The NPR Politics Podcast - Primary voters reject the establishment and choose populism

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

More than half the states have had their primary contests for this year’s midterm elections. We discuss some key themes that have emerged. Voters are embracing economic populism and rejecting establishment politicians — except when it comes to President Trump. This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, political reporter Elena Moore, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez at cover politics. I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. More than half the states have had their primary elections. And we're going to start noticing some big themes taking shape. And today we're going to talk about some of the themes we're seeing. Elena, I want to start with you. What would you say are some of the big takeaways you have across these races so far? Yeah. I mean, I think probably the one I've been following the most is this narrative. around anti-incumbency or rejection of the so-called establishment. And I think what makes it so interesting is it's actually manifesting, I think, very differently on both sides of the aisle. But it's being talked about on both sides of the aisle. So I guess starting with Democrats, there have been several high-profile races for Senate, House, governor, that have dealt with this message. I think the biggest example and the most current one is Maine Democratic. Senate nominee Graham Platner. He has the endorsement of Bernie Sanders. He's running on key affordability

concerns, pushing things like Medicare for All. And he is a candidate who at first was going up against Janet Mills, the current outgoing governor of Maine. And Mills had the establishment backing. She had the support of Democratic leadership. But Platner was pushing a populist message focused on affordability, these kitchen table issues we've been talking over and over about on how core they are to voters. And he was dominating in the polls. And so I think that was an anti-establishment race right there. Now, Plattner, he wins the primary. Obviously, we've talked about the baggage that he has regarding recent allegations over his past behavior. Now he faces Republican incumbent Susan Collins, who is also in some ways an establishment figure, 30-year incumbent. So I'm going to be really curious to see

how that message shifts going from establishment, anti-establishment to insider outsider. Yeah, that's going to be a very good test of this theme. But the other test came early, even beyond people deciding to run for Congress. We've had a record number of either retirements, resignations, people leaving Washington leaving Congress to run for something else. And that was in part because of this anti-incumbency sentiment. They decided to get ahead of that, especially if you were an older representative, rather than risking losing because of this anti-incumbency sentiment, they step down voluntarily. And it all goes back to Democrats.

This is their first major election since 2024 when they suffered, you know, national losses around the country. And in large part, you know, the narrative from that election was around age and whether seniority was the de facto versus different issue concerns that people were having. And former President Joe Biden, his age and his tenure was really front and center. And so I think it's been fascinating to see how different longtime Democrats really wrestle with that question. Yeah. And I think because so many people have retired, it is creating this interesting situation where a lot of the primaries are not incumbent versus a new candidate. It's a lot of like open seats, which usually brings really interesting party dynamics into play.

Let's talk about the Republican side of stuff. President Trump is obviously the establishment here. By definition, he's the president. And he still seems to have a pretty firm grip on his party, but is also facing really low approval ratings countrywide at this point. What are we noticing about how Republican candidates are dealing with that? Well, I think the big theme around Trump is just the rock solid hold he has on the Republican Party. He's had win after win in Republican primaries, mostly in red districts or states when he's endorsed a candidate. And he has defeated or caused to retire several sitting Republican members of Congress, which is really unusual. And it's caused no little amount of angst among Republican senators. But what I'm interested in seeing is whether that plays out in the general election. Is it possible that Trump could be supporting candidates who are better in a primary than in a general? We'll find that out.

But the other thing about him is he will be 80 years old very, very soon. and he's not on the ballot. And he is very unpopular. And I think for Democrats to run against Republicans saying you're just a rubber stamp for this old, corrupt, self-dealing president, we'll see if that theme plays out in that way. But even though Trump has had almost a perfect record, not a completely perfect record, almost a perfect record in terms of endorsing Republicans inside primaries, one thing he was not willing to do was to endorse a candidate running against Susan Collins in Maine. Susan Collins is right now the only senator up for re-election who voted to convict Trump in the Senate after he was impeached in the House. Normally, that has caused Trump to go on a real retribution tear against that senator. But he has endorsed Susan Collins.

It's a blue state. He's not willing to lose this. So even Trump's deep desires for retribution and revenge have limits. Yeah. I feel like that Charlie Day meme from Always Sunny in Philadelphia. where he's like looking at a whiteboard and he's got a crazy look in his eyes and all of the pins and lines go everywhere. Because I, yeah, I think Mara's point is so important because Trump is the establishment. His endorsement goes a long way as we've seen.

But it's fascinating because Trump built his political career on being the outsider, on wanting to drain the so-called swamp. And like we've seen him clash with folks like Collins. And so to see that like odd balance that he has to play is really striking. And it's also just confusing because there are divides within the MAGA movement, you know, and they just look different. And they're still being like kind of characterized under those same sort of establishment rejection of longtime norms labels. I mean, I'm thinking about there's a faction of the MAGA movement that's been growing more and more dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the war in Iran. or the Epstein files, you know, the so-called maybe America First versus MAGA. We've seen some candidates really paint Trump as the establishment and frame it in that narrative.

And to varying degrees of success, obviously someone like Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey has aligned more so with that, you know, America First movement. And he lost to a Trump-backed challenger. So it's complicated, but I do think it's interesting that there's multiple definitions of establishment on the Republican side. There's the Republican in name only, Rhino, anti-Trump, more has, you know, traditionally seen that way in the last decade. And then there's this- None of whom are running this cycle. Right. Or have been voted out now. And then there's this other side of the anti-establishment, which sees Trump as the establishment. But I'll clear up a little of the confusion. He wants to win. Yeah. That's true. He does want to retaliate and take revenge. You're so racing my whiteboard.

He wants to win. And in Maine, Susan Collins is the only way he can win the Senate race. I mean, and even if you look at these endorsements, a lot of them were endorsements that were made early. He's picking the candidate that was already ahead of the polls. Even when it looks like an insurgency campaign, a good example, as I saw a house race in Nevada where he went against the party, the state party pick and chose the more insurgent candidate. But that candidate was a exception to that, Texas. Right. Because in Texas, it was not clear. who was the stronger candidate in the Republican primary, John Cornyn or Ken Paxton. Now, there are many people who thought Cornyn would be better. He wasn't saddled with all of the baggage that

Paxton had. But in the end, you could argue that Trump went with his MAGA gut because Paxton was much more of a Trump fan early on. Cornyn was definitely an establishment figure who definitely supported Trump in almost every way, but not as fervently or as a as early as Paxton did. And in the end, as we've talked about one of these themes, he endorsed Paxton and the guy won by curvature of the earth. Well, we talked about a lot of people resigning, but there are also several incumbents who are losing their seats because of the mid-decade redistricting battle that started last year

at the behest of Donald Trump. And we have seen this play out in nearly a dozen states at this point. How does that change things? Well, I think one of the themes we're seeing this year is this clash between two forces. One force is organic, public opinion, the economy, the enthusiasm of one party versus another. On all of those organic things, forces, the Democrats have an advantage. Then the clashing force is structural elements like extreme partisan redistricting, mid-cycle redistricting, very unusual. Lots and lots of money. We've never had as big financial disparity between campaign committees than we do this year.

So the Republicans have tremendous structural advantages with which they hope. to blunt these organic advantages for Democrats. So that's one of the themes. Republicans seem very confident about this that because of the gerrymandering they've done, that they have pretty much protected themselves against a Democratic wave. That doesn't mean that Democrats might not still take the House, but if they take it, it's probably going to be by a very small margin. All right. We're going to take a quick break. More in a moment. Welcome back. And Elena, I want to start with you again. So the war in Iran has resulted in really high prices. across the board and the high cost of living is a real issue for many voters, in many cases,

their top issue. How is this playing out in the battle over who controls Congress? And how are you seeing campaigns talk about this? Yeah, well, I think that people are divided on like nearly every issue right now. But what I've found talking to voters is the issue that unites most people is economic populism and or specifically this concern around their own economic well-being and looking for support. And I think that has translated into different versions of economic populism on the campaign trail. I'm from Democrats. You see it, you know, we've talked a lot about Platner, but that's his message. It's all this push on that the government needs to help you out of the hole that you're in. And I think it's also been really interesting to watch James

Tala Rico in a very different state like Texas, the Democratic Senate nominee going up against Ken Paxton. I think I've said this before. But James Talarico literally took out an ad. at the Super Bowl, in that ad says he's against corporations and big money in politics at the Super Bowl, which is probably like the most capitalist moment. And I just think you can't really find a more mainstream like message of this populism than Super Bowl. Look, the economy is the number one issue here. Yes, affordability has been talked to death, but people feel that they're not poor, they're broke. They can't afford their lifestyle. And this is true for a fair number of Republicans. They're not happy with Trump's handling of the economy.

They don't like the war on Iran either, which they connect to the economy. But the interesting thing and the trend that we're waiting to see emerge is, well, does that mean they won't vote for Republican candidates? Yeah. We don't know that. There's a lot of dissatisfaction among the electorate. People are angry. They're sour. There's definitely buyer's remorse among some voters who voted for Trump, but we don't know if they're ready to take the next step, which is to vote for a Democrat because Democrats are very unpopular. I mean, it seems like we've all, you know, you guys talk to voters in your focus groups and when I do callbacks for our poll, like, how many times do you hear Republicans say, I'm going to give Trump six more months? I mean, it's so, this is

such a loyal base. And it's going to take a lot for this coalition that Trump has built over a decade to really break with him. But like we've said, this really is top of mind for so many people. It's so hard to square how bad the Democratic brand is with some groups of voters when you're watching special elections, like even primary elections, like the Democratic base seems really energize. They keep winning. Yeah. Like, how do you square that? But a midterm general election electorate is different than the people who turn out for special elections.

And there's no doubt that Democrats have a real winning streak among special elections. but we don't know if that's going to translate to a normal midterm. Yeah. I want to talk about the audiences for economic populism, though, back to that, Alina. I mean, you said this kind of cuts across. I would always assume this would be like younger voters, more progressive voters, but you think like this has a broader appeal in the American electorate now? Well, I guess I should kind of, I think in most of the reporting I've done, economic concerns are the uniting issue. I think when it comes to the solutions, a lot of young people are more likely to entertain this idea.

of like, let's tear it down and try something new or let's make big change. And, you know, you hear that on both sides of the aisle where people have grown up only seeing systems that they believe have not worked for them. I mean, we've talked about this a lot before. The cost of housing is vastly outpacing wages or, you know, job insecurity is still rampant among younger folks. And I think that this is mention fear of AI. Right. Right. The AI job apocalypse. But I think that because this is an issue that's deeply so generationally personal, we have seen it really hit home for a lot of young people. And I think that's why, you know, some of the messages out of 2024, I think back to what I used to always hear at Turning Point conferences, the conservative youth group, the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk,

used to always say, we want to give you a better life than your parents. Because that simple message is one that goes a long way. And it's one we hear now replicated on the campaign trail all the time. Meaning people don't think they're going to get that. Right. That's the big thing. Young people do not believe they will do as well or better than their parents. That is the essence of the American dream. And when that disappears for a whole generation of particularly college-educated young people, that is something to really watch because I think the implications could be very destabilizing. Yeah. And how do we, how are we seeing campaigns deal with this pessimism? Like, are you seeing any sort of standout candidates? Well, the Republicans are saying, look, we gave

you a tax cut, or we gave your parents a tax cut. But the college-educated working class is a phenomenon that I think we all should be paying a lot of attention to. These are people who did exactly what they were told to do. If you work hard, get an education, graduate from college, you will be in the middle class. And that is falling apart. Are there any campaigns you're saying, Elena, that you think are grappling with, I mean, you mentioned turning point, but are there any candidates who, like, come to mind? You know, we've given a lot of specific examples about Democrats really harping on this. And it is kind of easier to do that when you're not the party in power. I mean, that's what we saw Republicans do in 2024, right? But I do think, you know, especially as I

track younger leaders, younger candidates, I think about this push that I'm even hearing among some on the right running to kind of reject this idea of corporate PAC money and, you know, big special interests in politics. There's Joe Mitchell, who is a former Iowa State representative. He's running for Congress in Iowa's second district. And he's been very clear that he supports some big changes to like the government system. Mitchell has said that he does not accept corporate PAC money and he supports congressional term limits. And those are ideas that are frankly much more popular among liberal candidates. And the fact that you're seeing, I mean, he isn't probably an outlier here, but a younger Republican make some of those arguments and win his primary. That's interesting.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if this is like, I'm thinking. about like the anti-billionaire pushback, like watching Tom Steyer in California lose, actually a bunch of self-funded campaigns lost. I guess I'm surprised to see that someone like Tom Steyer wasn't able to even crack the top two with a quarter billion dollars spent in ads. I mean, it's kind of a confusing pitch right now where, you know, you're talking about, I'm basically kind of like the J.B. Pritzker pitch. I'm a good billionaire, you know what I mean? Which we've seen work. But at the same time, it does kind of conflict with this broader message right now, which is Americans are hurting. Everyday Americans can't afford the things that

government said they were going to be able to afford that Trump promised, that Democrats promised. And I think especially in contested races like California where there were several Democrats on the ballot, that's not going to be the winning message, especially if you're already, you know, kind of conflicting with that message. All right. Let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, senior news. international political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics

podcast. Go NICS.