The Democratic Party's Civil War

>> Well, I'm going to pause it in our, I'm Dan Fyfer.

“You're about to hear a great conversation I just had with a mandal ribbon, co-founder and”

president, everyone, for something an organization that has recruited more than 250,000 people to run for office since its founding in 2017, and she's the author of when we're in charge the next generation's guide to leadership. I invited Amanda on because I wanted to hear her perspective on where Democrats are heading into the 2026 midterms, how the fight between establishment and insurgic candidates is playing

out and racism across the country, especially in a heated Democratic primary and Michigan, and where the party goes from here. I also asked her about how Grand Platinum's decision to drop out of the main Senate race could impact Democrats' chances of taking back the Senate, and what she thinks is someone who has worked with thousands of candidates about their recruitment and vetting process

that led him to jump into the race. There's a great conversation and we'll get to it in a minute. But before we do, if you want more analysis heading into the midterms, consider subscribing to my newsletter with the message box where I pull back from data tape on a tree to offer deeper analysis on the trends affecting our politics, go to crooked.com/YESWEEDAN

for a 20% discount in your subscription.

And as always, consider becoming a paying subscriber to friends of the pod where you'll

get. So to many more ad-free, which now includes ad-free episodes of Alex Wagner's phenomenal runaway country, head to crooked.com/friends to subscribe today. All right, here's Amanda Lippon. Amanda Lippon.

Welcome back to Podsive America. Thanks for having me, Dan. I wanted to have you on for so many reasons that I want to talk about the midterms. I want to talk about the battle with the Democratic Party between the insurgents and the establishment, the left, the right, et cetera.

But I feel like the best place to start, maybe the worst place to start with this conversation is Maine, the topic we've talked a lot about now. I don't think we need to go through our own personal histories with Graham Platner or who we liked and when we liked them, we've all done that I went deep with Alex Wagner on last week's pod.

You've written about this.

You've talked about and you've tweeted about it. I want your perspective as someone who was worked with thousands of candidates about how we ended up in the situation. And I want to begin with a candidate recruitment process, Dana Morath and Leanne Fan, to progressive activists who did a very aggressive media tour about their plans for recruiting

Graham Platner. They went looking for a candidate in Maine, they looked through FEC records, they looked for a lobster man, they looked for a Norris der Barmer, they looked at, then they saw a video of Graham Platner, they went with Met with them, convinced them to run for office. This is come under a withering critique from lots of people.

What did they do right? What did they do wrong? What's your take on this recruitment process? We'll get to the vetting after this because that's a different topic, but related, obviously. What did they do right?

They looked for someone new. I think that's good.

“I think we should open the door to as many new voices as possible.”

We should expand our idea of what a good candidate looks like. That's the end of the list of things they did right. What they did wrong is you cannot play kingmaker and you really cannot play madlips with candidate recruitment. You cannot look at a state like Maine or any district and say you know what we need.

This kind of occupation, why demographic Z type of politics, we're going to make this person into a candidate. One, we have no idea who the fuck can win, we have no idea. But two, it is leaves open so much space for it to feel like a puppet master is creating the candidate as opposed to the candidate coming up organically.

It is possible that he, like notwithstanding all of his other personal stuff, that he might have come up through and you know seeing an ad from run for something or gone to a Maine democratic party event said you know what, maybe I do see myself here and then gone through the kind of rigorous thoughtful process you need before you actually get on the ballot. That maybe could have been so, but they did not do that.

They said we're going to make this man into a senator and they tried to pop a master it into being. That will backfire any number of ways. I agree with all of that. You like people have to want to run for office.

“You have to start with that, right, which is and we'll talk a lot about whatever something”

in the crisis conversation, but people find you because they want to run for something. Yes. And I think it's, I think it's really important to say that running for office sucks, like it is miserable, it is hard, you are, your life is going to be under a microscope, you need to want to do it anyway.

We should not convince people to run, we should open the door to them and then if they say yes, help them walk through it, we should push them through it. So that's one aspect of this, right, trying to take someone who doesn't want to run for office and get the run for a reason, I thought about it, right, it's one thing to, you've kind of thought about it for a while, you know, maybe you want to do it, maybe you

don't, you're weighing considerations, then people try to convince them to do it. The party committees do that all the time. That's not Janet Mills ended up in this race, which is she didn't really want to run for office and I guess she would stop calling her, yes. But there's another element of this, too, that is kind of love attention, which is they

went looking for a very specific type of person.

organizations, too, right, they, you know, they look at a district, they look at the political environment, they say, these are the kinds of people who should run, who would be good candidates in this district or in this political environment. In the 2006 cycle, Democrat, the detrib will see and around them. Anyone out recruited a whole bunch of Iraq and Afghanistan vets to run

for office, you know, in an environment where people very anti-warveyor upset with rock, one of a lot of races that way, detrib will see this cycle is looked at, you know, in the past, it's like the prosecutor's sheriffs of that still veterans, you know, fired federal workers or a group here, is there anything wrong with thinking about like the kind of profession, there would be the right people, like it's like I understand the idea

from these people's objective, which is we want a working class candidate in May. Right, and we can do, like there's all kinds of conversations about whether Grandpa is actually working class, but let's just put that aside for a second. And what is a great job in Maine to be a working that is like says I am Maine in their original conception was lobster, right? Like let's get someone who fishes for lobsters.

“Is there anything wrong with that approach that's sort of casting college to it?”

I think it assumes that we know who can win, which sometimes we're make a good guess,

but like you can come up with dozens of examples of people who would never have been asked to run

Barack Obama being another, like a top of the list, who would have asked the one-term state senator two-term state senator common law professor to run for higher office? No, no one. Who would have asked someone like Lauren Underwood, a nurse who was a black woman and a majority white district to run for office, who would have asked AOC, who would have asked, you know, Ayanna Presley, these leaders who are truly amazing public figures in our party,

who you probably wouldn't have picked if you were going to start from scratch, but who because they care, because they had problems they want to solve, and the offices that they saw gave them power to solve it, decided to get in the fight. So I think it is so risk-averse, and we are at a moment where our party can't afford to be risk-averse. Yeah, and I want to talk about how the plan to think affects our risk-aversion in a second, but let's pivot to the vetting,

because there's never been so much talk about vetting in history, and part once again, because

Moraph and Fan did these interviews where they almost get immediately admitted to barely vetting, Platner. How do you think about the process of candidate vetting, and obviously did not work here, but like what is a, what can one reasonably expect to find out, and like what were the, the failure points here? So say, Roddenford's something has endorsed more than 4,000 candidates over the last 10 years. I believe we've had to rescind fewer than a dozen of those endorsements

in the last decade. It's pretty good track record. And for those incidences, I've been things that have come up after the campaign has already started. Now, part of us, we work on the local level, the stakes are a little bit different there, but also we do deep background checks, we do social media scripts, we ask local operatives, we dig deeper, we also ask candidates,

“and this I think is the most important part that Platner would have failed here. What do we”

get to find? Like, what is, what is the off-over part on you? What is the opposition going to say? If your worst secrets are on the front page of the newspaper, what's that headline going to read, and how are you going to feel about it? I think for us, and this is true of our most vetting reports, what the candidate says in their own like self-oppel is the nut to crack, and it doesn't seem like Platner was going to be honest about those things, maybe he didn't

think they were flags in the first place, or he didn't remember them, whatever it might be for some

of them. I think that is where it really matters that people want to do this, so that they can be very open and honest with the teams and voters more importantly about what they're going to find. Yeah, I really have been struggling with this because as you say, the process, and it's different levels, right? What you guys would do for a state Senate candidate, it's different than what the United States should happen in a high-profile Senate race,

and that is light and you're as a part from what would happen in a presidential race. Which is why you don't pluck people from obscurity to run for Senate. Right. Right. Who don't want to, right? Like that is the thing. Right. So if you look at the Platner thing, like there's the social media post, now a good vetting should have found that because CNN found it, and

I don't know whether he told them that he'd been doing a lot of Reddit posting, and it earlier stages, I imagine that that would have been something that would have been easier to say than some of the other things have happened. That should have been found. That tattoo is an interesting one. I've thought about this a lot. Like, what is the, like, I don't know that in any candidate question, there is, well, there will be now,

“like, yes, do you have any Nazi-like tattoos? Do you have any problematic tattoos?”

Let me, like, just robes why I can examine your tattoos. His tattoo is not showing up in a Lexus-nexus or Google search about his history or public record search, but if you would talk to lots of people around them, some of them might have said because

do this right and not get embarrassed. So they will often tell you things like, you know, just one

“thing I would ask him about is there's this kind of weird tattoo, you know, that, like, that could”

have come up, but you also see how that falls through the cracks in a traditional, particularly if you believe, which I have now first skeptical of, that he did not know until that it was Nazi related until the end. Now, I don't believe that he got it to be a Nazi, but I don't think he's been truthful about when he found out. I do think like it is worth thinking about what are the

things good vetting what have found and what are the things that we never could have known.

Yeah, the red, the red at post stuff should have been found for sure. And then you get to his relationships with women. The, I mean, I can't even have it to have this conversation about this, but the clinical consensual sexting that went on was discovered in the vetting process. His wife did what she was supposed to do, which is she told the campaign, she did these at question that you raised, she answered with, there was this, and the campaign made a decision not to deal with it

in any way she performed. We're not to proactively disclose it. You know, that, that came back to bite them. And then the other stuff, like the, the toxic nature of those relationships, the sexual assault allegation, are things that a campaign can only find out if the candidate tells them.

If the candidate is unwilling to tell them, they may never know, because it just doesn't show

up in that now. Once again, in a presidential level vetting or VP level vetting, the campaign would have gone out and talked to all the ex-girlfriends. I don't know that that's a reasonable expectation for a Senate race, but planners, they feel you're vetting on one end, but the things that ended his campaign is a failure of character on his part to be willing to tell them to the campaign, right? I'm not trying to do that. Moraph and fan, but it's just,

“I have gotten so many questions about vetting in this process. I think it's just worth”

to help people understand what is reasonable, and they failed miserably, but ultimately the failure was also a pletters. I think that's right. And I think his failure to be honest with them, even about some of the things should have been the red flag of people talking to him. Yes, yes, that's exactly right. There were, there were clearly red flags that in their interactions with him that should have raised more questions than lead to more vetting. So in my conversations with,

you know, listeners of this show, Democrats out there, there's a fair amount of the fetism about Maine, post-platter, the sense that we had this gold opportunity. Everything went wrong, wrong candidate, wrong approach from the DSCC to kind of clear the field. So we ended up with this choice between a flawed candidate and a candidate who didn't really want to run and couldn't beat that flawed candidate. How are you feeling about the race going forward? And we're recording

this on Thursday, a couple of hours before the first debate that the main Democratic Party is holding

“for the nomination to replace Pletner. I think the main Democratic Party so far has done a pretty”

good job of setting up a process that people feel like they can be a part of. Because I think that was the real danger was like the party would just pick somebody and then like force it down voters, votes for lack of a better term or then their choice or menu. They seem to have set up a process that gives people a voice. And it seems like all of the candidates were jumping in, at least have some amount of run through the ringer, whether they ran for governor,

they ran for congress, they're public businessmen. Now there's like there's not as many nobody's. I am still cautiously optimistic. I mean Maine is a state devoted for Kamala. Susan Collins is deeply unpopular, Trump is even more unpopular. There does seem to be like a deep frustration with Susan Collins among Mainers. It's not a foregone conclusion that it's a non-starter. I am curious to see how quickly whoever takes the nomination can raise money and what Pletner does

with his money and his infrastructure and how much he really engages with the potential nominee or if he as his dropout video seemed to indicate harbors a lot of ill will towards this process. Yeah, like his money is incredibly useful. Now he can only give a small amount of it to the nominee, but he could theoretically give it all to the DSCC of the DNC and the DNC content. Now, thank you to the Roberts Court, use that money in an un, in a fully coordinated fashion

to spend it and unlimitably on behalf of the nominee. You know, I feel, and maybe this is just coped on my part, this is going to depend on how the process plays out. But if the process plays out, like I hope it will, which is, I agree, the main Democratic Party is doing so far a great job. Ideally, you'd have another primer everyone can vote. That is not obviously logistically feasible on this very tight timeline. This is certainly better than just the party committee voting on

one person behind closed doors. This is at least people. It'll happen in a couple of debates. It'll happen. But the convention will be very interesting. Lots of people will watch it. People will get a test. This is kind of what might have helped us better into the in 2024.

If other people had one into running as common, they didn't. So we never had that process. But

you know, it's not exactly like a primary campaign, but it's as close as we're going to get. So I think that's

“good. I think we are, if this process plays out, we end up with a candidate without a Nazi tattoo”

or a bunch of other things. We're in a better position than we probably would have been. Had we ended up with either platinum or mills, platinum in this like in this state, if it's platinum before this sexual assault, like a allegation, just platinum as he was on primary day or mills, it's the nominee. Like I think we actually have a chance that this race could God for bid be about Susan Collins, which is what you wanted to be, because in that times poll,

there were an even platinum after all the stuff was going on with still winning by two points. By I think it's an 11 point margin, people in Maine want the Democrats control the Senate.

So if you can actually just make this race about a vote for Susan Collins as a vote to let

that Donald Trump control the Senate, puts the Supreme Court justice on, do all these bad things. Like you have a real shot and you can just have a generic Democrat who is a, well, like, not a generic Democrat. You need a talented generic Democrat, right? Somebody who can just isn't flawed can campaign well, but allows the focus to be on the candidate on Susan Collins not their own personal force, like that. That's it seems like in some ways, like a decent shot.

I still think we have a very real shot to win this race. I really do.

“I do, too. And I think the candidate who takes this nomination forward sort of has an”

indicator of where voters are now. Like can really speak to the anger that, you know, platinum for all of his fuckups and there are many, like keep caught fire. He was something like 1% of Maine was volunteering for his campaign. He spoke to the anger and the frustration that people feel he put forward some real, like, clarity of positions and the nominee who had moved forward should be able to tap into that even if they don't weren't able to capture it in the

primary themselves. You know, I, I got served a TikTok video, a platinum, because, you know, obviously nothing on TikTok is connected to that. Calendar, so it actually was posted weeks and weeks ago. And it's platinum talking about how we have to stop making this between left and right. And we had a point fingers up, not down. That's not pointing each other. It's about the billionaires. So like, that is a legitimately good message that someone else could also have. And also,

“as a reminder of, it does remind you, because I think some of the discourse is, you know,”

it's all because, you know, possibly markets taken a lot of slings and arrows over this, but it's all because these dumb podcasts, the other people, like platinum that he wanted. Every people forget he actually got 70% of the vote in the primary and blew the doors off the two-term incumbent governor. Like he was doing something. He was, he was the wrong vessel, but he was doing something that people have made very much wanted. And they were all very well-aware

of everything up until this last until the sexual assault allegation, very aware of his things, and they still wanted him. And that's, there's something in there that Democrats have to take from that. And I would add, because I have also taken some heat here, and I share the frustration of like, this was at no point ever a clearly moral writer wrong, because at every point up until he dropped out, it was either him or Susan Collins and a Trump chalk Supreme Court. Like those were the choices

which is better for women, Graham Platner in the United States and it, or Trump Supreme Court justices.

Ah, you know, like it was bad. It was all bad. And I'm so glad that he ultimately did the right

thing and stepped aside, and I am glad that we get a chance so that those are not our only two choices. What do you think about outside of me? And we'll talk about some of the other races coming in the House and Senate map, but you know, you and I have both argued, you've done this very eloquently, that Democrats need to be willing to take bigger risks, we have to change the way we're doing things, we have to change the way we communicate, the way we campaign, the kind of candidates we think about,

that the way the establishment is doing things has been not as effective as we would like it to be. It does, and the Platner debate prior to the most recent stuff, but even through up into the Renepost and the Nazi tattoo was a little bit of a proxy for this battle between, it's in some ways it's between the left in the middle, but in some ways it's also between people who want real change and people who want less change within the party. And it does, like, my worry with this

is, and where I'm going to get to Michigan, because I think these things are tied together in some ways, but it, like, I worry that people take this as a argument against taking risks, against candidates, and why did the aperture and the kinds of candidates that we're open to, because Platner was, and it was obviously a very unique candidate with a unique background, but he blew up in our face. So, therefore, go, the conclusion is, we got to be more traditional. Like, what's your take on that?

Are you seeing that, too? I find that to be such an empty argument, because it's not like Janet Mills was the right choice either. She was the establishment's call. She was Schumer's picture,

Like, they kick, they got candidates to leave that race so that Janet Mills would run for the United States and then they begged and pleaded her to get in. And then, not only did they leave her hanging out to dry when she was stopping able to raise money, but he just telling the, she's not throwing her hat in the ring to win the nomination now. She doesn't want to do this. She is not the path forward. So, like, to say that, you know, this proves that the establishment

always gets a riot and the new people always get it wrong. No, this is villains on all sides here.

“Everyone got this wrong. Yeah, I think it's exactly right. And I just, like, I just, I don't want”

people to think that this means it outside our candidates. You need the right outside our candidates, but outside our, we should have outside our candidates. You know, and the conversation around this is so, like, stupid, basically, because the thing people keep saying, like, you have Fetterman and you have Platter. And I'm just like, Fetterman was the, a prominent mayor for ten years. Yeah, and then he was Lieutenant Governor. He was not, like, he dresses like an outsider.

He has some prior to his most recent ideological shift. But he was a progressive Democrat, who endorsed Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama. And I mean, he was a mayor in 2008 campaigning with Obama. And so this idea that it's just, no one wants to have the real conversation about this and like, just that this is either, either this is all about Platner or there's a specific type of candidate you want. And that can be on both sides of this, right? Like, everyone's got to

reckon with, with what, you know, with the reality here. But this, I just, we, we need some,

“we need outside our candidates. They, they don't have to be grandplotner. They should be better than”

grandplotner. Our insider candidates should be better than Eric Swallow. Yep. And Andy Cuomo, like, I mean, that was, when it was like, well, the establishment doesn't go jobbed and do we, do we have, we have proof of that? I just, I do think that, like, some of the emotion around this race, both comes to the stakes of it, where people, like, obviously, if we do not win main or a state like it, we will not hold the Senate, it will be, you're devastating for generations.

And this sense that, especially for people who really believed in him, it's a sense of a trail of grief of, like, I thought I, I had a politician, I could get excited about, and he disappointed me and broke my heart. And so I, I have some amount of empathy for the, for the, the high feelings on all sides of this. But also, the task now is to win, and to make sure we don't make this mistake again. Pots of America is brought to you by Act Blue. If you've been listening to the

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at fast growingtrees.com with a code crooked, terms and conditions apply. Alright, let's pivot to your hometown of New York City, which has been growled zero for the rise of democratic socialism and beginning first with Bhamdani and then the races that happened in the New York primary. Do you want to come and see it? And two DSA candidates, one races,

where we had a 30-year democratic incumbent candidate to get unceded by a democratic socialist.

What do you make of the rise of democratic socialism? Is this something that is this about socialism? Is it about the fact that these are all districts that

“common heroes won by more than 50 points? What's your take on what's happening here?”

I think voters are hungry for someone offering them a solution to their problems, especially young people who cannot afford to buy a house, cannot afford child care, stuck with student loan debt, feel like they have no agency in their lives. They are looking to gambling or crypto or whatever it is, because at the very least that feels like something you might have some control over. They are pissed, they are frustrated with

this status quo, and DSA candidates are saying here's a solution. They are offering an alternative.

The establishment or the center or the old guard could also do the same, and I think it is telling to me that they are not putting forward, like a vision for what else could be possible. The fact that Mundani was able to speak to the, not just the anxiety that people feel about their economic situation, but also how they feel about what their life might hold. It wasn't just a Ford to live. It was a Ford to dream. It was a Ford to be able to imagine a better future

“for yourself. I think also DSA has built some organizing bustle in a lot of these places, which”

should not be underrated, and their candidates are selling something. That matters. If you look at the polling, there is just absolutely no question that socialism has grown in favor

with Democratic voters over the last many years here. In the New York Times, Santa Paul,

every single demographic, every single age court, a port of Democrats, a parality of Democrats, have a favorable opinion of socialism. Interestingly enough, I found this so fascinating. The group with the highest approval rating of, or a highest delivery rate of socialism is not 18 to 29-year-olds. It's 30 to 44. That's millennial, baby. I was telling this with that one, but it does make sense. If you are of an age where you came

of age in the great recession, you really have been through the ringer in a way that is where capitalism is really fucked you. And you're also at the age where you want to be buying a house, do you either can't afford to do it, or expensive, if you can, you have kids. You're at it. But socialism has grown in favor. In capitalism has lost support across the board with

“everyone in recent years, also understandably so. I think there is something to, like,”

it was easy to dismiss Momsdani as a generational talent. Just like that guy could have, he could have been Democratic Socialists, he could have whatever, he could have he was so good. He's so good. But these other candidates are, they're good, but it's not generational talent that's winning. And so they are people want big change. And the left is more comfortable offering big change than the center. It doesn't mean there can't be a moderate version of something

that addresses in a compelling, understandable, credible way. The cost of health care, housing, food, whatever else. Like, you can do that. Just have been unwilling to do it. And there is just something in there's a passion in how that is different with all, not every, but with a lot of leftists for center candidates that comes through that reads his authenticity and that you'll fight for them. Like, I was struck. I remember there's a clip from the Diana to get me, like,

heroes debate. Where Diana to get is making an argument about a public option. What should a different era, that was a, that was a, that was vision too liberal for the Democratic Senate and the Obama era era when Obama was trying to do it. And it's like, you know, as she's sort of living in the world of the legislatively possible. And Kerosene makes this very passionate argument for Medicare, the morality behind Medicare for all. And why it's the right thing to do. And it's just

like the difference there. Part of it's be is generational, part of it is insider, outside of a part of it also is, that's an easier argument to make in the moment. Now, we can talk about how hard it is to make, maybe in a general election. But in the moment, there's just they're offering something that is different. Now, do you, there's, there is real concern among, even well-meaning, I think people in the establishment, the people who are trying to win the house in the Senate,

that this rise of Democrat, and I should say thus far, Democrats have not nominated any, any DSA candidates in races that were, that aren't guaranteed Democratic race. So it's not, we're not in a situation where a bunch of these candidates are knocking off more, you know, they're not knocking off. They're not running, they're not winning an nomination. And a district where they would be very, very far to the left of the district that's happening in the blue industries

of the country, which is probably how the primary process is supposed to work. But, you know,

But I think a lot of them guys have this fear that this could cost us the house in the Senate,

either, in by DSA candidates winning primaries, where they are to the left of the district, or the, just being, it, chartishing the already tarnished brand of the Democrats. What's your

“take? The Democratic brand can't get much worse. What do we do in here, guys?”

We're going to try. I'll tell you that. You know, I do think that just as big to that particular point, we're like, if a candidate can't comfortably say, you know what, I don't agree with my future colleague on XYZ issue, but I look forward to working together to find a way to bring everyone affordable health care. Like, you're not a good politician. You don't have to agree with all of your colleagues and everything. You can respectfully dismiss them and look forward to

working together. To the point of like, how I think you have the bigger picture here, you know, these candidates, where they're running and winning, they are getting people excited. Shouldn't we want people to be excited about this process? Like, these DSA meetings like them or not, and like, I'm not a DSA member. I'm, that's not where I sit ideologically, but I look at those meetings and there's young people showing up. They are volunteering. They are donating,

they are participating in very boring conversations about process. Like, that is what building of a political party looks like we should want that, and we should try to make the broader democratic party a place where that is possible. Now, I will say, run for something last year, had nearly over the last 18 months of about 100,000 people raised their hands to run for office,

that is more than we had in the entirety of Trump's first term. The thing that we have heard

different over this year and the last, then we are didn't hear in Trump 1.0 was frustration with the Democratic Party. Was people explicitly saying, I am running for office because they are not going to fight for me. They have not delivered for me. They do not see me. They do not care about me. So, the DSA is giving those people a home. The Democratic Party, like, you know, big D could do the same. Yeah, I mean, there's no question. You know, I, I'm not overly worried

about, I mean, they called Barack Obama socialists in the window. They called Joe Biden as socialist. And what are we doing here? Well, we could elect no DSA candidates and they would call swing state democratic member candidates socialists, like that would, that would happen. I mean, you know this from all the races run is you would need candidates who are ideologically fit their

“district. These DSA candidates obviously fit their district. The voters said that. That's what they”

declared. And, and you know, and Bulls that maybe, you know, and so far, like we, there have been some non DSA candidates who have won some primaries that some people believe were against, you know, you, I'm thinking about Maine too. Randy V. A. Guess, we're like, they were the, not the, the establishment had a view on who was the best candidate to win. They more progressive candidate won. We'll find out in a few months, who was right.

Actually, I think the back. We'll never find out who was right because it's always a counterfactual.

We don't know what the other person would have won. The DSA thing, as I think, uh, it's become, it's like a little bit like the Platinum thing, where it's become a proxy for something else, where it's, it's the easiest boogeyman for some of the center groups to say to fight something else or something broader, because Democrats are becoming more liberal. Like that, it's out of that is true on almost every issue. It is true that the number of

Democrats who describe themselves as very liberal has gone up significantly since Trump was elected. The number how Democrats feel about a whole bunch of issues, particularly Israel, which we'll get to, um, has changed dramatically. And so, but that's not, like, that, that is contributed to the rise of DSA, but it's not because of the rise of DSA. I also struggle a lot with like, what is the, who's the target for that argument, that like, DSA can't envision when these races,

like, I'm a New York City voter. You tell me that I should pick my mayor based on who might cause tarnish to the Democratic Party brand as a mythical voter and Wisconsin, like, what an insane thing to, to suppose or to suggest. I, I really, I struggle with this because there, it assumes much like the left assumes that there is some secret cabal in charge who can, you know, control how elections are wrong or control what candidates say. If anybody was in charge,

do you think this is how it would go? Yes. Like, yes, yes. It is voters making their voices heard on who they want to represent them and we should be grateful that they are participating, and that there are candidates that get them excited to show up. We should learn from that. The, I, the, there are exceptions. I am someone who generally believe. Like, I am, I've gotten more progressive in my personal views as I've gotten older, but also

living California now, so maybe those two things are related. But I still, you know, I grew up working on races in red states and red districts. Like, that's my background. So I'm very cognizant that you need people, you meet the district and that you're going to need candidates who were often to the right of the median Democrat nationally to win. And so especially we want to expand the Senate map. We want to get back to a place where we can win Ohio, Iowa, the Dakota's,

“you know, places in the South. We have to do that. But I think, and there is an, and I think more”

Democrats should generally be aware of the challenge, it's like just how, you know, how the Republican

these districts. And you can't, you're, what, like, what exists in your bubble is not what exists

“in, out there in a lot of places we have to win. Having said that, I think one of the great”

mistakes of the people making that argument is that they never offer, it's always to tear down

a, it's, we're anti-DSA, we're anti-Zoron, like, Zoron getting elected was like, this is the third way argument, Zoron, it's going to be like the end of the world, especially when the other option was Cuomo. I would just, I would just say there's a great irony between the most vehemently anti-platement people being the most vehemently pro Cuomo people to this point. I mean, just to, like, really, here I was home, if you were so afraid of DSA, there was a multitude of other options in that

prime of you could have galvanized round, even right now, and I'm sure we'll talk about Michigan in a moment, like, if you are so afraid of a duel, say, there was other options besides Haley's Stevens, who they are currently having to spend $53 million dollars to try and get over the finish line. It didn't have to be her. Mallory Miploreau, who, you and I both know and supported and, like, a runner's in the room, was right there. Now, I'm actually glad that she did not get the establishment support, I think

that would have tarnished her campaign further, but putting aside for that for a moment, you have

“to put something forward. We talk, I mean, this is literally run for something, you have to have”

a vision, a solution, you have to talk to the problems that people are experiencing, because voters are actually not progressive or conservative or moderate or central, if they have problems, they want solved, and they want politicians who will do that so that they don't have to care anymore. The center could pose, could pose that. They could put forward cancer to do that. It is so telling and frustrating that instead they choose to punch left. They are, and also, they are

punching left instead of possibly creating space for Republicans to come in for other Democrats to come in, like, they are doing the thing that drives me crazy, which is yelling at the enemy who can hear them as opposed to yelling at the enemy who can solve their problems.

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AG1 subscription order while supplies last, that's drinkag1.com/curricate. All right. Let's go to Michigan, which is the race that has supplanted main in the, as the center of the Democratic Party Civil War. We haven't talked about it a ton on this show in part because Abdul worked for a cricket, did a hot podcast for cricket, John John and Tommy of support of his campaign. I supported me like more, it's the one race where we actually had actually

supported can. It was just, it actually, like, donated money to primary candidates, like, that's not something that happened with Platner or anything like that. Just this is one where

“they knew Abdul, I know Abdul, I like Abdul. I know Mallory, I thought, I think Mallory's great.”

So, I didn't want to support Mallory. But, so this race is now, Mallory dropped out. Come weeks ago, it's now down to Haley Stevens, a moderate establishment back Congresswoman and Abdul Sight, but it's become the center of the Democratic Party Civil War. There is just the amount of attention it's getting, particularly online from the most, the most online Democratic activist in Pundits is huge. It is really established, it's, it's everything,

right? It's establishment for its outsider. It's Bernie verse. Establishment, I guess, or Senate leadership. It's anti-Israel verse, a pack of the above. Do you have a take on this race? I think it is a preview of the 2028 presidential prime that makes me want to throw my phone into the seat. I know. It's just, I think it's interesting. It's hard. I don't envy Michiganers who have to make this choice and I really hope that whoever wins this primary

can build, like, build some bridges, men's and fences because I think it's getting people really, really, really angry in a way that will be hard to fix. It reminds me a lot of the 2016 presidential

very hard. It's a long road back to the base. Yes. I struggle with several things in this race,

which is my original beef in Maine was the DSCC endorsing Janet Mills. I was kind of interested in platinum, but my main thing was, like, let's just look at the people main to side, like, and I was very concerned. I thought, I've talked about this many times. I just thought the Mills decision was a sort of a political mistake. I thought the decision to back Kelly Stevens

“over Mallory and Abdul, I thought was also a crazy decision. I thought just you should stay out of it,”

but where we are now is this has become a lot about a quote unquote electability. And the argument of the Stevens people, and Stevens, Stevens campaign fairly directly, is that Abdul can not win, for as at least much less likely to win than Kelly Stevens. What's your take on electability in this context? We have no idea. And I think the establishment quote unquote has lost all credibility on that argument. They thought, the bunch of Biden could win another term. Like, they don't have

the proof points anymore to make the case that they know what voters want. Like, can Kelly Stevens win? I don't know. It seems like they've had to spend a lot of money to gather through the Democratic primary if she does leak this out. She's that spending Abdul, what tend to one? It's not even. And it's 90% 99% of that money or 90% of that money is from

not the Kelly Stevens. I mean, they actually what Kelly Stevens can make one up with her first ad

today. As we're recording this, hey pack is spent tens of millions of dollars in the

“North of 30 million dollars at least on on a Kelly Stevens's behalf. I think you have some other”

superpacks. The thing that there's many things in anger me about this. And like it's very possible. I, you can make a case that Haley Stevens as a quote unquote moderate and who will certainly appear more moderate if she wins a primary against Abdul. Like, that is one of the things, when you come off looking quite moderate when you win a primary against a progressive because you're positioned in that moderate place, maybe more electable. I don't know that. Like,

you can make that case. It's, it's possible. The, you can make the case that because Abdul is to the left. Uh, you know, Michigan is the quintessential swing state. Now, Trump's one is to the last three elections. It's a 50 50 state. We assume it's probably three to four, you know, five, maybe five points to the left this time at the generic ballot. Looks the way we think it does. That, you know, I can't, that far the left. You know, if you look at political science

research, it's less likely to win like that. Like, you can make that case, too. But as your point is no one knows, the thing that angeres me about the Abdul electability question is, no one is willing to just say what they mean by it. And it, like, is your argument that he's too far left? And what positions is it he's too far left on? Is it his position? Israel? The polling would suggest that right where the American people are there.

Is it better care for all? No, popular. It is popular. Now, with you, if you did, like, better care for all can become much less popular over time, if it's advertising. It's right, like, that, that could be potentially a vulnerability. But no one wants to say that because the Democratic Basel is very understandably supposed to make a care for all. Is it because he can't paint with a sonpiker? Maybe, like, do you want to make that argument? Like, in the, in a,

in a data for progress, main maple, only 20% of Democratic primary voters knew who a sonpiker was. But you can, you can put it, you can put it in ads. You can put what has on said, you don't have to know who he is. Is it because his name is Abdul Alsaid? Is that what it? Is that what the reason is? No one wants to like, like, that's the subtext of a lot of this. And no one,

but no one will actually say that. And that I always say coming this from a very personal view,

because that was always the argument, you know, then when you say he has some invented, he has

“an invented, he has some invented. That's what they said about Barack Hussein Obama, too.”

I'll have to write that for the call to him, Barack Hussein Obama. And, like, I don't know who's more electable. I wish people would just be honest about what they actually think about why he's less, more electable. Haley Stevens did flip a Republican district in 2018. She performed exactly like a generic Democrat in 2024. I think I used the split ticket wins over a placement rating, but I think she's like at point, she's a, like, 0.3. I think that would never have been based on the same,

like it's not a proven winner. And it's, like, it's two-year point as we don't know. And I, I don't want to defend Haley Stevens here, because I do not think she is the right candidate for this moment in any number of ways. But I will say a lot of the criticism of her about being unelectable or like being a bad candidate. Yes. So, it's so success. 100%. So, so success. 100%. And like we should, we should also say that because this is going to be a challenge,

information ecosystem for women to run, because you have to be telegenic. You have to speak certainly if the sound is a certain way. Where do you perform your authenticity as a woman? Like, if she did some of the videos or even if Mallory had done some of the videos that I've

been listed, they would have been mocked endlessly. It never would have been on the table.

So, yeah. She is not the right candidate for this moment. I think for any number of reasons, but the criticism of her has been deeply sexist. There's this video that has been got that it's gotten. I think 10 million views of her and she's at an organizing rally and she is in a very emphatic Michigan accent is talking about how she's going to fight for the Michigan. And that, like, that's become like this become a thing. But my guess is most people see that

and have no reaction to it, you know, it's a rather online thing. And you know, the, obviously, I have biases in this part of Mallory, but Mallory made some of those videos that are not dissimilar to the ones that have tools made. And that torn to smithereens. Yeah. On the internet, for sure. Like, whether it had actual voter literature, but I have no idea,

“but it was just absolutely, it's like, that's why this one is so complicated. And then”

sitting over top of it is Israel and Gaza, where Abdul has been incredibly outspoken, has supposed a Israel's called it genocide. Haley Stevens has been, you know, been a big, there's been supported by APAC. She, when she won her primary in 2022. She was, she got a ton of funding from APAC. APAC is, I said, it's been all this money in here. There is, how do you think about APAC's role in this and the role Israel's playing? Let's start with Michigan then. I'm going to expand it

out everything else. When this campaign is all said and done, it seems like 80% of the funding at least of her campaign, at least while on air funding. TV ads is going to be paid for by one specific interest group. I don't know that ever seen it before. I've seen super PACs put a lot of money in races like in the Iowa primary, Josh Cherich got a whole bunch of money from vote vets. That money really seemed to have come from the DSEs from the Senate majority super PAC world.

And it's like a mix of different different speakers. But here you have one specific group with a specific policy agenda spending this month when I can't at it. If you're seeing anything like this

“before, it seems concerning. The only thing that maybe comes close is the way that AI was spending”

money in the New York congressional races. Yeah, but you know that. Yeah, but even that was like not to the same extent. And I saw some of the interesting polling in particular about the Michigan Democratic primary voters. APAC has a net negative 46 favorability rate at 78% of Michigan Democratic primary voters said they'd be less likely to vote for a Senate candidate back by APAC 86% they'd be less likely to vote for a candidate who supports continued funding

for Israel's war in Gaza. This is toxic for them. I think it's telling that most of their ads

do not talk about Israel they don't know. Never. Never mentioned. This is a both a question

of policy, but it's also a question of morals. I think we have seen now that the way that candidates engage on what's happening in Gaza has become a moral litmus test. Of do you have the sense of conscience to call what's happening in genocide and to want to push policy away from enabling it? We just saw the vote earlier this week where House Democrats a record number of them including a number of sorts like I did not expect Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, things are changing and

they are good because that is where voters are. Voter see this as a crisis of conscience and they know that they want their leaders to push back. I also think that the way that APAC is spending in this speaks to the larger, very negative feelings people have about the role of money and politics. No. And it has become the ultimate bogeyman for someone is trying to buy the election and

drown out your voice. Not great. Back on Michigan for a second, the one question I have is,

is APAC going to support Haley Stephens in the general? I guess Mike Rogers. Because right now she is she has struggled to raise money. You know, you have James Helorico raising record numbers.

“You have John Ossoff raising record numbers. I have dual raised, I think more than $4 million”

this last quarter. They're Democratic candidates who are raising lots of money. Haley Stephens has struggled to raise grassroots money, which really matters because big dollar Democratic donations are down in the city. You have more people willing to give $5, $10, $500 bucks in fear of people willing to write $7,000 per couple maxed out checks. And so if you can't raise grassroots money and APAC is not going to, maybe they will be there. But it's she better than my Rogers for them.

I don't know. That's a question. And obviously if she's nominated the Senate Super PACs,

money that's not going to Iowa or Alaska or Texas or somewhere else. I think it's a really good

question. And I also think APAC has shown not the smartest of strategies. No. They've elected a lot of anti-Israel Democrats. Yeah. And like even if you think beyond this, they have not created space for a political home for people who maybe aren't as far left as my DSA is, but also aren't where APAC is in a way that they're not thinking beyond the next three months.

“And I think it is really dangerous for the future of our democracy in many ways because of how”

much money they're able to spend and how threatening it has become. The vote of the house, it is proud of people made up and tracking this over the years. But the idea that 100 Democrats would vote. The idea that 10 Democrats would vote against A to Israel. The idea that Nancy Pelosi and the member of the house leadership would vote against A to Israel is would have been impossible to imagine. Impossible. You maybe get one Thomas Massey and what the Democratic will have

Thomas Massey or a Rand Paul. Like the idea that people would do this in masses and possibly imagine. It does speak, and this is the downside of APAC's, and the Israeli government's allegiance sort of alliance with Republicans in most cases is if Democrats take the majority, how would a speaker hate Jeffries even be able to get? Like it seems like that's the end of the ballgame. Like I don't know how you can even bring that bill forward. I do not envy his job.

Yes, there's no agenda. I do think like one of the things that the broader activist movement needs to really think about is like, how do you welcome these newcomers in? How do you, you know,

“better late to the party than not coming to this party at all when it comes to this issue?”

Like the point of persuasion is to get people to agree with you. And I do think there is still some stickiness around like, well, you wouldn't say genocide early enough. You didn't, you know,

you didn't like call it out two years ago. If I do it now, that's that is better than never.

And that is the point of this work. And so I do want to like just plant that seed of as we keep low growing this coalition. Like how do we make sure it feels like one that can continue in a way that is welcoming? The way this issue is going to hang out of the 2028 Democratic primary. And the amount of people who were going to come maybe late, late to be against funding or to college genocide or all those things is going. I just mentioned this to Favrella last week or two weeks ago

that we were one year away from the, what's likely the first Democratic primary debate?

“Yep, I was like, it's so horrifying. No lie down. I never get up. I know, I know.”

Hey, Dan Taburski here. I'm a podcast host, a journalist. And now with my newest project, the author of my own manifesto. Well, it's a manifesto about manifestos. My search for inspiration in a world that feels more infuriating, more out of its freaking mind with each passing hour. manifestos are a call to action, an artful screen. They capture our anger and they try to do something with it. This is my attempt to take the manifesto back from mass shooters and

nihilists and return it to its rightful place with the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, successionists, internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming their guts out. I'll try to turn their anger into the world they want to see. Listen to manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Autobless subscribers can binge all episodes of manifesto early in ad-free right now.

Join audible in the audible app or by subscribing on Apple podcasts. I was talking about run for something right now. I was talking about because it run for something

is, would you start it after Trump won in 2016? It is always the example I use of how

really smart committed people can make a real change without ever asking anyone for permission to do so. You've had a tremendous impact over the last, I mean, you've never been doing this for a long time. We are year eight. Nine and a half for the ten years in January. It all because it'll also be, you started an organization that got thousands of people to run. I started a podcast. Teach the run I guess because we're on year nine of Puzzle American now.

You hinted at this earlier, but I want to put a finer point on it. After Trump won this time, there are much digital ink was spilled around the idea that the resistance was dead. And so there was some anecdotal evidence for that. There was no women's march. There was, you know, you saw, you know, you know, you know, when had protests as a new brunch science out, there was less protesting. No one rushed to the airport. It's when the next version of the

Muslim ban was signed. But run for something was a bit different. Like you just had a different

So right after Trump won, we started seeing thousands of people raise their hands to run for office. You know, 18 months later, it's over a hundred thousand people who signed up to run for office since then. More than we had in the since 2024. More than we had in the entirety of Trump's

“first term. As I said earlier last year, we had, I think, a 60% win rate on election day.”

We had a night where we elected both a DSA affiliated candidate to the Atlanta City Council. And a former Republican who left the party after January 6th to a rural county commission in Pennsylvania. We have built the tent that is tight on values and flexible on policy. And has now elected more than just about 1700 young people across 49 states plus DC, including many that are now running for higher office, like James Talleriko, like your

Mallory McWarrow, but also like Francesco Hong, it was constant like Sarah McBride in Delaware. And so many others who are, I think, the future of the Democratic Party. And that's not ideologically like pure however you want to define it. It is people who love their communities, who want to solve problems, who want to speak to their neighbors and who are willing to do so in a way that is authentic and genuine and connected and fun. And it makes me so hopeful and excited

at a moment where like most of the Democratic Party does not. But I really, I really do believe like we are on the brink of a tipping point where the party is going to be more run for something alum than not. It is going to be more leaders who look like our folks than not. And that's a good

“thing, I think. For sure. What's encouraging about it is, our party is as you're in”

ocracy. There are so many reasons for this, you know, it is, we went, Democrats often pick the next person in line and then Obama skipped the line and then we went back to the back of the line with Hillary and Biden. And then we also had the 2010 elections which got in like a big chunk of the

party because we lost so many seats in the post in the in the redistricting. After and then first in

2010 and that election and then in there are so many of our state-ledic state candidates and state-ledic state legislators were redistricting out in that redistricting and then we lost again. And we just, like we lost a lot of the middle and so you guys have helped bring up the, like we missed a middle generation and now we have a younger generation coming up. Are there some particular candidates this cycle that you're excited about that people should know about?

Oh, there's so many. Caitlyn Dre is running for Iowa State Senate. She won a special election in 2025. She broke the Iowa Republican Supermajority. She flipped a seat Trump had carried by 10 points. She is now defending that seat this November. So excited about her. Julia Salinas, who is running for Texas State House. This is like probably the genuine toss-up in the Texas House District. He's the grandson of migrant farm workers. He came from behind in a three-way march primary and then one

that they run off by 11 points against a more establishment-backed candidate. This isn't the

“Rio Grande Valley. It's in a seat that Trump carried by Jess. I think like a point and a half in 2024.”

So exciting. Chris Thomas, in Pennsylvania State Senate, he is a former public school teacher.

He's a volunteer firefighter. He's up against a first-term Republican senator. We're trying to flip

that chamber there. So he is phenomenal. Michael Ferguson, who's running for Florida State House in the Broward County. He's an active duty Air Force judge advocate. He was served as one of the youngest special trial councils in Air Force history. He's an attorney. This is the only legislative district in Broward County, which is very democratic that is still held by Republicans. So it is a top target to pick up in the Florida State House. I could go on and on on. We have hundreds of candidates

up this year. It's about a hundred thousand, as you said. It's good to be good, guys. It's going to be good. So the party went, we did a lot of thinking after Trump won in 2016. One of the things, it's sort of everyone came to the two-lay conclusion, was the Democrats did not pay enough attention

to downbell races. I do really think that that focus shifted in the first Trump era. You know,

obviously, as you guys, there was sister district, the swing left, and it was, well, everyone is like really, you know, working hard to win on these races. Lots of focus on Secretary of State's and in Governor's races in the way of January 6th, and trying to protect election integrity. Do you feel like there is the party apparatus, the donor world, the activist world, the people with platforms are have maintained that focus in Trump 2.0, or if we lost a little bit,

because we're obsessed with Trump again. We have lost a little bit. I would say in particular, the donor world, and I will be very honest, like everyone who's not running for a house or Senate this year that can't, like if you're not a house or Senate candidate, you are probably struggling. Like, Brown was something, we're doing okay, but we have bad to be really careful stewards of

is $8 million a year, just about the Republican counterpart to run for something is called the Leadership Institute. It has been around for 30 some out years. It has a $50 million

“year annual budget. I think I could have candidate recruitment offices in every state and be doing”

year round, like I cannot imagine what I would do with $50 million a year. It is the kind of abundance mindset around we can do at all that the Democratic Party just does not seem to operate from. So is that a scarcity of people want to write those checks or those just checks going to the wrong place? A little bit of coffee, a little bit of coffee. So some of it is like, we don't have enough rich people, or, you know, our grassroots donors are very excited about some of the Senate races,

and not as excited about some of the infrastructure, because it's not as flashy and not as exciting. And really big checks still go to places that run TV ads, or, you know, this right now it's like creator stuff, and that's not to say that's not important, but that stuff ceases to exist after election day. Run for something and so many of other partners on the ground were doing this real locally driven work that that happens. Like, candidate recruitment for 2026 happened in 2025.

The recruitment that we are doing now for, say, the Louisiana and Mississippi State legislative

races, which are going to be critical because of how they've redistricted these states and

blowing up the voting rights act. That recruitment happens now. So if you are not funding things year-round and sustaining this work with multi-year giving, multi-month giving, it is impossible to do in the way that is the most effective and efficient. You know, it's just so fascinating. I've been a lot of time over the last nine years now, I guess, talking to donors about, like, my big thing has always been investing in media infrastructure, right, the Denver that we need to

do medium and long-term investments in content creation, media, product, product marketing, media, you know, I have my newsletter. It has, you know, crookedness, all these things. But just beyond our stuff, just generally, Republicans have invested in the stuff for like days we don't. And you're talking to very smart people who have made a lot of money in their life,

making good investments. And it's just, I've never been able to figure out why

when you talk to them about investments that pay out over time is less appealing than the short-term one-time use of money on largely television ads. Like, think about how much money was spent. Like, you want your $50 million dollars. You can find in two weeks to see where back ads. Yep. 100%. If I think about it too much, I will, I won't get out of bed in the morning. I want to say, I know, I don't want you to be able to

“continue to get out of bed. You have a very poor job and you have children, so I think it's important.”

Then you get out of bed. But I want anyone listening who has those sort of resources to think about even if you could get, let's say you could double for me to 16 or get to half of that 50. It's just one truly one week of television ads in Texas. Is my entire budget? Is your entire budget, right? And, you know, to the beginning of the conversation, we talked about like, candidate recruitment is stage zero

of winning an election. If you want better TV ads, if you want the megaphone that we're building around media and creators to have something good to amplify, like it starts with getting really good people to run. In as many places as possible, we work in all 50 states. We also have a long-term vision for what we think the battlegrounds could be and might be in 2030 and 2032. We're doing intensive recruitment in these places where providing candidates with the skills and tools they need

to win their races. Like, why don't I have $50 million dollars? I don't know, ask with billionaires. I do know that the work is working, that there's such demand for our work and that I am so proud

“of what we have built. And I think it's going to keep paying off because the nice thing about”

candidate recruitment in particular is when one person wins that, like, against the odds race, the one person makes history, dozens and dozens or hundreds or thousands more like them say, you know what, maybe I can do this too. That is very hopeful place to end this, but before I let you go, just in case we have a billionaire or someone who maybe works for one of these AI companies going public who's about to be a billionaire and they would like to help you get to your

well-deserved $50 million budget. Where can they give you money? Run for something.net. You can look at us up. You can also find any of our other entities. And I should say if any of your listeners want to run for office, it is probably too late for 26. It is definitely not too early for 27 or 28. You can go to run for what.net. You can look up where you might want to run.

I made a living. Always raise a talk to you. I always leave this conversation smarter in a little

bit more optimistic. So, this is great. Thanks for having me, Dan. Thanks for having me, Dan. Thanks for having me, Dan. Thanks for coming on. John John and Tommy will be back in your feed on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. Positive America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reach Arlin,

Charlotte Landis, Carol Pelevi, David Tolz, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Singel. Our staff is probably unionized with the writers' guild of America East.