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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark. And this week, we're taking a spin through Kamala Harris's shortlist. Now, conventional wisdom says that Harris needs a moderate white guy and that the country's not ready for a ticket with two women or a gay man on it.
Focus group people also think this. A lot of names on the shortlist will be familiar to regular focus groupies. So we're going to walk through what we've heard about them over the years and what swing voters have been saying lately. My guest today is Sam Stein, the Bulwark's new manager.
managing editor. Sam, thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me. This is why I joined the Bulwark for this very moment. I'm so pleased that it came to fruition. Oh, wow. I'm so glad to hear that. Well, tell me, are you a big podcaster? You were over at Politico. I was. What's your podcasting background? So I didn't do much at Politico. I admit that much to my chagrin, but I did actually launch a podcast when I was at HuffPost.
And the concept was we would interview people who ran for office and lost, only the losers, because they make for better stories and there's a lot more of them. I think they have less to do. They're a lot busier. Yeah, they have less to do, easier to book, more candid. We were initially going to call it losers, but that would be tough to book. So we called it Candidate Confessional. And we got a lot of really good stories out of it. I mean, I somehow managed to
run into Michelle Bachman at one point outside the White House. And I told her, come over to our office, which was like a block away, and just do the podcast. And she's like, sure. And so she came over and we talked for like 30 minutes about her run for office. And she was like pretty candid about it and all the sexism she felt she faced. And she felt empathy for Hillary Clinton in that moment. I was like, wow, this is...
This is an interesting vehicle to get people to open up a little bit that I did not expect. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. We could revive that kind of concept over here. We should revive that concept. There's plenty of people out there just waiting to spill their guts out to us. And Tim Miller, I mean, he's never won a race, so he could really be a frequent guest, I think. Yeah, it might be a little raw for Tim, you know? Yeah.
Don't want to go down. It's been years. He's fine. You know, I might have actually interviewed Tim about the Jeb Bush run for that podcast. I'd have to go back to the archives. But I do remember that we talked about Jeb for a bit. So I definitely interviewed Huntsman for the podcast. So, you know, some of the stuff I've already gone through with Tim.
Oh, amazing. Okay. Well, Sam, I'm really glad you're here. I want to check in on the Harris latest. You wrote a piece covering the scam pack fundraising that are fundraising off her momentum. Yeah. Where did that come from? You just have like a bone to pick over the scam pack that makes you angry? Well...
Yeah. Sorry. I agree. I think that's right. This is so funny. This is how some of this stuff really works in real time. But I was just getting like a ton of text messages. I was like, how do these people have my number? These are so annoying. These are so obviously fake groups. They're clearly not sanctioned by the Harris campaign. And it was just relentless. It was like dozens and dozens. So eventually I was just like, you know what, let me just kind of sniff around and see what's going on here. And so
Follow the trail, try to figure it out. They are very good at keeping their identity secret. But eventually I found a few things that linked a few groups. And then the Harris campaign was like, we denounce these groups. And it ended up becoming a big thing. And he just did a follow-up story off of the original story that looks at how some of these groups actually do spend their money.
Put it this way. There's one expenditure from one of these scammy pack groups that is for $730,000 at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Oh, okay. That does not strike me as a useful campaign expenditure, and I don't think it is. Sure doesn't. Well, that's a real public service you're doing because those scam packs are the worst.
Okay, so I want to get into the various Veep contenders, starting with a guy who's been at the top of my list from the start, my personal favorite, Josh Shapiro. So let's listen to what Trump to Biden voters from Pennsylvania have said about him in recent weeks.
It seems like he's always put his foot forward. Seems like he's actually for the little people of Pennsylvania. Seems like he really wants to make things work and he's relatable. He seems like a kind of guy that will not going to try to do something to, you know, backstab someone. I mean, that's just the impression I get after dealing with our prior governor.
He's been honest. He's been trustworthy. Our taxes, property taxes are sky high, not Shapiro's fault, as is our gas tax. We're the highest gas tax in the nation. Shapiro has done a lot for our state and he's going to cut the gas tax. He's going to cut the property tax. I'm looking for my property tax to go down and if anybody's going to get it done, it's going to be Shapiro. The thing about Shapiro that stands out more for me is that he can't
he can't do those things by himself i mean the senate in pennsylvania is controlled by republicans and that's attractive to me that like these things have been able to be accomplished in a bipartisan way that's something that i'm longing for in politics in my state but also in the country is
the ability for people to work together. And I think that it's just gotten more and more divisive. So that's something about him that is attractive. He's okay. I don't like his abortion policy, but I'm Republican. So I would have voted for, well, no, I didn't vote for that other guy, the crazy one.
I'm concerned that people would have more of a problem with his religion. I don't have a problem with it. I don't care what people do behind closed doors on Sunday morning or Saturday night either. But the way that the world is now, I think many people would discount him. But I do like Shapiro a lot. I would vote for him.
I would really not want to see his political ascendancy tied to Kamala Harris, to be honest with you. I do think Josh Shapiro is going to be a future president of the United States. He hasn't been amazing. Like, he hasn't done anything so far out there that it shocks people. And maybe that's good because maybe that's more of what we need.
I would vote for him just because he seems sincere, I guess, and he seems smart. I'm not really sure why I think those two things, but I just do. That's the strong impression that I've gotten. I guess I kind of work off of gut. PA is a big state. We don't see in our area immigration-related stuff, and it's not something that I care about or is on my radar. So I would support a Harris-Shapiro ticket for sure.
So I remember being in Pennsylvania for a couple of focus groups with Democrats last year, and I was struck at the time by how much they...
raved about Shapiro. And it was really at the time about how he got that I-95 rebuilt after the bridge had collapsed. But there were a lot of concerns about his pro-Israel stance in the clips we just heard and from Democrats we talked to recently who bristled at voting for what they call a pro-genocide candidate, though we would note that Shapiro's criticized Benjamin Netanyahu pretty aggressively. So my question for you is,
This guy, Josh Shapiro, is the one who really makes my centrist heart sing. And he would seemingly give the campaign a big push in Pennsylvania. But what do you think the case against him is? The case against him is that he is too supportive of Israel at a time when the Democratic base is yearning for a different type of posture towards that conflict.
There's also some stuff around his opposition to the teachers' unions, which has come up. And obviously the teachers' unions is a major force within democratic politics as well. He's kind of tried to address those two flanks.
Those would be the things that trip him up. I would just say this. One is, I think sometimes we get a little bit over sensitive to the politics of Israel-Palestine. If you look at actual voter preference among young voters especially,
That is almost always, and this surprised me when I looked it up, that's almost always like one of the last issues that they actually vote on, right? Like it's the most vocal issue for a lot of them, but they care more about the cost of living, the cost of education, student loans, things like that. So I don't foresee that as being a huge hurdle for the Harris operation. They're not going to be like, oh, we can't choose Josh Shapiro because young voters might bristle at this.
I think the upsides probably outweigh the downsides for him, right? Young-ish, governor of an incredibly important state, well-liked, appeals to people who have great centrist hearts like you do, Sarah. And I think his performance on the stump, if you watch, I mean, this has been a very interesting week and a half because all the possible candidates are out there trying to impress in a way that we're not used to VP candidates doing. Usually it's like a sort of subtler show-off. But in this case, he's been on the stump and he's done fairly well. So...
I would go with you. I think he's a strong, probably the leading candidate now to be chosen for Veep. Yeah, I agree. I think not only is he my choice, I would put money and the betting markets appear to agree with me that Shapiro is the pick. And look, when you say Pennsylvania is like an important state, like Pennsylvania is like the state. It is everything. And I got to say, I was with the boys over on the next level and JVL did some extended basketball analogy from the
Not pro wrestling? No, no. He was doing basketball and it was about the draft in 2003, which is when there was like LeBron and then like some of these other people. I can't remember. LeBron, Carmelo, Chris Bosh, and Darko Milicic. Yeah, these are all names that came. Right. And so the analogy was really about like there's an obvious –
pick, but like somehow people get in their heads and they start talking themselves into why one of these other people might be and everybody like loses the plot on like the most obvious. And to me, as much as I had no idea who several of the people were, obviously I know who LeBron James is, but I was like, this makes sense to me, right? There's this way you start saying like, Tim Walls, like, look at this guy. He looks just like a normal,
me, grandpa. Even though he's the same age as her, which is like, that's just so wild. He's like six months older than she is. But you're like, do you need Minnesota? No, you don't. I mean, you do, but like, you probably got it. If you're losing Minnesota, you're in trouble. Right. Joe Biden was, that's where things were starting to get really gnarly, was what it looked like. Places like Minnesota might be in play. I think it is not now, it's safe to say. And so like, what
does a Tim Waltz really get you? I mean, if you told me they were best friends, he and Kamala were best friends and so they vibed super hard together and this was just going to be rocket fuel of their relationship, I'd be like, okay, but
But nobody's told me that. It's just that it seems like he's been on the outer reaches of calling Republicans weird. I think maybe he's done more for the... I think so. He injected it into the zeitgeist. Yeah, I think JBL's right, though. It's like you can really overthink these things, and then you just step back and you're like, wait a second. This guy is...
the governor of the most important state. He's got an incredible popularity rating in the state. People in the state genuinely love him and want to vote for him. And he's young, so he can help with the generational contrast. Like, why wouldn't you choose him? Like, you don't need to talk yourself into another person just because you want options. You should just go with the person you think suits you best. And of course, you should go with someone who you think could actually do the job if need be. And I feel like, you know, an executive of a big state is someone who crosses that threshold.
Yeah, and you know, if you are a focus groupie and you've been following this show for a long time, in 2022, we talked about him a lot because he was running for governor against Doug Mastriano, who was an absolute—so you heard the woman in that clip being like, I'm a Republican, so I voted for—and then she was like, no, I didn't vote for that guy. What did Mastriano lose by? Something like 15%? 14. It was like 14 points. Yeah, 14 and change, which—
You know, once you listen to Doug Mastriano, you're like, you should have lost by 30 points. Like, you are a lunatic, man. So Josh Shapiro did not run against a particularly, you know, strong...
candidate. And people like that woman who were like, I am a Republican. I don't like to vote for Democrats. Even though that was a swing voter group, she's one of these people who really, she doesn't like the crazy ones. Didn't like Trump in 2020, voted for Biden. But she was someone who was like a little bit of a backslider where she voted for Biden. She really wanted to get rid of Trump. She wasn't sure she could vote for a Democrat again. But Shapiro, it didn't get her there. But it got her like
Slightly interested. And it got several of the people in the group sort of interested. I'm curious from your perspective, because, you know, the sort of conventional wisdom is that these choices for VP can be overstated in terms of the significance they have on the vote. In your focus groups, I watched them, but from a holistic standpoint, like how many people would say, yeah, this could impact my vote?
There was a number of them. So what was interesting about the slice that we gave you is that some of it happened before Biden dropped out. They were part of the groups where we were trying to assess –
like what was the upside of a Kamala Harris ticket plus somebody new? And we were really talking to swing voters in swing states. I was very cognizant of the fact that I was getting so much pro Shapiro and so much pro Whitmer feedback in part because we were talking in clusters of states where they were more well-known. I would say for a certain kind of swing voter,
Less the college-educated suburban types and more the multiracial working class types. They used to be Democrats, basically. They don't love the abortion stuff. They don't like the social conservative stuff. They are secular oftentimes. Kamala
Kamala Harris, those are the people who get a little like, I don't know, what has she done? And they just have sort of a negative impression of her. Josh Shapiro gives them, I think, the cover they need to vote for her. Interesting. It is not everybody. It's not all kinds of voters. Because the college-educated suburban voters who hate Trump, those are the people who, when they were the double haters—
And this is a really important thing to understand because the double haters frame is basically gone from the lexicon. It dominated how I and lots of other people were thinking about this election and that that was your persuadable group. At some point, these people who hated Donald Trump but thought Joe Biden, didn't hate Joe Biden, thought he was too old to responsibly vote for to run the country, those people were your persuadable set and they were going to have to choose somebody.
And now a lot of those people are actually finding it not hard to get behind Kamala Harris. Those are the people who kind of move first. Then there's the next group of swing voters. And these are more like the Obama Trump voters. And they are more working class voters. And they struggle with Kamala, with the pronouns in her bio and with the idea of a San Francisco progressive, like really hits hard. Right.
with these folks. They do not like it. And so the idea of a Midwestern governor who is broadly popular and tracks really moderate. And one of the guys in here in the clip, I like what he said when he said, I don't pay that much attention, but I just have this general impression. Like, yeah, thank you for articulating how most voters deal with this. Right. That is true. And I think for somebody like that, they're just like, okay, Shapiro, that seems fine. That seems like the balance I need to get there. So yeah, I think it matters. Yeah.
Well, it's interesting because in these focus groups, the prevailing sentiment around Harris was like, well, I don't see her a lot and I don't know what she does. And she's kind of a blank slate. And she's been VP for three and a half years. It's not like she's been absent from the scene. But Shapiro, they have more refined opinions on, even though he's been a governor. So many of these people are from Pennsylvania, so they know him and that matters. But it's funny to me how they have...
perceived him, politically speaking, and still have to formulate perceptions of her, even though she's a much bigger national figure than he is. I said this on last week's episode, but I guess I'm going to say it again, that when I started to have to sort of grapple with how would Kamala do as a successor to Joe Biden, and I started listening to voters with those ears on, sort of like new ears, because for a long time I've been like, man, they don't like her. They think they don't see her. They think they don't know her. Then I started listening and I was like, you know what?
They have a broad negative impression because they think they don't see her, but that means that if they did see her and they liked it, they could get there because the— They're persuadable. It's an impression. It's not like a locked-in way of thinking about her. And I think to the extent that I have been quite impressed with—
with the Harris rollout, it has been the extent to which they seek to do an actual reintroduction of her. And they are reintroducing her with an eye toward immediately trying to pop Trump's efforts to paint her as a nothing but a San Francisco progressive. Right. My impression has been that they've done incredibly well in turning this really quickly into a generational contrast. It's almost like she's just dispensed with Biden. Right.
And she's been like, we can't go back. Yeah. We can't go back to Trump as if she hasn't been in office for three and a half years. But that's smart of them, right? Like you want to be the future. You want to be the candidate of change. You don't want to go back. I mean, those are very common themes in elections. And if the sitting vice president who is effectively the incumbent on the ticket can claim that
mantle, that's great. And the way that I think the VP stakes kind of bleeds into that is that you want to have someone who kind of supplements that message, right? Which means you want to aim for someone who's relatively youthful, or at least looks youthful. Sorry, Tim Waltz. And also someone who can say, look, we need to do politics differently than we've been doing in the past. And I go back to Shapiro in this case, not because he's
you know, got some innovative take on politics. But I think his cadence and his approach gives off the impression of a new generation of leaders. It's funny to bring this into the realm of religion, but he has a nickname online based off of his stump speech and a nod to his Judaism. It is Baruch Obama. I saw that. Yeah, he does this whole thing that's very Obama-like in terms of the delivery of his speeches. And so I think he's playing for that too. And I do think in that sense, he's a nice compliment to the ticket for sure.
Yeah, and this is where, look, I think if you're going for maximum upside, he's the one with your maximum upside. I mean, I was watching him before this particular VP thing, so there's a lot of people who are going to see him for the first time, but he's a good political athlete. Like, the reason people make the Obama comparisons is he is rhetorically very strong, and he does sort of the pitch around politics.
hey, we should all get along with each other as Americans and we should strive to understand each other. You mentioned the I-95 bridge collapse, and that was an absolute illustration of what you're talking about here, the way he handled that, bringing all these factions together and then sort of being in the public eye and kind of being almost a cheerleader for the project.
I'm not surprised that that came up in these focus groups. It was a highly visible example of the political skills that he possesses, but also sort of the governing skills, I suppose, because you got something done that needed to get done in a short period of time. Totally.
OK, well, now that I've exhausted my fangirling over Josh Shapiro, let's move on to some other names. So one other name rumored to be on Harris's shortlist, although I got to say, I think I'm feeling like this guy's stock is plunged quite a bit, is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. So Trump to Biden voters around the country weren't that familiar with him unless they were in Arizona. But let's listen to a sample of what we heard.
How do you not like him? You know, his wife's been a career politician. She was shot. He's an astronaut. I mean, that's not an easy job. And so he's got some smarts up there. He's been playing politics. But I don't know enough about him to say he's going to help. I know he would probably push for the sciences with his history with NASA and all that. But on the other hand, I think that's dangerous because that leads to a lot of spending. And I think you could make an argument about that being a weak point of people
we're going to waste a bunch of money on nasa whether you agree with that or not i think it's a concern of wasting money i'm not a mark kelly fan and i mean i think you lose some of the moderates because of his whole gun control stance and i think you get some people who
They like guns, they like shooting, they like hunting. Who would look at him and have the, oh no, he's too close to wanting to take away our guns, so I can't vote for him.
Okay. So all these voters really know about him at the moment is that he's an astronaut and that he and Gabby Giffords have been vocal on gun control. Like that was the main thing that was coming back. I'd say what we just heard was similar to the mixed response that we would get from Trump to Biden voters in Arizona when Kelly was running for reelection in 2022. Let's listen.
I don't have a particular affection for Mark Kelly, but Blake Masters is not going to be good for Arizona. I got to go with Kelly. I don't like Kelly for a lot of reasons. I like his gun. He's anti-gun and so on for obvious reasons. Sure, but he's the lesser of two evils here, and I got to go with him. He seems more of the diplomatic type. Blake Masters doesn't strike me as the diplomatic type.
I can't sit there and say, okay, Mark Kelly did anything bad in this two years, if that makes sense. He kind of wasted it, in my opinion. He co-sponsored a bill, the microchip one, but when you waited until right before election time and you throw it out there and it feels like he wasted his two years.
So obviously, Kelly's not an Obama-level politician or political talent, but he did well the last time he ran in 2022 and was a great contrast to the crazy running on the right. One of my least favorite people to run last cycle was Blake Masters. So do you think he could be a similar asset to Harris?
I guess I have to ask, like, how do we factor in the derangement of the opponents that these men have faced? Like, we're going from Mastriano and Masters, like some of the least enjoyable political figures in the modern era. So it's almost tough to judge how good Mark Kelly and Josh Shapiro are because these races were against fairly inferior political talent. That said, you know, you come away from that understanding it's difficult being a senator compared to a governor, I think. Yes.
especially when it comes to the perceptions of your home state constituents, right? Like Mark Kelly's not there to fix a bridge or to talk about your...
property taxes or sales tax in the state or whatever it is in Arizona. Like he's there to deal with federal legislative issues. And that can be hard to translate directly to people on a granular guttural level. And I think that's where Shapiro benefits and that's where Kelly doesn't. For him, gun control is obviously a deeply personal matter, but he's also legislating for the entire country, not just Arizona. And I think that's
And Arizonans are like, hey, we're a pretty gun-friendly state. What are you doing? You should be representing us. And I think Kelly's probably got a different mindset around that for obvious reasons. And so that becomes tricky. It doesn't mean he's a bad possibility as a FEEP candidate, but I think his resonance with his home state is clearly inferior to what Shapiro brings with his home state. I also think Kelly is relatively new to politics, all things considered. He was not...
in politics until about six years ago, five years ago. And I think he's very talented. I happened to be on TV with him this morning. He was very good at deftly deflecting all of our questions, which is like the most obvious quality of a politician. But especially in this position, you want someone who's an attack dog and an accomplished attack dog.
And I've not yet seen it. It doesn't mean he can't do it. But, you know, I think those are the things that hamper him when it comes to this VP selection process. Also, you do end up with a Senate vacancy, and that can be annoying. Yeah, it's like an unnecessary thing to have to deal with a special election. I also think with no shade to Mark Kelly, who I think is probably like a very lovely man and has shown nothing but –
signs of decency and being a great husband and being an astronaut is obviously cool. I do worry he's a little bit, like, good on paper, where, like, he ticks a bunch of things that you're like, oh, man, that profile sounds awesome. And then when he gets up there and kind of does his thing, you're like, it's a bit of a snooze, which is okay. And in fact...
I like workhorses over show horses. I like somebody who's just like, look, I've got a mission. I got a thing that I believe in. You got it. It's the Tim Kaine vibes of 2016 all over again. Yeah.
You want a little bit more, right? You just need a little bit more jazz, especially if you're riding this momentum, right? You got this big momentum in your hair, so you don't want to like throw a wet blanket on it. You want to keep it going. Yeah, I think that's right. The riz, I've heard the kids are saying the riz now. I don't know. I'm not a kid anymore. We're so old and our kids aren't old enough to know cool. Yeah, we're in that weird middle ground. We're just totally out of it from a pop culture perspective. My eight-year-old has started saying sus, that things are sus though. And I was like, what word are you saying right now?
right now. That's incredible. He's also misusing it completely. Well, let him go with it. He uses the word literally correctly, but sus. He thinks everything's sus. I'm like, yeah, my kid started using literally the other day too. And it cracked me up. I was like, where did you get that? It's so funny. Also, my kid, we got, this is stupid. We got him an iPad for learning purposes, but he's figured out how to text people with it. And so I keep getting texts from him.
This morning, he was like, Dad, where are you? I was like, upstairs. I was like, what are you doing, Jamie? Yeah.
We digress. We digress. We do. Okay. So I wanted to talk about a couple of the wildcard picks, starting with Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky. So the only reason that we have sound about Andy Beshear is because we did a Kentucky group when he was running for reelection this fall. And so all of the people you're about to hear voted for Beshear for governor in 2019 and then voted for Trump in 2020. Let's listen to what they thought of him.
He's done a lot for one of the few states that has no backlog on the rape kits, you know, because Andy pushed that through. I don't agree with his position on abortion, but I think what he's doing for the state, the position that we're in financially, the things that he's done educationally, you know, the large corporations that are building in Kentucky that are going to help us tremendously financially.
I think he cares for the people of the state of Kentucky. And I don't always agree with what my dad and mom did, but we got fed, clothed, and put to bed at night. And I think that's the same I feel with Andy. Yeah, there's some things I wish he did different. I wish he would approach differently. But I think he's done a tremendous job, and I welcome another term for him to be able to bring some more of those realities to us.
Probably back when I voted for him, I was a little naive about things. I didn't really pay much attention to anything. But during COVID, like the way he handled COVID and the way I've seen other states handle COVID and stuff, that's what probably put a good taste in my mouth, so to speak, for him. It's really sad times, but you do kind of have to, you know, lace your bootstraps up, you know? We can get through this, as Andy says. We can get through this, and we will get through this together.
So here's what jumped out at me. I remember this focus group actually vividly from the time. And the reason was I had never heard so many voters refer to their governor by their first name. Andy. They kept saying Andy. And I was like, these people feel like they know this guy for real. And that was, I remember being like, that's how you win.
because it was a tough race that he just ran in 2023 because it's in just absolutely blood red Kentucky and as a Democratic government, he was running on abortion and he had a record that people really felt positive about. But,
Here's my question for you. Scheer doesn't have any foreign policy experience. He can't deliver Kentucky for Harris. Sure. But what are the chances he can continue to pull Trump voters over to his side on a national ticket? Does his ability to win over Trump voters translate nationally? Is that like a skill that's transferable?
I mean, I would be dubious. Kentucky, obviously not the biggest state. Also keep in mind his father, a prominent politician in the state. So they might know the Bashirs through generations, right? This is a man who they kind of grew up with. He's probably met a lot of them.
I think his political story is probably one of the most impressive ones of any Democrat in the country. To win the governorship in Kentucky twice as a Democrat is remarkable and probably the biggest partisan gap to be made up of anyone maybe other than Joe Manchin, right? Like there's just not many people who can make up that type of voting disparity. But you got to think about it. How do you scale that?
nationally in what, 90 days, right? And also the other thing you have to think about is that how have these people performed with Trump voters when Trump is on the ballot? And that is always the thing that I come back to, which is Trump's very good at is bringing out his own voters. Can't really get beyond that. Such a good point. The Republicans always seem to struggle when Trump is not on the ballot.
And so I don't know if that means Bashir's got limitations. I think it's one of these things that, like JVL was saying, you could talk yourself into this being a very dynamic and interesting big payoff pick, right? Like it's very easy to make the case. Young guy, great story of winning in Kentucky, ran on abortion, would really signify to a huge swath of the country that you are like thinking in sort of
non-traditional terms about what a ticket could look like. You can even paint it not just generationally, but in sort of this kind of post-partisan type of approach to politics. Get yourself rid of that San Francisco value framework because you went to Kentucky. You know, like, that's the case for it. Yeah. The case against it's easy to make, too. Also, let's not ignore the fact that Bashir is extremely handsome.
Yeah. I mean, he's just a really good looking guy. Josh Shapiro is too. So is Pete. And I mean, big Gretch, you know, eat your heart out. This is Tim Waltz erasure right here. My goodness. It is. Let's talk about Tim Waltz. Let's talk about him a little bit. Because, you know, speaking of erasure, we have no sound on him.
Because none of the swing voters know who he is and we never talk to Minnesotans. Yeah, but that guy's got some good vibes this week. He's living his dream. He is taking advantage of it. I appreciate that. Yeah, so I've heard, and by heard I mean people say it on Twitter and like it's around, that it's really down to sort of Shapiro and Waltz. And Waltz clearly wants it because he is out there, he is auditioning hard, and he's doing a good job. But what would he add to the ticket?
to the ticket. All right. So it's kind of interesting because even well before this stuff, there's always this sort of subterranean Tim Walz fan club out there. There's like governors who get a lot of attention, like Gretchen Whitmer, right? And of course, Josh Shapiro and even Andy Beshear and Roy Cooper. And there's always like this little fan club being like, yo, don't sleep on Tim Walz. That guy is dope.
And you get this and usually they'd be from Minnesota, right? But then they say, look at his record. He's done this. He's done that. School lunches for kids, actual gun legislation, stuff on abortion and women's rights. And he actually has, if you're a Democrat and especially if you're a progressive Democrat, he's got probably as robust a legislative record of accomplishment as anyone out there.
The irony is that in the House, where he served prior to being governor, he wasn't really known as a progressive guy. He was sort of a middle-of-the-road Democrat. Goes to Minnesota, has this incredibly run of success. And then what's, I think, most impressed people is just the way he's kind of
run through the wall in this very brief Veeps tryout period that we are in, in a way that I think was not at all anticipated. Usually the phrase is Minnesota nice. Like that guy's got some fangs. Like he can really lace into JD Vance and has essentially launched the meme about JD Vance being weird. If not for Tim Waltz, I don't think we would be talking about it.
Those are qualities that you kind of want in your VP, right? Like you want a good record that excites people and an ability to be a tack dog. And clearly he's out there having fun and he provides a lot of energy. I just come back to the idea that's like, you know, does the geography matter? And if so, what does Minnesota mean? And then secondarily, I know it's superficial, but you know, he's only six months older than Harris, but he looks about six years older than Harris. Maybe seven, maybe eight.
And when your campaign is now being reconfigured in real time around generational contrast, not going back, like do you hire the guy who kind of looks old and also spent a lot of time in the House of Representatives? Or do you go with someone who's kind of fresher on the political scene? Not saying that Tim Walz doesn't have a case to make. All these guys have cases to make. Gretchen Weber has a case to make. I know she's not in the mix. But I think when you get down to the sort of downsides, those are them.
Yeah. And this is one thing both on the Senate side and on the House side. As somebody who's been in the House or Senate, they've taken a lot of votes. Right. They've taken a lot of votes. And so, like, they got a long rap sheet to go after. I mean, there is something about- Sure, but Joe Biden was in the Senate for 36 years, right? He took a lot of votes. He survived it. You can survive it, but it's not something you want to explain. Right. I would say just when you have options. Like, we are looking for, like, how do we optimize for this 90 days of this race? The option.
book suddenly coming out on whatever congressional votes were on popular 10 years ago feels like an unnecessary risk to take. It's funny. Yeah. Like Tim Waltz's oppo book would be votes he's taken. J.D. Vance's oppo book was blogs he's written, right? Like it's just like there's stuff out there that you have to say, okay, you know, as soon as this person's going to be picked, the first two days will be adoration. The three days to four days after that will be scrutiny.
And if you can get through that week and, you know, the ledger is more positive than negative, good job. You did good. The Republicans did not do good, right? J.D. had, you know, one or two days where it was good and the rest has been just completely downhill. And that's if you're Harris, like you don't want to mess with the current vibe. And I think that's what you're looking at right now. How do I keep this thing going? That's right. That's right.
All right. Now, everyone we've talked about so far is a straight white guy, and they seem to be leading the pack ahead of a few other candidates that have been mentioned as possible contenders who don't fit that bill. These people are on the outside of the veep stakes looking in because the current conventional wisdom is the country won't elect two women or two people of color or a woman and a gay man. When we asked about Pete Buttigieg and our Trump to Biden groups, that sentiment came through loud and clear. Let's listen.
I love Pete Buttigieg, and God knows me, I'm ready for that. But I think he would be great. I would like to think that people are more open-minded, but life experience has shown me that they're not. So I just don't know. I don't know how it would go. I would vote for him. It makes no difference to me. But I've seen a lot of people who aren't approving and who are very closed-minded. So I just, I don't know.
That's not why I don't like him. It's not because he's gay. Yeah, that's not why I don't like him. Is he the guy that said he has no idea anything about transportation? Yes, that's why I don't like him. I live right at the border of Indiana and Michigan. I saw before he was in politics in the way that he is now, I met him. He's an incredibly nice, kind person.
For as young as he is, he has more integrity than most of the presidents or people that I've seen even debating lately. So he would be one I would love to see take that ticket. But I don't know what the likelihood of that is. But I know so many people that feel the same way, at least around here. Friends of ours, people that we know, people that did have the opportunity to see him so close to us when he was in South Bend.
So maybe we were fortunate because we did get to see that. But yeah, I would love to see him. I think he's a great guy, but I don't think he'll expand her base at all because he's pretty progressive like her. So I'll be shocked if she picks him. So what do you think? A woman and a gay, a Black woman and a gay. Can it be done? Wait, Pete's gay? Yeah.
Whoa, whoa. Can I just say, I'll just give you like a broad thing though on focus groups, which is what's so funny to me is that people always do this when you're talking about women, when you're talking about color, when you're talking about gay stuff. They're always like,
Well, for me, it's cool. Totally fine for me. But the rest of America are racist, homophobic, misogynistic freaks. And so you just can't count on to elect these people. What do you think? In polling, this actually, obviously everyone knows the Bradley effect, but I talked to Michael Steele for my podcast. I talked to Michael Steele about this because he ran for senator and we talked about it. And he did something very interesting with his pollster. He polled people. He said, would you be comfortable voting for a black man for Senate?
and it would come back something like 89 yes, 11 no, whatever it is. And then they ask another question. Do you think your neighbor would be comfortable voting for a black man for Senate? And it was more like,
55, yes. 45, no. And they just use the second number as an approximation for where the electorate was. Because if you're not going to tell a pollster, you're not going to tell someone in the focus group around your peers that you're uncomfortable with a gay man as vice president or a Black man as senator. And so I think this is something that we have to consider in the data that we get, that these people are just sort of not quite there yet. And I
I think this is something the Harris people are going to have to deal with race too. I've been thinking about how they're going to deal with this when it comes to internal polling and figuring out what their map looks like in reality. But I do think you look at these focus groups, you listen to them.
And, unfortunately, I should say, it does look like this is a real hindrance or hurdle for people to get over when it comes to Pete. And, you know, it's sad because our country has obviously progressed so very far in this field, and every data set shows people are totally comfortable with this stuff. And, you know, Republicans don't even make that much of an issue of it anymore compared to what they used to.
But I'm not sure, based on what I just heard, that voters are quite there yet in terms of being comfortable with it. So let me try to take the counterpoint on this one, which I guess would be that the better approximation is the voters themselves who say, of course, I would vote for him. But I'm worried that these other people wouldn't. And it's that they—
Right. Right.
But I don't know. I like your version of reality better than mine. That's for sure. I will say, you know, I'm Jewish. This might be a shock to people listening to this podcast based on my nasally voice and my last name of Stein. But I've been talking to a lot of other Jews about Shapiro. And, you know, this is non-scientific, but it's like,
They're concerned in the same way that these people are, but they're like, there's no way that the country would, you know, vote for a Jew. Like that's just not going to happen. And that's, you know, self-hating Jews. That's what we do. But yeah, I think we're in kind of weird uncharted territory here, right? Where it's like, we're going to have a black woman for the first time as our presidential candidate. What does that mean? Right. And if you add to the ticket, someone who's also historic first, where
whether it's a Jewish vice presidential candidate or a openly gay vice presidential candidate. Like, these are dynamics that we just have not confronted at all yet. And it will be very interesting to see if your optimistic view of voter sentiment is more real than my somewhat more pessimistic view. Yeah, I actually think that the country both
is ready to elect a black woman. I also think that that's the wrong question. I think the question is, is like, are they ready to elect Kamala Harris with her particular political profile that is, you know, has been up to this point, much more progressive. And I also think that America could elect Pete Buttigieg in particular, not just like a gay candidate, but Pete Buttigieg. I'm just not sure they can do it with them together at the same time.
I will say, of all the people who are on the shortlist, if you just judge by political skill sets, it's not particularly close. Pete's very much the most gifted of the bunch. I don't think he's bringing you a state. You're not getting Indiana. And he lives in Michigan now. I don't think he's going to win you Michigan because he's been there for a hot minute.
But a couple things on this front. One is he's done it before, right? He's been through a gauntlet of a campaign, obviously a much smaller scale, but it matters. Like, you know how these things do. You know the cadence. Two, he's public. People know him. He was the only member of the cabinet who had a positive approval rating in the most recent polling data. And three is, I cannot think of a time where he made a bad soundbite. Like, I just can't recall him gaffing ever. Not that that's like the end-all be-all, but like,
Imagine the ability to just trust the dude to go out there in any form and be like, yeah, he'll nail it. Like, no problem. Speaking of gacking things, I met him one time and totally melted down in front of him. I, like, couldn't get myself – I find him to be such an extraordinary political talent that I couldn't –
couldn't like hold a normal conversation. It was terrible. It was really embarrassing. But you know, it is funny. One of my most scorching hot takes right now is that when it comes to the actual talent or who would be the best on the ticket, it is probably Pete or Gretchen. They would both be excellent, but everybody's like, nah, you need a straight white guy. In fact, I did a group, I don't know if you listened a couple episodes ago, but I had a number of groups of all black women and they were like, you need to go find me the straightest,
whitest Superman looking guy to go beat Trump. Again, because I think these groups, just like the Jews I talked to about Shapiro are like nervous that the country's not ready. And so they're like, no, no, no, don't accentuate us. Like go find someone else. And so I think that's what's happening here. Yeah.
Well, let's talk about Whitmer for a minute, just because we've been asking about Gretchen Whitmer in recent weeks. And obviously she has taken herself out of it. It's not going to be Gretchen. But I think it's interesting to consider whether the country would vote for a ticket with two women. And it seems like they, both the Harris campaign and Whitmer and her folks, think that America is not ready for the two women ticket. But let's listen to how swing voters have talked about the idea.
Gretchen Whitmer is doing a pretty good job here, but I don't want to vote for her. But I mean, some people would, but I don't think the majority of the country would be the problem. Would you vote for her? Yes. Why do you think the majority of the country wouldn't? Because she's a woman? She's a woman. And then would it be woman to woman on the ticket, I guess? The vice president and her would be two women? I like her. I like her as the governor of Michigan. I don't think that would do well to have her on the ticket as a VP.
especially if it's kamala and gretchen together i just see too many people being against that that there's no way no way that that would happen that's more so that's what i think people are going to think is like there's no way that we can have two women in
In those positions, she's she's tough. Like she had like assassination attempts land on her a couple years ago, which is like crazy. And she's like unfazed by that kind of stuff. I think she's got thick skin. And I don't know. There's not anything like specific. I just think she's she's good at what she's doing right now.
I like what she's doing for like, especially like the students, how she handled COVID for the most part. I like that, but it's already bad enough. Like people already have a hard enough time swallowing the pill that Kamala Harris is running for president. Like, I can't imagine what people would think having two people like a vice president and a president both be female. I mean, it would be great. I would love to see that. But realistically speaking, I don't think they would win if they're paired together.
Damn, man. Sorry, that's just depressing. It is depressing. I mean, some of the ones before when it was Nikki Haley and we were talking and people were like, no one's going to elect a woman president and she wouldn't be able to stand up to world leaders. There's some brutal stuff, brutal stuff. But it's not everybody. I guess, yeah.
I don't know, do we just have such a collectively negative opinion of our own fellow citizens that we can't get beyond this? It's like, no, obviously no one bats an eye if it's two dudes on the ticket, right? So it's just, I guess we have to see it happen in order to be comfortable with it first.
again, I keep coming back to this. I was talking to someone even before Biden stepped down, but it was very apparent that he was likely to. And this person whose opinion I value a lot was very high on the idea of Harris going in with Whitmer. And the case that was made was, it was compelling to me, which is
They're going to tag Harris on gender stuff anyway. They're going to do it. Like it is what it is. Double down on your liabilities. Yeah. Not only double down, lean in, like go and make it a strength. Like, you know what? Fuck it. Just do it. All women ticket. Make Dobbs like one of the biggest issues, but like make the contrast even greater. This is pre JD Vance, by the way, make the contrast even greater, like fresh young women who are talented and can run shit and
versus a misogynistic ex-president who is demeaning towards women and just have that be it. And they equated it to Clinton choosing Gore in 92 when the rap on Clinton was inexperienced governor from the South, doesn't know what he's doing, way in over his head. Like he obviously needs to pick some elder statesman who's got some foreign policy chops and yada yada. Clinton said, nah, screw it. I'm going to go with Gore because
generational, young Southern male ticket that's going to come up and just be a complete contrast to this patriarchal figure in George H. And it worked. And so that was the case for Whitmer. Obviously, it's not going to end up in that place. But listening to those voter reactions, it makes me almost sad to think that people will have that impression of their fellow voters. Yeah, I mean, here's what I think is going on a little bit. I think that Hillary Clinton's campaign, people were so sure she was going to win.
that they took away from that loss, again, less a lesson about Hillary Clinton and running somebody with like that much of a history and baggage and how much America was interested in this carnival barking celebrity game show host thing.
But I don't know that that means that America doesn't elect any woman, but I do think people have internalized that. I think that's part of it. Yeah, over-interpreted the loss to be something that's not quite. It's not quite. But also, I didn't finish my scorching hot take, which is this, which is that I think both Whitmer and Pete would have been amazing picks and are some of the most talented, but everybody does this thing where they're like, it has to be a white guy. And it's funny because the wrap-on
Rapp on Harris is she's a DEI pick. But the real DEI pick is that like, no, no, got to be a straight white guy. Can't go with who's most qualified because America won't accept it. You need a DEI pick of a straight white male. You got to have diversity in the other direction if your candidate is a black woman, I suppose. Yeah, that's right. So I don't know. I think we could be overcorrecting for some of this. But what does Whitmer do now? I mean, so I was surprised she took herself out of contention because I sort of agree with you. I thought that there was a...
just an off chance that they could go for the double down and really make it an asset. And I think after a couple of weeks of JD Vance, you can see it even more why it could work. And I was just thinking about Whitmer, who is, I think, just a strong political talent, not doing it this time. If Harris wins and let's say she gets eight years and now Josh Shapiro is the heir apparent, like,
sometimes there's people who just miss their moment. Yeah. Do you think Whitmer's missing hers? Oh, I maybe, but it's like so impossible to predict four years or eight years down the road. Like we just don't know who would have suspected JD Vance was going to be the future of MAGA, right? Like that just doesn't. I think maybe he's not now. Well, yeah. Or at least had an attempt to be the future of MAGA. It's just really impossible to know. And, um,
You know, even four weeks ago, we were talking about this idea that like, well, you know, that might be a convention or Biden is going to stick around and lose. And then, you know, it will be a matter of 2028 when all these Democrats go at each other. And like, who knows? Right. The other thing I keep coming back to is in this kind of like ties the show together is that if you had done this show four years ago or something like that, the prevailing sentiment in Democratic circles was that the party's bench was historically weak.
Biden was the elder vice president. Clinton had lost. That group of candidates that ran in 2020, I mean, it was Elizabeth Warren, but it was Bernie again. And it just didn't excite that many people. There was real concern that Obama had wiped out the party, that despite his successes, a lot of losses had happened. Now we're sitting here and we're talking about people
who are incredibly talented with obvious bright futures. We haven't even mentioned all of them. I mean, Wes Moore is among the next crop of Democratic governors who's got a future too. Roy Cooper took himself out of the running, but he is a well-talented governor. It's remarkable the ways in which our politics continuously shifts and all of our firmly held beliefs about the future tend to be silly and not worth making.
You know, I am going to let us end on this point because it's an incredible one. I don't think that I had the podcast four years ago, but I will say I think when I started it, because I remember getting in kind of a fight with Robert Gibbs about it. It was before 2022.
To your point, though, about how things can change, 2022 gave us Josh Shapiro. It gave us the Whitmer 10-point win that sort of solidified her standing in Michigan. It gave us Wes Moore. It gave us a much more impressive win by Warnock. It's when Kelly—you're right, I remember—
Tim Walz. That's right. But I remember there was that SNL skit where it was like, but if not Biden, who? And it was like, then they resurrected Hillary and, you know, whatever. It's like, but 2022 ushered in, and this will, I think, be one of the legacies of the Trump era is that it built the Democratic Party into a party that actually had
has broad appeal and a big bench that has broad appeal. And we haven't even seen some of the next gen people like Abigail Spanberger, who I think is going to be the next governor of Virginia and is clearly going to be somebody to look at nationally or Mikey Sherrill. And so I hope that's Donald Trump's enduring legacy that Democrats figured out how to go find a bunch of pragmatic folks that ultimately are able to push back against what the Republican Party is becoming. Could very well be.
Sam Stein, thank you so much for joining us. Sarah, this was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's fun, right? It's a good one. Why did it take so long to book me? I've been on for a month. Come on. Well, I'm glad we got you now. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the Focus Group Podcast. Remember to rate and review us at Apple Podcasts and subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube. We will see you guys next week.