Pod Save America - The Wilderness Chapter 6: Young Black Voters in Atlanta

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Can Democrats keep Georgia blue? We hear from young Black voters in Atlanta about Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, Joe Biden, voting rights, and the future of democracy. Organizer Nsé Ufot, political commentator and strategist Symone Sanders, and pollster Terrance Woodbury join Jon to discuss what they had to say. 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 New Georgia Project: https://votesaveamerica.com/midterm-madness/https://newgeorgiaproject.org/

We would have neighbors and churches and different communities come out. And so we try to program the talent around the interests of people in that community. And play music and have dancing and pass out food and water. Party at the polls is like a fully nonpartisan program. We're not pushing any agendas. We don't connect to any specific candidates. For me, it's really just the culture and like the action of voting. Let's hang out together. Let's party together. And if we happen to have to stand in line for two hours, we have this great vibe, you know? Which is why that line criminalization within SB 202 was such a huge blow.

But we're still trying to navigate that even beyond some of the limitations that we have. Tiffany Mackey and Jonna Grant are organizers with the New Georgia Project, which helped register and turn out tens of thousands of mostly Black, Brown, and young voters in the last election. This year, Tiffany says their work has been a lot harder because Governor Brian Kemp and the Republican state legislature passed a law known as SB202. If I could describe voter suppression, it is subtle and not subtle all at the same time. So what that bill has done is limit drop boxes in certain communities. So that puts more pressure, of course, on Election Day.

We have those long lines at the polling precincts. So we serve as a presence at those precincts to, one, offer them information. But we also have to follow SB 202. We have to do that outside of 150 feet from the precinct. We can't pass out water within those parameters. Otherwise, we could be arrested, and so can the voter that we're trying to give that water to. I'm going to be fully transparent and honest with you.

Like, I had no idea that voter suppression was this insane in Georgia. I am a green card holder, so I can't vote until I'm naturalized. We have to get out. There's these things that will block the roads. And then a lot of the voters could no longer go to the precinct that they used to vote at. They'll do these things to stop people. It was really eye-opening for me personally. Another person on my team is from London, also Black. We had to have like a heart-to-heart about it. We heard him talking about this all the time, but like now we're really seeing it. This is Georgia in 2022.

Brian Kemp, who signed the new voter suppression law, is running for a second term in a rematch against Stacey Abrams, who founded the New Georgia Project and Fair Fight, two organizations that helped register more than 800,000 voters in the lead-up to 2020. In the end, those new voters made all the difference. Georgia has certified its election results. It happened about an hour ago. And President-elect Joe Biden is the winner of the state's

16 electoral college votes. But it was Black voters who put Democrats over the top. They're a third of Georgia's population, but made up more than half of all Democratic voters in the November election. And in the January Senate runoff, Black voters absolutely shattered all turnout records. This year, control of the Senate could once again come down to Georgia. The race between Senator Raphael Warnock and ex-NFL player Herschel Walker might end up being the closest and most expensive in the country. The winner of the governor's race will either be the first Black woman in American history to ever hold that office, or a man who

has signed laws to ban abortion, discriminate against LGBTQ students, and make it harder to vote. Once again, Black voters could make all the difference. But as we head into November, the open question is whether Black voters, especially younger Black voters and Black men, will turn out for Democratic candidates at the same levels we've seen in the last few elections. And the problem isn't just suppression, but exhaustion. The same feeling of disconnection from politics that we heard from voters in Pittsburgh, Orange County, and Las Vegas. We are watching Black voters as an electorate become more sophisticated. And as they become more sophisticated, as they tap into the power of their vote and understand those consequences,

they have more expectations and more demands that are not being met by candidates and campaigns and the major political parties. That's Nse Ufa, an activist who's currently the CEO of the New Georgia Project and deserves a lot of credit for what happened in her home state last election cycle. And so there's a gap between the rhetoric about the importance of Black voters and their role as like the base of the Democratic Party and the investment in actually mobilizing and defending the vote. I wanted to learn how big that gap is and what Democrats can do to close it. So I stayed in Atlanta for a few days after our last Pod Save America live show in August and sat down with one final group of voters. They were young Black men and women between 21 and 35 who identified as moderate Democrats.

Very few of them were particularly excited about politics or Joe Biden, but just about all of them showed up to vote for him in 2020. Afterwards, I got together with one last group of experts that included Nse. I tell people I'm a Southerner twice,

was born in Southern Nigeria and immigrated to Southwest Atlanta. And yeah, try to be smart about moving young people and people of color to action, if that's in the streets or in the polling booth. Also joining us were two other strategists who know INSEE and each other quite well. Greetings. I am Simone Sanders-Townsend, and I am a host on MSNBC of my own show, Simone. And I worked on President Biden's presidential campaign as a senior advisor and chief spokesperson to the vice president. Before that, I've advised all kinds of gubernatorial campaigns, state legislative races,

mayoral races. I've done races on reservations. And in 2016, I served as Senator Sanders' press secretary for his first presidential run. Hi, my name is Terrence Woodbury. I am a pollster and partner at the research firm Hitch Strategies. Prior to starting Hitch Strategies, I was a researcher at Brookings Institution. And prior to that, I like to joke that I worked every job on a campaign except the candidate. But in doing those jobs, I often noticed that all decisions were being deferred to the pollster. And I wanted to look behind the curtain and see who was pulling those polling strings. And when I looked back there, I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me.

And I'm glad to be here with friends. When we come back, we'll hear from Inse, Simone, Terrence, and nine Black voters from Atlanta. All right. So my last focus group is with young Black voters in Atlanta. And they had more to say about politics and said it with more passion than any other group of voters I talked to. Again, these were mostly Joe Biden voters, and they all said they're likely to vote in the midterms. But wow, were they disappointed with our political system at every level. And that includes the Democratic Party.

Later, I had a fascinating conversation about the group with our panel. Inse is one of the best organizers in the country. Simone has worked at the highest levels of American politics. And Terrence is a pollster who focuses on young voters and Black voters. So, perfect group for this. And as a bonus, they're all friends. We're so proud of you, Simone, down here in in Georgia and in, like, black girl-landia. I appreciate y'all. Georgia is watching.

And we're so proud of you at Crooked, at your old family at Crooked. I appreciate you all. Yeah, I'm in Nebraska right now, actually. They're naming the street I grew up on after me today, so that's why I'm here. That is so cool. That is awesome. It's going to be good. Thank you. I'm very excited. I started by asking Inse, Simone,

and Terrence what they've been hearing about the Georgia midterm races. I'm deeply concerned that with 77 days left to go that we're still talking about the mythical, moderate white voter that will vote for a Warnock

and a Stacey, as opposed to talking about a deep investment and a prioritization of young voters and Black voters, because we know that we need at least 30% of the electorate to be Black voters if we plan to be competitive. It's like you were sitting in the focus group with me. She talks to the people, so she knows. Yeah, you do. It's like you were sitting in the focus group with me. She talks to the people, so she knows. Yeah, you do. Well, and you should know, we literally knocked on a million doors in six months. We know what voters are saying.

Simone, what are Democratic campaigns doing right when it comes to mobilizing Black voters for these midterms? And where is there room for improvement, shall we say? I think some of the things that Stacey has done should be a model for other campaigns, particularly her conversations with black men. It's a series that she does and has gone to different spaces and places across the state. And this is an electorate much like the rest of the electorate, right? Like you need to talk to black women, you need to talk to young black voters at large. But black men can be a key part in turning the tide. But black men can be a key part in turning the tide. I'm preaching to the choir here. But when it comes to black men and specifically Latino men in the Democratic Party, those are not reliably Democratic voters. I'm not saying they're Republican voters, but they are independent voters that the Democratic Party cannot necessarily rely on. And I do think that investing early and often is key. And I do feel like some of the entities have not invested early and often.

They're going to invest right now. Terrence, Simone was talking about the sort of like less reliable voters, especially black men. This group of some women in here, but predominantly men. How important is it for Democrats to keep these kinds of voters if they want to keep Georgia blue? Men of color have become amongst the most important swing voters in the Democratic electorate. When we look at what it took for Joe Biden to win in 2020, he, in fact, didn't do better than Hillary Clinton did with Black men, Latino men, AAPI men, any men of color. Where Joe Biden did better was with white men, white seniors, white college educated. And let's just be honest, Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock are probably not going to do better than Scranton Joe did with white seniors in Georgia. And so while Joe Biden

was able to win Georgia with 83, 84% of black votes, Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams are going to have to hit Obama numbers, 91, 92, 93%. And we're seeing the same thing as we continue to nominate diverse candidates across the country in places like Florida, Wisconsin. They're going to have to hit Obama level numbers with men of color. And so we got to figure out how to talk to them about some of these issues just because they are more moderate, just like some of the folks that you had in your focus group doesn't mean they're not our voter. So I usually start by asking voters and all these groups which issues are most important to them and their community. Let's take a listen. What are some of the biggest issues affecting Atlanta in your view? The gun policy. There hasn't been a strict plan as far

as trying to make guns off the streets. And so far this year, I think there are a number of deaths because of gun violence here. So I definitely think that's something that need to be addressed to me personally because I've lost someone due to gun violence as well. Cars getting broken into seems to be a thing here. I got my car broken into six times so not to scare anybody here but it seems to be an issue that I've noticed. I'm gonna say the revenue. I want to know where the money going. Because our state regulates a lot of revenue for movies and people coming in town, the hotel tax.

Supposedly they had a plan in action, I guess, for the infrastructure of everything that they're building around town. But it's like, we still got potholes everywhere. Streets are still tore up. So it's like, where is all this money going and y'all bringing in millions of dollars? I work with youth.

I'm into community and economic development. There's a huge issue with kids just running around with nothing to do, nowhere to go. The children are the future. The money is not going to them. How do you all feel about the cost of living in Atlanta? It's super high. I know it's not high in California, but it's still high. And minimum wage is $7.25.

But you see the gentrification happening real fast. I feel like COVID has made it worse in a sense. I feel like the government took advantage and nobody paid attention to what they was doing. Because when you really think about it, Atlanta was one of the only cities that was open. And we've been branded the Hollywood of the South or Black Hollywood. And so everyone trapped in the house, oh, I need to get out, just holding in rage. And just everybody, the ants came down to Atlanta and it seemed like crime went up. Costs went up.

Everything seemed to go up as soon as everybody just shifted down to Atlanta. Inse, you live and work in Atlanta. You've been knocking on doors for a long time now. Do these answers line up with what you're hearing from voters about the issues that matter most to them right now? Absolutely. One, let me just say that I love my city and the people in it. Two, they're absolutely right.

But I think the thing with the gap for me, the misstep for me, is that people are not connecting these to actual decisions that have been made. Brian Kemp decided to open this state up on June 1st, 2020, despite everything that we've known about COVID. Georgia is now a guns everywhere state that Brian Kemp and the Georgia GOP,

in a most cynical move in advance of these midterms, got rid of concealed permit, carry permits in the state of Georgia. And so you no longer need a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Georgia. These are predictable consequences of policy and political choices that are made by our current Republican leaders. And so that's where the gap is. Yeah. Simone, the cost of living has come up as the top issue in every single focus group I've done. This is the first where crime and gun violence were mentioned quite a bit. And I noticed we interviewed Stacey Abrams for Pod Save America a few weeks back in Atlanta. I brought up her comment about Black men needing to vote for her,

and she went right to public safety. Those challenges are safety, justice, and opportunity. On the safety side, it's making sure we make our community safe, but that we also hold police and law enforcement accountable, that we don't have to choose one or the other. That on the justice side, that criminal justice reform is critical because Georgia has had and continues to have

one of the highest mass incarceration rates in the nation. And as people are returning citizens, they deserve to be reintegrated into society and to have real chances at success. What do you make of that? And how do you think Democratic candidates should handle that issue? To be very clear,

I think that we got caught up. We, I'm talking about the media apparatus, okay, got caught up into a conversation about defund the police a couple years back. And it would make you think that black and brown people don't want to be safe in their community. Like, my mother wants to be able to call the police. When she calls them, though, she wants them to not treat her as she is the assailant, OK, public safety is an issue across the country. If you heard in that focus group the talk about these kids essentially don't have anything to do, jobs programs make a difference. And so that is where the rub is. And so how do you bridge the gap so that they understand that if we really want to do something

about the guns, we got to vote for Stacey Abrams. Yeah, and I also think in the media, there's this artificial division between kitchen table economic issues and cultural, racial issues and social issues when something like gun violence, as you mentioned, deeply intertwined with economic issues as well. So after talking about issues, I asked the group how they're feeling about politics and the state of the country. Here's what they said. Disheartening. I'm concerned, but I'm optimistic. I think the future generations are going to be a little bit more mindful about the choices that they're making. Politics is really interesting right now, but I think we're starting to shift away from, oh, my vote doesn't matter. I'd probably say dissatisfactory with the country. I'm just not satisfied with everything. I just

feel like Congress let us down, the government let us down, just the way we're headed. This is really not the land of the free, technically. I'll say ticking time bomb. I feel like as a people, there's this clear lack of empathy. There's lack of trust. There's social media where people don't think for themselves, and everyone's staring at their phones 12 hours a day. I struggle to see how things get better significantly. So I'm just going to be like, fuck this country. I don't care.

I don't care. At this point, I don't give a fuck. I don't care. And my hope is in the future because my son, he's going to be 15. So I feel like I have hope that the future generation behind us and even with us, the country's going to take a shift. But as of right now, the old heads and where we at right now, fuck y'all. This might sound a bit radical, but for black people to get what we truly want, we have to tear the system down. I don't think there's altering of the system. Like, we African Americans, we don't really have a say-so into certain things.

And I could come back to your point of where you say, we feel like our vote don't matter because we may say we want these things done, and if you look at government, they all say they're going to do things for us, and we still, low poverty communities, still the same decades later. It's very important to still have government in place. It just needs to be a total reform of it. Like, I used to actually feel a little passionate about politics. Barack Obama, of course, like I was actually there for Washington, D.C. when he was inaugurating.

And that made me feel like I was a part of something. But then nowadays, it feels like taking out the trash. It's something that you've got to do every day. So, Simone, I have heard this kind of anger and despair about politics and other focus groups. What I found interesting here, and this was to Nse's point at the beginning of the conversation, is that all these voters still seem to think politics and voting are important, right? There is this level of sophistication and expectation. I talked to some disengaged Democrats in Pittsburgh, mostly white voters, and they had similar anger

and were dispirited about politics. This was like, we're got to vote. The taking out the trash line really got me. That voting is like taking out- White people can't afford not to. Yeah. And I think, first of all, I love focus groups because I think focus groups allow people

to have that dialogue and talk. And there is no filter of the bubble in the box on the piece of paper. This is what people are saying. And I do think that it is important for the media apparatus, strategists across the country to understand that when we say things like our democracy is under attack, when we say things like we are living in a climate crisis, people of color, particularly black people in America are hit first and worst by all of those things. Just how Uvalde is jarring and Sandy Hook was jarring for every single person in America, especially if you're a parent.

Buffalo was like, damn, these black people were in a grocery store on a Saturday afternoon. And the reason that they lost their lives is because they are black. So that is the world in which black people live in. So we also know that we can't afford not to vote for a number of reasons. I think the question on the table is, what have we gotten for our vote? That's what you hear from folks. I am somebody that believes in the system. It really tears me up inside to hear black voters, young people, anyone saying, I just think we have to tear the system down because from my perspective, the system always has a contingency plan. Heck, there's something called a designated survivor. There is always a contingency plan. And if I think that our

efforts could be and would be better spent from trying to change the system from the inside out, that's just my perspective. I know people differ. Yeah. And so how do you persuade someone to engage with the political system when they think that system needs to be torn down, as the young woman Carissa and young man named AK both basically said in that group? Yeah, I think that one, we talk about it as a false choice, that you can absolutely pursue reform while thinking and imagining systems that don't even exist right now that would actually serve our families and actually serve our communities. Two, we often talk about it in terms of it's less important about what's going on in the White House, and it's much, much more important about what's going on in your house.

I think that, you know, we have seen a lot of success with that sort of conversation thread, and that is why you can have people that are deeply disappointed in the ways that they've been abandoned by lukewarm, mealy mouth, ineffective leadership and still tell you that they're going to show up to vote and still tell you that they're optimistic about the future or actually that they're optimistic about future generations taking the baton and moving it forward. I'm an Atlanta public school graduate. I live and work and organize in Georgia, so I can be forgiven for the liberal use of King quotes. And so there's the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends towards justice. And

oftentimes when that's invoked, people are using it to talk about the work. What are you doing to bend the arc? What does your work look like? What does your activism look like? Et cetera. In this moment, we are definitely focusing on the fact that it is long, that it is extraordinarily long, that there are things that we are fighting for, for ourselves and for future generations that may not be realized in our lifetimes and they are worth pursuing. And again, I think three, it is lastly, just the idea that we are not electing messiahs, that people will disappoint you. I think one of the things that sort of was unarticulated is the disappointment in the Democrats, the disappointment in Biden, the disappointment in Harris. The idea that people know that the Republicans are basically a criminal caucus in this moment, masquerading as a legitimate political party, that there's not a statesman amongst them, right, in this moment. Folks know that. But what they are disappointed in is that

they are not seeing the Dems fighting, right? Terrence, you're a Democratic candidate, campaign elected official. You hear this disappointment. You want to identify with this anger and despair. You also want to make the argument that with Democratic leadership, things can get better. Things are maybe getting better. How do you strike that balance as a candidate or a campaign? Yeah, we've been encouraging a lot of the Democratic candidates and organizations that we work with to pursue a message of unfinished business that points to the progress that has been made, but acknowledges that it is not enough. And so one thing that we realize is that we are,

we know that the only way to get these voters back into the voting booth is for them to see some return on their investment. They believe that nothing has happened. They believe that no progress has been made, not some progress. You heard them, nothing has happened. And I'll tell you one issue that was not said in that room, John, and that is racism. And this is why we race

match so many of our focus groups, because what a lot of those Black voters were hinting at when they talk about grocery stores and ticking time bombs was the racism that they may have not felt comfortable bringing up to you in that room. And we hear it in every single focus group and groups that we did on behalf of New Georgia Project at the end of the 2020 cycle, that a part of what they were fighting back in 2020, yes, they voted to defeat Trump, but they were also voting to beat back the overt racism that he brought into our politics. And frankly, this administration, Democrats and Joe Biden have made significant progress on all of these issues.

We know that student loans are a top issue amongst young voters of color. And while he had not forgiven student loans until we got some relief today, no one had to pay federal student loans since the man's been president. We know that racism is a number one, two or three issue for black voters. Well, this administration has delivered justice to the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery, not waiting for local prosecution, but pursuing federal hate crime prosecution by charging the Buffalo shooter. We're talking about grocery store shootings. Merrick Garland's Justice Department charged the Buffalo shooter with domestic terrorism and federal hate crimes. Terrence, I want to be clear. The bar is clearly in hell if we're talking about people being charged as progress, and people know that. It's not just people being charged. We were

marching for justice, right? For Breonna Taylor, for George Floyd, for Ahmaud Arbery. And it's happening. I want to be clear, not because of Merrick Garland and Joe Biden. It's happening because Black voters in Georgia deliver power into the right chambers. And that's how we have to reorient that you don't have to wait to be saved. But because you voted, things are happening. I think in some places that message could work. I think the issue is that on one hand, we're saying you did your job, you delivered power, and this is what the Democrats have delivered for you. And then on another hand, the president had to issue an executive order about George Floyd because Congress couldn't get it done. The president has had to take executive action

to protect women's ability to travel across state lines to get the health care that they need if that health care is an abortion, because Congress didn't get it done. The care economy pieces are not in the Inflation Reduction Act because Congress couldn't get that piece done. Perhaps we oversold. And I think that is very fair to say. Coming in, say we were going to go and do all these things. To be very clear, monumental things have gotten done. The Inflation Reduction Act is a monumental piece of legislation. But people were expecting more. person I interviewed who warned me about over-promising to voters, Stacey Abrams. And she said it is, she goes, and she said, especially black folks who are trying to get by and just trying to live and struggling and you over-promise. They feel duped. Our ambitions have to be met with our capacity to deliver because for the people who are the most easily

dissuaded from participation, it's when you promise them the moon and can't deliver a single grain of sand. One, the issue is over-promising. And then two, the other issue is that we are not being honest. There was a failed murder plot to kill the vice president of the United States and the speaker of the House. Folks died. And then January 6th, insurrectionists running for Congress, right? I think that there's an urgency that Black voters feel. I'm super proud of the American Rescue Plan,

right? And the fact that, you know, over 80% of American households got some emergency economic relief when they needed it the most. And it was Georgia voters that made that happen, that they sent Warnock, that they sent Ossoff to the United States Senate and made that happen. And that was important. But there are absolutely other things that people want to win. And the things that we can't win, people want to see their leaders fight. And we have to be honest about what we're up against, what we're facing. And they're not. People think that Brad Raffensperger, who didn't crime that one time, right, by not participating in Trump's criminal conspiracy to steal the election, is an okay candidate. He endorsed Senate Bill 202.

It has changed over 50 of Georgia's election laws. It has created five new crimes. Three of them are felonies. are felonies. Why are we not talking about the fact that they are playing for keeps and we are still operating from a conventional playbook? We are not having honest conversations about what we are up against. And this really nice, polite conversation that we are having as if this is a normal election is ridiculous. We had a candidate for governor in Arizona talking about big dick energy for Ron DeSantis. And I've seen Ron DeSantis.

Carrie Lake, she is an election denier. Arizona. After the break, I have a very honest conversation about Joe Biden with the Atlanta voters. Welcome back. Like all the other focus groups I've done this season, I of course wanted to know what these voters thought of Joe Biden. And this group had a lot to say. For context, I conducted this group right after the Inflation Reduction Act was passed.

Some of the voters liked that he passed it. Some had no idea what it was. But none of them were that impressed. For those of you who voted in 2020, why did you vote? I voted because I thought that there's no way it could get worse, and it somehow did. I thought Trump was, for lack of better words, a jackass. I think we can all agree to that. And I didn't realize this until after, but he was honest. And I keep harping on to that because if you tell me

how you really feel, I can then operate off of that. If you tell me that you're racist, well, I know I can stay the hell away from you. I don't want you to act like my friend, get near me, and then do whatever you please. He was honest. Joe Biden, I voted for him again. I felt like it was the lesser of two evils in a sense. So I want to start by saying, unfortunately, in this country, people think they have far less power than they do. The way we stood together and voted for Joe Biden was flipping states. Is that not hard to do in any other scenario? Like we were that desperate to get Trump out that we were like, let's actually do our job as citizens to create the life that we want to live in our state and our country. I feel like I know the answer to this just from what everyone's been talking about but

does anyone think Joe Biden has been doing a good job? No. No. No. No. No. No. Going once, going twice.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. We don't know what's going on. What do you wish Joe Biden was doing better? His job. He just passed a pretty dope bill. I was going to ask, is everyone going to need to... Yeah, that bill is really dope. Everything.

So that was dope. But it took him a really long time to do anything. So it's like, of course, doing it now, I don't know how long it's going to take him to do the next thing that he's supposed to do. He ain't doing nothing but piggyback off Trump. Did you not see the bill, the infrastructure bill that Trump did, headed by way by Barack? The only thing they're doing is every president piggybacks off each other.

So you're saying that it's dope? I don't see any difference in what he did. There's an infrastructure bill that was passed last year. The one that just passed last week, it is a health care and climate bill. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2050. It will also let Medicare negotiate for cheaper drugs. And also for the Affordable Care Act, it keeps the subsidies bigger in the Affordable Care Act for the next three years. But Trump had already had that bill in place, so what's the difference?

Not the climate change, though. He didn't have it. Yes, he did! He. Yes, he did. He actually took that away. He took that away. Oh, he took it away? Yeah, he took it away. He was like, nope, he took that away. Oh, okay. Well, my bad. I love my city. So, Terrence, knowing that the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act are super popular, and I did not channel my best inner pollster when I described it. You didn't. I was like, what is that? I was caught off guard that I was going to have to describe it.

Anyway, lower health care costs, lower energy bills, lower prescription drug costs. But we know that these provisions won't take effect until after the midterm. How should Democrats talk about this bill on the campaign trail? As you mentioned earlier, we're also having this conversation on the day that Biden is announcing student debt relief. I wonder how that would play with this group of voters, particularly because as I continued on the conversation about Biden and his policies and accomplishments, a couple people said more stimulus checks. Love the stimulus checks. Want more stimulus checks. Love the stimulus checks. Want more stimulus checks. Look, the sentiment expressed in those focus groups is not unusual or uncommon from what we've been hearing.

In fact, I was in focus groups with NSA in Georgia, and I heard sometimes these quotes could be so prolific. My hood didn't get any better under Obama. It didn't get any worse under Trump. So tell me what Biden got to do with me. This is a part of what we now have to solve for. When we poll Black voters, and 73% of Black voters say that their lives have not improved since Joe Biden became president.

But in the same poll, we give them a list of progress that has been made, things that have not been fully implemented yet, like $70 billion to replace every lead pipe in America. We haven't ripped up the pipes in Flint, but they recognize that this president has done something that the three previous presidents could have done. And so we give them this list and 90% say that this progress either has improved their lives or will improve their lives. The same 90% say that they haven't heard of any of it. It's universally helping them, universally improving their lives, and they're universally unaware of it. And so this is a messaging problem. And Sam, thinking about what you had just said, which is we are facing an existential threat.

This is not an ordinary election. These are not ordinary political times. There is the threat of political violence. There's the threat that the whole thing comes down. And then Joe Biden and Democrats are just doing the best they can and they're passing stuff and they're trying to improve people's lives and lower costs. How do you close that gap between a president and a Democratic Party that are doing the best they can to improve people's lives on one hand and the existential threat to democracy on the other hand? Like, how do you connect that? I think it's the battlefields in which they choose to engage. You talk about 70 billion to replace lead pipes. I don't know anybody on this panel today who would

go to Flint, Michigan today and drink water out of the tap. And so that's what people are talking about. I want to put my cup under my faucet today. And if that is not happening, then you are telling them to prepare for a future where things might possibly get better. And that is no different than how people have experienced political leadership before. So how is this different? So the battlefields in which they choose to engage, it is a rhetorical one, right? They do need to continue to highlight their wins and they also need to be seen as fighting.

The idea that we could not get the John Lewis Voting Rights Act passed when all of those people cried crocodile tears on the floor of the house, when he died and talked about him taking a brick to the face on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the right to vote. And like people invoking these really violent images and the sacrifices that Black voters have made to move this country forward. And then would lie down and tell us that the filibuster is an institution worth preserving over the right to vote while the Constitution is being shredded.

to vote while the Constitution is being shredded. And what I'm saying is that people are not seeing the fight, that people are not seeing, again, the idea that we are being honest about what the stakes are and what they can do to make it happen. It's still my colleague, the gentleman, the gentle lady from the great state of West Virginia, from the great state of Arizona, that there's a commitment to collegiality

and there's a commitment to talking about things in a particular way that is literally going to be the death of us. So we moved on from national politics to state politics. I started off asking about voting rights. Just brought up John Lewis and the Voting Rights Act. Let's take a listen. Let's talk about

politics in Georgia. Do you think it's easy enough to vote in Georgia? Oh, that's a loaded question. Ooh. I think it depends where you live. It depends. Actually, let's split it up. Personally, have you found it difficult to vote at all? No.

But what do you think about for Georgians in general? Okay, so personally, I didn't have an issue, but I had friends that were within a group chat and were like, okay, who's voting?

Were y'all voting today? Just trying to make sure everybody was good that day or early voting, whatever. I was never unregistered, but I had two people in that chat that were unregistered, and then it was a whole bunch

of confusions about where they were supposed to go to vote. Does anyone else know anyone who has had a difficult time voting in Georgia? Oh yeah, my father did. So he lives in southern Georgia in a smaller county and he told me during the time when they were voting for the presidency anybody that was in line after 8 o'clock, because the line was very long, they turned people away. They said we're not doing it anymore. It was predominantly black in the neighborhood he lives in

and he's told us that after a certain time they were telling people that you can't vote no more. I basically had an inverse experience to them. I had it very easy. I come from a predominantly white area where everyone typically votes Republican and they made sure that we were all settled and they had a nice building for us with AC and all types

of snacks. It was great. Insane. I also asked these voters if they had heard about voter suppression law that Brian Kemp and Georgia Republicans passed last year. Most had not. The ones who had didn't really know what was in it, but they all clearly believed it's harder for Black voters to cast a ballot. What are groups like New Georgia Project doing to help folks overcome voter suppression? Yeah, all of the things. What I will tell you is that we're in court, right? So we've filed impact litigation

to try to stop some of the provisions from Senate Bill 202 because the Republicans have cut 100 days from the absentee balloting, the vote by mail timeline. There's the popular education, sort of voter education, but also getting very annoying about telling people to request their absentee ballots and then doing an aggressive ballot chasing program. There are 3,000 polling locations in Georgia, and we aim to have eyes and ears at over half of them. Because there are five new crimes in Georgia's election law. We are working with a number of, so the

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, because there are a thousand Georgians currently who are being investigated for voter fraud, which carries with it a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and $100,000 in fines for each voter. So trying to get very smart and very strategic, because also while the candidates are enjoying historic fundraising quarters consecutively, the work of the people who actually move Black voters to vote has been criminally underfunded in this moment. So trying to raise resources and remind people of how we actually won in 2020 and how we actually won in 2021. And again, even with having literally once in a generation, brilliant candidates like Leader Abrams and Senator Warnock, there is an ecosystem,

there is a formula to how we move people to vote. And it's not just awesome speeches and great commercials with cute puppy dogs. You got to organize. Last clip, we finally got to the midterms. I asked about the state's two biggest races, two of the biggest races in the country, Georgia governor and Georgia Senate. Let's listen. What does everyone think of how Brian Kemp is doing as governor? He sucks.

Yeah. He sucks. He was behaving so irresponsible. Sore loser. What does everyone think of Stacey Abrams? I don't trust Democrat or Republican, because I don't care if you for the people and you putting up your hand and this, that, and the third black power and this, we gonna get this together.

Girl, you still part of the machine, so next. How do you feel about Stacey? They're good until they're not. Right. We're hopeful. We would be optimistic if she was put in position, but I'm sure we'd be very disappointed, even more disappointed if she got in and didn't know how to act. So then I asked who planned on voting in November. Everyone raised their hand. I asked who planned on voting for Stacey Abrams. Most raised their hand. A few were undecided, so I asked how they'd make up their minds. Let's listen to what one voter said and then what they all think about the Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. I would prefer her to do something more for the people, especially like this homeless situation, maybe an executive action to get something with the homeless. I don't really care

about her saying that what she's going to do to defund the police and all that stuff or whatever she's saying, because it's something I already heard before, something I heard before her and before Kemp and all of that. So she hasn't really proven to me that she's someone I want to vote for right now. So I need to see more of her policies. I don't care that she's black. That's the reason I'm voting for her. I'm not voting for her because she's black.

So I need to see exactly what her plan is and what her policy is for me to really be like, okay, I can get behind you and support you on that. Until she can prove different, then I don't know who I'm going to vote for at this point. Okay, okay. How do you think Raphael Warnock is doing as your senator? Yeah, he hasn't done enough and that's the reason why I forgot he was senator. So, I definitely did vote for Raphael Warnock because he was black. But Hershel Walker is just making up things like I was in the FBI and I did things.

Definitely appreciate Warnock bringing that to light, but I want you to use your airtime on how you're going to fix some issues that we need fixed. He's telling us why we shouldn't vote for Walker rather than telling us why we should vote for him. That's exactly right. Because they got Herschel looking crazy on. Yeah. No. To my knowledge, don't you have a bad history? Like he woman beater, drugs, all this other stuff?

No, I'm not going to vote you in, my guy. You're going to fail out real quick. How many people plan to vote for Warnock again this November? Oh, no. Oh, over Herschel Walker? Yeah. Oh, that's for sure. Oh, yeah, I'm going to vote for him.

Oh, yeah. You might hate him. Maybe. Yeah. Oh, that's for sure. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You might hate the change. Simone, what stuck with me is the voter who said about Stacey, they're good until they're not. There's clearly no love for Kemp or Walker in this group, but it seems like there's so much distress to the political system that at least some of these voters aren't yet ready to take the leap of faith on Stacey Abrams, which she talks about in her message all the time. What do you think she does to overcome that, to close that deal? Look, I think that Stacey needs to stay out there and be true. I know she recently released an ad called Truths.

Brian Kemp wants to bash me for my honesty and lie about my record. But my parents taught me to tell the whole story. And that's the truth. Then it goes on to talk about things that people cited in the focus groups they cared about, like crime and public safety and what Governor Kemp has not done. And I think the active debunking, but as we also heard in that focus group, people were like, he's just telling us why Herschel Walker is bad and Reverend Warnock isn't telling us why he's good. And so Stacey Abrams has to do the active debunking, but also the campaign has to continue to do the act of advocating for not only is Brian Kent bad for you, like this is why. Disinformation is a very powerful tool.

And I heard a lot of misinformation and disinformation in that focus group. Stacey Abrams wants to defund the police. No. You saw my face? I was like, really? When? Is that true? When did that happen?

The people in that focus group, this is what they believe to be true. And that's why this is one, concerning, but two, it's illuminating. Because, okay, if this is what you believe and we know that this does not line up with the facts, what we can do is communicate with you, to you, with the facts. So, Terrence, this is the age-old question, right? with you, to you, with the facts. So Terrence, this is the age-old question, right? Some of these, I know Democrats have been wisely, I think, trying to make this election a choice between visions and point out the extremism of the Republican Party. How do you do that, but also sell a vision to some of these voters who are saying,

I want to hear what Stacey's going to do. I want to hear more from Warnock about what he's going to do. Like, how do you strike that balance as a campaign? Yeah, you know, we are electing politicians to lead multi-billion dollar budgets and determine a trillion dollars of expenditure in the U.S. Senate. We expect them to be able to walk and chew gum. We expect them to be able to tell us why they should vote for them and why the other guy is bad, too. We're also looking at two of the most sophisticated candidates in the country here. I'm very reluctant to tell Stacey Abrams

what she needs to do to get elected because I think she's amongst the most effective communicators in the Democratic Party. And I'm getting paid to do that for Raphael Warnock. And give away the secrets. But that said, we do have to make this a contrast and there is an existential threat that Republicans are facing. And it's a contest of ideas, a contest of a vision forward.

But one thing I will warn those who are going to inject a lot of money into this Georgia politics, you got to be careful how you criticize Hershel Walker to Black voters. Because there's a risk of, we did some focus groups and showed some of the exact same ads they're showing on TV. And some of the questions we got back was, who's saying that about him? Who wrote that? Because who the messenger is and who is drawing the distinction and the contrast about him is going to be important to Black voters. And frankly, you don't need a bunch of messengers for Hershel Walker. Just push play on him. And I'll be honest, there's nothing that a campaign can build in the next 76 days that will compete with the apparatus that we have. We have 18

offices across the state, right? Over 500 people on staff that are in deep relationship and deep community with leaders and like ordinary folks who are having, who are moving beyond the sort of transactional nature of the vote for my guy, vote for my gal conversation and talking about, okay, we are in trouble and we need to figure out how we are going to get ourselves out of this. That's great. Inse, Terrence, Simone, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for the time. This was a fantastic conversation. So I really appreciate all of you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Take care, everyone. Bye, John. Bye. The conversations I had with Nse, Simone, Terrence, and the voters in Atlanta

really stayed with me. Afterwards, I thought about something that Tiffany Mackey told us. She's one of the organizers we heard from at the beginning of the episode. There's a book called Miner's Canary, and it's essentially talking about power over and power under and listening to the alarms that are happening in different communities across the country. And so I think that in the long game, happening in different communities across the country.

And so I think that in the long game, it looks like not being as reactive and more proactive. So I think there are a lot of things that we could kind of pay attention to those alarms in and then create solutions around them so that we can create sustainable change. We've heard these alarms throughout this season from communities who should be at the heart of the Democratic coalition. Black voters, Latino voters, young voters, voters who struggle to pay for school or housing,

who live in places where the nearest abortion clinic is now hundreds of miles away, where gun violence has always been a problem. They're voters who are being asked to save a political system that they don't think is working for them. As Dan Wagner told us, 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. Again, I get how this can be frustrating. I saw the replies to my tweet about the undecided Biden voters I talked to this season. How could anyone be undecided right now? Don't they know how bad Republicans are? Don't they know how much the Democrats have accomplished? Don't they understand what's at stake? Well, remember what we heard this season. I think it's important to constantly acknowledge that in a person's day, they have a finite amount of attention. And a lot of this attention is going basically to just figuring out how to live their lives, often in really difficult circumstances. 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. And so when kind of a 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 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. You know, there's also a timing issue here, which is whenever people say, oh, nobody knows what's going on, no one knows. These students, they're trying to get through their day. They're trying to go to their job. They're trying to pay off their loans.

They're trying to save up for a house. So I think it's really incumbent on me to make sure we reach these voters. It's our job to find these folks and to connect with them. It's not their job to find us. Their job is just to find their ballot. It's my job to make sure I find them. Katie Porter's right. That's her job and the job of every Democratic candidate.

The voters we've heard from this season are sick of politics and most politicians, but they respond to leaders who show up, listen, and communicate in creative ways that break through the noise. Candidates who focus relentlessly on the issues that matter most to these voters, who aren't afraid to ignore dumb political consultants like the one who told Katie that she shouldn't talk about housing. dumb political consultants like the one who told Katie that she shouldn't talk about housing. These voters and millions like them have lost faith in nearly every institution, government, media, big corporations. And they're looking for leaders who aren't afraid to hold those institutions accountable when they mess up and screw people over. They're looking for leaders who can actually make these institutions work or else they may take a chance on demagogues like

Trump who promised to tear them down. It's one reason voters gravitate towards candidates who haven't spent forever in Washington. Candidates who don't look or talk like typical politicians, who actually seem like normal people because they are. 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. You know, it should be the actual people who we are trying to reach because there is a fluency there that you cannot learn. It's on us to find and support these kinds of candidates.

But it's also on us to reach these voters. Remember, we have agency here. It's not all that easy or fun to persuade undecided voters, but that's the only way we win. Maybe you think we should focus more on turning out new or infrequent voters, who tend to be disproportionately young, low-income, and not white. I agree, but you should know that these Americans also tend to be more moderate, less ideological, less partisan, and less likely to follow politics.

Basically, they're similar to the voters we heard from this season. And getting them to register and turn out will also require the difficult work of persuasion. The grassroots organizers we've talked to, they get this. It drives me crazy when campaigns purely focus on turnout. People are not light switches that can be turned on and off. We actually have to persuade people and have real conversations with people about, you know, what they care about. Every day matters. There's so little time and we have to make sure we talk to everyone that we can.

And the only way to do that is on campus. You have a real conversation with them. A lot of people, they've given up. They don't think it's going to help to go vote. And I think we have to tell them why it's so important to go vote. 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.

If we truly want to save democracy, we can't be afraid of difficult conversations with people who might disagree with us. Because guess what? That's what democracy is. Life is the world's largest group project. And yes, we all hate group projects. Group projects are terrible. But that is the reality. Life is the world's biggest group project. We are not going to make it through this thing if we do not recognize that we got to figure this shit out collectively. which is to pick some other to other, and the caste changes, you know, it's the Jews, it's the Roma, it's the refugees, it's Black people, it's immigrants, it's trans kids, whatever. It's all of the above. People have an ability to recognize and see that.

And when they do, and they point their finger in the correct direction, they will choose each other. And so that is what gives me hope. In just a few more weeks, we'll find out what's changed in America over the last two years. It's possible that historic patterns will hold, that voters will turn against the party in power, and with some help from new gerrymanders and voter suppression laws, give Republicans control of Congress and state governments across the country. It's also possible that this midterm election will be different, and that enough of 2020's pro-democracy coalition will show up to put another check

on the MAGA movement. And of course, we could get a more muddled outcome that's somewhere in between. on the MAGA movement. And of course, we could get a more muddled outcome that's somewhere in between. But no matter what happens on November 8th, we'll wake up on November 9th to a world where the threat to American democracy is still very much real and urgent. And we'll have to keep fighting a battle that I think we all now realize isn't going to end anytime soon. What gives me hope is that we've been here before. One thing that struck me about the voters I talked to in Atlanta is that even though they were the most disillusioned with our political system, they were also the most committed to voting and the most likely to say that politics is important, or at least that it should be. Maybe that's because they were thinking about how long

and hard their grandparents fought for the right to vote, and why it meant so much to them. There are lessons for us now in the struggle for voting rights and civil rights. Lessons about courage and perseverance. And most importantly, lessons about what it takes to build a successful political movement. About how to get people to show up and join and stick around. about how to get people to show up and join and stick around. I think that music has been such a big role in civil rights in general. If you go through the civil rights movement, there's all these soundtracks that kind of align with the times.

And so it just only makes sense that music and activism go together. So yeah, that's the vibe that we're trying to go for. And so to me, you want to feel enlightened. You want to feel like fun, like you're doing something enjoyable. You don't want it to feel tedious and like a chore. So the idea is to let people feel welcome, to let them feel

like it's a space where, you know, it's not so serious. It's just a part of civic engagement. It's a part of anything else you would do, like going to the club or going to have a drink with your friend or turn it into a vibe that feels fun and easy and all are welcome. It's not an intimidating space. It's like a welcoming space. That's the idea behind it. The feeling of hopefulness and inspiration is why we do it. That is the only hope I see, is like taking the difficulty and the stress and the like tediousness out of the process. And girl, that's going to take a minute. So yeah, the fight to save democracy will take a minute.

Maybe years. Maybe our whole lives. Which is why this movement can't just be fueled by moral outrage and righteous anger. The only answer to a politics of fear and grievance and division is empathy and grace and solidarity. When you're calling a voter or trying to register one, when you're making a pitch to someone who isn't sure what they'll do on election day, remember, you're not trying to win a debate with that person, you're trying to win them over. You're trying to get them to choose a version of this country where we treat each other with

respect and dignity, where we take care of each other, where we choose each other. And if we want people to choose each other, we need to make this group project appealing. We need to make it inspiring. appealing. We need to make it inspiring. And just like the songs that welcome voters to the polls and keep them in line for way too long, we have to sustain this movement with a sense of joy. In the end, it's our only way out. 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. Thank you. Diaz is the assistant producer. This episode was sound designed by Tamika Adams. Valentino Rivera is our senior engineer. Martin Fowler is the composer. Thanks to our development and operations coordinator at Duslite, 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.