I think the biggest open question is how much republican shift is specific to Trump and his ability to turn out non-voters. The trends are stronger when Trump is on the ballot. Of course, can’t assume this is true and Dems still need to figure out how to do better with these voters.
The assumption that Republicans are smarter and more competent than average, is inconsistent with everything else I know and believe about them. I’ve been wondering for a decade why we keep assuming this is true about navigating their ridiculous poll taxes by another name.
Having participated in canvassing in CA and NV in several elections, I developed my own method for getting out the vote. We were provided with good data and if that data showed the household had voted Republican in more than two of the last elections, I left the literature but did not ring the doorbell and reported them as not being home. If the household had not voted, I would ring the doorbell and encourage them to consider the candidate I was canvassing for. If the household had voted for both Democrats and Republicans in recent elections, I would speak to them. I would ask their democratic neighbor if he knew them, if he would encourage them to vote for the candidate we were supporting in the knowledge that he would have greater probability of success than I would as a stranger. The organizers were instructing us to try to flip Republican voters. In my experience, that was the highly likely to be wasted time. For those who were registered as independents, I would ring the talk to them and size up how likely they were to support the candidate I was canvassing for. Based on this appraisal, I would indicate if they were a candidate to follow up with further visits. I was and am inherently uncertain who can be independent in such a polarized society. It would be like trying to walk a loosely strung rope, you will fall off on one side or the other. Further, in engaging these independent voters, would try to appraise if they were truly independent. My concern was that Democrats are not shy about saying how they vote and significantly more Republicans than Democrats hide behind the registration as an Independent. In knocking on thousands of doors, I found everyone cordial and friendly. Was in my 80's and wore my military cap that showed one of the ships on which I had served on in Korea in 1954. In the rich and very rich neighborhoods, it was hard work because of the distance between doors, but the Republican supporters were very laid back and some were interested as to why I was supporting the Democrats. My reply was that not many people who grew up poor on a subsistence farm in a large family were Republicans. They agreed that was probably true.
The big question is whether this inversion is a permanent shift, or solely about Trump personally. I have long believed that Trump has unique appeal to low-information voters because he's authentically one of them, and low-information voters are also low-turnout. I guess we'll find out when he's gone, assuming we still have elections then.
There is a common argument that "voting fraud has been almost unknown, so there's no reason to fix it" but that track record is based on the long-time system that included in-person voting, voter registration, and the voting machine. Now those safeguards are being eroded (particularly by the expansion of paper ballots), so it seems reasonable that that level of performance won't be achieved going forward. I tended to believe that voter fraud theory was all partisan talk until the last governor's race in New York, where 100,000 ballots showed up in the last week out of one part of Central Brooklyn. The pols over there said it was all "base mobilization" and I'm sure it was, but whether it was voters being mobilized or ballots being mobilized is, to me, a reasonable question. Granny getting a ride to the polls to make her own choice, and Granny getting help and advice in filling out her paper ballot from a nice young person who is also a party activist, can produce different results. Machine politicians crave control. The temptation is enormous. And that's a hole in the system.
Good stuff, as usual. You're a political expert, and I'm not, but I'm inclined to disagree with this assertion: "the entire post-2012 leftward pivot of the Democratic Party was based on the theory that this was a good way to mobilize additional voters and therefore win more elections."
Notwithstanding claimed motivations, I think that the left pivot was not based on the belief that it would win more elections, but instead by moral fervor for The Right Thing To Do, or to attract more donations (possibly for self-serving reasons). Perhaps also to help its advocates gain more power within the Democratic Party.
I think that the two ideas were compatible and mutually reinforcing. The fervor fueled the drive to accelerate the arrival of a permanent Democratic majority that many the party believed, thanks to Ruy Teixeira and John Judis, was a demographic inevitability anyway.
As MY writes above, "Unfortunately, turning conventional wisdom around is hard."
"We won that fight, and one thing that made it winnable was that Wisconsin holds its judicial elections on a random Tuesday in April. If Democrats had their Obama-era coalition, it would make sense to try to change stuff like this to happen on normal election days in November. But with Trump now dominating low-propensity voters, holding elections on unusual days helps Democrats. "
I don't care about voter ID requirements since there is little evidence it reduces turnout but I'll be significantly turned off if the Democratic Party starts becoming the party that tries to dramatically reduce turnout by embracing garbage like April or odd year elections.
This suggests we should run a more conventional Democrat against Collins this cycle, since she will face a much more Democratic electorate than she did in 2026.
There are a couple of nuances that Dems might need to consider to effectively operationalize this.
First, are all sources of turnout equally valuable (or, is apathy towards each source of turnout equally non-damaging)? We’re talking about many different things like holding special elections on a random Tuesday in April, strict ID requirements, voter registration drives, stopping the GOP from purging the voter rolls, and more. Do all of these have the same effect on the margin?
Second, what does being seen to support/oppose these factors do to the brand? Maybe all of these measured effects are net of a positive effect from being seen as pro-voter. (Or maybe not!)
Third, what does it do to the party’s culture to change in this way? Will things turn nasty with people openly saying they want to suppress certain voters?
How any sane person thought that you should be able to vote without ID is beyond me. In the context of allowing the least informed people to vote, letting voters who aren't capable of getting any sort of ID seems to be scraping the bottom of the ill-informed voter bucket. Not to mention the opportunity for fraud.
Now that Democrats are the party of the college educated, they are about to start singing another tune.
The democrats can win in 26 and 28 if they stop looking at focus groups and passionately express what they truly believe. The DNC is lost and has no idea what they believe. Do they believe that the killing in Gaza is wrong? Yes. Do they want that to be a talking point in elections? No, they don't want to offend their big donors. Do they believe in increasing immigration safely through immigration reform? Yes. Do they want candidates saying that? No. Do they want responsible gun ownership instead of the wild wild west? Yes. Do they want candidates saying that? No. The only thing the DNC is good for is handing out funds for candidates, they are terrible at establishing a unifying message. If you donate in the next election, give to candidates not to the DNC.
I passionately believe that climate change is a big effing deal that is already causing a lot of suffering and will cause much more, so we must implement a CO2 tax and rebate ASAP along with large-scale government investments in clean energy. I also believe that the way we raise livestock is both horribly cruel and bad for the environment, and government should implement stricter rules for raising and slaughtering animals humanely. Will that make animal products more expensive? Good! Animal products should be an occasional treat on top of a mostly plant-based diet rich in produce, legumes, nuts, and whole grains. It would be better for our health too.
These are all things I sincerely believe. I can haz a Congressional seat now?
I’m the co-founder of a social network that had millions of younger daily active users (no longer there, successful exit!) and we used to do surveys in presidential election years and in 2008 and 2012 did generic “go vote!” messaging... In 2016, our surveys started showing Trump winning. We decided not to encourage voting that year to our users (and hadn't done it since).
If God has any sense of propriety, Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2028. If JD Vance or some other uncharismatic elite figure is running against a fresh-faced anti-establishment Democrat, this dynamic could easily reverse.
I think the main lesson of Matt’s story is to stop fighting the last war: in this case, that means waiting to see how the race shapes up before pre-committing to a narrative about the direction of electoral politics. We have another *checks watch* *sighs* year and a half before the 2028 election is even a gleam in Gavin Newsom’s eye.
>"If God has any sense of propriety, Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2028."
If you think about all the co-incidences that led to where we are...
- Scalia died at exactly the right time to allow Mc Connell to hold a SCOTUS seat open which allowed Christian evangelicals to vote Trump in spite of pussy gate.
- Then RBG died exactly weeks before Trump lost re-election allowing him to create a GOP supermajority SCOTUS.
- DOJ finds Trump stole classified documents but his open and shut case gets randomly assigned to a Trumpist MAGA judge Aileen Cannon in FL who delays and destroys it.
- A shooter attempts to assassinate Trump but instead of the bullet totally missing or succeeding it just barely grazes the ear drawing the smallest amount of blood possible without impairing him in any way.
we have no option but to conclude that we live in a sick timeline in which we are probably f'ked and maybe just haven't realized it yet.
Like I said before: Trump met Old Mr. Scratch at the crossroads by Mar-a-Lago at midnight and sold him his soul in exchange for worldly power. It’s the only explanation in light of everything you described.
Now we need a remake of "Crossroads" (1986), but instead of a young blues guitar-playing prodigy battling a heavy metal rocker in a final musical showdown to rescue the old bluesman's soul from Satan, it's a young real estate developer battling a crypto bro in a leveraged investment showdown to rescue Trump's soul! Or something like that.
The wildcard in all of this is how engaged Trump's voters will be next year. If for health reasons, Trump slows down or is not able to pursue a steady stream of outrage policies, his supporters may be much less engaged and less likely to vote in the mid-terms.
No doubt that if Trump is incapacitated he will still tweet and his staff will still try to keep the click-bait stuff going, but a less educated GOP base is uniquely dependent on culture war outrage and click-bait. Take away some of its salience and it we may find ourselves back at a time when less engaged GOP voters are less likely to vote.
I also think Dems need to assume that states they wrote off in the past may be back in play. The full impact of a lot of Trump's policies have yet to be felt. If you are a Trump supporter and your local hospital is closed and costs are going up everywhere you are going to be pissed off despite your only source of information being your bespoke right-wing social media feeds.
I think the biggest open question is how much republican shift is specific to Trump and his ability to turn out non-voters. The trends are stronger when Trump is on the ballot. Of course, can’t assume this is true and Dems still need to figure out how to do better with these voters.
The assumption that Republicans are smarter and more competent than average, is inconsistent with everything else I know and believe about them. I’ve been wondering for a decade why we keep assuming this is true about navigating their ridiculous poll taxes by another name.
Is this still true in places like Texas with high voter suppression?
Having participated in canvassing in CA and NV in several elections, I developed my own method for getting out the vote. We were provided with good data and if that data showed the household had voted Republican in more than two of the last elections, I left the literature but did not ring the doorbell and reported them as not being home. If the household had not voted, I would ring the doorbell and encourage them to consider the candidate I was canvassing for. If the household had voted for both Democrats and Republicans in recent elections, I would speak to them. I would ask their democratic neighbor if he knew them, if he would encourage them to vote for the candidate we were supporting in the knowledge that he would have greater probability of success than I would as a stranger. The organizers were instructing us to try to flip Republican voters. In my experience, that was the highly likely to be wasted time. For those who were registered as independents, I would ring the talk to them and size up how likely they were to support the candidate I was canvassing for. Based on this appraisal, I would indicate if they were a candidate to follow up with further visits. I was and am inherently uncertain who can be independent in such a polarized society. It would be like trying to walk a loosely strung rope, you will fall off on one side or the other. Further, in engaging these independent voters, would try to appraise if they were truly independent. My concern was that Democrats are not shy about saying how they vote and significantly more Republicans than Democrats hide behind the registration as an Independent. In knocking on thousands of doors, I found everyone cordial and friendly. Was in my 80's and wore my military cap that showed one of the ships on which I had served on in Korea in 1954. In the rich and very rich neighborhoods, it was hard work because of the distance between doors, but the Republican supporters were very laid back and some were interested as to why I was supporting the Democrats. My reply was that not many people who grew up poor on a subsistence farm in a large family were Republicans. They agreed that was probably true.
The big question is whether this inversion is a permanent shift, or solely about Trump personally. I have long believed that Trump has unique appeal to low-information voters because he's authentically one of them, and low-information voters are also low-turnout. I guess we'll find out when he's gone, assuming we still have elections then.
There is a common argument that "voting fraud has been almost unknown, so there's no reason to fix it" but that track record is based on the long-time system that included in-person voting, voter registration, and the voting machine. Now those safeguards are being eroded (particularly by the expansion of paper ballots), so it seems reasonable that that level of performance won't be achieved going forward. I tended to believe that voter fraud theory was all partisan talk until the last governor's race in New York, where 100,000 ballots showed up in the last week out of one part of Central Brooklyn. The pols over there said it was all "base mobilization" and I'm sure it was, but whether it was voters being mobilized or ballots being mobilized is, to me, a reasonable question. Granny getting a ride to the polls to make her own choice, and Granny getting help and advice in filling out her paper ballot from a nice young person who is also a party activist, can produce different results. Machine politicians crave control. The temptation is enormous. And that's a hole in the system.
Good stuff, as usual. You're a political expert, and I'm not, but I'm inclined to disagree with this assertion: "the entire post-2012 leftward pivot of the Democratic Party was based on the theory that this was a good way to mobilize additional voters and therefore win more elections."
Notwithstanding claimed motivations, I think that the left pivot was not based on the belief that it would win more elections, but instead by moral fervor for The Right Thing To Do, or to attract more donations (possibly for self-serving reasons). Perhaps also to help its advocates gain more power within the Democratic Party.
I think that the two ideas were compatible and mutually reinforcing. The fervor fueled the drive to accelerate the arrival of a permanent Democratic majority that many the party believed, thanks to Ruy Teixeira and John Judis, was a demographic inevitability anyway.
As MY writes above, "Unfortunately, turning conventional wisdom around is hard."
"We won that fight, and one thing that made it winnable was that Wisconsin holds its judicial elections on a random Tuesday in April. If Democrats had their Obama-era coalition, it would make sense to try to change stuff like this to happen on normal election days in November. But with Trump now dominating low-propensity voters, holding elections on unusual days helps Democrats. "
I don't care about voter ID requirements since there is little evidence it reduces turnout but I'll be significantly turned off if the Democratic Party starts becoming the party that tries to dramatically reduce turnout by embracing garbage like April or odd year elections.
Is it just all thermostats all the way down (until someone slips a bit of paper between the contacts on the bimetal strip)?
This suggests we should run a more conventional Democrat against Collins this cycle, since she will face a much more Democratic electorate than she did in 2026.
There are a couple of nuances that Dems might need to consider to effectively operationalize this.
First, are all sources of turnout equally valuable (or, is apathy towards each source of turnout equally non-damaging)? We’re talking about many different things like holding special elections on a random Tuesday in April, strict ID requirements, voter registration drives, stopping the GOP from purging the voter rolls, and more. Do all of these have the same effect on the margin?
Second, what does being seen to support/oppose these factors do to the brand? Maybe all of these measured effects are net of a positive effect from being seen as pro-voter. (Or maybe not!)
Third, what does it do to the party’s culture to change in this way? Will things turn nasty with people openly saying they want to suppress certain voters?
How any sane person thought that you should be able to vote without ID is beyond me. In the context of allowing the least informed people to vote, letting voters who aren't capable of getting any sort of ID seems to be scraping the bottom of the ill-informed voter bucket. Not to mention the opportunity for fraud.
Now that Democrats are the party of the college educated, they are about to start singing another tune.
The democrats can win in 26 and 28 if they stop looking at focus groups and passionately express what they truly believe. The DNC is lost and has no idea what they believe. Do they believe that the killing in Gaza is wrong? Yes. Do they want that to be a talking point in elections? No, they don't want to offend their big donors. Do they believe in increasing immigration safely through immigration reform? Yes. Do they want candidates saying that? No. Do they want responsible gun ownership instead of the wild wild west? Yes. Do they want candidates saying that? No. The only thing the DNC is good for is handing out funds for candidates, they are terrible at establishing a unifying message. If you donate in the next election, give to candidates not to the DNC.
I passionately believe that climate change is a big effing deal that is already causing a lot of suffering and will cause much more, so we must implement a CO2 tax and rebate ASAP along with large-scale government investments in clean energy. I also believe that the way we raise livestock is both horribly cruel and bad for the environment, and government should implement stricter rules for raising and slaughtering animals humanely. Will that make animal products more expensive? Good! Animal products should be an occasional treat on top of a mostly plant-based diet rich in produce, legumes, nuts, and whole grains. It would be better for our health too.
These are all things I sincerely believe. I can haz a Congressional seat now?
I’m the co-founder of a social network that had millions of younger daily active users (no longer there, successful exit!) and we used to do surveys in presidential election years and in 2008 and 2012 did generic “go vote!” messaging... In 2016, our surveys started showing Trump winning. We decided not to encourage voting that year to our users (and hadn't done it since).
If God has any sense of propriety, Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2028. If JD Vance or some other uncharismatic elite figure is running against a fresh-faced anti-establishment Democrat, this dynamic could easily reverse.
I think the main lesson of Matt’s story is to stop fighting the last war: in this case, that means waiting to see how the race shapes up before pre-committing to a narrative about the direction of electoral politics. We have another *checks watch* *sighs* year and a half before the 2028 election is even a gleam in Gavin Newsom’s eye.
I love that takeaway: “stop fighting the last war.”
>"If God has any sense of propriety, Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2028."
If you think about all the co-incidences that led to where we are...
- Scalia died at exactly the right time to allow Mc Connell to hold a SCOTUS seat open which allowed Christian evangelicals to vote Trump in spite of pussy gate.
- Then RBG died exactly weeks before Trump lost re-election allowing him to create a GOP supermajority SCOTUS.
- DOJ finds Trump stole classified documents but his open and shut case gets randomly assigned to a Trumpist MAGA judge Aileen Cannon in FL who delays and destroys it.
- A shooter attempts to assassinate Trump but instead of the bullet totally missing or succeeding it just barely grazes the ear drawing the smallest amount of blood possible without impairing him in any way.
we have no option but to conclude that we live in a sick timeline in which we are probably f'ked and maybe just haven't realized it yet.
Like I said before: Trump met Old Mr. Scratch at the crossroads by Mar-a-Lago at midnight and sold him his soul in exchange for worldly power. It’s the only explanation in light of everything you described.
Now we need a remake of "Crossroads" (1986), but instead of a young blues guitar-playing prodigy battling a heavy metal rocker in a final musical showdown to rescue the old bluesman's soul from Satan, it's a young real estate developer battling a crypto bro in a leveraged investment showdown to rescue Trump's soul! Or something like that.
The wildcard in all of this is how engaged Trump's voters will be next year. If for health reasons, Trump slows down or is not able to pursue a steady stream of outrage policies, his supporters may be much less engaged and less likely to vote in the mid-terms.
No doubt that if Trump is incapacitated he will still tweet and his staff will still try to keep the click-bait stuff going, but a less educated GOP base is uniquely dependent on culture war outrage and click-bait. Take away some of its salience and it we may find ourselves back at a time when less engaged GOP voters are less likely to vote.
I also think Dems need to assume that states they wrote off in the past may be back in play. The full impact of a lot of Trump's policies have yet to be felt. If you are a Trump supporter and your local hospital is closed and costs are going up everywhere you are going to be pissed off despite your only source of information being your bespoke right-wing social media feeds.