What do the newest generation of voters want? What engages them and motivates them? This is a question that’s central to 2024, as protests over Gaza continue on college campuses nationwide. Senator Claire McCaskill and former White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri check in with Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, Executive Director of NextGen America, to get at the heart of how to reach this important constituency. And a review of Trump’s Time magazine profile, in which he’s telling voters exactly who he is. Then, the campaign pros zoom in on Arizona as a case study of the converging issues that will be central in November.
Note: This is a rough transcript — please excuse any typos.
Jennifer Palmieri: Hello, welcome to “How to Win 2024.” It’s Thursday, May 2nd. It’s my niece’s birthday. It’s Mika Brzezinski’s birthday. It’s all very exciting. I’m Jennifer Palmieri, and I’m here with my co-host Claire McCaskill. Hey, Claire.
Claire McCaskill: Hey, so guess what happened this week?
Jennifer Palmieri: Oh my God, what?
Claire McCaskill: For the first time, Donald Trump actually was held accountable for his words. We have in writing from a duly qualified sitting judge in the United States of America that his words have caused him to be found in contempt. And I think it’s worth it.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: Just like, you know, we should have confetti dropped from the sky or something.
Jennifer Palmieri: Barrister McCaskill wants to relish this moment.
Claire McCaskill: Yes, yes.
Jennifer Palmieri: The courts delivered some validation and justice.
Claire McCaskill: Yes, yes.
Jennifer Palmieri: Good, that is good. So, and this week, as the Biden administration continues to negotiate for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, student protests across the country have everyone’s focus, which is the point, right? And Florida’s six-week abortion ban is now in full effect, making much of the southern half of our country out of reach for access to care.
Claire McCaskill: Well, with this backdrop, Jen and I want to check in with Cristina Tzintzun-Ramirez. She’s the executive director of NextGen America, and we want her take on how to engage young voters. What concerns? Is it Gaza? Is it abortion rights? Is it immigration? Are resonating with the newest generation to head to the ballot box?
Jennifer Palmieri: And there’s one state that seems to be taking on every issue that will affect the 2024 election, from immigration to abortion rights to inflation to election deniers, and that’s Arizona. So, Claire and I want to throw a spotlight on the Grand Canyon state as a roadmap for November.
Claire McCaskill: But first, we’re going to do our if we were in the room strategy session and we’re going to spend some time on, this is Jen’s favorite word today. I know she’s going to say it a number of times in this podcast. The “Time” interview with Trump was bonkers. It was just bonkers. And I really urge people to read it and share it with people you know because it is so bad. The things he said, and I know the Biden team is trying to amplify this interview and what Trump is saying that he’s going to do, what he’s campaigning on, but they need to do more. There’s some really scary stuff in there.
Jennifer Palmieri: Right.
Claire McCaskill: So, if you had to pick something in that interview that the campaign should focus on, Jen, if you were in the room with them, what would you tell them to focus on?
Jennifer Palmieri: Well, I think they lift up everything, which is smart, but I think they need better tactics to have something stick and break through. So, for example, it’s not just “Time Magazine,” right? This morning, the “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel” published an interview with him because he was in Wisconsin yesterday, and he would not commit to accepting the results of Wisconsin’s presidential election, right?
So, it’s like violence is left open. He’s going to decide if it’s fair or not. It’s the exact same thing that happened before. We know that 20 percent of Republican voters continue to express concerns about him. You have to pick a place that’s relevant to the issue to make it break through. You know, go to Arizona. Go specifically stand out in front of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors place where they count votes.
That was the scene of protests and, you know, people having their lives in danger because they were working for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors trying to just count people’s votes. Go to the place in Philadelphia where they’re counting votes there where people were threatened. Remind everyone exactly what that felt like, but I think you need the visual, you need a connection to Trump.
Also, by the way, remember when Biden went to the border, Trump followed him there. And then that was a way that Biden really broke through. Biden’s challenge is breaking through. And if you go to someplace that’s meaningful to people, but also meaningful to Trump, or perhaps there’s a history of Trump going there, you might bait him into the fight, too, which is, again, what you really need to do to get traction.
Claire McCaskill: So here’s an interesting thing that I thought about. And I think if I were in the room, I would suggest this. I think you’re right. You need to go to the scene of the crime, so to speak —
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: — to really break through. And you need to be disciplined about maybe picking no more than one or two of the craziest things to keep hammering. But this thing he’s trying to do on abortion is fascinating to me because he is saying over and over again, first of all, he is proud of blowing up Roe v. Wade.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yes.
Claire McCaskill: And second of all, that it’s okay whatever the states want to do. So it seems to me that this is time for Biden to show up at a red state. It seems to me it’s time for Biden to show up somewhere where he’s not going to win the electoral votes just to highlight what Trump is embracing.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: Trump is embracing monitoring women’s pregnancies.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: I mean, seriously, I mean, we’re talking about putting bounty on people who are trying to help loved ones get a safe and legal abortion. We’re talking about trying to outlaw medical abortions. I mean, he needs to go to a state the next time there is a breakout story, and there will be one, I promise you, of someone who’s been a victim of rape or incest or someone who has been near death because of a miscarriage, being prosecuted for a miscarriage.
He needs to get one of those times. And if it’s in a red state, he needs to go there because this is what Trump says is okay.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: And I think it really underlines the whole issue that, frankly, is going to move voters to the polls and it’s going to provide the margin of victory for him, this issue.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah. And, you know, tacticians will say, oh, you shouldn’t go to a red state because that’s a waste. He should just go to a battleground state. And I have never subscribed to that view because I think, first of all, he’s president of the United States and he should go everywhere. American presidents should go everywhere. It shouldn’t matter who the people voted for.
And women in Mississippi and Alabama and Florida, Texas, I think they would love to know that the president of the United States, vice president of the United States had their back, right? And I think that when you go to a red state, it breaks through in a way that it doesn’t if you’re making your ninth trip to Michigan, although he loves Michigan, you should like spend a lot of time there. But there’s something to be said about how you break through.
And the vice president to this point did go to Florida. We have audio from her talking about this issue yesterday where she went smartly in the day that the bill took effect.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
Kamala Harris: So, Florida, the contrast in this election could not be more clear. Basically, under Donald Trump, it would be fair game for women to be monitored and punished by the government, whereas Joe Biden and I have a different view. We believe the government should never come between a woman and her doctor.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
Claire McCaskill: So other things he said that are batshit crazy. First of all, he says he’s fine with firing anybody at the Department of Justice who doesn’t prosecute who he wants them to prosecute.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: That sends a cold shiver down my spine. Pardoning J6, all those people who attacked police officers and the fact that he’s going to make sure he has some kind of vetting test, get rid of longtime good civil servants and substitute in people who swear that the election was stolen in 2020. I mean, this is all really crazy stuff.
And it’s like he doesn’t think people are listening or paying attention because this is not how he wins moderate voters, crossover swing voters. It just seems to me that the campaign has a real opportunity with the more he talks, the more opportunity they have, the discipline that’s going to be needed is just not to go everywhere.
Jennifer Palmieri: And he’s really, you know, he always tells you exactly who he is. That’s what he’s doing now. And I think what comes through in these interviews that’s so important is he’s pissed. He’s pissed that he didn’t get into office last time because he knows he lost. He’s pissed about that. And he’s pissed that he tolerated people, that he said, you know, I won’t be so nice next time, right?
So this is like, you know, you always need to believe what he says. But it does feel like it’s a little different this time that it is as bad as it was. This is Trump with a vendetta.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. So what about the third party stuff? What would you be telling them in the room on the third party stuff right now?
Jennifer Palmieri: Oh my God, geez.
Claire McCaskill: Because RFK did this bizarre, let’s do a poll in October and whoever’s polling better gets to stay in and the other has to drop out. I mean, are they doing enough and should they be doing more?
Jennifer Palmieri: I don’t have a, you know, I wish I had a silver bullet on this. And I think that they are doing a lot. You know, they have very talented people working at the Democratic Party that are working to define him. What I think they’re doing that I think is smart is they are messaging that he is crazy. He has unconventional views. He has right wing-ish views. He’s propped up by MAGA world and they haven’t done as much. Voting for him is going to throw this into Trump. I think they’re going to get there. I think they’re trying to sequence this.
Now Trump is upset about RFK and is worried that RFK Jr. will help Biden. Regardless, I think that the Biden team needs to say there’s one way to beat Donald Trump and that’s to vote for Joe Biden. And they need to also message that this guy is weirdly propped up in some ways by the MAGA world and just keep him in that lane because that’s the least appealing to voters and it probably can be sustained the longest.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, well, it would help if people would also realize there’s a Cornel West problem. Now, he’s not on the ballot in any of the swing states yet, but that’s not saying he won’t get there. And then there’s Jill Stein. Is she on the Green Party line? I mean, they’re on the ballot in 19 states, the Green Party. Is that Jill Stein? Is that who that is or are they not nominated yet? I need to pay closer attention, don’t I?
Jennifer Palmieri: I don’t know either. I think she is.
Claire McCaskill: Okay.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah, I don’t know.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, we need to look into that because Jill Stein showed up in St. Louis on the Wash U campus. She was arrested as part of the protest here. And also the administration reclassified marijuana. I mean, to me, that’s an asterisk. I mean, it’s like kind of too late. You talk about the cow being out of the fricking barn.
Jennifer Palmieri: I know. But you know, without a change of federal law, there’s not a lot you can do.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. And by the way, it’s legal in most states and the federal government’s not prosecuting marijuana now. So it’s more of a banking issue than anything else, I think, for legitimate marijuana businesses in states where it’s been legalized. But half of the states have said it’s okay to use marijuana recreationally. Thirty-eight have said it’s okay for medicinal use, which is just shortcut for you’ve got to work a little harder to use it recreationally legal.
My understanding is in the states that just had medical, you can just go get a doctor’s slip from a number of doctors and it’s not hard to get marijuana. So, good issue for young voters. But as our next guest will explain to us, probably not as big as some of the other ones that the youth vote is going to be looking at.
Jennifer Palmieri: So when we come back, Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez, President and Executive Director of NextGen America, stops by to talk about getting out the youth vote, the college campus protests over Gaza and what top issues are resonating with young voters. Back with Christina in a moment.
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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. Unless you’ve been living in a cave this week, you are well aware of the ongoing protest and unrest and chaos, frankly, on college campuses around the country in support of a ceasefire in Gaza and universities divesting from companies with financial ties to Israel. This has been powerful. The news even reached students in Gaza who showed a sign of support for what was going on, on campus in America.
Jennifer Palmieri: Most protests have been peaceful. Some have escalated to violence. We saw a lot of footage of Columbia University, UCLA. But the showing of mass demonstration efforts does have poll watchers and candidates taking note. I would note that as high profile as these protests have been, the conflict in Gaza continues to pull low in issues that young people care about. So, we want to know what issues are the most urgent to this voting bloc and how can Democrats reach these key voters that Biden’s going to need to win?
Claire McCaskill: We are thrilled to have with us today Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez. She is the
President and Executive Director of NextGen America. She joins us now to talk about what this newest voting bloc wants and what issues motivate them. And should we be really worried about whether or not they’re going to show up for Joe Biden? Christina, we’re really glad to have you.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Thanks so much for having me. Glad to be here.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, thanks. We really appreciate you being here.
Jennifer Palmieri: All right let’s talk about the student protest. Part of the stated purpose of what they’re trying to do is to get their universities to divest from Israel. Are you paying attention to this? Can you tell us what has happened? Are they having success in accomplishing that?
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Yeah, I think just take a step back on like where young people are at on this issue and why we see this big generational divide, right. You are correct. In our polling and other people’s polling this is not a top issue for the youth voter electorate, which the youth vote is going to be critical for Biden and Democrats to win this upcoming election. But we do see a huge jump in young people caring about foreign policy and stating it as important for the upcoming election than in previous elections. So just as an example, in 2022 —
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: — when young people were asked about how important was foreign policy for their voting in the midterms, just 4 percent said it was going to be important. Of course, Ukraine was at the forefront, right? Now, it’s 84 percent, so it’s an important issue in the upcoming election. We see that close to 70 percent of young people disapprove of the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict, have strong feelings about wanting a ceasefire and questions and concerns about the Israeli government’s what they see as response that has, you know, even according to Biden has been over the top, right?
And so young people using the same tactics of the apartheid struggle that ended apartheid in South Africa are using a call for divestment from their campuses. And so this is the beginning of that movement in this country and so we’re seeing different responses. Students at Brown University, the University of Brown said, okay, we will take it up for debate and students closed down their encampment and they’re going to take it up for debate as a vote in October.
So I think we still don’t know what’s going to happen. Everybody’s asking me what’s going to look like in October? Look, it’s changed in 48 hours very dramatically.
Claire McCaskill: Right. Totally.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: So I don’t think we exactly know. Will this be an important issue for activists? Yes, it will be. Is it going to be for the overall electorate that are young people that are very critical voting bloc that vote overwhelmingly Democratic and progressive and have really almost wholesale rejected the Republican Party? No. But in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, you don’t need that many young people when we need to hold by just a few votes to decide to vote third party or set out an election to have an impact.
Claire McCaskill: So it’s interesting to me because I was young, but I remember —
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Claire, you’re so young at heart to me.
Claire McCaskill: I love that.
Jennifer Palmieri: Youth is a vibe and Claire has got it.
Claire McCaskill: You have to come back every week, Christina, every week. But I remember the campuses during Vietnam and I remember when it got violent. I remember Kent State. I remember all of that. The interesting thing is the Vietnam conflict people were losing their brothers. They were losing their friends. Their loved ones were being drafted. I mean, Americans were dying, young Americans. So it really gripped the country. And in a way, it is surprising to me that this has taken hold as it has since we have no soldiers there. We have no young people who are being forced because they’re in the military to go and wage this war.
And I wonder, is it social media that is the differential at this point? Do you think that is part of it? Why do you think it has jumped so much in terms of people caring about it, even though we are not directly participating in this war?
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Yes, I think this is the most progressive generation in American history. We think about the ‘60s as a high watermark, and it was a high watermark. But overall, if you look at voting patterns, behaviors, beliefs, this is the most diverse generation. They have a lot of questions, concerns. They are very social justice oriented. And they also have the ability now, right? People had young people friends. You said their brothers, cousins, friends dying.
And so that was the image that came home to them of people coming home and caskets are never being found right in Vietnam. Now people are able to see the devastation happening in Palestine and really the unevenness of that and seeing how many children have died and asking themselves, if you look at young people’s attitudes and beliefs, right, questions and concerns about how much American tax dollars are going to that feeling like they have a vested interest in it because they’re paying for it in some aspects.
And if you look at pretty progressive social media saying, why are we spending all that money on war there? Why are we not spending it here at home? There are just so many needs here for health care, for housing. We want that money to come home. And so I think that those questions are being raised. This is a very educated population. Again, I don’t think it’s the overall youth electorate. However, information is able to spread much more rapidly than you would have back in the day without social media.
And I also think it’s interesting. We look at the 1960s and these protests were about to reach summer. So a lot of these campuses are going to close down. I think we’re going to see the protests dissipate. But I also think you’re going to see young people stay connected in a way that would have been much harder in previous times because of social media.
Claire McCaskill: Right.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: And so I think this is a question for the leadership within the Biden administration about how they handle this conflict, because it’s not just young people, right? Overwhelmingly within the Democratic Party, people want a ceasefire. It’s much higher for younger people. But I think we’re seeing a divide within the Democratic Party base and the administration’s policy position overall.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, I think the ceasefire is easy to agree to. The harder thing is the right of Israel to exist. And clearly these protests have been embracing a position that I think most Americans would soundly reject, that Israel needs to no longer exist as it currently exists. And that is the problem, I think. Frankly, it’s a problem that if it was easy to solve, it would have been solved decades ago. This is really, really hard stuff.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: And we’re seeing that in our own polling. We saw that overwhelmingly young people support a ceasefire, do not approve of how the conflict has been handled. But when you ask them, well, what is the resolution? There’s a real divide. And so I think that we’re practicing in this real moment what the actual outcome will be. And I think that we have to remember for the young people, you know, we organize and move young people. We have endorsed Joe Biden. We want him to win. We realize the threat that Donald Trump poses.
And we recently supported a ceasefire as well, because that’s where most young people are at. And so for us, it’s been about also saying and understanding that Donald Trump on this issue is far, far worse. And Jared Kushner has even, you know, talked about beachfront, waterfront property in Gaza and how we need to take over the land because it’s very valuable. So, like, let’s be clear about what the threat is on the other side as well.
Jennifer Palmieri: I think it’s interesting. We’re talking about the more progressive sector of the youth population. So let’s acknowledge that. But to stick with this notion that they are, as you said, very concerned about foreign policy, that’s really interesting. I imagine Gaza is a big part of that. You know, I’m in my 50s. Some of my colleagues, I’m like, oh, well, these young people, they’re just finding out about the conflict from TikTok and they don’t know the history. I think that there’s just something bigger with the progressive side of the youth that it’s not like we’re not interested in the history. But we don’t think those ways have worked.
We don’t think that the judgments that were made over the last, you know, several decades on a lot of issues when it comes to how indigenous people are treated, when it comes to climate change, when it comes to guns in America, when it comes to Middle East policy, that there’s something more like this isn’t just a one issue concern I imagine.
I don’t want to say a wholesale rejection, but a lot of skepticism about what has come before and sort of assumptions made of how the U.S. should lead in the world and how the U.S. should operate its economy justice system in the U.S. Is this just about Gaza or do you think that there’s something else, you know, a broader concern roiling there about how we approach governing this country?
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: I think that’s a really, really important point, Jen. Look at attitudes, values of young people. You know, this is the first generation in American history to be worse off than their parents economically. This is a generation that, you know, yeah, when people were younger, they talked about climate change and the environment, and we’re just beginning to see the impacts that it will have over people’s lives and total destruction over our environment and earth and planet that young people are inheriting.
So, yeah, you might feel like you’ve inherited a pretty raw deal if you’re a young person. And also, this is the most diverse generation in American history. We just went through the uprisings across the country around George Floyd. And this generation is really also calling for a reckoning about the story we tell about the American experience. And so I think that is all part of what is happening both within the Democratic Party and our country. I do think what’s exciting about when we see what’s happening with young people is they are pushing and forcing our country to wrestle with big problems.
So just mention Black Lives Matter movement. Talking about the fact that we got the Inflation Reduction Act, the single largest investment by any country on the planet to tackle the climate crisis, which the Biden-Harris administration moved forward. That’s a lot of response to young people’s impatience and questions on that issue. The student debt crisis, gun safety, these movements where we’re seeing legislators take bold positions are also in part because young people are really building the electoral muscle and the movement muscle on the ground.
And we have to understand they work in tandem. And so I think that young people are clearly choosing the Democratic Party as the party through their votes, as the party that they’re going to remake the vision of the country they want to see.
Claire McCaskill: So in looking at the Harvard Youth Poll, one thing that I kind of honed in on, and we talked about this earlier in this podcast, about Trump’s latest interview with “Time Magazine” and some of the things he said as it regards immigrants. Now, to me, if you look at the responses in the Harvard Youth Poll on immigration, you see that people under the age of 30 do not see immigrants as enemy combatants. They do not view them overall as a negative for our country. They work with immigrants. They have good friends that are immigrants. They’ve gone to school with immigrants. They think they help our culture. They don’t think it is a harm to our culture.
I mean, if you had to pick one, Christine, if you had to pick one issue to really push to the youth about the danger of Donald Trump to the values that young people hold, which one would you pick? Because it seems like there’s a real problem with immigration that Trump would have with young people, the way he is viewing rounding them up and putting them in camps and calling out the military and doing massive deportations. I mean, to me, not that the problem in Gaza is not horrific and not that people shouldn’t feel passionate about it. That, to me, would be a big deal to the youth of this country.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: I mean, I remember 2016, I was six months pregnant and I had thought Hillary was going to win. And my father’s child is a dreamer. So that means he came to this country when he was undocumented as a child and we hadn’t fixed his paperwork because it takes time. And I have never felt so afraid in my life the night that Donald Trump won. It’s like I’m holding this baby in my body or like this was going to be my first child. And Trump is saying that he’s going to rip our family apart like and call my child an anchor baby, like an innocent, beautiful baby.
And so I’m very clear that like immigration is also about our power. Like I’m the daughter of an immigrant. I’m raised by a good white American hippie, my dad and my Mexican mom. And, you know, I’m very clear that Donald Trump and those folks are not just afraid of five, six to two year old immigrant Mexican mom, but they are deeply afraid of me, her daughter, a U.S. citizen that understands this country is mine and understands all of my rights and doesn’t want anything to do with the vision that they are purporting is a vision for our country.
But I think when we dig in and look at our polling, Harvard’s Youth Voting Poll, abortion, abortion, abortion, it is very clear, especially for young people of reproductive age. And we saw it in 2022 with young women saying abortion’s my top issue. Now it’s actually young men and young women because men caught up, you know, straight men that are having sex with women caught up and are like, oh, shit, this is going to also impact me and deciding when I get to have a family, a baby, and then just talking about the threat of democracy.
You have to remember, some young people that are 18 years old were 10 years old when Donald Trump won. And they don’t fully remember because they probably had good parents that shielded them from hearing the cries of babies being ripped from their mothers at the border, from the sight of Heather Heyer being run over by white supremacists that he called some of very fine people and saying he liked to grab women by the pussy. They probably don’t remember that because their parents had shielded them from that. And so that’s what we have to educate and remind young people about. And then they are very clear to turn out and vote for Democrats.
Claire McCaskill: What a concept that parents have to do that. You know, I said all along that the way we fix this problem, the way this election becomes a runaway is we just need to let men be able to get pregnant, because if men could get pregnant, they would feel as strongly about this as women do. And there’s a real difference.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Landslide. It would be a landslide. Oh my God.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. At least in the Harvard poll, it was like, it was unbelievable the difference between the support for Biden among men versus women. I mean, women, it was like 33 points and men, it was like six or seven. And it was like —
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: Okay, you know, we feel this more than you do, guys and you need to get on board here. What about what’s working and talking to young people, right? The media ecosystem is so disparate. What does work? What do you find in works and reach people?
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Yeah, I think what we have to remember is like social media is important, but also who’s loudest online is not necessarily like where the general electorate is at. And so the general youth electorate are really focused on abortion, their rights to decide what happened with their own bodies, their own health, when they decide to make a family, they’re pretty pissed that some older white guys mostly decided for them and took away their rights back 50 years.
And they should be pissed and we’re glad that they’re pissed. And that’s motivating that I see what happens in Arizona, in Florida with a six-week abortion ban or trying to take us back to 1864 before women could vote in Arizona and you start to realize, like, what is the vision that they’re crafting for our country is just so backwards. And so those are the top issues. Of course, the economy is a top issue for young people this election.
But I think the Biden administration’s vision on economic policy actually really aligns with young people. So young people, 88 percent of young people support labor unions. There is only one candidate in this race.
Claire McCaskill: It’s amazing. It’s amazing. I do some work with labor unions and it’s amazing what’s happening.
Jennifer Palmieri: But what actual tactics work? I mean, I know that the Biden campaign is doing a lot of digital ads, for example. You know, we can argue against Trump. I feel like, you know, these are going to be the leaders of tomorrow. They’re leading today. I feel like they need to know Biden’s theory of the case, what he’s accomplished, have some faith that things can get better, right. It seems like you don’t want to lose the thread of what the Biden-Harris administration has done. Like, what do you think about telling that story? And then just be really interested to hear what tactically, what kind of communication channels work best.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Yeah. So for us at NextGen, we’ve found that we have to have a holistic surround sound approach to organizing young people. So we’re in eight key states this election, on 112 college campuses, community colleges, having hundreds of thousands of conversations with our volunteers and organizers this election about these key issues, about what’s at stake at this election. We always start with the issues and what young people care about, because young people care about progressive policy first and foremost. And then the candidate is secondary.
We know that talking about the threat Donald Trump poses is critical, but we also have to talk about the accomplishments of the Biden administration on progressive policy. And in my lifetime, this is the president that has delivered more progressive policy than any president, hands down. And it’s very much aligned with where young people are at. And I think that’s the other thing we have to realize is you totally have a right to be upset if you are upset about what is happening in Gaza and Palestine and the administration’s position. But if you organize, you need to think about who is the candidate I can push the most.
And there is no pushing Donald Trump on this issue. We got a lot done in four years. You want more? You haven’t gotten everything you wanted? Then elect Biden and Harris again, because you can push them in the right direction. So I think those are the important issues. And then, of course, reaching on social media is important with the right messengers and messages. We’ve never paid for a TV ad at NextGen, nor will we ever. We’ve always worked with influencers and on social media.
Claire McCaskill: Before we wrap this up, I got to get one more in. Are you worried about the youth as it relates to RFK, Jill Stein and Cornel West?
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Yeah, so we saw in our poll that 20 percent of young people said they were thinking about voting third party this election. But we also saw that that support was really soft. So as soon as they learned about like more about Biden and Trump, quickly you were able to cut that number in half. So I am very worried about it. I have a confession, Claire, and I hope you’ll still like me and Jen, which is that in 2000, it was my first election ever and I voted for Ralph Nader in Ohio. And I think back about like my vote, along with a few others, could have added up to the difference.
And we would have moved on climate policy twenty something years ago, we would have not had the war in Iraq. Like I was not thinking clearly or understanding the consequences of what that meant. When I think about where we could be 20 years from now, if we re-elect Trump, that’s very terrifying. And so we need to make that very clear to young people.
Jennifer Palmieri: Joe Scarborough made the point to me recently that if it were not for Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, there would not have been a Republican president elected in this century.
Claire McCaskill: There you go.
Jennifer Palmieri: Isn’t that bonkers?
Claire McCaskill: It is bonkers.
Jennifer Palmieri: Hello, people. That’s great.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: And look at how much more we’ve gotten done. If you’re a young progressive, look how much more we’ve gotten done by working within the Democratic Party than shouting at the gates on the outside and not even being able to move. Inflation Reduction Act, gun safety, student debt, you name it, we’ve moved.
Jennifer Palmieri: Okay, so like the big fear is like people will not turn out or that the double haters, the people who are turned off by Biden, turned off by Trump will stay home. You’re going to be doing a lot of messaging in the campaigns. We do a lot of messaging between now and the election to young people. Like, how are you feeling about this? Are they so turned off that they won’t turn out?
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: I mean, what you have to understand, 2022, there’s the headlines and then there’s behavior, right? Like so in 2022 and in 2020, if you read the headlines before the election, it was like young people down on Dems and not going to turn out, don’t like Biden. 2020 and ‘22 happened and young people turned out in record numbers and voted for Democrats in record numbers. In fact, they voted so overwhelmingly for Democrats in 2022 that it canceled out the Republican boomer vote, which makes up a much larger share of the electorate.
So we need young people to turn out. But it doesn’t happen without organizing. It doesn’t happen without understanding this is an audience you have to persuade. And I think the Biden administration needs to react and speak to the concerns that young people have on some of their foreign policy positions. For me, I absolutely will do everything for Biden and Harris to win again. And we’re going to organize and speak to millions of young people. But young people will give you heart palpitations because they like to turn out and make their mind up right before the election. So just to say, you know, like know the headlines, but know the behavior and trends we’re seeing with young people.
Jennifer Palmieri: Okay, so like we’re way over, but what do you think that they should do? The Biden-Harris team should be doing? What is your advice for how they could better be dealing with the concerns over Gaza when it comes to young people?
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: I think that there needs to be a recognition and understanding that these are multi-faith, multi-racial coalitions. Jewish students have been very much at the forefront. And I think that is really critical to understand that there is a difference between folks having questions about the policies and procedures of the Israeli government and anti-Semitism, that those are actually distinct and different.
And so I think that it would be good for the administration to understand that. But they need to just listen to young people and try. And also their broad democratic coalition that is not fully aligned with them as far as their positions have been. We have not seen enough relief or humanitarian aid and movement, I think, as people would like to see. And that’s just very clear from polling. I can’t alone figure that out for the administration. But the administration needs to work hard to listen to its core base and constituencies because they need them to win this election.
Claire McCaskill: Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez, President and Executive Director of NextGen America. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today. It’s so good to hear your perspective, and hopefully we can have you back and you can give us heart palpitations in October about whether or not the youth vote is going to turn out in the margins they should for President Biden.
Christina Tzintzun-Ramirez: Yay! So great. Thank you so much.
Jennifer Palmieri: We’ll take a quick pause here, but when we’re back, we’ll spotlight a state that is knee-deep in all the issues that will be relevant in November. We’ll be right back.
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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. It’s been fascinating to watch the issues that are top of mind for the 2024 elections come into sharp focus. They continue to attack on women’s health, has fired up a huge cluster of voters, and so has immigration.
Jennifer Palmieri: Pair that with inflation and the continued legal fallout from attempts to overturn the last election, and it’s quite a cocktail. One state has a host of these issues converging right now that makes it a perfect case study of 2024, and that is Arizona.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, Arizona is a deal —
Jennifer Palmieri: Man.
Claire McCaskill: — from top to bottom. You have everything going on in Arizona. The fight for democracy, the fight for women’s health, the fight for the United States Senate, the fight to defeat Kari Lake.
Jennifer Palmieri: That’s what she means, friends. She means Kari Lake.
Claire McCaskill: So here we go. Let’s go through them and try to quickly remind people that what’s going on in Arizona is truly a microcosm of what the issues are going to be that are going to matter if we’re going to win in 2024.
Jennifer Palmieri: Okay, so we have abortion. So people remember that a few weeks ago, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law. Let’s just remind ourselves that was before women could vote. That was before Arizona was even a state. But they voted to repeal this yesterday. The state legislature did. Senate approved it. Two Republicans joined Arizona Democrats. This will likely make its way to a ballot initiative that’ll be on the ballot in November.
Some people said like, oh, the Democrats shouldn’t have done that because now it won’t be as salient as an issue. Couple things. If you can save women’s lives, you need to do it. So, you know, they needed to pass this law. My understanding, though, is that it is a 15-week ban, which we saw in Virginia, that’s what the Virginia Republican governor tried to run on that to win his midterm elections. It did not succeed, even though there’s kind of polling that has said that position has been popular.
I think my experience and also my experience in Arizona and being there in 2022, telling women in Arizona what they can and cannot do does not go over well. And it’s just, you know, going back to Sandra Day O’Connor, you know, the McCain family, you know, that really, really seemed to resonate with people. If you looked at the advertising in ‘22 with Mark Kelly, successful Senate race to be re-elected. Governor Katie Hobbs, she’s beat Kari like the last time. It was almost all abortion. So, it’s a big issue everywhere. I think it will continue to be a very big issue in Arizona.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. And Arizona is the border state.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: I mean, they’ve had more migrants crossing the border in Arizona than any other section of the 2000 mile southern border this year and this fiscal year.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah, they get it. They get immigration and what it means. And they don’t like people playing politics with it, playing games with it.
Claire McCaskill: Well, it’s a real issue for, you know, the moderate voters that are going to decide these elections in Arizona. They know something needs to be done. And you and I’ve talked about this before. We’re going to keep talking about it because I think how you win 2024 has a lot to do with leaning into the immigration problem and acknowledging why we want to be a country of immigrants, because we are and that there are so many positive things that people who come to this country contribute.
We’ve got a problem securing the border in a way that is lawful, legal and not chaotic. And I think that it’s going to be really important in Arizona to deal with that. And then, you know, talk a little bit about democracy in Arizona. That’s a big one there.
Jennifer Palmieri: It is a big one. I spent time in ‘22, like the week after the election, Tuesday to Sunday in Maricopa County, where they’re still counting ballots for the Senate race. And, you know, the trauma that that state went through, not just in ‘20, but recall there was recount after recount after recount, the ridiculous Cyber Ninja audit that Republicans in the state legislature required Maricopa County to do. Even the crazy Cyber Ninjas that were not on the side of the Democrats found that Joe Biden got four more votes than Arizona have found.
But they still accused Arizona or Maricopa County, in particular, of there having been some kinds of fraud. And even then, Maricopa County went through to their credit and refuted every single charge. I believe there was like 90 of them. But it’s been really interesting to watch how they combat disinformation. And it’s really the local leaders on the ground that are doing this.
They will not tolerate any disinformation. They’ve refuted and they do it right away in real time. And I could just feel it had an impact in that state. So when you start talking about we didn’t win here or, you know, that Biden didn’t win there, that really strikes a chord with Arizonans. And I think it’s more powerful there because of what they went through.
Claire McCaskill: And keep in mind that Republican Party —
Jennifer Palmieri: And they got indicted last week.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, that’s why I was just going to say.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: I was going to say that the people that control the Republican Party in Arizona are not the John McCain Republicans that Kari Lake wanted to tell them to get the hell out of the room and get the hell out of the Republican Party. It is all MAGA. I mean, this is actually what happened. They indict folks on the false elector scheme, including an unindicted co-conspirator by the name of Fat Orange Man sitting on a golf cart.
Then one of the guys that was indicted was elected by the Republican Party like a week later to be the Republican National Committeeman.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: So it is crazy. But I don’t think we can stop talking about Arizona without —
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: — acknowledging an issue that I think that the White House has not yet figured out. And if we’re going to win in 2024, it is being realistic that while the overall inflation number has come down, inflation remains a huge issue for voters in this country. And nowhere do you feel that more acutely than in Arizona. Because there’s so much transition in their state, the housing costs are really important because people are more transient and there’s more income and there’s more shift. The housing costs, the interest rates, the food costs, it has really hit.
Arizona had some of the highest inflation in the country. And even though it’s better now, I think the White House, ignoring inflation in Arizona, they should do so at their own peril.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah, because it is it’s not the same in every state. It’s a really important point. It’s really important point that, you know, housing prices in Arizona are so high and, you know, people are blaming interest rates for that. I have noticed a change in the messaging some but the president talks about bringing down costs and what he’s done to bring down costs. I know that some of the people that won in ‘22.
Whitmer was very effective at this. Her ads were mostly geared to here’s what I’ve done. Yes, things cost too much and not like the economy is doing better. Therefore, it’s okay. These are the specific steps I have taken to deal with costs and they probably need to do that here. Plus, the other thing with Arizona and closing out here is just that electorate is always changing. Vast demographic changes shifted Arizona, you know, reliably Republican, seldom contested to being up for grabs. Also people move in and out of that state a lot as well. It’s sort of a transient state.
So what it does in one cycle, you can’t count on the next. Biden’s not doing as well there right now as he ultimately did in ‘20. So it’s a really great microcosm of all of the issues.
Claire McCaskill: Yep. And by the way, on inflation, I don’t think people realize what has happened in the food sector of our economy, the consolidation, the corporate consolidation and the fact that just a handful of companies are controlling food sometimes from the birth of an animal until the table and shrinkflation and the things they’ve done to lower portion sizes, but not the cost of the item, that there is big profit in these big corporations and there’s not enough competition.
So food costs are staying unnaturally high because of this corporate consolidation. I think it’s a real important piece for people. And if I were in the room, I’d be telling the Biden campaign to focus more on that because corporations are not exactly popular. And that really is part of the huge problem we have with food costs in America right now. It’s not the farmers that are making out. It’s these big corporate guys that are making out. Yeah.
Jennifer Palmieri: Okay, by the way, our team here did fact check it for us. And Jill Stein is not yet the nominee for the Green Party. Their convention is in August. So she’s seeking the nomination.
Claire McCaskill: Oh, there you go. There you go.
Jennifer Palmieri: Okay. Thanks so much for listening. If you have a question for us, you can send it to howtowinquestions@nbcuni.com or you can leave us a voicemail at 646-974-4194 and we might answer it on the pod. And remember to subscribe to MSNBC’s “How To Win” newsletter to get weekly insights on this year’s key races sent straight to your inbox. Visit the link in our show notes to sign up.
Claire McCaskill: This show is produced by Vicki Vergolina. Janmaris Perez is our associate producer. Bob Mallory is our audio engineer and our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes. Ayesha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio. And Rebecca Kutler is the senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC.
Jennifer Palmieri: Search for “How To Win 2024” wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.