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Inside Politics
Democrats Plot A Path Back To Power After Stunning Losses; Harris Earned 6.5m Fewer Votes Than Biden, Nationwide; Blueprint Poll: 49 Percent Chose Trump Because Of Dissatisfaction With Biden-Harris; Only 39 Percent Because Of His Policies; Iowa Trump Voters On What They Expect From His Second Term; Vito The Pug Makes History With "Best In Show" Win. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired November 29, 2024 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:32:05]
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats are still trying to make sense of Kamala Harris' loss earlier this month. A loss that saw her underperform Joe Biden by more than 6.5 million votes nationwide. The story is a little more complicated in the swing states.
Just look at this chart comparing the 2024 results to 2020. You see how Harris won more votes than Biden in four of the seven battlegrounds, the numbers in green, but even so, Trump's vote totals went up in all of them, and by far more than Harris's.
Evan Roth Smith is a lead pollster for Blueprint 2024, a top Democratic polling form -- firm, and he's here to tell us all about his data from swing voters on Democrats and what they did wrong. Evan, thank you so much for joining me this afternoon. Based on your extensive analysis here of the electorate, what went wrong for Democrats?
EVAN ROTH SMITH, LEAD POLLSTER, BLUEPRINT: Just about everything went wrong. And, you know, there was so much that tactically was done right, you know, knocking the right doors, running hundreds of millions of dollars, pretty good ads. But the bigger picture of what Democrats were up against is just so awful.
And so much of our polling has revealed how much voters were rebelling against the Democratic Party. You know, they viewed us as the most extreme version of ourselves, right? Swing voters across the country and in these swing states believe that Kamala Harris held positions that she wasn't even running on, right, that she wanted to decriminalize border crossings or defund the police or, you know, all sorts of cultural issues, right?
They believe the Democratic -- the Democrats were an extreme party. And we also saw that swing voters believe that Democrats were the party of the establishment, right? Republicans were the party of elites. But at a moment where so many voters are upset with the status quo and upset and losing faith in so many American institutions, you'd rather be the party of the elites, right?
A billionaire like Elon Musk does not present the threat to some of these swing voters that they see from, you know, failing institutions or institutions they don't trust anymore. Democrats were the party of that institution -- of those institutions.
RAJU: You asked voters in swing states who voted for Trump, what the biggest reason for their vote was. And 49 percent told you guys that dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration motivated their vote. And only 39 percent said it was because of Trump's policy.
So do you think that Harris and her team just simply misread the electorate and the amount of dissatisfaction there was towards the Biden administration?
SMITH: I think they did -- well, to say they misread it might not be fair because we've heard them in some of their post-election conversations say we tried to have this internal conversation, but they didn't really do anything about it, right?
The dissatisfaction with the Biden administration, the low ratings that voters were giving Biden on everything from the economy to immigration, you know, that was out there plain as day. Our numbers showed it again and again. Every pollster saw it. Their internal numbers on the campaign, I'm sure, saw it as well.
[12:35:05]
But then you have to do something pretty dramatic. And if you don't break with the president, if you don't say, hey, you know, I'm a loyal person, right, this was clearly important to Kamala Harris to say I'm a loyal person, but there are things we have to do better on some specific issues.
If you're not willing to do that, then you can't after the election say, well, it was just so hard because people were unhappy with Biden. Everyone knew that people were unhappy with Biden. You have to do something about it. You have to be in the business of winning elections.
RAJU: So the top minds of the Harris campaign, they actually sat down with the podcast Pod Save America this week. Harris's principal campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, had this to say.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
QUENTIN FULKS, HARRIS CAMPAIGN PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I think that there are a lot of times where if you're in the Democratic Party and you step out of line.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
FULKS: You get punished for it. This may sound like a shot across the bow, but it should be. Democrats are eating our own to a very high degree. And until that stops, we're not going to be able to address a lot of the things that just need to be said. And we're losing the culture war and whatever it is, woke, whatever word you want to use or not, you know, I leave that to anybody to define on whatever value. But we are not aligned on where we can be within that.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
RAJU: Do you agree with that assessment?
SMITH: I do. I think Quentin Fulks hit the nail on the head. And, you know, the biggest divide within the Democratic Party is we have this debate over what just happened in this election and where we go next isn't really even an ideological divide.
It's not between the moderate wing of the party and the left wing of the party or anything like that. It's about -- it's between people who are interested in winning elections and make that the mission of the Democratic Party. And people who are interested in lots of other things like, you know, driving subscriptions to their substack or creating a really good annual report for their donors because they, you know, get on TV doing advocacy, right?
Those people aren't necessarily interested in the success of the Democratic Party as their primary motivator. And, you know, there are plenty of popular ideas within the Democratic Party that come from, you know, the economic populist left. There are plenty of very popular ideas that come from the moderate wing in the center.
And if two people are sitting down at a table from those wings and saying, let's figure out how to win an election, they can get somewhere, right? We saw moments of that during this campaign. You know, the price gouging policy that Harris ran on for a while, but then backed off of came from the populist left. And it was enormously popular.
But you have to be having honest, real conversations about, hey, where is the electorate? Who are the people within the electorate who are going to determine the outcome of this election? What do they think of the Democratic Party? What do they think we care about? And how do we convince them we're going to solve their problems?
RAJU: And --
SMITH: But there are too many voices within the --
RAJU: Sorry to interrupt, Evan. I want to ask you about something you had said. You said the Democrats were seen more as protecting the establishment than Republicans, according to your polling. So tell me, what is the root cause of that? Why do voters actually think that it's Democrats who are protecting the establishment?
Because we are the party of the establishment. I mean, there is a realignment happening in the American electorate where Democrats, you know, are representing kind of different people than we thought we were. Our coalition looks a little different than we thought it did. And the Republican coalition is changing, too, right? It's more multiracial. The Republican coalition, it's less wealthy. The Democrats are getting whiter and wealthier in terms of our voter coalition. Now, again, you have to be respectful of reality, right?
We have to operate within reality. OK, if that's our coalition, if that's the changing parameters of the American electorate, then how do we win within those parameters? And one of the things you see is, you know, you have to make -- you can't wish an electorate or coalition into existence that you don't have.
And there are a lot of people who want us to be the party of certain things. But the Democratic Party isn't a vehicle for any particular ideology or any particular constituency. It's not a reactive force against Donald Trump. The mission of the Democratic Party is to go out and win elections.
RAJU: Yes.
SMITH: And again, we have to be real about what that entails.
RAJU: Yes.
SMITH: And one of the problems we have is as we -- as what the Democratic Party represents to voters and who it represents from American society changes, you know, if we are going to be more associated with the establishment, it's clear that in the minds of many voters we are, then you can't be walking around talking about everything about America is, you know, structural this or failing that, right?
RAJU: Yes.
SMITH: You have to go out and say, if you're the party of the establishment, there are things that matter and are good in America right now. And, you know, there's been some writing post-election by some really talented analysts about how Republicans have sort of stolen a march on Democrats of being this sort of, you know, populist resistance to the man, right, as it were.
RAJU: Yes.
SMITH: And that's a field that used to belong entirely to the Democrats, and now it doesn't. And --
RAJU: And now they --
SMITH: And that changes things.
RAJU: Yes.
SMITH: And we have to recognize (ph) that.
[12:40:04]
RAJU: No question about it. Sorry to interrupt there. Yes, the party -- the Democratic leaders, of course, will be trying to figure out a way to change that perception of being the party, the establishment, as you say.
Evan Roth Smith, thank you so much for joining me this afternoon and breaking down your research. Really appreciate it.
And coming up for us, John King checks back in with some of the voters he's been talking to throughout this campaign year, including some Iowa Republicans who were skeptical of Trump when it came around.
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SHANEN EBERSOLE, IOWA VOTER: The vast majority of people who voted for Trump are not the far-right crazies. That is not who we are.
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[12:45:12]
RAJU: Much (ph) of the people who voted for Donald Trump want out of his second term. John King went back to Iowa after the election to check in with some Trump voters to see how they feel.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
EBERSOLE: There's sun right at the gate right now.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shanen Ebersole loves her land and her cows, rain or shine.
EBERSOLE: Sometimes if you want to play cowboy, you got to do cowboy things like standing in the rain.
KING (voice-over): Her vote for Donald Trump, a vote to protect her way of life.
EBERSOLE: The vast majority of people who voted for Trump are not the far-right crazies. That is not who we are. We're simple Americans who want to live our lives and do our jobs and make our own choices in our own homes, and we want that for our neighbors who feel differently than us, too.
KING (voice-over): You have to be an optimist to run a family cattle ranch. And Ebersole says she hopes Trump sees his mandate as the economy and the border. Hopes he understands a lot of his voters didn't like all that campaign talk about the enemy within and retribution.
EBERSOLE: We have spoken. We are not letting him be a bully, but we want him to stand firm.
KING (voice-over): She is more bullish about Trump now than when we first met. Back then, Trump had competition in the Iowa caucuses, and Ebersole wanted a Republican who could be both president and role model. EBERSOLE: He didn't bring us together because of the divisiveness, because of my liberal friends that were literally scared for their safety.
KING (voice-over): But when Trump rolled to the nomination, Ebersole's choice was easy because of Biden-Harris farm and climate policies. Trump won 75 percent of the vote here in rural Ringgold County.
EBERSOLE: We felt as though Washington and the far edges of our country were governing the rest of Middle America.
BETSY SARCONE, IOWA VOTER: OK, come over here.
KING (voice-over): Betsy Sarcone is another now proud Trump voter who initially wanted something very different.
KING: So how did you get from I can't take it, I'll vote for Biden to --
SARCONE: Yes.
KING: -- I'm going to vote for Donald Trump and I'm actually relieved and happy about it?
SARCONE: I think I've come to the conclusion that I don't love Donald Trump as a person. But I do think that he is right for the country right now and that he is going to chart a different course than we're currently on.
KING (voice-over): Sarcone lives in the Des Moines suburbs, says her real estate business is slow, and she hopes Trump somehow helps. Lower grocery prices also high on her wish list.
SARCONE: I'm a mom, single mom, of three kids. So that does make a huge difference in my life.
KING: Sarcone finds some of Trump's cabinet picks disappointing, but she frames it this way. She could not support Vice President Harris, so now she thinks she has to be patient with a president-elect whose calling card is unpredictable.
SARCONE: The Kristi Noem, the Matt Gaetz, I'm not necessarily excited about it. Worried. I wouldn't say I'm worried. I voted for change as did the majority of the people, and that's what we're going to get. So I don't think worrying about it every day is going to do me any good.
KING (voice-over): That Trump won the majority of the vote emboldens his most fervent supporters. People like Chris Mudd.
CHRIS MUDD, IOWA VOTER: And I think it's important that we round up every illegal and ship them out, and we have to come -- we have to figure out a way to get them back to work. I do believe that we do need immigration. A country needs immigration, it just needs to be legal.
KING: What would you say to Democrats who say that they are literally fearful? That they think that mass deportations are mean spirited or they think his ads about, you know, transgender Americans were mean? What would you say to them?
MUDD: I would say get over it. You know, there's -- I don't believe that there's anything to be scared of.
KING (voice-over): Mudd owns Midwest Solar, a startup that benefited from Biden clean energy incentives. His vote for Trump could hurt his business.
MUDD: It's possible, but like I've said, since I started talking to you, I sell value. I'm selling saving money. I'm not selling the green energy side of the business, I'm selling value.
KING (voice-over): Some big solar jobs require parts made in China. But again, Mudd says Trump should go full steam ahead with trade tariffs.
MUDD: Most of our stuff is tariff-free. So I want to see more products and services get built in this country. I want to see our pharmaceuticals get produced here instead of in China. I think that we need an American economy that's building things, creating things.
KING (voice-over): Trump's critics call it sloganeering, but the America First thing echoes in the small cities and rural outposts where Trump ran strongest.
EBERSOLE: Why are we bringing Argentinian beef in? Why are we bringing New Zealand and Australian beef in, and then exporting some of our beef? Why don't we first just feed our beef to our Americans?
KING (voice-over): Maisie (ph) helps keep the cows on track in the pastures. Tia (ph) is a show cow. So grooming is an everyday chore.
[12:50:02]
EBERSOLE: Let me live my life in the middle of nowhere, where there's more cows than there are people. DoorDash isn't a thing. Pizza delivery is not a thing. You can't even get pizza delivered.
Hey, mamas.
KING (voice-over): Ebersole's hope is that Trump changes a lot in Washington and leaves her happy place just as it is.
EBERSOLE: I just stand here and watch my cows and enjoy it.
KING (voice-over): John King, CNN, Kellerton, Iowa.
EBERSOLE: It's my happy place.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RAJU: All right, up next, Inside Politics has gone to the dogs.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) RAJU: Before we go, meet Vito, the adorable two-and-a-half-year-old pug, the winner of the 92nd Annual National Dog Show. The judges liked his sympathetic eyes.
[12:55:07]
Vito is the first pug to win the Best in Show in at least two decades, beating about 2,000 other dogs. Congratulations to Vito. We hope he had a celebratory meal.
Thanks for joining Inside Politics. We'll see you back here on Inside Politics Sunday. And as we say goodbye, here are some of the Inside Politics team's furry friends who would have been just as worthy, including my childhood dog we just saw there, Dover.
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