Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won

Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won | The Ezra Klein Show

The Ezra Klein Show
 
Mar 18, 2025
After the last election, there were all kinds of theories about where Democrats went wrong. But now, four months later, we have a lot more data – and it tells a few clear stories.

David Shor is the head of data science at Blue Rose Research, a Democratic polling firm, which does an enormous amount of surveying of the electorate. A few weeks ago, Shor was walking me through a deck he made of key charts and numbers that explain the election results. And I thought this would be good to do in public. Because this is information that doesn’t just help explain what went wrong for Democrats in 2024. It’s a set of hard truths they need to keep in mind to mount a comeback in 2026 and 2028.

00:00 Intro
2:00 Trusting the data
5:10 Nonwhite voters moving to Trump
9:38 “The most important story of this cycle”
16:19 Immigrant voters moving to Trump
20:22 Young voters moving to Trump
28:45 Anger at the Biden administration
31:39 It’s the economy, stupid
35:11 Voters trust Republicans more
40:20 Harris’ most effective ads
48:58 Voters wanted change
53:06 Voters saw Trump as more moderate
57:00 Wokeness?
59:43 TikTok
1:05:10 Trump’s unpopular policies
1:10:54 The vulnerability of Elon Musk
1:13:20 Some optimism for Democrats
1:16:34 The Democrats’ “toxic” brand

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