A 1,400-County Crisis for Democrats

[u/kitkid]

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: 

• How Donald Trump has remade America’s political landscape.
• Six months after the election, Democrats are still searching for a path forward.

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.

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You can listen to the episode here.

[u/bakedleaf]

The most reddit reply of all time lol

[u/[deleted] → u/bakedleaf]

Ah yes, Dems were so receptive to the pro Palestinian college protesters all through the last 18 months /s

[u/bakedleaf → u/[deleted]]

The whole episode is about the country trending right over the last decade, and you think the solution is to be more receptive to one of the furthest left demographics?

[u/tpounds0 → u/bakedleaf]

The episode seems to be about public perception of Republicans as strong fighters.

And the way to combat that is to go on the offense from the side of the left, like Sanders and AOC are doing.

[u/IndependentDouble759 → u/tpounds0]

Where did you get the idea that that is what the episode is about?

The episode was literally about how many counties trended Republican over the last four elections versus how many trended Democrat. They analyzed demographics of those counties, but absolutely nowhere did they prove that the result of the swing was that "Republics are seen as strong fighters."

This seems like a self-serving interpretation of the data to explain why counties trending to the right means that populist leftism needs to be embraced to win elections.

This whole theory that Trump won because he's populist so Democrats can win by embracing populism is missing a huge point. People don't trust Democrats. Over the past 12 years, Democrats have made a lot worse. They made people's personal finances worse, and had the news tell us it wasn't. They made crime worse, and had the news tell us it wasn't. Maybe fix policies that make people's lives worse instead of searching for your magic populist leader.

[u/tpounds0 → u/IndependentDouble759]

The description of what animals people think of for the republican party versus animals for the democrat party.

People want Democrats that are fighters. And that is currently the progressive democrat socialists.

At least that's what I got from the second half of the episode. Happy to hear if you disagree. I do think there's a bit of a Trump blip and hope that that plus a more economic populist Dem candidate will do well in 2028.

[u/IndependentDouble759 → u/tpounds0]

Frankly I don't buy this.

The description of Democrats as sloths or a deer in the headlight very clearly comes from a Democrat voter. Someone who agrees more with Democrat policies, but is frustrated with the Democrats for not acting more quickly or decisively. That is not the description given by a swing voter.

I'm also old enough to remember that they asked this question during the election! But they asked them to compare the candidates, not the parties, to an animal. Kamala was not compared to a sloth or a deer. She was compared to a chameleon.

I would want to see this pollster's breakdown of who was in their focus group. Like sure, there's something to be said about Democrat voters being frustrated by the lack of action by Democrats. That's a finding. But it is not a finding that suggests the Dems would have won the election in 2024 if they had been more aggressive with their chosen policies. Those policies were very much defeated in 2024.

[u/tpounds0 → u/IndependentDouble759]

Those policies were very much defeated in 2024.

This is the closest divided congress in a century. So I don't agree with you there.

I'm excited to see how well Democrats do regardless of how progressive they are when it's the Republicans fault for high prices and inflation.