How the 2024 Presidential Election Killed Identity Politics With Patrick Ruffini
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent. And this is Somebody's Gotta Win.

I know everyone's heads are spinning over the appointment of Matt Gaetz to Attorney General. It was such a closely held secret. I can tell you that even Gaetz didn't know really early in the week. And it's really alarming when you think about the fact that the current Attorney General, Merrick Garland, had a sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz, but he dropped it. I personally am not surprised that Gaetz got a role in the cabinet. He's in the inner, inner circle.

I've covered Trump world very closely. He is as loyal as it gets to Trump. After January 6th, he hightailed to Wyoming to try to take down Liz Cheney. I was there. I covered that. He spends a ton of time on the Mar-a-Lago patio with Trump, helping him come up with policy ideas and positions, helping him with his debate prep.

His brother-in-law, Lucky Palmer, founder of Oculus, is also a huge donor to Donald Trump. And he's close with Susie Wiles. So it's not really surprising either when you see so many Florida politicians getting these positions. Susie Wiles is a Florida operative. Senator Marco Rubio, her former client as Secretary of State. Mike Waltz, a Florida congressman as National Security Advisor. And now Gates.

It shows you that Susie Wiles has a strong hand in choosing this cabinet, and she will be a very muscular chief of staff, unlike, say, Reince Priebus. On Wednesday, Tulsi Gabbard was also named director of national intelligence, even after secretly meeting with Assad and blaming NATO for the Ukrainian invasion. As you know, she's a Democrat turned Republican and became a

a very forceful advocate for Donald Trump, particularly the Maha movement. That's the Make America Healthy Again movement. And they credit her and RFK Jr. for helping them carry over some independence to Donald Trump. So she was...

for that help. He also named Pete Hegseth, who is an anchor on Fox to Secretary of Defense. He has some very controversial views like that women should not be in combat and that we should pardon war criminals. Besides being a veteran, a lot of people are questioning his credentials. Obviously, there are a ton of

four-star generals out there that Trump could choose from, but he's obviously been burned, or at least he feels like he's been burned by the generals, like General Kelly, his second chief of staff. So everyone's sort of freaking out about these picks. And I'm like, how are you even surprised? Trump has come in with an overwhelming majority in the Senate, a strong mandate, and he's outrun so many of the candidates in the Senate. So I doubt they're even going to challenge him when it comes to confirmations. Like,

Like, are they really going to go up against Donald Trump? Maybe Lisa Murkowski, who isn't up for election in 2028. She's a moderate from Alaska. Or maybe Susan Collins. I mean, she's up for reelection in 2026. She's in her 70s. Maybe she doesn't run again. And she decides to try to challenge Trump. But who knows? I mean, they may not. They may say...

Trump won, and it's not a fluke like 2016, where a lot of people thought it was a fluke, and many of them actually outran Donald Trump in the election. He won the popular vote this time. I don't think that the Senate is going to challenge his picks. I think they're going to confirm them pretty quickly. Now, the Republican establishment had one win this week.

besides Marco Rubio. And that was John Thune being named Senate Majority Leader. And that was after a grassroots revolt played out online. They were calling for Senator Rick Scott to lead the Senate. Trump never got behind this publicly, but Elon Musk did on Twitter. And it looks like, you know, senators, they don't really care about grassroots. They are up for election every six years. And it is a private vote. It's sort of a gentleman's club. And they went with Thune, who had been raising a ton of money during the election.

Trump, for his part, he doesn't seem to want to get involved in these leadership contests. He just wants people who are going to bend to his will. And that's why Mike Johnson was named House Speaker pretty easily. Like Trump doesn't want them to be fighting over who's going to be running the House. Takes the narrative and attention off of him. And Thune, he wasn't going to support Rick Scott. He wasn't sure if Rick was going to win. And does it really matter if John Thune does exactly what he wants? Now, there is a bit of a chill, though, hanging over Mar-a-Lago streets.

among more of the so-called loyalists and grassroots. They were very upset to see Trump pass over Rick Grinnell for Secretary of State. He's the former director of national intelligence and U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump's first administration. You know, he's really seen as a loyalist who raised a lot of money for Trump and campaigned very hard for him, was there for him after January 6th.

And he's obviously more of the isolationist Tucker Carlson MAGA ilk, right? And the fact that he was passed over for Marco Rubio, who the grassroots are very suspicious of. They see him as a neocon and a war hawk. You know, it has them concerned that Trump is not going to make good on his promises of being loyal. But like, let's not forget that Trump is

demands loyalty, but he's rarely loyal himself. So yeah, they're nervous that they're going to see more of their own being boxed out of major roles. And they're convinced that it was a strategic decision to pick Marco Rubio so that they could open up a Senate seat in Florida for Laura Trump. That's

Trump's daughter-in-law. As you know, politics has become the new franchise business for the Trumps and they are getting their people out there in the political universe. So there's going to be a bit of a pressure campaign on Ron DeSantis to appoint Laura Trump because he's the only one who can do that. And as you know, DeSantis and Trump have a very frosty relationship. I heard that he was so out of the loop on all of this that he woke up in Rome and

to the news that Rubio was likely to be appointed Secretary of State. He read it in the New York Times, and then a sort of emissary from Mar-a-Lago made it known that they would like him to appoint Lara Trump. Now, DeSantis would probably prefer to choose someone like his chief of staff or his AG to be a placeholder for him when he'll be out of a job in 2026. He's term limited. And then he could run for that Senate seat and probably stay there for the rest of his political career if he wanted to. But now he will be under pressure from

to appoint Lara. And I think he'll end up bending to Trump's will. I mean, DeSantis is in a tough spot.

Susie Wiles was his former campaign manager. And after he won his first race for governor, he fired her. And there's just so much bad blood between those two camps. And Trump is obviously still pissed at him for running against him in the primary. So he may have to do this. He may have to appoint Laura Trump and get nothing in return.

wouldn't want to be Ron DeSantis. Now, a pinch more of transition news for now. I'm hearing that Kevin McCarthy, who wanted the role of chief of staff, you remember him, he was the ousted speaker of the house. He's made it known that he would like the job of secretary of energy. It

It might be a tall order because Trump has made it known as well that he sees Doug Burgum as his energy guy. You know, Doug Burgum comes from North Dakota. He ran in the primary, the Republican primary, but lost. And there is talk that Burgum could be more of an energy czar, which oversees cabinet postings like Energy and Interior.

but apparently czars don't have any statutory authority, like a cabinet secretary. So I could see him arguing for energy secretary. And as for McCarthy, I've heard that he's been bragging so much about how much money he's making in the private sector that he might not beg to be back in the mix. Keep checking puck.news.terrapalmeri for more of my transition reporting. You can use my discount code, Tara20, for 20% off a subscription at Puck. I promise you won't regret it.

So on Tuesday, I had a Democratic pollster, Evan Roth Smith, on the show to talk about why voters did not choose Kamala Harris. On this show, I've got Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini to talk about how the Republican Party is becoming more multiracial and how the divide between the two parties is really coming down to class and education levels.

Patrick, I think I should call you Patrick the Prophet. I had you on a year ago, exactly almost. It was November 16th, and here we are, airing on November 14th, and I'm going to give you the chance to come on the show and take a victory lap.

Because you called something out at the time that Donald Trump had changed the Republican coalition. He really was taking back African-American voters. He really was taking back the Latino voters from Democrats. The polling at the time showed that

Donald Trump was showing 12% of African-American support. And I remember a lot of Republicans, including some I will not name that have come on this podcast, said it's a mirage every year. Republicans say they're going to win more African-Americans and it's just another point, just another point, but it's going to be different this time. And you were the one who called it and you said basically the difference is that

The parties are changing because they're becoming more aligned based on education and class rather than on identity. Identity politics essentially is over is what you argued. But I want to go deeper into that because you really were ahead of it. And of course, I want to let you plug your book. So let's talk about this populist movement that is changing today.

basically killing off identity politics. I liked your tweet also on election night. You said, quote, it's nice not to be wrong. What did you mean by that? Yeah, I mean, look, the book was written long before it was actually wrapped long before the 2024 election. The 2024 election was just getting started. But what we saw in 2020 was

was a surprise. It was pretty surprising shift towards Trump among Latino voters, Asian voters in that election, such that he almost won that election despite being behind by eight points in the polls all throughout the year that, you know, he really had made some gains that made the elect 2020 election a lot closer and really cemented. I think we can't underestimate how decisive that was

in cementing his position as a potential candidate in 2024, where if he had kind of just underperformed by as much as the polls had expected, I don't think he could have stuck around. All right. So, you know, these gains that he made in 2020 were instrumental. The fact that he came so close,

and obviously look look he he also furthered a narrative that he didn't actually lose but that was more plausible to i i think his constituents because he can't actually did come very close in a lot of these states and he was a lot stronger than expected with working class voters in these states and then absolutely upended right the 2024 electoral landscape um so back

Back a year ago, right, it looked like Trump was on the way to the nomination. But, you know, there were polls starting to suggest that.

that there really was some pretty deep non-white erosion from Joe Biden that was far beyond what we had seen in past cycles, right? You were seeing Hispanic voters almost even, almost tied. You were seeing a surge of African-American voters towards Trump in our focus groups. In particular, we were really seeing this play out, you know, in terms of, you know, I conducted groups of African-American men that were majority for Trump,

And I didn't we didn't recruit them to be majority for Trump. That was how they played out. So it's certainly a version of all those shifts that we were still just starting to talk about a year ago actually did play out in this election, despite there being a different Democratic candidate, despite Democrats.

Swapping in a woman of color who theoretically should have done better with these groups. She does just as well.

Maybe maybe a little bit better, but roughly how Joe Biden would have done in these same groups because of the overall environment, because of how these voters were already moving, combined with that overall political environment, which is just a terrible environment for Democrats to be running in. OK, the environment, obviously, you have inflation, you have inflation.

immigration issues at the border. Some would blame the Biden administration for that one, right? But what did Trump do to win over these voters? Did he do anything at all? Or was it just...

you know what, we're unhappy with the direction of the country right now, so we're going to go to Trump? Or did he actually target these African-American voters or these Hispanic, Latino voters? I know that they have been low-key micro-targeting African-American voters even through social networks for a long time.

But I'm wondering if you see anything overt or kind of subvert persuasion going on. Well, I think the key is that what Trump didn't do was say, I have a Latinos for Trump coalition or I have an African-Americans for Trump coalition. Yeah, you see that on some signs.

But there was no like formalized sort of outreach in the same sense that you would see in a traditional Republican campaign, which would have coalition groups for each each of these groups and really kind of try to impose kind of their own version of identity politics on these groups. What I think Trump did, though, is place.

I think these voters really at the heart of his appeal, at the heart of and built his messaging really geared towards these infrequent voters who are working class, who are more diverse, who are in fact younger than the electorate, the groups that he was aiming for previously. In 2016, obviously, he was aiming for that

really talking to that post-industrial upper Midwestern voter and really won them over. But this time, you know, it was a campaign where we saw ads on the NFL talking in the voice of a Black man, say Kamala is for they, them, Trump is for you. Oh, it's interesting that you pointed out that the voice was a Black man. I didn't realize that, actually. I think so. I think it was, right? But

that was something that you saw, something that they in particular drove home during the closing stages of the campaign. But also you have in his appearances on podcasts that were geared towards young men, in venues that were

you know, especially also popular among young Latino and black men. And he has, in fact, gotten, according to both examples, just dramatic swings in both of those in both of those groups. It's interesting that, you know, really Trump's media strategy seemed to have hit the mark in terms of getting these shifts between

among younger men and younger non-white men in particular that a lot of people were talking about for the election. Whereas Harris's strategy, talking to younger women,

really did not seem to bear much fruit going on the Call Her Daddy podcast, did not seem to bear as much fruit for Harris. And the focus, the incessant focus on the abortion issue did not seem to manifest in terms of a shift of younger women her way. In fact, they swung towards Trump by less than young males, but still swung towards Trump.

It's interesting, though. He did like to say, you know, he was saving Black jobs. You remember that? Creating Black jobs. He seemed to always botch it when he was speaking to African-Americans. You know, when he was at the National Organization of Black Journalists, that was kind of testy. He also went to barbershops. I think that was like another choice that he made. I don't think he's always the most artful when he's speaking to minority groups, but I think what you're right is that he didn't really speak to them in a segmented way. He just spoke to all...

All men in a similar way by going on Rogan and these pods and just trying to win them over with an economy message. Let's also talk about the Hispanic community. You really have dug into this community. You have been saying for a long time that the Hispanic community is not one that the Democrats can take for granted. Obviously, it's super fragmented and we can talk about that.

But they seem to have really swung right even more so. And this is a shift that's been going on for decades now. What are you seeing? If anything, it was it was even surprising to the extent that which they swung right even more than I think by even more than the polls were expecting. Maybe African-Americans a little bit less or sort of kind of expected their different dynamics. Certainly a play in those in those communities there.

But it's interesting when you mentioned earlier about Trump speaking inartfully at times in front of these audiences. And the real point is that these audiences didn't seem to mind, right? I mean, if we were to see, if we were going to see a backlash from

To things like the Puerto Rican joke at the Madison Square Garden rally, the black jobs comment. We just didn't see it in the election results. And in fact, what you had was in places like Osceola County, Allentown, Pennsylvania, heavy Puerto Rican population all swung pretty heavily towards Trump.

And this is a community that's like this is not known as a Republican leaning group. I mean, this is a block of voters who's actually very different than other Hispanics in the United States in that they can vote the minute they are U.S. citizens who can vote the minute that they start living in the mainland United States. And so, you know, there's a lot of concern.

Right. In the closing days of the election that, oh, Trump was going to blow it with Puerto Ricans with this joke. And it was really blowing up. And Democrats saying there's a lot of optimism, really talking about the really talking about the it's spilling over into other Hispanics and voters overall. And in fact, very opposite happens. And I think that, you know, there's a lesson in that.

In that, you know, a lot of people, not just non-white communities, but a lot of people just like to speak bluntly about things. I think it's okay to make a joke every now and then, to crack a joke every now and then. If, you know, somebody messes up a word or two, they aren't canceled. They aren't taken to task for it. We can laugh it off.

Right. And I think that that, you know, the entire Democratic Party just seems to have lost sight of that completely. Interesting. You're saying they're not very fun, are they? It doesn't seem to be the case. And right. I mean, they lost the human touch a bit. Yeah. It's interesting because you do hear in focus groups and ads, you know, when asked, what word would you describe Trump? Crazy.

Where would you describe Harris? Preachy. But they chose crazy over preachy. I think absolutely. Another fun polling question I thought was the New York Times. Right. I ran a polling question like, do you think Donald Trump is fun? Right. And, you know, vast majority of people, you know, at least I think this is in comparison to the other primary candidates at the time. That's far more people chose him as fun. And I just think that's that's kind of the side effect.

people wanted to be with. Obviously, the environment being one that was favorable to Trump, the environment being one where people were really in our polling and others polling were really prioritizing a strong leader. That was something that really resonated with people. But against that backdrop,

I think he could make mistakes. He could slip up a little bit because, you know, this was not something that hasn't really, that didn't hurt him, but it really hadn't hurt him in the past either, except when he, you know, was perceived as going really,

really way over a line. I mean, there were some places where he has had to, he has had to track over time, but, but that, but, but every, um, the single kind of, uh, controversy of the day, uh, type of, of, of attack line, it felt like a return to 2017. And that wasn't necessarily a moment when, um, you know, uh, people were, you know, flocking away from Donald Trump. Right. At the

At the same time, they did have to distance themselves from that comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, and what he said about Puerto Ricans. They were worried about that. So you're also saying that...

there is an education polarization. And it's not just a white phenomenon. It's across the board, a racial phenomenon. Can you explain that as well? Yeah. So in 2016, obviously, we saw this in the realignment up in the upper Midwest and in a lot of the suburbs moving left accordingly. And usually that

benefited Trump because obviously, you know, those are the swing states in the election that kind of ultimately decided the election. Now, there were a lot of questions, right, going into 2024 about this strategy of really doubling down on

younger minority men and non-college men in those types of groups. Because the thought was, oh, this is really maybe going to help us in blue states. It's maybe going to help us in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, some of these Sunbelt states. But how does it help us in Michigan? How does it help us in Pennsylvania? How does it help us in Wisconsin? So there was a little bit of a

of a backlash to that idea, but it all seems to have worked out pretty well, right? In that, you know, I think the environment was such that

You know, he did get the votes he needed. Those those upper Midwestern battleground states, even though they were primarily white electorates, did have enough nonwhite voters and did have, I think, the turnout trends move enough in Trump's direction to where he was able to swing them. And.

uh, obviously him cleaning up, uh, mostly in those Western, Western and Southern Sunbelt States and moving the popular vote his way, which I think was something that I thought, you know, on election day, I'm like, yeah, maybe at this point there's a kind of a 40 to 50% chance that Trump wins the popular vote based on the trending and specifically some of the high quality polls really trending his direction over the last 42 to seven, 48 to 72 hours. But, uh,

That's also something that I don't think people fully priced in, that Trump was a candidate who could actually win the popular vote, which really would have been unthinkable in either 2016 or 2020. Is the class divide over? Is it just college degree voter versus non-college degree voter?

Right. So because in that 2016 case, what you had was a realignment among whites, but you still had a pretty solid block voting for Democrats among African-Americans and Latinos. That begins to erode in 2020 and it further erodes. And I think we're probably going to continue to see this. Right. Because particularly, you know, I don't think we're done yet.

particularly among African-American voters. I think it's a really a long-term trend based on changes that are happening in the community. There's a lot of research that really the Democratic majority among those voters is really held together.

um, by social forces, like people being in the community, going to black churches. And over time, people are doing those things, kinds of things, less and less. They're living in more integrated environments. You're seeing intermarriage, you're seeing suburbanization, all these trends that over time, I think are going to make African-Americans, maybe not a 50, 50 group, but maybe more like a 80, 20 or 70, 30 group. Um,

among Hispanics. I do think we are going to see, we're actually getting very close to the point though, where they are going to be probably something like a 50-50 group moving forward. And that's very similar to, you know, kind of past waves of immigration. So,

Italians, Irish people, right, in the late 19th and early 20th century that really started out as groups that were very highly marginalized, discriminated against in the country, and gradually moved to being more 50-50. And I think, you know, my Italian compatriots, right, are now a pretty Republican group, at least if you believe and look at some of these election results out of New York.

specifically. Yeah, no, they were always kind of considered labor because they were day workers. They were supposed to vote the way the union bosses told them to vote, right? That was how it worked. I know that in my own family, you look back at generations of Italian Americans and now my father is as right wing as they got. Whereas his father was a reliable democratic voter, machinist. He knew how to vote with the party, right?

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Babbel.com slash Spotify podcast spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify podcast. Rules and restrictions may apply. I also want to talk about these millennials. There's a shift there and Gen Z voters swinging from Biden to 2023 and away from the party towards Trump. It was a pretty big swing. And I can't imagine that's an educational divide. That is the reason. Is that just...

anxieties about the economy. What are you seeing with the Gen Z and millennials kind of shifting away from the Democrats? Yeah. So all of this stuff intersects, right? Because you've got younger voters, you've got, um, uh, diverse voters. You have people who are maybe lower income. Um, all of these intersect in a way, um, that these are the groups that really have been hit hardest by inflation, particularly Gen Z and millennials who, uh, really, uh,

you know, were really devastated by the Great Recession. Then you had COVID and, you know, they are they're just you know, there's at least a sense that they're just in a much more tenuous position economically. And then you add on to that inflation and rising costs. And frankly, the cost of housing is an underplayed issue in this race because that's not counted in the official inflation statistics.

But the ability, you know, young people really not having an ability to buy homes, you know, because mortgage interest rates were so high, so sky high. And, you know, practically the cost of a starter mortgage payment had doubled under Joe Biden. So that, I think, created a lot of anxiety.

And so people feeling like it's not just like, okay, maybe my, you know, maybe I'm making money and maybe my salary has gone up to compensate me for any rise in costs, but it really sucks that I'm stuck in this

kind of one bedroom apartment and I can't go buy a house, right? And these insecurity about the future that I think permeated through the youth vote. And now we're headed to, I think the less, you know, Democrats,

used to be able to count on the youngest voters by about 20 points. And now that's in some, at least one of the exit polls, it was down to five points. Wow. What will the Democratic coalition look like in the future? I mean, I think that they have a choice to make. Certainly they are moving in the direction of being a more college educated party, you know, and that's something where it

It reflects on a lot of the choices that they've made during this campaign, where I think they kind of were warned that, you know, this was potentially coming. And yet they still continued. They pivoted at the very end of the campaign back to this democracy and abortion message, which was number one, at least the abortion side of it seems to have been ineffective in mobilizing the constituency groups that they thought they were going to mobilize with that. But the democracy message really closing out with that message.

That speech on the Ellipse, the callback to January 6th, it felt like...

shades of what the Biden campaign was going to look like at the end. Remember, like you had, you know, the Biden campaign saying voters are going into the booth thinking about January 6th. Right. None of the none of the respondents in the polling showed that it was like so low democracy on the concerns. Right. I think clearly a motivating issue for the Democratic base, but primarily a motivating issue for the college educated Democratic base, which was never really going anywhere.

You know, the problem was that they were losing a lot of kind of their voters on the fringes of the coalition, the voters that they need to that infrequently turn out. And those voters were focused on the economy. What will the future Republican coalition look like? I think we are headed towards, you know, I mean, it seems like we're headed to something more like a working class coalition that spans across racial lines.

And the real big, big interesting question is what what changes is that going to mean for policy? Right. You've already seen a change in emphasis, certainly from Trump, even in his first term. Right. Really setting aside.

kind of, let's say the Paul Ryan style budget cutting. Uh, I mean, Trump clearly very clearly has very little interest in that. Um, but how far is that actually going to go in a second term is very interesting. I mean, you know, if tariffs are going to move forward, is that something and what effect is, would something like that have on the working class? Um, if it raises prices, right. That is a question. Um,

that is very much up in the air right now. So they're not a reliable constituency for the Republican Party. They can lose their working class just as quickly as the Democrats can if they can't fix the economy. Yeah, look, look, I think that any president who is reelected or anyone who wins these elections, I think, frankly, has done so by doing better among non-college,

late deciding people who don't pay very close attention to politics. Right. And I think, look, I think that was true for Barack Obama as well. And the challenge, though, is in midterms. Right. Because that is a that is not necessarily a reliable constituency in midterms. Right. I think it's actually a pretty reliable constituency.

And they do show up in presidentials. But the question is, are they going to show up in midterms? Right. Yeah. And the Trump team was certainly really banking on these people. And Democrats are dubious. You know, David Plouffe went around to all the podcasts and all the writers and said, oh, they're relying too heavily on low propensity voters to

pull them over the line. But it looks like the Republicans were right that Trump was right and they did end up showing up for him. Well, the low propensity Republican voters show up, the low propensity Democratic voters did not show up. I mean, that's that was the problem that they were to doubt

the low propensity voters, but it was really their own voters who were, they were, they were right about doubting. Right. But I just think like, I just think back to the moments that Trump was able to create during the course of the campaign from the Butler assassination attempt to the trip to McDonald's to the garbage truck thing. I mean, he did, he,

Um, the things he did consciously really did kind of break through and really did create images that, um, you know, particularly somebody who isn't paying attention to politics 24 seven could really gravitate towards. So, uh, you know, it is possible, right. To mobilize and galvanize people who didn't, um, who haven't voted before Barack Obama did it. And I think, you know, we have to give Trump credit, um,

Because he was able to, I think, consciously create images in this campaign that in a way that he didn't necessarily always do in 2016 and 2020. That really showed a broader appeal to a broader constituency of voters. But I just think that like, look, I mean, Kamala Harris had to stage big rallies, had to stage big events, right?

but it was never really about Kamala Harris. It's about Beyonce. It was about Oprah. It was about the musical acts that she,

brought on, right? And spend millions and millions of dollars on staging these events, right? So it just shows you the differences between those two campaigns down the stretch. Yeah, no, it's interesting for sure, because I did hear a lot of panic from Democrats, the bedwetters as they're called, who weren't wrong to wet the bed for what it's worth. So I think we can stop mocking them for that, saying, what is she doing coming out with all of these celebrities in the final weeks and all the major markets?

You know, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce. Doesn't this feel a little 2016? Doesn't this feel like Hillary Clinton in her final week as well? You know, they were having deja vu.

But I'm just wondering, like, can this coalition stay together without Trump? I asked you this back a year ago. Is it there's something about him? And like, will this glue stick together without him in the party? He's not your typical politician. He's changed the Republican Party. He's he's forced them to become a populist party, a non fiscally responsible party. It's not the party of Mitt Romney. It's not the party of Paul Ryan. They

They have a hard time fielding candidates like Trump. There's only one Trump in the same way that Democrats have a hard time fielding candidates like Obama. There's only one Obama. So does the coalition really stay together without him? Like, does J.D. Vance keep it together? That's always the challenge, right? I mean, I think that one thing my book argues is I look like I think we're trying to get away from a little bit of the personality star sidestep the personality question a little bit because you're right. He is unique.

This is something, the things that he was able to do during this campaign are not necessarily easily, are not at all easily replicated. And every candidate who comes forward in 2028, there will definitely be a new candidate who comes forward in 2028. They have to create their own. They have to roll their own coalition. They can't just borrow or think they can borrow in total the Trump coalition or try to ride on coattails of the coattails of someone else.

They have to do something a little bit different. But I think fundamentally the template, right, the sort of starting place that most Republicans have is going to be populism, right, as opposed to sort of a return to kind of old school, moderate establishment republicanism. I mean, I think that's dead at this point. It's dead and buried.

And I think the sooner that Republicans kind of admit that to themselves, the easier it would be right to move forward. You know, there's certainly J.D. Vance and then in this campaign, you know, who I think put a face on, you know, in that VP debate in particular on this, you know, on Trumpism that, you

I think it was probably one of the more successful examples I've seen of somebody really adapting Trump's appeal, Trump's message, but doing it in a way that was super smooth, that was connected with kind of more moderate voters, maybe those suburban voters.

So I'm really interested in seeing what the different versions of that will look like over the next four years. But I think the overall overarching picture and why it is a populist party now is because, simply speaking, we are seeing this all over the world, that there is no demand for

virtually anywhere for either an establishment center right party or an establishment center left party. Both parties are going to need to move, I think, in a more populist direction to survive. And I think to some extent, right, AOC had this like

You know, she was doing a post about trying to talk to the Trump voters in her district because there was a huge surge to Trump. And they're asking, she's asking, right, her own voters, right, why did you vote for Trump and for me? And they're like, and the response that came back was like, you two are both real, right?

That their politics could be different, but they were both real people. And so I think that combination is very hard to recreate. But at least from a policy direction perspective,

I do think we're headed to a more populist Republican Party, for better or worse. And also it's just like a sign from the voters. They're tired of typical politicians, smooth talking in the same sort of presentation that they're used to. They want this authenticity. It's a little gritty. It doesn't sound perfect. Sounds a little less perhaps educated or it just sounds like a regular...

you know, neighbor, whatever. But do you think Republicans are over interpreting this realignment? Look, I mean, after the end of every election where you've won a majority, right, there's always that to be a little bit hubristic and try to. But I think at the end of the day, look, I mean, if you're if you're doing this to get policy wins, you know, you're trying to accomplish things in office.

I think to some extent it's necessary, but it's like that old George W. Bush comment at the end of the 2004 election. I earned political capital and I'm going to spend it. And boy, did he spend it and boy, did he spend it down. But I respect people who are willing to take a hit to their popularity. And Donald Trump is obviously not somebody who is going to.

be able to run for reelection. Really unique case, right, where he was not the president already and he has been elected to a second term. But, you know, people voting for him knowing it would only be a four year term. So I think that is going to be the challenge, right, moving forward. And I think there's absolutely always

But I think I think regardless of kind of where we're headed in twenty twenty eight specifically, it's going to be the Democrats are going to be the college educated party. Republicans are going to be the working class party. It's going to be more of a question, right, of which side is stronger, right?

I don't think we've we've entered the end of history. I don't think we've entered a period where one party is dominant or over the other. I think we have two party politics no matter what. Parties are held accountable for what they do in government no matter what. And I just think that the character and the nature of who can get through a Republican primary is.

Do you think if someone like AOC ran in twenty twenty eight, she could claw back some of the working class voters from Republicans? Well, look, I mean, I think they have to look at somebody who's very stylistically very different because I think that they they saw obviously they went through a very brief, abbreviated, truncated process to try to figure out in a very broad

in a hurry who was going to be kind of the post Biden. It wasn't a process. No, not even a process. Right. But but, you know, even if there had been a mini primary so-called, I mean, it's very doubtful it would have turned out very differently. Right. Than what it did.

But but stylistically, right. They thought they were solving the Biden problem by replacing him with someone younger, solve the age problem. Who is a woman of color appeal to these rising demographic cohorts? But they were viewing it solely through the lens of identity politics, solely through the lens of, you know, maybe, you know, maybe we can recreate this Obama coalition that we can get people excited about.

And people were excited, at least partisan Democrats were excited for a period of time. But in terms of how she presented itself, it was the complete opposite of an AOC. It was the complete opposite of somebody like John Fetterman, right, who speaks very bluntly in stark language.

And, you know, she seemed like the ultimate cautious politician who wouldn't even outline, discuss one any way that she would be different than Joe Biden, who, you know, you would think as a 40 percent approval, you know, you would think she'd try to find some approved way to distance herself. But she wasn't able to. She ran as a generic Democrat. I really don't think there's any other way to say it. I mean, it's even hard to really pinpoint what she would have done in office.

in office so i think like if democrats are trying to solve well okay harris was viewed as too extreme let's run a moderate like josh shapiro i think the problem there is going to be that he is also going to come across as an inauthentic or typical politician um

And maybe that's what Kamala was trying to avoid by not picking him for VP. But they're trying to maybe solve the wrong problem, potentially, that you need to be looking at is somebody who can just speak and looks and sounds fundamentally different.

than these interchangeable cogs in a machine that I feel like they have been kind of been stuck in nominating after Obama. Thank you so much, Patrick, for your time. Always interesting. I'm sure I'll be talking to you again in a few more.

months, maybe years. And I'll say, hey, you got it right last year. We'll see what's to come in the 2026 midterms if the pendulum will swing the other way after a round of tariffs and a lot of deportations. Thank you. Appreciate it.

That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, rate it, share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, the best and the brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20 for 20% off a subscription at Puck. That's uppercase T-A-R-A 20. See you again this week.