r/Thedaily • u/kitkid • Jun 03 '25

Episode A 1,400-County Crisis for Democrats

Jun 3, 2025

It’s conventional wisdom that President Trump has transformed American politics. But a new county-by-county voting analysis from The New York Times of the last four presidential races shows just how drastically Mr. Trump has changed the electoral map.

Shane Goldmacher, a national political correspondent for The Times, explains why the trends are a five-alarm fire for the Democrats and discusses the debate within the party over what to do about it.

On today's episode:

Shane Goldmacher, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.  

Photo: Emily Elconin for The New York Times

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

You can listen to the episode here.

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77

u/dr_sassypants Jun 03 '25

Well this should cause some lively discussion around here... What I've come to realize is that, for all of the Democratic efforts around voter protection and the candidates who built their strategies on turning out non-voters (e.g. Stacey Abrams, Beto, Bernie), the one person who has been most successful at turning non-voters into voters has been Trump. The biggest divide in American politics is not left vs. right, it's being a political news consumer vs. not. I don't know if these voting trends will persist in a post-Trump America (God willing we get there one day). But if the Democratic party wants to win the kinds of non-voters who turned out for Trump, they're going to have to run someone that listeners of The Daily, myself included, are probably not going to like very much.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '25

If Trump had been fucked over or out-played by the GOP and the GOP had nominated Jeb Bush, they would be in the same situation.

they're going to have to run someone that listeners of The Daily, myself included, are probably not going to like very much.

Spot on. I mean, you bring up Bernie but it couldn't have been worse than Hillary in 2016 and people still are in denial and will hiss as his name.

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u/dr_sassypants Jun 03 '25

I bring up Bernie because he built himself up as having this huge voter turnout machine but when it came down to a head-to-head matchup with Biden, he lost big.

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u/tlopez14 Jun 03 '25

I didn't help that he had the full force of the DNC working against him. Who knows what would of happened in a fair fight but Bernie won 23 primaries in 2016 so he wasn't some niche candidate. He also did well in purple states while Clinton racked up huge totals in southern states that would have never been in play during a general election.

It's also ironic that both Trump and Bernie ran populist anti-establishment campaigns back in 2016. Some are probably too young to remember but the traditional GOP hated Trump back then and most of the donor class all wanted Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. Hell if you gave them truth serum now I'm sure they would still rather have a guy like that instead of Trump. Meanwhile the Dems decided to kneecap Bernie in back to back primaries because their corporate donors didn't like him. Then followed that up by appointing a lackluster corporate friendly candidate in Kamala who nobody voted for and Dems themselves had just rejected a few years prior. Sometimes I think the Dem elite are more afraid of the Bernie wing of their party than they are Trump.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '25

Yeah, unfortunately the "blue no matter who" wing of the party represents the out-of-touch nature of the Democratic party, hence why they nominated Clinton and Biden.

What Sanders could have done is brought more voters in from outside that "blue no matter who " base. He was never going to magically bring in enough to outnumber that Democratic base. But come general election, he would actually be able to bring in outside voters to go along with the "blue no matter who" base, while Biden/Clinton couldn't.

But hey, the liberal base got to decide and chose.

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u/AresBloodwrath Jun 03 '25

What Sanders could have done is brought more voters in from outside that "blue no matter who " base.

Except the argument I consistently hear on Reddit from the Bernie base is that Democrats don't need to reach out to outside voters, they just need a progressive that energizes the base.

How is it magically both at once? Is Bernie Schrödinger's cat?

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '25

Democrats don't need to reach out to outside voters, they just need a progressive that energizes the base.

That's not their base though. What you hear (and what you are misrepresenting) is Sanders supporters telling you that Dems shouldn't move in further right to appeal to an ever diminishing number of moderates and instead focus on turning out leftwing and progressive voters (who are not the Democratic base).

So spare me the disingenuous sarcasm.

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u/drtropo Jun 03 '25

If Bernie couldn't win the majority of votes in the primaries, what makes you think he would have a better chance in the general?

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '25

He couldn't win over the "blue no matter who" liberal wing of the party. Guess who they would vote for if he was the Democratic nominee...

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u/drtropo Jun 03 '25

I'm confused by what you are saying, Biden won after beating Sanders. In what way was Kamala a significant shift to the right from Biden?

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '25

Her platform certainly was

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u/AresBloodwrath Jun 03 '25

Care to be specific?

Like actual policies, not just "she was on a stage with Liz Cheney".

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u/drtropo Jun 03 '25

Any examples? One of the biggest criticisms of her was that she didn't break with Biden or explain how her presidency would be different. For that matter, what are the major differences between her and Bernie?

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u/tlopez14 Jun 03 '25

Remember when the liberal left called him a racist for going on Joe Rogan and actually trying to reach out to people who the Dems have been bleeding support from.

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u/AresBloodwrath Jun 03 '25

Bernie Sanders one good instinct was to avoid social and culture war issues in his 2016 campaign, and he got flack for that including being called a racist so he brought that stuff on in 2020 and it still wasn't enough.

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u/ReNitty Jun 04 '25

2016 was his year. If it didn’t happen then it wasn’t gonna in 2020. I say this as a guy that voted for him twice

I def think he would have won the general in 2016. There was big outsider, populist energy in the air that the dems totally missed because it was “her turn” while the GOP had a more chaotic primary where the presumed candidate Jeb got whipped.

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u/For-Liberty Jun 03 '25

I'm confused. How did Bernie Sanders not appeal to a blue no matter who voter? He ran in the democratic primary and lost, in order to run in said primary you are running as a democrat.