January 20, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, Ryan and Patrick Ruffini discuss the evolving dynamics of American politics, particularly focusing on the rise of Donald Trump's multiracial coalition and the shifting voting patterns among minority groups. They explore the concept of racial de-alignment, the impact of crime and safety on voting behavior, and the economic concerns that are driving voters away from the Democratic Party. The discussion also touches on the future of the Republican Party and its relationship with working-class voters, as well as the importance of local issues in elections. It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Girdusky is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. Learn more at natpop.newsletter.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome back to It's a Members Game with Ryan Gradusky.
I want to thank you guys again for being here
this week, and once again, if you want to read
along and see the data I'm going to provide you,
please subscribe to my National Populist newsletter nappopnewsletter dot com.
Any of my listeners can get a thirty day free trial.
(00:26):
So if you were to tell someone in November of
twenty sixteen, right after Donald Trump won his first time
winning the presidency, that he was going to build a
the first time he won the presidency on what the
mainstream media deemed as a grievance culture, a white grievance culture,
that he was going to assemble a multicultural, multi racial,
(00:46):
working class coalition that would deliver the White House, the Senate,
the House of Representatives, and the popular vote. They would
not believe you. Perhaps it's why the mainstream media seems
so defeated in the light of Trump's most recent victory.
His coalition was supposed to be Jim Bobbs and Mary Bell's,
not Julio's and Tyrones. But that's what it's become. While
(01:07):
the best exit polling information is not yet available, PE
Research Center TENSPE considered like the gold standard for presidential
exit polling, but they take like six to eight months
to assemble all their research. We have some information, We
certainly have some precinct information for how certain groups voted
according to the AP vote cast, which is the Associated
Presses exit polling, and they're they're decent, They're pretty good.
(01:30):
Trump won twenty five percent of black men and forty
eight percent of Latino men. Those are the two numbers
I want listeners to remember, especially when it was the men.
Twenty five percent of Black men forty eight percent of
Latino men. Obviously, that's not enough to win a presidency.
Those two numbers. I mean Trump won because he received
the overwhelming majority of white voters, especially whites without white
(01:50):
voters without a college degree. That's the back win of
his coalition. But if building electoral victory of presidential electoral
victories like making a cake, while the white vote is
the batter, the Latina vote is the icing, and the
black vote is the cherry on top and the frosting,
you kind of need all three to especially get to
(02:12):
a electoral college or popular vote victory. And so that's
a good thing. Trump has a new dynamic, multi ethnic,
multiracial coalition, the kind that Republicans have been hoping for
for a long time. The bad thing for Republicans, though,
is that many of these voters are really loyal to
Trump and not to the GOP. A lot of them
voted for Trump and then for the Democratic congressman down
(02:33):
ballot or Democratic senator. Making you know, a problem and
making the problem a little harder was that a lot
of them live. A lot of these new Republicans live
in non competitive districts. Inn AOC's district. It swung to
the right, but it's not a competitive district because it
didn't swing hard and not I but I's sway huge.
That's why the new Trump coalition is interesting. It's different,
(02:56):
and it's is a big mystery of how it will change,
how it will grow, and if it will eventually be
just kind of how all Republicans vote with me this week.
Is a man who predicted the working class multiracial coalition
long before anyone else did. Patrick Graffini is the co
founder of the polling company Echellent Insights, and he's the
author of the book Party of the People Inside the
(03:17):
Multiracial Populist Coalition remaking the GOP. Patrick, thank you for
joining me.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Thank you Ryan for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
First of all, congratulations on all your success. I mean
the Atlantic wrote about you. Everyone's kind of waking up
and smelling the Patrick Graffini coffee right now that you
kind of had your finger on the pulse. So I
want to start with the obvious question, right, why are minorities,
especially young minorities, abandoning their father and grandfather's party. You
(03:47):
call it a racial de alignment, but what does that
actually mean.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So we have a long history in this country, I
think racially polarized voting that goes back until at least
sixty four and the Civil Rights that when you first
saw black voters move in a very big and decisive
way into the Democratic Party, with often times vote shares
(04:12):
over ninety percent. And there was a thought for a
while that Hispanics might maybe not follow quite as resoundingly
in that direction, but would nonetheless also be a solidly
democratic group. And this consensus really among Democrats really reached
(04:34):
fever pitch during the Obama era. Obama wins eighty percent
of non white voters running for reelection, and you know,
and you know, you had this emerging Democratic majority coalition
of the Ascendant went by many names, that this idea
that as America grows more and more diverse, you will
(04:56):
automatically see democratic victories because you know, just simply this,
this four to one Democratic voting block is going to
represent soon going to represent almost a majority of the public.
And that's something that the Republicans could never recover from.
But I think that view was always short sighted. It
(05:17):
assumed that the non white voter in America would stay
the same in you know, certainly many of these political
loyalties were formed on the basis of groups that were
highly either marginalized, discriminated against, whatever terminology you want to use,
(05:38):
oftentimes very poor. In a party system where the Democrats
were overwhelmingly seen as the party of the working class,
the party of the common man, and that was the
self identification of the Democratic Party. That self identification has
gone out the window. I think it started to go
out the window well before Donald Trump, as the Democrats
(06:01):
to become more the party of the college educated, the elite,
the woke if if as you were.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And childiscat ladies, and you know, hyper pro criminality, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Exactly exactly so so so I think that that self
identity of the Democratic Party. Really, I think loose it right
creates the conditions for somebody like Donald Trump to come in,
who is a cultural icon, right, who you know is
as comfortable ringside as he is in the Oval Office,
to come in.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Probably more ring side on the Oval office. I mean
to be to tell you the truth. No, you are
one hundred percent right though about that, And I want
to I want to ask you one quick thing. So, like,
I hate it when people say the word I don't
hate it, but like it gets under my skin. But
when when political is like they'll say the Asian vote, Well,
what does that mean? Because Pakistanis and Koreans are very
(06:54):
different kinds of people, and Republicans quote unquote won the
Asian vote back in the night when it was predominantly
Korean voters and Vietnamese refugees from the Vietnam War. And
as the Asian population changed through mass immigration, the voting
tendencies changed, and you're definitely seeing that with Hispanic voters.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That's right. There is no single Asian community. Hispanic community.
You know, you see very different voting patterns from place
to place. Just go from California to Texas, to Florida,
and even pockets of let's say, voters in you know,
Dominican voters in Lawrence's, Puerto Ricans in Allentown, Pennsylvania. There's
(07:37):
distinct communities. And I think from a why that really
mattered this year was that in twenty sixteen, the calculus
was that if Donald Trump was going to build a wall,
if Donald Trump was going to base his campaign again
around stopping illegal immigrants, then Democrats right were really counting
(08:00):
on Latino voters really rising up against that right out
of a sense of pan Hispanic pan Latino group solidarity.
That just didn't happen. It didn't really happen in twenty sixteen,
but it really absolutely didn't happen in twenty twenty four
when you see, you know, roughly a fifteen to twenty
point shift again in the Latino vote towards Trump. And
(08:23):
that's partly because I mean, I don't think you can
I think it should be blindingly obvious an any Hispanic
voter who can vote in a presidential election right as
somebody who is a citizen of the United States who
immigrated legally to the United States, so they don't identify
with the people who are coming here illegally, and in
(08:44):
fact their interests are directly contradictory to those folks in
terms of these are folks who you know, they believe
cut the line, who are taking advantage of the system.
And so this idea right that everything can be boiled
down to group racial interest solidarity, but just a fundamental
flaw on the part of the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I think, I mean the ultimate I hate when adults
talk to other adults like their children, and the fact
that like there were people on the media twenty four
hours a day saying that Puerto Ricans were going to
change their voting behaviors because of the kill Tony comments
at the MSG thing that was going to be the
ultimate thing they want to care about. Inflation, nothing, just
(09:28):
kill Tony's joke about island of garbage in Puerto Rico.
What does okay? So I was Gon asked this later,
but I want to say now then. So back in
twenty twelve, for anyone old enough to remember twenty twelve,
we the post Romney synopsis was if you want to
win over minority voters, specifically black and especially Latino, you
(09:51):
need to be pro amnesty and really forgiving of criminality,
be easy on crime. Why and that just didn't work.
It just didn't work anytime the Republicans have ever tried
to going back to Bob Dole. Why is it that
I think that I think that when Black Lives Matter happened,
and the riots post BLM especially, and the violence post BLM,
(10:15):
and the forgiveness towards violence, and the forgiveness towards rating
CBS is a lot of conservative Hispanic voters. And there
were millions of conservative Hispanic voters who voted for Hillary Clinton,
who voted for Barack Obama. They may be you know,
pro life or whatever, but they were Democrats that this
is not okay and I'm not okay with this party.
Do you think that that was really the inflection point
(10:37):
for a lot of working class Latinos because as you said,
as you said, you know, illegals cut the line. There
is a one of the real values in this country
is fairness. People like to believe that people thinks should
be fair. If you break the law, you should be
punished for the crime, YadA, YadA, YadA. And I think
that post twenty twenty, the idea of or fairness, especially
towards criminality, woke a lot of working class.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think crime and
you know, crime in the cities especially, and let's ignore
that this was a shift. You know, you really did
see a huge shift in the cities, not just among
Hispanic voters. I would argue about black voters, Asian voters,
(11:22):
but even white voters too. I mean, if you just
look at what happened in and around the New York
City metro area this time, where you know, Trump within
the city goes I mean you think he gets like
thirty percent of the vote in New York City, which
is crazy. Hi, right, it's high obviously, it's it's nowhere
near a majority. But you're talking about some of these
(11:46):
suburbs returning two levels we haven't really seen since nineteen
eighty eight, in the nineteen eighties, when the discussion in
the nineteen eighties was really focused around the hollowing out
of the big city is due to crime and you know,
flight into the suburbs specifically to avoid you know, high
(12:09):
crime in the central city area, and you know, especially
around New York, but you also saw it in la
You saw it in just a number of major cities
that that sort of mindset really is returning Now, at
the time, who were the people fleeing the cities? Who
are the people kind of leading the outrage about this
(12:31):
was sort of your white ethnic voter, right, I mean,
that was the sort of Reagan Democrat voter back in
the eighties and nineties. And those are the voters that
Bill Clinton really tried hard to win back. Now, who
lives in those neighborhoods now, right, it's not white ethnic voters.
White ethnic voters have left the cities. Who lives in
those neighbors in that neighborhoods now are working class Latinos.
(12:54):
And I think they are occupying exactly the same place
and sort of that urban political firmaments right as white
they started, white working class ethnics did in the nineteen sixties,
seventies and eighties. And I think you're seeing a shift
in the same way that those also, those voting blocks shifted, right.
(13:15):
Those were the New Deal Democrats. Those were Democrats who
voted for JFK. Right, who but then started voting for
Richard Nixon in nineteen sixty eight, nineteen seventy two and
became Reagan voters after that. So I think that that is,
you know, that's what we're in particular, seeing right stantics,
(13:37):
I think there's a trigger. There's certainly a trigger that
you mentioned right with these events, and I think this
is the long term trajectory these voters are on.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So yeah, and there was this calculation. It seemed like
the Democrats were making were racial like alignment, like the
quote unquote black and brown voter, even though they are
completely different voters. But I mean complete not completely different issues,
but a lot of different issues on a lot of
different racial solidary that doesn't really exist outside of like
Al Sharpton's brain, that that would overcome the fear of
(14:08):
safety and concern and economic prosperity. You I think you
tweet us. I was looking for the tweet and I
couldn't find it. I think you tweeted that you expect
like Mexicans to vote like Italians in the near future.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Was that you I've probably said that, you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I don't have a word in your mouth, so I
just want to make sure.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, No, I mean I think that that's the future, right.
I mean, I think we're not there yet, but that's
the future. And that's what you really saw, you know,
And you know, my grandparents came to this country, came
to New York City, right, the natural home for people
like them was the Democratic Party. The political machines existed
(14:49):
to serve these immigrants who came in to the big cities,
and you know, they identified as Democrats for a long time,
and the party at the national level was very clearly
identified with these sorts of voters, the working class voters
who are kind of working their way up in American society.
(15:11):
And that simply is no longer the case. And so,
you know, really what you're seeing, I think you really
saw in this election is Latino's really following the footsteps
of those ethnic voters who again, you know, in the
early nineteen sixties would have been seventy to eighty percent
(15:32):
JFK voters. Now, it didn't hurt that he was Catholic, right,
but that was sort of the high water mark. But
year after year, decade after decade, you see particularly this
white Catholic voter. That's a category that I think makes
sense as sort of this precursor, because this was a
group of people who was actually discriminated against back in
(15:53):
the nineteenth century. But every election grew more and more
Republican and is now to a point where that that
group of voters is about a Trump plus twenty.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I think now, I think white Catholics voted. I think
it was like either sixty six or seventy percent for Trump.
I think the only girup that put a more Republican
that were Mormons and Evangelic because I doubt Mormons actually
do about more Republican other.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Than But but the reason I mentioned that, right is because
even back in the George of B. Bush era, I remember,
it was a fight to win white Calcoluse that was
a huge priority of Carl Row. This was this was
sort of seen as the key swing group because they
were Democrats. Because you had this sort of old white
Anglo Saxon Protestant both the white Anglo Saxon Protestant elite,
(16:41):
but the white Protestant voters. Those were seen as the
core Republican vote. Now it's kind of I mean, I
think in many ways it's kind of flipped in the
sense of you know that lost both heat is no
longer really a reliable Republican constituency. But you know, particularly
in the suburbs and the cities, you see this internet
(17:02):
like states like Pennsylvania, states like Wisconsin, I do think
the shift right was still important among those white Catholic voters.
So you know that, you know, particularly in those states
that are whiter, where you do have an ethnic voting base,
and you do have an white ethnic voting base that
lives in cities as opposed to out in rural areas,
(17:25):
those are still places that are pre fifty to fifty.
That electorate is still up for grabs. And I think
Trump made just enough progress, right, I mean that there's
still a lot of let's say, low hanging fruit. I
think among these there was at least enough low hanging
fruit among these voters that you know, he was able
to win a state like Wisconsin, which is ninety percent
white in terms of its electorate, or state like Pennsylvania,
(17:46):
which is like eighty four percent.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Hey, we'll be right back after this. I said that
the Trump campaign. I said, you know, during the campaign,
this is early on. I said, you know, you're doubling
down on this Latino vote. But in the most critical
in almost all the most critical Spring states of I
think like maybe six of four of the seven big ones,
the electorate is still ninety to ninety five percent white black.
(18:10):
It is very little changed. I said, so doubling, quadrupling,
tripling down on on getting these Latina voters. There's not
enough of them, and I was a little I was concerned.
But I think part of Trump's success, right, and maybe
Kamala's failure, was Trump's share of the minority vote did
(18:30):
go up among almost all minorities, I think, actually of
all minorities. But some part of that I wouldn't say
the whole thing, but part of that was because the
minority share overall fell because they because a lot of
especially black voters, had to choose between commeal and the couch,
and they chose the couch. They just didn't show up
on election day. That made Trump's share. No Trump' share
(18:51):
went up on its own, but it probably went up
faster and more because Kamala voters just weren't showing up.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, I mean, look, I don't disagree with that, but
I think that but both things were Both things were important.
I just think inflation was just a dominant issue and
narrative that I think there was no way, I mean,
you were going to see I think some of these
voters who maybe were the twenty sixteen Trump voters who
drifted away in twenty twenty. I think you were always
(19:21):
going to see some of those come home. And then yeah,
I mean, you're right that we were always sweating. And
I think the scenario in which my sort of prediction
doesn't come true was like, hey, yeah, we do really well,
we clean up in the sun Belt, but you know,
there's just not enough of these realignment voters in Pennsylvania,
(19:42):
let's say, to move things. But you know, it turns out, right.
I mean, I think that that black share of the
vote is important, even if it's a low share of
the vote, if you can cut into those margins.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Of course, I'm not saying they're not important, but I
don't know, but.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I think, yeah, but I think that the calculus that
you mentioned with turnout two is because the raw vote margin, right,
the Democrats get out of the city of Philadelphia, get
out of the city of Detroit, is just so important
to them. If you take that away, I you largely
take away their ability to win states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
(20:20):
Michigan obviously was also a state. I mean, I had
a large number of problems that went beyond the black vote,
that went into the Arab American vote. Right, I also
flipped pretty significantly.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I know, there's this one little if you look at
a map of the Detroit metro area, there's like this
one little red bubble in the middle of it, and
that's that's I think, Dearborn. It's like crazy, this Arab
majority place. The one really interesting thing that I want
to really ask you about because I think you might know.
So I'm from New York, Right you can tell based
on like everything about me, but the nagas lee voice,
(20:55):
the obsession to curse. But the one thing that's really
interesting is in the Bronx. Right, the Bronx is it's
not a place that's in a swing district. It's not
a swing county's not a swing state. There's one elected
Republican in the whole borough, and Republicans in twenty and
Republicans don't compete there. You'll never get a door knock,
you'll never a mail piece, you won't get a doorknocker,
you won't get a TV ad. You're you might as
(21:17):
well not know there's an election going on if you
live there, and if you are a voter, So there's
no effort to win these voters over because why bother. Right,
But in twenty twelve, Mitt Romney won twenty nine, nine
hundred and sixty seven votes. In twenty twenty four, Trump
won ninety eight, one hundred and seventy four votes. He
made a gain of about about seventy thousand votes. At
(21:39):
the same time, Democrats went from three hundred and thirty
nine thousand to two hundred and sixty one thousand. There
was no effort on the part of Republicans to make
this happen. It was one hundred percent organic, and it
was repeated in other parts of the New York City
metro areas you said. It was repeated in Cicero, Illinois,
in Los angele Lists, in some areas throughout the Central
(22:02):
Valley of California. They have competitive congressional districts, but not
competitive state elections. In places that there was no Republican,
real Republican effort to change voters' minds, voters changed organically.
And as I said before, Hispanics are not all the same.
Some are Central or Caribbeans, some are Central Americans, a
lot of are Mexican. Do we I mean, is it
(22:24):
all inflation or is something bigger going on? Or is
it the Democrat being the party of you know, crazy college,
crazy white liberal women and you know, supporting endless criminality.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah. I mean, look, I think I mentioned I went
back earlier and I mentioned how, you know, you don't
really have a single Asian community, you don't have a
single Hispanic community. But you see these shifts all over
the place. Right, It's as though there actually is right
benefiting Republicans in this case. And you know, I think
(22:59):
you know what I go back to in my book,
right was, you know, the overwhelming majority of people who
are non white in America, a large majority don't have
a college degree. And just like the overs like the
about a sixty percent or near sixty percent majority of
American voters don't have a college degree. What we saw
(23:23):
in twenty sixteen, that white working class coalition that elected
Donald Trump. At this time, what we saw was a
just simply a working class coalition that elected Donald Trump.
Race was not you know, sort of as critical or
pivotal a factor, you know, in terms of our in
terms of those voting patterns, in terms of the coalition
as it was back in back in twenty sixteen. I
(23:48):
think what we can say is they share kind of
a common you know, kind of working class sensibility, a
certain worldview, and it really is the white college educated
liberals who we're off on an eye end of their
own in terms of their emphasis on these identity issues,
the emphasis on these issues you know, that don't really
(24:11):
matter to the large majority of Americans, particularly in a
time of high inflation, a border that's out of control,
rising crime, and those issues. I think the Democrats chose
to really close the election on issues like democracy, abortion,
these social issues that don't really necessary that I think
(24:33):
people in these communities said, this doesn't really address my
key concern here when you know, the prices of eggs
is up fifty percent, right, and everything I'm paying for
is through the roof. You know, how are you going
to help me, you know, afford my grocery built? Right?
Those are the central concerns, you know, of this working
(24:55):
class coalition, and I think that really unified, right, I mean,
and I think that brought together just very different groups
of people in this coalition. On the flip side, you've
also just seen, yeah, you have seen over the last
couple election cycles, you've seen these high education places move
further and further to the left. You know, they didn't
(25:17):
really move this time but you know some places moved
one or two points, they were still a little bit
more resistant. The problem is, you know that that coalition
that you know, Kama was speaking to on the Ellipse
a week before the election, it's not a majority of Americans, right,
These are not the concerns that you're twenty twenty four
(25:40):
a majority of American American American American people cared.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
About, right. I mean, you have to be very comfortable
in life, very comfortable. We're January sixth still lives in
your head every single day, like there has to be
nothing else, Like you know, you can afford your bills.
You know, you're taking your the right amount of magnesium
in the morning, like everything is going well for you
to be like, oh yeah, you know what I'm thinking
about it, January sixth, that's just not where it is.
(26:05):
And it was really just college educated whites and black
women primarily who were That was the two people that
she was speaking the most too repeatedly. Because there was
a lot of racial identitarian on the left that the
media does not talk about. I mean, the Biden administration
was successfully sued for discriminating against white farmers. They were
(26:25):
totally opposed to the Harvard case with the discrimination of Asians.
I mean, they did a lot of like race baiting
of their own, but it was always, you know, the
Republicans that were the racist you're listening to it's a
numbers game with Ryan Gerdsky. We'll be right back. The
interesting thing is that a lot of these voters who
vote and this is not This is very common when
(26:47):
new people approached a party. This was very common when
Nixon and Reagan won in the seventies and eighties and sixties,
seventies and eighties. A lot of these voters voted for
Trump and then either did not vote down ballot or
voted Democrat down back because they were comfortable with a
lot of it. Why do you think that is that
because the Trump brand is still uniquely different than the
(27:09):
Republican brand as far as working class issues goes.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, look, I think that I'm a little bit less
pessimistic on this question. And yes, I would say, yeah,
there is absolutely Trump is you know, people change parties
for the top of the ticket, right, I mean, if
you're going to change long standing voting patterns, it's going
to be because there's somebody at the top of the
(27:34):
ticket who is uniquely, you know, uniquely somebody who you
resonate with, somebody who speaks your language, right, somebody who
really provides that personal connection and vision. And you know,
it takes and may take a couple of cycles before
(27:54):
people are voting down ballot, you know, for your congressional
campaign at the same rate as they're voting for a
Donald Trump at the top of ticket. Who is somebody
who realigns these core demographics that said, right, you are
seeing the share of the vote earned by Republican down
(28:14):
ballot candidates also move up in this Trump you know,
Trump era. Yeah, you're seeing it cycle after cycle, Like
I mean, I think the basis for comparison, right is,
you know, what is a down ballot you know, senate
candidate getting compared to their last selection? What were they
getting compared to four years ago, six years ago? And
(28:37):
that number is os higher in the same way that
the Republican presidential vote is oas higher. And we've seen
this before. We saw this in the South, right when
the South realigned, it always realigned it was voting for
Reagan at the top of the ticket and just sending
a whole bunch of Democrats to Congress. And that took
(28:58):
really until nineteen ninety four for that to break, and
that was thirty years after the initial shift towards the
Republican party.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Well it took I really, it took to twenty ten.
I mean because Mississippi state legislature was Democrat, West Virginia's
was Democrat, Arkansas was Democrats had two Democratic senators from
Arkansas in two thousand and eight that who were unopposed
by the way, Republicans even run against I think what
was it, Lincoln and Blanche link It or something like that.
(29:28):
They didn't even run opponents against her because it was
too hard for Republican to win Arkansas. That wasn't two
thousand and I'm like six, Like that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But that's right. So hopefully it doesn't take as long
this time. But but this idea of you know, their
on a trajectory, but there's always there is this kind
of note. There is this a term for it's called
down ballot lag right that that you know, people initially
kind of say, you know, I'm gonna switch chef for
one person, but then they I only realize in the end, yeah,
(30:01):
I'm a Republican. And by the way, I mean, look
it happens on the other side too, right. You know,
in twenty sixteen, you have a lot of people voting
didn't like Trump in these suburbs, but still voting for
your you know, friendly local Republican congressional candidate. And by
twenty eighteen that was no longer you know, that that
was sort of out the window. So I think if
(30:23):
people are going to get more and more aligned in
these you know, with their new parties over time, because
I think that's where their values are, right, I mean,
they identify, you know, their values are conservative. They identify
as conservative. You know, maybe they don't have a party label,
then maybe they're moving away from the Democrats. But when
(30:46):
you look at where these voters are on the issues,
it's not surprising, right well, I mean it's starting to
vote that.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I mean even in this allig I mean, think about this,
if you're old, especially if you were around like that
in the nineties. There are more Republicans, and Republicans do
better in Queens, New York than in Westchester. Like that
is absurd, It was unthinkable. How do the Republicans, I mean, listen,
Trump has had twelve years or who will have twelve
(31:17):
years when this is all over of absolutely the craziest
political story in American history or definitely one of the
top three. How does the next Republican whomever it be,
or the candidates running for the future, how do they
keep that momentum going towards the right, towards the working class.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Look, I think every canon has to chart their own path.
That's what I would I would tell any cannon I'm
working for or advising that, you know, if you try
to go in and you try to be Trump, if
you try to literally be Trump, right, Yeah, that's always
literally do that. It's not necessarily going to work out
well for you, because I think voters want a sense
(31:57):
of who you are as a person, what a sense
of you know, how you're different.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And also, let's say that Trump is the first hilarious
president and ninety nine percent of politicians are not funny
at all, right, Like they have the most unfunny people
in the world. So it's hard.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah, no, it will be hard, right from that perspective,
So I don't want to underestimate that. With that said,
I think the what we're seeing play out now is
something we probably would have seen play out anyway, maybe
in ten years, five years, whatever, you know, because I
think this is where global politics has headed. I noticed
(32:33):
some of you followed closely, right, Yeah, but global politics
is headed in a place where it's overwhelmingly parties of
the right, which are increasingly more populous, you represent the
working class in Europe, in America. You're really seeing this
in more and more places throughout the world, and it's
(32:55):
the parties of the left that you know, increasing represent
the educated class. Trump was in a cellar into this,
but I think that is the trend for as well,
so long as until it's not the trend right right, So,
I think that the wind is at the back of
sort of more and more minority voters, especially because they're
(33:16):
kind of the holdouts at this point. I mean, I
think we are almost resaturation with white, non college white
working class voters. That you still have a lot of
low hanging fruit of minority voters who are just conservative
on policy and their values, who still vote Democrat, and
so I think the idea is continuing to focus squarely
(33:41):
on those voters. Yes, I think Trump was uniquely effective,
you know, but Trump was maybe not as effective in
some other voting blocks that another candidate would be would
be as if it would be more effective in so so,
but I think that that is really identifying, you know,
who really are the votvoters that pro grabs, Who are
the voters who are just in the wrong party right now?
(34:04):
And I think we can continue to just say that
those are that's who those voters are. So I think
whether or not you believe, right, you know, people are saying, well,
this can't realign them. You can't continue forever, right, nobody
can duplicate this Trump coalition. What I will say, you know,
regardless of that, right, I mean, yeah, you're right, parties
can't keep winning forever. But I think what will be
(34:26):
true is Republicans will now be the home of the
working class in the same way right that the Democrats
used to be the home of the working class. And
I think that's increasingly who they have to represent, who
they have to wage their campaigns. This is who we're
doing this for.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, there's the thing that I agree with you. I
so agree with you. And what frustrates me is when
I go to Washington and I talk to a member
of Congress and they're still repeating lines from Ronald Reagan
that make me want a Gauther. Not that I hate
Ronald Reagan, but like they're such old, stupid platitudes and
they're so still in the hands of like dumb Wall
Street like talking points or think tanks. Right, No, you
(35:07):
can't touch big tech, you can't regulate anything, you can't
protect the working class in any which way. And it
makes me want to scream. And there is that component
there that kind of still needs to change. What happens
when the white working class and the interest of the
white working class and the interests of non whites, like
(35:27):
they oppose each other on some things like that is
always what the Democrats kind of built their electric on
that they're that they're that what brings them together is
less strong with what what divides them is that is there?
Does that still exist? Is immigration still that wedge issue
for Latinos that will like because I mean they did
vote for the what it for master deportation? Is it
(35:48):
that they think that they support that now in large
part or they think he's just not going to do it?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Well, look, I mean I think you have to take
it a face style. You're right, I mean that Trump
made this campaign about immigration away. He didn't even make
the twenty sixteen campaign about immigration and you think that
you know the things, the solutions, and the rhetoric at
least that you know the policy of just simply building
a wall. I mean that seems quaint right in terms
(36:13):
of what we're talking about. And you know, he just
continues to increase to share those you know, vote because
I think a lot of those dynamics bold. So yeah,
I mean, I don't expect that, you know, Latina and
Army of aren't for every single thing, right. I don't
think every group is gonna be on board for every
single thing right in moving forward. But I think you
(36:38):
just have to look at the election results and say, yeah,
I mean I think this is sufficient. Uh you know,
let's say sufficient. The shift in the direction of Trump
in a campaign where he talked about this, I think
gives him a lot of.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Latitude, right. I suppose even as illegal immigration has changed
from being Latino to being a global issue, they also
may feel less connection to it. And also their second, third,
fourth generation now too, America.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Second, your fourth generation you've also had. I mean, there's
a you know, a mass majority of people here are
a Mexican. There's very few Mexicans coming over and so Venezuelans.
But then you absolutely to have people from their Third
World all over the place just using this, you know,
using this weakness that we have along the border and
exploiting it.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah. I loved how Democrats in the media would always
sit there and say, oh, Trump comes off like a
strong men. I'm like, yeah, a lot of a lot
of Third world countries have voted for strongmen in the past,
and their voters don't tend to shy away from that
just because you say it's a bad thing. Drick. Thank
you so much for being honest. I don't want to
hold you up any longer. Where can people read your
stuff and read I love, by the way, I love
(37:51):
your polling. They break this down I think once a
year or twice a year where they break down the
different parties within the party you have, like the you have,
like the populous wing of the GP. How many people
say they belong to that party or versus the accel
a corridor version of that party, like the Centrist Party.
I love a lot of what you guys do. It's
very creative. Where can everyone get your stuff?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, so you can subscribe you my newsletter which is
at on substack, but at Patrick Graffini dot com. You
can also follow me on x at Patrick Graffini and
by my book Party The People Inside the Multi Racial
Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah. Patrick is one of those people who I will
read and they'll be like, I don't know about that, Patrick,
and then it will happen. I'm like, well, Patrick is
right again. So and you've been You've been a stellar, stellar,
stellar two years as far as really reading the tea
leaves and telling it like it is, and I like
it a lot. So thank you again for a thing
coming on. Thank you all for listening. Check out my
(38:51):
podcast every Monday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever
you can get your podcast. Tune in next week and
see you then
Welcome back to It's a Members Game with Ryan Gradusky.
I want to thank you guys again for being here
this week, and once again, if you want to read
along and see the data I'm going to provide you,
please subscribe to my National Populist newsletter nappopnewsletter dot com.
Any of my listeners can get a thirty day free trial.
(00:26):
So if you were to tell someone in November of
twenty sixteen, right after Donald Trump won his first time
winning the presidency, that he was going to build a
the first time he won the presidency on what the
mainstream media deemed as a grievance culture, a white grievance culture,
that he was going to assemble a multicultural, multi racial,
(00:46):
working class coalition that would deliver the White House, the Senate,
the House of Representatives, and the popular vote. They would
not believe you. Perhaps it's why the mainstream media seems
so defeated in the light of Trump's most recent victory.
His coalition was supposed to be Jim Bobbs and Mary Bell's,
not Julio's and Tyrones. But that's what it's become. While
(01:07):
the best exit polling information is not yet available, PE
Research Center TENSPE considered like the gold standard for presidential
exit polling, but they take like six to eight months
to assemble all their research. We have some information, We
certainly have some precinct information for how certain groups voted
according to the AP vote cast, which is the Associated
Presses exit polling, and they're they're decent, They're pretty good.
(01:30):
Trump won twenty five percent of black men and forty
eight percent of Latino men. Those are the two numbers
I want listeners to remember, especially when it was the men.
Twenty five percent of Black men forty eight percent of
Latino men. Obviously, that's not enough to win a presidency.
Those two numbers. I mean Trump won because he received
the overwhelming majority of white voters, especially whites without white
(01:50):
voters without a college degree. That's the back win of
his coalition. But if building electoral victory of presidential electoral
victories like making a cake, while the white vote is
the batter, the Latina vote is the icing, and the
black vote is the cherry on top and the frosting,
you kind of need all three to especially get to
(02:12):
a electoral college or popular vote victory. And so that's
a good thing. Trump has a new dynamic, multi ethnic,
multiracial coalition, the kind that Republicans have been hoping for
for a long time. The bad thing for Republicans, though,
is that many of these voters are really loyal to
Trump and not to the GOP. A lot of them
voted for Trump and then for the Democratic congressman down
(02:33):
ballot or Democratic senator. Making you know, a problem and
making the problem a little harder was that a lot
of them live. A lot of these new Republicans live
in non competitive districts. Inn AOC's district. It swung to
the right, but it's not a competitive district because it
didn't swing hard and not I but I's sway huge.
That's why the new Trump coalition is interesting. It's different,
(02:56):
and it's is a big mystery of how it will change,
how it will grow, and if it will eventually be
just kind of how all Republicans vote with me this week.
Is a man who predicted the working class multiracial coalition
long before anyone else did. Patrick Graffini is the co
founder of the polling company Echellent Insights, and he's the
author of the book Party of the People Inside the
(03:17):
Multiracial Populist Coalition remaking the GOP. Patrick, thank you for
joining me.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Thank you Ryan for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
First of all, congratulations on all your success. I mean
the Atlantic wrote about you. Everyone's kind of waking up
and smelling the Patrick Graffini coffee right now that you
kind of had your finger on the pulse. So I
want to start with the obvious question, right, why are minorities,
especially young minorities, abandoning their father and grandfather's party. You
(03:47):
call it a racial de alignment, but what does that
actually mean.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So we have a long history in this country, I
think racially polarized voting that goes back until at least
sixty four and the Civil Rights that when you first
saw black voters move in a very big and decisive
way into the Democratic Party, with often times vote shares
(04:12):
over ninety percent. And there was a thought for a
while that Hispanics might maybe not follow quite as resoundingly
in that direction, but would nonetheless also be a solidly
democratic group. And this consensus really among Democrats really reached
(04:34):
fever pitch during the Obama era. Obama wins eighty percent
of non white voters running for reelection, and you know,
and you know, you had this emerging Democratic majority coalition
of the Ascendant went by many names, that this idea
that as America grows more and more diverse, you will
(04:56):
automatically see democratic victories because you know, just simply this,
this four to one Democratic voting block is going to
represent soon going to represent almost a majority of the public.
And that's something that the Republicans could never recover from.
But I think that view was always short sighted. It
(05:17):
assumed that the non white voter in America would stay
the same in you know, certainly many of these political
loyalties were formed on the basis of groups that were
highly either marginalized, discriminated against, whatever terminology you want to use,
(05:38):
oftentimes very poor. In a party system where the Democrats
were overwhelmingly seen as the party of the working class,
the party of the common man, and that was the
self identification of the Democratic Party. That self identification has
gone out the window. I think it started to go
out the window well before Donald Trump, as the Democrats
(06:01):
to become more the party of the college educated, the elite,
the woke if if as you were.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And childiscat ladies, and you know, hyper pro criminality, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Exactly exactly so so so I think that that self
identity of the Democratic Party. Really, I think loose it right
creates the conditions for somebody like Donald Trump to come in,
who is a cultural icon, right, who you know is
as comfortable ringside as he is in the Oval Office,
to come in.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Probably more ring side on the Oval office. I mean
to be to tell you the truth. No, you are
one hundred percent right though about that, And I want
to I want to ask you one quick thing. So, like,
I hate it when people say the word I don't
hate it, but like it gets under my skin. But
when when political is like they'll say the Asian vote, Well,
what does that mean? Because Pakistanis and Koreans are very
(06:54):
different kinds of people, and Republicans quote unquote won the
Asian vote back in the night when it was predominantly
Korean voters and Vietnamese refugees from the Vietnam War. And
as the Asian population changed through mass immigration, the voting
tendencies changed, and you're definitely seeing that with Hispanic voters.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That's right. There is no single Asian community. Hispanic community.
You know, you see very different voting patterns from place
to place. Just go from California to Texas, to Florida,
and even pockets of let's say, voters in you know,
Dominican voters in Lawrence's, Puerto Ricans in Allentown, Pennsylvania. There's
(07:37):
distinct communities. And I think from a why that really
mattered this year was that in twenty sixteen, the calculus
was that if Donald Trump was going to build a wall,
if Donald Trump was going to base his campaign again
around stopping illegal immigrants, then Democrats right were really counting
(08:00):
on Latino voters really rising up against that right out
of a sense of pan Hispanic pan Latino group solidarity.
That just didn't happen. It didn't really happen in twenty sixteen,
but it really absolutely didn't happen in twenty twenty four
when you see, you know, roughly a fifteen to twenty
point shift again in the Latino vote towards Trump. And
(08:23):
that's partly because I mean, I don't think you can
I think it should be blindingly obvious an any Hispanic
voter who can vote in a presidential election right as
somebody who is a citizen of the United States who
immigrated legally to the United States, so they don't identify
with the people who are coming here illegally, and in
(08:44):
fact their interests are directly contradictory to those folks in
terms of these are folks who you know, they believe
cut the line, who are taking advantage of the system.
And so this idea right that everything can be boiled
down to group racial interest solidarity, but just a fundamental
flaw on the part of the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I think, I mean the ultimate I hate when adults
talk to other adults like their children, and the fact
that like there were people on the media twenty four
hours a day saying that Puerto Ricans were going to
change their voting behaviors because of the kill Tony comments
at the MSG thing that was going to be the
ultimate thing they want to care about. Inflation, nothing, just
(09:28):
kill Tony's joke about island of garbage in Puerto Rico.
What does okay? So I was Gon asked this later,
but I want to say now then. So back in
twenty twelve, for anyone old enough to remember twenty twelve,
we the post Romney synopsis was if you want to
win over minority voters, specifically black and especially Latino, you
(09:51):
need to be pro amnesty and really forgiving of criminality,
be easy on crime. Why and that just didn't work.
It just didn't work anytime the Republicans have ever tried
to going back to Bob Dole. Why is it that
I think that I think that when Black Lives Matter happened,
and the riots post BLM especially, and the violence post BLM,
(10:15):
and the forgiveness towards violence, and the forgiveness towards rating
CBS is a lot of conservative Hispanic voters. And there
were millions of conservative Hispanic voters who voted for Hillary Clinton,
who voted for Barack Obama. They may be you know,
pro life or whatever, but they were Democrats that this
is not okay and I'm not okay with this party.
Do you think that that was really the inflection point
(10:37):
for a lot of working class Latinos because as you said,
as you said, you know, illegals cut the line. There
is a one of the real values in this country
is fairness. People like to believe that people thinks should
be fair. If you break the law, you should be
punished for the crime, YadA, YadA, YadA. And I think
that post twenty twenty, the idea of or fairness, especially
towards criminality, woke a lot of working class.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think crime and
you know, crime in the cities especially, and let's ignore
that this was a shift. You know, you really did
see a huge shift in the cities, not just among
Hispanic voters. I would argue about black voters, Asian voters,
(11:22):
but even white voters too. I mean, if you just
look at what happened in and around the New York
City metro area this time, where you know, Trump within
the city goes I mean you think he gets like
thirty percent of the vote in New York City, which
is crazy. Hi, right, it's high obviously, it's it's nowhere
near a majority. But you're talking about some of these
(11:46):
suburbs returning two levels we haven't really seen since nineteen
eighty eight, in the nineteen eighties, when the discussion in
the nineteen eighties was really focused around the hollowing out
of the big city is due to crime and you know,
flight into the suburbs specifically to avoid you know, high
(12:09):
crime in the central city area, and you know, especially
around New York, but you also saw it in la
You saw it in just a number of major cities
that that sort of mindset really is returning Now, at
the time, who were the people fleeing the cities? Who
are the people kind of leading the outrage about this
(12:31):
was sort of your white ethnic voter, right, I mean,
that was the sort of Reagan Democrat voter back in
the eighties and nineties. And those are the voters that
Bill Clinton really tried hard to win back. Now, who
lives in those neighborhoods now, right, it's not white ethnic voters.
White ethnic voters have left the cities. Who lives in
those neighbors in that neighborhoods now are working class Latinos.
(12:54):
And I think they are occupying exactly the same place
and sort of that urban political firmaments right as white
they started, white working class ethnics did in the nineteen sixties,
seventies and eighties. And I think you're seeing a shift
in the same way that those also, those voting blocks shifted, right.
(13:15):
Those were the New Deal Democrats. Those were Democrats who
voted for JFK. Right, who but then started voting for
Richard Nixon in nineteen sixty eight, nineteen seventy two and
became Reagan voters after that. So I think that that is,
you know, that's what we're in particular, seeing right stantics,
(13:37):
I think there's a trigger. There's certainly a trigger that
you mentioned right with these events, and I think this
is the long term trajectory these voters are on.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So yeah, and there was this calculation. It seemed like
the Democrats were making were racial like alignment, like the
quote unquote black and brown voter, even though they are
completely different voters. But I mean complete not completely different issues,
but a lot of different issues on a lot of
different racial solidary that doesn't really exist outside of like
Al Sharpton's brain, that that would overcome the fear of
(14:08):
safety and concern and economic prosperity. You I think you
tweet us. I was looking for the tweet and I
couldn't find it. I think you tweeted that you expect
like Mexicans to vote like Italians in the near future.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Was that you I've probably said that, you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I don't have a word in your mouth, so I
just want to make sure.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, No, I mean I think that that's the future, right.
I mean, I think we're not there yet, but that's
the future. And that's what you really saw, you know,
And you know, my grandparents came to this country, came
to New York City, right, the natural home for people
like them was the Democratic Party. The political machines existed
(14:49):
to serve these immigrants who came in to the big cities,
and you know, they identified as Democrats for a long time,
and the party at the national level was very clearly
identified with these sorts of voters, the working class voters
who are kind of working their way up in American society.
(15:11):
And that simply is no longer the case. And so,
you know, really what you're seeing, I think you really
saw in this election is Latino's really following the footsteps
of those ethnic voters who again, you know, in the
early nineteen sixties would have been seventy to eighty percent
(15:32):
JFK voters. Now, it didn't hurt that he was Catholic, right,
but that was sort of the high water mark. But
year after year, decade after decade, you see particularly this
white Catholic voter. That's a category that I think makes
sense as sort of this precursor, because this was a
group of people who was actually discriminated against back in
(15:53):
the nineteenth century. But every election grew more and more
Republican and is now to a point where that that
group of voters is about a Trump plus twenty.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I think now, I think white Catholics voted. I think
it was like either sixty six or seventy percent for Trump.
I think the only girup that put a more Republican
that were Mormons and Evangelic because I doubt Mormons actually
do about more Republican other.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Than But but the reason I mentioned that, right is because
even back in the George of B. Bush era, I remember,
it was a fight to win white Calcoluse that was
a huge priority of Carl Row. This was this was
sort of seen as the key swing group because they
were Democrats. Because you had this sort of old white
Anglo Saxon Protestant both the white Anglo Saxon Protestant elite,
(16:41):
but the white Protestant voters. Those were seen as the
core Republican vote. Now it's kind of I mean, I
think in many ways it's kind of flipped in the
sense of you know that lost both heat is no
longer really a reliable Republican constituency. But you know, particularly
in the suburbs and the cities, you see this internet
(17:02):
like states like Pennsylvania, states like Wisconsin, I do think
the shift right was still important among those white Catholic voters.
So you know that, you know, particularly in those states
that are whiter, where you do have an ethnic voting base,
and you do have an white ethnic voting base that
lives in cities as opposed to out in rural areas,
(17:25):
those are still places that are pre fifty to fifty.
That electorate is still up for grabs. And I think
Trump made just enough progress, right, I mean that there's
still a lot of let's say, low hanging fruit. I
think among these there was at least enough low hanging
fruit among these voters that you know, he was able
to win a state like Wisconsin, which is ninety percent
white in terms of its electorate, or state like Pennsylvania,
(17:46):
which is like eighty four percent.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Hey, we'll be right back after this. I said that
the Trump campaign. I said, you know, during the campaign,
this is early on. I said, you know, you're doubling
down on this Latino vote. But in the most critical
in almost all the most critical Spring states of I
think like maybe six of four of the seven big ones,
the electorate is still ninety to ninety five percent white black.
(18:10):
It is very little changed. I said, so doubling, quadrupling,
tripling down on on getting these Latina voters. There's not
enough of them, and I was a little I was concerned.
But I think part of Trump's success, right, and maybe
Kamala's failure, was Trump's share of the minority vote did
(18:30):
go up among almost all minorities, I think, actually of
all minorities. But some part of that I wouldn't say
the whole thing, but part of that was because the
minority share overall fell because they because a lot of
especially black voters, had to choose between commeal and the couch,
and they chose the couch. They just didn't show up
on election day. That made Trump's share. No Trump' share
(18:51):
went up on its own, but it probably went up
faster and more because Kamala voters just weren't showing up.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, I mean, look, I don't disagree with that, but
I think that but both things were Both things were important.
I just think inflation was just a dominant issue and
narrative that I think there was no way, I mean,
you were going to see I think some of these
voters who maybe were the twenty sixteen Trump voters who
drifted away in twenty twenty. I think you were always
(19:21):
going to see some of those come home. And then yeah,
I mean, you're right that we were always sweating. And
I think the scenario in which my sort of prediction
doesn't come true was like, hey, yeah, we do really well,
we clean up in the sun Belt, but you know,
there's just not enough of these realignment voters in Pennsylvania,
(19:42):
let's say, to move things. But you know, it turns out, right.
I mean, I think that that black share of the
vote is important, even if it's a low share of
the vote, if you can cut into those margins.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Of course, I'm not saying they're not important, but I
don't know, but.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I think, yeah, but I think that the calculus that
you mentioned with turnout two is because the raw vote margin, right,
the Democrats get out of the city of Philadelphia, get
out of the city of Detroit, is just so important
to them. If you take that away, I you largely
take away their ability to win states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
(20:20):
Michigan obviously was also a state. I mean, I had
a large number of problems that went beyond the black vote,
that went into the Arab American vote. Right, I also
flipped pretty significantly.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
I know, there's this one little if you look at
a map of the Detroit metro area, there's like this
one little red bubble in the middle of it, and
that's that's I think, Dearborn. It's like crazy, this Arab
majority place. The one really interesting thing that I want
to really ask you about because I think you might know.
So I'm from New York, Right you can tell based
on like everything about me, but the nagas lee voice,
(20:55):
the obsession to curse. But the one thing that's really
interesting is in the Bronx. Right, the Bronx is it's
not a place that's in a swing district. It's not
a swing county's not a swing state. There's one elected
Republican in the whole borough, and Republicans in twenty and
Republicans don't compete there. You'll never get a door knock,
you'll never a mail piece, you won't get a doorknocker,
you won't get a TV ad. You're you might as
(21:17):
well not know there's an election going on if you
live there, and if you are a voter, So there's
no effort to win these voters over because why bother. Right,
But in twenty twelve, Mitt Romney won twenty nine, nine
hundred and sixty seven votes. In twenty twenty four, Trump
won ninety eight, one hundred and seventy four votes. He
made a gain of about about seventy thousand votes. At
(21:39):
the same time, Democrats went from three hundred and thirty
nine thousand to two hundred and sixty one thousand. There
was no effort on the part of Republicans to make
this happen. It was one hundred percent organic, and it
was repeated in other parts of the New York City
metro areas you said. It was repeated in Cicero, Illinois,
in Los angele Lists, in some areas throughout the Central
(22:02):
Valley of California. They have competitive congressional districts, but not
competitive state elections. In places that there was no Republican,
real Republican effort to change voters' minds, voters changed organically.
And as I said before, Hispanics are not all the same.
Some are Central or Caribbeans, some are Central Americans, a
lot of are Mexican. Do we I mean, is it
(22:24):
all inflation or is something bigger going on? Or is
it the Democrat being the party of you know, crazy college,
crazy white liberal women and you know, supporting endless criminality.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah. I mean, look, I think I mentioned I went
back earlier and I mentioned how, you know, you don't
really have a single Asian community, you don't have a
single Hispanic community. But you see these shifts all over
the place. Right, It's as though there actually is right
benefiting Republicans in this case. And you know, I think
(22:59):
you know what I go back to in my book,
right was, you know, the overwhelming majority of people who
are non white in America, a large majority don't have
a college degree. And just like the overs like the
about a sixty percent or near sixty percent majority of
American voters don't have a college degree. What we saw
(23:23):
in twenty sixteen, that white working class coalition that elected
Donald Trump. At this time, what we saw was a
just simply a working class coalition that elected Donald Trump.
Race was not you know, sort of as critical or
pivotal a factor, you know, in terms of our in
terms of those voting patterns, in terms of the coalition
as it was back in back in twenty sixteen. I
(23:48):
think what we can say is they share kind of
a common you know, kind of working class sensibility, a
certain worldview, and it really is the white college educated
liberals who we're off on an eye end of their
own in terms of their emphasis on these identity issues,
the emphasis on these issues you know, that don't really
(24:11):
matter to the large majority of Americans, particularly in a
time of high inflation, a border that's out of control,
rising crime, and those issues. I think the Democrats chose
to really close the election on issues like democracy, abortion,
these social issues that don't really necessary that I think
(24:33):
people in these communities said, this doesn't really address my
key concern here when you know, the prices of eggs
is up fifty percent, right, and everything I'm paying for
is through the roof. You know, how are you going
to help me, you know, afford my grocery built? Right?
Those are the central concerns, you know, of this working
(24:55):
class coalition, and I think that really unified, right, I mean,
and I think that brought together just very different groups
of people in this coalition. On the flip side, you've
also just seen, yeah, you have seen over the last
couple election cycles, you've seen these high education places move
further and further to the left. You know, they didn't
(25:17):
really move this time but you know some places moved
one or two points, they were still a little bit
more resistant. The problem is, you know that that coalition
that you know, Kama was speaking to on the Ellipse
a week before the election, it's not a majority of Americans, right,
These are not the concerns that you're twenty twenty four
(25:40):
a majority of American American American American people cared.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
About, right. I mean, you have to be very comfortable
in life, very comfortable. We're January sixth still lives in
your head every single day, like there has to be
nothing else, Like you know, you can afford your bills.
You know, you're taking your the right amount of magnesium
in the morning, like everything is going well for you
to be like, oh yeah, you know what I'm thinking
about it, January sixth, that's just not where it is.
(26:05):
And it was really just college educated whites and black
women primarily who were That was the two people that
she was speaking the most too repeatedly. Because there was
a lot of racial identitarian on the left that the
media does not talk about. I mean, the Biden administration
was successfully sued for discriminating against white farmers. They were
(26:25):
totally opposed to the Harvard case with the discrimination of Asians.
I mean, they did a lot of like race baiting
of their own, but it was always, you know, the
Republicans that were the racist you're listening to it's a
numbers game with Ryan Gerdsky. We'll be right back. The
interesting thing is that a lot of these voters who
vote and this is not This is very common when
(26:47):
new people approached a party. This was very common when
Nixon and Reagan won in the seventies and eighties and sixties,
seventies and eighties. A lot of these voters voted for
Trump and then either did not vote down ballot or
voted Democrat down back because they were comfortable with a
lot of it. Why do you think that is that
because the Trump brand is still uniquely different than the
(27:09):
Republican brand as far as working class issues goes.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, look, I think that I'm a little bit less
pessimistic on this question. And yes, I would say, yeah,
there is absolutely Trump is you know, people change parties
for the top of the ticket, right, I mean, if
you're going to change long standing voting patterns, it's going
to be because there's somebody at the top of the
(27:34):
ticket who is uniquely, you know, uniquely somebody who you
resonate with, somebody who speaks your language, right, somebody who
really provides that personal connection and vision. And you know,
it takes and may take a couple of cycles before
(27:54):
people are voting down ballot, you know, for your congressional
campaign at the same rate as they're voting for a
Donald Trump at the top of ticket. Who is somebody
who realigns these core demographics that said, right, you are
seeing the share of the vote earned by Republican down
(28:14):
ballot candidates also move up in this Trump you know,
Trump era. Yeah, you're seeing it cycle after cycle, Like
I mean, I think the basis for comparison, right is,
you know, what is a down ballot you know, senate
candidate getting compared to their last selection? What were they
getting compared to four years ago, six years ago? And
(28:37):
that number is os higher in the same way that
the Republican presidential vote is oas higher. And we've seen
this before. We saw this in the South, right when
the South realigned, it always realigned it was voting for
Reagan at the top of the ticket and just sending
a whole bunch of Democrats to Congress. And that took
(28:58):
really until nineteen ninety four for that to break, and
that was thirty years after the initial shift towards the
Republican party.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Well it took I really, it took to twenty ten.
I mean because Mississippi state legislature was Democrat, West Virginia's
was Democrat, Arkansas was Democrats had two Democratic senators from
Arkansas in two thousand and eight that who were unopposed
by the way, Republicans even run against I think what
was it, Lincoln and Blanche link It or something like that.
(29:28):
They didn't even run opponents against her because it was
too hard for Republican to win Arkansas. That wasn't two
thousand and I'm like six, Like that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But that's right. So hopefully it doesn't take as long
this time. But but this idea of you know, their
on a trajectory, but there's always there is this kind
of note. There is this a term for it's called
down ballot lag right that that you know, people initially
kind of say, you know, I'm gonna switch chef for
one person, but then they I only realize in the end, yeah,
(30:01):
I'm a Republican. And by the way, I mean, look
it happens on the other side too, right. You know,
in twenty sixteen, you have a lot of people voting
didn't like Trump in these suburbs, but still voting for
your you know, friendly local Republican congressional candidate. And by
twenty eighteen that was no longer you know, that that
was sort of out the window. So I think if
(30:23):
people are going to get more and more aligned in
these you know, with their new parties over time, because
I think that's where their values are, right, I mean,
they identify, you know, their values are conservative. They identify
as conservative. You know, maybe they don't have a party label,
then maybe they're moving away from the Democrats. But when
(30:46):
you look at where these voters are on the issues,
it's not surprising, right well, I mean it's starting to
vote that.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I mean even in this allig I mean, think about this,
if you're old, especially if you were around like that
in the nineties. There are more Republicans, and Republicans do
better in Queens, New York than in Westchester. Like that
is absurd, It was unthinkable. How do the Republicans, I mean, listen,
Trump has had twelve years or who will have twelve
(31:17):
years when this is all over of absolutely the craziest
political story in American history or definitely one of the
top three. How does the next Republican whomever it be,
or the candidates running for the future, how do they
keep that momentum going towards the right, towards the working class.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Look, I think every canon has to chart their own path.
That's what I would I would tell any cannon I'm
working for or advising that, you know, if you try
to go in and you try to be Trump, if
you try to literally be Trump, right, Yeah, that's always
literally do that. It's not necessarily going to work out
well for you, because I think voters want a sense
(31:57):
of who you are as a person, what a sense
of you know, how you're different.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And also, let's say that Trump is the first hilarious
president and ninety nine percent of politicians are not funny
at all, right, Like they have the most unfunny people
in the world. So it's hard.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah, no, it will be hard, right from that perspective,
So I don't want to underestimate that. With that said,
I think the what we're seeing play out now is
something we probably would have seen play out anyway, maybe
in ten years, five years, whatever, you know, because I
think this is where global politics has headed. I noticed
(32:33):
some of you followed closely, right, Yeah, but global politics
is headed in a place where it's overwhelmingly parties of
the right, which are increasingly more populous, you represent the
working class in Europe, in America. You're really seeing this
in more and more places throughout the world, and it's
(32:55):
the parties of the left that you know, increasing represent
the educated class. Trump was in a cellar into this,
but I think that is the trend for as well,
so long as until it's not the trend right right, So,
I think that the wind is at the back of
sort of more and more minority voters, especially because they're
(33:16):
kind of the holdouts at this point. I mean, I
think we are almost resaturation with white, non college white
working class voters. That you still have a lot of
low hanging fruit of minority voters who are just conservative
on policy and their values, who still vote Democrat, and
so I think the idea is continuing to focus squarely
(33:41):
on those voters. Yes, I think Trump was uniquely effective,
you know, but Trump was maybe not as effective in
some other voting blocks that another candidate would be would
be as if it would be more effective in so so,
but I think that that is really identifying, you know,
who really are the votvoters that pro grabs, Who are
the voters who are just in the wrong party right now?
(34:04):
And I think we can continue to just say that
those are that's who those voters are. So I think
whether or not you believe, right, you know, people are saying, well,
this can't realign them. You can't continue forever, right, nobody
can duplicate this Trump coalition. What I will say, you know,
regardless of that, right, I mean, yeah, you're right, parties
can't keep winning forever. But I think what will be
(34:26):
true is Republicans will now be the home of the
working class in the same way right that the Democrats
used to be the home of the working class. And
I think that's increasingly who they have to represent, who
they have to wage their campaigns. This is who we're
doing this for.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, there's the thing that I agree with you. I
so agree with you. And what frustrates me is when
I go to Washington and I talk to a member
of Congress and they're still repeating lines from Ronald Reagan
that make me want a Gauther. Not that I hate
Ronald Reagan, but like they're such old, stupid platitudes and
they're so still in the hands of like dumb Wall
Street like talking points or think tanks. Right, No, you
(35:07):
can't touch big tech, you can't regulate anything, you can't
protect the working class in any which way. And it
makes me want to scream. And there is that component
there that kind of still needs to change. What happens
when the white working class and the interest of the
white working class and the interests of non whites, like
(35:27):
they oppose each other on some things like that is
always what the Democrats kind of built their electric on
that they're that they're that what brings them together is
less strong with what what divides them is that is there?
Does that still exist? Is immigration still that wedge issue
for Latinos that will like because I mean they did
vote for the what it for master deportation? Is it
(35:48):
that they think that they support that now in large
part or they think he's just not going to do it?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Well, look, I mean I think you have to take
it a face style. You're right, I mean that Trump
made this campaign about immigration away. He didn't even make
the twenty sixteen campaign about immigration and you think that
you know the things, the solutions, and the rhetoric at
least that you know the policy of just simply building
a wall. I mean that seems quaint right in terms
(36:13):
of what we're talking about. And you know, he just
continues to increase to share those you know, vote because
I think a lot of those dynamics bold. So yeah,
I mean, I don't expect that, you know, Latina and
Army of aren't for every single thing, right. I don't
think every group is gonna be on board for every
single thing right in moving forward. But I think you
(36:38):
just have to look at the election results and say, yeah,
I mean I think this is sufficient. Uh you know,
let's say sufficient. The shift in the direction of Trump
in a campaign where he talked about this, I think
gives him a lot of.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Latitude, right. I suppose even as illegal immigration has changed
from being Latino to being a global issue, they also
may feel less connection to it. And also their second, third,
fourth generation now too, America.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Second, your fourth generation you've also had. I mean, there's
a you know, a mass majority of people here are
a Mexican. There's very few Mexicans coming over and so Venezuelans.
But then you absolutely to have people from their Third
World all over the place just using this, you know,
using this weakness that we have along the border and
exploiting it.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah. I loved how Democrats in the media would always
sit there and say, oh, Trump comes off like a
strong men. I'm like, yeah, a lot of a lot
of Third world countries have voted for strongmen in the past,
and their voters don't tend to shy away from that
just because you say it's a bad thing. Drick. Thank
you so much for being honest. I don't want to
hold you up any longer. Where can people read your
stuff and read I love, by the way, I love
(37:51):
your polling. They break this down I think once a
year or twice a year where they break down the
different parties within the party you have, like the you have,
like the populous wing of the GP. How many people
say they belong to that party or versus the accel
a corridor version of that party, like the Centrist Party.
I love a lot of what you guys do. It's
very creative. Where can everyone get your stuff?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, so you can subscribe you my newsletter which is
at on substack, but at Patrick Graffini dot com. You
can also follow me on x at Patrick Graffini and
by my book Party The People Inside the Multi Racial
Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah. Patrick is one of those people who I will
read and they'll be like, I don't know about that, Patrick,
and then it will happen. I'm like, well, Patrick is
right again. So and you've been You've been a stellar, stellar,
stellar two years as far as really reading the tea
leaves and telling it like it is, and I like
it a lot. So thank you again for a thing
coming on. Thank you all for listening. Check out my
(38:51):
podcast every Monday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever
you can get your podcast. Tune in next week and
see you then
Host
Gill Alexander
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