Episode 1: 2024 Election Key Takeaways

Welcome to New America's new podcast, Democracy Deciphered. This podcast untangles the complex threads of today's political landscape through real-time and historical analysis. 

In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election, New America's Maresa Strano and Mark Schmitt share their insights on the results. Mark is the Director of the Political Reform program and Maresa is the Deputy Director. 

Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Transcript:

Shannon Lynch Welcome to Democracy Deciphered. New is brand new podcast where we'll explore the history and future of American democracy. I'm your host, Shannon Lynch. In this series, we'll give you real time analysis of current events, delivering fresh insights as the political landscape evolves. And we'll take deep dives into topics like the Electoral College and the evolution of political parties helping you understand their impacts on today's democracy. Today, we're turning our attention to the 2024 general election. What's happening right now and what it all means for the future of our democracy. I'm thrilled to be joined by two brilliant experts from New America, Mark Schmidt and Marissa Strano. Mark Schmitt is the director of the political reform program at New America with extensive experience in government philanthropy and journalism. Mark is a leading voice on political reform, budget and tax policy and U.S. social policy. Alongside him today is Marissa Sereno, the deputy director of the political reform program. Marissa is passionate about electoral reform and state and local governance issues, and she plays a vital role in shaping the program's initiatives. Her insightful writing has been featured in outlets like Fox, Washington Monthly, Democracy Journal and NBC. Think. Marissa and Mark, thank you so much for joining me today.

Mark Schmitt Thank you, Shannon. We're glad to be here.

Maresa Strano Yeah, thanks for having us.

Shannon Lynch So to start, we just wrapped up the 2024 general election and there were some things coming out of Election Day that were surprising results and some things that weren't so surprising. But I'm wondering if each of you could just pick one thing that surprised you the most about the results that we know about so far.

Maresa Strano So I think well, besides Trump winning the popular vote, easy for that to eclipse every other result. But I think I speak for many in the political reform community specifically in saying that the defeat of most of the voting reform ballot measures this year was quite a surprise. The statewide ranked choice that is ranked choice voting, which is a preferential ballot type, those measures lost in Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Colorado. That was quite a surprise and a disappointment to many. In fact, the only places where kind of pro-democracy reforms won were in D.C. and at the statewide level in Maine, where they had a campaign finance reform. So given the success rate that these measures have had in previous elections, and particularly in the Trump era, this was quite a surprise. And there are a lot of explanations that we could offer, and most of them are just speculative. But for me, and I think a lot of people in our world, that was a surprise and something that we're going to have to reckon with and reevaluate our kind of reform approach going forward.

Mark Schmitt Yeah, I think to be a little more granular. I mean, the biggest surprise to me is that some of the elected officials, particularly senators who had really felt like they had very deep connections to their constituents and very strong kind of credibility on working class issues. And that would be, for example, Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Senator Bob Casey in in Pennsylvania, who in that race is totally decided. But they seemed like they would be in pretty good positions. They were running against kind of empty suit, rich guys. And whatever attachment they had to their constituents just wasn't wasn't quite there. And that's and that's a little surprising. And similarly with some representatives who in the same way, you know, if you want to say your diagnosis is Democrats need to have a stronger connectedness and awareness of the working class of this country. A lot of members of Congress who have some of that also had trouble on Tuesday. I think that was sort of the most granular surprise to me. And then the big picture surprises, just the uniformity of the swing in the Trump direction, whether you call that a swing to the right or just a swing towards voting Republican. I'm not sure that the same thing right now that is know pretty across the board urban rural region, whatever.

Maresa Strano Can I be really annoying and add one other surprise that just sort of occurred to me. Yeah, go for it. It's a kind of a different sort of surprise, but it's related to what Mark was saying. Trump had almost no ground game in his campaign, and it didn't matter. It didn't seem to matter, at least. I mean, we'll be able to analyze the data more in the coming weeks and months. But it wasn't even the first time that this happened. You know, we thought maybe it was a blip in 2016 that he was able to overcome the lack of ground game. And then in 2020. Covid meant that Biden ran his famous basement campaign and Democrats, out of concern for their health, did much less canvasing than normal, less pounding the pavement. Biden won anyway. So this is the third time in a row. And maybe, maybe there's more context that Mark can can offer here. But as far as I see it, this third time in the in a row where there was little ground game and it did not seem to dampen turnout or undermine the candidate's chances of winning. And I don't know and this, I think, has some broader implications that we can dig into about like what does what does civic engagement even mean nowadays if people can only really be reached or moved maybe through social media or digital channels? But that really did surprise me.

Mark Schmitt I mean, I think my version of that surprise is almost the reverse, that for all the ground game of the Harris campaign, which, you know, definitely had its glitches in the, you know, the app that they use and all that, but the energy and intensity of it, particularly in the swing states, particularly in Pennsylvania, didn't seem to matter at all. So that once we see California, I think it'll look like Trump got basically the same number of votes that he got in 2020, and Harris just couldn't hit Biden's number. She'll be behind by maybe 100,000 votes. You know, we'll be we'll be enormous, but it'll be well short of the bar. So in a in the pandemic year, so all that energy, everybody going to Pennsylvania and all that or all that work just didn't seem to produce anything.

Shannon Lynch So I think one thing that was surprising for a lot of people was this pretty significant change in alignment that we saw among Latino voters. Can you tell our listeners what we know so far about that?

Maresa Strano I can only speak generally about the about the significant swing of Latino voters toward Republicans and the male Latino vote toward Trump in particular. That was definitely a factor and one that's forcing us to actually once again, because we kind of run through this every every election, at least in my my memory. We have to rethink some of our more simplistic assumptions about Latino political identity. And it's almost become a cliché now to say like group X or Y is not a monolith. Like, I'm surprised nobody has made t shirts to hand out to political analysts that say that. But what occurred this year with the Latino vote was just undeniable proof that Latino voters can not be pigeonholed based on presumed views that they hold about immigration or really any other issues that we typically impute to nonwhite constituencies in the US, which, you know, has a tradition of racial polarization. But that just doesn't seem to apply as much for Latinos.

Mark Schmitt Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, we won't know until, you know, maybe early next year when the some of the really detailed surveys go out, because exit polls have always been a little shaky, particularly on groups like Latinos. I think part of it is nothing special to Trump or anything else. There's there's a general kind of reversion to the mean of just like Latino identity becomes less important as part of your voting and so does whatever particular Puerto Rican or Cuban or Dominican identity or Mexican-American identity. Over time and rates of intermarriage are very high, and it just becomes as unimportant as having an Italian background is to a lot of people of three generations removed, four generations removed from that immigrant experience. So there's just no I think at a certain point, Latino voters are voters and many of them are working class voters and many of them are not. And it may not be that in central a category including I mean, there was really an interesting push at the end to take advantage of the offense that people of Puerto Rican background took the at the comedian in Madison Square Garden referring to it as a a big pile of garbage, framing the island as a big pile of garbage which really actually didn't doesn't seem to have made a huge difference. The areas in Pennsylvania that are heavily Puerto Rican didn't look different in their voting pattern from from other areas. It was pretty pretty much a nothing which maybe is just like should be expected. Why would a comedian that I know most of us had never heard of really have that impact given all the crazy things that Trump himself said? But even when you break down Latinos, it's you're not you're just not seeing a lot of distinctive voting patterns there right now.

Maresa Strano Yeah, I think that's I think that's right. I mean, many of these Latino groups have been here for generations and generations. And, you know, if you take the melting pot metaphor, like when your ethnic group first comes in a wave to the U.S., you're like the oyster crackers on top and then you melt into the soup. And most Latino voters, you know, if they are voting, they're already citizens. Of course, despite what some Republican legislators and other Trump allies wanted us to think. But they're already part of the soup, you know, so they're so they're their political views. And voting behavior is similarly nuanced. But, you know, as a kind of counterpoint to what Marc was saying and what I just said, in fact, there is still some sense that many Latino voters have pretty potent and influential memories of living under or their parents or grandparents living under socialist dictatorships or living with unstable government. So they are they are more susceptible, it seems, to narratives coming from Trump and Trump allies and surrogates that, you know, that insist that U.S. is the U.S. is in danger of becoming one of those countries to under Democratic control. So their background does have some influence. But I think overall, it's true that we we really can't stereotype, as convenient as that is for political operatives and intellectual strategists. We really can't stereotype them. Yeah.

Mark Schmitt On one other point there, there used to be a very strong conventional wisdom that even though immigration issues were not actually important to the majority or large majority of Latinos, because, for example, the Puerto Rican, everyday American citizens, they've been here or others have been here for generations. There's no current engagement with the immigration system. There was a sense, particularly like in 2012, for example, when opposition to immigration really did seem to hurt the Republican Party in that Obama Romney election. And there was a sense that Latinos viewed anti-immigration politics as an as an attack on them, even if the issue itself wasn't that salient for them. I think that conventional wisdom is obviously done, and many are skeptical of current immigration and the border as people of other backgrounds.

Shannon Lynch So, again, right, we're talking generally here because there are a lot of numbers that we don't have yet. But just generally speaking, what are some of the other outcomes or shifts among demographics that we've seen so far in this election?

Mark Schmitt Well, one thing that looks weirdly smaller than expected is that the gender gap, the difference between men's voting patterns and women's was not that great. I think it was like nine points difference. And I think it was I think it was like 10 to 12 points difference four years ago that didn't really hit the level that we thought it would. And the same way probably less black support for Trump than had been kind of touted and expected a bigger gender gap among African-Americans. I mean, very still 90 plus percent of African American women who are very much the base of the Democratic Party supporting the party and some erosion among men, but not to a level that really changes the pattern at all.

Maresa Strano Yeah, it seems clear that all of the all of the panic among Democrats about erosion of black men voting for the Democratic Party, who are also an important part of the coalition, though not quite as important as black women have been, was wildly overstated. And black voters still are an absolutely key linchpin, really, of the Democratic coalition. So, yeah, that was that was pretty surprising to me, too. On the women point, it appears that abortion was just not as salient for women voters and especially working class women who Democrats were hoping would go for Kamala because of this issue. It's just, you know, I think kind of worked itself out and where there were ballot measures that would enshrine the right to abortion into the state constitution, people did vote for that. So there was a decent amount of split ticket voting on that issue. But I think some women were, you know, pretty we shouldn't underestimate them. They're pretty sophisticated, savvy voters because they have to be they were able to separate the abortion issue from their candidate vote, something that stuck out to me in looking at the early exit polls is that independents voted in huge, huge numbers this year. I mean, Edison Research's exit polls, you know, they're kind of the the gold standard. They reported that self-identified independents, they accounted for a larger share of the overall vote this time than even Democrats. So they were and they were tied with Republicans. And that's just the first time since they have been doing these exit polls that the independent share of overall turnout exceeded that of one of the major two political parties. So that's that's pretty significant and obviously suggests that there is some room or room maybe for big, bold structural reform that promises to break up the two party system, though I don't want to get too carried away there, but it definitely suggests a lot of anti-system sentiment. Maybe we can boil it down to frustration or disillusionment with the Biden administration's policies on the economy and Gaza. But this is part of a trend that does go back a few elections. This was just the first time where the independents tipped again, according to the exit polls, over one of the two major parties.

Mark Schmitt Yeah, very, very, very strong trend over a long period of time. You also see in voter registration. I want to go back a little bit to Marissa's point about abortion rights. And this is a theory that I haven't really tested out, but I think it's very possible that the ballot initiatives that were big to protect abortion rights had the effect of sending the message to voters like, you can take care of this at the state level. You don't need to worry about jobs or a national policy. So much really kind of echoed what Trump would claim, which is we we send it all back to the states so that people felt like they could take care of their so that the ballot initiative, we sometimes have a model that a ballot initiative is sort of putting a message in a voter's mind that will be reflected in their other voting choices. I think this was almost the opposite because it kind of took it out. It kind of took it out of the realm of work, something they had to worry about in their other votes.

Maresa Strano I think that's so right. I also I also think that Trump did a pretty effective job at distancing himself from some of the anti-choice ideologues in the party. His constant back. Vacillating between positions gave people the general sense that he was not going to push forward with a national abortion ban or any of the more extreme policies that are being advanced by the more conservative wing of the party. And also, people just tend to believe that he is more socially liberal than sometimes he presents himself to be in front of some segments of the broader Republican electorate.

Mark Schmitt Absolutely amazing that he could appoint three of the justices that made up the majority and not pay a price for it.

Maresa Strano Right. And maybe he'll be able to appoint two more justices in the next term so that his mark on the Supreme Court will outlast all of us. Normalcy.

Shannon Lynch Right. Right. So Mark mentioned a little bit earlier some of his takeaways on some of these key Senate races. I'm wondering, Resa, can you share your thoughts on some of the Senate races and the results we saw out of those?

Maresa Strano Well, John Tester's loss in Montana was pretty significant. Not altogether surprising given that states. Right. Were drift and sense that they needed change. Don, Chester's been in that office for quite some time. But that was one of the decisive losses for the the Democratic Senate. There was also an interesting Senate race in Nebraska where that challenger was an independent, Dan Osborne. And he ran a sort of heterodox campaign that appealed to working class values, but also some more socially conservative views. And he was he was an extremely formidable challenger, so much so that the Republican campaign had to kind of scramble to, you know, muster up funds and run a campaign in the 11th hour, which was ultimately successful in suppressing the challenge. But what was really special and notable about that race was that the Democrats saw in Osborne a real opportunity to challenge the Republican incumbent and therefore stood down and did not run their own candidate. And that doesn't happen very often in a Senate race.

Mark Schmitt And Osborne did quite well. I think he ran 11 Democrat out of Harrison. It is potentially a model for something that we might see more of in the future. Again, with those kind of more working class union identified candidates for whom either they like the idea of not identifying as Democrats or they put a lot of distance between themselves and the Democratic Party. And that would include Jared Golden, the congressman in Maine, and Eagles, and Kent Perez in Washington's first District.

Shannon Lynch Yeah, very interesting to see how that will play out in the future. All right. I have one last question for you. If you had to pick a single word to describe your reaction to this election, what would it be?

Maresa Strano Disappointed.

Shannon Lynch Okay. Could you elaborate on that a little bit, please?

Maresa Strano Well, I mean, I sometimes try to stay away from, you know, pure partizan or anti-Trump declarations, but I was disappointed that. That he won the popular vote. I was expecting an electoral vote. When perhaps. Electoral College vote, rather. But it's kind of a tough pill to swallow for me that like this was a true, truly democratic outcome. And that outcome gave us another four years of a wannabe autocrat leader. And these are our fellow countrymen. And we have to learn to live with them and find some common ground. That's a challenge.

Mark Schmitt Yeah, I think I think my word would be mystified isn't quite the right word because that's how that sounds. Kind of clueless, but aware. Aware of the limitations of my own knowledge. Like there's a lot that we should admit doesn't really makes it like I fully understand that inflation was a had a huge impact on people's lives, you know, a year and a half ago and it's still there. But this is a really remarkable economy and it's not obvious why people feel like it's a terrible economy. I don't think that's just maybe that's just the media. Maybe that's other things. That's certainly a huge factor. It's a factor also elsewhere in the world where there's a turn against incumbents. But I feel like I should we should own up that it's not all completely obvious. And there are things that I don't know and don't understand about American politics.

Maresa Strano So, so good.

Mark Schmitt And yet I'm employed to somehow write you.

Maresa Strano That comment made me want to change my word to like, dissonance.

Mark Schmitt Yes.

Maresa Strano Or humility. I don't know. Like, I'm just humility.

Mark Schmitt Humility?

Maresa Strano Yeah. I'm having a hard time.

Mark Schmitt That's. That's the word. I really. Yeah.

Shannon Lynch It's okay if you want to change your word. Marissa Well, Mark, Marissa, thank you so much for joining me and sharing this really wonderful insight with all of us.

Mark Schmitt And thank you for launching this podcast. We're really excited about it.

Shannon Lynch Yeah, of course. And a huge thank you as well to our listeners for joining us for the very first episode of Democracy Deciphered. Be sure to tune in for our next episode where we'll dive deep into the history and future of the Electoral College. This is a New America Studios production. My name is Shannon Lynch. I'm your host and executive producer. Our co-producers are Joe Wilkes, David Lanham, and Carly Anderson. Social Media by Maika Moulite. Visuals by Alex Briñas. Media Outreach by Heidi Lewis. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please rate, review, and subscribe to Democracy Deciphered wherever you listen to podcasts.