Today's Pacific sponsor is Simply Safe Home Security. Every political consultant will tell you hope is not a strategy. You don't wait until election night to see if your ground game works, but traditional security systems do exactly that. They play defense only after someone is already inside your house, like not going to Wisconsin. I mean, that's exactly what it is.
It's the traditional security system. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after breaking is already underway, Simply Safe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside. They got smart AI powered outdoor cameras that detect suspicious activity. The perimeter in alert live US-based agents to step in. Simply Safe's agents assess the threat, interviewing through the outdoor camera to scare our trespasses and call 911 for dispatch.
Our CEO, Lucinda recently, the Simply Safe system installed at her house. She had the indoor and outdoor cameras, the motion sensors, the windows and the door sensors until her home is fully protected. She said installation was super easy. Everything has worked seamlessly since the day it got done. And it gives her peace of mind knowing that her home is now protected by the good people over at Simply Safe.
Simply Safe has been protecting your world for 20 years. Right now, you can get 50% off a new Simply Safe system. Go to simplysafe.com slash crooked. That's simply safe.com slash crooked for 50% off. There's no safe, like Simply Safe.
Welcome to Pod's Day of America. I'm Alex Wagner. On today's show, MS Now's Chris Hayes. Talk about recent progressive wins, how Democrats find their path to victory in 2026 and beyond, and who is winning the war for American attention. Chris and I dug into candidate strategies as the midterms draw ever closer, as well as how the Democratic Party can rally around its new Senate candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed.
We also talked 2028 and how these midterms this November might influence the party in the wild ride ahead. It was a great conversation and we're going to get to it in just a minute. But first, a little housekeeping. If you have not gotten tickets for CrookedCon yet, what are you doing? Here's another reason why you should.
At Crooked, we believe the answer to right-wing authoritarianism is a big, welcoming, fun, pro-democracy movement. So we have invited some of the biggest, funniest voices online to all day CrookedCon. At CrookedCon, you will have the chance to meet creators and new media personalities who make sense of the news with humor and hot takes. They'll be popping around the Washington Convention Center, hosting happy hours, Q&A's and workshops for attendees. They will also be, of course, making content.
Because what happens at CrookedCon ends up online for every political nerd to see. Check out which creators are joining us so far at CrookedCon.com and grab your tickets today. Post Hey, see ya in DC. Here's my conversation with MS Now's Chris Hayes. Joining me now in a tank top, for those of you who are not watching on YouTube, you should be.
Please hit subscribe while you're at it. Is the one, oh, look at those guns used in. What does it say? Sun's out, guns out, guns used in. Sun's out, guns out, guns out.
It's the great Chris Hayes. Buddy, it's always great to see you, especially in the summer. It's pure August right now, so I'm not even... It's giving real Friday. It's also recording us on a Friday in August.
We sure are. So, you know, if you didn't think he was wearing a hot pink tank top and a gold change, we can sell C.S like there's no sun names. Can I tell what you go? Mm-hmm. Okay, I was hoping it was Celsius.
That would have just been a little bit more on brand. They're showing tonight, and that's a hard rule. Got it. There's a hard rule one has had to enforce. Learn the hard way.
Yeah. I was really excited when we had a big primary on Tuesday, and we thought, who can help us unpack what the fuck happens now? Who is wise, but also just ballsy enough to say what they really think. And Chris Hayes, you're up. I won.
Let's start with kind of where we sit, as you say, on Friday, after the Michigan primary, ahead of the Wisconsin primary, are progressives having a moment, yes or no? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a huge, you know, one of the weird things that happens in elections is we interpret the results against the benchmark of polls, as opposed to the benchmark of like fundamentals. So like, you know, I remember 2020, people, that was a disappointing election night for Democrats in 2020, because it was all much closer than the polls have predicted. Sarah Gideon was going to beat Susan Collins, and she lost by 12 points. And you know, there's a bunch of races like that.
So, but you got to take a step back and say, what happened here was that the polling was wrong. Right? The polling was a mess. So just look at the results. And the fact of the matter is you had a unabashed progressive candidate who has run statewide and primaries before and lost by 20 points.
He ran against Gretchen Whitmer. When a narrow victory over a candidate who I think is not a great candidate as politicians go, not a great candidate, but did have the backing of the state party essentially behind her, both the incumbent, Senator Gary Peters and the incumbent, Governor Whitmer. You had $60 million in outside spending on her side against Abdul Saed. And he emerged victorious in a swing state in which, look, there's a theory of the case here. Why a progressive outspoken progressive candidate can win a statewide swing state race?
They have a theory of the case and I think it's actually a relatively persuasive one. But it's also like there's reason to be worried about it. And just like there is. I mean, there just is like and despite all that, he did emerge victorious. And I just think there's no universe in which he would have emerged victorious two, four, six years ago.
Like something is obviously happening among and let's be clear here, the Democratic primary electorate, which is a different electorate than the general electorate, right? And a different electorate than the presidential general electorate. We're talking about concentric circles. But yes, it was a huge win for progressives for sure. At the risk of sounding like a glazing for some of you, that term, Abdul Saed.
I do think there's really something to be said. Like the redefinition of what electable means is changing. And the issues that he's talking about is the first time I've seen a glimmer of an authentic answer to what it means to be a populist and to be on the left and take rightfully the mantle of economic populism and like really appeal to working class voters in an authentically progressive way that's like really steals it from MAGA, convincingly. Like I felt like he was very like, you know, Abdul Saed, we'll talk about Israel in a second, but just on economic issues on healthcare on jobs. Like he was relentless on beating this drum in a way that felt utterly authentic and very much in line with what Democrats maybe should have been talking about for decades, for years now, if not a decade.
Yeah. And I think that points to what the theory of the case for the progressive left is about how to win cross-pressure swing state. Oh, right. Is that people are pissed off to status quo. They don't like foreign wars and money going abroad.
Again, these are like the cross-pressure voters you can win. They're pissed off with the economic status quo. Things are too expensive and they are enraged at the billionaires and the corporations and the tech lords that want to put data centers in their backyards. And that this is a cluster of issues that are both squarely on the kind of progressive populist wheelhouse and also can win people who aren't just down the line progresses. Right.
Right. And if you focus that, that's the theory here. And again, it's going to get tested. Oh, it sure is. It sure is both.
And not just in Michigan. I mean, I think also it's we're talking these are precursors to national debates that we're going to be having for the next two years. And what happens here is going to have a huge impact on those national debates, particularly the presidential primary about who and what is electable. So when you hear when we talk about Abdul Sayed and to some degree when we talk about like Zora Mamdani, how do you square that with Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sheryl and Corey Bush being beaten in Missouri by Wesley Bell, who was backed by APAC in the state and Marie Glusenkamp Perez, who handling when her primary and is one of the most centrist moderate Democrats in the house. Like how do you just kind of say, I mean, all politics is local.
And if that's the case, then what does that portend for the national reckoning? That's a foot come next year. Yeah, I think one is, yes. I mean, it's sort of a boring and deflating thing to say all politics is local, but that is a big part of it. Like we're talking about very different constituencies in very different places with different electorates and different issue profiles.
That's one. Two, none of this stuff is linear, right? So it's like in the it's like the stock market goes up and it goes down. It goes up and it goes down over a 30 year period. It's gone up, right?
So it's like if you take a step back, it's like, is the progressive left growing and shrink inside a Democratic Party in the aggregate over the last 10 years? Yes, pretty clearly. Yes, right? Like since 2016, I think the answer is since the Bernie primary, you know, defeat, I think the answer is very clearly yes. Now in individual cases, that doesn't mean like they're winning everything.
And no, there's there's a lot of variation. The last thing I would say here about Abdul Alsai and I'm Donnie and I, this was true of platinum or two before he dropped out. So think about what are the gates that you go to go through to become a candidate through the traditional, let's say, traditional channels, right? It's like constituency relationships, relationships with mentors and other elected officials, endorsements from local groups, right? Being good at navigating the politics of the coalition, right?
These are all things that you have to be good at. Being a really, really great communicator is nice to have, but not necessary to ascend up the ranks in the traditional politics. So like right Jackson, right? Yes, exactly. Who has got pretty high and mean politics?
Yeah. Even Abigail Spemburger is a perfectly good communicator, but she's not like electric electric, right? If you are not going that route and you are going to have success, you have to be a really dazzling communicator. So you've got a different set of features that are being selected for. So the reason that you get platinum lighting up main on fire and the reason Montane is able to win that primary coming out of nowhere.
And the reason I think Abdul Alsai ends up winning a very hard fall at split vote win is that they're just extremely gifted communicators. Yeah. Now, that's not all that matters in politics, because another thing that happens for the gate checking that happens for the normal ascension politics is some vetting is some like, is this person got some stuff in their past? It's going to blow up. Yeah.
And we saw like a rocket ascendancy via tremendous charisma and political talent and grand partner completely blowing up, right? So, but I think that distills down a little bit when you point to Montane and Abdul Alsai said it's both and right. The ideological ferment has to be there, but you have to be really good after it. Because well, okay. So where does that leave you on?
We're saying this. You're going to be hearing this episode on the eve of the Wisconsin primary where Francesca Hong, who is not a dazzling communicator. No. And who Bernie Sanders, who's been kind of like a mini kingmaker in this primary season on PODS America with my colleague John Faver did not specifically endorse her. Do you have a theory of the case on that?
Is that because there's a sense that she's going to lose and she's not actually one of the future stars of the party of the left of the party? There's a few things going on. One is the sort of there has been a sort of comedy of errors among the sort of establishment or the Democratic Party that has led to this moment in terms of Mandela Barnes drops out Sarah Rodriguez, who was going to be who was kind of the sort of consensus pick, but had an enormous kind of a basically a finance director, did a whole bunch of stuff. You shouldn't know this. It's unclear like the extent of it, but she drops out.
So one is just like one of these kind of, you know, the car crash that happens that you're sort of around for. The other thing is, yes, there is a desire for there is the primary base, the primary voting Democratic base is to the left of both the median voter and the median like Democratic politician in a lot of cases. Hong is taking advantage of that. The other thing that's really important here is no one in that primary has gone up with TV ads, but for the Republican super PAC that spent $5 million boosting Hong. This is part of the thing that people have not talked about, but is a big part of the story there.
No one else is spending. The state party in Wisconsin has a lot of money, partly because of how good a job Ben Wickler has done for the years. They won't spend until the general. They're not spending the primary, the primary candidate spending. There has been $5 million about dollars outside money spent to boost Hong by Republican interests because they think she's she's beatable.
And the last thing I'll say here, what you see in Sanders not endorsing Hong and even Hassan Piker wrapping her on the knuckles for her Thanksgiving answer is that everyone actually understands that there's a penalty for ideological extremism. And that's good. That's a sign of help. People kind of pretend not to. It's like we all get that there is kind of a bell curve of political views and you do you don't want to be too far from the center and everyone gets that and everyone loves a winner.
No one wants to be associated with a loser. So this sort of ascendant movement doesn't want to feel like Hong disproves their theory if and when she loses because I don't think she's yes, exactly. That's people who like fireworks. Yes. That on people who like the Fourth of July.
Pause America is brought to you by Cook Unity. I love Cook Unity. I've been a Cook Unity customer for years long before they ever sponsored this podcast. Just had a bunch this week. I had a great chicken, szechuan salad.
I had a Thai beef and rice dish that was really, really good. And I'm going to have it again tonight probably. Cook Unity is the first chef led meal delivery service that makes your meals in small batches inside local micro kitchens across the US, not factories. So every dish arrives with the kind of freshness you'd get at the restaurant itself. Meals from Michelin star chefs, James Beard winners and Food Network stars.
Go to Cook Unity dot com slash crooked or use code crooked before checkout for 50% off your first week. Cook Unity works with some of the best chefs in the country during creative, delicious meals to your door. There are hundreds of dishes to choose from and the menu is updated constantly over 10 different dietary preferences, high protein, low sodium, GLP1, Pescatarian, gluten-free and more over 25 global cuisines Mediterranean, Korean, Thai, Mexican, Italian and more. Taste what happens when real award-winning chefs make fresh, small batch meals just for you. Go to cook unity dot com slash crooked or enter code crooked before checkout to get 50% off your first order.
That's 50% off your first order by using code crooked or going to cook unity dot com slash crooked. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an average life therapy session rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client session reviews. The feedback from real people who've actually used the service speaks for itself. More than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally.
BetterHelp therapists have at least three years and 1000 hours of hands-on experience. They also hold all required education, training and certifications across a range of mental health specialties, meaning the perfect therapist for you could be just a few clicks away. BetterHelp makes it easy to get started, answer a few questions, get matched with a therapist based on your needs and switch therapists at any time if it's not the right fit. Listen, you guys have a lot going on in your lives. You've got family stuff, work stuff, just the new country stuff, country stuff, the worst in our country happens to be the president of our country.
You should probably talk to somebody who would benefit you to talk to somebody. Check out BetterHelp. See the reviews, see what stands out and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com slash PSA. That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash PSA.
I bet I know where you sit on this, but like Rahm Emanuel, who's probably running from president in 2028, is very worried about the DSA, the Democratic Socialist of America, and writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week when the DSA attempts to turn safe democratic states and districts a darker shade of blue, democratic candidates in swing districts are put at a distinct disadvantage. Should 20-20ators just shut the fuck up about the DSA for right now? Like what is the answer there? How would you like to see them grapple with this dynamic? Well, part of the thing I would say is that I think there's a like, there is a kernel of truth to it, but also are you helping by putting more attention on it?
That's a good thing. If the whole bill is said. If you're wrong, you've alienated a crucial part of the base that you're going to actually need to try and win over. This is a real paradox, I think, of what we might call this term that got used as popularism, right? Which is a broad term that Democrats had to sort of move back to center, align themselves with views that had majority support.
And there's a certain weak version of that argument that's almost tautologically true. Like, yeah, when you run for office, you want to be mearish the center of the voters that you're appealing to. Now, the question of what is the center and what's the issue space and what's salient and how you get it as a whole complicated thing, and it's harder than it looks. But one of the things that we saw happen with the labor party in the UK, which tested this theory, they came into office and they're like, we're going to engage in a bunch of high salience, high profile fights with the left flank of our party, which meant we're going to put immigration and trans issues in the paper all the time. There are worse issues.
We know that from the polling, but we're going to pick a bunch of high profile fights. So everyone's constantly talking about it all the time. And guess what? It didn't work now because why would you want to talk about the things, even if you're trying to get to the center on it, you end up raising the salient. So it's like, don't workshop it in public.
Wrong things that Josh Turic is being hurt at the margin by Daria Lisa Chevalier winning her primary in Washington Heights, which is not a crazy idea. Why does right? Well, talking about that in the Wall Street Journal, help it. She already won. She won.
In the Wall Street Journal, at this point, what, how are you helping him by being like, boy, these people are really a problem and they're going to be a problem for the Josh Turic world. Right. Just talking about something else. That's not helping Josh Turic. Right.
And it's nor is it dissuading people in the DSA from mounting, like making their case. Right. Because the other thing is she won that election, like the voters are the voters. Now, can I argue against myself for a second too? Sure.
I mean, that's why we thought we would do both of these things. That's why we only did one booking today. Because I do think there's a little bit of this. I want to say to my friends on the progressive left, let's all just concede the fundamental idea that a primary electorate can select a candidate who is poorly optimized for a general election. Yes.
We've seen literally many, many years now under Donald Trump. Of course. So it's like the idea of like, well, who's electable now? We just want the primary. It's like, no, no, that's a different electorate.
It doesn't mean anything. Like, and I think most people think you more sophisticated fashion clearly that folks in Michigan do, like we said earlier, I'll say it has a theory of the case. But I do think there's a little bit of this like the way I think about it is in order to get to the NBA, a basketball player has to have a completely delusional sense of their own ability where they won't make it. Right. That is an adaptive quality in the player, but the scouts can't have that.
And the other people have to be clear on it. To win as a candidate, to be as a mom down, you have to have a kind of delusion of your own ability, but everyone else should be pretty clear. I'd like, yeah, there's a trade off about where you are on the ideological spectrum that that and it is possible that you engineer a very motivated, disproportionately highly educated democratic primary electorate that selects for candidates who are too ideologically extreme to win. This is just obviously a true thing. Right.
So just because you're winning the primary doesn't mean you could the tail of the R is primaries are generals. Yeah, like the primary. You know, you're like, yeah, Robinson, the primary down North Carolina. Christine, I'm a witch at all. Um, I wonder, I'm always like, galled by this.
And I kind of wonder where you sit because Donald Trump's making hay as our every single Republican in the party about the fact that democratic socialists are in the vanguard and they're all commies and they're going to be coming for your money and your children should they win in 2026 and 28 at the same time that Donald Trump is like nationalizing private enterprise and has these like federally run gas stations up and down the East Coast, like he's practicing socialism. And like, I'm not going to art like maybe it's time for the federal government to eat like gas subsidies. I mean, there's a case to be made for a lot of this intervention. And I'm not saying we should be nationalizing private enterprise, but should Democrats point out the sort of socialist tendencies of this administration as hypocrisy? Or is it just too fraught to be aligning yourself in any way with the most questionable parts of the Trump agenda?
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, it's a really important intellectual point, which is that I have never seen a president in my lifetime who was more antagonistic to free markets, to the fundamental sort of like, he's like, gasses too high. Chevron and Exxon are making too much profit. He does. He truly does not believe in free markets.
And he truly is illiberal on that sense in the old classical, like, sense the word. Like, remember, Adam Smith's Wellesley Nations is written as a polemic against what? Terrorist and mercantilism. Right. Like Donald Trump is fundamentally authoritarian, illiberal and believes in a personalist controlled economy in which he makes all the choices and also believes like as a fund as one of his core ideological commitments, bizarrely, along with like women and people of color and fear is that like terrorists or how everything works, like truly beliefs to his heart, like in the deepest part of him. So he's a mess ideologically.
He is totally hostile to free markets. One of the things you've seen that's interesting in actually the polling is that if you ask people about socialism and capitalism, socialism is gaining over capitalism, but people like the notion of free markets and also increasingly like the notion of free trade, including people who consider themselves the most sympathetic DSA, which is fascinating. I don't think the hypocrisy matters as much as being like, everything's expensive. He doesn't care about you. He's corrupt.
No, I'm serious. Like, no point in making an ideological argument against the guy. I just mean, as we're joined or two, like, they're all commies and socialists. It's like, well, actually, you're the fucking socialist, but then that's sort of painting Donald Trump with a socialist brush, which is a turn off to every, it's like a boner killer for everybody. That's right.
He's telling me totally different. You know what I mean? Like, he's in his own category. He's like a pre-Adam Smith monarch. OK, well, then that settles that.
No more mention of Donald Trump's socialist policies. I do. We have to get to the thing that is actually like that. Not it's not the third rail. No, it's like, it is the thing that I think this week has taught us and maybe this season is teaching us, which is Israel is and I want to get it something that I'm Ryan Broderick over at Garbage Day, right?
So democratic, 2026 democratic civil war is a rat's nest of different schisms. It's young versus old labor versus capital, maybe progressivism versus the status quo, populism versus elitism, perhaps more than anything though, is a conflict between the Democrats that are willing to accept money from pro Israel organizations and those who aren't. Is that fair, Chris? I think it's been one of the biggest fissures. And I do think that there's something about, um, there's a few things.
One is that I think APAC has made and they don't care what I think, an enormous tactical error. I agree. I think it's in service of their goals. Yes. In service of their goals.
Here's the argument I'm going to make. They have relied on a strategy of attempting to trick voters as opposed to making their case. So what they have done in all these cases and I happen to Michigan and the New York Times ran a analysis of this as they have spent enormous amounts of money, some of the most expensive primaries in history are all APAC primaries. Jamal Bowman, um, you know, before that, the court of Bush one was very expensive. The court of Bush was about one this time, it was about five million and a relatively small, you know, house race.
They spent 30 here. There's another 30 that we still don't know what it was because the disclosures yet. So like maybe it was that maybe not. And in all the cases, the vast majority of the ads they ran were not about Israel. They were attempts to paint the person that they were attacking as often insufficiently loyal to the Democratic Party.
Yeah. That's not what they actually believe. And it's not the case they're trying to make to the public. I think it is both toxic for the discourse and also sells to feeding to spend tons of money in the attempt to essentially trick the voters. I think it would have been better to spend the money being like, we think Israel's a good ally, what Hamas did was terrible.
They're defending themselves or whatever you want to say. Right. Right. Here's why Iron Dome is important. And in fact, having Iron Dome leads to less Israeli fatalities, which also does lead to better outcomes in the region, whatever argument you want to make.
They're not making that argument. And there is something insidious about the combination of all of this money, where you're trying to trick the voters. And then when people call the money out, you're like, that's out of line. That's anti-Semitism. It's like, there's this old expression I love, which is like throwing rocks and hiding hands. It is a lot of throwing rocks and hiding hands from back at this point.
Yeah. I sort of feel like, look, it's a free country and you've got a view and that view is shared. There's a lot of Democrats that share that view. There's a lot of particularly Jewish Democrats in my life who share that view who are, you know, defensive of the state of Israel and they think it's under siege and under threat and they don't like the direction, the Democratic Party is going on it. You have to make that argument and have the argument on its terms and not attempt to use the catastrophic Citizens United decision to pour a ton of money into races in the hopes of tricking voters into electing a person allied with you, but not on the terms of the thing you actually agree in.
And I think that has been an absolutely poisonous toxic and it's not, I want to be clear. It's not just them. Crypto's been doing the same thing. AI is doing the same thing. This idea that you're going to come in primaries with this agenda and try to get voters to vote for your candidate, not by making an argument that crypto is good or AI shouldn't be regulated, but rather that like that person who's not didn't vote for Kamala Harris or whatever, whatever you think is going to get the primary voter, I just think it's a really toxic way of doing politics.
It's incredibly destructive. It really pushes the debate off into a completely different territory. Well, and it also, it also ends up, it is ended up connecting in the minds of people, the Israel, the Israel interests and big money. Yes. And big dark, which is not a connection that you want to create.
No, it's not a good connection for Israel. What you want to say is like, look, there's actually a lot of people in the Democratic Party who agree with us. Like we're representing them again. That's fine. Like I have different views than APEC does on the conduct of the Warren Gaza and a bunch of other stuff.
But it's true that there's a lot of Democrats who agree with it, right? Totally. They're not going to do this. You got to make the no one's? Yes.
No one's making that case. And instead, APEC is aligned with like nefarious outside spending and, you know, trickery effectively. And so I guess so the inversion of that is Abdul Elsaiad, you know, to great effect, talked about all the APEC money that was flooding his race. They overwhelmingly supported Haley Stevens. The APEC is now considering pouring millions of dollars into the general election race between Mike Rogers and Abdul Elsaiad.
Do you think that for a general election campaigning against APEC's outside spending is a useful tool for Abdul Elsaiad or like, where's the benefit of the government? Who gets the upper hand? And I think it probably is actually. And again, I want to express some sympathy with the critique that there is something oogie about the like constant invocation of the dark, like the manipulative dark money. Yeah, totally.
There is an late in anti-Semitism or explicit people getting uncomfortable that I don't think is crazy. The problem is that it is a fact of the matter that like, and the other thing is, if you're going to have $60 million or $30 million drop in your head, the only thing that you could do is call it out. So it's like, do you think Elsaiad's ability to use APEC's sort of weaponization against him is more useful to him in the general than the money that Mike Rogers could actually get from APEC? Well, I think because there's going to be an enormous amount of money dropped on his head in that race, that's going to be across the board. It's not like APEC won't be a small fraction of it because it's going to be a ton of that percent of majority packed up.
Like the, you know, I think calling out that is actually very useful, like just as a general thing. And in the general, most of the money won't be, you know, by and large, it's going to be outside money from corporate interests that have all given money to Donald Trump or to Mitch McConnell's pack or whatever. And in that case, I think just taking the same line, which is like, these people want to like jack up your oil prices and they want to put data centers in your backyard and they close down your hospitals so you can get gas, tax cuts, and they're spending $150, $200 million to beat me. And I think that's, you know, you use the same line there because again, what else can you do other than, you know, he's not, he's probably going to be outspent from the outside in this race because Republicans are going to put, you know, a lot of money into that race.
Well, it could be the right. I mean, that in Maine, God, you are a television viewer in either one of the states in the coming months. Pods, if America's brought you by Blinds.com. There's a version of your home you haven't lived in yet where the light behaves, where the rooms feel finished, where you sleep until you decide to wake up. Blinds.com has spent 30 years making it easy to find the perfect fit.
With over 25 million windows covered and 50,000 buyers are reviews, you can feel confident you're in good hands. Whether you want to go full DIY, bring in license and vet approach to handle the measure and install, or land somewhere in between, you're always in control. They make it simple to choose a level of support that works best for you with flexibility. Every step of the way, no pushy salespeople, no awkward in home visits, just real advice on your schedule. They'll even ship samples to your door, fast and free.
Choose from a huge variety of style options that prices that fit any budget. Everything is backed by Blinds.com's 100% satisfaction guarantee because at Blinds.com, the only thing they treat better than Windows, it's you. We have Blinds.com. Great. We installed these electric shades, I don't even know what the term is, but we operate it with a button or a remote so that because it gets super sunny different times of day and super hot in the office, it made a huge difference, it made the office much better, they're great blinds.
They came in, they installed them, took basically no time, and they're great. And right now, Blinds.com is giving our listeners an exclusive $50 off. When you spend $500 or more, just use code Cricut at checkout, limited time offer, rules and restrictions apply at seablinds.com for details. The South is back. New Slash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country.
Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. We're in the final stretch of them in terms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Senate politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director.
Tune in on Mondays to Long Play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to ask about the flip side of all this, which is, let's talk about it, Hassan Piker. This is what Hassan Piker had to say after Abdul Al-Sayed one, Michigan, and people began talking about what he needed to do next. Here's that clip. Everyone being like, Abdul is a fuck ton of work to do, mending bridges.
Here's the fucking take-nuke for you, okay? You are all unbelievably Islamophobic pieces of shit, okay? You literally called the dude a fucking terrorist for months on end and called him a sexist, misogynist, terrorist. Bad candidate, doesn't fake doctor when he has two fucking degrees. And now you're going to sit there and be like, well, you know, you've really got to come to me now.
Like, what are you talking about? What's the fucking winner not? Lock the fucking, okay? Lock the fucking, and I do worry that there are some out there who, in an effort to make sure that this narrative that a progressive can win in a state like Michigan doesn't take root will literally either subtly or, you know, not so secretly endorse my Rogers. Okay, it is some deep paranoia that people, Democrats so threatened by the rise of Democratic socialists and hardcore progressives on the left wing would support my Rogers over Abdul Al-Sayed.
We can unpack that in a second, but just more broadly, like, what the fuck should happen here with Hassan Piker? What should Democrats do? I mean, is this the case where it's like, don't talk about it? We should Abdul Al-Sayed continue to campaign with him. We're going to get to like his reach in a second, but just as a specific political actor, like, should other Democrats be talking about him?
I was on Deadline White House with Nicole Wallace and she wanted to ask Mallory McMorro about Hassan Piker, and I was just like, this just is not good for anybody on, like, what should happen here, Chris? I don't really know. I mean, I think there's a little irony in like, the whole discourse being like the left knee's a Joe Rogan and then like getting the closest thing to it. No, no, no, no, no. It's like, it's like, do you ever watch Joe Rogan's show and says he says crazy stuff all the time?
Like, it's like, and I do think, I mean, the difference in this case, I think there's a difference between going on someone's show and campaigning with them, hugely, right? So like, I think you go on lots of people, I think you go on Bill Marshall. Bill Marshall says all sorts of things. Not like I just agree with you. It says something I really like.
Oh, yeah. Pretty, pretty wrong. And more often with greater frequency. Yeah, so, but you know, again, it's a free, like, it's a free country. So the big question is campaigning with.
I don't think it makes a ton of sense in a general election, frankly, to campaign with a sunbreaker. I think you also can't control what a 35 year old streamer is going to say. I also think that he is learning the lesson that like with great power comes great responsibility. And like, no, seriously, I mean, it's one thing. It's one thing to be like, look, this is a dude who streams like seven days a week for years.
Do you know the amount of words he said? Like you're going to say some stuff. And part of the part of the genre of what he's doing is saying stuff. I'm reminded a lot of Marcos Molitzas and you go who was who played a somewhat similar rule a generation ago. Yeah, daily coast and was would say pretty like, you know, provocative things and would curse and be like at these people.
And there was also an attempt to sort of tie him. I also sort of feel like I don't know how much the Gil by Association works in the era of Donald Trump. Like the man had dinner with Nick Lintes. Yeah, like not even for any purpose other than like, let's break bread. I just think that's hang out.
What's I want to hear when you're trying to get his kids. I'm interested in your point of view, Nick. So I do think there's a little bit of like the associational politics have lost a little bit of their sting. But the other thing is like if Hassan Piker wants to contribute to the success of the movement, like he's probably going to have to watch what he says a lot more. And like that's not that fun for him.
And I get that like he's been in a different lane. But one of the things that all of us I think with public platforms start to learn is that like your words have consequences. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that you like say things you don't believe. It doesn't mean you don't say things you do believe.
But it does mean that like how you select your words and the way that you communicate really does matter. And I think that's going to be true across the board. The other thing I'll just say on the substance of what he was saying was they don't kind of find it done. They need him to win so they could have power. Like they're all going to they've all consolidated behind him.
They're not so anti DSA that they would literally see control of the. They want to control the United States Senate. Believe me like very bad. Believe him. They truly do want that.
So. So probably not. But the other thing I'll say too in the same way that I said it's like a little bit of buy the ticket, take the ride where it's like. Apex meant that money and the cost of that is that you're going to get called out. Yeah.
Like Abdul Alsai made a choice to campaign the house on the primary and the cost of that is people are going to criticize that. And you got to like that's by the right. You got to come up with the way you're going to talk about it. I thought that I thought the two best responses was Debbie D.C. W. D. D. D. D. D.
Gotta go to advanced roster. Yes. Where she's just like he's a way to reach a lot of young people who we have a hard time reaching and he looks good when he works out. This is the W. D.
And I was like you know what? This is a person who is a conduit to reach people who are outside the system that I want to reach. And that's important to me. And that doesn't mean that I agree with everything. He says, nor does it mean the other things I think are really gross and wrong.
Right. You do not have to endorse in turn the values of every person that ever is you. That's right. We're not even working. You know what I mean?
And I also thought that the AOC is a response to the TMC's reporter. I can't believe I just said that sentence who said the AOC response to the TMC's or who was like, aren't you worried about like it's not just socialist and there's going to be communists. And she's like, I'm not the belief police. People can believe they want to believe. I believe what I believe.
I'm going to try to do what I'm going to do. And I do think that's another way of sort of threading the needle here. I think it's also just I think what I'm hearing in your responses. It's like about frankness. It's about honesty.
It's about not apologizing, but also not glossing over the the rougher parts. And don't get defensive. The other thing though too is and this is the thing Mondani's good about is like you got to pivot to what you want the election to be about. Yeah. And right now there's like both the both the sort of mainstream media and the right wing media are like, this is an election about what Hassan Piker said about 9.11 years ago.
By the way, can I just say this? Ron Johnson, the sitting senator from Wisconsin is a fully avowed 9.11 truther. And somehow this is like not a story. I'm going to do it either day or soon. Like I got a whole thing about this.
It's the craziest thing. He has gone to conferences. He has said basically he thinks building seven was a control them and like the full life jet fuel doesn't milk. Like all the stuff that you and I 20 years ago were hearing from like kooky people outside like anti war rally. And I mean, like straight down the line, like and people have been run out of public life.
They have been hounded. Van Jones had to believe his job in the White House because he signed something that was like very tangentially related to nylon truth about we need an investigation. Yada yada. And Ron Johnson's like sitting senator just being like, yeah, we probably I don't know, but looks like it might have been an inside job. And they want to have like these crazy 9.11 discussions.
Anyway, it just I can't get over a good note. Good note. Just I mean as a reminder, the depravity and delusion on the right far outweighs literally anything. Ron Johnson's on 9.11 truther. So I'm talking about that.
Like Mike Rogers was talking about this. I'm like, go call up Ron Johnson. Get his takes on 9.11. It's like, what do you think about that? Speaking of alternative facts.
No, not alternative facts, but alternative egos. We were talking about Hassan Piker largely because of his fear of influence. And there is a real kind of gut check happening inside democratic politics right now about what kind of media matters. What kind of messaging is resonant? Ryan Broder, quoted before from Garbage Day, lays out the two axes.
SCCs them. One is the institutional access, which includes cable news, podcasts hosted by former Obama and Biden Bros. So we are guilty as charged. The New York Times Axios, Politico, the Washington Post, blah, blah, blah, and the related sub-stacks and ex-accounts with those folks. And then new media, which is left to streamers like Hassan Piker, YouTube S.A.S.C calls them dark, woke podcasters.
Ryan Grim and dropsite news, blue sky user, short from the video content from the DSA. Random shit posters. You are an expert in the attention economy. Where do you see, like, if you're mapping out your 20, 28 presidential campaign, or even your next three months in your midterm election campaign, like, who matters? Where is the, like, what is most relevant in terms of, you know, speaking to the voter?
I do think one frustration that I had that I expressed in one of the chapters in the Sirens Call, my book about the attention economy that had a chapter of politics. And that I said a lot when I was doing the book tour when it came out is the risk aversion of democratic political class, consultant class, and around interviews had to go away. Like, Haley Stevens, she never came and got her interview. Thank you very much. Well, she was a good example, right?
She was a great example. Like repeated in treaties, begging, what can we make work? Nothing. Nothing can ever work. Go talk to people.
I think that is actually a big thing. You got to go talk to people. And I think actually that's, it actually connects to one of the things we're seeing in the democratic primary electorate, which is that people want good talkers, because they felt like they didn't get them. And like Joe Biden, who in his prime was a great, I mean, truly, Fidel Castro level talker. I mean, the man, I mean, good doc, truly the gift again.
That was not the case of the Joe Biden that was, you know, in the white house basement or basement show the campaigner. And like Kamala Harris is, I would say a perfectly proficient communicators of politician, but she is not a particularly great one. I would go one step further. I think she's remarkably risk averse and that she wants very, very controlled environments. And that's, and that's not politics.
That's just not politics. Very risk averse and very wary in a extemporaneous settings. And so I think there is a desire. Dave Wigill has made this point. I think I even I sort of thought of this, but he's kind of articulated of like.
We want a really good talker and it's like Barack Obama. What's great talker really good talking and again, talking is not I talk for a living. So I read it. I sort of both read it highly. And I also look for it because I'm, you know, literally this phrase good talkers. I think that we use in our booking meeting.
In our book, you're looking at a show on a map. And it's like is good talker correlated with like Donald Trump. I hate to say it in his own weird way. He's a good talker. Lesso now, but I mean, I went to so many Trump rallies and that guy could just do a routine for an hour and a half.
Like and loved it. And I think that the person is like going to be good at the job. No, unfortunately those two things don't have a great correlation, but it's also the case that. And so the reason this all relates back to your question about where you go is I think you've got to be willing to go everywhere. And I think you've got to get your reps in and you've got to be good at talking. And I think you've got to be good at talking.
I mean, this is one of the things that got us, you know, Vance Vance will go goes everywhere. He liked and he liked he likes to mix it up with like goes on the view. He got like all of that. I think is actually really important. And again, the other thing about volume is the more of it there is the less people obsess over a single gap.
Like you just go to another, he's like, remember what he said, the dumb thing about, you know, cat ladies. Like, and that was, you know, he's still talking about the calories and that hurt him. For sure. That hurt him. But also it kind of ended up being swallowed by the sheer volume. I mean, Trump is a.
It's really the shit that's coming out of his mouth. Well, true. But I also think that like that's kind of partly the way it works. So I do think that I don't know like how you rank, but the other thing I would say is I talked to him the other day, he said. Of an electorate that you're dealing with, the sort of operative rule of thumb these days about 50% you can reach through TV and 50% are just like completely off TV.
And that to me is like the fundamental structural thing that people have to reckon with and part of what I wrote about my book is that in the kind of TV dominant era that sort of starts really in the 60s and sort of extends, I think, all the way through for like the next 40 or 50 years in their compolitics, it's like you raise money and the money is used to buy TV ads. Yeah, that is most of what a campaign is raising money, running the ads. And when you're down to only 50% of the lecturers being reached that way, you still got to do that part. Like we saw this actually, I think with the Stevens race. I mean, I think part of the reason those numbers, there's a bunch of reasons that her numbers in rural areas were not as bad as they should have been.
Well, no, they were they were higher than anticipated partly because that was a place that was getting TV. Yeah. Like those are the people that are watching TV too. I mean, both. Both. You're not doing a lot of, there's not like a bunch of local press there. You're not doing a bunch of events there.
And so it's like there's huge swaths of your electorate that like the way they're going to learn about this race is like they're watching TV and they're getting that. So you can't give up on that, but you've got to have a theory of the case of the other 50%. I'm going to interpret what you're saying slightly differently because what I'm hearing is, and I would probably put it more like 60 40, like 40% of people are getting it on TV just because if you look at those numbers, which I'm sure you don't actually in order to survive your day, like the demographic numbers are, it's just an increasingly old audience. Right. But that social media and shitposting and shitposters and those accounts are now equally as important as broadcast television.
And that is actually a sea change from even like eight years ago or four years ago and that that actually really does matter. And that doing more media is in some ways less impactful but also is a little bit of an insurance policy against the mistakes that you're inevitably going to make by doing long form interviews, which is I think the real essential fear. It's not that I'm going to do an interview that doesn't matter. It's like, I'm going to fucking, how do I throw an hour and a half without Cooper without having to talk about whatever really brown. I don't fucking know. Something that's uncomfortable for me.
Yes. Yeah. Also learning how to talk about uncomfortable things is kind of an important skill. Well, if anybody's shown you, I mean, if there's one lesson for Democrats to take away from the Trump years, it's like you can do some crazy shit. And as long as you are authentic about it. And I'm not saying anybody should try and model Donald Trump's fucking behavior.
No, it's like how many bad interviews that that guy gives that like we're like these, I mean, the moment where, you know, Highland and Halpern asking for his favorite passage of Bible. Kim telling Chris Matthews that you got to punish the woman on the board. I mean, you know, there's a million. And they don't even like those are even at my fingertips in terms of his worst moments. Like there's so many.
I know I'm reaching out the archives. Of course, like I like people that weren't captured like, which was the original one. Or I don't really care about American financial situations. That was podcast interview. But anyway, that's just him fucking talking.
Pod to America is brought to you by mobile. Summer means a well deserved break. Some extra time to stretch out and relax. Mint mobile thinks you deserve a break too, which is why they created the Mint Mobile Summer Sale. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited.
So free yourself from big wireless and their gimmicks and gotchas and switch to Mint for high speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. Mint mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for $15 a month on America's largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and your number. Choose from three, six or 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill. Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile. It's so easy. Sign up online and get free money and wireless service for $15 a month.
To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash cricket. That's Mint Mobile.com slash cricket. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at Mint Mobile.com slash cricket. That's it. There's no catch.
Up from payment of $45 for $30 for six months or $180 for 12 months, plan required $15 a month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow and network is busy, includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot capable device required availability, speeding coverage, Barry C Mint Mobile.com. Long play are docu-series exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back. New slash the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South too.
We're in the final stretch of them in terms and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to long play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, I have two more for you. One is, you know, we began this conversation talking about expectation setting and how you're trying to understand where the sort of zeitgeists at in terms of democratic politics, like maybe leave the polling out of it because polling starts expectations and therefore also results. You know, Nate Silver, the great statistician, was talking about the polling that led up to primary day in Michigan that showed Abdul Alsayed was like a very, very healthy lead. He of course goes on to win by like a point. And I think everybody had flashbacks to Ann Seltzer poll, which was off in 2024 by a whopping 16 points and had showed Kamala Harris winning the state.
Abdul is now saying he's going to beat Mike Rogers by seven points. His campaign has a history of releasing internal polling. All of this seems like highly sus, maybe something you don't want to do. If you're, you know, as an as an everyone who follows this, all this stuff closely, should everybody just shut the fuck up about polling? Should we stop looking at polling numbers entirely? Like what do we do about polling?
Well, I think that primary, I think primary polling is always hard and particularly Michigan where people don't register for a party. We've seen a bunch of these cases that the both the Obama Clinton one was a surprise and then the Bernie Hillary one was a big surprise. So there was there's been a real history of specifically Michigan Democratic primary polling. This is so I think there's there's partly that. Again, I think it's like the thing about polling is it's best in just the general aggregate as like a directional point.
Is it though? I think like 16 points. I was up by a 17 point. It's not wasn't good for his support. Like just what is the utility of it?
That's a lot off. Yeah. I mean, I think when right when something's off by that much, there's no utility, but I don't think that's usually the standard mess. I mean, even like if you look at what the, you know, what was the 2024 presidential like a close race decided by a few points in either direction. Yeah, right. Fine. Right. I mean, you know what I mean? Like part of the problem is here's my general thing about polling.
This doesn't really respond to Michigan. This is more about broader stuff in presidential polling. In a country as polarizes ours, we want a level of specificity that it can't deliver because in our country, a pointer to matters a ton in front line swing races in the state in the state wide Senate races, a pointer to is probably determinative. Polling's not going to be great at telling you a point. So like my general takeaway is that like the Pax and Talarico race right now is close in anyone's race.
My general takeaway of the polling that we've seen is that Michigan is going to be close, very close. You know, that Maine is going to be really close. Nothing more than that. So like ignore the numbers, take the vibe. Like generalize. Yes. And like, yes. Now again, if it's off by 13, there's nothing you can do with it, but it is rare. That is a pretty rare polling.
Okay, fine. So whoever commissions that poll does not need to leave their job like the poor and Seltzer. Let me just say that there were multiple internals they released, which I think was like a weird scyop that I think blew back and was. Yeah, not good. But there were also public independent polls, including Emerson, which is a highly rated pollster that had double digits.
And I still haven't seen the like full autopsy of what went wrong there. The other ones that she just completely modeled the elect. Here's a big problem to something that pollsters have been dealing with in 2016 is that the kinds of people who are highly involved and highly educated are the most likely to respond to polls. And those people are also the most liberal. And this is a fact about the world that every pollster has been trying to model and methodologically get their way out of. But as a fact about the world that wasn't true in the past, it was not true in the past that your likelihood to respond to a poll correlated with your ideology in any way.
It is increasingly the case. It is. And so now you have to model your way out of that. And that leads to a lot of modeling assumptions that introduce a lot of uncertainty. That was very judicious, that assessment, Chris. Now we're going to return to the man who sits before me in a gold chain and a pink tank top for this last one, which is we're sitting at this moment.
I feel like so much of this season of democratic politics has been defined by questions around masculinity and power. Right. There's Plattner. There's Swalwell in California gubernatorial race. Obviously, main Senate race, Max Miller is currently in a house race.
We'll refuse this to drop out despite like very serious allegations of abuse and otherwise. Representative Chuck Edwards is out with some ridiculous reporting about what he's been doing. We went to Brown University, which we're prone to bring up all the time. And I think I sound like a Brown graduate when I start talking about the essence of sort of like the fall of the patriarchy defining the kind of chaos in the political landscape. But I do think it has a lot to do with why we had Barack Obama and then Donald Trump and then Donald Trump again and this sort of crisis of like how to be a man and like Donald Trump has come up with one modality of masculinity, which is real fucking vile, if you ask me, but it's intoxicating to both men and women, especially if they're white.
And Democrats have had a really hard time figuring out like what is what is man who would look like coming from the left and like you see these attempts at finding new models, whether it's a San Piker or I guess to some degree Gavin Newsom or Graham Plattner and like it hasn't really they haven't found the shoe that fits. I don't think I'm not saying that Gavin Newsom's chances aren't significant, but like do you have a theory about how the Democrats should begin to try and answer like what is our what is the rejoinder to like the vile masculinity of the right because that's going to be I think essential and figuring out who should lead the party or be part of the leadership of the party in the coming years. I don't have a good answer that but it's something I puzzle a lot. I do think I'll decide it's kind of interesting because he is he has been charged with being a misogynist though and talking the way that he did about Haley.
Well, but I think that there are women that don't agree with you even on the left that like the way he talked about Haley Stevens was misogynistic and you know some of his attitudes the listen I'm just a vessel for. I mean I think that charge I guess what I would say is I think it's probably useful to separate out charges that happen in the context of a heated primary with broader things about the person's life stuff. You know what I mean like this is a different thing than like Plattner you know like yes I'm just saying that like there's just different categories of what people say against each other when they're running against each other in a primary. There was a lot of allegations that Barack Obama was being sexist towards. He'll play.
Or Hillary Clinton and I don't think it was true Sarah Palin. I don't really think it was really Hillary Clinton. Some people maybe felt that it was but I think those those exist in a different space. Then people that are testing to your character who have been with you outside of campaign. You know the whole like he can bench 315 and he's but he's also like a doctor and he also seems like a person who you know the I don't know you said the Internet view he did with his mother that I thought was really interesting to his engineer came over from Egypt was often the only woman in a room sort of talking to her about what that felt like which I thought was interesting and also I think speaks to them recognizing they have some work to do on that front.
The way that I solve for this is the same way that I think about how to think about patriotism and how to talk about patriotism from a center left progressive standpoint which is like my version. I think Barack Obama is the best example of this but I also felt this way about the World War II Museum in New Orleans which is a great museum if anyone ever goes. Which is a sort of like progressive pluralistic patriotism like we are a great country because we are this place that is built out of all these different people from all these different experiences and we've screwed it up a million different ways in a million times but we have also kept trying to figure out how to make all these people together work. And I think that the version of masculinity is to be a man is to be a person who is strong in a sort of inner and deep sense and who like.
And then 350. And and looks out for people and does the right thing and people can look towards and depend on and to me it's like in the same way that like you take this Venn diagram of some of the attributes that we learn in our civic culture about America with the attributes that we as progressives cherish and you're like that's the thing I'm going for. I think you take the aspects of masculinity that I do think have a root in the culture which is like strength or leadership or dependability or you know looking out for people even protecting people that like. That you cultivate those in a broader sense of like looking out for people looking out for people that are being bullied or being marginalized like being the one that stands up for them. That that to me is like the vision of what of where you kind of find the sweet spot to answer and I don't know how you communicate that but that's the way my own conception of it is.
I think one of the things that Democrats could really do is kind of wrap their arms around like someone who's loving like and has shown themselves capable of great love. Whether for children or their mother or their spouse or their partner because that's something that Trump doesn't have at all and that is I think really aspirational to especially to see if we're talking about a guy like men being comfortable showing the fact that they can be lovers and I don't mean that in like a sexy way. No no. But it's a real important reminder that like that's what most people are looking for in life is to be loved and to feel loved and to belong and Trump's found the inverse of that like he's found unity through hate. And like like love and affection is always in season.
Sometimes it might come arrive at your doorstep in a hot pink tank top and a gold chain. Kate Shaw. Sometimes not. You are one of my favorite people on the planet. We have known each other for 30 fucking years.
And every conversation is better than the last. That was really fun. I'm so glad we did it. You're the best Chris Hayes. Everybody watch Chris Hayes on MS Now.
Always listen to his podcast. Why is this happening? And consume all books he writes because they're really good. Working on the next one. I'm very excited about this next.
Of course you are. Oh my Jesus. Okay. Well thank you for doing this in between writing drafts and thanks to everybody for listening. Pause America is a pretty media production.
Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Ferris of Ari's with Re-Tyrland, Elijah Gome and Adrian Nell. Our team includes Matt Grop, Ben Hoe, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landa, Carol Kalevi, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of the Meritades. Long play. Our doc series exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back.
New slash the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region. But Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South too. We're in the final stretch of them in terms and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground.
I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Senate politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play series on YouTube for wherever you get your podcasts.