Dear listeners,
Donald Trump didn’t just win the 2024 election, he did it by building the most racially and ethnically diverse electoral coalition of any Republican presidential candidate ever. Partly, he did that by drawing in minority voters who, prior to Trump’s rise, had voted Democratic despite holding conservative views. And partly he did it by winning over disaffected, not-especially-ideological voters of all races who believed he could deliver a stronger economy and lower inflation.
“In order to have a majority coalition in this country, the coalition has to not entirely make sense,” says our guest this week, Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini, whose 2023 book Party of the People lays out how and why Donald Trump, of all people, was building a more diverse Republican voter base. And indeed, as the Iran war pushes up gasoline prices and the price level more broadly fails to fall, we’re seeing a lot of strain on Trump’s coalition, with the members who joined in hopes of getting low prices especially likely to fall away.
Patrick offers us his theory of how Republicans can avoid a cataclysm in this year’s midterm — it has, in part, to do with the semiquincentennial — and we discuss whether every election is going to be a “change” election from now onward.
Also this week, Ben, Megan and I discuss what “everybody knew” about Eric Swalwell, and whether we’d be better off with more insider gossip thrown out into the open — remember, that’s what Gawker did, and people got pretty tired of Gawker by the end. And we look at the prospect of a United Airlines-American Airlines merger, which United CEO Scott Kirby reportedly floated to the president himself.
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
