Future. Hit them where it hurts is the book for any democrat has ever bang their head against a wall when obviously reasoning failed to sway voters over to their. This guide is aeline to save american democracy in its darkest hour. Rachel bitter cofer is a political scientist and election turned political video offers interviews, analyzes have been featured in the New York Times. The post salon, among others. But a cofer was recognized for novel theory that predicted the size of the blue wave back in 2018 midterm elections much earlier th forecasters. Tonight, rachel will be in conversation. Adam parker mingo, an american political strategist, consultant in who served as National Field director for the Democratic National committee in 2016 under donna brazile. So please join me in welcoming to politics and prose rachel bitter, cofer and parker mingo. ll kick it off. Im adam parker, manco and. Thank you guys for being here on a coldriday. I got a ten month old in the back who cant be silenced. So you may hear him, but were here for. Rachel andn incredible person who, i dont know, maybe five or six years ago, i first started hearing about it was in advance of8, i first started hearing about her from people who didnt like her and i didnt like the people who didnt like her. And i thought, you know,t was a perfect opportunity to to really judge somebody by who their enemies. And then i got a little closer and, you know, this sort of hypothesis of she to the table was to be true so she is not just a you know incredible seasoned person, but she understands the best ideas come from outside of washington, d. C. And oftentimes she is being criticized. â– 1its by a very specific groupf people who think that they know how to run the numbers. The best. Ive been extremely impressed her and was so excited that this book came out and to have the opportunities here and ask you some questions and in addition theres time for you guys to ask questions of we dont cover any of them. I know people have kids and other stuff. So in the event you have to leave and you you really want to get a question out, let us know and just raise your hand and well do before 745. So with that, what inspired you to write this book that was such a kind introduction and thank you so youre right, i should be judged by enemies i keep in the twitter world. Yeah. You never beat boys. They get very mad when you do that. So i am so happy to answer that question. Inspired me to write that book. I will tell you is that i was watching the returns in 2020 and on Election Night and i knew, you know, they didnt call it for a couple of days. I knew we had hit what we needed to hit for the presidency and to get that dangerous, dangerous man out of office right. But i also saw, as the returns continued to come in, that we dramatically underperformed formed our potential down ballot and managed to losehe u. S. Housn forecast work, which is like hard database, not polling based, said we should be winning seats right and so at point i was telling people dont think theyre going to transfer the power peacefully and people thought i was nuts. Whatever they had done all their planning in advance and in plain sight. So i didnt feel like to like hat by saying i dont theyre just going to like, lose and walk away. Right. And i realize that the 2022 midterm was going to come hard for america and like, explain what i mean by that. In the second that unless and until we fixed how talk about politics how we do electioneering what are our top our strategy is the very base of how we do electioneering that we would probably get hammered in 2022. And if we did we may not even be able to host a free and, fair 2024 president ial election, especially in those midwestern states. So at that point is when i started to think how can i, as an outsider, as you pointed as a person, has no role index into washington, d. C. Or york city . How can i democrats to stop doing this wrong as fast as humanly so that we dont all collapse into a fascist hellhole . Right. And i admit that does kind of crazy to be like, im going to go try do that. So, you know, vote for folks. Been following me long enough. They know i initially went to an i created strike pac of make some advertising to show what i meant about negative partizanship and branding and all of these things that i discuss in the book. But at the end, ultimately, i had the opportunity to work directly with people like jamie harris and the dnc, others, and knew that i could have more then and there inside, outside. And you know the book was like, okay, can i were getting were getting across to places in michigan and arizona, other places, but were not this not something thats ready to roll out in 22 across the board, not ready to roll out in the virginia cycle the next year that would be coming. And then, of course, year where the whole fate of american wont be on the ballot and. I knew i could write ways to put this information, but ultimately what mattered was that it doesnt work unless people read the book. People have to know about book to read it. And therefore i decided the best thing to do would be try to do the improbable and publish a National Book with, you know, a real publisher. Im not i was an academic published you academic publishing is very different and that way the knowledge thats in my brain could be transplanted into brains all across that are activities that are, you know just citizens online that are running, the parties that are running committees, that are running campaigns. You know, so the consultants, everybody would be able to understand some basic truths about the american electorate that should and must shape our strategic approach to electioneering. And sohae book. Im really, really excited that. Erin murphy joined me on the book. I could never be more grateful for him. My cowriter on this book who helped me make sure that what i was saying to you guys and the way it was presented was that anybody could understand and not wonky, academic. And so i do want to give a shout out to my coauthor, hes the best decision i ever made. And the book would be nearly as good without. His assistance. I think the hypothesis how do you get something done really quickly knowing you, you know, if you tell if rachel says shes going to do something, shes going to do it seconds later and thats how quickly she moves. But thats not how quickly just about anyone is moves. Sometimes the yellow tape is helpful, sometimes its not. But that a lot of sense in terms of why you put this into a book but that book has to be shared by lots of people so everyone obviously read it and pass on the word what do think is a key takeaway lesson that and love Jaime Harrison but the National Party as a whole if you had to highlight one could take away from this book that you have to brand your as an extremist that you escape partizanship and i in the book i talk about my brain is a trained political scientist that studied American Voter behavior voter psychology campaigns and elections and polarization from an academic quantitative perspective, which is very different than like, you know, philosophizing about it. Right. And my frustration, really, the whole reason i even got into the forecast sting work was i was so frustrated when. I would look at fivethirtyeighs crystal ball at that time and not see them recognize how we have a new tngelectorate calleds polarization. Its a thing. Its not just a word, its an actual condition that the electorate has entered and grown evolved into. That is impacting how people make decisions, how they behave what theyre willing to tolerate anall kinds of other. And so, you know, getting people into the brain of a political scientist, the main lesson that for so rnd even though its been known for 70 years now by academics, is that the american anything about politics. Okay, like our worlds do. And certainly here in d. C. And in the in new york city, everyone you might know does. But if you go out into the real and Start Talking to people about complex political anonymous like, you know, this jury verdict from. Trump they are they. Its not like im going to go into my if im a barista at starbucks tomorrow like, hey, are you doing im great. Did you hear about trump verdict . Youre like, thats not outside of our bubble. Okay . And our little bubble is i mean, its so insular that. I have had a really hard time explaining to people. Actually, the amber heard johnny depp relationship fight trial thing that happened in 2022. More people interested in that roe versus wade and like more people were like, i need to know what happened between johnny and amber. Then wait a minute. What is this thing about abortion . Right. And like you think about what that means. It means that that the public does the public is not reacting a lot of stuff. Some of its partizan, polarization. Like republicans are nerg a good job. But a lot it is complete and total ignorance. They dont know that there was a coup plot that, there were fake elector schemes that they tried to steal, you know, the Voting Machines and almost clear marshall like no one knows that its a for us and why that matters is that voters average americans were still talking about 50 of the Adult Population that wont even bother to vote. We got it to like 60 something in 2020. And that was a historic okay, but still means 5 of people who are like you and me, they may even look any different than you and me. They may be college educated, they may not didnt bother to vote between joe biden and donald in the midst of a pandemic where 3000 people were dropping dead on a daily basis. So thats clay that were working with. Even the half thats somewhat engaged they dont they might know who joe the joe bidens the president , but they dont know that the Republican Party controls house, right . They dont know even if they do know that. They might know that. They dont know what that means for legislation they dont realize when immigration doesnt happen that its actually House Republicans refusing to put bill up thats killing the bill and why when you look at polling data and they and you know, they were making a big deal out this last week, look, voters blame and not trump, even though trump kill the immigration deal. And if you start to think about, okay, no one knows nothing, no wonder they arent to that. And the political scientists that discovered this, they went on to add dont worry, america, because voters have a thing that they they can rely on that they dont need to know a lot. They dont need to know much about any particular politics, john, you know, or policy, whatever, because they have this thing called the party label. And they can that to categorize their political world, basically into two spheres, right. And so i may not know who what jane smith stanton, i know anything about her platform. Never been to her websites. We havent donated to her campaign because only freaks money to political candidates and thats all right i couldnt you know theres nothing about about her that i could know as a but i know im going to vote for her because. She has a d next to her name, right . Its telling me this womans on my team and most people even the ones that lie about it actually do have a team about 35 or so of the electorate that are independent. But theyre prodded. Half of them will admit, yeah, i lean to the democratâ– where lean to the Republican Party and data after dataset election after election that those people basically behave the same as someone who admits that theyre a partizan okay. So you have this thats going to dictate the vote choice for 90 of the electoraten su powerful way that if amanda here, my friend amanda, if i didnt know she was a woman i didnt know she was white or black, i didnt know was older, young, urban, rural, suburban, all the that you hear analyst out on tv, kind of focusing on. I dont need to know any of that. I dont need to know any of it. Just give me a big black dot and give me a party label. And nine out of ten times, 90 of the time i will be able to predict that persons vote choice a year out from the election. And no specified of who those candidates going to be. Now, if you think about what that means and how you hear contemporary american politics discuss, but you dont hear a lot of conversation about how powerful of a vote predictor partizanship and, you know, we created or our side that has evolved to us not realizing that you to sell the party brand if, the voter at the end of the day is going to go on that heuristic. Then its going to be whether in whether tim ryanan of class whie declined and to maga and theyre all going to have great conversations but second they get into and he can pretend he can tell people im not a real democrat know im not one of those democrats im a moderate. I want get stuff done for you. Nd of the day, theyre going to go in and see that product label that the next to his name. So unless you have broken that brand allegiance and made the connection then youre not going to win over those votes. Thats how we have lost so many voters to the republican who is, of course, running that exact strategy and their brand into that into the voter file has been about us. Its always us. Its all we everything that they do in electioneering, outward focusing and, they focus on us. And its about two things. Youre driving strong turnout with issues that motivate people like crt in schools. So thats red meat for republican base. Yes, but it was also the bucket message. Okay. So its one message that that combines them all, rules them instead of what we do, where we have messaging the base. And its really micro targeted, then we have some persuasion messaging where were like, look, val demings is a motorcycle cop and she is going to get stuff done. They we have incredible candidates mean massively on paper, objectively better people that are qualified good, that are temperament, better, everything they lose y because. Were running campaigns where were trying to sell the individual, were minimizing partizanship. So were not branding democrats as good. And all they hear is democrats as bad and were not wedge the Republican Partys extreme against them to make sure these people that we now know and understand dont know much about politics and really dont care to, at least for them to hear one thing, one thing about the Republican Party than what theyve alreadyer about it, which which polling data tells us low taxes, good on the economy, good on defense. Even after these last 20 years where they have been, you know, bad on all those average people tell pollsters all the time who is good on the economy. The republicans. Thats their brand. Okay. So at the end of the day, we have to lean into partizanship. Yep, we have to ride for the be a brand us a brand down them in that approach. So i can totally how defining your opponents brand would work with any normal candidate up and down the ballot. But donald trump versus joe biden. How do you define donald trump and i guess. I would maybe one comment, but also a question in first of all, theres been five or six things that have happened today, right . Already just today, people forgot that six days, seven days ago, he said he did nothing in four years for guns. And then we had another mass shooting. So how do you define, donald trump, in this sort of constant way where its happening every single day, if youre the joe biden. Right. And then, too, i just guess an asterisk from what i can see. I dont work for them. I think that Biden Campaign seems to be doing a better job, or at least at this sort of new a january 20, 24 version of a campaign that weve terms of rew how does that play into what, you know, defining . Yeah, i mean, the biden team im dont i dont lose sleep at all right now over the biden Team Strategy i know its to be humming theyve already s it up to define trump and the republicans as a threat to your freedom to your health. Well security and safety is what i say in the book. Andoing to pound that message pretty hard. Where im worried is is in the swing map, especially on the senate races, because in the book, talk about centralization and coordination, how they you know, they have these infrastructures that theyve built. And i lay those out and and how they operate and help but one of the most important things that they have is coordination. So i use virginias 2021 governors race, crt. Had never heard of, probably in january of 2021. And i know almost every dumb thing you could possibly know. Okay. Because i monitor maga a lot, right . And i had never heard of crt, but as soon as i did and saw what they were doing, i realized, oh, theyre going to theyre going to take something no one has ever heard of. And that is so we get stuck on that. Oh, no one knows what fascism. And the republicans are like, thats right. Because we can define any ambiguity in that gets filled with the voters own personal fear. Right. So you know, we were laughing at stump reporters crt they cant define. It doesnt matter because. They defined it in their in their own way and usually that way was not making me f about being white right. Thats what it came down to. And i point out in virginia in 2021, all the state legislative races that m three statewide, so is ags secretary of state and and then the governors race what the campaign was completely devoted to crt and they took something i had never heard of, let alone other people and made it the define issue of an election cycle. So by fall youre having voters in polls about crt, right . I mean in high degrees. And now we all know what crt. Okay. Something no one had ever heard of within a year, a defining issue and you will never sell me that sweater vest. Glenn, as i to call them, sweater vest. Glenn sweater vest. Glenn gives a about race in schools. He doesnt give us a scrap of intention all to anything about Public Education because hes a republican and republicans eight Public Education. But it you know, you dont how it doesnt take a stretch to imagine what glenn would like to be talking economics business policy, stuff like that thats asked, would have been out on the stump doing because thats what hes and thats what he would sell. And then all the state legislative candidates, some of them would talk about this and some will talk about that, this and that, thats interest driven. But the Republican Party is able to do that, we need to be able to do is say, hey, we have found thisp . Powerful issue thats vey emotive, thats freaking people out. Lets all talk about and define our campaigns around, because not only do they have the right media machine, but you want it if youre going to create a cacophony