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the day and see my bandmates. When you see

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going back. We're not going back. We

1:00

are not going back. Okay,

1:05

so new vibes here on the wilderness.

1:08

Our last show was just after the debate that

1:11

has now changed the course of history. With

1:13

just over three months to go in the

1:15

2024 election, President Biden withdrew from the race,

1:18

and Vice President Kamala Harris is now

1:20

the new presumptive Democratic nominee. Biden

1:23

dropping out this close to the election

1:25

is a truly shocking development that has

1:27

no precedent in U.S. history. But

1:31

if you've listened to the show for the last few years, you

1:34

might not have been surprised that it was the

1:36

persistent, widespread concerns about the

1:38

president's age that eventually led him to

1:40

pass the torch. Concerns

1:42

that didn't originate with the media or

1:44

pundits or elected officials, but

1:46

with the voters. Republican and

1:49

Democratic voters of every age, race,

1:51

and background, especially people

1:53

who haven't decided who they're voting for

1:55

or whether they'll vote at all. This

1:58

was true of the voters we heard from before.

2:00

Before the midterms last season, it's been true this

2:02

season. And it's why listening

2:04

to the kind of voters who will decide this

2:06

election is so valuable and important. Because

2:09

we can't persuade people without first meeting them

2:11

where they are and hearing what's on

2:13

their minds. So

2:15

that's what we're gonna keep doing for the rest of the season. Only

2:18

now, we'll be focused on what it will

2:20

take to persuade enough people to make Kamala

2:22

Harris the next president of the United States.

2:25

The race is still extremely close, and

2:28

the VP starts as a bit of an underdog. Though

2:30

she's already in a stronger position to

2:33

defeat Trump than Biden was, especially after

2:35

the debate. The

2:37

impressions voters have of her also aren't as

2:39

hardened as they are with Biden or Trump.

2:42

And so the race between the Harris campaign and

2:44

the Trump campaign to define the VP in the

2:46

last hundred days of the election is

2:48

on. One

2:50

person who's been frantically talking to more swing voters

2:53

than just about anyone over the course of the

2:55

last week is our friend, Sarah

2:57

Longwell, the never Trump publisher of the bulwark

2:59

and host of the focus group podcast. We

3:02

asked Sarah to come back and talk about what voters

3:04

think of our new democratic nominee and

3:07

what we can all say to persuade the

3:09

persuadables in our lives to vote for Kamala

3:11

Harris. Let's get into it.

3:14

I'm Jon Favreau, welcome to the

3:17

wilderness. Sarah,

3:23

welcome back to the wilderness. Oh,

3:25

I'm so glad to be here, can't wait, let's talk. Safe

3:27

to say quite a bit has changed in the eight weeks

3:29

since we last spoke on this pod. Wanted to

3:31

have you on again, because I know you've been

3:33

doing a lot of focus groups with persuadable voters, especially

3:36

since the debate. And I've heard a lot about the

3:38

new presumptive democratic nominee, Vice

3:40

President Kamala Harris. What

3:42

groups of voters have you guys talked to

3:44

recently? And how many groups have

3:46

you done since Biden dropped out and endorsed

3:48

Harris? Okay, great question. So

3:50

after the debate, I'll start there. We like

3:53

went on a focus grouping tear and

3:56

I really wanted to dig in with both swing voters then, but also

3:58

with black voters. And so we did a lot of work. of

4:00

black voter groups, especially we did two

4:02

groups of black voting women, because I

4:04

was really trying to understand both what

4:07

was the fear around if

4:09

Joe Biden dropped out, like we'd have the

4:11

first female black president. And so what was

4:13

the resistance to that? Because the campaign was really

4:15

leaning on this idea that black voters were

4:17

with him. And I did a lot of

4:19

swing voters because that's who I tend to

4:21

talk to a lot of the Trump 2016 to

4:23

Joe Biden 2020 voters. And then since

4:27

Harris got in, we've also been trying to get as

4:29

many in as possible. I think we've done four.

4:32

Okay, that's a lot. And all swing

4:34

voter groups. And yeah, that's what

4:37

we got. So before we get to Harris,

4:39

in general, how did people feel about

4:42

Biden post debate? Did any of them think

4:44

that the media coverage was overblown? Did any

4:46

of them think he should stay? What were

4:48

the vibes like in July? So the

4:50

two different groups, the swing voter groups have

4:53

been down on

4:55

Biden now for months

4:57

and years. I mean, I don't know when the

4:59

last time we talked, but I never thought Biden

5:02

should run again. And I didn't think Biden should

5:04

run again, because I've been listening to voters in

5:06

these focus groups for so long. And I was

5:08

seeing a ton of backsliding. So and by a

5:10

ton, look, when you have roughly half the group,

5:13

or even three or four people in a group

5:15

of eight, who had gone from Trump, voted

5:17

for Biden, and now say they were going back to

5:19

Trump, almost entirely because of Joe

5:21

Biden's age, something he was not going to

5:23

be able to change, a little bit of

5:26

economy thrown in there, but they were just

5:28

down on Biden. And so now I would

5:30

say, after the debate, it got much, much

5:32

more catastrophic in the language. And people were

5:34

mean, they would say things like he's an

5:36

animatronic waxwork, they forgot to wind up, they

5:38

would call him a corpse. And they would

5:40

talk about how desperate they were over the

5:43

choice. It was like an insurrectionist versus somebody

5:45

who's not even there. And so

5:47

I would say there is a level

5:49

of excitement over this

5:51

change, even from swing boaters who

5:53

aren't there yet on Kamala. They're

5:55

still so happy about it. That's

5:58

interesting. They're glad that Biden- stuff.

6:00

But you know, we all got ourselves in trouble.

6:02

We are the podcasters. But I really think they

6:04

met you. But like, we were among

6:06

the podcasters who were like, he's got to step

6:08

down. And a lot of it was because of

6:10

what I was hearing from these voters

6:12

who they're the double haters, right? And Joe Biden

6:15

had to turn it around with them. He had

6:17

to. And when he failed to do it, and

6:19

it just got worse, there was no path. But

6:21

then let me just talk about the black voters

6:23

quickly. Because I thought the black voters were super

6:26

interesting in that we were hearing from people that

6:28

black voters under no circumstances wanted Joe Biden

6:30

to step down. That's not really

6:32

what we heard. All the swing voters wanted him

6:34

to step down, all of them. In the black

6:36

voting groups, there was a lot

6:39

of fear about what was coming

6:41

for Kamala if it was her. And there was

6:43

some sort of loyalty. But for the black voters,

6:45

we're just like, I don't know, it feels better

6:47

to have an old white guy because if it's

6:49

Kamala, like they're going to tear her apart, they're

6:51

going to be offered her. And you could see

6:54

the fear, like how much they

6:56

were going to feel it when they

6:58

came for Kamala. Yeah. I think we

7:00

have a clip from one of those

7:02

groups of black voters that you did

7:04

before the handoff. So let's listen. We

7:06

saw what happened to Clinton. And

7:09

this time it's a black woman. So now we throw

7:11

something else on top of it. I don't see that

7:13

going well. And honestly, just black woman,

7:15

it's a black woman I feel for her. Even

7:17

President Barack Obama, like he's a

7:19

man. And he,

7:22

it was horrible. Like people's reactions

7:24

to him winning, it was horrible.

7:27

And then as people mentioned already, Hillary

7:30

Clinton, like if we were going to do

7:32

a woman, it would have to be a

7:34

white woman first. So

7:36

this was a group of black voters you

7:39

talked to a few weeks ago who supported

7:41

Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in

7:43

2020. So these are like strong Biden,

7:45

now maybe Harris voters. Were

7:48

those views indicative of what other groups

7:50

said about Harris? Like what are some

7:53

other impressions voters have about Harris that

7:55

they had sort of before the handoff?

7:58

So the black voting group was pretty specific. especially

8:00

the women, the two groups of women, black

8:02

voters, because for them it clearly felt very

8:05

personal. A lot of them talked about how

8:07

black men that they knew didn't

8:09

like Kamala Harris. And I honestly, I

8:11

remember feeling really sad after those groups,

8:13

just listening to how much these women

8:16

felt like it had to be Biden because they

8:19

were like, America's just not gonna elect a black

8:21

woman. I mean, you heard them say it and

8:23

they were like, look, if we're gonna go beat

8:25

Trump, we need sort of like the straightest, whitest,

8:27

and somebody was using the phrase Superman, I

8:30

felt sad that people felt so

8:33

certain that America would be so against a

8:35

woman or a black woman. Like, it didn't

8:37

even seem to be specific to Kamala. It

8:39

was just about America and what America would

8:41

and would not accept. But what's been interesting

8:44

to me is how I think

8:46

excitement can be really contagious, right? People were being

8:49

dominated by a lot of fear in those weeks.

8:51

People were so nervous. And you can see now

8:53

that once it was Kamala, and once she showed

8:55

up, you could just see how when somebody is

8:58

showing up, right? And they're

9:00

going on offense. People are like, you know what? I'm

9:02

ready to rock. I'm ready to rock with you. And

9:04

like, I bet if we go back to those black

9:06

women groups and ask them again, I bet right now,

9:08

I bet they're doing calls for Kamala. You know, they're

9:11

ready to go. Cause certainly that's, I

9:13

think broadly what is happening. I don't know about that

9:15

specific group. I think they would still probably be like,

9:17

you know, I'm nervous about how this is gonna

9:19

go. And they're calling her, you know, a DEI

9:22

president. But I think that instead of the fear

9:24

that they felt then, now they would feel ready

9:26

to go on offense with her. So

9:29

we dealt with something similar way back in 2007

9:32

with Barack Obama, and that like

9:35

his numbers with black voters weren't

9:37

that great. And in some polls early on, they

9:39

were worse than Hillary's. And

9:42

the reason is because there was this

9:44

fear that he wasn't gonna be

9:47

able to win. And it wasn't until he

9:49

wins the Iowa caucuses and

9:52

a bunch of white people came out in caucus forum that

9:54

suddenly the enthusiasm and excitement among black voters

9:57

was like, okay, maybe we can do this,

9:59

like still. had this fear, right? But

10:01

like, this feels good. I think we

10:03

could do this. And so like, it's

10:05

something similar happening now. She of course

10:08

has the added challenge of sexism in

10:10

addition to latent racism as well. So

10:12

that's tougher. What are some other impressions

10:14

of Kamala Harris been with the

10:17

swing voters you've spoken to? Yeah,

10:19

so the number one thing you hear about Kamala

10:21

Harris is the idea that people just they're like,

10:23

I don't see her. What does she even do?

10:25

Like, I don't know anything about her. There's this

10:27

sense of, I don't know, maybe I thought she

10:29

was going to be okay. And

10:31

then I never saw her again once she

10:34

became the vice president. So that creates for

10:36

them sort of a negative impression. It's not

10:38

a locked in anti-Kamala. It's

10:40

just a negative impression. And then there's

10:42

like a step up above that's more

10:44

committed that is like, she didn't do

10:46

anything about the border. You know, she

10:48

was supposed to do X, Y, or

10:51

Z, but she has done nothing. Now,

10:53

I just haven't seen her. I don't know

10:56

much about her. It was so pervasive though,

10:58

that I think for a long

11:00

time I was like, look, voters don't like Kamala Harris.

11:02

But when we had to sort of face the choice

11:05

of Biden stepping down and understanding that like the

11:07

idea of an open convention is going to get

11:09

tough and whatever. And you started thinking about Kamala

11:12

and I started listening to the voters almost with

11:14

sometimes you put different ears on, you know, because

11:16

the world changes and you're like, I want to

11:18

think really hard about what they're saying about Kamala

11:20

right now. And I just thought, actually,

11:23

there's a lot of upside here. Most

11:25

people aren't saying they hate her. Most

11:27

people aren't saying, yeah, she did

11:29

this or that that makes them mad.

11:31

They have this like loose impression out

11:33

of mostly out of an absence of

11:35

something, which means she could reintroduce herself

11:38

to the country. She has a chance

11:40

here to redefine herself with these people

11:42

because some people have a committed negative

11:44

impression, but most people just have like

11:46

an absent negative impression. So

11:48

in the groups that you've done

11:51

this week since Harris has become

11:53

the presumptive nominee, are these mostly

11:55

Trump to Biden swing voters mixed

11:58

races as well? Yes. They

12:00

are mixed race. So most of the

12:02

groups are mixed race often. We just

12:04

wanted to do very specific groups of

12:07

black voters after the debate because there

12:09

was that specific conversation happening. Yeah, yeah.

12:11

Here's what I would say about the swing voters

12:14

right now. They're nervous, like they're catching up. They

12:16

are not terminally online like the rest of us.

12:18

And so we're moving at the speed of light

12:20

of things and they're still being like, whoa,

12:24

this happened. Biden stepped down. Kamala,

12:27

is she gonna be the nominee? They're still kind

12:29

of like, will it be her? They

12:32

heard so much about open conventions. But here's the things that

12:34

I would say, the few things that

12:36

I'm hearing thematically. One is

12:38

for people who are negative, I would say

12:40

one of the most negative things we're hearing

12:42

is the idea that there wasn't some form

12:44

of a primary. I was gonna ask, yeah.

12:47

There's this sense of like, well, the

12:49

donors got to pick and our Democrats

12:51

picked and that doesn't feel fair. We've

12:53

heard that from some people. Then

12:55

there's, we hear a lot more of the, I

12:58

don't know her, I don't know that much

13:00

about her, but I'm gonna go find out.

13:02

Like I'm interested to learn, I'd like to

13:04

know more. And it's funny in

13:06

the groups, they really are still double haters.

13:08

And so they do still hate Trump. So

13:10

they're sort of looking for a

13:12

reason to like her in a way that they weren't

13:14

before. This is sort of what I mean about new

13:17

ears in the way that the context changes, where

13:19

a bunch of people who kind of had this negative

13:21

impression of her go, okay, show

13:24

me what you got. I'm open now. I'm open for

13:26

business. I'm ready to hear your pitch. And you could

13:29

hear some of the people say like, I didn't know

13:31

that much about her, but I assume

13:33

she'll be good on abortion. And let

13:35

me just tell you the other thing that's happening with the

13:37

swing voters is it is happening at the same time that

13:39

the JD Vance stuff is happening. And

13:41

the JD Vance stuff, it

13:43

is creating a whole new

13:45

layer of contrast, especially for

13:47

women. And so suddenly she's

13:49

also getting a new look

13:51

in that context. Is

13:53

the childless cat lady thing popping up in

13:55

any group? It is, it

13:58

is. And it's less the cat lady and more. just,

14:00

um, it's like less specifically that like the couch

14:02

things, not permeating specifically either, but this is what

14:04

happens when those kinds of mean things get going.

14:07

Here's what people take away. It's less

14:09

cat lady and more. I

14:11

don't think he likes women. I think he's crazy

14:13

on abortion. I think he seems weird. And I'll

14:15

tell you, we did so many groups in 2022,

14:19

both for Vance and on

14:21

Blake masters. And back then, I remember

14:24

how much I thought JD Vance, the way

14:26

that people talked about JD Vance and the

14:28

way people talked about Blake masters was so

14:30

similar. They just think they're weird. And

14:33

JD Vance is getting that now too, where people

14:35

are like, I don't know, this

14:37

guy sucks. I just think

14:39

he's kind of a weird, his weird opinions about, oh,

14:41

and he's extreme on abortion. Like that's what's bringing you

14:44

in because of the flip flopping

14:46

on Trump. It's not so much

14:48

that they care one way or the other,

14:50

what he said before. It's just that it's

14:52

the act of this person must not have

14:54

any core because

14:56

he said all these things. It wasn't like he

14:58

said, I didn't want to vote for him. He

15:01

was like, no, he's America's Hitler. Now

15:03

I'm his vice president. It's a big flip flop. Like

15:05

for people, that's not like an evolution.

15:07

It's just like a really big swing

15:09

for folks. Hey

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at joindhl.com. You

16:35

mentioned that some people were concerned about

16:37

the process that led to Harris. Did

16:39

anyone suggest that

16:41

there were other nominees they were hoping for? Did they

16:43

throw out other candidate names or were they just sort

16:45

of like, eh, how did we get here? No,

16:48

you know, we were asking a lot

16:50

about names in the intervening weeks between

16:53

the debate and when Biden ultimately stepped

16:55

down. And now we've been asking about

16:57

VPs. If you are in

16:59

Pennsylvania, people say Shapiro. We've

17:01

been disproportionately talking to swing state voters. So

17:04

if you are in Pennsylvania, they say Shapiro.

17:06

If you are in Arizona, or if they're

17:08

an Arizona voter, they

17:10

say Astronaut Man. Mark

17:13

Kelly. If they're

17:15

in Michigan, they say Whitmer. And if you're

17:17

in Arizona, you don't know who Josh Shapiro

17:19

is, and vice versa on these

17:21

folks. And so it wasn't that they had,

17:23

I think the only name actually that ever

17:25

sort of comes up organically really is

17:28

Michelle Obama, like where they put it forward because

17:30

she comes up all the time. I swear to

17:32

God, if Michelle Obama wanted to save democracy right

17:34

now, I know. And when people say like a

17:36

black woman can win, I'm telling you, Michelle Obama run

17:38

in the tables. I hear her name

17:41

so often. But the people that come up

17:43

organically where people do have some name ID,

17:45

the main things they knew about Whitmer was the

17:47

kidnapping plot. That did a lot for her with

17:49

swing voters. People are like,

17:51

that's cool. You know, she got someone tried

17:53

to kidnap her. Newsome does come out.

17:55

He's got more name ID than a lot of

17:57

Democrats, I think, because he does like the Fox.

17:59

news hits, he did the debate, people know who

18:01

he is, and Pete, people know

18:04

Pete a little bit and then they immediately

18:06

tell you that America will never vote for

18:08

a gay candidate. So like

18:10

the voters are so funny because they all do armchair

18:14

punditry when you start

18:16

asking them about politics. And one of

18:18

the things they're very clear on is

18:20

they think that America is a deeply

18:22

sexist, deeply racist, deeply homophobic place that

18:24

will not elect these people. I happen

18:27

to think that people are not nearly

18:29

as racist, sexist, and homophobic

18:31

as the other people's

18:33

impressions of them are, but

18:36

you know. Yeah, I think the election

18:38

of Trump probably did that for a lot of

18:40

people, right? Because people were like, how did this

18:42

guy get elected? Yeah. So

18:45

let's talk about their views of now

18:47

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, not just Vice

18:49

President Kamala Harris. A

18:51

big question has been whether the online

18:53

youthful enthusiasm for Kamala Harris is reaching

18:56

beyond a very online audience. You talked

18:58

to one group of Trump Biden swing

19:00

voters that suggests maybe it is. Let's

19:03

listen. It seems like

19:05

the younger generation, they are more likely

19:07

to vote for Harris over

19:09

Biden. That's just a

19:11

vibe that I get based on what's being posted

19:13

online and based on what's being shared on social

19:15

media. I just feel like it'll be like a breath

19:18

of fresh air. I feel like it'll

19:20

be like a new beginning instead of feeling

19:22

like you're watching a rerun because Trump has

19:24

already been in office. You know what I'm

19:26

saying? So we already know how that went.

19:28

She's quick-witted. She's funny. She has a personality.

19:31

Obviously, being a female, there

19:33

are people out there that don't want to vote for a female president.

19:36

I think those same people are ones that would

19:38

not vote for Biden either. They

19:41

sound like focus group podcast wilderness

19:43

listeners. Talk about the punditry. They're

19:45

just like diving into crosstabs. What

19:49

other sort of positive things did you hear about

19:51

Harris? I have to say, when I heard someone

19:53

say Trump is watching a rerun, I'm like,

19:56

they should use that. That's good. Yeah.

19:59

Well, it's the next step. We never go back. We're not going back, right?

20:01

I mean, I do think that's sort of implicit. I

20:03

think, look, I'll just, this is a little bit of

20:05

a side thing, but I'm pretty impressed with the out

20:07

of the gate Harris campaign. Yeah.

20:09

I think that not going

20:12

back is a good, strong message for, we

20:14

don't want Trump again. And it's interesting, actually,

20:16

because it is one of the things that

20:18

Trump voters say when they want to say

20:20

how, like, they're not going back to the

20:23

other Republican party. But

20:25

it is a deep psychological interest in

20:27

moving forward and living a life forward

20:30

that I think they're tapping into that

20:32

voters like. And obviously Trump is the

20:34

backward looking. But the main thing is

20:37

that when they say breath

20:39

of fresh air, and so they were

20:41

super, that person was being very positive

20:43

about, and we are hearing positive things

20:45

from in the focus groups. So like,

20:47

let me just go back, because a lot of it

20:49

is me comparing the focus groups from before to the

20:51

focus groups we're doing now. So like I was saying,

20:54

there was a ton of backsliding. They were filled with

20:56

double haters. People were mad about their choices. And

20:58

now you still get a little bit

21:00

of backsliding. You still get a bunch of some

21:02

people being like, well, I think I'm going to

21:04

vote for Trump because I've been unhappy about the

21:06

economy or whatever. But they're also

21:09

saying, but I'm open. Like, tell

21:11

me more, because they don't love

21:13

Trump, these ones. And so we're

21:15

seeing much less backsliding now. And we're

21:17

also seeing people who are affirmatively excited.

21:19

And then we're seeing kind of a

21:21

middle group that's like, tell

21:24

me more. I'm here to be interested. We

21:26

do do head to heads. And the head to

21:28

heads, where we basically are like, elections

21:31

tomorrow, I demand you vote for us.

21:34

And I think it's been

21:36

like seven to one. And

21:39

so that is much better than the sort

21:42

of six to three, four, four that

21:45

we were seeing a lot of in the sort

21:47

of three weeks after the debate. We

21:50

have a clip of some of the voters

21:52

you talked to who are just expressed some

21:54

of that concern and worry that the country

21:56

would elect its first black

21:58

woman president. Let's listen. Obama's wife.

22:01

I mean, at least she did some

22:03

things. I mean, this is his wife.

22:05

At least she was visible. And I

22:08

can't, I can't say anything. I forgot that she

22:10

was the vice president for a while. I

22:13

just don't know her well enough. The

22:15

positive part is, I assume, for

22:17

being a woman, she's going to be looking

22:19

out for women's rights. She's not going to

22:22

be throwing women on the bus, trying to

22:24

put us, you know, stuck at home, cooking

22:26

and cleaning. I don't know. Like,

22:28

y'all talk about the 2025 project. I'm like, oh man, that

22:30

sounds like we're left headed.

22:33

What's your take on how

22:35

race and gender factor into the

22:38

challenge she's facing with the

22:40

voters she needs? And like,

22:43

how do you think she should handle that? So

22:45

the theory of the case around electing Biden, which,

22:48

you know, I run Republican voters against Trump and

22:50

so I was very invested in, all right, who

22:52

are the voters we need to move? There's there

22:54

with Biden. The reason that the blue

22:56

wall states were, we all

22:59

felt like this is ultimately gettable is because

23:01

Biden was still doing well with old white

23:03

people. And in Michigan,

23:05

Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and Nebraska too, there's a

23:07

lot of old white people. That's the question.

23:10

The question is like sort of

23:12

college educated suburban white people, Kamala with

23:14

a Kelly or a Shapiro or Ed

23:16

Beshear. Give me any of them. Yeah.

23:19

Any white boy summer. White boy summer.

23:21

Yeah. Any of them. Fine. I

23:23

think that it's these older folks who

23:25

a lot of them, like they

23:27

just don't like Trump because Trump, he tried to

23:29

coup and that's not what they don't like the

23:32

January 6th. They don't like that he's a jerk.

23:34

You know, there's a section of them. I

23:37

haven't dug in enough to know how much

23:39

work you have to do to get those

23:41

voters there. And if they're simply anti-Trump enough

23:43

that they would say yes, because

23:45

those aren't the ones that are always

23:47

like change. They're just more like someone

23:50

normal. You know, they're not the big change

23:52

agents. In fact, change freaks them out a

23:54

little bit. And so those are the voters

23:56

I'm most worried about now. That

23:59

being said, I think that she's

24:01

so far. And those

24:03

are the ones who are also like a

24:05

lady president, a black lady president, or like,

24:07

and, Yeah. You don't say your

24:09

pronouns to those old people. They do not, I don't think

24:11

you should say your pronouns, period. I do not think that

24:13

is helpful when you are trying to win an election. She

24:16

should take her pronouns off of anything she's doing right now.

24:19

I got that text from your colleague Tim Miller too.

24:21

He's like, she's got the pronouns in the Twitter bio.

24:23

What can we do about that? What

24:25

can we do about that? Are they out? It's the Democratic Party.

24:27

We're not doing anything about that. Did somebody take them out? They

24:29

should take them out. I know. These are the old people who

24:31

think that, you know, their kids are

24:34

peeing in litter boxes because they identify as

24:36

cats in schools or something. You got to

24:38

deal with that. So anyway,

24:40

I think here's the thing though. I do think

24:44

we overestimate how sexist and racist a

24:49

lot of these voters are. They can get excited.

24:51

They will be much more concerned about

24:53

the San Francisco progressive of it all

24:56

than the black woman of it all.

24:58

Because if she shows them that she's

25:00

tough, that she could prosecute a case

25:02

against Donald Trump and that she's not

25:05

coming for their fracking or their, and

25:07

she might be, but you

25:09

know, if she's not going to leave the border wide

25:11

open, like if she could sort of convince those people

25:13

of that, and I think that's obviously the tension for

25:15

any Democrat who runs right now, but this is where

25:17

I feel like she could have it. I feel like

25:19

they're in desperation of the Democratic base to

25:22

have her do well. Like people are

25:24

pulling for her. And I feel like

25:26

she could get some latitude on a

25:28

few policy issues, maybe not Gaza, but

25:31

on maybe on some energy independence, run

25:33

on kitchen table issues, talk about the

25:35

economy, that she wants to be there

25:37

for everybody, where Trump's there for himself.

25:40

I think you could start to get there with those people. Well,

25:43

I totally agree. And I think she

25:45

will have wide latitude. And I think

25:47

she will have very

25:49

few qualms about positioning herself that

25:52

way. I do wonder

25:54

about what she says with regard to

25:56

some of the positions she has taken

25:58

in the past, especially during the- the

26:00

2020 primary where they all went a little nuts.

26:04

There's a Dave McCormick, who's the Senate candidate

26:06

in Pennsylvania, Republican Senate candidate, ran an ad

26:08

about all the progressive positions she took. Trump

26:10

did a similar riff in his rally this

26:12

week, and he's starting to do ads about

26:14

this. Let's listen. I am

26:16

prepared to get rid of the filibuster to

26:19

pass a green reveal. Abolish ICE. Yeah, is

26:21

that a position you agree with? We need

26:23

to probably think about starting from scratch. Outdated,

26:25

it is wrong-headed thinking to think that the

26:27

only way you're going to get communities to

26:29

be safe is to put more police officers

26:32

on the street. So for people out there

26:34

who like their insurance, they

26:36

don't get to keep it? Let's eliminate all of that. Let's

26:38

move on. I am opposed to

26:40

any policy that would deny

26:42

any human being public health,

26:44

period. The more people get to

26:47

know her, they're going to be particularly impressed

26:49

by her ability. We

26:51

did it. We did it, Joe. Every

26:54

one of those policy positions was a

26:56

dagger through my centrist-loving heart. Look,

27:00

I remember, and I'm a

27:02

big lib, but I remember during

27:04

the primary when they asked the

27:06

question about decriminalizing border crossings, and

27:08

they all raised their hands. And I was like,

27:11

this is not a good position to take. No.

27:14

No. I don't

27:16

think this is what we want here to

27:18

decriminalize illegal border crossings. But what do you

27:20

think she can get away with here? Does

27:23

she just take a mulligan on everything

27:25

she said in the 2020 campaign? Or

27:28

does she say, let me

27:30

tell you what I've done the last four years with Joe Biden, who

27:32

is my partner, and when I was actually in the

27:34

White House and when we've been governing. This is how

27:36

we've governed. I don't know what she says. Here's

27:38

what I would say. I would say, well, first of all, just

27:40

as a broad thought, I

27:43

think that if JD Vance is allowed to go

27:45

from calling Trump heroin for the masses and

27:49

saying that Trump's a sociopath and America's Hitler to being

27:51

his vice president, I think people get to change their

27:53

minds on some things. That's one. I

27:55

think there's actually an easy way to deal with a lot of

27:57

this. Say, I've been vice president for the last three years. And

28:00

I've learned a lot doing that. I

28:02

have seen what it means to govern,

28:04

not in California, but for this entire

28:06

country. And you know what I did?

28:08

I sat there with Joe Biden as we passed

28:10

a bipartisan infrastructure bill. I sat

28:13

there as we passed like, you know, the biggest

28:15

climate change legislation, but also by the way, we're

28:17

producing more energy than we ever have before. That's

28:20

right. And on immigration, border

28:22

crossings are now at their lowest level than

28:24

they were when Donald Trump was last in

28:26

office. And you know what? I

28:28

believe that we need secure borders. Like I do think

28:31

she's got to do some of that. And I will,

28:33

you know, if she can do that, and

28:35

this is where I think the party's got to give her the latitude

28:37

to do that. I believe that the

28:39

American people, they can run that out a lot

28:41

and it's going to hurt her. And frankly, they've

28:44

got to get up on TV as fast

28:46

as humanly possible with the new rebrand of

28:48

her. But the American people are like, I

28:51

get learning and especially

28:53

learning and changing one's mind. They can do

28:55

that. Yeah, I kind of have

28:57

that same suspicion. Hey

29:04

there, I'm Brad. I'm about to win the

29:06

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29:08

highway worker for the Ohio Department of Transportation.

29:10

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29:12

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29:14

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joindhl.com. You

30:23

mentioned them getting up on the air. If they do get up on

30:25

the air, like they have a lot of choices here, obviously they're going

30:27

to have to push back on some of

30:29

these negative ads or at least do so on

30:31

their own terms. What do you think voters would

30:33

like to hear from her or

30:36

know about her in this period where

30:38

she's trying to define herself? Yeah.

30:40

So I would say, if I were running this campaign,

30:42

I would have her say a lot of nice things

30:44

about America. Donald Trump right

30:46

now says just garbage about

30:49

America all the time. It's a dark place.

30:51

It's a bad place. And I

30:53

think that people right now want a hopeful message.

30:55

I think you could do a little

30:57

bit of Obama here, but very future oriented. But

30:59

America is a great place because people are going

31:01

to try to paint her. I should have said

31:03

this during the sort of, what do you hear

31:05

about race and gender? I'm not necessarily hearing this

31:07

in the focus groups, but I know what Republicans

31:10

are going to do. This

31:12

DEI president stuff is real. It's going

31:14

to work with a certain kind of

31:16

person. More on the grounds of it's

31:18

going to tag into the she didn't earn it,

31:20

right? She just got this handed to her from

31:22

Joe Biden. So I think that she

31:25

has to show people

31:27

a sense of like, I'm

31:29

an American and I love this country. Like this

31:32

country gave me a lot. I am good with

31:34

this country, you know, because people, they're going to

31:36

try to paint her as something

31:38

outside. This is why the Obama birth certificate was

31:40

a thing, right? They will take anybody who is

31:42

of color or any other difference and they will

31:45

try to paint it as outside the mainstream and

31:47

somewhere outside in a way that people can't connect

31:49

to. It's to connect to

31:51

them on the things that they can feel

31:53

happy and good about, which is like, and

31:56

Joe Biden was good at this. Joe Biden,

31:58

even in his, in his speech saying. goodbye

32:00

last night. I had my quibbles with it,

32:02

but the way he talks about America is

32:05

the way I feel about America. And one

32:07

of the reasons that I struggled, actually, one

32:09

of the reasons I was a Republican is

32:11

I felt like Democrats were down on America

32:14

and they would say be negative about America.

32:16

But now Trump's the one talking negatively about

32:18

America. And so like, I think she can

32:20

own America if she tries, like broad messaging.

32:22

I mean, you know, the 21

32:25

year old me listening to the Barack

32:27

Obama's 2004 convention speech, my first impression of

32:29

it was like, Oh, a

32:32

Democrat who's talking about patriotism

32:34

and loving America. But it's not just like

32:36

the airbrush patriotism of like, I like the

32:38

flag too. It's like, literally, my name is

32:40

Brock Hussein Obama. My father was born in

32:43

Kenya. But like somehow that's what this country

32:45

is all about, that someone like me can

32:47

be included here, you know? And I do

32:49

think that that she's going to

32:51

have a moment, I think probably at the top

32:54

of that convention speech where she reintroduces herself to

32:56

the country where it's going to be like very

32:58

important that she does exactly what you're saying. Yeah.

33:02

Well, that's my play. That's my pitch. Yeah, no,

33:04

I agree. So she has also had some

33:06

big decisions to make around how she talks

33:08

about Trump and how much she talks about

33:10

Trump. So far, she has a riff that

33:12

compares her track record as a prosecutor with

33:14

his track record as a criminal. She talks

33:16

about how Trump would bring chaos, fear and

33:18

hate. She talks about Project 2025. Based on

33:20

your conversations with voters, what

33:22

messages about Trump do you think at

33:24

this point have the potential to move

33:26

voters? And how much should she make

33:29

the election a referendum on

33:31

Trump versus like she's

33:34

got to do more work than Biden, obviously,

33:36

to introduce herself, her views, her plans? So

33:39

what I see her doing and what I hope

33:41

she will do is help

33:43

to introduce herself and define herself as she

33:45

is defining Trump. Because a lot of what

33:47

people have wanted, I don't always love this

33:49

in people, but I do hear it from

33:52

voters all the time, is they

33:54

want a fighter. They want someone who is prosecuting

33:56

a case against Trump and they want somebody

33:58

tough. And one of the since people

34:00

often are down on women as candidates,

34:03

is that they don't think they're gonna

34:05

be tough enough. They're worried about how

34:07

they'll deal with world leaders. And Donald

34:09

Trump gets high marks for being decisive,

34:12

looking strong leadership, and that's because people

34:14

are confusing sort of the strong man

34:16

authoritarian stuff with leadership, but I

34:19

think that if she goes at

34:21

him in a way that feels, and

34:24

she's been doing this so far, so you can see it

34:26

when she's doing it. Right now, for example, I

34:28

just saw a clip of her saying, I'm

34:31

ready to debate, he's trying to backpedal,

34:33

let's debate, let's do it anytime, anywhere.

34:35

Yes, like that, right? It is about

34:37

sort of showing, I am not scared

34:39

of this man one bit, but there

34:41

is a grievance victim thing, and

34:43

like the out to get Trump thing, there's

34:46

a way where you can sort of tip into what

34:49

people tag as like kind of Trump derangement

34:51

syndrome, and you get there by

34:53

talking about Trump too much, right?

34:55

So this is the point you were just making, where she has got

34:57

to find a way to be prosecuting a

35:00

case against Trump, but not

35:02

always on just behavior,

35:04

he's immoral or democracy. It also has

35:06

to be on, and I just saw

35:08

something to this effect, right? The not

35:10

looking back, how he mishandled

35:12

COVID and drove the economy into the ditch,

35:15

how he doesn't care about middle class people,

35:17

like how he does tax cuts for the

35:19

rich, like you can't just prosecute the case

35:21

on sort of democracy and he's a bad

35:24

guy, you have to tie it into policies

35:26

that she can contrast with. Yeah, she

35:28

can't look like another one of

35:30

those prosecutors that's just out to get Donald

35:32

Trump, for whatever reason, because that's like

35:35

a resistency thing that she could

35:37

tip into if she's not careful. Alvin

35:39

Bragg and Letitia James and

35:41

like- Jack Smith, yeah. Yeah,

35:44

that's right. And she made this pivot

35:46

in the first speech where she did the comparing the records,

35:48

and she goes, but this is about so much more than

35:50

me and Donald Trump. She's got to

35:52

keep making that pivot to people, I think. That's

35:55

right, and she's doing it well. How

35:57

are the voters you've talked to in the last week feeling about

35:59

Trump? Did you- Do you detect any newfound admiration

36:01

for him after the assassination attempt? No.

36:04

Wow. This was, so in

36:07

the swing voters, again, so I'm talking about swing voters,

36:10

it's actually been pretty bad for him.

36:12

A lot of conspiracies. Oh God. They

36:15

think so little of him that there's a lot

36:17

of like, I don't know about this,

36:19

seems like it could be staged. There's been a fair

36:22

amount of that to the point where I'm like, all

36:24

right, settle down. From swing voters too. Yeah,

36:26

these are not hardcore Dems or anything, but

36:28

because they think Trump sucks. And so they

36:30

think like he would, and he's a show

36:32

person and a liar and none of them,

36:35

like a lot of it, we asked and

36:37

introduced the idea that you were hearing from

36:39

a lot of cable news and, do

36:42

you think that this will change Trump? And everyone was like,

36:44

no. There

36:46

was no sense from the voters. I was watching

36:48

Fox News last night during his speech. And so

36:50

I was watching Laura Ingraham. And I

36:52

think for Fox News watchers, they will continue

36:54

to treat Trump as a martyr, but that

36:56

is not coming through with swing voters.

36:59

When swing voters talk about Trump,

37:01

they dislike him intensely. Some of

37:03

them are willing to vote for him based on

37:05

things like the economy or the fact that he

37:07

says he's gonna do something about the border. It

37:09

is not because they like him or they feel

37:12

good about him really in any way. And that's

37:14

why getting a

37:16

credible alternative is

37:18

so important that they can just get there on.

37:22

Project 2025, she's been talking about it a

37:24

lot. Is it coming up organically in the

37:26

focus groups? And what do people say about

37:28

it? Yeah, so it

37:30

went from a thing that nobody

37:32

ever said to like

37:35

post-debate when suddenly

37:37

for the first time, there was like, even

37:39

before, because people were mad about Joe

37:42

Biden seemingly being pushed out, there was a lot

37:44

of like, why aren't you talking about Project 2025?

37:46

And so a lot of people were like, what's Project

37:48

2025? And it went

37:51

from never being mentioned to it comes up

37:53

in absolutely every group now. I

37:55

would say their ability to drill down into it

37:57

and know what something is in it is pretty.

38:00

One, the moderator said to one

38:03

woman who was like, you, there's really scary, this project

38:05

2025. And she was like, well,

38:07

what specifically scares you about it? And the, yeah,

38:09

well, you know, it's, and finally came up with

38:11

it, it wants to eliminate gay marriage, which I

38:14

don't know that eliminating gay marriage is in there.

38:17

It does do a lot of traditional

38:19

family stuff, but anyway, the point is,

38:21

is it's become this, it's like woke,

38:23

it's like woke, it's just like a

38:25

catch-all boogeyman for people. And so

38:27

I think that there's a tremendous amount of

38:29

opportunity though, because the 900 page project 2025

38:33

is batshit crazy. And

38:36

there is so much that you can pull out,

38:38

and I would not, do not do what Democrats

38:40

do where they build an enormous PowerPoint presentation on

38:42

it. Like find the five things that women are

38:44

really gonna care about, because there's a lot of

38:47

stuff about like eliminating childcare,

38:49

things like that, you know, find

38:51

a series of things in there

38:53

that women would care about that, you know, different things,

38:55

and like drive those things home for people.

38:57

I do think you have to sort of teach more about it,

39:00

but I'll tell you, Democrats have been given a

39:02

gift on messaging where organically people have decided

39:05

that they care about this, and they're telling

39:07

other people to care about this, and that

39:09

it's scary. Well, that's good

39:11

news. That's good news

39:13

that it's breaking through. Yeah, not

39:15

schedule F, please don't talk about schedule F though,

39:18

because that piece of it is like,

39:20

everybody's like, well, the president just gets to put in

39:22

the people that they want. Nobody thinks that's a bad

39:24

part. Well, and she's done a

39:26

great job of already sort of hitting

39:28

the economic components of Project 2025. So

39:31

she's not making it about just schedule F.

39:34

Anything else that we should know from these

39:36

post handoff groups? You

39:38

know, I would say this is

39:40

going back to the very beginning of our

39:42

conversation, but you know, there is some residual,

39:44

because I said the focus groups, the real

39:47

people are moving less quickly

39:49

than the people online are, right? And so

39:51

I think there's still a week or so

39:53

before they maybe hit some of the

39:55

same excitement level. There is some frustration

39:57

with the fact that Biden didn't step down a little

39:59

bit. lot earlier, that people feel

40:01

like we're in this position

40:03

now because he shouldn't have run again and

40:06

someone should have taken the keys a lot

40:08

sooner. And I think that there's a little

40:10

bit of bitterness. This is

40:12

especially within swing voters. I think there's a little bit

40:14

of bitterness that it's sort of like has played out

40:17

the way that it has. And so I think when

40:19

Kamala Harris says, I'm going

40:21

to earn this, I mean, and sometimes I

40:23

was like, hmm, I sort of wish Cori

40:26

Bush could have done a little, you know,

40:28

mini primary against her. Just John Lovett would

40:30

understand this, but sometimes you need a firemaking

40:32

challenge, right? To get to the end, you

40:34

got to have a firemaking challenge to show you Vern. I thought on

40:36

the other side, she was going to have it from like a Joe Manchin

40:38

for a second. Yeah, that's right. That would

40:40

have been bad. That would have not been good.

40:43

Manchins stand down. And

40:45

so I do think that her maybe

40:48

acknowledging at some point sort of how this

40:50

happened and making being a little bit like

40:52

talking about what she's learned and how passionate

40:54

she's gotten about wanting to help people. I

40:56

think she's going to have to do some

40:58

of that to bring some of these people

41:00

around who feel like when you, the

41:02

DEI stuff is about not earning things. And

41:05

so you don't want that to take hold too

41:07

much. And so I think some acknowledgement of that

41:09

is good. But man, no, she should

41:11

be, she should go hard on immigration. Not

41:14

hard, but I think that she should sound a little

41:16

hawkish. I think it's funny because they're

41:18

crabbing her when she was running to the

41:20

left of everybody

41:22

in the 2020 primary. But

41:24

if you see stuff from actually before that,

41:26

when she was a prosecutor, suddenly you're like,

41:28

Oh, hey, look at that. I'm like, Oh, this,

41:31

this warms my heart listening to this. She's

41:33

telling kids to get their butts back in

41:35

school. You know, she's being tough. I love

41:37

that stuff. I mean, it's also

41:39

like, there's an Obama era immigration message that

41:41

is both like, this is a

41:43

wonderful country because we welcome people from all over

41:45

the world and we should give a pathway to

41:47

people who are here working hard and want to

41:49

become citizens. And also this is a nation

41:51

of laws and we should make sure that the border is

41:54

secure and we should be tough on that. Like there's just,

41:56

it's simple and it's there and it's very popular and it

41:58

has been for some time. And actually,

42:00

sorry, let me throw one last thing at

42:02

you. So if there's one thing voters can

42:04

sniff out, it's like the phoniness.

42:07

And I think where she has struggled in the past,

42:09

and the reason they've been able to brand her in

42:11

certain ways is that she has either, when she was

42:13

running for president in 2020, I

42:15

don't think that far left stuff was her. And

42:18

I don't think when you're the

42:20

vice president and you have to hold somebody

42:22

else's reputation, somebody else's policies as your own,

42:24

that can be uncomfortable, right? It's hard not

42:26

to argue as yourself, but to argue as

42:28

somebody else, it makes you have to calculate

42:31

a lot more, calibrate a lot more. And

42:33

my hope, and I think

42:35

even my expectation, is that her

42:38

being allowed to be authentically herself

42:41

as she runs this campaign could

42:44

be one of the best things for her, not

42:46

just because I think she'll be slightly more moderate

42:48

on policy, but because I think that they won't

42:50

be able to, I think

42:52

she will look like a different person to them

42:55

in her authentic skin, in her

42:57

authentic way of getting

42:59

to define these policies for herself. That's what

43:01

I'm seeing from her so far. And I'll

43:03

tell you what, man, nothing with these voters,

43:05

all of them, beats authenticity. Yep,

43:08

and I totally agree with this. I think she

43:10

does know who she is. And

43:12

I even think that some of now the clips that

43:14

are going viral

43:17

on the internet of her laughing

43:19

and having a good time in the coconut tree

43:21

stuff, that's different than her in the 2020 primary

43:24

who seemed someone like she

43:26

was always worried about what position she was

43:28

taking. The laugh and everything else, that's her

43:30

being like, you know what, I'm

43:32

a little goofy, but I know who I am. I feel

43:35

good about who I am, and this is just who I'm

43:37

gonna be right now. She's sort of calmed

43:39

down the last year and

43:41

just sort of found herself a little bit. And I think

43:44

it puts her in a good position to do exactly what you

43:46

just said. Sarah Longwell, thank you as

43:48

always. I know you're busy conducting so many

43:50

focus groups, so we appreciate you coming back

43:52

on The Wilderness, and we'll talk to you

43:54

again soon. Thanks so much for having me. That's

44:01

our show. We'll be back in two weeks with

44:03

more on what voters are saying about Kamala Harris,

44:05

Donald Trump, and the 2024 election. The

44:12

Wilderness is a production of Crooked Media.

44:14

It's written and hosted by me, Jon

44:16

Favreau. Our senior producer and editor is

44:19

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is our producer. And Farrah

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44:25

design by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Music

44:28

by Marty Fowler. Charlotte Landis

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and Jordan Cantor sound engineered the show.

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Thanks to Katie Long, Reid Cherlin, Matt

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DeGrotte, and Madeline Harringer for production support.

44:38

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44:40

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44:42

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