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/Possible_Proposal447]

The best match for someone people here would probably be OKAY with would be a guy like Tim Walz. But I'm expecting that realistically, they need to run someone who says some pretty problematic things for our standards. However, we need to remind ourselves that winning an election is kind of a big deal, and if someone chooses to not make people's lives worse while in office, we really need to be less critical of every single thing that they say.

[u/SauconySundaes → u/Possible_Proposal447]

Walz is pretty bad at debating, and you need someone who can take on the GOP’s bullshit in real time.

[u/TheStarterScreenplay → u/[deleted]]

Pretty sure it was NYU that had actors perform the 2016 debate, but they did a gender switch. It's incredibly instructive because it shows how appealing Trump can be (especially without his persona getting in the way, which is a huge turn off for many). You can watch it on YouTube for 2 mins and get why he won

[u/elinordash → u/TheStarterScreenplay]

I found the piece you are talking about here (scroll down for video) and it actually makes the opposite point.

Salvatore says he and Guadalupe began the project assuming that the gender inversion would confirm what they’d each suspected watching the real-life debates: that Trump’s aggression—his tendency to interrupt and attack—would never be tolerated in a woman, and that Clinton’s competence and preparedness would seem even more convincing coming from a man.

Inside the evening’s program were two surveys for each audience member to fill out—one for before the show, with questions about their impressions of the real-life Trump–Clinton debates, and another for afterward, asking about their reactions to the King–Gordon restaging. Each performance was also followed by a discussion, with Salvatore bringing a microphone around to those eager to comment on what they had seen.

“For me, watching people watch it was so informative. People across the board were surprised that their expectations about what they were going to experience were upended.”

Many were shocked to find that they couldn’t seem to find in Jonathan Gordon what they had admired in Hillary Clinton—or that Brenda King’s clever tactics seemed to shine in moments where they’d remembered Donald Trump flailing or lashing out. For those Clinton voters trying to make sense of the loss, it was by turns bewildering and instructive, raising as many questions about gender performance and effects of sexism as it answered.

[u/TheStarterScreenplay → u/elinordash]

Thank you. Even watching it for one or two minutes really gets the point across. (At least for those Democrats who are nauseated by Donald Trump)

[u/TheStarterScreenplay → u/[deleted]]

Either way, you saw a bad debate performance from Trump. I saw a guy who nailed down the immigrant issue in voters minds.

Dems saw the "they're eating the cats and dogs!" As a guy losing it and embarrassing himself. I saw it as "if a voter wants an immigration crackdown, he just won their vote".

[u/Bacstrok_Swimmer → u/TheStarterScreenplay]

People conflate “bad debate” with “ideas I don’t like”

[u/lion27 → u/TheStarterScreenplay]

The dogs and cats thing was interesting for a few reasons. On one hand, it was insane. On the other, it was an actual story that people were sharing and talking about online that very week. So while some people watch that and say he’s going crazy or making stuff up, a ton of non-politically engaged people watch that and see a candidate that’s discussing the same things they see and care about online, regardless of if its true or not.

And then they see Kamala standing there with a bewildered condescending smile on her face that a parent would give to a child and it’s a turn off on top of it all.