Incorruptible Mass

The Missing Voters

• Anna Callahan • Season 6 • Episode 14

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Plenty of pundits have theorized why Democratic voters didn't turn out in 2024, but why do those voters themselves say they stayed home? We discuss illuminating new poll numbers, the vital importance of authenticity in a campaign, and what Democrats need to do to win "missing voters" back.

You’re listening to Incorruptible Mass. Our goal is to help people transform state politics: we investigate why it’s so broken, imagine what we could have here in MA if we fixed it, and report on how you can get involved.

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​​ANNA

Hello and welcome to Incorruptible Mass. We are here to help us all transform state politics because we know that we could have a state legislature that truly represents the needs of the vast majority of the 7 million people who live here.


Today we are going to be talking about the missing Biden voters. We're going to be talking about people who, uh, sat out, who have begun sitting out elections, because of their unhappiness, because of their economic stability or lack thereof. We're going to be kind of looking at Mamdani's numbers, the polling numbers that have come out in terms of his support in various groups, as well as how the housing crisis is affecting this. We'll be talking about what people actually want in their elected officials. Short story, they want fighters.


But we'll go into more details, and we will talk about a number of ways that Democratic candidates and elected officials make mistakes in their not understanding what it is that people want. So with that being said, before we get to those wonderful topics, let me have my co-hosts introduce themselves. I almost said each other. You could introduce each other if you like.


JORDAN

Jonathan, you go.


JONATHAN

Okay. Hey, I can have two. Jonathan Cohen. He/him/his, live in Boston in the South End, but joining from Cambridge as I walk home. Have been active on progressive issue and electoral campaigns here for over a decade.


ANNA

Wonderful.


JORDAN

Jordan Burke Powers. He/him. And I live in Worcester and I have worked on political campaigns since 1994. So this is actually something that — this is in my wheelhouse as well as having worked for a large political polling firm and have worked on lots and lots of polls. So this is really, really in my wheelhouse.


ANNA

I'm Anna Callahan. She/her, coming at you from Medford, where I am a city councilor. And I've done a lot of work at the local level training people across the country to elect progressives to their city councils. So today let's dive into this topic. I know both of you want to jump into this. So I don't know who wants to.


JONATHAN

Go first in terms of— just wait. Actually, hold on, Jord. Because you know Celinda Lake, who did one of the recent polls on this? So I was so—


JORDAN

I was about to say that.


JONATHAN

Yeah, yeah. So—


JORDAN

So the person who— so there was a poll done by Celinda Lake of voters who sat out, Biden voters. Who sat out the 2024 election? Who are they? What do we know about them? Why did they sit out the election? And so this is really, you know, it's really good data.


Celinda Lake is a well-known pollster. She's one of the top pollsters for Democratic candidates. She has done work for me in Massachusetts and in other states that I've gotten the pleasure of working with her. So she's a big name. I also do know her a little from being around Democratic politics for a long time. And I worked at a rival firm for a little while. So I do know her.


And she just does the best polling. The reason that I wanted to hire her when we did polling in Massachusetts is because she is the best. She is. She really understands polling is an art. It is as much as it is a science. And she's a real artist. She just understands how to get the information you want that's usable and get a ball. And so that's what's really important about this report.


So she looked at who— she wanted to know, who are these people? What happened? Why didn't they come out in ‘24 the way they did in 2020? So if you don't know, the way that Donald Trump won in 2024 is two ways. He won increased white voters and people who I would call rising white voters. People who want to vote and act like white voters, especially men.


And so there are— when we get into race, it gets more complicated. Especially when you get into— that's why we have, we say race and we say if you're Hispanic or not because there are white-facing, Latino, Spanish-speaking voters. So it gets complicated. And our simple flight way of understanding race in America does not actually get at the complications, but voters — when they're individual people, they individually get at that complication.


And so Trump sort of increased what I like to call aspiring white voters and white voters. He increases the size of white voters in every election, which is something that's no one thought was possible. And we could talk about that. And the other thing that happened from ‘20 to ‘24 is that some people sat out who are core Democratic voters. So those two things happen. Both of those things happened.


And if you wanted to know as well, we saw some segment of Latino men move to vote for Trump and an even-smaller subset of black men move towards Trump. So you had a lot of things happening at once. Young people also moved. There's some. But if you wanted to know just one piece of that slice of the story from ‘24, it was those missing voters. I've talked a lot, but that's the polling that came out from Celinda.


And I'll just say really quickly what some of the findings were. 56% of them would have cast a vote for Harris, 25% would have voted for Trump. They overwhelmingly support Democrats and voters are clear, 72% said the problems in our country come from having an economic system where the richest 1% have more than $50 trillion in wealth from 90% of Americans over the past few decades. Only 20% developing a populist agenda would have turned them off. So you have an overwhelming majority of those voters who sat out who were thirsty for a clear message about who is benefiting from this current system. Sorry, I talked a lot.


ANNA

No, that's fantastic.


JONATHAN

No, no worries. I think that's great. What was also really interesting in that poll from Celinda Lake is I remember there was a series of questions that are like, asking these people who sat out about some certain different things happening in the Trump election to be like, does this thing make you regret not voting? And I thought that was a really interesting way of priming people who didn't vote into becoming voters. Again, that's not like shame, that's not shaming them for not voting, but like explaining these are consequences of what happened in the election, uh, a way that can prime somebody for future voting. Um, but also Jordan, your comments reminded me of early on is that one of the things that's been such a crucial part of Trump's victories has been his ability to turn out irregular voters. The anything. And, um, I was just actually having a conversation about this with somebody earlier today that I think the person that I remember originally probably hearing about this as a point was probably from you and Becca Glenn Jordan, years ago, is about how people often like to talk about making non voters into voters, but so much of the change in elections is always about making an irregular voter into a regular voter or just making.


ANNA

Them that one time.


JONATHAN

Exactly, exactly. Getting that person who has shown that they are able to, they are willing to vote, vote in an election that they're less likely to vote in. And so when you have things like Zoran Mamdani's win. When you see that surge of young vote of youth voters, those are going to be people who are probably young people who probably vote in a presidential race. They probably vote, maybe they vote in a state election, but they're not municipal voters. But you know, as a campaign, this person has gone out to vote before. Let's make sure that they do for this election. And a lot of Trump's victory has been getting the flip side of that. Of rather than doing that to like drive turnout for progressives is how do you find often typically white and male voters who are irregular, but if they believe if they show up, will vote conservative.


ANNA

So you want to make one more comment and then I'm going to jump into them. I'm done.


JORDAN

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I just want to say really quickly, but the difference is that he doesn't do anything. Like some of his surrogates just showed up on the podcast. Like they didn't do anything.


JONATHAN

Well, no, they did actually. So one thing that like, and it might not be his campaign, but certain like um, affiliated groups. What was interesting is just a friend of mine who had commented that he hadn't voted in Michigan in a long time because he's lived here for a while but kept getting like Trump campaign stuff reaching out to him as being like a 40 something white male with a Michigan phone number, uh, and them m trying to get like basically just drive up that. That as a demographic.


ANNA

Yeah. So I would love for us to look a little bit at um, there's some new polling coming out about um, Mamdani who won. Zoran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary in New York City, um, and really made a splash Democratic, ah, social avowed Democratic socialist, um, you know, running against Cuomo. We already covered him in a previous episode. But the numbers that are coming out now show him really doing amazing things about getting especially young people to come out and vote in a way that, you know, Democrats often want to do and they often try to do and they sometimes say they're going to do, but rarely actually do, um, and that he particularly did well with young men, uh, which is what the Republican Party, you know, at least in the 2024 election, um, also did very well and he has many voters that he picked up who were Trump voters. And now they're going, you know, sort of swinging the other direction. So, um, do we have some numbers on uh, the Mamdani poll numbers?


JONATHAN

How much of that? One thing I've been curious that like he had that analysis before. But like for the most part people who are Democratic primary voters were not, are not likely to have voted for Trump compared to let's say somebody who just votes in a general election and doesn't vote in a Democratic primary. But what I was interested in, and I don't have any of these numbers in front of me is because of like in recent polling shows he has such large numbers with men 18 to 29. Uh, a demographic that did that Trump did better than he had had done in the past would be particularly curious about how much crossover there is in that demo. Mhm.


JORDAN

Yeah, I just um. You know Mandani, uh, I want to go back a little to what other voters, um, what voters said about um, like because I think it's helpful to understand what they want. Um, um. So on the economy, so on the economy, you know, voters who skipped, they said um, Harris didn't do strong enough. Uh, she focused too much on homebuyers and middle class and not addressing deep, deeper issues. Um, and they wanted the feeling of somebody who was a fighter, um, somebody who is gonna fight for them. And when you ask people about Mamdani, um, similarly people said that they wanted somebody who was going to sort of like he cobbled together what's considered a weird coalition. Um, people just say socialist. They just say oh, a bunch of leftists. But no, he cobbled together some more conservative voters, immigrants, um, different sort of suspects. He did really well with younger people. Right. And so all of those things um, sort of speak to his uh, ability to sort of cobble together those things. And the connective tissue for those is that they thought he was gonna fight for them. Um, I'll try to find the exact numbers but uh, I'm trying to look for it. But yes, but he. But so I think that that's a really important issue. So one of the things that um, uh was really interesting to me is um, Bloomberg of all places did a report on like who voted for um Mamdani and they found um, that uh, that tenants rights and talking about affordability, especially around housing was actually a core component of his voters. Um, so you know, if you're thinking about Massachusetts and the both worry and opportunity as things aren't affordable, it's that it's not affordable to live here. And who's that gonna make an opening for? Because it's. Because it's not ideological in the sense that we think of like they are just socialists and they voted for a socialist. They voted for somebody who was going to fight for them. And they're concerned about rising costs, which means that there's an opportunity for somebody who doesn't share our values to pick up those voters in Massachusetts as things become less expensive and people can afford to live here.


JONATHAN

And I think that that's. That's such a core point, especially as it connects to what you noted about some of the results in that Linda Lake polling, is that people can identify what they see as problems, but they're not always immediately connecting a problem they experience to who or what caused the problem. And the kind of. The value in kind of what. Zoran just campaigning is basically identifying that you share an understanding of what people see as a problem, pointing out what you believe caused the problem and promising to fight for a solution. And you can do that in the progressive way, you can do that in a conservative way. And, uh, you can do that in, like, it's harder to do that in a mediocre, centrist way because you're typically then not actually acknowledging the problem as much of a problem. Uh, the conservative way of doing that is always like finding some way to blame immigrants for whatever problems that people have. As opposed to the more, More, uh, progressive, I would say a democratic socialist way of looking at who are the forces with large, like large capital in the city, like the landlords who are like predatory landlords who are making your rent too high or even things like that, like, or let's say like the big businesses controlling the city and stuff like that. Uh, which, which resonates with people who are experiencing, like, know that people are making money off of everything in the city while it is increasingly unaffordable for them.


ANNA

Yeah. And I want to also just point out that, you know, ever since 2008, one way of looking at the presidential elections is whoever represented change, that person won. Like, if you can get change, people are desperate. And in my opinion, there's really one thing to look at which is, um, you can call it inequality, you can call it, um, the percent of Americans who live, uh, economically and, you know, lives filled with economic anxiety, like the percent of Americans who do not have $500 in the bank in case of emergency, um, which has just grown and grown and grown. And when you get to where we are now, which I think is like 7, 60% of all Americans, don't have 500 bucks in case of emergency. And they are really living on the edge and they have economic anxiety all the time, they will vote for anyone who is going to not do what is happening right now. Right. Um, anti establishment. They're voting for change. Um, this idea that they're voting for someone who will fight for them, who's not just going to go along, they're actually going to fight for something. Oh, you're muted, Jordan.


JONATHAN

You're about to unmute. So go.


JORDAN

Uh, yeah, I'll just say, um, this is, this is the thing I think that Democratic pollsters mistake is that people think that because of policy isn't popular, that therefore you shouldn't propose it. And what people miss about what's happening with Madani, what happened with Trump, what's happening with the missing voters for Harris, is that people don't need to agree with the policy to get that that's a signal that you're going to fight for them. So there are a lot of voters who don't, who aren't for a rent freeze, who don't even understand how that's possible or what that would mean. They might not understand the implications if you ask them about it. I've seen polling that's everywhere on the issue because they're be like, yeah, maybe this or maybe that. It depends how it's worded. Right. It's sort of hard to get at where people are on it. But you know what they liked about it? They liked that he was willing to fight for them, that he was going to propose big ideas about how people, how to make people's lives better. That's what spoke to them about his voters, and that's what speaks to them of, uh, you know, Trump's policies are super unpopular, but he got reelected because, you know, so there is, there is this thing about the ability to signal to people that you are going to. That it's not always about the policy itself. Right. And the problem is that the media is so good at shaming Democrats and shaming leftists into believing that they should dim their ideas so that to be palatable to people who will never vote for them or to the people who it will hurt. Right. Like the whole thing, the New York Times isn't. They're not trying to make us happy, they're trying to make their donor, the people who pay for ad space happy. They're trying to make the people who own their stock happy. And so they want you to not think that the policies that are popular, or maybe not popular, but would make people's lives better, that you shouldn't even advocate for them because somebody might not like it, but actually advocating for them, it makes you more electable. Even if people don't necessarily totally understand or agree with the policy. And so that's the mistake that people make all the time in politics. You need to signal clearly that you're going to fight for them. That doesn't mean that you should like, say absolutely bonkers everything, you know, like, it doesn't mean there are of course limits to it, as we see with Trump and everything. But, you know, there is. You just, there is a lot of opportunity to be bolder about, um, about where, about where you're going. And I'll just leave with one sort of interesting poll I found recently, um, which is the idea that, um, the voters are now no longer see government red tape as a, as the number one reason that things are bad. They see corporations as, um, corporations. Americans think corporation influence more than red tape as a business. Business, um, biggest obstacle to getting things done as corporations continue to force us to eat things, to use things that we don't want, right? As AI gets forced down our throats, as we lose the ability, as we get nickel and dime for things that we used to own but no longer, you know, um, corporate people are saying that the ownership model no longer works, which means that we will no longer own anything. Right. We'll just, we'll be in a permanent techno feudalism to them that these, as uh, these models get pushed. There is more and more opportunity to win elections by saying, no, we're not going to do that.


JONATHAN

Yeah, Jordan, I think your point dovetails really well with. What I was going to know is that what's often been the case, uh, in elections is the most winning message for Democrats is typically, look at these rich assholes trying to screw you over. I'll, I won't let them do that. Like, that is the most reliable message that helps Democrats to win elections. And whenever they try to change that from that message, they can lose. They lose. Like, and because that's one thing that, like, I don't think, I don't think that Obama did that great of a job of actually like living that message in his way of running. But that was very clear, clear to a lot of his campaign messaging, like, especially in 2012.


JORDAN

Yeah, it was totally his campaign message. And it's also, again, it's this. Just like this is, you know, voters don't give a shit about what is the gender of people playing sports. They don't care. They don't care about all of the things that the center and New York Times wants you to pretend that these voters voted on. They don't care about any of those things. Like, are they mildly annoyed by it? Maybe a Little if you pull them. But they're just, they're just not being motivated by these issues the way the New York Times, et cetera, Democrat. And they're the reason that they are promoting these nonsense. I want to say they're nonsense issues in terms of like moving voters. They are real issues in terms of making real people's lives absolutely miserable for no reason except hatred. But those hate issues saying it's okay to hate some people, which is essentially what the New York Times is saying. It's okay to hate some people. You can hate immigrants, you can hate brown people, you can hate black people. If they're just making you feel a little uncomfortable and beat them up, that's like the. What are you going to do? And you can hate trans people. Like they want you to be okay hating some people because the people in this. Because it's a distraction from the things that people actually care about, which is like, they just want their lives to be easier and they want to own things and they want to be able to like, get the economic, get economically ahead. And you know, so like just. It's just a good reminder that all of that stuff is not the reason people didn't vote for Democrats. This is not the reason.


ANNA

I was going to point out a little bit about, um, like it ended up that um, Mamdani won a um, um, plurality of Jewish voters. Um, and you know, for those that weren't paying attention, he was reamed left, right and center, constantly barraged with this accusation of him being an anti Semite. Um, and uh, you know, just from the media, from every corner. Um, and you know, I think what people recognized um, in him was that he, he didn't back down on his stance and he, he, he based it in his values. He was like, you know, his values were that Palestinians are. Deserve human rights. Um, and you know, that was his stance. And he, he wouldn't back down on anything. He wouldn't back down. You know, there was this giant bruha about how he had never used the phrase globalization himself, had never used it, but they asked him if he would condemn the phrase. And he said it's not my job as a mayor to condemn phrases. I'm not the thought police or the speech police. Like I believe in, you know, the freedom of speech. Um, and here are the reasons why, you know, in the word intifada means different things and different, you know, in Arabic than it means whatever, whatever. And he got just. They would not let it go. But I think the fact, this idea that people Want fighters. The fact that he would not bow down, he wouldn't change his stance even when faced with like dozens and dozens and dozens of like you know, constant barrages and you know, people lying about it and all this stuff that he would not change his stance made people believe that he was in fact a fighter that he is. He is not going to give up. And the things that he is standing for, um, under any kind of pressure and that's what people want. They want someone who's not going to bow down to pressure.


JORDAN

Yeah, I think it's. It's a really um. You know, one of the things I say is the reason Republicans and conservatives push um, divisive sort of ideas around um, uh, around like um, on. On Israel, Palestine is because Jewish voters make up the most loyal Democratic base besides black women. Like there is. It is a purely political even as again the realities on the ground are horrifying and um, you know, real people are suffering. But you know, Mamdani will make Jewish people in um, New York City's lives better. They'll make you'll make their lives better. Like the, you know, Jewish people struggle with where to find housing. They can't afford to live in New York City. They are, you know, their kids are also millennials who are struggling to get by. And so um, you know, the reason that Jewish voters, I think also because Brad Lander made it clear that like there is no difference in sort of are in the values of both. Like you can affirm Jewish, Jewish people's aspirations and beliefs and also believe the things that Mahamdani does. So like, I think it's always helpful to have those coalitions which is why it's so important to have ranked choice voting and to have the ability of people to cross talk to each other and to talk to each other in a way that. Because it would have been harder for him. M. I'm Donnie. To make that case. But Brad Lander being able to make that case, as somebody who has been a stalwart, you know, um, progressive and a stalwart member of the Jewish community, it's easy for him to be like, yeah, all the things you're seeing are we can see through it. Like you can see through it. I see through it. We all see through it. So I think that that's, that's an important um, I think like it also helps to have that piece and we should understand why. But also the fact that Mamdani was willing to say clearly like what his values are to not get away from it despite the bullying. If he had. If he had moved on it. He loses voters. Right. To your point, it's the fact that he's willing to both stay clearly on his values, which of course were just basic values around wanting people to like. And, um. And, you know, and. And Jewish voters wanted to feel seen. They wanted to be like, yes, we have. We're worried. And he did that. He went and was like, I hear your concerns about what this thing is, but like, also, like, it's not going to make a difference one way or another who's the mayor of New York in terms of your fears, but, like, actually your lives will be made better. So I think it's like, it's. It's really important to be a fighter to, like, say clearly what you want to do to make people's lives better and to. And like, you know, there's also a good case about, like, why it's so important to hear people and to just like, assuage their. Um, you know, there's the loud noise, but it's noise. It was, of course, noise. It was meant to be noise.


ANNA

Jonathan, I want you to comment. And then after your comment, I am going to wrap it up because.


JONATHAN

Yeah, the thing that this reminded me of is the one thing that you can often see happen in polling is that most voters, as I think Jordan, you noted before, are not that into the weeds about every policy area and that they all will move less on that than almost, let's say, like, it's a little bit reductive to say just vibes. But you can tell if you don't read the news very often, you can tell from even just seeing headlines somebody is fighting or somebody is backing down, uh, and somebody is embroiled in controversy. Those are things you do not need to read a full article to take away. And that is the level at which many people experience politics. And so as soon as you like, if you, as a candidate can make sure that the headlines about you are about you saying you're fighting for things, avoiding saying that you're backing down, and avoid headlines that show your allies are criticizing you, that is what. That is what is most helpful, uh, for stuff. And that's something that. There are many pieces of that. But it's always interesting to see, like, that element of what happens. Uh, the other thing, before we were talking about the missing voters. Just a quick final comment that I want to make. FASC Pew did a fascinating analysis of this, looking at how people move. Uh, and what is a fascinating statistic is about how 75% of American adults made the same exact decision that they did in 2024 as in 2020. They either voted for a candidate of the same party or they did not vote at all. But within that remainder, 25%, all of the movements every which way led to the different result as well as. And I highly recommend people check out that piece because it also captures how when we look at the percentage breakdowns amongst demographics, it is not 100 of the same people showing up to vote in another election and some of them changing. You have people entering the electorate, you have people leaving the electorate. And that was with like Latino voters especially. You had multiple things happening at the same time. You had some that were voted for Biden voting for Trump, you had Democrat once you voted for Biden, a lot of them leaving the electorate. You had some that weren't didn't vote at all voting for Trump. And it's always important to understand all of those dynamics happening at the same time.


ANNA

Yeah. So, um, thank you for your final comment. You kind of went to, uh. You did a nice segue. Um, my final comment is I just want to highlight something that Jordan alluded to earlier, which is, um, we are in this sort of tinderbox moment, which means voters will vote for the fighter. And if we don't provide our own progressive fighters, they will vote for a fighter on the right. They will vote for someone conservative or fascist. We have to provide fighters on the left. Jordan, do you have final thoughts for us?


JORDAN

Uh, just that just like there's the, um. See, people care about people and be unabashedly, unabashedly advocates for people's better lives. And you'll both win elections and you'll also actually pass policies and make people's lives better, which is the other thing that needs to happen.


ANNA

Right on. Thank you so much. Thanks to both of you and, uh, thanks to all of our listeners. Don't forget, donate little link below. Pass it on to your friends and we will see you all next week.