Are the Democrats ready to win back Congress?

[0:00] What do the Democrats need to do to win again? [0:02] They may say they are already winning, [0:05] and they are, in elections around the United States, [0:07] in places that they haven't won for years. [0:09] But the big prize, the 2028 presidential prize, [0:13] is still some way away. [0:15] And the stepping stone to that is the midterms later this year. [0:19] I'm talking now to someone who knows more than any other Democrat [0:23] about what it takes to win. [0:26] He was involved with Obama when he won in 2008, [0:28] and he ran his campaign in 2012. [0:32] And let me tell you, Jim Messina takes no prisoners. [0:35] Welcome to AmeriCast. [0:39] AmeriCast. [0:40] AmeriCast from BBC News. [0:43] Joining us now, Jim Messina. [0:44] Jim, it's a real pleasure to have you on the podcast. [0:46] You've done us before. [0:49] We're really honoured that you take the time and trouble [0:51] to talk to the many people who listen to us. [0:53] My pleasure. Good to see you. [0:55] And it's presumably a particular pleasure at the moment [0:57] to talk about the Democrats, Jim, [0:59] and it hasn't always been when you've come on the podcast. [1:01] But, I mean, just writ large at the moment, [1:04] we'll get to some of the downsides in a second, [1:06] but writ large, when you look at recent election results, [1:09] it's going well. [1:10] Going better than you could have expected, [1:12] given our overall messaging challenges. [1:15] Since Trump took office, [1:17] Democrats have won over 100 local races around the country. [1:21] They've overperformed Kamala Harris's numbers by about 10.4%, [1:25] which in American terms is just a landslide. [1:29] And we're starting to win seats. [1:31] And we're starting to win seats that we haven't won in a generation. [1:35] I don't think all of it's due to our greatness. [1:37] I think it's mostly due to Donald Trump's poor approval ratings, [1:40] but we can talk a little bit about that going forward. [1:43] Definitely get to that, the greatness or no greatness thing in a second. [1:46] But just to underline, we were mentioning on the podcast recently [1:50] that local election victory or state election victory down in Florida [1:56] in a little place called Mar-a-Lago, or at least the district where Mar-a-Lago is, [2:00] which, I mean, [2:01] you can't do that. [2:01] Just to underline, you are winning, as you've just said, [2:04] in places where you really wouldn't expect to. [2:07] Yeah, that's Donald Trump's home district. [2:09] That's where he and his wife and son vote. [2:11] He won that district by 14% in the last election. [2:15] The Republicans won it in their last local election by 19%. [2:20] The Democrat, no one knew who they were, [2:23] but campaigned all on affordability and won a race. [2:28] And now Donald Trump's home district, [2:30] which is represented by a Democrat, for the first time in living memory. [2:35] I can promise you Mar-a-Lago is not the traditional Democratic territory, [2:40] but the anger at affordability in the United States provides many bountiful fruits. [2:46] Yeah. [2:46] So looking ahead to November, what is a realistic expectation? [2:50] Definitely to win the House back. [2:52] I mean, Democrats have got to win the House back. [2:54] It is the reason for the party right now that we have to put some check on Donald Trump. [3:00] And I think that's what the voters want, too. [3:04] So that is job one. [3:05] We're starting to have some shot in the Senate, [3:08] which is unbelievable, given the current map. [3:11] We could talk about that. [3:13] But we have got to win Congress back. [3:15] So when it comes to the Senate, [3:17] we've been mentioning a few times on the pod recently that it is not any longer laughably unlikely. [3:26] And it was, frankly, wasn't it? [3:28] Because, as you say, of the map, [3:29] because too many of the seats are too dark. [3:31] It's difficult for the Democrats to to to to get to at least that's what we thought until now. [3:40] That's exactly right. [3:41] I mean, when you look at the map, it is full of Senate races where Donald Trump won states handily like Texas, like Iowa, like Alaska, like Montana. [3:53] And now we're competitive in most of those states and it has very little to do with the Democrats. [4:00] It's just because. [4:02] I think the Democrats and the Republicans are in a very similar position and I think we all agree that we're all very similar. [4:08] They're going to get there. [4:09] And they're going to win. [4:10] But the Democrats have just tanked on a lot of those. [4:11] Trump's numbers have just tanked, especially on the economy. [4:15] His superpower in three presidential elections was the economy. [4:18] He beat Kamala Harris in a very close election by 12 points on the economy, and he now is underwater by twenty nine percent. [4:24] That number you and I talked about earlier, that Democrats are overperforming by about 12 points. [4:30] That is super important. [4:31] Because if we were to do that in the Senate races, [4:32] in Ohio. And so that just puts the Senate into play. I still, you know, wouldn't bet your college, [4:39] your kid's college endowment on it. I still think it's really hard. Here's a number for the stats [4:45] nerds on the on the podcast. You know, in the past six years in Senate races, only one party has won [4:52] a state where they didn't win the presidential. And that was the Republicans in Wisconsin. [4:57] So, you know, Democrats are just trying to do something that is really has not happened in about [5:03] 10 years. That said, you know, as you know, we've talked about this. I hate polling. I think most [5:09] pollsters are idiots. But the prediction markets, which are full of way smarter people than you and [5:14] me now have the Senate at about 50 50 toss up, which I think is interesting. And if it were to [5:19] happen, what difference would it make? Huge, huge, huge, huge, because the Senate is where Trump goes [5:25] to get his. [5:27] His appointments through he doesn't get to appoint some of these crazy people he's put in [5:33] into these positions. There's no way a Pete Hegseth in Department of War gets confirmed. [5:39] There was no way a Kristi Noem at DHS would would have gotten confirmed. And so the second thing is [5:45] if you have the House and the Senate, Trump's agenda is basically over. He can't do anything. [5:50] He can't spend money. They can stop him from doing lots of things. And so it effectively [5:56] would. [5:57] Neuter his presidency. [5:58] Do you believe, given that that is the case, that the election will be free and fair? Because what a lot of people and you hear this again and again from people on the Democratic side and you hear it outside the United States as well with people who think they know about what goes on in the United States saying, well, I just don't believe it's likely that Donald Trump allows this election to go ahead. Do you? [6:23] I think he's going to try everything he can to not make this a free and fair election. [6:27] And you saw that yesterday he signed a blatantly unconstitutional executive order banning mail in voting because he thinks wrongly, by the way, but he thinks that Democrats use mail in voting better than Republicans. [6:43] I would like to remind everyone that in the election you just talked about in Mar-a-Lago, he and Melania and their son voted by by mail in ballot. [6:53] But apparently it's OK for him, but not OK for everyone else. [6:56] Anyway, he put. [6:57] This executive order saying no mail in balloting. [7:00] Well, for the folks out there who don't follow this very closely, it's the states who control those decisions. [7:07] The states decide if there's mail in ballot or not. [7:11] By the way, his party does better when there's mail in balloting, which his Republican operatives have been trying to say to him. [7:17] But President Trump is not enamored of opinions, not his own. [7:22] So that is just one thing he's attempting to do. [7:25] He's also talking about using the National Guard to say. [7:27] To make sure the elections are safe. [7:31] You and I both know what what authoritarian places do with with armies on the streets. [7:39] It's not a great history here. [7:41] So he's trying to do all that. [7:42] But the courts are just routinely rejecting all of these things. [7:47] Even his own appointment, his own judge appointments have been doing these things. [7:52] I'm co-chair of this thing called Democracy Defenders with the famous American lawyer, Norm Eisen. [7:57] You have a. [7:57] Famous American lawyer and a famous political hack like me coming together to figure out how to make sure we use all the levers to make sure he doesn't do those things. [8:08] And so, you know, I still believe we were we are going to get to a fair and free election despite Donald Trump's best efforts. [8:16] You have hinted more than hinted right from the start of this conversation that you are keeping your excitement about the Democrats under wraps because you believe. [8:28] Jim, that the party hasn't sorted itself out or what? [8:32] We have not solved our own problems. [8:35] We still have the lowest approval rating of any major party. [8:39] We have the lowest approval. [8:41] We have a lower approval rating I saw the other day than than Russia. [8:46] Like, I don't think that's great. [8:47] Right. [8:47] Right now, we are existing kind of because we're the opposition to Donald Trump and people do not like Donald Trump. [8:55] But if we're going to win a presidential election, which I care more about than anything else. [8:58] In twenty twenty eight, we've got to fix our own problems. [9:02] We win. [9:02] We have great local candidates who really focus on the affordability issue. [9:07] And so that's why, you know, everyone's raced over to me saying Obama's got to get involved. [9:11] Bill Clinton's got to come back. [9:12] We've got to do all this. [9:13] And I keep saying, no, you idiots. [9:16] What we've got to do. [9:17] We don't want this to be a national election. [9:19] We want this to be a referendum on Donald Trump. [9:22] And as you all know, people listening in the UK, like, you know, when you have an unpopular prime minister, [9:28] they lose all sorts of local elections, by elections and everything else because it's a referendum really on them. [9:34] And that's what we want this election to be about. [9:37] But when that's all over, it certainly would be nice for the Democrats to figure out an economic message that makes anyone excited. [9:45] And currently we don't have that. [9:47] Is that message. [9:49] Let's just focus on that for a second, because people who've who've also who agree with you about that say that message. [9:57] Maybe should be more populist than it has in the past. [10:01] In other words, the Democrats now pivot from certainly from the Clinton days, the sort of the globalist agenda, [10:07] the agenda that says free trade is a great thing. [10:09] The agenda that says, you know, we we need as America to be trading with the whole world. [10:17] And occasionally that will mean that people get it in the neck in the United States. [10:22] And that agenda, they say, was then seized on by at least one wing of the Republican Party. [10:27] It's part of the MAGA movement and it got a lot of disaffected people to become Republicans. [10:32] So they say, Jim, don't they? [10:34] The solution is for us as well to become more populist, in a sense, more nationalist, more locally focused. [10:41] Is that the right way to go? [10:42] Thank you for asking this question. [10:44] This is like therapy for me because I hate that argument and I hate this fight. [10:49] I think it's so stupid, but it's real in my party. [10:53] Right. We have these people just going to war saying we need to go populist or we need to. [10:57] To not go populist, we need to go back to Bill Clinton. [11:00] And I think that's exactly wrong. [11:03] I think what is true is we've got to figure out what a unifying message that takes all parts of our party and unifies them together. [11:11] And that really is around this affordability message. [11:15] People win. [11:16] You know, as you know, I have over a dozen presidents and prime ministers around the world as my clients. [11:20] And we win national elections when you are seen to represent better than your opponent. [11:27] People's economic futures. [11:30] And that isn't deciding you're going to side on one side of the populism versus nationalism argument. [11:35] That is getting really granular on how you can make people's lives better. [11:39] And in these races around the country, you know, there's a difference. [11:43] We can have differences of focus. [11:46] Mondani in New York ran a very different campaign than Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey, just over the bridge. [11:53] Mikey Sherrill won a landslide election. [11:55] Mondani won an upset election. [11:57] But they both won. [11:57] They both focused on affordability. [11:59] They just did it from different atmospheres. [12:01] They did it from different proposals. [12:03] But they were both seen as really authentic, who were speaking truth to power, who had new ideas that people really gravitated around. [12:12] And I don't think if you asked either one of them, they would say they decided to side with one of the wings of the party. [12:17] They decided to side with the voters of their constituencies. [12:22] And I think this is really, really important. [12:25] I've now met with 27 people who tell me. [12:27] They're considering running for president of the United States of America. [12:31] Basically, everyone but you and me is thinking about running as Democrat for president of the United States. [12:38] And the people that I am really impressed with are authentic, know who they are, haven't polled all this stuff, have some new ideas that make me say, that's interesting. [12:50] And so I think that's what we should do. [12:52] And we should stop having this little ideological war in our party. [12:55] Just to be clear, Jim, you're saying that. [12:57] That those 27 are talking to you now about 2028. [13:03] Oh, hell yeah. [13:03] Because, you know, we are less than seven months away from the midterm elections. [13:09] And the next day, people are going to start calling donors and other folks. [13:14] And people are going to start announcing for president right after Christmas. [13:18] There's going to be a full-blown presidential election on at the beginning of the year. [13:22] And, you know, people forget Barack Obama announced in January of 2006. [13:27] That he was running for president in 2008. [13:31] You've got to move. [13:33] And these people are starting to test out messages. [13:36] Here's an interesting thing since we're at a long-form podcast. [13:39] The thing I'm looking at is who these candidates who are up in 2026 want to campaign with them. [13:46] Because that was the first time you thought Barack Obama could beat Hillary Clinton in 2008. [13:51] Because in the 2006 elections, every Senate and House candidate wanted Obama. [13:56] They wanted Obama. [13:57] They wanted Obama. [13:57] They wanted Obama. [13:57] They wanted Obama. [13:57] They wanted Obama because he was new and exciting and had ideas. [14:01] And so when you look at some of these people who aren't at the top of the polls, but I think have room to grow, [14:08] there are people that are every Senate and governor campaign are calling them and saying, [14:13] hey, you know, I want you to campaign with me. [14:17] People like Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. [14:20] You know, people like Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro. [14:23] Neither one of them are at the top of the polls right now, but they're just getting swamped. [14:27] And so even though the polls would tell you that Gavin Newsom's ahead, Pete Buttigieg is ahead, Kamala Harris, these other folks are getting way more requests, which I think is an interesting way to think about it. [14:44] I'm interested in Andy Beshear. [14:46] So I was listening to him the other day. [14:47] Andy Beshear in Kentucky is the governor of Kentucky, isn't he? [14:51] He's enormously popular in Kentucky. [14:54] I think I'm right in saying he's the most popular Democratic governor currently. [14:58] In power anywhere in the country. [15:00] That's right, isn't it? [15:01] So there he is. [15:03] It's a state that was easily won by Donald Trump. [15:06] And it's interesting hearing him, I mean, in a sense, say the same things that you've just said to us about. [15:13] Focus on the things that matter to 80 percent of the people is what I heard him say. [15:19] So then when you get to the difficult bits, like, for instance, trans rights that cause Kamala Harris so much difficulty, what do you do? [15:28] In those difficult bits, because when I was listening to, I'm not sure he came up, he just said, well, focus on the other stuff. [15:34] But I'm not sure that really works in an election. [15:36] That's a great question. [15:38] I think he I think he's right in the you have to focus on the economics. [15:41] But I think he also is right. [15:43] You don't win in a red state with letting people define you and you take some of those issues off the table. [15:49] You know, my big criticism of the Harris campaign is they refuse to answer the trans ad. [15:53] They never answer and they just let it sit out there in an election. [15:56] She lost by about $300,000. [15:58] Votes total in four states. [16:01] You know, that was probably the difference. [16:02] You cannot do that. [16:04] You got to take it on and you have to have an answer and you have to to switch the narrative. [16:09] But I think he's right. [16:10] He's been through tough elections. [16:11] He won three elections. [16:12] People didn't think he could win. [16:14] And in part, he took some of these issues off the table. [16:18] Josh Shapiro is the second most popular Democratic governor in America in the biggest, you know, one of the biggest swing states, Pennsylvania. [16:25] Obviously, Pennsylvania helps decide all these elections. [16:27] And he's been able to take those big issues off the table. [16:32] Both he and Bashir have have probably cited a little bit more in the conservative side of those things. [16:37] They have said they're not OK with with trans athletes in high schools and other things, which is a controversial position in the Democratic Party. [16:46] But when they talk about it, they talk about it authentically and they've really talked about it in ways that you can understand and whether you agree with them or not. [16:55] Lots of people in my party don't agree with their position. [16:57] You respect them for how they talk about it. [17:01] Also, there's one other thing. [17:03] I think Democrats are going to be way less focused on the social issues because they've seen what two elections of Donald Trump have done to the country. [17:12] And they're going to be desperate to do this little thing you and I like to call winning. [17:16] And they are going to look at people and say, OK, I care about all these social issues, too, but tell me who the hell can win because we do not want J.D. [17:25] Vance to be president of the United States. [17:27] That's fascinating, because that means then that the litmus test, as people call it, where, oh, you can't. [17:33] I just this this what you're saying, whether it's Andy Beshear or anyone else who's in the sort of center and perhaps wants to move away from some of those cultural things. [17:44] These people tend to say, I find that so offensive, personally offensive. [17:48] I cannot support you. [17:51] And of course, in a primary, it's important to have the support of party members. [17:53] But you're saying, actually, you think it's likely or you? [17:57] I just think it's what they should do is put those personal things to one side and go for the person who win. [18:01] I think it's likely. And this is we have a recent history of this in the 2020 election. [18:06] We all fell in love with Mayor Pete and we fell in love with Elizabeth Warren. [18:10] And, you know, they all led and other folks came to the top. [18:13] And then literally on one weekend, the entire National Democratic Party decided Joe Biden was the only way they could beat Donald Trump. [18:20] And he went from basically being out of the race. [18:22] He lost Iowa, lost New Hampshire to being the nominee in literally two weeks. [18:26] Because the entire party woke up and said, nope, none of these people can win. [18:31] Biden can. War with Biden. [18:33] Yeah, that's fascinating. [18:34] If that if that were to happen, does the different primary process that seems to be in train now for 28 make any difference to all of that? [18:45] And AmeriCast does often have quite a nerdy knowledge of the United States and the things that are going on. [18:50] And of course, on the Democratic side, there are potentially very big changes, aren't there? [18:54] Are they set in stone? [18:55] What's what's the deal? [18:56] At the moment, what do you say to these things? [18:58] I see. [18:59] So we don't yet know where the first primaries are going to be. [19:01] In other words, who you have to appeal to to get off the ground. [19:05] That's right. [19:06] That's right. [19:06] The party's finalizing that. [19:07] I think they're doing it in a healthy way. [19:10] I think they're trying to put a little bit more national in the primary. [19:13] There's been a fair criticism, even though I love me some Iowa that that skyrocketed Barack Obama to the presidential nominee. [19:23] You know, Iowa, New Hampshire are lily white states. [19:25] And the party. [19:26] Wants to make sure there's some more diversity. [19:28] So they're likely going to move Nevada up, maybe South Carolina. [19:32] They're trying to figure this out now. [19:33] It's it's a course of very difficult negotiations. [19:37] Well, it's weird on the diversity thing, too, isn't it? [19:39] Because, as you say, Obama did incredibly well up in Iowa, as you say, as a lily white state. [19:44] Obama was not lily white. [19:46] And yet you've got someone like Buttigieg, who a lot of people say, don't they, is kept out of this process, doesn't get the momentum that he needs because he's a gay man. [19:55] And actually, there are still. [19:56] Quite a lot of particularly African-American Democratic supporters who will not vote for him. [20:02] So if it goes to the south, you can say, oh, wonderful diversity, but actually diverse in a different direction. [20:07] You're reducing. [20:08] Well, it is it is a good question. [20:10] I think the party is trying to do is make sure that these candidates have been through a contest that has all kinds of voters. [20:20] And especially what of what I've said is I want to swing state in there as well. [20:25] Like, you know. [20:26] I love Iowa. [20:27] I love New Hampshire. [20:28] I love South Carolina. [20:29] But none of those are swing states that we're going to need to win in the election. [20:32] So, like, I've argued heavily for Nevada. [20:35] Nevada has huge Latino votes that we're going to need in the general election. [20:38] It's one of this big six states. [20:41] I think Nevada is going to be one of the first states. [20:43] I think that's really important because here's the truth. [20:47] You know, Barack Obama had to go to all 50 states to be Hillary Clinton. [20:50] She dropped out the morning after the last of the 50 states had voted. [20:55] So we'd been through. [20:56] National primary. [20:57] We were ready for a general election in a way that Kamala Harris just wasn't because of how quickly she got the nomination. [21:04] So I think that's a good thing the party's doing to make it more of a national primary. [21:08] Things that Kamala Harris struggled with, isn't it, is is just the way in which you have to campaign in the modern era. [21:15] I mean, how different is it going to be in the 28 election for whoever the Democratic candidate is? [21:21] And I'm thinking about podcasts, but I'm also thinking about social media. [21:26] There's incredible memes that Trump has come up with that deeply upset people. [21:31] But actually, that's often the purpose of the meme, isn't it? [21:34] Have you got to find someone who's able to campaign in the modern era? [21:40] And maybe does that trump all that we were talking about right at the beginning of the substance of policy and what their economic policies are, et cetera, et cetera? [21:47] Yeah. [21:47] Yes. [21:48] But I think the answer is yes. [21:49] But, you know, there seems to be and I wrote a column about this recently. [21:53] There seems to be this theory in my party that we can just give. [21:56] Get better at social media. [21:57] We can get some social media bros and we can get some memes and everything will be OK because Kamala didn't go on those shows and she should have. [22:07] And if she had, she had won. [22:09] I think that's missing the point. [22:12] I think it's missing the point in that authenticity really matters here. [22:16] You have to actually have a message. [22:17] You have to be believe what you say. [22:20] You have to be able to convey it to your smart point in a different way. [22:24] And, you know, right now, the dominance. [22:26] It's a place people are talking about politics is tick tock. [22:29] You know, you can't give a Barack Obama 10 minute soaring speech on tick tock. [22:34] You've got to shorten it and you've got to figure out how to do that. [22:37] And like, you know, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is masterful on that medium and figures out how to do it in short bites that that makes sense. [22:46] And that's one of the advantages that his supporters talk about. [22:49] He's ready to run a national campaign because of that. [22:53] And so I think it's less about figuring. [22:56] I think it's more about figuring out the new mediums and I was critical of Kamala for not going on those shows, too, but it's more about being able to to be authentic and have a very clear message and then fit the format you can hire nerds like me to figure out that stuff for you, you can't hire nerds like me to make you authentic, Jim, it's such a pleasure to talk to you, I really, really appreciate it again, do come back to us during the course of the campaign once it gets going, because you will, if you're not involved, you're certainly going to know what's going on behind the scenes. [23:24] Thanks again. [23:25] Thank you. [23:26] That's it for today. [23:27] If you want to listen to our other episodes, you can you can get them wherever you find your podcasts for now, though. [23:32] Bye bye. [23:35] AmeriCast. [23:36] AmeriCast from BBC News.