Last night felt like a make-or-break moment for Democrats, as voters handed decisive victories to the party, especially in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City. The three candidates that won in those places (Mikie Sherrill, Abigail Spanberger, and Zohran Mamdani respectively) are very different from each other and ran very different campaigns, showing that there isn’t only one face of the Democratic party.
David Plouffe, Democratic strategist and former campaign manager to Barack Obama, joins Jen Psaki and Lis Smith to analyze the races, the key takeaways, and how the Dems can take advantage of the momentum to stage a return to power.
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NOTE: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
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Jen Psaki: Welcome back to episode five of The Blueprint. We have a lot to talk about today. It’s always fun when there’s results. And then you can talk about the path forward in the next elections. So, I am joined today by Lis Smith, who is of course a democratic strategist. She’s done a zillion races, has written a book about politics, and we’ve been talking every week. And also, David Plouffe, who I will still think is my boss until probably the day I die when I’m however old I am. But he has done so many races. He obviously was the campaign manager for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. When he won that election, he knows a thing or two about helping candidates who are underestimated win, and is always a good tough talker too. They both are.
Okay, so I’m just going to get started. We’re going to have a combination of uplift and real talk during this conversation, but I just wanted to start with sort of all of the races that were won last night because there was a lot. So, last night was an absolute ass kicking shellacking for a night by Democrats of Republicans. So I just want to make sure everybody knows all of the races that were won. So let me just run through a few of them. And I wrote this down just so I don’t miss anything.
Okay. So Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the race for Virginia governor by nearly 15 points. That’s a wider margin than when I went to bed last night, which is pretty significant, the biggest margin of victory for Democrat in 50 years. She’s the first female governor of the state, Ghazala Hashmi, who is the Democrat running for lieutenant governor also won. She became the first statewide elected Muslim person in the entire country. Democrat Jay Jones won the race for attorney general overcoming quite a texting scandal. So, there was that.
Democrats won a super majority in the Virginia state legislature, setting the sum (ph) up for the redistricting fight, which we will also talk about. Mikie Sherrill won by 13 points in New Jersey, a much bigger margin than the polls suggested and most people thought was going to happen. Democrat Zohran Mamdani of course beat Trump-endorsed Andrew Cuomo by about nine points, which is a pretty significant margin. He got over 50 percent, also significant. Also in New York, Democrats held onto a competitive state assembly seat in a district Trump won last year, Prop 51 by huge margins. In Pennsylvania, voters chose to keep the democratic appointed majority on the Supreme Court despite a billionaire in Pennsylvania trying to buy the state Supreme Court seats. The Elon Musk of Pennsylvania will come back to him as well. In Maine, voter rejected new voter ID restrictions back to Republicans and voted in favor of a new gun safety measure. In Cincinnati the incumbent democratic mayor offended off a challenge from J.D. Vance’s half-brother and absolutely destroyed him. I think his half-brother got like 18 or something.
Lis Smith: It was 78 to 21.
Jen Psaki: Sorry, 21, not 18. Thank you.
Lis Smith: Hoodie Hoo Day, baby.
Jen Psaki: Thank you for the correction there. And in Mississippi Democrats flipped three legislative seats denying Republicans a super majority. I mean, that’s just some of the races and I will start just by saying it felt so much better to see winning as opposed to losing. I mean, it was exactly a year ago when I think Democrats across the country, it felt pretty downtrodden. And I had the honor of anchoring from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. that night on MSNBC, which is a period of time where we knew where it was headed and we had to wait for the race to be called, which is a very challenging thing to do, I will say. And at 5:30-ish in the morning we called the race. So last night felt much better than that. David Plouffe, we kind of know where you were, but how did last night feel versus a year ago?
David Plouffe: No comparison. We won everything everywhere by a huge margin. And so, you kind of have to go back all the way to like, ‘06 and ‘08 to have that kind of night. So, great outcome. I think it shows the depths of people’s economic anger and despair, anger at Trump, both because he hasn’t done anything on prices other than make it worse. And he seems focused on a bunch of stuff that’s unpopular. But at the end of the day, I think that, you know, winning New Jersey and Virginia by these margins is amazing. And I think some of the county level stuff underneath is even more promising, but you know, ultimately for the Democratic Party to get to where it needs to go, we have to reliably be able to compete again in Iowa and Ohio when the presidential race in the Sunbelt in the south.
So, we have a long way to go. So, I think we should all celebrate. And we had great candidates who ran great campaigns across the country. And like those margins in Pennsylvania in the Supreme Court race, I mean they were landslides. We really don’t see landslides in the state of Pennsylvania, but we saw that. So, it’s amazing. And I think the right reaction is to praise the candidates and the campaign staff who produce these wins, celebrate the voters who are showing they’re not scared of Trump and they’ll show up, but also understand that we got a long way to go to where we need to get to as a party in a country to put this threat behind us.
Jen Psaki: It’s a really, and we will, I promise get to all of that because just like any election, it’s like the election was won and then you have to move on and look to the next. And Democrats still don’t control anything in terms of the House, the Senate or the White House. So, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Okay. Lis, I know you had some winning races a year ago, so maybe you didn’t feel as dark as everybody, but yes.
Lis Smith: Yes.
Jen Psaki: Give us a little comparison last night.
Lis Smith: Twenty-twenty-four election night was oddly pretty positive for me. I had worked on Tom Suozzi’s special election in 2024, Adam Schiff’s primary and general election. And I was involved with a group that worked with 12, 13 members of the House in some of the toughest races. People like Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Jared Golden, Angie Craig, Pat Ryan, who were all able to eke out wins. And that night we decided we wanted to expand that group and make it a bigger group than that. And we called it majority Democrats and two of the members of majority Democrats are Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill. And so, an early victory for trying to retake a majority. But I agree with David that we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Jen Psaki: So let’s talk about some of the lessons people should take away and the lessons people should not take away. I mean, I have just been kind of walking around the building today and people have stopped me and said, so does this mean that Mamdani is the future or that Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill are the future? And I say to everybody, that is exactly the wrong question.
Lis Smith: Right.
Jen Psaki: It’s they’re both and neither, you know, I mean, they’re all kind of the future, because they were just elected to be the mayor of New York and the governor of Virginia and the governor of New Jersey by wide margins. And those are big jobs on their own. And also, neither in that, none of them are going to be running for president. And there are a lot of other people who will be, and you can’t take a lesson that it means that party needs to go to one way or the other. It needs to be a bigger tent. But I’m sure there are other questions people are stopping you and asking you, Plouffe, what is kind of the thing the take or the question that’s driving you the craziest since last night?
David Plouffe: Well, the thing that drives me the craziest is, and again, we should give everybody the right to exhale and be thrilled about the outcome, but that sense of, oh, okay. We’re back. It’s going to be okay. Both the country and the party, that’s not where we are.
Lis Smith: Yes. Because everyone is, there’s like a little bit of irrational exuberance right now, which is like we’re back, baby. And it’s like, no, not really. There’s is just like one in a lot of important steps.
Jen Psaki: Well, we’re not dead, so that’s good.
David Plouffe: That’s good.
Lis Smith: We’re not dead.
Jen Psaki: There’s some life in the body.
David Plouffe: I think your answer is the right answer, which is what unifies Mamdani and Sherrill and Spanberger. And some of the other races, you know, down ballot that you mentioned including in some tough places in Mississippi, these were Democrats who were focused on cost to living, affordability. The economic issues that people are dealing with every day. And they were standing up to Trump and offering to be an alternative to that. And so that’s what unifies and I think as a party, we have to welcome all comers.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: People who are center, we need some right of center Democrats, left of center and then, you know, democratic socialists, that’s kind of the unifying threat. I think the one thing to learn, and listen, Sherrill and Spanberger, I think did a good job of this. Mamdani was at the top of the list of really running a campaign that was like TikTok, YouTube reels first. And you know, for those of us, all three of us, you know, we grew up in politics where you thought about, if you have something to say, what speech are you going to give? What interview you’re going to give and that’s still important, but it’s much less important in like, what content am I creating? Every day across each of these channels, which is distinct to drive my message and reach voters who don’t ever seek out information about politics, they encounter it.
And so I think that is really important. Everybody running for House next year, Senate, governor, ultimately our presidential candidates, you know, you got to be creating content every day and that’s got to be kind of that’s what sacrosanct on your schedule. Right. And so, I think that’s what we can learn. And also, I think Mamdani is a good and Sherrill did this on energy prices. You know, it’s okay to like stick with a message. You know, my hope is it’s less about the ideology. I think it’s more about studying.
Lis Smith: I agree.
David Plouffe: Because every candidate should just be authentic to who they are. What do I care about? What am I going to run on? But the way you communicate, the way you organize has changed, you know, fundamentally, and it continues to change. So, I think that’s something we can learn. And I think it’s really hard for people of a certain age or who’ve been in politics for a long time. You have to rewire your brain. You’ve got to think very visual. Like, what to me, if, as I think about our presidential candidates, the ability to give a speech used to be like at the top of the list of like athletic talent. You’d want and the ability to give tough interviews. I’m not saying those aren’t important. The most important thing is to be great at 10-second videos and be able to go like on some weird podcast and be a normal human being for three hours. Those are very different skills than how we’ve normally assessed candidates. And I think some of these folks who won last night kind of show us an important way forward.
Lis Smith: Yes.
Jen Psaki: Yes. Go ahead, Lis.
Lis Smith: Yes. My take is similar to David’s, right? Is that there’s no one way to be a Democrat. And look, the reality is Zohran Mamdani who won and galvanized this massive turnout, biggest turnout since the 1960s in New York City mayoral, you know, bigger than the election after 9/11, that even though he did so well in New York, the reality is he’s probably not going to win a statewide race in Virginia, just as Abigail Spanberger, probably isn’t getting through a Democratic Party primary in New York and that is okay.
Jen Psaki: Fine.
Lis Smith: As David said, we need all comers. We need to drop purity tests. We need to have a big tent and a big tent goes both ways because I see some people and my sort of aisle of the party saying, we don’t want Zohran Mamdani here. And it’s like, well, a lot of Democrats in New York did and he brought out a lot of new voters and we’ve got to respect that. But also, I agree with David’s point about just having a message discipline and really sticking to issues that voters care about. Right? And for all the talk that Zohran Mamdani really like led the affordability focus. I would note that Abigail Spanberger announced for governor before the 2024 election. And in her announcement night she was focused completely on affordability and costs. And what that signals to me is that, we have got to meet voters on the top issues for them. And right now, that is the cost of living.
Jen Psaki: Right. A thousand percent agree with you. And one of the things I find challenging out there is, and this will not be a popular opinion on blue sky, which is fine, is that there are a lot of things that are happening out there in the country that I think all of us find immoral and horrible to watch. Right? ICE raids, what it’s doing to communities, obviously kind of these authoritarian tendencies. And I don’t love that word by Trump. But to your point, none of these candidates who ran in very different races ran on, I am going to get rid of ICE and I’m going to fight an authoritarian dictator. Exactly. It wasn’t like the core root of their message. So that’s kind of an interesting lesson, but I mean, Plouffe, what do you think?
David Plouffe: Well, I think, listen, I think atmospherically, you know, the price that Trump and Republicans are paying is people’s economic situation has gotten worse, even though the only reason Donald Trump won really was because people believed he would be better on the economy and costs than the Democrats. So, the truth is, you know, the deportations of people who’ve been here for 30 or 40 years, most voters are going to decide elections don’t like that, you know, destroying the White House, you know, basically suggesting that the rules don’t apply to me in my party. To win back the House, which I think is essential for our party in our country, you’ve got to make sure these House Republicans are paying full price because by the way, by next summer, they’re all going to be trying to suggest somehow, they stood up to Trump in one way and they didn’t agree with everything.
Jen Psaki: Right.
David Plouffe: We need to make sure they’re paying the price now for like they’ve stood by and went along and enabled all this stuff that has nothing to do with lowering your prices. And in fact, they’ve supported economic policies that are jacking up your energy prices, your healthcare costs, your food costs, your housing costs. So, the best campaigns I’ve seen are when candidates are running for the office for the right reasons. They’re very clear about what they’re going to say. By the way, sometimes that may not be the stuff that pulls the best, but you know, voters respect somebody who seems to be authentic and cares. Right?
So, you know, I think one of the challenges going back to ‘24 is the central question was the economy, and in every state, voters by a huge margin were giving Donald Trump positive marks from the first term.
Jen Psaki: Right. Yes.
David Plouffe: And Biden by definition, then Harris negative marks. Like it was just a terrible track, right?
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: I think what we’ve seen, this is not just America all around the world, any party that wins is an immediately on probation and they’re almost guaranteed to have a shitty election the next time. Right? So that’s going to be one of these challenges for Democrats who win is you’ve got to deliver, you’ve got to narrow what you’re doing for people. You’ve got to celebrate the wins. When you hit a roadblock, you got to talk about why and bring up the villains who are trying to prevent progress being made for people.
But I think that that’s another lesson is at the end of the day, the biggest dynamic was you’re not the party in power and the party in power is unpopular and the party in power is not delivering on core promises. So, it’s actually in a way fairly easy to take advantage of that. I think the question is in certain places we have to take advantage of the Republican weakness and them being in power, not delivering not just in Virginia, New Jersey, but in House districts in really tough places. We’ve got to win some Senate races in hostile territory. And that’s what we have to do ‘26 and beyond. But you know, meeting voters where they are, you can never go wrong with them. Right. And so, particularly when you have a good critique about the people in charge who aren’t doing that, and then, you know, you need to not just say, so I’m going to focus on it. You have to have some good ideas. So, one of, I think Mamdani’s great strengths was, you know, these were ideas that people both supported, but they were easy to digest on buses on childcare. You know, Sherrill talking a lot about a state of emergency or on energy prices. That seems real to people, right, and new in a way.
So I think that that’s the other lesson here. I think going forward is the stronger we will be as a party is when voters who decide elections say, you know, these Democrats seem a little bit different, you know. They are willing to attack Trump. They’re willing to attack the status quo, but they’re also willing to say that, you know, the Democratic Party hasn’t always got it right in terms of —
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: — their focus on the economy. So, I think there’s a lot of running room. The way I think about it is like thing about Michael Jordan. Okay. Like he’d going to halftime, they’d be up six, but like he’d be furious. They weren’t up by 10, they’d win a game and he’d be upset that they made a few mistakes. That has to be our approach, which is we have to win every race that’s conceivable to win including races right now that seemed really hard.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: Senate races in the Texas is and the governor’s races in Iowa and Senate races in Nebraska and Maine, like we ultimately to get to where we need to get to, which I think is basically gaining and maintaining power through the next decade. We’re going to have to win in a lot of places. And so that requires fully maximizing the Republican weakness. And this is something we should all be thrilled about as Democrats, like they’re weak. Okay. Like voters have basically said they’re not delivering. And I think when they’re not delivering on the economy, all the other stuff, the deportations, the rule of law stuff hurts them more. You don’t even have to really put that front center.
Jen Psaki: Okay.
Lis Smith: Yes. And can I just jump in quick on one thing?
Jen Psaki: yes, go ahead.
Lis Smith: because if you saw my face light up, David took the words out of my mouth. Part of the reason why Abigail and Mikie did so well is that they signaled to people that they were different types of Democrats. Abigail has been doing that through her entire career. She was elected in 2018 and she had that big viral debate moment where Dave Brat tried to tie in the debate 20 times to Nancy Pelosi. And she said, I’m not Nancy Pelosi. I am not Barack Obama. I am not the candidate in the primary supported single payer healthcare. I’m Abigail Spanberger. She was one of the Democrats who was very vocal against defunding the police. In this race she was endorsed by the Virginia police unions for the first time that they endorsed a democratic candidate for governor since 2009.
Mikie in New Jersey, also has a national security background, law enforcement background that she leaned on, but she was one of the first members of Congress in 2024 to call on Joe Biden to step down.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
Lis Smith: And I think having that track record of independence of showing that they were willing to take on the Democratic Party when the Democratic Party was doing stuff that was either crazy. Well, all those things are crazy, I think gave them a lot of credit with voters and other people would be smart to do that. You can’t just fight the Republicans. You need to call out your own party when your own party is falling short.
Jen Psaki: Let’s take a very quick break here and more from my conversation with David Plouffe and Lis Smith when we come back.
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Jen Psaki: Okay. So, this is very, for people listening who are going to work on their first campaign or are going to work on their second or third campaign, or maybe they want to run for office, let’s give them like some specifics here, because there are things in the environment that you can take advantage of, right? In this regard. So, there’s a government shutdown right now. There is Chuck Schumer who is an old, outdated leader of the party. That’s my view. You don’t have to share that view. Plouffe, what would you for candidates running in states that don’t have the demographics of New York City, or California, what would you advise them? What things would you want them to consider looking at to differentiate themselves? Or do you disagree with what Lis had to say?
David Plouffe: No, I think Lis is exactly right, but again, I go back to a good candidate is not going to need an advisor.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: To tell that they have a pretty good sense of like, why am I running, particularly if it’s like an uphill race.
Jen Psaki: What do I actually think? Yes.
David Plouffe: So, but my sense is there’s just so when you have a deeply unpopular Republican president, Republican Congress, and I think one of our strengths in ‘26 and ‘28 should be that none of these Republican candidates, certainly none of the incumbents, but I think even challengers because they have no independents from Donald Trump, no independent thought, they are just soldiers for Donald Trump and they are going along while deeply unpopular things are happening and our economies getting worse and worse. So, we need democratic candidates, I think who can properly indict their opponents and the Republicans and the status quo. Generally, that institutions aren’t working for people. Our economy is not working for enough people, but then say, listen. And one of the reasons I’m running is I think the Democratic Party has not done a good enough job.
Jen Psaki: Right.
David Plouffe: Whether that’s on cost of living, whether it was, you know, not being honest about Biden, you know, some Democrats actually care about deficit reduction. They should talk about it. By the way, Mamdani is one of the best Democrats about talking about, hey government sometimes is inefficient. Like, I think we, as a party became afraid to say anything negative about government because we thought it was playing the Republican game. I think Democrats, by the way, Obama was great about this, Clinton about this like, listen, when government is not working, we’re not delivering or being inefficient, we should blow the whistle because we actually believe in government and voters will give us more credit for willing to say, yes, like it was a good idea, but it’s not working. Right? Or stuff is taking too long. Bernie Sanders in a recent interview, I think this week was talking about his frustration with the bureaucracy, about getting health centers built in Vermont. Like we need more of that. So just let it rip by the way, I think most candidates, they should do what they feel. But if I’m running for the Senate or the House, I’d certainly be comfortable saying if I win, I’m not going to support any member of the current democratic leadership. Like there’s like so much room here.
Jen Psaki: Yes. That’s what I mean. There’s tons of space.
David Plouffe: We got to wake up, you know, so take it. So, take it, you know.
Jen Psaki: Take it. You have no obligation to defend institutions or defend institutional figures if you’re running for office, which I think is an important thing for people to remember. Lis, let me ask you about the kind of, and you and I have talked about this or texted about it, because the Republicans are obsessed with trying to tie Mamdani, right, to be the face of the Democratic Party. Now they’ve tried this a lot before, right? With Pelosi, with AOC. I mean, I think they tried actually Governor Beshear told me they tried to superimpose his face with Obama, right? This is kind of an old tactic. You’re still advising candidates running. What do you tell them to say if that’s not going to work in their district, which for a lot of people in the middle of the country, which certainly won’t work?
Lis Smith: Well, as you mentioned, this is a well-worn playbook, right? And 20 years ago was Nancy Pelosi. They’ve done it with AOC, Ilhan Omar, all the members of the squad, Bernie Sanders. So, you know, great. They’ve got one more boogeyman and I just don’t get all of the agita (ph) from some centrist Democrats about it. Because if you are an effective politician and you are able to win in a tough district, you should have no problem saying I disagree with Zohran Mamdani.
And look, there are two races that I think could potentially maybe be affected by that. I would say Laura Gillen and on Long Island and Tom Suozzi on Long Island. Tom has a little bit of Queens in his district and New York City politics definitely spills over there a little bit, but you know what they did, they spoke out pretty fricking forcefully against Zohran Mamdani the second he won the primary. And it’s not hard to do. You just need to be able to say that is one type of Democrat. I am a different type of Democrat and signal to voters that you’re focused on, you know, regional issues, your community, the issues they care about. You’re not trying to adopt the DSA platform. And so, I know we will see a lot of Zohran Mamdani, probably from Republicans in the coming weeks and months, but Democrats just need to have a backbone and be willing to distance themselves and state who they aren’t and who they are.
Jen Psaki: What do you think? I mean, because there’s this tricky line here, I agree that like Democrats should be able to stand up and say what they disagree with. He also tapped into, yes, in New York City, but an enormous amount of energy among young people.
Lis Smith: Yes.
Jen Psaki: Among a huge diverse coalition, which is, I mean the Democratic Party and democratic brand is not popular. Maybe if you’re a candidate, you care less about that. But what do you think, Plouffe, they should be embraced. Like, are there things because you know, I hate to, I’m picking on Chuck Schumer again and I’m sorry, but like he’s kind of like run away from the cameras when people have asked him about him and that can’t kind of be the answer, but is there anything they should be embracing?
David Plouffe: Well, I think his focus on affordability and you know, to Lis’ point, I think candidates can say, I may have different, you know, kind of remedies, but you know, focusing on affordability is the right thing to do.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: Right. I think now New York is more than any place in the country, a city of renters. But I think the Democratic Party writ large because there’s people who rent in Cincinnati, there’s people who rent, you know, in the Central Valley in California. I think our rhetoric on housing is always about home ownership and now it’s critical, but let’s talk as much about we are renters.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: Like we need a lot of people, that’s what they want to do. It’s what they have to do while they save up. So I think that, you know, was really, it’s not just the free rent, it’s that he kind of got how people lived and obviously the way he communicated, which is he was everywhere all at once. You just have to be. By the way, I don’t really love that. Like that’s not healthy necessarily, but that’s just the reality. Like, you know.
Jen Psaki: It’s kind of a Pete Buttigieg strategy.
David Plouffe: Well, but even more so, yes, Pete is everywhere, which is great. And he’s a great communicator. But if you look at the Mamdani campaign, I mean, they clearly knew their audience. You know, they had really smart, both strategies and tactics for each of the platforms. Like I think too many of our candidates more are starting to think that way, but they have to, right. You just have to say like, what is my campaign? My campaign first and foremost is making sure I am reaching people, you know, on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Reddit.
The other thing I think to learn from Mamdani is, you know, there was a joy to that.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: Which, you know, we always credit, but like that matters happy warriors.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: By the way, Trump in his weird way was often angry, but clearly voters, like he loved being out there. There’s no place he rather be. And I think that’s important too, which is when people get a sense that, well, this person seems like the enduring the campaign so they can govern, that doesn’t work so well. Like, so I think we can learn from that. But at the end of the day, the most important thing, I think both for Mamdani and the city of New York, and I would even say Democrats, which is just do as great a job as you can at governing.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: Because this is the second hardest job in America as the president.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: But listen, let’s be an optimist, you know, you mentioned, you know, Republicans like to have their boogiemen in cities. So, San Francisco, New York, like Daniel Lurie, I think is doing a very good job if he keeps that up. If Mamdani actually, you know, over performs. By the way, there’s two parts of being an executive. There’s like your agenda and what you’re trying to get done. And he’ll work hard on that. He’ll be successful on some of it, unsuccessful in others. And if he’s unsuccessful, I think he’s got to report back to his supporters in the city and say why he was, but then you just got to handle shit. You know, the snowstorms and the municipal strikes and in New York, lots of stuff happens.
So, if we’re at a point where like this time next year or deep into ‘27, we’re like, actually, like, the mayors of New York and San Francisco are judged have just really done a kick ass job. That is super important, I think.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: And so, I think we should all be rooting for that, but there’s a lot to learn, but I think Lis is right. I think sometimes Democrats, you know, we can just fear that like, oh, they’re going to say I’m like this person, that person. Just slough it off and say, here’s who I am. And the truth is the other thing I’d say about this, which is the Spanberger and Sherrill’s having success. And then the Mamdani’s having success. Like what are we most, we need great candidates to emerge to run for office. And I think if Democrats have a sense that potential democratic candidates like there’s room for me, I’ll give it a shot. Like that’s super exciting. Right? And we don’t have to over contort ourselves to, well how’s Mamdani the same or different than this person who’s running in, you know, Ohio. I think what unifies us is a fight and belief in working people, an economy that works for everybody that if you work hard and play by the rules, we’re going to do everything we can rely to succeed, a belief in the rule of law. You know, a belief in, you know, the right kind of approach to immigration and criminal justice. Like I think we know we have advantages on a lot of these issues even, you know, during the Trump years, but that’s the key thing is for voters to get a sense that all comers are welcome, but the most important thing is for candidates not to say, well, I’d run, but I don’t think there’s room for me in the democratic court.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: And like jump in.
Jen Psaki: I know.
David Plouffe: Jump in.
Jen Psaki: The umbrella expands.
Lis Smith: And I would just say that quickly, having that different type of background is really helpful. You remember, in 2018 when Abigail and Mikie first ran, there was the year where you had all these national security women. And right now, we are seeing these really fascinating candidates pop up like Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania, firefighter, Jamie Ager in North Carolina, farmer, Bob Pulido, who is literally a Tejano music star, he’s like the George Strait of Tejano music. And so, we need those different types of candidates.
But one other thing I wanted to point to on Zohran Mamdani that I thought was interesting is, Searchlight Institute put out this poll before we started taping here. And it said that New York City voters said that Mamdani prioritized affordable housing and prices more than the national Democratic Party. And that he prioritized the issues of climate change, LGBTQ+ issues, immigration and abortion less. So that also matters your focus. How much are you spending time talking about one issue versus a different one? Because I think a lot of people outside New York who didn’t follow the race as could say as like someone like me did, might have thought that he was out there with all these lefty positions on all these other things, taking positions on those things. He wasn’t, he was laser-focused on affordability.
Jen Psaki: Yes. Which like he is what’s relentless.
Lis Smith: Relentless.
Jen Psaki: I mean, that’s like in such like a fascinating, we’ve all communicated for a living and it’s like, wow, but it didn’t feel inauthentic.
We’re going to take another break. But when we come back, we’re going to talk more about 2025’s big night for Democrats with David Plouffe and Lis Smith.
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Jen Psaki: I want to talk just for a moment about redistricting, because I think the Prop 50 win kind of, was good. Good for Gavin Newsom. It’s good for the country. It’s good for California. It’s good for everybody. What do you think it means from here? Because one of the pieces, this is like, we got to have good candidates. They have to speak honestly. They have to be on the platforms. Meanwhile, the other side is playing by like a very different set of rules. Right?
So, in terms of Wes Moore has said he wants to do this. So, the democratic Senate president in Maryland is against it. That feels challenging. There are other states, but there’s not a million states where this can happen. How does this play out? And does this kind of matter as a factor in terms of who Democrats get excited about leading up to 2028, which really is a long time from now, but sort of off to the races. Plouffe, what do you think?
David Plouffe: Well, none of us wish we were here.
Jen Psaki: No.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: But the fact the matter is, in every state that can produce an additional potential democratic district we have to seize that opportunity. Because that’s what the other side is doing. So, listen, I’m not sure in our next generation that will change.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: But if at some point the Republican Party says, we’ll put our weapons down and we’ll do redistricting once a decade like we used to, and won’t fiddle around with it. We can, too. But until that point, we have to do that because listen, maybe next year we’ll be such a strong election. We end up with 225, 230 Democrats. But the truth is, there’s not that many competitive House districts. So, this could come down to 1, 2, 3 House seats. So, it’s a math exercise. Like we, where can we make changes, Illinois is a state, Virginia, obviously more likely now after last night, which is great news, Maryland. I saw there, maybe it was the Maryland center president, but some Maryland senator said, well, after last night we don’t need to do redistricting.
Lis Smith: Right. Yes.
David Plouffe: Like that is the wrong lesson.
Jen Psaki: No. Wrong answer.
David Plouffe: Okay. I mean, I just think our view has to be right now and for some foreseeable future, the operating principle has to be, how do we most advantage of ourselves to acquire power and to maintain it? Like redistricting should be non-partial, humans shouldn’t be a part of it. Computers should do it all. That’s not where we are.
Lis Smith: Right.
David Plouffe: I mean, they’re doing mid-day redistricting everywhere they can so we have to respond in kind. And California is not a swing state, but still to win something like that two-thirds, one-third, I think that shows both, you know, kind of the anti-Trump energy out there, but there is a sense that, you know, it’s not like we’re the only one changing the rules. In fact, we’re just responding to this. So for me, it’s pretty simple. It’s math, everywhere we can change districts to gain seats, we have to do it.
Jen Psaki: And there’s got to be pressure on people to do it.
David Plouffe: Yes. Right.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: Because of what’s at stake here.
Jen Psaki: What do you think, Lis?
Lis Smith: I agree. Like, look, gerrymandering is gross. Politicians shouldn’t be picking their voters. We would all be better off as David said, computers were drawing the lines and maybe in a perfect world, if we ever get a democratic trifecta back, the first thing we do, or one of the first things we do, I don’t think would be like the super popular thing to campaign on is the first thing to do, but should be like a national ban on gerrymandering and just, you know, making sure that all districts everywhere are independently drawn, because gerrymandering is so bad for American politics. That would take an hour for me to go to. But until then we got to use all the tools at our disposal and also make sure that we are recruiting good candidates who can win even in the slight reach districts. We need to shoot a little bit more for the moon and maybe pick up a couple stars on the way.
Jen Psaki: Well, that would be good. I love your examples. It reminds me of like 2005 and 2006. And Plouffe, you ran, when did you run the DCCC?
David Plouffe: Two thousand. Yes.
Jen Psaki: So, it’s like.
David Plouffe: But I was deeply involved in ‘06. You know, when Rahm was chairing.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: You know, there’s people who won, who, you know, like the DCCC hadn’t even returned their calls.
Jen Psaki: Oh, no.
David Plouffe: Nope. Right. We were there. I mean, it was crazy.
Lis Smith: Right.
Jen Psaki: Bill Burton. This was like in somebody’s book. And on the night of election night, Bill Burton was like, who’s Carol fucking Shea-Porter? She was like, I don’t even know who that person is. Now she’s a member of Congress and she was for a couple cycles.
David Plouffe: Those are good nights.
Lis Smith: Good night.
Jen Psaki: It’s such good nights. Well, but it’s also some of these people who were picked were like people who were different and they were out of the box and they were, you didn’t know where they stood on a lot of stuff. Let me ask you, because we’ve all worked on a collection of, I don’t know, a hundred presidential campaigns. So, for all these people who are going to be out there, there are a couple things that feel to me. Like I would say, do they have to ever fill out a questionnaire again? I would say, no. I know there’s a lot of pressure to do that. But that’s one of my things.
The other thing, and I think about our collective former boss, Barack Obama, who had some positions at times that were not politically popular, but they were what he believed. Right. And that is authentic. It’s like, decide what you believe on the range of issues out there that are controversial and start there and then figure out how to talk about it. But what advice, because there’s going to be what, approximately five to 55 people running for president. Definitely not five more like 55. What advice would you guys be giving it’s so early. There’s lots of time. What should they be doing now to set themselves up to be in the pool?
David Plouffe: For me, it always starts with right now, spend a lot of time with yourself. Like, do you really want to do this?
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: You know, do you want to go through the campaign? Do you want to be president? Would you be a good president? Like these questions should still matter?
Jen Psaki: Why? Why do you want to be president? Yes.
David Plouffe: Right. And then if you answer yes to all those questions, and it’s like, what is my offering to the American people? And how is that unique and distinctive for me? There are other Democrats or kind of the status quo. And so, you know, I think there’s a lot of tactical things, obviously how you communicate, right. And the democratic nominee, we know as this is the one mathematical, certain will be the person who wins the plurality of the black vote. So, like that’s super important. Right. To think if you have a pathway to that. But I believe that, listen, this may seem naive, but there’s big stuff happening in the country that will, you know, A.I., aging population, climate change, deficit out of control. Like I think there’s a hunger out there for people who, you know, have some big thoughts about these things.
Lis Smith: Yes.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: Now that doesn’t mean you’re so up in the cloud, you can’t connect with people. You got to connect with people with like a core imminent, urgent economic message. But that’s my hope is some people emerge who can do that. But my guess is the strongest democratic nominee will be somebody who has the sharpest and most effective critique on the Republicans on the status quo, writ large.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: But also, you know, seems like they’re going to move the Democratic Party in a different direction. Like that will be a dangerously strong candidate. And you know, someone who can win everywhere because at the end of the day, you know, we need to win not just the blue wall, but we’ve got to be able to, you know, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, you know, these are places where we have had success in Senate races, but presidentially not as reliably. And as you know, what’s looming out there is in 2032, a democratic nominee could win all the blue wall states and they won’t win the presidency. We’re going to lose six or seven seats because of the census.
To me, it’s just a lot of time with yourself and your family. Like these are important questions, right? Because the presidential race is a crapshoot. What we’ve learned is there’s all these people in both parties they look on paper like they are going to be the strongest candidate. They’ve succeeded. Like DeSantis is a good example of it.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
Lis Smith: Paper tiger.
David Plouffe: You succeed off Broadway. And then you go on Broadway and as you two know, this is an unrelenting obstacle course.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: It is like, you know, a 24/7 practical logical exam that most people don’t survive. Right?
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: So, it’s who can survive that. But at the end of the day, I think the person who has the best diagnosis of some of the country’s challenges and opportunities and gives people hope that they’ve got the best answers for that. The other thing is to inspire people. Like I think generally the most exciting candidate wins. You know, we live in a tension economy. So even more so today, but that’s not something you can manufacture.
Jen Psaki: Right.
David Plouffe: You either have that or you don’t. Right. But I think at the end of the day, I think both the Democratic Party voters and general election voters are going to be looking for someone who excites them, who gets them to believe in them, who gets them to get involved in politics. And again, I think we saw in New York the power of that. Trump had it, Obama had it, there’s been candidates through the years have had it and they tend to succeed and overperform electorally.
Jen Psaki: Shouldn’t be drudgery.
Lis Smith: And David said in a lot of words what I was just going to say, which is, I think that we are ripe for another Barack Obama type figure. You know, someone who runs against the status quo, inspires people, has big ideas. We haven’t put forth big ideas in so long. So, I agree with everything David said.
David Plouffe: But much more succinctly. Yes.
Lis Smith: Much more succinctly.
Jen Psaki: I also would just echo the point about it’s really hard to win the presidency as we all know. And you know, you look at all of the kind of backward-looking analysis, which we’re not going to do now of like, oh, if only this person had been the nominee, it’s like, you know how hard it is.
Lis Smith: Yes.
Jen Psaki: To actually win. It’s extremely hard. And the whole process kind of reveals things about people, which is what’s interesting and exciting.
Before I let you go, talk to me about, give our listeners some kind of like hopeful, where do you think Democrats could win that people doubt we could win. You mentioned Iowa, Plouffe, which kind of stuck out to me.
Lis Smith: Yes. Iowa.
Jen Psaki: I mean, Kim Reynolds is very unpopular at the governor’s race. So, there’s that. Where else do you think Democrats could win that people are skeptical of and how?
David Plouffe: Well, it’s all going to be about candidate quality.
Lis Smith: Yes.
David Plouffe: And unique circumstances. So, in Iowa you have a popular democratic statewide elected official in Sand and a very unpopular.
Jen Psaki: Who looks exactly like Tommy Vietor, they’re related.
Lis Smith: Oh, my God. It’s so creepy.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
David Plouffe: It’s very eerie. It’s kind of disturbing, but I think that, so there. I mean, Sherrod is running again. He’s shown popularity in the past. Ohio is changed, but if it’s a bad Republican year tough economy, maybe. Can someone like Graham Platner if he wins the primary, be enough of a difference with Collins to win? So, and there’s any number of House races. So, I think, first of all, the principle has to be, we’re going to try and win everywhere. We’re going to embrace a lot of different types of candidates from background ideology to approach. But that’s what’s required because again, I think that, you know, to get to the point where we reliably think every cycle, we can hold the White House and the Senate and of course the House as well, but I’m thinking a lot about the Supreme Court, you know, you’ve got to have a wider playing field than we have today.
So, what that requires is in Iowa, of course, you’re going to want to do, just use that as an example, we can talk about your, both of you guys know Ohio. There’s plenty of great examples there. Of course, we have to maximize and do better than we have in recent election cycles. In some of the suburban areas do better in some of the urban counties, kind of, going back to how we were 10 or 15 years ago, but like in Iowa and Ohio, some of these counties that we’re losing 90, 10, 80, 20, we have to lose 65, 30.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
Lis Smith: Exactly.
David Plouffe: And so, when candidates who in those mostly rural and exurban areas can get a bunch of people back. That’s super hard. That’s why even in a good year, in a lot of places, those places will remain red. Unless, think about that. That’s big change, but it’s possible to have people say I’m so frustrated and this democratic candidate seems different than the rest and somebody I could support. And so, some of those rural counties become places we lose by 30 as opposed to 60. And they all add up basically into a big city. And that I think is the most important. That’s how I think about those places. It’s are we going to have candidates who can vastly improve what’s happened the last three election cycles in some of those rural counties?
Jen Psaki: Yes. It’s like the Warnock strategy and there are many others who have run it.
David Plouffe: People have done it.
Lis Smith: Right.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
Lis Smith: To win by losing less. And that’s how we used to win Ohio, you know?
Jen Psaki: Yes.
Lis Smith: You can’t just run up the margins in the CCCs. You got to, you know, do well in Appalachia and all across the state. In terms of positivity, I agree. Iowa sort of, is really fascinating this year because the tariffs have absolutely decimated the agricultural industry there, the soybean industry there. And so, Rob Sand is a fantastic candidate for governor. He’s been willing to break with Democrats on things like trans girls playing in girl sports. We’ve got great House candidates there, like Sarah Trone Garriott. I know I saw a poll recently showing her up against the Republican, she’s in Iowa’s third district, a minister who then became a state legislator. Josh Turek is running for a U.S. Senate there. But then some of the names I mentioned before, you know, Bobby Pulido down in South Texas, Jamie Ager, farmer in North Carolina, also someone who can speak to the impact of the tariffs. And then, you know, anti-establishment candidates in places like Pennsylvania, Paige Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton.
Jen Psaki: Yes.
Lis Smith: Whose campaign slogan is Paige against the machine because the democratic machine has tried so many times to bring her down and she beats them every time? So, it’s candidates with those different types of backgrounds and, you know, the right sort of issue stew in their states that I think could really rise to the top.
David Plouffe: And I would just add that. I think, yes, Lis, those are the examples of the types of candidates that can win in tough train, but you know, we have an opportunity to take advantage of this. Jen, back to some optimistic thought, like it’s not like Trump in the next year is going to get, I think, you know, a lot more popular, if anything could get more unpopular, right.
Jen Psaki: Easier to understand. Probably, yes.
David Plouffe: So, you’ve got to, right. You’ve got a bad atmosphere because of that. And they’re in power. So when a party is in power and they control everything and things aren’t going well and people don’t think things are going well, they pay a price. But all these Republican elected officials who are incumbents and even the candidates, you can paint them as being so weak because they won’t stand up to Trump at all. They are just basically letting all this terrible stuff happen to people and you can never have any faith that they’ll change anything.
So to me, they’re like a pinata and so what you want is the strongest piece of weaponry to knock the pinata in one shot. Right. But I think the elements are there in terms of their side. I think the question is on our side, can we take full advantage of what should be a really, really good political environment?
Jen Psaki: And a long way to go. It’s a perfect place to end some real talk, some uplift. A little bit of something for everybody. David Plouffe, Lis Smith, thank you both so much. I feel like I could listen to you talk for another hour, but we all have to go do more things for our day. So thank you again.
Lis Smith: Thanks, Jen.
David Plouffe: Bye, guys.
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The Blueprint with Jen Psaki is produced by Franny Kelly alongside Leah Collins, Michelle Hoffner, Andrew Joyce, Trisha McKinney, and Iggy Monda, additional production support from McKenna Roberts. Our audio engineer is Bob Mallory. Katie Lau is the senior manager of audio production. Our senior producer is Miguel Susana and Alex Lupica is the executive producer of the briefing. Aisha Turner is the executive producer of MSNBC audio and Madeline Haeringer is senior vice president in charge of audio, digital, and long form.
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