Don't stop thinking about the next election

24's gone, 24's gone

I keep hoping to not write each week about what happened during the previous Monday-Friday, but it’s hard to avoid. Don’t worry, most of this post won’t be about Trump. It will be about what I know best, US elections, as two things happened over the week that are worth discussing here in some detail. I will get to that in a bit, but three things happened over the week that I want to go over first.

On Thursday morning, literally first thing in the morning, the House passed its tax cut extension legislation with additional bad items attached. The vote was a squeaker, 215-214. Contrary to what you might have heard, no, the fact that three House Democrats have kicked the bucket since February is not why it passed. I’m as mad about having so many corpses in Congress as anyone else, but let’s not let that mess up our analysis.

Trump used every bit of pressure and leverage he had to get it through. In the end, some House Republicans were able to get some things they wanted put in and other things taken out, but none were going to vote it down. It’s a rare moment when Congress will vote down legislation pushed for by the president when one party is in control of both. John McCain famously voting down Trump’s Affordable Care Act repeal bill is one of the very few times that has happened.

The House legislation is terrible, as I discussed last week. Among other bad things, it will benefit the highest earners the most, will cut some people off of Medicaid, will undermine clean energy of all sorts and will make the country’s fiscal situation much worse. The last part is what has been getting the most attention. So far, the bond market has had an unfavorable reaction to its passage.

I don’t even have a first grader’s understanding of how the bond market works, but from what I’ve read, it’s coming to the realization that we’re not taking our fiscal situation seriously. US Treasury bonds are now seen as less safe and so investors are demanding a higher return. If that continues it will make borrowing more expensive, which will have a negative impact throughout the economy. It will also make the country’s fiscal situation worse because interest payments are now the federal government’s second largest expense.

Apparently, many of the participants in the bond market were surprised that the House legislation was so fiscally irresponsible. The cluelessness of people in the business world when it comes to politics never ceases to amaze me. To believe Trump and congressional Republicans were serious about fiscal discipline requires living under the world’s tiniest rock. It’s mind boggling how people so smart can be so stupid.

It gets even better. It’s apparently been a shock to many in the financial world that the DOGE has been a bust. Some people really thought it was going to save trillions. If they knew just a drop about US government 101 and the politics of cutting spending they would have known that was never going to happen. It’s as if a whole lot of otherwise smart people thought a bunch of software engineers were just going to run a bunch of algorithms and wipe away trillions in “waste, fraud and abuse” that everyone else had missed for the last forty years.

There are many mysteries out there, but the sources of the country’s debt are not one of them. What the federal government spends its money on is not hard to find out. Clearly, nobody involved with the DOGE or any of its boosters bothered to look into that.

In light of everyone realizing the DOGE has been a flop, it looks like Elon Musk has run his course in DC and is having second thoughts about being involved in politics. As smart as he is about EVs and rocket ships, that has no bearing on how much someone knows about the government. The public and private sectors are completely different things in almost every way. At Tesla, he can fire whoever he wants, he can dictate whatever he wants it to do and nobody can tell him no. The government doesn’t work that way.

SpaceX doesn’t have separate branches, unlike the government. Even within each branch, power is diffuse. He has no authority to tell cabinet officials what to do and he can’t boss the president around. When he tried to tell cabinet officials what to do, it wasn’t received well. Being a disrupter has its place and can do wonders, but that’s not how the public sector works.

Elon, if you’re listening, get back to where you once belonged. In a span of a few months, he’s managed to tank Tesla’s prospects, ruin his reputation and accomplish nothing of substance. I’ve noticed on X he’s been very quiet since he got his ass handed to him in Wisconsin. Maybe he’s capable of feeling shame and I hope there is still a little bit of Anakin Skywalker left in him. The first step is to get out of politics, which he knows nothing about, and go back to EVs and rocket ships, which he does know something about.

The second big thing that happened over the week was Trump escalating his war against Harvard. Our Secretary of Homeland Security, Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction, declared that it can no longer enroll foreign students. Harvard immediately sued and got a temporary restraining order.

It’s almost certainly unconstitutional and won’t likely hold up in court, but the damage is done. It will have a big chilling effect on foreign students not just there, but potentially at all universities. Future students from other countries are now going to be more hesitant to study here, which will be our loss. As I’ve said before, our universities are one of the best things we have going for us and Trump is doing everything he can to destroy that. Whatever plan Xi has for undermining us, I can’t imagine he thought Trump would do decades of work for him in four months.

Trump’s latest action against Harvard is awful, but it does serve one useful purpose. It’s a great test to see who really cares about free speech and who is just a hack. For years, tons of people have rightfully been critical of the way Harvard has handled free speech on its campus. Many of them have, to their credit, spoken out forcefully against what Trump is doing. Everyone who cares about free speech should be unequivocally condemning it. If they aren’t that tells you all you need to know.

The last big thing to happen over the week was Trump restarting the trade wars. After waving the white flag on China, he must have gotten mad that he wasn’t getting enough attention. Luckily for him, but unfortunately for us, that’s an easy problem to solve. On Friday, he declared that all imports from the EU will be subject to 50% tariffs starting on June 1 and that all Apple products will be subject to 25% tariffs if they are not made in the US.

As is always the case with Trump, you shouldn’t necessarily take it at face value. The stock market’s reaction seemed to be fairly mild, probably because everyone assumes he’s full of shit. That’s not a bad assumption, but who knows? This is just the world we live in now. Trump loves being in the limelight and tariffs provide him with a guaranteed way to make everyone pay attention to him. As long as he has that ability, regular tariff threats will be a thing.

I think the EU should call his bluff. I’m just typing away on my keyboard and know nothing about EU dynamics so don’t take that seriously. Still, we’ve seen repeatedly with Trump that if he thinks he got what he wanted he will come back for more. If the EU bends the knee to him, sooner or later he will be back with new demands and threats.

Now we know what really happened in 2024 and what it might mean going forward

In my first election post-mortem, I warned against looking at exit polls. It happens after every presidential and midterm election. People obsess over exit polls and draw conclusions and narratives from them. That includes people who should know better. As widely cited as they are, exit polls can be very unreliable and have, at best, a mixed track record.

I mentioned in that post that groups like Catalist produce comprehensive data about what really went on, which is much better than exit polls. The problem is it doesn’t produce the data until May. Well, we’re in May and Catalist finally came out with its report. You can see it all here if you want to dive into the weeds. If you prefer a much quicker semi-summary, this op-ed is very good, too.

In every election cycle, but especially in presidential elections, narratives form about who voted what way and why. A lot of it is just self-serving, but it can still have a big impact. I think it’s a mistake to base what you do in future elections off of the last election. Unfortunately, that’s what many people do, including those running campaigns and running for office. If you’re going to do that, you should at least have an accurate understanding of what happened.

Some of what the Catalist report shows validates what was widely known, but other parts were surprising. For example, as the op-ed I linked to shows, college educated white voters shifted more to the right than non-college educated white voters did. That runs counterintuitive to what most everyone believed. With respect to Hispanic voters, a common belief after the election was that women shifted more towards Trump than men, but the Catalist report says that’s wrong.

In looking at the report, it shows that virtually all groups, no matter how you slice and dice it, shifted rightward compared to 2020. Some in the chattering class are freaking out about it and are writing the Democratic Party’s obituary, but everyone needs to chill out. It shouldn’t be a surprise and it’s not the first time that’s happened.

In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by ~4.5 points. Last year, Trump won it by ~1.5 points. In other words, the country shifted ~6 points rightward compared to 2020. That’s a decent sized shift. When that happens, it’s no surprise that almost every demographic moved rightward. It’s also no surprise that some demographics moved rightward by more than 6 points.

A ~6 point shift is big, but hardly the biggest ever. For example, from 2004 to 2008, the country shifted ~10 points leftward. I’m sure just about every demographic also shifted in the same direction. That’s to be expected. If a ~10 point shift leftward didn’t kill the Republican Party, a ~6 point shift rightward is definitely not going to kill the Democratic Party. Sorry doomers, but you’re going to find something else to panic about.

Let’s not forget that presidential elections only happen every four years. Between them, there are lots of other elections going on that have much lower turnout. On that score, Democrats everywhere can take a lot of solace from the Catalist report. One group that shifted towards Harris compared to Biden was the most engaged voters. They’re defined as having voted in the last four federal elections (2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022).

Most of those in the politics business focus obsessively on presidential elections. I write about that plenty, but I try to devote almost as much time to midterms and other elections. One reason why I’m much more bullish about the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects than some others is because I recognize the importance of those elections. Trump won with a coalition that is heavily dependent on people who don’t vote in non-presidential elections and that’s going to be a problem for Republicans when he isn’t on the ballot. That’s not theoretical. Since Trump first won, Republicans have done poorly in almost every election cycle where he hasn’t been on the ballot.

It’s counterintuitive for many, but Democrats are now the party of high propensity voters. That’s a big change from the 2010s and even before then, but it can be a huge asset and we’ve already seen it play out since November. The best example is the Wisconsin Supreme Court race held in April. Democrats voted at a much higher rate than Republicans did. Turnout was almost as high as it was in the 2022 midterms, but the Democratic-aligned candidate still won easily.

Democrats don’t just benefit from low turnout. They benefit from lower turnout. Those aren’t the same things. Special elections are almost always low turnout. The Wisconsin Supreme Court race was, for that kind of race, very high turnout, but much lower than 2024. Similarly, midterm elections are not necessarily low turnout, but they are lower turnout. Low or lower turnout, Democrats are now the party that benefits from it and we’re going to be seeing a lot of those kinds of elections between now and November 2028.

In light of the shift in whose coalitions are more likely to show up, it’s time for Democrats to drop their objections to voter ID laws. It’s true those laws are pushed for with odious intentions and are, at best, a solution in search of a problem. It’s also true that they’re very popular and Democrats are putting themselves on the wrong side of a 66-33 issue. It’s not that it’s a high salience issue, but Democrats are fighting a losing battle and they should focus their time and energy on things they can win.

More cynically, I think Democrats should embrace voter ID laws because they now benefit from them. The less engaged and less frequently someone votes, the more likely they are to vote Republican. Democrats have previously done everything they can to make voting as easy as possible, but if every registered voter had shown up last year, Trump would have won by a much bigger margin than he did.

I don’t expect Democrats to actually support voter ID laws, but I hope they stop pushing to make voting easier. Conversely, I don’t expect Republicans to embrace things like automatic voter registration and mailing everyone ballots, but it would be in their best interest. To be fair to everyone, we don’t know what the future holds. It’s possible party coalitions could remain as they are for the foreseeable future, but that’s not guaranteed. Because Trump has been the central political figure for so long, it’s hard to know or even remember what a world without him looks like.

Party coalitions could revert back at least somewhat to what they were before he showed up. Then again, it’s possible many of the shifts will remain after he’s gone. I don’t ever use the word permanent because nothing ever is in politics. In any event, we won’t know what a world without Trump looks like for a while so we’re just going to have to wait.

Worry about the non-unique problems Biden had

The much anticipated book about Biden’s decline and his botched attempt at reelection was published over the week. I haven’t read it and don’t plan on doing so. It has reignited the discussion about Biden’s condition and has given details on who knew what and when. For those in the politics business, it’s a great subject and gives them plenty to talk about at least for the next week before their short attention spans kick in.

I readily admit I got it very wrong on Biden. I wrote about it last summer and early this year and am not going to repeat any of it here. I was mad at myself for months for believing his team, but I don’t care about it anymore. Biden’s health was a huge deal in 2024, but going forward it’s of little to no relevance. That’s because it was a problem unique to him. I don’t know who Democrats will nominate in 2028. What I do know is whoever they nominate, whatever their liabilities are, age won’t be one of them.

As this piece notes, though, Biden had problems other than age that weren’t unique to him and those are worth looking at. I wrote an assessment earlier this year of his presidency and looked at what I thought was his biggest problem. It was not one that was unique to him.

That problem, which I have been writing about plenty, is the unwillingness to say no to anyone in the party. That’s a problem Democrats at all levels of government have had and still have. Because they aren’t in charge at the federal level it’s not getting as much attention, but the next time they are in charge it will be something they will need to address.

I like to divide Biden’s administration into two halves. The first is 2021-22 and the second is 2023-24. During the first half, I think he mostly did a good job, particularly towards the end. It was during the second half where things went downhill. The problems in the second half were such that, even if his health was great, he was going to lose and likely by more than Harris did.

Biden spent a large amount of time catering to the left not just substantively, but rhetorically, too. Throughout 2023 and into 2024, I held out hope that he would eventually pivot towards the center and would be willing to upset some in his party. Looking back, that was never going to happen. He was going to continue placating the left to the exclusion of the voters he needed the most.

The example I cite most frequently is his catering to environmentalists. Because he didn’t want to anger them, he never talked about the record oil and gas production happening on his watch. When they undermined his reelection chances by demanding that he block the approval of LNG export terminals, he gave them what they wanted. In retrospect, when he agreed to that demand, it was a telltale sign that he was going to let the left push him around.

Biden pursued an overall good energy policy, but he wound up making it seem like he was way more left-wing than he really was. Very few voters pay attention to things like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or keep track of how much oil and gas is being produced. They didn’t hear what Biden had done on that front because he would never mention it and so many thought he was hostile towards fossil fuel production. To the extent voters heard him say anything about energy policy, it was talking about climate change and how it was an existential threat.

His focus on student debt during 2023-24 is another example of not being willing to say no. His administration spent an insane amount of time on it even though voters didn’t care about it. On inflation, rather than pivot to talking about prices and trying to do every last thing he could to make a difference, he doubled down on talking about jobs and supported price raising measures like the Jones Act. That’s because unions wanted it and he would never tell them no.

This post is from someone who worked on his campaign and in his administration. It discusses why he moved leftward in the general election and when he was in office. Some of why he moved leftward is because the pandemic fundamentally changed what the campaign was about. Once he was in office, though, the story became much more about his staff. Long story short, many of the people who staffed his administration were way out in left-field and didn’t care for him. As far as they were concerned, they weren’t working for Biden, they were working for Elizabeth Warren or someone else on the left.

Staffing has been a problem for many Democratic campaigns, elected officials and organizations. Too many times, staffers, especially younger ones, have gotten it in their heads that they’re in charge and have made demands of the officials and groups they’re working for. The effect of those efforts has been to push people and groups further to the left than they are and to risk alienating large numbers of voters.

Some have argued that Biden’s unwillingness to say no to anyone, his indecisiveness on multiple fronts and his hiring left-wing staffers was because of his age. The argument is that because he was old he was less energetic and only had so much bandwidth to pay attention to things. He chose to focus on foreign policy, which he knows best, to the exclusion of domestic policy. Since he didn’t focus on domestic policy hiring and decision making it left a void, which was filled by left-wing groups and members of Congress.

I hope that is true because then it would be a problem unique to Biden, but I’m skeptical. The more likely explanation, I think, is that he has never been a policy wonk. Foreign policy is something he cares a lot about, but not so much domestic policy. Because of that, he didn’t really care that much about who was working on it and didn’t pay attention to who was being hired. Biden was a dealmaker when he was a senator and was very good at it. He could work with senators on literally any subject no matter how little he knew about it. His focus was on bringing people together and figuring out what they wanted, not on sweating the details or making big decisions. That was how he operated as president.

The problem he had is being an executive requires you to make big decisions. You have to be willing to say, “Here’s what we’re going to do.” When Obama was in charge, he made it clear that the focus was going to be on healthcare. Clinton did the same thing. Biden embraced Build Back Better, which was an attempt to do everything all at once and please everyone at the same time. What ultimately got done was largely the work of Joe Manchin. Biden deserves credit for supporting and signing it, but he didn’t lead the charge.

The next Democratic president will need to be much more decisive and will need to know what their priorities are and make that clear. They will need to be willing to say no to people in their party and be willing to take heat for it. They will also need to be very careful about who they hire and make sure those working for them understand that nobody voted for them and they’re not in charge. Those last two things are applicable to Democratic candidates for every kind of office.

It will certainly be a big help if the next Democratic presidential nominee is someone with a lot of charisma and a fanatical following. That will allow them to more forcefully push back against the party’s left-wing and others who need to be told no. It’s way too early to know who that might be, but all prospective 2028 candidates should be thinking about how they’re going to be different from Biden and the party’s least popular actors.

What’s new to many people, myself included, is seeing a Democratic president leave office on a bad note. That hasn’t happened since 1980. Republicans are much more familiar with that, i.e., Bush in 2008, but it was going to happen to Democrats sooner or later. Biden’s age won’t be relevant in 2028, but his approach is not one to be repeated and 2028 candidates need to be aware of that. Like Clinton broke away from Carter and Trump broke away from Bush, the 2028 Democratic nominee will need to do the same with Biden.