Fetterman Alienated Democrats—and Republicans Still Don’t Want Him (w/ Amy Walter) | Focus Group

I say this all the time, I'm sure you have to do this as well, all your well-meaning friends, I don't understand why more people don't like fill-in-the-blank person. He seems really reasonable, right? And I say to them, the reason that those people can't win primaries is because you like them. Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark. And this week, we're gonna do a couple of things. First, we're reassessing the state of the political landscape in light of some recent polling that has me mildly nervous, I guess. Because while the political environment is very good for Democrats right now, their lead in the generic ballot does not quite match the environment. So they haven't closed the deal yet. And there's been some recent history where the out-of-power party has fumbled some winnable races. Then I wanna zero in on my home state of Pennsylvania and do a bit of a case study on a Democrat who is very much closing the deal with his constituents in a big swing state, and I'm talking about Josh Shapiro. My guest today is Amy Walter, publisher of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Amy, hey. What is up? My most popular guest. This is my favorite way to work through my feelings. In fact, it's like you were in my brain, Sarah, because I am literally writing about just what you raised at the very beginning of this introduction of what is going on. How can the generic ballot be narrowing at a time when the president's approval rating is not improving? Do you have a theory? Why do you think it is? My theory is, well, one, to your point, voters haven't really focused in on this election yet. And if you think about what a congressional ballot test is asking voters, it's like, okay, in November, are you gonna vote for a Democrat or a Republican? What they do know is they don't like Donald Trump and the way he's handling the economy or the war, other big issues. But they don't know enough about who the Democratic candidate is. And there is a sense of this toxic Democratic brand that I think is a real issue and I think is putting some of that concern in the minds of voters. At the same time, if you look at generic ballot polls, what you also see is a Republican generic number stuck basically at 45%. So it kind of feels what's happened is that Republicans have gotten all their folks lined up, but I don't know how much more room they have to grow. Actually, there are two issues. One is, what will this generic ballot look like when we get a likely voter sample where we know Democrats are much more interested in voting and are much more likely to show up? And I think this generic gap will increase. So I think that's A. I think B, the other question is, come November, if we are talking about Iran still, gas prices still, more casualties from military operations in Iran, I think you're going to see a lot more Republicans stay home. And so what the sample looks like in a national survey is going to be different than the sample of people who actually show up, right? Yeah. And so the electorate may be more Democratic ultimately than where we are today. All that to say, Sarah, I do think Democrats do have a brand problem. They do have a toxic brand problem. I think the New York Times polls from July really laid that out. The Senate polls from July laid that out really cleanly for me to see the president underwater in Ohio, in Texas, in Iowa, the races in all of those states, the head to heads very close. But the generic Republicans are leading four or five points or so. So they are not convinced that Democrats are going to be the answer to their problems. If the Democrat running in those states can be defined by Republicans as a generic Democrat, i.e. one who is way to the left on culture and social issues, that's how Republicans hold on to the Senate. But they're not going to hold on to the Senate because suddenly the political environment is getting better. I think I agree with almost all of that. I do think part of what's happening is we don't have candidates yet. And so Democrats are at each other's throats at the moment. Yeah. And that's what people are seeing, right? That's what people are seeing. And I think about in 22, I was so deep on all those races just like you were. And Joe Biden was not very popular, right? And the state of the country wasn't great. But the abortion decision. And then it was candidate quality. Candidate quality, right? We're talking about Hershel Walker, talking about Carrie Lake, we're talking about Blake Masters. So many candidates on the election deniers that had really extreme views on abortion and that just otherwise seemed nuts. And it allowed Democrats to overperform because that, I think, coupled with the other thing you mentioned, which is Democrats now have a somewhat of a structural advantage in these off-year elections because the people that Donald Trump sort of turns out in all of these national races, they don't show up as reliably in the midterms. I've long thought that the negative number for Democrats, the fact that the numbers aren't higher, I know that part of that is coming from Democrats being mad at Democrats. For sure. Right? It's people being like, Chuck Schumer's not getting it done. That's right. I'm frustrated with Hakeem Jeffries. I'm frustrated with the establishment. And I keep seeing this in the disparity between the money being raised by institutional Republicans, meaning the RNC, the big MAGA PACs, MAGA Inc., whatever. They have so much more money than the Democrats. And the number that I saw was that Republicans had about a billion dollars cash on hand from their institutional groups. Democrats had about 250 million, which is a $750 million gap. To be fair to the Democratic House and Senate campaign arms, the big disparity is really the RNC and the DNC, which is just a chasm. The DNC has zero dollars. The RNC has many dollars. And then if you add into it MAGA Inc., and that's another $400 million that Democrats don't have. And so my question is, well, is that $400 million gonna go in to rate individual races, or is it gonna sit on the sidelines because President Trump wants it to be used for what he wants it to be used for, not to help other candidates? But Sarah, here's the thing about candidate quality. All those candidates you mentioned from 2022 were running in swing states that were, yes, unhappy with Biden, unhappy with the economy and inflation. But these were not deep red or deep blue states. I think Democrats have strong candidates in these Senate races we just mentioned, but the states themselves are that much harder. Remember the candidates, though, that in 22 that Republicans were pushing, right, in places like Washington State? We're gonna flip, we're gonna defeat Patty Murray. They didn't defeat Patty Murray because it's a really blue state. I keep coming back to, to me, the real question is, it's a turnout question for Republicans. How many of these disappointed, disaffected Republicans stay home? They are not as motivated to vote as they were in 2018, and they're not as happy with Trump as they were in 2018. And then are these Democrats doing what they need to be doing with persuadable, soft Republicans to convince them that it's okay and safe for them to vote for a Democrat, even though they don't love the idea of Democrats being in charge of stuff? I was sort of trying to get at this with the money. While the institutional Democrats are not raising a lot of money because people are mad at Democrats, the Democratic candidates themselves are raising a lot of money, especially the ones that people think the quality is quite good, right? So people think that Mary Peltola is good, she's raising a ton of money. John Ossoff, that guy's raising to the moon. Cooper in North Carolina is doing, they're all out- The House candidates too. Yeah, they are out-raising their Republican opponents. And so it's interesting to me when I see the generic ballot, I always end up of two minds, which is number one, I do exactly what you did, which is I run through all the reasons that I think that number doesn't quite reflect the environment as it will be. On the other hand, and this is the thing I really want to stress, then there's the part of me that's like, the dude went to war. Inflation's really high. They've shot some Americans in the street. What? The Democrats aren't doing better than this? I want people to think for one second about the fact that Donald Trump is so unfit, his corruption is legion. And everybody complains about the media and voters are stupid and this and that. And I'm like, have you thought about the fact that in this environment, with a president who is this insane, he's like 80 years old, he falls asleep at his desk, and what, Democrats can't do better than this? That feels like a problem. They should be smoking him right now. But that's what Republicans said in 2022. How could we possibly not crush in a red wave? We've got an 80-year-old president. We've got record high inflation. Afghanistan pullout was a disaster. And you're right, where Republicans did falter is, oh, and the answer to this is, let's nominate really weak candidates. And I do agree that had the Dobbs decision not happened, it would have been a much bigger wave for Republicans. There's no doubt that that enthusiasm bump. I just don't see that there's going to be a subsequent enthusiasm bump for Republicans, right? Trump does really well when there's a foil. And if the foil is, my gosh, Democrats voted on some crazy bill and this is who they are, and we need to rally against that, or there are caravans, or it's the Kavanaugh, I think that helps to generate enthusiasm. I just don't know what it could be out there that would generate that level of enthusiasm to go out and vote against the Democrat. This is why I'm really looking forward to the primaries being over. Yes. Because I do think the one thing right now is that the thing that Republicans can do is they can use the DSA stuff, and they are. They are using the far left as a foil to say, look how deranged all these people are. I sort of need the smoke to clear and for them to look at, oh, really? We got Mary Peltola and we got Ossoff. Go ahead and try to paint those guys as socialists. But right now they're having a bit of a heyday with it. 100%. And it's what's in the news. And so if you are at all paying attention, what you hear about Democrats right now is exactly that. The rise of Mamdani, these socialist candidates winning Colorado, what happened there? It all gets mixed into the sense that, yeah, Democrats have gone way off to the left. We may not like Trump, but man, Democrats really have lost the plot. And we're not hearing as much about, even though the candidates themselves, if you watch campaign ads, especially in competitive races, Democrats are talking about affordability. But you sure don't hear about that. It's mostly Israel right now, right? That's what you hear in the primary debates. And Michigan is all about that. This was the question I was trying to get to is, do you think that like Republicans, which I think they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2022 by putting up a bunch lunatics, do you think the Democrats are in some ways imperiling themselves at the moment by focusing on an issue that is very important to Democratic primary voters and is very not important to sort of swing voters, low-info voters, like a lot of the people who decide elections? If you look at the people who are winning these primaries, especially at the House level and including on the Senate level, and obviously Michigan is, let's just sort of put that aside for a moment. I don't think these are the kinds of candidates that are gonna be easy for Republicans to say, this is somebody who is like a whacked out socialist communist. Are they gonna run ads with pictures of Mom Donnie and AOC and Bernie Sanders? Absolutely. Every year when you're the party that's in power and you're desperate to change the conversation away from your unpopular president, you gotta look at the most unpopular person on the other side. So everybody talked about Nancy Pelosi in 2018. There were some people who were voting like Nancy Pelosi or did have positions on ICE, abolishing ICE or the police that made their candidacy sort of toxic and some of them lost. But with the exception of Michigan, you can't look at those races and say, boy, Democrats really put up some clunkers here. Does the bottom drop out on Republicans to a degree that they can win in a Trump plus 13 state? Michigan is not gonna be our perfect example because whatever happens there, whether, let's say that Al-Sayed wins the nomination and he goes on to win, the DSA left is gonna say, see, we can win in swing states. And the third way, moderate centrist Dems will say, the only reason you won is because the environment was so blue. And good luck winning in a presidential environment with this record. And so both can be right and we won't have an answer. And I think that's how this election is gonna turn out, everybody wants an answer of what does this mean for 2028 and we're not gonna get it. And so we have to be okay with that. But now I completely understand the hype. It's a Korean skincare brand that's built a cult following because people see life changing results, healthier, brighter, and smoother looking skin that makes you feel more confident walking out the door without makeup. I like not wearing makeup. Korean skincare has become famous for delivering incredible results, but it can also be expensive, overwhelming and packed with complicated routines. No one wants a complicated routine. Their best-selling rejuvenation toner pads have become a viral sensation because they make it easy to get the kind of healthier, brighter, smoother looking skin that normally takes an entire shelf full of products. 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We asked these Trump voters to give the Trump administration a letter grade and those were in the gamut from firmly disapproving of Trump to being okay, or even better than okay with the job he's doing. Let's listen. Basically everything he said he was going to do is what I voted for and he's doing it. I agree with some of it. He probably underestimated Iran, but I would much rather them not have a nuclear weapon. My whole family is military and they're active duty. They all said basically the same thing. We've got to get rid of him, got to get rid of this regime because if we don't stop him now, we're going to end up with a real problem. I don't want to see women's and men's sports. I don't want to see DEI. I've been passed over for promotions at work through DEI. Now that that's gone, I mean, I'm retiring a captain, but I should have been a battalion chief by now, but that's another story for a different day. They're really playing nice with the Iranians. They're taking out targets here and there. They're very specific. When you went into Iraq X amount of years ago, in the first two days, you took out every airfield, every radar station, every electrical station. They haven't done any saturation bombing like that. It's all surgical. You did these things last night. We're going to do more of this if you don't play nice. I put Trump in the B range. I think he's done mostly a good job outside of Iran. I think he fights for this country every day. There's so many of these nut jobs and wackos that are all against him, constantly crying about every little thing he does. Oh, Trump did this, Trump did that. I really hold a grudge, to be honest, with the 2020 election, because I think if it weren't for the rhetoric and all the things that he did, he would have been reelected easily instead of Biden. I think he's doing a good job. I think the craziness just sometimes ruins some of the things he does. I gave him a steep plus. It truly just the economy and the war. I think he had a solid first year. I think he had a lot of really great accomplishments. I think he was going in the right direction. I truly think this war has just distracted him. I mean, rightly so. It's a big deal. I think that's where a lot of his focus needs to be. The thing that made me give him a C minus is the promises that he made that from day one he would lower prices and instead it's the opposite. I'm just going to give you, for instance, six rolls of paper towels used to be like $6.99. Now they're like $19. So I just feel that some things he didn't keep his promise and some things he just did wrong. My daughter works for a government agency and she's in HR. Well, one day like 300 people got fired that morning. Their laptops got taken away and they were just let go. He is holds grudges against real or imagined about people that worked for him before or people that he thought stole the election. I feel like he just can't get over this and no proof that they really did anything wrong. People that worked for him before that are willing to go to prison for him or going after John Bolton, just these ridiculous lawsuits that cost us money. I feel like he's falling asleep half the time. The voter fraud thing, how he keeps harping on all this so-called fraud in certain states like Georgia and all that where there's really no proof and wanting people to find these missing votes. I'm very concerned about the next election, what he's trying to do. I feel like if he was so confident in himself, why are you worried about it? I think he realized there's just a lot of dissatisfaction right now with him. Then what I'm really concerned about is the OBA, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, what's coming next year. When they talk about Medicaid cuts, some of it I agree with. There's people that are able-bodied that should be working, that shouldn't be on Medicaid. I get that, but what's going to happen is people that need it are going to have to be filling out paperwork twice a year. A lot of them won't do it. I just knew that from my own being in the industry. We're being told as insurance brokers that we could very well see a lot of hospitals close, lose funding because of this. I feel like the current administration does not care about poor people. I feel like it's just about being wealthy. That's why I gave him a C-minus. Which things were you okay with? With him closing down the border. He nipped that in the bud. Unless things really turn around, I'm like, this is embarrassing. I don't really have a lot of high standards for ... I don't want to talk show host. I don't want someone that's plastic and with all these platitudes, but this is just, it's enough. It's overshadowing maybe the goods. That's why I gave him a C-minus. There's not even a good economy to show for it. At least when people have money, I think when the economy is decent, everything else falls into place. Lots of fun stuff to turn over on there, but I will just note that the last statement she made where at least the economy is doing well, I was saying, why? Why aren't Democrats doing better in the face of this? I really think Trump's first term economy before COVID versus this economy, this economy sucks compared to that one. The tariffs are like, he's got a stamp on it. The gas prices, he's got a stamp on it. He can't blame Biden for those things. Part of what I keep seeing is that Trump's approval rating, there was a period of time when the war started, prices were hitting, gas prices were up, that you just saw him falling off a cliff, or the momentum was dropping. But since the summer, we've started to see him drift back up ever so slightly. It's not a lot. It's not something that I would panic over, but it disrupted the momentum of dropping down. He's not at the bush line. He was living at 39% in the aggregates. Am I overreacting to this? Well, I think about this a lot too, in the sense of just looking back at the bush line, partisanship is just so much more intense now than it was back in 2006. What was interesting, what came up a lot was Iran, and a disappointment and frustration with what was going on in Iran, which notably, these are all Trump voters. And I think five, four, they were divided on whether this was a good idea in the first place. So that's not a great number for somebody who actually voted for Trump that almost half of them say, I don't think it was a good idea to do in the very first place. And yet, it does not feel as if it is like the same anvil it was for Bush. So by 2006, you could just tell there was an exhaustion about the war, Katrina, the scandals in Washington, the lobbyist scandal with Jack Abramoff, and then touching it all off at the end, Mark Foley and the page scandal, right? So it had just sort of built up, built up, built up. You could just feel it in the air, this just the deflation among Republicans and that they were really moving away from this president. And voters were more willing to move away from a party then because it wasn't as existential as it is now, right? The push pull is between people's just deep partisanship and worry about the other side winning versus being upset that the person that they voted for and the person that they support and they want to do better isn't doing better. And that is what those voters were showing us. I think it's really right that polarization and also living in a world where people don't like to admit that they were wrong. Nobody wants to say they changed their mind. All right, let's move to Pennsylvania because this is the fun part. And before people go to the comments to be like, Sarah, you're in the tank for Josh Shapiro. I just want to show my work. So Donald Trump won 50% of the vote in Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro's approval rating can go basically from the mid 50s to the low 60s, depending on who you ask. That means that there are a lot of Trump voters in Pennsylvania who approve of the job Josh Shapiro is doing. And I want to let you listen to what some of those voters told us when we asked them why they approved of Josh Shapiro. We were expecting a really big rate increase from our utility supplier, Pico, and he shut that down. He was like, no, and they backed, backed off. And then we had a bridge collapse, I guess it was a year ago or maybe two years ago at this point in Philly. And he stepped in and got that fixed really quick. He always seems to be there when something happens. He's there within a couple of hours or a day or so. He's like on the scene very hands on. With the bridge collapse in 12 days, he had that bridge already like the people could use it. And also the data centers. And what the last thing was with the Pico bills, that they're not going to raise it because of him. So I'm actually he's really growing on me. I mean, I wasn't a big fan because I guess I didn't know too much about him and being a Democrat, but I like him a lot now. I support Israel. He supports Israel. There's things where, I mean, I certainly agree with Tamar. I know he's for better education, for school choice. I support that as well. I certainly don't really have any issues with Shapiro. And I can't really think of anything majorly negative to complain about with him. He is very much a moderate and I appreciate that even if he's a Democrat, I'm good with it. I'm a moderate myself. So I feel like I can relate to him. I'm sure there are things that we don't always see eye to eye on, but I think he's done a really good job for Pennsylvania. I think as a whole, we've seen good growth. I agree with the data centers. I think that is our future. And I think he's investing in our future with that. He's pretty much got a bipartisan budget signed and he's also on the side of data centers. He's on the side of tax breaks for those data center companies. I love the fact that he's willing to say, yeah, we want data centers where everybody else doesn't want them. I like the fact that he is respected by both Republicans and Democrats. There's a lot of bipartisan stuff that goes through. I haven't heard much bad about him and I've only been here three years, but I follow politics pretty close and I really can't think of anything bad to say. I mean, the way I look at it, if somebody tries to burn your house down, you must be doing something right because you're making somebody mad. I mean, he was a subject of an arson attack near and dear to my heart. Obviously, he's doing something right because he obviously ruffled some feathers. You can't make everybody happy, but President Trump will call out anybody. I have never heard him say one bad thing about Governor Shapiro. I would look very close at probably voting for Josh Shapiro again, because he seems like he's doing Pennsylvania good. I'd just like to note that that last gentleman is the one who graded Trump as an A-minus, but he is planning to vote for Josh Shapiro in the fall. In fact, everybody in that group was inclined to vote for Shapiro in the fall over Stacey Garrity, the Republican challenger. What's jumped out about the group to you there, Amy? Well, it was the nuts and bolts of both his style, but also the substance that appealed to these voters. Now look, it is a lot easier when you're a governor to get crossover voters because it's closer to home, right? He can impact things like literally how much they're paying in energy costs. But it does not feel as far away as Washington is, just in the sense that when you send someone to Washington, you're sending them to be a warrior for your team. When you send someone to state capital, you really want them to be a warrior for you and the broader concerns that people in the state have, right? The other thing I will say that is helpful for Shapiro is he does have a divided legislature. So when you have divided legislature, that's pretty close, right? You have to be able to cut deals to get anything done. I think that the governors that have the hardest time, ironically, are the ones with same party legislatures because I think those legislatures want to move furthest to the extreme and get the governor to sign it. And so the governor spends a lot of time fighting within the party versus being able to show that you can compromise and get stuff done. And what is really interesting to me, you're right, Sarah, you say, okay, sure, seems logical that a governor who is getting the vote of a Trump voter would be a good pick as a presidential candidate. And at the same time, I can also hear the voices from the left saying, yeah, well, for every Trump voter that he gets, he's gonna turn off or fail to excite a younger voter or fail to bring new people into the voting population. This is a guy who's been part of the system forever, and can he really make change? All he's gonna do is sort of return us to the status quo, and we don't want status quo politics. And I think Shapiro's pitch would have been perfect for all Democrats in 2019 when- Yeah. The debate was who can beat Donald Trump. It feels, gosh, like we're just reliving this, right, Sarah? We're just reliving 2012 to 2017, but instead of the Republican side, it's the Democratic side. Rubio on paper, oh, yeah, look, this is great. He can win over swing voters. He's seen as moderate. Why wouldn't Republicans, well, they didn't trust him on immigration, and they weren't looking for somebody who was gonna work within the system. They wanted somebody who was gonna come and blow up the system. That to me is where Shapiro's challenge is, is can you be somebody who's literally been part of the system since he was like 17 years old to be seen as someone who can adequately shake it up? I think you're right that some of it depends on the environment, because yeah, man, he would have been, everybody would have been talking about him if this was eight years ago or something whenever I bring up Shapiro. And I just, again, guys- Wait, why do people push back on you for Shapiro? People get furious at me about Shapiro. So a couple things. One is they see him as super pro-Israel. And in fact, somebody in the focus group said that there is a picture of Josh Shapiro signing bombs that the far left has erroneously put forward as him signing bombs that went- That are dropping on Gaza. Got dropped on Palestinians in Gaza. He was with Zelensky, who was touring a factory in Pennsylvania. And they were going for the Ukrainians to fight the Russians. But it has become one of these weird pieces of misinformation that has really taken hold. And it's interesting to me because Asaf's Jewish, Pritzker's Jewish, obviously Rahm's Jewish, but I don't know that lots of people are talking about Rahm just yet. They might be later, for good or for ill. But I just think Shapiro has sort of gotten tagged as the pro-Israel candidate, which is funny. I've talked to him about Israel. He's extremely knowledgeable, and he's super anti-Netanyahu. But no one's listening to what people actually say. Don't you think a lot of it, though, Sarah, has to do with the way he reacted to the protests on college campuses? And I think that he was definitely more forceful in pushing back at the takeovers, I think certainly at Penn. But he was one of the few, as I remember, one of the few Democratic voices who was saying, hey, Jewish students don't feel safe on campuses. Hey, you can support Palestinian rights, but you can't harass people. You can't take over a college and shut it down. So I do wonder if some of it is residual on that. And I also think what happens online is pretty, yeah, I screw around on Twitter. I fight on Twitter in large part because I think it's pretty meaningless. And I am deeply aware of how the things that people freak out about on Twitter often don't reflect people in real life. In Pennsylvania, he has managed to win over those Trump voters, but he hasn't alienated Democrats. And part of what, I'll tell you what was interesting to me about that sound was how much of it was about data centers. Because whenever I go home, there are signs that are anti-data center. And by home, I just mean whenever I go to Pennsylvania, visit my family, it just happened. I was there a couple of weeks ago, like July the 4th, anti-data center signs everywhere. Him being pro-data center really does not align with sort of current Dem orthodoxy on we're going to shut these things down or whatever. It's a bunch of people in Pennsylvania are like, well, this is important to our state financially, economically. This is how we grow. I listen a lot about the data centers, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can about them. But I think that he has not made Democrats mad in a way where they're not going to vote for him for governor. And he seems to have won over a lot of Republicans. I looked up the polling on this in the state, which most people are still pretty unclear about what Josh Shapiro is doing on data centers. This is the Quinnipiac poll. Do you approve, disapprove? 24 approve, 34 disapprove, 42 don't know. So I think most people, they don't necessarily know. If you go and you look at what's actually happening, the legislature and Shapiro are working on, it looks like bipartisan bills. One is going to go further to what Democrats like. One's going to go probably further to what Republicans would want to see. But the fact of the matter is, this is a pretty bipartisan issue, the dislike of data centers. This is not just a Dem thing. This is really, would you support building AI data center in your community? Across the board, majorities oppose. Republicans a little less vehement about it than Democrats, but like 64% no Republicans, 82% no Democrats, 77% no independents, right? This is a pretty easy issue to say. I'm going to be bipartisan and agree that we shouldn't build data centers in your backyard. Or if we do, here's how they're going to pay for it. Or here's how we're going to guarantee they're going to be safe. Or here's how we know that the tax dollars are going to come to you and they're not going to go into tax breaks for these mega facilities. When I think about the being anti data centers, I typically think about it as Dem politicians. But across the voters, I have not seen a big difference from the average voter. And where I was when I saw all these anti data center signs was in like a super rural Republican red part of the state. I'd had that thought as I was driving around and then I listened to these voters all be very pro data center and found that to be interesting. They felt a little bit out of, they're that rare 25% that say they support data centers. I've seen one guy in that group. He works in some capacity, either he's in construction or whatever his job is, he's making money from the data centers. So, but I do think it goes back to sort of at its core fundamental question or difference between Democrats and Republicans at the federal level, right? Republicans worrying that if you limit data centers, you are limiting growth and you are over-regulating and we're going to throw the baby out with the bath water and this is the future. And Democrats kill this, they tend to kill industry and innovation with over-regulation, which is a pretty consistent talking point and philosophy of Republicans. And Democrats assuming the worst, right? It's a big bayonet, it's climate, makes climate change worse, right? It feeds into the instincts in some ways of the, again, as a theory, pretty neatly into Democrat and Republican, but for voters, they're mostly like these things, I don't know what they are, I don't know what they do, I don't really like the idea of them coming into my backyard. I've heard these stories about the water pollution, I've heard stories about the electrical bills going up, I've heard stories that they get all these tax breaks and we need money in our community. So I do think there's a disconnect there and the politicians who are able to bridge that are the ones who are going to be able to succeed. Yeah, just on the last thing on data centers, which is also the voters think, you're going to build this in my backyard and then it's going to take my job for me. Well, there is an existential piece of that, absolutely. So we asked the group about the prospect of Shapiro running for president, most but not all of the group would prefer Shapiro over J.D. Vance, which is interesting. Which is right, these are Trump voters. These are Trump voters that would take Shapiro over J.D. Vance. It was more split evenly when we asked about Shapiro versus Marco. So let's listen to the Shapiro 2028 talk. If J.D. Vance and Shapiro were the two candidates, how might you think about that decision? Marco Rubio and Shapiro, I'd vote Marco Rubio all day long. I would not like to see Shapiro run. I plan on living in Philadelphia for a while. I like him and he's a good governor. I know what we're going to get. He backs out. So I'm going to leave. I just don't think he can win. I don't think he can get the nomination. If it did, it would be however many, the record would be a number of ballots it took to make it happen. I don't think he can get the Democratic Party nomination. It's not winnable. It's not winnable from whether I like him or I don't like him, whether I think he's the best or not the best. I think that's a political reality right now that just wouldn't let it happen. I would support Shapiro. I like him, but I'm concerned with the amount of anti-Semitism in the country because when his house was burned down a few months ago, you know, firebombed or whatever, that may have had something to do with it because he's Jewish. And I just think that we're in scary times. So I do think that when he beats Stacey Garrity in this governor's race in November by 15 or 20 points, you probably are going to get like a mini Shapiro electability hype cycle. They were skeptical in the group that Shapiro could win a Democratic primary. And they're correct in their skepticism, which is, and I say this all the time, I'm sure you have to do this as well. All your well-meaning friends, let's say they're Democrats and they say, I don't understand why more people don't like fill in the blank person. He seems really reasonable, right? Why don't more Republicans like, I remember in 2012, it was John Huntsman, right? He seems so reasonable. He's so moderate. He could win my vote, right? And then Republicans last year being like, I don't understand why Democrats just don't nominate Joe Manchin. I love that guy, right? And I say to them, the reason that those people can't win primaries is because you like them. The fact that you like them shows how distant you are from the primary electorate that puts them forward. And so this is that double-edged sword. This is a great argument. I have these Trump voters saying that they think I'm a really good governor, and they would vote for me over JD Vance. And yet it signals to liberals, oh, well, then he's gonna sell us out, right? If they like him, then he can't be for me. Can I just say though, this is right. I know that this is right analytically, but also I watched Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan say, yeah, Marjorie Taylor Greene, she makes some good points about Israel. And I can't remember what the second issue was they're agreeing on. And he was like, I think people who voted for Marjorie Taylor Greene will probably vote for me. The kinds of people who vote for her will vote for me. And to me, it's really just people being like, I will argue my electability for the top of the horseshoe, or I will argue my electability from the bottom of the horseshoe, which is why you get a lot of Trump-Bernie crossover, because there's a lot of populism in there. And to burn the system down. There is a, if you listen to El-Sayed talking about an America first foreign policy. I tweeted about this. Our foreign policy dollars should go to countries that the US is aligned with on basically like doing the right thing, right? Our foreign policy should be based less on we are here to give money for countries to defend themselves, to be able to feed hungry people, to ensure democracy. It's, are they aligned with our values? Are they aligned with our values? If those countries aren't aligned with American values, our moral values, then we shouldn't give them money, which kind of sounds a little bit like somebody else's policy platform on America first. So I have long argued and do in the book that America first is a great slogan, because it's not just a slogan. It's a statement of prioritization. When I tweeted it, some people responded with this. They're like, this is like, there was originally like a Nazi, you know, slogan, this America first isolationism during World War II. And I'm like, sure. But nobody, voters don't know that I might not use it, but just understand that the average voter says, oh, I'm an American and you're going to prioritize me, right? And they like that. They liked the idea that the money that they pay in taxes goes back to the schools that they send their kids to and the roads that they drive on. And that is not an insane thing. And I also had some people kind of push back on the idea that like, well, this is what populism is and a little bit, but not entirely. I think that there is a perfectly rational sort of normal, non sort of just sloppilism way of saying, I want to defend us America, but I don't need us going over to do all these other things. I just don't find that to be in a rational. Now, I could certainly talk. If you wanted to listen to me for a while, I'd be happy to talk to you about why I think it's a mistake. And this is where the fights on Twitter become, where they get disconnected is they don't come back to the fundamental question for voters, which is, what does this mean for me? I'm not here to have some existential fight about the role America plays on the world stage. I just want to know that all the money, as you said, all the money I'm paying in taxes is going to help the people who actually need it. And it's not going to give tax breaks to really rich people who don't need it. It's not going to big companies that don't need it. It's not propping up these A.I. data centers. And it's not going to fund these wars or whatever overseas. That's it. It's a pretty it's an appealing message, especially at a time where almost everybody you talk to in focus group says they're treading water on the economy. I mean, you heard in here, maybe it's one of the bigger things that I've just really internalized by listening to so many voters. They will tell you when they are talking the price of paper towels in this instance. But I mean, people are always telling me the prices of things. And you just think and they're like really upset about what they're like. Do you know I've got three boys? Do you know how much milk they go through? Do you know how much milk is right now? And you're like, that is how most people are. I have to argue with JVL or other people where they're like, why don't they know about X, Y and Z crazy thing that's happening in the news? I'm like, because all they think about is that they cannot afford enough milk for their growing kids. And I tend to not begrudge people that. All right, last thing. So there's another prominent Democrat in Pennsylvania who's getting some strange new respect from a lot of Trump voters, but different than Josh Shapiro, which is John Fetterman. He was pretty well liked in this group of Trump voters, but not as well liked as Josh Shapiro, which I found interesting. We also asked whether they wanted to see him switch parties, which is something you see kind of swirling out there as an option. Let's listen to what people thought of Fetterman and his potential party switch. I think he is amazing. He's not afraid to call out his own party. I don't know if anybody remembers the name James Trafficant from Ohio. He was for the people. And Fetterman is like, absolutely. He will fight his own party to protect the United States. And that's what I love about the guy. I think he went from a political liability for Pennsylvanians when first elected, some of it was health-related, to really, hopefully, maybe what a future middle-of-the-road party could help be defined by. Not necessarily him as the leader, but in terms of what he is, what he stands for, how he reacts, how he interfaces with both parties. He's the true independent, and I think that's a great thing. When he was mayor of Braddock, which is a very, sadly, like a run-down, steel neighborhood on the eastern side of Pittsburgh, he got a lot of accolades nationally for whatever, this hero almost of Braddock. He's not even from Pittsburgh, but he became mayor of this. And all these changes he's making and whatever. And then the first opportunity he had to beat a path out of Braddock, he did. I mean, Braddock is still Braddock. It's still run down and crappy, and he didn't really do too much there. He just keeps moving up. And so, I didn't appreciate him running after he had a stroke. No offense to him. He just really wasn't up to snuff. He's finally rebounded. Hey, great for him. And now he seems to have some this other personality where he's broken with his party. Also, hey, great. But in general, I'm not a fan. It feels very much like he's just being an opportunist. I need you to pick a lane and be in a lane. Because before he was very much far left, and now he's leaning the other way. And I guess that's great. But for me, he's just kind of confusing. If you are far left and that's where you stand, I'd rather you stand on that and be in that. Then kind of be wishy-washy because you're just looking for an opportunity. Who would want to see him switch parties and become a Republican? He'd be a terrible Republican. I mean, when you look at Fetterman, he's willing to cross the aisle. I support him. He's a true independent thinker, but he's still a left-leaning independent thinker. Because when you look at Fetterman's record, he still votes with Democrats over 90% of the time. I really hope that when he runs in the 2028 primary, that he is able to get the Democrat nomination. Unfortunately, I don't think he will. I think he would never be able to come as far right as we want him to. He's always going to be right in the middle of the road on issues that should be common sense. I mean, he's for the Save America Act. I mean, for the SAVE Act, he's for that. He's like, what's so hard about this? Bring an ID to vote. He's against men and women's sports. But there are certain things that he does that I'm like, oh my God, why would you agree with that? But he is a Democrat. I think he should stay in his Democrat party, and that's where he has the best chance to succeed and hopefully help the Republican party along the way. But I think he made enough Democrats mad that they're probably, I think he's right, they're probably not going to endorse him because he's too independent. What did you make of the fact the group didn't really want him to switch parties? You could just, in listening to this focus group tells you everything about why John Fetterman's chances of running for re-election are pretty much, I'm not going to say zero, but are very low because the idea that he could switch parties and win as a Republican. When these voters know that, look, his record, he's been voting 98%, whatever number, with Democrats. So he's not going to be conservative. He's just going to be an outlier, and we like that. And of course, Democrats, if you convened a bunch of Democrats in the room, they would just tell you he's terrible and he should never run again. To me, the Fetterman Shapiro comparison was really interesting here, because these were voters who sort of appreciated Fetterman for poking at Democrats. They wouldn't vote for him, they didn't want him to switch parties. They will vote for Josh Shapiro. And I think that that is, Fetterman to me, I remember with the main guys, their one concern about Platner, yeah, their one big concern about Platner on the Democratic side was, would he be another Fetterman? Meaning somebody who did kind of this gruff, I'm a person of the land here, and now I'm basically a secret Republican, which is how I think Dems view it. But Josh Shapiro is actually a firm Democrat. He's a firm Democrat that Democrats basically, he's not punching Democrats all the time, but he is sort of governing in a way that allows him to have broad support. And it just to me is an interesting thing where people sort of fell in love with Fetterman. I remember how much Democrats in Pennsylvania fell in love with Fetterman, thought he was like the true embodiment of Pennsylvania. I bet if I went back to those groups, they would hate Fetterman today. But it also, Sarah, shows the challenge of transitioning, and we'll see if this is true for Shapiro, but transitioning from being a governor to being a federal candidate. Yeah. It was funny to hear some of these focus group participants say things like, well, I've never heard Trump say a bad word about him. Meanwhile, Shapiro's out there punching at Trump constantly. He has nothing nice to say about Donald Trump. He's able to do things that are very partisan, but do not get filtered through the same partisan lens that a Fetterman does. Because let's face it, it's in Washington, and everything Fetterman does gets picked up. Fox News amplifies it much more than they're gonna amplify something that Josh Shapiro says. All right, Amy. It's been fun. Thank you so much for talking this all through with me. We went deep and covered a lot of territory. Amy Walter, thanks for coming back and doing another episode of the Focus Group Podcast. Guys, we'll be back next week. But in the meantime, remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe to the Bulwark on YouTube. Become a Bulwark Plus member at the bulwark.com. So you can tell us what you think about the show in the comments. We only read comments from subscribers. Okay? So go do it. We'll see you next week, guys.