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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. You're about to hear a great conversation I just had with Amanda Libman, co founder and president of Run 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 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 insurgent candidates is playing out in races across the country, especially in a heated Democratic primary in Michigan, and where the party goes from here. I also asked her about how Graham Platner's decision to drop out of the main Senate race could impact Democrats chances of taking back the Senate and and what she thinks as someone who has worked with thousands of candidates about the recruitment and vetting process that led him to jump into the race. It was 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, the Message Box where I pull back from day to day punditry to offer deeper analysis on the trends affecting our politics. Go to crooked.com yeswedan for a 20% discount on your subscription. And as always, consider becoming a paying subscriber to Friends of the pod, where you'll get this episode and 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 Lippman. Amanda Lippman, welcome back to Pot Save America.

C

Thanks for having me, Dan.

B

I wanted to have you on for so many reasons. I want to talk about the midterms. I want to talk about the battle within the Democratic Party between the insurgents and the establishment, the left, the right, et cetera. But I feel like the best place to start, and maybe the worst place to start with this conversation is Maine, a 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 or when we liked him. 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, you've tweeted about it. I want your perspective as someone who has 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 Phan, two 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 to look for a lobstermann. Then they looked for an oyster farmer. Then they saw a video of Graham Platner. They went with, met with them, convinced them to run for office. This has 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? And we'll get to the vetting after this because that's a different topic, but related, obviously.

C

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 mad libs with candidate recruitment. You cannot look at a state like Maine or any district and say, you know what? We need X kind of occupation, Y 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 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, notwithstanding all of his other personal stuff, that he might have come up through and seen an ad from Run for Something or gone to a main Democratic Party event and said, you know what? Maybe I do see my 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 puppet master it into being. That will backfire any number of ways.

B

I obviously agree with all of that. People have to want to Run for office. You have to start with that. Right. And we'll talk a lot about run for something in the course of this conversation. But people find you because they want to rent or something. Yes.

C

And I think it's really important to say that running for office sucks. Like, it is miserable. It is hard. 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 shouldn't push them through it.

B

So that's one aspect of this. Right. Trying to take someone who doesn't want to profit us and get them to run for it or they don't have a thought about it. Right. It's one thing to. You've kind of thought about it for a while. Maybe you want to do it, maybe you don't. You're weighing considerations and then people try to convince them to do it. The party committees do that all the time. That's how Janet Mills ended up in this race, which is she didn't really want to run for office. And I guess she doesn't. Schumer would stop calling her. Yes. But there's another element of this, too, that has gotten a lot of attention, which is they went looking for a very specific type of person. Now, this, to me doesn't seem that different from what the DCCC or other organizations do. Right. 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, the DCCC and Rahm Emanuel went out and recruited a whole bunch of Iraq and Afghanistan vets to run for office in an environment where people are very anti war, very upset with roc, won a lot of races that way. DCCC this cycle has looked at in the past. We've looked at prosecutors, sheriffs, still veterans, you know, fired federal workers or a group here. Is there anything wrong with thinking about, like, the kind of profession that would be the right people? Like, it's like I understand the idea from these people's perspective, which is we want a working class candidate in Maine.

C

Right.

B

And we can, like, there's all kinds of conversation about whether grandpa was 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 run. Like, let's get someone who fishes for lobsters Is there anything wrong with that approach, that sort of casting call approach to it?

C

I think it assumes that we know who can win, which sometimes we make a good guess. But 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, con law professor to run for higher office? No one. Who would have asked someone like Lauren Underwood, a nurse who was a black woman in a majority white district to run for office? Who would have asked aoc, who would have asked Ayanna Pressley, 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.

B

Yeah. And I want to talk about how the platinum thing 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. In part, once again, because Moraf and Fan did these interviews where they almost giddily admitted to barely vetting Platner. How do you think about the process of candidate vetting? It obviously did not work here, but like, what is a. What can one reasonably expect to find out? And like, what were the failure points here?

C

So I would say rotten for 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 a pretty good track record. And for those incidences have been things that have come up, like after the campaign has already started. Now, Purvez, 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 scraps. 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 are we going to find? Like, what is, what is the oppo report 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 for most vetting reports, what the candidate says in their own self oppo 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.

B

Yeah, I really have been struggling with this because as you, as you say, the process, you know, and it's different levels, right. What you guys would do for state Senate candidates. Differently, different than what theoretically should happen in a high profile Senate race. And that is light years apart from what would happen in a presidential race,

C

which is why you don't pluck people from obscurity to run for Senate.

B

Right, right. And who don't want to. Right. Like that. That is the thing. And but so in if you look at the platinum thing like there's, there is 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 had been doing it, doing a lot of Reddit posting in an earlier stage of life. 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 questionnaire is. Well, there will be now, I guess. Do you, do you have any Nazi like tattoos? Do you have any problematic tattoos? Let me disrobe so I can examine your tattoos. His Ted Nasty tattoo is not showing up in a LexisNexis or a Google search about his history or public record search. But if you had talked to lots of people around him, some of them might have said because this is one of the reasons why you talk to people is they want to help their friends and family do this. Right. And not get embarrassed. So they will often tell you things like, you know, just one thing I would ask them 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 am now very 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.

C

I do think it is worth thinking about what are the things good vetting would have found and what are the things that we never could have known?

B

Yeah, the Reddit post stuff should have been found for sure. And then you get to his relationships with women. I mean, I can't believe we're having to have this conversation about this, but the 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 had the exact question that you raised. She answered with there was this and the campaign made a decision not to deal with it in any way, shape or form or not to proactively disclose it. You know, that came back to bite them. And then the other stuff, like 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 Platner is a failure of 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 be Morath 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 platters.

C

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 for the people talking to him.

B

Yes, yes, that's exactly right. There were clearly red flags that in their interactions with him that should have raised more questions and led to more vetting. So in my conversations with listeners of this show, Democrats out there, there's a fair amount of defeatism about Maine Post Platinum. The sense that we had this golden 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 Platner.

C

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 throats for lack of a better term or down their choice, their menu. They seem to have set up a process that gives people a voice and it seems like all of the candidates who are jumping in at least have some amount of run through the ringer, whether they ran for governor, they ran for Congress, they are public businessmen. There's like, there's nothing, not as many nobodies. I am still cautiously optimistic. I mean Maine is a state that voted 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 Platner 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.

B

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 or the DNC and the DNC can then now thank you to the Roberts court, use that money in a fully coordinated fashion to spend it unlimitedly on behalf of the nominee. I feel, and maybe this is just cope 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 primary, everyone get a 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. There'll be a couple debates. It'll happen. But this convention will be very interesting. Lots of people will watch it. The people will get a test. This is kind of what might have helped us better in 2024 if other people had wanted to run against Kamala. They didn't. So we never had that process. But there's a testing ground here where you'll get to See if some of these people. 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 and 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 Platner or Mills. Platner. In this state, it's Platner before the sexual assault like allegation, just Platner as he was on primary day or Mills as the nominee. I think we actually have a chance that this race could, God forbid, be about Susan Collins, which is what you want it to be. Because in that Times poll were an even. Platner after all the stuff was going on, was still winning by two points by I think it's an 11 point margin. People in Maine want the Democrats to control the Senate. So if you can actually just make this race about a vote for Susan Collins is a vote to let Donald Trump control the Senate, put Supreme Court justices on, do all these bad things, like you have a real shot if you can just have a generic Democrat who is a, like not generic Democrat is the right word. You need a talented generic Democrat. Right. Someone 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 foibles. That seems like in some ways a decent shot. I still think we have a very real shot to win this race. I really do.

C

I do too. And I think the candidate who takes this nomination forward sort of has an indicator of where voters are now, can really speak to the anger that Platner, for all of his fuckups, and there are many, like he caught fire. 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 moves forward should be able to tap into that even if they don't weren't able to capture it in the primary themselves.

B

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 got to point fingers up, not down, not supporting each other. It's about the billionaires. That is a legitimately good message that someone else could also have. And it also is a reminder of. It does remind you because I think some of the discourse is it's all because Ponzi Merc has taken a lot of slings and arrows over this, but it's all because these dumb podcasts with other people like Platner that he wanted people forget he actually got 70% of the vote in the primary and blew the doors off the two term incumbent governor. He was doing something. He was the wrong vessel, but he was doing something the people of Maine very much wanted and they were all very well aware of everything up until this last until the sexual assault delegation, 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.

C

And I would add because I have also taken some heat here and I share the frustration of this was at no point ever a clearly moral right or wrong because at every point up until he dropped out, it was either him or Susan Collins and a Trump chalked Supreme Court. Those were the choices. Which is better for women, Graham Platner in the United States Senate or Trump Supreme Court justices? Ah, you know, like it was bad. It was all bad. And I am 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.

B

What do you think about outside of Maine? 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 in the Platner debate prior to the most recent stuff, but even through up into the Reddit post 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. My worry with this is, and I'm going to get to Michigan because I think these things are tied together in some ways. But I worry that people take this as a argument against taking risks, against candidates, widening the aperture on the countenance of candidates that we're open to because Platner was obviously a Very unique candidate with a unique background, but he blew up in her face. So therefore, ergo, the conclusion is we gotta be more traditional. Like, what's your take on that? Are you seeing that, too?

C

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 skull. She was Schumer's pick. Schumer cleared the field for her, as we have seen notice and others do very in depth reporting on like they kick. They got candidates to leave that race so that Janet Mills would run for the United States Senate. 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 stopped being able to raise money, but it is telling that 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 this proves that the establishment always gets it right and the new people always get it wrong. No, this is villains on all sides here. Everyone got this wrong.

B

Yeah, I think it's exactly right. I don't want people to think that this means that outsider candidates, you need the right outsider candidates, but outsider. We shouldn't have outsider candidates. And the conversation around this is so stupid, basically, because people keep saying, you have Fetterman and you have Platner, and I'm just like, Federman was the. A prominent mayor for lieutenant governor years and years and 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 just. No one wants to have the real conversation about this and just that 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. Everyone's got to reckon with the reality here. But we need outsider candidates. They don't have to be grand Platner. They should be better than Graham Platner. Our insider candidates should be better than Eric Swalwell.

C

Yep.

B

And Andrew Cuomo like this.

C

I mean, that was when it was like, well, the establishment does a good job betting. 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 Maine or a state like it, we will not hold the Senate. It will be devastating for generations. And the sense that, especially for people who really believed in him, it's a sense of betrayal, of grief, of like, I thought I had a politician I could get excited about and he disappointed me and broke my heart. And so I have some amount of empathy for 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.

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All right, let's pivot to your hometown of New York City, which has been ground zero for the rise of democratic socialism. Beginning first with Vandani and then the races that happened in the New York primary. Two incumbents were unseated and two DSA candidates. One races, one in seating, a long term incumbent, one winning an open seat. And then in Colorado where we had a 30 year Democratic incumbent, Diana DeGette, unseated 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 Kamala Harris won by more than 50 points? What's your take on what's happening here?

C

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, are stuck with student loan debt, feel like they have no agency in their lives. They are look into 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 the 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. You know, the fact that Mamdani was able to speak to the, not just the anxiety that people feel about their economic situation, but also like how they feel about what, what their life might hold. Like it wasn't just afford to live, it was afford to dream. It was afford to, to be able to imagine a better future for yourself. I think also DSA has built some organizing muscle in a lot of these places, which should not be underrated. And their candidates are selling something that matters.

B

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 Siena poll, every single demographic, every single age cohort of Democrats, a plurality of Democrats have a favorable opinion of socialism. Interestingly enough, I find this this to be so fascinating. The group with the highest approval rating of or highest favorability rate of socialism is not 18 and 29 year olds. It's 30 to 44 as millennials baby. Yes, I was telling this with ever I think 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 wringer in a way that is where capitalism has really fucked you at every turn. And you're also at the age where you want to be buying a house and you either can't afford to do it or it's more expensive. You can, you have kids, you're at it. But socialism has grown in favor and capitalism has lost a lot support across the board with everyone in recent years also understandably so. I think there is something to like. It was easy to dismiss Mamdani as a generational talent just like that guy could have. He could have been democratic socialist, he could have whatever. 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. 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 healthcare, housing, food, whatever else 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. Not every, but with a lot of leftist first center candidates that comes through that reads as authenticity and that you'll fight for them. I was struck. I remember there's a clip from the Diana DeGette Milat Kiros debate where Diana DeGet is making an argument about a public option which in a different era that was a position too liberal for the Democratic Senate in the Obama era when Obama was trying to do it. And it's like she's sort of living in the world of legislatively possible. And Kyros 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 is generational, part of it is insider outsider, but 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. There is real concern among even well meaning. I think people in the establishment, the people who are trying to win the House and the Senate, that this rise of Democrats, and I should say thus far, Democrats have not nominated any DSA candidates in races that aren't guaranteed Democratic races. So we're not in a situation where a bunch of these candidates are knocking off more. They're not knocking off, they're not running, they're not winning a nomination in a district where they would be very, very far to the left of the district. That's happening in the bluestreams of the country, which is probably how the primary process is supposed to work. But you do have an upcoming race of Democratic socialists in Wisconsin running for governor. But I think a lot of Democrats have this fear that this could cost us the House and the Senate, either by DSA candidates winning primaries where they are to the left of the district, or just being tarnishing the already tarnished brand of the Democrats. What's your take?

C

The Democratic brand can't get much worse. What are we doing here, guys?

B

But we're going to try, I'll tell you that.

C

You know, I do think that just to speak to that particular point where 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 healthcare. 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 are thinking about the bigger picture here? You know, these candidates, where they're running and winning, they are getting people excited. 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, 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 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 had about 100,000 people raise 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 than we 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.

B

Yeah, I mean, it's, there's no question, you know, I'm not overly worried about. I mean, they called Barack Obama socialist and there were no.

C

They called Joe Biden a socialist. Like, what are we doing here?

B

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 you run is you would need candidates who are ideologically fit their district. These DSA candidates obviously fit their district. That the voters said that that's what they declared. And maybe so far there have been some non DSA candidates who have won some primaries that some people believe were against. I'm thinking about Maine 2. Randy Villegas. The establishment had a view on who was the best candidate to win. The more progressive candidate won. We'll find out in a few months who was right. Actually, I take that back. We'll never find out who was right because it's always a counterfactual. We don't know if the other person would have won. The DSA thing is, I think it's become, it's a little bit like the platinum thing where it's become a proxy for something else, where 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. That is true on almost every issue. It is true. The number of Democrats who describe themselves as very liberal has gone up significantly since Trump was elected. How Democrats feel about a whole bunch of issues, particularly Israel, which we'll get to, has changed dramatically. But that's not. That has contributed to the rise of dsa, but it's not because of the rise of dsa.

C

I also struggle a lot with like, what is the. Who is the target for that argument that like DSA candidates shouldn't win these races? Like, I'm a New York City voter. Are you telling me that I should pick my mayor based on who might cause tarnish to the Democratic Party brand as a mythical voter in Wisconsin? Like, what an insane thing to. To suppose or to suggest. I really, I struggle with this because it assumes much like the left assumes that there is some secret cabal in charge who can, you know, control how elections are run or Control. Control what candidates say. If anybody was in charge, do you think this is how it would go? Yes, yes.

B

Yes.

C

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.

B

There are exceptions. I am someone who generally believe I've gotten more progressive in my personal views as I've gotten older. I've also live in California now, so maybe those two things are related to. Sure. But I grew up working on races in red states and red districts. That's my background. So I'm very cognizant that you need people who meet their district and that you're going to need candidates who are often to the right of the median Democrat nationally to win. In some of these, especially, we want to expand the Senate map. We want to get back to a place where we can win Ohio, Iowa, the Dakotas, places in the South. We have to do that. But I think. I think more Democrats should generally be aware of the challenges, like just how the Republican bias in the Senate map, the Republican bias in the Electoral College and the reality of winning these districts. And you can't. What exists in your bubble is not what exists 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. Zoran getting elected to be like the end of the world, especially when the other option was Cuomo. I would just say there's a great irony between the most vehemently anti platinum people being the most vehemently pro Cuomo people. Just is a point.

C

I mean, just to like really hammer this home. If you were so afraid of dsa, there was a multitude of other options in that primary you could have galvanized around even right now. And I'm sure we'll talk about Michigan in a moment. Like, if you are so afraid of Abdul. Al said there was other options besides Haley Stevens, who they are currently having to spend $53 million to try and get over the finish line. It didn't have to be her. Mallory McMorrow, who you and I both know and supported and like a run for something alumni 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 centrist. 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 candidates who 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.

D

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B

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E

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B

All right, let's go to Michigan, which is the race that is supplanted Maine 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 Crooked, did a podcast for Crooked. John. John and Tommy have supported his campaign. I supported Mali Memorial. It's the one race where he actually had actually supported candidate, had actually donated money to primary candidates. That's not something that happened with Platner or anything like that. This is one where they knew Abdul. I know Abdul. I like Abdul. I know Mallory. I think Mallory's great. I wanted to support Mallory. So this race is now down. Mallory dropped out a couple weeks ago. It's now down to Haley Stevens, a moderate establishment back congresswoman. And Abdul said, 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 most online Democratic activists and pundits is huge. It is really established. It's everything right. It's establishment versus outsider. It's Bernie versus Establishment, I guess, or Senate leadership. It's anti Israel versus aipac. All of the above. Do you have a take on this race?

C

I think it is a preview of the 2028 presidential primary that makes me want to throw my phone into the sea. I know. It's just. I think it's interesting. It's hard. I don't envy Michiganders who have to make this choice. And I really hope that whoever wins this primary can build, like, build some bridges, mend some fences, because I think it's getting people really, really, really angry in a way that will be hard to fix.

B

It reminds me a lot of the 2016 presidential primary where it just feels very similar. And no matter who wins, they're gonna have to work very hard. It's a long road back to uw.

C

Yes.

B

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, let's just let the people, Maine decide. And I was very. I've talked about this many times. I just thought the Mills decision was sort of a political mistake. I thought the decision to back Haley 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 electability. And the argument of the Stevens people and Stevens campaign fairly directly is that Abdul cannot win or is at least much less likely to win than Haley Stevens. What's your take on electability in this context?

C

We have no idea. And I think the establishment has lost all credibility on that argument. They thought. They thought Joe Biden could win another term. Like, they don't have the, the proof points anymore to make the case that they know what voters want. Like, can Haley Stevens win? I don't know. Seems like they've had to spend a lot of money to get her through the Democratic primary. If she does eke this out, she's outspending Abdul, what, 10 to 1. It's. It's not even.

B

And it's 90%, 99% of that money or 90. Some of that money is from. Not the Hayley Stevens campaign. Haley Stevens campaign went up with their first ad today. As we're recording this, AIPAC has spent tens of millions of dollars, I think north of $30 million, at least on Haley Stevens behalf. And then you have some other super PACs. There's many things that anger me about this. And it's very possible you could 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 you could make that case. It's possible you could make the case that because Abdul is to the left, Michigan is the quintessential swing state now. Trump's won it to the last three elections. It's a 50, 50 state. We assume it's probably three to four, maybe five points to the left this time. If the generic ball looks the way we think it does, that a candidate that far to the left, if you look at political science research, is less likely to win. You can make that case too. But your point is no one knows. The thing that angers me about the Abdul electability question is no one is willing to just say what they mean by it. Is your argument that he's too far left? In what positions is it he's too far left on? Is it his position on Israel? The polling would suggest that.

C

Right where the American people are there.

B

Is it Medicare for All now super popular? It is popular now, if you did like Medicare for all can become much less popular over time. If it's advertising against right, that could potentially be vulnerable. But no one wants to say that because the Democratic base very understandably supports Medicare for All. Is it because he campaigned with Hasan Piker? Maybe. Do you want to make that argument in a Data for Progress Main May poll? Only 20% of Democratic primary voters knew who Hasan Piker was. But you can put it in ads. You could put what Hasan said. You don't have to know who he is. Is it because his name is Abdul Al Said? Is that what the reason is? No one wants like that's the subtext of a lot of this. But no one will actually say that. And that I always say I come at this from a very personal view because that was always the argument. Then when you say he hasn't been vetted. He hasn't been vetted. He hasn't been vetted. That's what they said about Barack Hussein Obama too often right after they called him Barack Hussein Obama. And I don't know who's more electable. I just 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 use the split ticket wins over replacement rating, but I think she's like at point she's 0.3, I think better than everyone, but basically the same. It's not a proven winner. And it's to your point is we don't know.

C

And I don't want to defend Hailey 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.

B

Yes.

C

Is so sexist. 100%, so, so sexist. And like, we should also say that because this is going to be a challenge, especially as women keep running, which they will like. It is very hard in this modern information ecosystem for women to run because you have to be telegenic, you have to speak a certain way, you have to sound a certain way. We 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 Abdul has done, they would have been mocked endlessly. It never would have been on the table. So 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.

B

There's this video that's been circulating that has been got that has 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's become a thing. But my guess is most people see that and have no reaction to it. It's really Online thing. And obviously I have bias here because I supported Mallory, but Mallory made some of those videos that are not dissimilar to the ones that Abdul's made torn to smithereens. Yeah. On the Internet for sure. Like whether how an actual voter would interpret I have no idea. But just. Absolutely. And so 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 aid. Israel has called it genocide. Haley Stevens has been a big. Has been supported by AIPAC. When she won her primary in 2022, she got a ton of funding from AIPAC. AIPAC, as I said, spent all this money in here. How do you think about APAC's role in this and the role Israel's playing? Let's start with Michigan, then I'm gonna expand it out to 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 it's on air funding TV ads is going to be paid for by one specific interest group. I don't know that I've ever seen them before. I've seen super PACs put a lot of money in races. Like in the Iowa primary, Josh Turek got a whole bunch of money from vote vets. That money really seemed to have come from the Senate majority super PAC world. And it's like a mix of different groups, but here you have one specific group with a specific policy agenda spending this much money on a candidate. Have you ever seen anything like this before? It seems concerning.

C

The only thing that maybe comes close is the way that AI was spending money in the New York congressional races.

B

Yeah. Alex. Boris.

C

Yeah. Yeah. But even that was like, not to the same extent. And I saw some really interesting polling in particular about the Michigan Democratic primary voters. AIPAC has a net negative 46 favorability rating. 78% of Michigan Democratic primary voters said they'd be less likely to vote for a Senate candidate backed by AIPAC. 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 do not talk about.

B

Never, never mentioned. It's. Yeah.

C

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 a 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.

B

Nancy Pelosi. Catherine Clark, the whip. Yes.

C

Yeah. Things are changing and they are good because that is where voters are. Voters 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 AIPAC is spending in this speaks to the larger very negative feelings people have about the role of money in politics. And it has become the ultimate boogeyman for someone is trying to buy the election and drown out your voice. Not great.

B

Back on Michigan for a second, one question I have is, is AIPAC going to support Haley Stevenson, the general against Mike Rogers? Because right now she has struggled to raise money. You know, you have James Talarico raising, you know, record numbers. You have Jon Ossoff raising record numbers. Abdul raised, I think more than $4 million this last quarter. There are Democratic candidates who are raising lots of money. Haley Stevens has struggled to raise grassroots money, which really matters because big dollar Democratic donations are down in this. So you have more people willing to give 5, 10, 5, 100 bucks and fewer people are willing to write $7,000 per couple maxed out checks. And so if you can't raise grassroots money and AIPAC is not going to, maybe they will be there. But it's, I just, is she better than Mike Rogers for them? I don't know. I don't know. But that like, that's a question. And like obviously if she's nominated The Senate Super PACs, Democratic Super PACs can supplement. But that's money's coming out of somewhere else. That's money that's not going to Iowa or Alaska or Texas or somewhere else.

C

I think it's a really good question. And I also think AIPAC has shown not the smartest of strategies.

B

No. Like they've elected a lot of anti Israel Democrats through the strategy.

C

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 where DSA is, but also aren't where AIPAC is in a way that like 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.

B

The vote of the House, I don't know, many people may not have been tracking this over the years, but the idea that a hundred Democrats would vote, the idea that 10 Democrats would vote against aid to Israel, the idea that Nancy Pelosi, the member of the House leadership, would vote against aid to Israel is. Would have been impossible to imagine. Impossible. You maybe get one Thomas Massie and what the Democratic equivalent, Thomas Massie or a Rand Paul. Like, the idea that people would do this in masses. Impossible. Imagine it does speak. And this is the downside of Apex and the Israeli government's allegiance sort of alliance with Republicans in most cases is if Democrats take the majority, how would a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries even be able to get, like, it seems like that's the end of the ballgame. Like, I don't know how he could even bring that bill forward.

C

I do not envy his job.

B

Yes, that's fun.

C

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 better late to the party than not coming to this party at all? When it comes to this issue, the point of persuasion is to get people to agree with you. And, and I do think there is still some stickiness around, like, well, you didn't say genocide early enough. You didn't, you know, you didn't, like, call it out two years ago. It's like, if I do it now, 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 growing this coalition, like, how do we make sure it feels like one that can continue in a way that is welcoming?

B

The way this issue is going to hang over the 2028 Democratic primary and the amount of people who are going to come maybe lately to be against funding or to call it a genocide or all those things is going. I mentioned this to Favreau last week or two weeks ago that we are one year away from what's likely the first Democratic primary debate.

C

Yep, I want to die.

B

So horrifying.

A

No.

C

Lie down and never get up.

B

I know, I know.

F

Hey, Dan Tabursky 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 scream. 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, secessionists, Internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into the world they want to see. Listen to Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Manifesto early and add free free. Right now join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

B

I want to talk about Run for Something, Right? I want to talk about because it Run for Something is which you started after Trump won in 2016. It is always the example I use of how really smart, committed people can make real change without ever asking anyone for permission to do so. You've had a tremendous impact over the last. I mean, you've now been doing this for a long time. We are year eight, nine and a half. It'll be 10 years in January because it'll also be you started an organization, it got thousands of people to run. I started a podcast to each their own, I guess because we're on year nine of Pose America. Now. You hinted at this earlier, but I want to put a finer point on it. After Trump won this time, there were much digital ink was spilled around the idea that the resistance was dead, and there was some anecdotal evidence for that. There was no women's march you saw. No one had protests and new brunch signs out. There was less protesting. No one rushed to the airports when the next version of the Muslim ban was signed. But Run for Something was a bit different. Like you guys had a different experience after Trump won. Talk to me a little bit about the enthusiasm you've seen.

C

So right after Trump won, we started seeing thousands of people raise their hands to run for office. Eighteen months later, it's over 100,000 people who signed up to run for office since then. More than we had 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 6 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 Tallarico, like Mallory McMorrow, but also like Francesca Hong in Wisconsin, 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 do believe 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.

B

What's encouraging about it is our party is a gerontocracy. There are so many reasons for this. You know it is, you know we went, you know, 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, then went further back of the line with Hillary and Biden and and then we also had the 2010 elections which gutted like a big chunk of the party because we lost so many seats in the post, in the, in the redistrict day after and Then first in 2010 in that election and then in the. So many of our state legislative candidates or state legislative, state legislators were redistricted out in that redistricting. And then we lost again and we lost like we lost a lot of the middle. And so you guys have helped bring up the like we missed the 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?

C

Oh, there's so many. Caitlin Dray is running for Iowa State Senate. She won a special election in 2025. She broke the Iowa Republican supermajority. She flipped the seat Trump had carried by 10 points. She is now defending that seat this November. So excited about her. Julia Salinas, who's 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 won the May runoff by 11 points against a more establishment backed candidate. This is in the Rio Grande Valley. It's in a seat that Trump carried by jest, 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 Broward County. He's an active duty Air Force judge advocate. He was served as one of the youngest special trial counsels 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. You know, I could go on and on. We have hundreds of candidates up this year of 100,000. As you said, it's going to be good, guys. It's going to be good.

B

So the party, when we did a lot of thinking after Trump won in 2016, one of the things that sort of everyone came to the too late conclusion was is the Democrats did not pay enough attention to down ballot racists. I do really do think that that focus shifted in the first Trump era. Obviously there's you guys, there was sister district, swing left, indivisible. Everyone is really working hard to win on these races. Lots of focus on Secretary of state and governors races. In the wake 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 have maintained that focus in Trump 2.0 or have we lost a little bit because we're sort of obsessed with Trump?

C

Again, we have lost a little bit. I would say in particular the donor world. And I will be very honest, everyone who's not running for House or Senate this year that can't. Like if you're not a House or Senate candidate, you are probably struggling, like run for something. We're doing okay, but we have had to be really careful stewards of our resources. Like just to put a really fine point on this, you know, Run for Something's budget 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 odd years. It has a $50 million a year annual budget. I, 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 it all that the Democratic Party just does not seem to operate from.

B

So is that a scarcity of people Want to write those checks or are those just checks going to the wrong place?

C

A little bit of color, a little bit of column B. So some of it is like we don't have enough rich people or you know, we, 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, 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 our partners on the ground who are 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.

B

It's just so fascinating because I spent a lot of time over the last nine years now, I guess talking to donors about my big thing has always been investing in media infrastructure, right. That, that we need to do medium and long term investments in content creation, media, product, democracy, media. You know, I have my newsletter, Cricket has, you know, all these things. But just beyond our stuff, just generally Republicans have been investing in stuff for like we don't. And you're talking to some 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 him 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, your $50 million could be found in two weeks of super PAC ads.

C

Yep, 100%. If I think about it too much, I won't get out of bed in the morning.

B

I'm saying I know I want you to be able to continue getting out of bed. You have a very important job and you have children. I think it's important that 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 from 8 to 16 or get to half of that 50. It's just truly one week of television

C

ads in Texas is my entire budget.

B

Is your entire budget, right?

C

And to get to the beginning of the conversation we talked about, 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. We're providing candidates with the skills and tools they need to win their races. Like why don't I, don't I have $50 million? I don't know. Ask the 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, when one person makes history, dozens and dozens or hundreds or thousands more like them say, you know what, maybe I can do this too.

B

That is a 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?

C

Runforsomething.net, you can look 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 2026. It is definitely not too early for 2027 or 2028. You can go, you can look up where you might want to run.

B

Amanda Lippman, always great to talk to you. I always leave these conversations smarter and a little bit more optimistic. So this is great.

C

Thanks for having me. Dan.

B

Thanks to Amanda Lippman for coming on. John. John and Tommy will be back in your feed on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Farah Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pel Aviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelly, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.