We've been subject to endless hot takes about last year's elections, but Catalist has much more compelling answers. CEO Michael Frias joins us on this week's episode of The Downballot podcast to explore his firm's detailed new report, What Happened in 2024, that uses carefully assembled voter data to understand how things really went down.
Frias explains why greater turnout might not have benefited Democrats and doesn't flinch from highlighting serious weaknesses the party has with key constituencies like young Latino men. And as we look toward the midterms, he cautions that MAGA is "not standing still," saying Democrats must be prepared to evolve as well.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also spotlight the huge Democratic overperformance in Tuesday's special election in South Carolina, which was the first to take place in a majority-Black district. And they explain why Iowa Democrat J.D. Scholten was smart to immediately jump into the race against GOP Sen. Joni Ernst after her "we're all going to die" outburst.
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The dichotomy between persuasion and turnout that you discussed with Michael is missing a critical element that folks like Anat Shenker-Osorio and the team at Way to Win talk about all the time.
If our potential voters are to turn out, they don't just need to be identified and called in the final days of the campaign, they need to be persuaded to get out and vote no less than a vote switcher. The term they use is mobisuation. We need to mobilize our base by persuading them.
Speaking of Way to Win, I expect you would find the work they have been doing to understand the various cohorts of what they call Biden Skippers, 2020 Biden voters who sat out 2024, extremely interesting. You can get a taste of that work by listening to their relatively new podcast Charting the Way Forward.
The characteristics of the 2024 no-shows are quite a bit more nuanced I think than the Catalist report and your discussion suggests.
Dear David's,
I love Dailykos.
But your analysis with Mr. Frias is
superficial and incomplete. He
doesn't understand the role of
class and racism in Presidential
elections, and apparently, he
doesn't see the role of sexism in
Kamala's defeat.
This is what happens when
middle-class people try to
understand the working- class.
Steve Walker
retired Political Science professor
working class person
313-729-2788