Are Democrats Whistling Past the Graveyard?
About this episode
Klein interviews Democratic strategist Michael Podhorzer about the gap between alarming polls — a November 2023 NYT/Siena survey showing Trump leading Biden in five of six swing states — and Democrats' strong real-world election results days later. A longtime polling skeptic, Podhorzer argues polls taken a year out aren't predictive, that media poll panic reflects broken heuristics, and that Trump's snapshot strength partly reflects his relative absence from the news. They discuss Biden's weakness among young and nonwhite voters, Podhorzer's anti-MAGA majority theory of the electorate, the role of abortion, the resurgence of labor militancy and whether it can drive electoral change, and his relentless media criticism. He closes by recommending an Orwell essay, Sohrab Ahmari's 'Tyranny, Inc.,' and Adam Tooze's 'Crashed.'