direction, that most of these voters, and in that last guy that was talking about

don't ban AR-15s, it would make them tougher, that was the Trump voter, were actually a little bit more forward on gun control than I thought there might be. The voters who are there, the Senate is not, right?

The people are out front of where the politicians are here. Malcolm, how central should gun violence be to Democrats' midterm message and how far can candidates go in a state like Pennsylvania? I think the same was true when you're having a conversation about, quote unquote, culture wars. I think we have to believe in something and we have to fight for it. You know, I remember a conversation you and I, John, had a long time ago, and it sits with me forever when you're talking about another voter who said, you know, Trump's a liar, but he's the most honest liar I know. I think there is something to be said about people believing that you believe something. And so I think whether it's guns, whether it's standing up for trans folks,

our response to that can't be, well, like, let's just not talk about it. Of course, Republicans have won on that issue. I don't think that they have, but I think that we're really, you know, clunky in terms of how we engage on those issues sometimes. I do think that sometimes we are afraid of championing ideas and things that are A common sense and that are be supported by broad majorities of the American people. Like, why are we afraid? Just to echo those points, I think voters are dying for Democrats to go on offense, right? We're just, we're so scared. And if you give voters a choice, they will pick strong and wrong over weak and

right every single day of the week. Right? And what we have to do is have strong and right. Yeah. I guess my question is from like a message prioritization standpoint, like you guys have a message calendar and we just talked about how important it is to have the candidate talking about economic issues like every single day. And then the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. And then there's another mass shooting somewhere. And obviously, you don't want to be afraid of that. You don't want to shirk from that. You want to say what you believe and you want to be strong about that. But like, how do you navigate an environment where all these different issues pop up, even

as you know, people keep talking about the economy, you need to talk about all the time. How do you balance that? Listen, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania wants to go after doctors who are helping women get abortions in other states. You know, like it is a different kind of landscape out there. And I think Democrats need to show exactly what the Republican candidates are for and what they're for. These are economic issues. If you are forced to have a child that you cannot have right now because of the situation in your life or because it's going to put at risk the life of your partner, right, who's birthing that child in the first place. These are economic issues.

When people in communities like mine, there is a shooting and folks are traumatized and it's like tough to get to work or you can't get to work because your block is freaking blocked off from yet more police tape. I don't think these things are like separate things. Dan, what do you think? I think there's a few troubling patterns when you see it in the data. One is that communication on process as opposed to consequences never works. And number two is a lot of the language, and by language I mean the actual words that we use to talk about things, have calcified in people's minds so much that they're no longer effective in how you talk about them. In the case of Roe or guns, etc., a lot of what we found

is that talking with words like Supreme Court or judges or whatever, either people, they ignore it or rather in a testing environment has no effect. What does have an effect? What always has an effect is speaking to the consequences of a policy or the consequences of a candidate. So what does that mean in the case of Roe? What that means in the case of Roe is that a woman who is sexually assaulted has a very real possibility of being incarcerated for up to two years in the state of South Carolina. But making it very real that it's not about SCOTUS,

it's not about this, it's not about that, what is very real is that women are no longer free. And freedom is a very powerful word in the United States. And this is no longer about choice. Roe is about freedom. and unfortunately a lot of democrats are of the age where they no longer have to experience the anxiety of being a parent today which is kind of a sad thing right the people on this call like we know the anxiety of that situation given our age the challenge of that session is it seems like it's a lot of process and they're not talking about the consequences on what these decisions mean for American freedom, using that word explicitly, and American safety, and the safety of our children to grow up in a society where they are safe and free. And there's a different sort of words that we should start using in a world where a woman can be incarcerated for treating her own body, and a world where a kid going to Highland Park can be murdered in front of their parents. Freedom, safety, these are words that Karl Rove would have used in the 1990s. These are now words that Democrats should be owning because they

are core to our own culture, and they are core to what Americans are thinking about every day, especially parents who are very, very scared. to what Americans are thinking about every day, especially parents who are very, very scared. After the break, a reality check on the impact of the January 6th hearings, and our panelists dig into what rights are on the ballot for Pennsylvanians this fall. Welcome back. So we left off from our panel talking about what to make of voters' fears. And jumping right back in, I asked Malcolm, Rebecca, and Dan to dig into what's really at stake for folks in Pennsylvania this upcoming midterm. So I think we'll definitely have a language issue, like you mentioned, in this next issue.

I asked which issues don't get enough media attention. And people said things like the economy and healthcare and education. Then I asked which issues are getting too much media attention. And here's what I heard. I was going to say like old stuff. Like I saw the news tonight when I was eating dinner before I came here, they talking about the Capitol riot last year. Like, I feel like it's time to move on when like there's a lot of issues right now like inflation gas prices and everything else like i wish the politicians would focus on things now instead of stuff that happened almost two years ago andrew mentioned the january 6th attacks on the investigation into january 6th how much are all of you paying attention to the investigation into the January 6th attacks? Not at all. Not at all. Not at all.

Not currently. So did any of you plan to watch the primetime hearings this week? I didn't watch the one that I never heard. I didn't know there were hearings. My biggest concern with it is more about the background of why it happened or why seemingly normal people can get caught up in. Now, a few stipulations. This was, of course, right before the hearing started. Most of the groups said they were concerned something like January 6th could happen again. And just about everyone also later said that Trump is at least partially to blame. Most people said fully to blame.

But clearly it's not the top issue on voters' minds. So my question to all of you is, how do Democrats get voters to care about the ongoing existential threat to democracy without talking about it a lot? Dan, what do you think? I think it's another time when we Democrats, whoever you want to call it, mistakenly believe that people care about process over consequences. Hearings, that, sausage making, all that stuff, etc. The reality is that these people murdered police officers. That's all that matters. They murdered cops. You don't need all this other kind of things around it. And I don't think January 6th is the point,

but you want to use it as an element of the brand narrative that you're trying to build. And we have this incredible moment now because we both have a SCOTUS decision. I think the exercise that everybody should be doing right now, every campaign, party committee, whatever, is to look at the electorate and say 45% of the electorate is Republican.

60% of Americans find this decision deeply unpopular. But more importantly, among that 45% of Republicans, nearly 20% to 25% of them actually disagree with the policy. But you really need to fixate on this part of the electorate these republicans 20 of their electorate is now sitting in a position being like what the fuck just happened dude this is this is messed up and how do we think about capturing that 20 of their population which when you add it up, you're talking about 20 million Americans who are in the Republican camp, have always voted Republican, and now deeply disagree with this decision.

20 million Americans. This is a huge critical mass. And exactly digging into who those 20 million people are is going to be the difference between whether we win and whether we lose. And it's an opportunity, but the framing and how we do it is really, really important because it's a lot of folks and they could go either way. So I thought democracy was a particularly important issue to raise in Pennsylvania because of the governor's race, where a victory by Republican Doug Mastriano would put a supporter of Trump's attempted coup in charge of one of the most important swing states

in 2024. But in this group, which had plenty to say about both Senate candidates that we'll hear in a bit, there were only two people who had opinions about Mastriano, even though those two people said he was, one said he was dangerous, one said he was radical. And only one person had an opinion on Josh Shapiro, though that woman said she loved him. Do you guys think that Shapiro can make Mastriano's extremism and democracy a central issue in this campaign? Should he? I mean, I think Shapiro will probably go in on democracy, but even harder, I would say, on abortion, because that is, I think, where the voters are. Because if Doug Mastriano is elected governor, abortion is done in Pennsylvania. There's no exceptions.

governor abortion is done in Pennsylvania. There's no exceptions. I think that Mastriano has just a terrible record that Shapiro can just kind of poke at and expose him a little bit. Malcolm, what do you think? You know, I think on the Republican side, we have two folks who are out of touch, out of their damn minds. And so I think that those things are going to really matter. And I hope that, I almost called him Governor Shapiro, a good Freudian slip there. But I hope that the team plays every day when he said that his number one issue, if he were governor, back to what Rebecca said, and Doug Mastrano said this, his number one issue is banning all of abortion. I mean, you don't have to get creative with this. You don't need to do anything.

You just play that. So I want to get to the subject near and dear to Malcolm and Rebecca's heart, the Pennsylvania Senate race. Towards the end of the session, I asked the group if they were planning to vote in the midterms and if they had settled on a specific Senate candidate. Here's what they said.

For those of you who are planning to vote, how many of you have made up your minds about who you voted for? I did. You have? Here's what they said. Things that I thought might be good for the country. Maybe he seems down to earth more. Maybe crazy. I don't know. But I just thought that he might be something new that we need. I don't particularly like him, but I respect the fact that he didn't go to the lieutenant governor's mansion or he turns down a lot of that. He's not impressed by people's money he's not going to be bought off like i don't like him but i respect that about him and think that like that's

a nice stance he stands up for what he believes in he took a town like clare and really put a lot of work into him 100 for him because he's one of the people when you ask him a question he will answer and if he doesn't know he's gonna search for it and does he have some flaws? Heck yeah but at least he's honest about his flaws compared to the other ones trying to sweep him underneath the carpet. He seems like he's very aggressive at what he does in a good way and he's not like your typical politician in that respect. What do you think about the Republican nominee for Senate Dr. Oz?

Scary. Yes. Yeah, Dr. House? Scary. Yes. Yeah, scary. He's not a Pennsylvanian. Crazy. Not a Pennsylvanian. No.

What's he doing here? Like how is that even allowed? Like someone who's not from the state able to run for one of our Senate seats, which is so important. And then win. That's what's really scary. Yeah. Like what does he really care about pennsylvania if you can't even live here then you have no idea i think he's a

little bit of a fraud fraud yeah he's a doctor right he has a show that has a lot of influence and then he there's been episodes where he's pushed alternative medicine that might be dangerous for for people so that just shows a compromise of integrity, whether or not he actually believes what he's saying. I mean, that definitely puts him in a bad light in that sense. So Rebecca, the only somewhat negative comment about Fetterman was from that guy who said he didn't like him, but still respected him. That happens to be the only person in the entire group who said he'd consider voting for Trump in 2024 again. It's maybe the best focus group review I've heard of any candidate in three years of doing the wilderness. So as someone who's

working with him, my question is, how much of the appeal do you think is unique to your guy? And how much can be replicated by other Democratic candidates? I mean, you don't want to get to a situation where like, hopefully we win. And then everybody's going around wearing like Dickies and Carhartts, you know, like trying to be like, it works because it's not fake, right? Like he is, this is who he is. And I think people respect that. What I will say is, yes, John will say he doesn't look like a typical politician because he doesn't even look like a typical person, right? They think, they know that he understands what they're going through. And that personal connection,

it doesn't have to have the look of John Fetterman for a candidate to connect with a voter. And I think we've spent way too long with cookie cutter candidates that get the whole machine behind them. I think voters are hungry for somebody different who can speak to what they're going through. And to the point we were saying earlier, it's not just about process. It's about speaking to these consequences of people's lives. Malcolm, you were in against Fetterman in the primary. I remember that. Just to catch people up. Obviously, he had name recognition and money, but what qualities do you think helped him win?

And what do you think he has to watch out for in the general? So I think to Rebecca's point, it's not about somebody being John, because John is John. I suspect I'm the only mayor in America that can say that he lives directly across the street of a steel mill. My family and I live in an old car dealership. So we're not going to be able to have a candidate who can replicate him. We're not going to have a candidate who can be a black gay kid from North Philly. You're not gonna be able to replicate that exactly. And I think that that really matters, that you can have candidates who are themselves. And I think that that really matters, that you can have candidates who are themselves. And I think that that is something that John absolutely has.

You never get candidates like this who can get through a primary. There must be other candidates like this, but usually there's an establishment candidate who Washington likes and they think is more electable. And that person can just go in and win the primaries. And then that becomes the candidate. Yeah. Dan, is Oz the perfect foil for Fetterman? And do you think that there are lessons

for other Democratic candidates, either from how Fetterman campaigns for himself or how he campaigns against Oz? Because I know as I'm following this whole thing on Twitter, every time I see Rebecca having a good time with Oz and the houses, I'm like, I keep saying to everyone, like, God, Democrats used to run campaigns like this all the time. This is a fun campaign.

Why don't Democrats do that anymore? That's $20 for Crouton. That's outrageous. We got Joe Biden to thank for this. I guess I'll disagree with the premise that candidates who are themselves do better because Dr. Oz, I think, is being himself, but he's just a sociopath. So by virtue of him showing that he's a sociopath, I'm not sure that's going to help him win. But I think from a campaign tactical point of view,

what I think they're doing successfully is framing the brand of their opponent very early on. It's something that we did in 2012, and we committed resources around it. And so I think a lot of these Democratic candidates, the challenge with a conventional messaging schedule is, okay, I do this, and I make my dumb contrast ads, and I do this, is it takes away from the creativity of really solid campaigning is I need to create a narrative about my opponent to make people believe XYZ about them. In this case, that he's a rich sociopath and do that very early and often. So you're kind of like setting the bio of your opponent and that takes a lot of creativity. It requires a really solid digital team,

which a lot of people don't have. And it's not entirely formulaic. So just watching the race from the outside, it seems like it mimics a lot of the successful campaigns, especially the creativity. And John, I didn't get to answer your other point about, not that they need my advice, they beat me, but still I'm going to give my advice nevertheless.

Yeah, please. Two words, well, three words. Philadelphia and black voters. And obviously, I'm going to work my tail off to help in that regard. But I think, you know, the more time that John can be in Philly, and I know Rebecca's listening to me, the better. Because these are voters who are not voting for Dr. Oz. Let me be very clear. They're not fucking voting for Dr. Oz. But the question is, are they going to stay home just because they're frustrated? And I hear that frustration every single day. I'm cracking that nut of getting that turnout in Philadelphia, you know, as high as we possibly can. That's going to be a big part of making sure John wins, Josh wins, and everybody else wins.

So I'm always pro having statewide candidates come to Philadelphia. On that note, you've all been very generous with your time. Malcolm Kenyatta, Rebecca Katz, Dan Wagner, thank you so much for joining The Wilderness. Thank you. Good to see you. Happy to do it. Thanks so much, John. We started this episode talking about the threat to democracy

from MAGA candidates like Doug Mastriano. It's a threat that all of us who follow politics closely understand well, since it's rightly received a lot of media coverage. We're all familiar with the headlines from the January 6th hearings, the investigations into Donald Trump, and the assault on voting rights and democratic norms that's coming from right-wing courts and state legislatures. We feel a sense of urgency around these issues because we consume news about them every day. The voters I talked to in Pittsburgh were either too busy to follow politics, too confused by all the details, or too disgusted by the spectacle. They felt a sense of urgency around a set of issues that have also received lots of coverage, but tend to have more

personal and immediate impacts. The cost of food and gas and rent, mass shootings and abortion bans. And they don't have much confidence that politicians can fix those problems. At least not the same kind of politicians that haven't fixed them in the past. Which helps explain why they seem to like John Fetterman. It's not like he's new to politics.

The guy's been in an elected office since 2006. First as a mayor, now as lieutenant governor. But he doesn't look like a typical politician, and he doesn't talk like a typical politician. He talks like a normal human being would talk to their friends. He's not scared of saying something a little weird or off. He generally says what he thinks, a quality that even a former Trump supporter in our focus group appreciated.

He's not impressed by people's money. He's not going to be bought off like, I don't like him. But I respect that about him and think that, like, that's a nice stance. He stands up for what he believes in. For the vast majority of voters who think that the country is headed in the wrong direction, a candidate who doesn't seem like a typical politician can be appealing. It's a sentiment we also heard from the swing voters I spoke to in Virginia. I just, you know, it comes down to why can't we bring a better candidate forward?

I think we need new energy, new blood. In a normal midterm year, you might listen to these voters and think that while an outsider like Fetterman has a decent chance, most longtime Democratic incumbents don't. If people think that Washington is broken, they tend to punish the party that's running the place. And it's possible that happens in a lot of these toss-up races, especially in the House. But it's also possible that 2022 is different. And that's because the alternative to voting for Democratic governance, however imperfect it may seem, is voting for candidates like Doug Mastriano and

Dr. Oz, MAGA loyalists who are out-of-touch wackos at best and dangerous threats to democracy at worst. The key for Democrats, though, is to make that case to voters in a way that connects with the fears and anxieties that are on the minds of people who don't pay that much attention to politics. If Democrats want disengaged voters to care about saving democracy, they have to campaign like democracy is worth saving. A true grassroots democracy, where you listen and learn from the people you want to represent. Where you show that you actually give a shit about their problems

and are willing to fight like hell to fix them. When people choose to not vote, it is because they don't see something to fight for and somebody who wants to fight for them. And so we can't settle for somebody who's going to do the bare minimum. At this moment in our country, we have to be putting people forward

who are fighting for what real people actually need. This is Alex from Pennsylvania United, the organization we heard from at the beginning of this episode. The ones who are trying to reach disconnected voters one door at a time. That's how we can start to rebuild people's faith in democracy. And as PA United organizer LaShawn McBride tells us, that's how we can start to enlist the next generation in the fight to save it.

I'm a mother of eight children, 30 grandchildren. And when I go canvas, it meant the world to have my 18-year-old granddaughter and her saying, okay, now what do I do? And I'm showing her on her phone. So I have now just put something in her that I know I'm going to see her fight again for something that's important to her. I know I'm going to see her fight again for something that's important to her. And I'm not scared of a conversation that might not be so positive. That's okay because that's real. We are real people talking to real people on the other side of the door. So expect anything.

Don't settle for nothing. And just keep knocking, keep talking, and keep rocking. Keep knocking, keep talking, and keep rocking. I like it. And speaking of getting future generations involved, next week we're headed to Orange County, California, a former Republican stronghold where I'll talk to a group of 20-somethings who helped turn the area blue by casting their very first ballot for Joe Biden. The question is, will they show up

again? How many of you plan on voting in the midterm elections this November? What is that? Yeah, so we got some work to do. See you next time on The Wilderness. The Wilderness is an original podcast from Crooked Media. Season 3 is produced by Dust Light Productions.

I'm your host, Jon Favreau. From Crooked Media, our executive producers are Sarah Geismar, Katie Long, and me. Special thanks to Allison Falsetta and Andy Taft for production support. And to Mike Kulishek from Benenson Strategy Group, who helped us with our focus groups. From Dust Light, our executive producer is Misha Youssef. Arwen Nix is our executive editor. Thank you. senior engineer. Martin Fowler is the composer. Thanks to our development and operations coordinator at Dusklight, Rachel Garcia, and to Chrissy Marin for archival legal review. If you want to learn more about how you can take action in the fight for our democracy, head over to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms.