Speaker 1: Welcome back to It's a Members Game with Ryan Gradusky.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you guys again for being here
Speaker 1: this week, and once again, if you want to read
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Speaker 1: So if you were to tell someone in November of
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, right after Donald Trump won his first time
Speaker 1: winning the presidency, that he was going to build a
Speaker 1: the first time he won the presidency on what the
Speaker 1: mainstream media deemed as a grievance culture, a white grievance culture,
Speaker 1: that he was going to assemble a multicultural, multi racial,
Speaker 1: working class coalition that would deliver the White House, the Senate,
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives, and the popular vote. They would
Speaker 1: not believe you. Perhaps it's why the mainstream media seems
Speaker 1: so defeated in the light of Trump's most recent victory.
Speaker 1: His coalition was supposed to be Jim Bobbs and Mary Bell's,
Speaker 1: not Julio's and Tyrones. But that's what it's become. While
Speaker 1: the best exit polling information is not yet available, PE
Speaker 1: Research Center TENSPE considered like the gold standard for presidential
Speaker 1: exit polling, but they take like six to eight months
Speaker 1: to assemble all their research. We have some information, We
Speaker 1: certainly have some precinct information for how certain groups voted
Speaker 1: according to the AP vote cast, which is the Associated
Speaker 1: Presses exit polling, and they're they're decent, They're pretty good.
Speaker 1: Trump won twenty five percent of black men and forty
Speaker 1: eight percent of Latino men. Those are the two numbers
Speaker 1: I want listeners to remember, especially when it was the men.
Speaker 1: Twenty five percent of Black men forty eight percent of
Speaker 1: Latino men. Obviously, that's not enough to win a presidency.
Speaker 1: Those two numbers. I mean Trump won because he received
Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of white voters, especially whites without white
Speaker 1: voters without a college degree. That's the back win of
Speaker 1: his coalition. But if building electoral victory of presidential electoral
Speaker 1: victories like making a cake, while the white vote is
Speaker 1: the batter, the Latina vote is the icing, and the
Speaker 1: black vote is the cherry on top and the frosting,
Speaker 1: you kind of need all three to especially get to
Speaker 1: a electoral college or popular vote victory. And so that's
Speaker 1: a good thing. Trump has a new dynamic, multi ethnic,
Speaker 1: multiracial coalition, the kind that Republicans have been hoping for
Speaker 1: for a long time. The bad thing for Republicans, though,
Speaker 1: is that many of these voters are really loyal to
Speaker 1: Trump and not to the GOP. A lot of them
Speaker 1: voted for Trump and then for the Democratic congressman down
Speaker 1: ballot or Democratic senator. Making you know, a problem and
Speaker 1: making the problem a little harder was that a lot
Speaker 1: of them live. A lot of these new Republicans live
Speaker 1: in non competitive districts. Inn AOC's district. It swung to
Speaker 1: the right, but it's not a competitive district because it
Speaker 1: didn't swing hard and not I but I's sway huge.
Speaker 1: That's why the new Trump coalition is interesting. It's different,
Speaker 1: and it's is a big mystery of how it will change,
Speaker 1: how it will grow, and if it will eventually be
Speaker 1: just kind of how all Republicans vote with me this week.
Speaker 1: Is a man who predicted the working class multiracial coalition
Speaker 1: long before anyone else did. Patrick Graffini is the co
Speaker 1: founder of the polling company Echellent Insights, and he's the
Speaker 1: author of the book Party of the People Inside the
Speaker 1: Multiracial Populist Coalition remaking the GOP. Patrick, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining me.
Speaker 2: Thank you Ryan for having me.
Speaker 1: First of all, congratulations on all your success. I mean
Speaker 1: the Atlantic wrote about you. Everyone's kind of waking up
Speaker 1: and smelling the Patrick Graffini coffee right now that you
Speaker 1: kind of had your finger on the pulse. So I
Speaker 1: want to start with the obvious question, right, why are minorities,
Speaker 1: especially young minorities, abandoning their father and grandfather's party. You
Speaker 1: call it a racial de alignment, but what does that
Speaker 1: actually mean.
Speaker 2: So we have a long history in this country, I
Speaker 2: think racially polarized voting that goes back until at least
Speaker 2: sixty four and the Civil Rights that when you first
Speaker 2: saw black voters move in a very big and decisive
Speaker 2: way into the Democratic Party, with often times vote shares
Speaker 2: over ninety percent. And there was a thought for a
Speaker 2: while that Hispanics might maybe not follow quite as resoundingly
Speaker 2: in that direction, but would nonetheless also be a solidly
Speaker 2: democratic group. And this consensus really among Democrats really reached
Speaker 2: fever pitch during the Obama era. Obama wins eighty percent
Speaker 2: of non white voters running for reelection, and you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, you had this emerging Democratic majority coalition
Speaker 2: of the Ascendant went by many names, that this idea
Speaker 2: that as America grows more and more diverse, you will
Speaker 2: automatically see democratic victories because you know, just simply this,
Speaker 2: this four to one Democratic voting block is going to
Speaker 2: represent soon going to represent almost a majority of the public.
Speaker 2: And that's something that the Republicans could never recover from.
Speaker 2: But I think that view was always short sighted. It
Speaker 2: assumed that the non white voter in America would stay
Speaker 2: the same in you know, certainly many of these political
Speaker 2: loyalties were formed on the basis of groups that were
Speaker 2: highly either marginalized, discriminated against, whatever terminology you want to use,
Speaker 2: oftentimes very poor. In a party system where the Democrats
Speaker 2: were overwhelmingly seen as the party of the working class,
Speaker 2: the party of the common man, and that was the
Speaker 2: self identification of the Democratic Party. That self identification has
Speaker 2: gone out the window. I think it started to go
Speaker 2: out the window well before Donald Trump, as the Democrats
Speaker 2: to become more the party of the college educated, the elite,
Speaker 2: the woke if if as you were.
Speaker 1: And childiscat ladies, and you know, hyper pro criminality, you know.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly so so so I think that that self
Speaker 2: identity of the Democratic Party. Really, I think loose it right
Speaker 2: creates the conditions for somebody like Donald Trump to come in,
Speaker 2: who is a cultural icon, right, who you know is
Speaker 2: as comfortable ringside as he is in the Oval Office,
Speaker 2: to come in.
Speaker 1: Probably more ring side on the Oval office. I mean
Speaker 1: to be to tell you the truth. No, you are
Speaker 1: one hundred percent right though about that, And I want
Speaker 1: to I want to ask you one quick thing. So, like,
Speaker 1: I hate it when people say the word I don't
Speaker 1: hate it, but like it gets under my skin. But
Speaker 1: when when political is like they'll say the Asian vote, Well,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Because Pakistanis and Koreans are very
Speaker 1: different kinds of people, and Republicans quote unquote won the
Speaker 1: Asian vote back in the night when it was predominantly
Speaker 1: Korean voters and Vietnamese refugees from the Vietnam War. And
Speaker 1: as the Asian population changed through mass immigration, the voting
Speaker 1: tendencies changed, and you're definitely seeing that with Hispanic voters.
Speaker 2: That's right. There is no single Asian community. Hispanic community.
Speaker 2: You know, you see very different voting patterns from place
Speaker 2: to place. Just go from California to Texas, to Florida,
Speaker 2: and even pockets of let's say, voters in you know,
Speaker 2: Dominican voters in Lawrence's, Puerto Ricans in Allentown, Pennsylvania. There's
Speaker 2: distinct communities. And I think from a why that really
Speaker 2: mattered this year was that in twenty sixteen, the calculus
Speaker 2: was that if Donald Trump was going to build a wall,
Speaker 2: if Donald Trump was going to base his campaign again
Speaker 2: around stopping illegal immigrants, then Democrats right were really counting
Speaker 2: on Latino voters really rising up against that right out
Speaker 2: of a sense of pan Hispanic pan Latino group solidarity.
Speaker 2: That just didn't happen. It didn't really happen in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: but it really absolutely didn't happen in twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: when you see, you know, roughly a fifteen to twenty
Speaker 2: point shift again in the Latino vote towards Trump. And
Speaker 2: that's partly because I mean, I don't think you can
Speaker 2: I think it should be blindingly obvious an any Hispanic
Speaker 2: voter who can vote in a presidential election right as
Speaker 2: somebody who is a citizen of the United States who
Speaker 2: immigrated legally to the United States, so they don't identify
Speaker 2: with the people who are coming here illegally, and in
Speaker 2: fact their interests are directly contradictory to those folks in
Speaker 2: terms of these are folks who you know, they believe
Speaker 2: cut the line, who are taking advantage of the system.
Speaker 2: And so this idea right that everything can be boiled
Speaker 2: down to group racial interest solidarity, but just a fundamental
Speaker 2: flaw on the part of the Democrats.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean the ultimate I hate when adults
Speaker 1: talk to other adults like their children, and the fact
Speaker 1: that like there were people on the media twenty four
Speaker 1: hours a day saying that Puerto Ricans were going to
Speaker 1: change their voting behaviors because of the kill Tony comments
Speaker 1: at the MSG thing that was going to be the
Speaker 1: ultimate thing they want to care about. Inflation, nothing, just
Speaker 1: kill Tony's joke about island of garbage in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: What does okay? So I was Gon asked this later,
Speaker 1: but I want to say now then. So back in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, for anyone old enough to remember twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: we the post Romney synopsis was if you want to
Speaker 1: win over minority voters, specifically black and especially Latino, you
Speaker 1: need to be pro amnesty and really forgiving of criminality,
Speaker 1: be easy on crime. Why and that just didn't work.
Speaker 1: It just didn't work anytime the Republicans have ever tried
Speaker 1: to going back to Bob Dole. Why is it that
Speaker 1: I think that I think that when Black Lives Matter happened,
Speaker 1: and the riots post BLM especially, and the violence post BLM,
Speaker 1: and the forgiveness towards violence, and the forgiveness towards rating
Speaker 1: CBS is a lot of conservative Hispanic voters. And there
Speaker 1: were millions of conservative Hispanic voters who voted for Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: who voted for Barack Obama. They may be you know,
Speaker 1: pro life or whatever, but they were Democrats that this
Speaker 1: is not okay and I'm not okay with this party.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that was really the inflection point
Speaker 1: for a lot of working class Latinos because as you said,
Speaker 1: as you said, you know, illegals cut the line. There
Speaker 1: is a one of the real values in this country
Speaker 1: is fairness. People like to believe that people thinks should
Speaker 1: be fair. If you break the law, you should be
Speaker 1: punished for the crime, YadA, YadA, YadA. And I think
Speaker 1: that post twenty twenty, the idea of or fairness, especially
Speaker 1: towards criminality, woke a lot of working class.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think crime and
Speaker 2: you know, crime in the cities especially, and let's ignore
Speaker 2: that this was a shift. You know, you really did
Speaker 2: see a huge shift in the cities, not just among
Speaker 2: Hispanic voters. I would argue about black voters, Asian voters,
Speaker 2: but even white voters too. I mean, if you just
Speaker 2: look at what happened in and around the New York
Speaker 2: City metro area this time, where you know, Trump within
Speaker 2: the city goes I mean you think he gets like
Speaker 2: thirty percent of the vote in New York City, which
Speaker 2: is crazy. Hi, right, it's high obviously, it's it's nowhere
Speaker 2: near a majority. But you're talking about some of these
Speaker 2: suburbs returning two levels we haven't really seen since nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight, in the nineteen eighties, when the discussion in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties was really focused around the hollowing out
Speaker 2: of the big city is due to crime and you know,
Speaker 2: flight into the suburbs specifically to avoid you know, high
Speaker 2: crime in the central city area, and you know, especially
Speaker 2: around New York, but you also saw it in la
Speaker 2: You saw it in just a number of major cities
Speaker 2: that that sort of mindset really is returning Now, at
Speaker 2: the time, who were the people fleeing the cities? Who
Speaker 2: are the people kind of leading the outrage about this
Speaker 2: was sort of your white ethnic voter, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: that was the sort of Reagan Democrat voter back in
Speaker 2: the eighties and nineties. And those are the voters that
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton really tried hard to win back. Now, who
Speaker 2: lives in those neighborhoods now, right, it's not white ethnic voters.
Speaker 2: White ethnic voters have left the cities. Who lives in
Speaker 2: those neighbors in that neighborhoods now are working class Latinos.
Speaker 2: And I think they are occupying exactly the same place
Speaker 2: and sort of that urban political firmaments right as white
Speaker 2: they started, white working class ethnics did in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: seventies and eighties. And I think you're seeing a shift
Speaker 2: in the same way that those also, those voting blocks shifted, right.
Speaker 2: Those were the New Deal Democrats. Those were Democrats who
Speaker 2: voted for JFK. Right, who but then started voting for
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon in nineteen sixty eight, nineteen seventy two and
Speaker 2: became Reagan voters after that. So I think that that is,
Speaker 2: you know, that's what we're in particular, seeing right stantics,
Speaker 2: I think there's a trigger. There's certainly a trigger that
Speaker 2: you mentioned right with these events, and I think this
Speaker 2: is the long term trajectory these voters are on.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and there was this calculation. It seemed like
Speaker 1: the Democrats were making were racial like alignment, like the
Speaker 1: quote unquote black and brown voter, even though they are
Speaker 1: completely different voters. But I mean complete not completely different issues,
Speaker 1: but a lot of different issues on a lot of
Speaker 1: different racial solidary that doesn't really exist outside of like
Speaker 1: Al Sharpton's brain, that that would overcome the fear of
Speaker 1: safety and concern and economic prosperity. You I think you
Speaker 1: tweet us. I was looking for the tweet and I
Speaker 1: couldn't find it. I think you tweeted that you expect
Speaker 1: like Mexicans to vote like Italians in the near future.
Speaker 2: Was that you I've probably said that, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't have a word in your mouth, so I
Speaker 1: just want to make sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I mean I think that that's the future, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we're not there yet, but that's
Speaker 2: the future. And that's what you really saw, you know,
Speaker 2: And you know, my grandparents came to this country, came
Speaker 2: to New York City, right, the natural home for people
Speaker 2: like them was the Democratic Party. The political machines existed
Speaker 2: to serve these immigrants who came in to the big cities,
Speaker 2: and you know, they identified as Democrats for a long time,
Speaker 2: and the party at the national level was very clearly
Speaker 2: identified with these sorts of voters, the working class voters
Speaker 2: who are kind of working their way up in American society.
Speaker 2: And that simply is no longer the case. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, really what you're seeing, I think you really
Speaker 2: saw in this election is Latino's really following the footsteps
Speaker 2: of those ethnic voters who again, you know, in the
Speaker 2: early nineteen sixties would have been seventy to eighty percent
Speaker 2: JFK voters. Now, it didn't hurt that he was Catholic, right,
Speaker 2: but that was sort of the high water mark. But
Speaker 2: year after year, decade after decade, you see particularly this
Speaker 2: white Catholic voter. That's a category that I think makes
Speaker 2: sense as sort of this precursor, because this was a
Speaker 2: group of people who was actually discriminated against back in
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century. But every election grew more and more
Speaker 2: Republican and is now to a point where that that
Speaker 2: group of voters is about a Trump plus twenty.
Speaker 1: I think now, I think white Catholics voted. I think
Speaker 1: it was like either sixty six or seventy percent for Trump.
Speaker 1: I think the only girup that put a more Republican
Speaker 1: that were Mormons and Evangelic because I doubt Mormons actually
Speaker 1: do about more Republican other.
Speaker 2: Than But but the reason I mentioned that, right is because
Speaker 2: even back in the George of B. Bush era, I remember,
Speaker 2: it was a fight to win white Calcoluse that was
Speaker 2: a huge priority of Carl Row. This was this was
Speaker 2: sort of seen as the key swing group because they
Speaker 2: were Democrats. Because you had this sort of old white
Speaker 2: Anglo Saxon Protestant both the white Anglo Saxon Protestant elite,
Speaker 2: but the white Protestant voters. Those were seen as the
Speaker 2: core Republican vote. Now it's kind of I mean, I
Speaker 2: think in many ways it's kind of flipped in the
Speaker 2: sense of you know that lost both heat is no
Speaker 2: longer really a reliable Republican constituency. But you know, particularly
Speaker 2: in the suburbs and the cities, you see this internet
Speaker 2: like states like Pennsylvania, states like Wisconsin, I do think
Speaker 2: the shift right was still important among those white Catholic voters.
Speaker 2: So you know that, you know, particularly in those states
Speaker 2: that are whiter, where you do have an ethnic voting base,
Speaker 2: and you do have an white ethnic voting base that
Speaker 2: lives in cities as opposed to out in rural areas,
Speaker 2: those are still places that are pre fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2: That electorate is still up for grabs. And I think
Speaker 2: Trump made just enough progress, right, I mean that there's
Speaker 2: still a lot of let's say, low hanging fruit. I
Speaker 2: think among these there was at least enough low hanging
Speaker 2: fruit among these voters that you know, he was able
Speaker 2: to win a state like Wisconsin, which is ninety percent
Speaker 2: white in terms of its electorate, or state like Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: which is like eighty four percent.
Speaker 1: Hey, we'll be right back after this. I said that
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign. I said, you know, during the campaign,
Speaker 1: this is early on. I said, you know, you're doubling
Speaker 1: down on this Latino vote. But in the most critical
Speaker 1: in almost all the most critical Spring states of I
Speaker 1: think like maybe six of four of the seven big ones,
Speaker 1: the electorate is still ninety to ninety five percent white black.
Speaker 1: It is very little changed. I said, so doubling, quadrupling,
Speaker 1: tripling down on on getting these Latina voters. There's not
Speaker 1: enough of them, and I was a little I was concerned.
Speaker 1: But I think part of Trump's success, right, and maybe
Speaker 1: Kamala's failure, was Trump's share of the minority vote did
Speaker 1: go up among almost all minorities, I think, actually of
Speaker 1: all minorities. But some part of that I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: the whole thing, but part of that was because the
Speaker 1: minority share overall fell because they because a lot of
Speaker 1: especially black voters, had to choose between commeal and the couch,
Speaker 1: and they chose the couch. They just didn't show up
Speaker 1: on election day. That made Trump's share. No Trump' share
Speaker 1: went up on its own, but it probably went up
Speaker 1: faster and more because Kamala voters just weren't showing up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I don't disagree with that, but
Speaker 2: I think that but both things were Both things were important.
Speaker 2: I just think inflation was just a dominant issue and
Speaker 2: narrative that I think there was no way, I mean,
Speaker 2: you were going to see I think some of these
Speaker 2: voters who maybe were the twenty sixteen Trump voters who
Speaker 2: drifted away in twenty twenty. I think you were always
Speaker 2: going to see some of those come home. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, you're right that we were always sweating. And
Speaker 2: I think the scenario in which my sort of prediction
Speaker 2: doesn't come true was like, hey, yeah, we do really well,
Speaker 2: we clean up in the sun Belt, but you know,
Speaker 2: there's just not enough of these realignment voters in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: let's say, to move things. But you know, it turns out, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that that black share of the
Speaker 2: vote is important, even if it's a low share of
Speaker 2: the vote, if you can cut into those margins.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm not saying they're not important, but I
Speaker 1: don't know, but.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, but I think that the calculus that
Speaker 2: you mentioned with turnout two is because the raw vote margin, right,
Speaker 2: the Democrats get out of the city of Philadelphia, get
Speaker 2: out of the city of Detroit, is just so important
Speaker 2: to them. If you take that away, I you largely
Speaker 2: take away their ability to win states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Speaker 2: Michigan obviously was also a state. I mean, I had
Speaker 2: a large number of problems that went beyond the black vote,
Speaker 2: that went into the Arab American vote. Right, I also
Speaker 2: flipped pretty significantly.
Speaker 1: I know, there's this one little if you look at
Speaker 1: a map of the Detroit metro area, there's like this
Speaker 1: one little red bubble in the middle of it, and
Speaker 1: that's that's I think, Dearborn. It's like crazy, this Arab
Speaker 1: majority place. The one really interesting thing that I want
Speaker 1: to really ask you about because I think you might know.
Speaker 1: So I'm from New York, Right you can tell based
Speaker 1: on like everything about me, but the nagas lee voice,
Speaker 1: the obsession to curse. But the one thing that's really
Speaker 1: interesting is in the Bronx. Right, the Bronx is it's
Speaker 1: not a place that's in a swing district. It's not
Speaker 1: a swing county's not a swing state. There's one elected
Speaker 1: Republican in the whole borough, and Republicans in twenty and
Speaker 1: Republicans don't compete there. You'll never get a door knock,
Speaker 1: you'll never a mail piece, you won't get a doorknocker,
Speaker 1: you won't get a TV ad. You're you might as
Speaker 1: well not know there's an election going on if you
Speaker 1: live there, and if you are a voter, So there's
Speaker 1: no effort to win these voters over because why bother. Right,
Speaker 1: But in twenty twelve, Mitt Romney won twenty nine, nine
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty seven votes. In twenty twenty four, Trump
Speaker 1: won ninety eight, one hundred and seventy four votes. He
Speaker 1: made a gain of about about seventy thousand votes. At
Speaker 1: the same time, Democrats went from three hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: nine thousand to two hundred and sixty one thousand. There
Speaker 1: was no effort on the part of Republicans to make
Speaker 1: this happen. It was one hundred percent organic, and it
Speaker 1: was repeated in other parts of the New York City
Speaker 1: metro areas you said. It was repeated in Cicero, Illinois,
Speaker 1: in Los angele Lists, in some areas throughout the Central
Speaker 1: Valley of California. They have competitive congressional districts, but not
Speaker 1: competitive state elections. In places that there was no Republican,
Speaker 1: real Republican effort to change voters' minds, voters changed organically.
Speaker 1: And as I said before, Hispanics are not all the same.
Speaker 1: Some are Central or Caribbeans, some are Central Americans, a
Speaker 1: lot of are Mexican. Do we I mean, is it
Speaker 1: all inflation or is something bigger going on? Or is
Speaker 1: it the Democrat being the party of you know, crazy college,
Speaker 1: crazy white liberal women and you know, supporting endless criminality.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, look, I think I mentioned I went
Speaker 2: back earlier and I mentioned how, you know, you don't
Speaker 2: really have a single Asian community, you don't have a
Speaker 2: single Hispanic community. But you see these shifts all over
Speaker 2: the place. Right, It's as though there actually is right
Speaker 2: benefiting Republicans in this case. And you know, I think
Speaker 2: you know what I go back to in my book,
Speaker 2: right was, you know, the overwhelming majority of people who
Speaker 2: are non white in America, a large majority don't have
Speaker 2: a college degree. And just like the overs like the
Speaker 2: about a sixty percent or near sixty percent majority of
Speaker 2: American voters don't have a college degree. What we saw
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, that white working class coalition that elected
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. At this time, what we saw was a
Speaker 2: just simply a working class coalition that elected Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Race was not you know, sort of as critical or
Speaker 2: pivotal a factor, you know, in terms of our in
Speaker 2: terms of those voting patterns, in terms of the coalition
Speaker 2: as it was back in back in twenty sixteen. I
Speaker 2: think what we can say is they share kind of
Speaker 2: a common you know, kind of working class sensibility, a
Speaker 2: certain worldview, and it really is the white college educated
Speaker 2: liberals who we're off on an eye end of their
Speaker 2: own in terms of their emphasis on these identity issues,
Speaker 2: the emphasis on these issues you know, that don't really
Speaker 2: matter to the large majority of Americans, particularly in a
Speaker 2: time of high inflation, a border that's out of control,
Speaker 2: rising crime, and those issues. I think the Democrats chose
Speaker 2: to really close the election on issues like democracy, abortion,
Speaker 2: these social issues that don't really necessary that I think
Speaker 2: people in these communities said, this doesn't really address my
Speaker 2: key concern here when you know, the prices of eggs
Speaker 2: is up fifty percent, right, and everything I'm paying for
Speaker 2: is through the roof. You know, how are you going
Speaker 2: to help me, you know, afford my grocery built? Right?
Speaker 2: Those are the central concerns, you know, of this working
Speaker 2: class coalition, and I think that really unified, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: and I think that brought together just very different groups
Speaker 2: of people in this coalition. On the flip side, you've
Speaker 2: also just seen, yeah, you have seen over the last
Speaker 2: couple election cycles, you've seen these high education places move
Speaker 2: further and further to the left. You know, they didn't
Speaker 2: really move this time but you know some places moved
Speaker 2: one or two points, they were still a little bit
Speaker 2: more resistant. The problem is, you know that that coalition
Speaker 2: that you know, Kama was speaking to on the Ellipse
Speaker 2: a week before the election, it's not a majority of Americans, right,
Speaker 2: These are not the concerns that you're twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: a majority of American American American American people cared.
Speaker 1: About, right. I mean, you have to be very comfortable
Speaker 1: in life, very comfortable. We're January sixth still lives in
Speaker 1: your head every single day, like there has to be
Speaker 1: nothing else, Like you know, you can afford your bills.
Speaker 1: You know, you're taking your the right amount of magnesium
Speaker 1: in the morning, like everything is going well for you
Speaker 1: to be like, oh yeah, you know what I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it, January sixth, that's just not where it is.
Speaker 1: And it was really just college educated whites and black
Speaker 1: women primarily who were That was the two people that
Speaker 1: she was speaking the most too repeatedly. Because there was
Speaker 1: a lot of racial identitarian on the left that the
Speaker 1: media does not talk about. I mean, the Biden administration
Speaker 1: was successfully sued for discriminating against white farmers. They were
Speaker 1: totally opposed to the Harvard case with the discrimination of Asians.
Speaker 1: I mean, they did a lot of like race baiting
Speaker 1: of their own, but it was always, you know, the
Speaker 1: Republicans that were the racist you're listening to it's a
Speaker 1: numbers game with Ryan Gerdsky. We'll be right back. The
Speaker 1: interesting thing is that a lot of these voters who
Speaker 1: vote and this is not This is very common when
Speaker 1: new people approached a party. This was very common when
Speaker 1: Nixon and Reagan won in the seventies and eighties and sixties,
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties. A lot of these voters voted for
Speaker 1: Trump and then either did not vote down ballot or
Speaker 1: voted Democrat down back because they were comfortable with a
Speaker 1: lot of it. Why do you think that is that
Speaker 1: because the Trump brand is still uniquely different than the
Speaker 1: Republican brand as far as working class issues goes.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I think that I'm a little bit less
Speaker 2: pessimistic on this question. And yes, I would say, yeah,
Speaker 2: there is absolutely Trump is you know, people change parties
Speaker 2: for the top of the ticket, right, I mean, if
Speaker 2: you're going to change long standing voting patterns, it's going
Speaker 2: to be because there's somebody at the top of the
Speaker 2: ticket who is uniquely, you know, uniquely somebody who you
Speaker 2: resonate with, somebody who speaks your language, right, somebody who
Speaker 2: really provides that personal connection and vision. And you know,
Speaker 2: it takes and may take a couple of cycles before
Speaker 2: people are voting down ballot, you know, for your congressional
Speaker 2: campaign at the same rate as they're voting for a
Speaker 2: Donald Trump at the top of ticket. Who is somebody
Speaker 2: who realigns these core demographics that said, right, you are
Speaker 2: seeing the share of the vote earned by Republican down
Speaker 2: ballot candidates also move up in this Trump you know,
Speaker 2: Trump era. Yeah, you're seeing it cycle after cycle, Like
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the basis for comparison, right is,
Speaker 2: you know, what is a down ballot you know, senate
Speaker 2: candidate getting compared to their last selection? What were they
Speaker 2: getting compared to four years ago, six years ago? And
Speaker 2: that number is os higher in the same way that
Speaker 2: the Republican presidential vote is oas higher. And we've seen
Speaker 2: this before. We saw this in the South, right when
Speaker 2: the South realigned, it always realigned it was voting for
Speaker 2: Reagan at the top of the ticket and just sending
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of Democrats to Congress. And that took
Speaker 2: really until nineteen ninety four for that to break, and
Speaker 2: that was thirty years after the initial shift towards the
Speaker 2: Republican party.
Speaker 1: Well it took I really, it took to twenty ten.
Speaker 1: I mean because Mississippi state legislature was Democrat, West Virginia's
Speaker 1: was Democrat, Arkansas was Democrats had two Democratic senators from
Speaker 1: Arkansas in two thousand and eight that who were unopposed
Speaker 1: by the way, Republicans even run against I think what
Speaker 1: was it, Lincoln and Blanche link It or something like that.
Speaker 1: They didn't even run opponents against her because it was
Speaker 1: too hard for Republican to win Arkansas. That wasn't two
Speaker 1: thousand and I'm like six, Like that's crazy.
Speaker 2: But that's right. So hopefully it doesn't take as long
Speaker 2: this time. But but this idea of you know, their
Speaker 2: on a trajectory, but there's always there is this kind
Speaker 2: of note. There is this a term for it's called
Speaker 2: down ballot lag right that that you know, people initially
Speaker 2: kind of say, you know, I'm gonna switch chef for
Speaker 2: one person, but then they I only realize in the end, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm a Republican. And by the way, I mean, look
Speaker 2: it happens on the other side too, right. You know,
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, you have a lot of people voting
Speaker 2: didn't like Trump in these suburbs, but still voting for
Speaker 2: your you know, friendly local Republican congressional candidate. And by
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen that was no longer you know, that that
Speaker 2: was sort of out the window. So I think if
Speaker 2: people are going to get more and more aligned in
Speaker 2: these you know, with their new parties over time, because
Speaker 2: I think that's where their values are, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: they identify, you know, their values are conservative. They identify
Speaker 2: as conservative. You know, maybe they don't have a party label,
Speaker 2: then maybe they're moving away from the Democrats. But when
Speaker 2: you look at where these voters are on the issues,
Speaker 2: it's not surprising, right well, I mean it's starting to
Speaker 2: vote that.
Speaker 1: I mean even in this allig I mean, think about this,
Speaker 1: if you're old, especially if you were around like that
Speaker 1: in the nineties. There are more Republicans, and Republicans do
Speaker 1: better in Queens, New York than in Westchester. Like that
Speaker 1: is absurd, It was unthinkable. How do the Republicans, I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: Trump has had twelve years or who will have twelve
Speaker 1: years when this is all over of absolutely the craziest
Speaker 1: political story in American history or definitely one of the
Speaker 1: top three. How does the next Republican whomever it be,
Speaker 1: or the candidates running for the future, how do they
Speaker 1: keep that momentum going towards the right, towards the working class.
Speaker 2: Look, I think every canon has to chart their own path.
Speaker 2: That's what I would I would tell any cannon I'm
Speaker 2: working for or advising that, you know, if you try
Speaker 2: to go in and you try to be Trump, if
Speaker 2: you try to literally be Trump, right, Yeah, that's always
Speaker 2: literally do that. It's not necessarily going to work out
Speaker 2: well for you, because I think voters want a sense
Speaker 2: of who you are as a person, what a sense
Speaker 2: of you know, how you're different.
Speaker 1: And also, let's say that Trump is the first hilarious
Speaker 1: president and ninety nine percent of politicians are not funny
Speaker 1: at all, right, Like they have the most unfunny people
Speaker 1: in the world. So it's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it will be hard, right from that perspective,
Speaker 2: So I don't want to underestimate that. With that said,
Speaker 2: I think the what we're seeing play out now is
Speaker 2: something we probably would have seen play out anyway, maybe
Speaker 2: in ten years, five years, whatever, you know, because I
Speaker 2: think this is where global politics has headed. I noticed
Speaker 2: some of you followed closely, right, Yeah, but global politics
Speaker 2: is headed in a place where it's overwhelmingly parties of
Speaker 2: the right, which are increasingly more populous, you represent the
Speaker 2: working class in Europe, in America. You're really seeing this
Speaker 2: in more and more places throughout the world, and it's
Speaker 2: the parties of the left that you know, increasing represent
Speaker 2: the educated class. Trump was in a cellar into this,
Speaker 2: but I think that is the trend for as well,
Speaker 2: so long as until it's not the trend right right, So,
Speaker 2: I think that the wind is at the back of
Speaker 2: sort of more and more minority voters, especially because they're
Speaker 2: kind of the holdouts at this point. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think we are almost resaturation with white, non college white
Speaker 2: working class voters. That you still have a lot of
Speaker 2: low hanging fruit of minority voters who are just conservative
Speaker 2: on policy and their values, who still vote Democrat, and
Speaker 2: so I think the idea is continuing to focus squarely
Speaker 2: on those voters. Yes, I think Trump was uniquely effective,
Speaker 2: you know, but Trump was maybe not as effective in
Speaker 2: some other voting blocks that another candidate would be would
Speaker 2: be as if it would be more effective in so so,
Speaker 2: but I think that that is really identifying, you know,
Speaker 2: who really are the votvoters that pro grabs, Who are
Speaker 2: the voters who are just in the wrong party right now?
Speaker 2: And I think we can continue to just say that
Speaker 2: those are that's who those voters are. So I think
Speaker 2: whether or not you believe, right, you know, people are saying, well,
Speaker 2: this can't realign them. You can't continue forever, right, nobody
Speaker 2: can duplicate this Trump coalition. What I will say, you know,
Speaker 2: regardless of that, right, I mean, yeah, you're right, parties
Speaker 2: can't keep winning forever. But I think what will be
Speaker 2: true is Republicans will now be the home of the
Speaker 2: working class in the same way right that the Democrats
Speaker 2: used to be the home of the working class. And
Speaker 2: I think that's increasingly who they have to represent, who
Speaker 2: they have to wage their campaigns. This is who we're
Speaker 2: doing this for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's the thing that I agree with you. I
Speaker 1: so agree with you. And what frustrates me is when
Speaker 1: I go to Washington and I talk to a member
Speaker 1: of Congress and they're still repeating lines from Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: that make me want a Gauther. Not that I hate
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, but like they're such old, stupid platitudes and
Speaker 1: they're so still in the hands of like dumb Wall
Speaker 1: Street like talking points or think tanks. Right, No, you
Speaker 1: can't touch big tech, you can't regulate anything, you can't
Speaker 1: protect the working class in any which way. And it
Speaker 1: makes me want to scream. And there is that component
Speaker 1: there that kind of still needs to change. What happens
Speaker 1: when the white working class and the interest of the
Speaker 1: white working class and the interests of non whites, like
Speaker 1: they oppose each other on some things like that is
Speaker 1: always what the Democrats kind of built their electric on
Speaker 1: that they're that they're that what brings them together is
Speaker 1: less strong with what what divides them is that is there?
Speaker 1: Does that still exist? Is immigration still that wedge issue
Speaker 1: for Latinos that will like because I mean they did
Speaker 1: vote for the what it for master deportation? Is it
Speaker 1: that they think that they support that now in large
Speaker 1: part or they think he's just not going to do it?
Speaker 2: Well, look, I mean I think you have to take
Speaker 2: it a face style. You're right, I mean that Trump
Speaker 2: made this campaign about immigration away. He didn't even make
Speaker 2: the twenty sixteen campaign about immigration and you think that
Speaker 2: you know the things, the solutions, and the rhetoric at
Speaker 2: least that you know the policy of just simply building
Speaker 2: a wall. I mean that seems quaint right in terms
Speaker 2: of what we're talking about. And you know, he just
Speaker 2: continues to increase to share those you know, vote because
Speaker 2: I think a lot of those dynamics bold. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't expect that, you know, Latina and
Speaker 2: Army of aren't for every single thing, right. I don't
Speaker 2: think every group is gonna be on board for every
Speaker 2: single thing right in moving forward. But I think you
Speaker 2: just have to look at the election results and say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I think this is sufficient. Uh you know,
Speaker 2: let's say sufficient. The shift in the direction of Trump
Speaker 2: in a campaign where he talked about this, I think
Speaker 2: gives him a lot of.
Speaker 1: Latitude, right. I suppose even as illegal immigration has changed
Speaker 1: from being Latino to being a global issue, they also
Speaker 1: may feel less connection to it. And also their second, third,
Speaker 1: fourth generation now too, America.
Speaker 2: Second, your fourth generation you've also had. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: a you know, a mass majority of people here are
Speaker 2: a Mexican. There's very few Mexicans coming over and so Venezuelans.
Speaker 2: But then you absolutely to have people from their Third
Speaker 2: World all over the place just using this, you know,
Speaker 2: using this weakness that we have along the border and
Speaker 2: exploiting it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I loved how Democrats in the media would always
Speaker 1: sit there and say, oh, Trump comes off like a
Speaker 1: strong men. I'm like, yeah, a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of Third world countries have voted for strongmen in the past,
Speaker 1: and their voters don't tend to shy away from that
Speaker 1: just because you say it's a bad thing. Drick. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being honest. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hold you up any longer. Where can people read your
Speaker 1: stuff and read I love, by the way, I love
Speaker 1: your polling. They break this down I think once a
Speaker 1: year or twice a year where they break down the
Speaker 1: different parties within the party you have, like the you have,
Speaker 1: like the populous wing of the GP. How many people
Speaker 1: say they belong to that party or versus the accel
Speaker 1: a corridor version of that party, like the Centrist Party.
Speaker 1: I love a lot of what you guys do. It's
Speaker 1: very creative. Where can everyone get your stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can subscribe you my newsletter which is
Speaker 2: at on substack, but at Patrick Graffini dot com. You
Speaker 2: can also follow me on x at Patrick Graffini and
Speaker 2: by my book Party The People Inside the Multi Racial
Speaker 2: Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Patrick is one of those people who I will
Speaker 1: read and they'll be like, I don't know about that, Patrick,
Speaker 1: and then it will happen. I'm like, well, Patrick is
Speaker 1: right again. So and you've been You've been a stellar, stellar,
Speaker 1: stellar two years as far as really reading the tea
Speaker 1: leaves and telling it like it is, and I like
Speaker 1: it a lot. So thank you again for a thing
Speaker 1: coming on. Thank you all for listening. Check out my
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