The Russ Belt Bible for Not-Losing: Time Travel Edition
"Big-ass trucks" and how to build an electoral majority in America.
Folks! Many of you have been absolutely clamoring for the return of the Russ Belt. If you’re reading this, you’re likely one of three+ people who have asked when I’ll post again. That moment has arrived. Thanks for the nudge.
What have I been up to, you ask? Honestly, after the election I got pretty into the NBA (gonna say OKC in six), watched Andor season two (creator Tony Gilroy is the GOAT), and read a sci-fi book about spiders (it was actually very fun and good, okay?). But this is a politics blog, so let’s get into it.
Real Receipts
Six months after my (frankly very solid) election day recap, we finally have the hard data: Catalist, the Dem analytics firm whose granular analyses both parties rely on, just released its 2024 report.
Spoiler: the election had very high voter turnout, narrowly beating the 2020 record across the seven battleground states. The issue for Harris was less that people stayed home, and more that huge numbers of traditionally Dem-leaning voters—particularly young and nonwhite—were persuaded to vote Trump.
Why look back? Heading into future elections, we need a sense of why Dems lost that is based in reality, as opposed to premature data or what our IRL or algorithmic info bubbles told us. But will we even have free and fair elections? It’s worth keeping an eye on. But if Dems aren’t popular enough to win majorities in the first place, they’ve got deeper problems. So first things first: how to win.
Myth of The Emerging Majority
Dems have a history of drawing big, wrong conclusions right after an election. After Obama’s 2012 win, early exit polls incorrectly suggested he under-performed with white working class voters. In reality, the full data later showed he won an impressive 40% of that group—which remains the largest voting bloc in the country, particularly in swing states.
But the damage was done. Within days, Dem strategists and media formed a narrative: Obama won thanks to a younger, diversifying electorate, and Dems could ride that wave going forward. NYT’s Nate Cohn argues this became conventional wisdom fast:
“For Dems, the implication was that they didn’t need to think about white voters—especially working class whites—anymore. They could more-or-less win without them—or at least without trying to win them.”
Even right-wingers like Sean Hannity briefly endorsed immigration reform in the days after Obama won, as the GOP rushed to rebrand itself as a “kinder, more inclusive” party. Trump would soon bulldoze all this by ramping up culture war rhetoric while downplaying unpopular Bush-Romney-style cuts to economic programs.
But this misread profoundly shaped 2016: Clinton leaned heavily into cultural progressivism rather than centering a bold economic agenda that might have resonated more with working-class voters—who ended up flipping longtime Dem-voting Rust Belt states to Trump.
Instead of sparring with the newly popular Bernie Sanders over theoretical economic policy details, or arguing that breaking up banks wouldn’t “end racism,” Clinton could have proposed her own attention-grabbing economic ideas—like a big Alaska-style national basic income plan she almost ran on (yes, really).
Today we face a second, different problem. Younger and more diverse voters, supposed keystones of the Dem coalition, are now also shifting sharply right.
Who Flipped in 2024, and Why
The Catalist report shows:
First, young and nonwhite voters are no longer particularly pro-Dem. Both groups still lean Dem, but shifted hard towards Trump—with both shifts almost entirely driven by men. Harris won only about half of Gen Z (Dems won nearly 2/3 in 2020), and just over half of Hispanic voters (Dems won 70% in 2016). While Harris maintained support from Black women and won 3 in 4 young Black men, the latter was down double-digit percent from Biden.
(If you want a smart version of the “manosphere” and “Joe Rogan of the left” discussions, check out this podcast from Sam Adler-Bell, Mathew Sitman, and The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz: “Did The Podcasters Make Trump President?”)
Second, the election saw very high voter turnout—including record turnout in battleground states. A lot of ink has been spilled over whether Harris lost to Trump or “to the couch.” Well, in the seven key battleground states, voter turnout reached a record (70.5%), a hair above 2020 (70.1%). While nationwide turnout dipped (66% to 64%), it was still the second-highest ever, beating the famous 2008 election (62%). So “the couch” had one of its worst elections ever (not a J.D. Vance joke).
Third, Dems also lost some ground among white voters (from winning 54% to 51% for white college-educated voters, 38% to 36% for non-college). These shifts, driven by young voters, men, and irregular voters, were small percentage-wise. But given nearly 3 in 4 American voters are white, with high concentration in swing states, even slight shifts have big impact.
What changed people’s minds? Well, voters were:
Extremely focused on the economy, inflation, and cost of living—and fairly focused on GOP-favoring issues like crime, immigration, and taxes.
Trusted Republicans more than Dems by huge margins on the issues they ranked most important.
Saw Harris as more ideologically extreme than Trump, believe it or not.
Were looking for a shock to the system, not the preservation of institutions.
To be clear, many of the types of voters who flipped to Trump have now soured on him. They can absolutely be won back. But Dems have to understand where voters are on the issues they care most about, and actively persuade them. Trump did.
Story Time—Once I Was Wrong
In the covid-y summer of 2020, I had a backyard political discussion with a friend, who asked: “Why do you always bring up demographics? Isn’t it reductive to boil everything down to how X or Y group votes? Shouldn’t we talk about people as individuals?” I said something like: “Well, sure, but it’s politics 101 that certain groups typically vote in certain ways.”
Welp, turns out my friend had a point. The Catalist data suggests that treating voters less like fixed demographic groups to be mobilized, and more like persuadable individuals with eclectic views, is getting smarter every election cycle.
This question—to mobilize, or persuade?—sits at the heart of one of the most important long-running strategic debates in Dem politics:
Mobilize vs. Persuade—Now A False Choice
Should the party focus on mobilizing likely Dems—especially young, diverse, and less engaged voters—through bold, progressive stances? Or should Dems prioritize persuading swing voters, especially those who identify as more moderate?
After Harris lost, the leader of the House Progressive Caucus summed up the mobilization view this way:
“The true swing voters don’t swing between Republicans and Democrats. They swing between the voting booth and back to the sidelines if they’re being ignored or taken for granted… The true swing voter is our multiracial, multigenerational base” etc.
Yes, many progressive policies are popular. And yes, Dems have often failed to deliver enough meaningful change for the average American once elected. But the past few elections complicate this point of view, as “mobilizing the base” and “persuading swing voters” are becoming the same task. It’s a false choice.
The New Swing Voter Is…Almost Everyone?
Even if millions of less engaged voters had shown up in 2024, Harris would still likely have lost—because these inconsistent voters largely mirror the exact profile of voters who flipped to Trump.
Inconsistent voters are increasingly a mix of young, nonwhite, and male—they are not paying close attention to politics, are not loyal to any party, and have shifted sharply right these past few elections. This means there isn’t actually a big trade-off between “mobilizing the base” and “persuading swing voters”. As Vox’s Eric Levitz explains:
“Democrats do need to try to mobilize their coalition’s most unreliable members. They just can’t do so at the expense of winning over swing voters. Fortunately, there is not necessarily a stark trade-off between these two tasks. Biden-supporting ‘drop-off voters’ were not typically hardline progressives.
Rather, such unreliable Democratic leaners tend to be politically disengaged and ideologically heterodox, much like many swing voters. According to Catalist’s modeling, the lower a Democratic-leaning voter’s propensity to turnout for elections, the more likely they are to consider voting for a Republican.”
Final nerdy point: Nate Silver ran the numbers from Catalist and found that repeat voters persuaded to switch from Biden to Trump had about twice the impact of non-voters who stayed home. A big factor: flipping a voter moves the margin by two votes (-1 for them, +1 for you), while turning out a new voter moves it only +1 for you.
The American Voter: Reality Check
Stepping back, an underlying theme of this blog has been: it is not easy to build a progressive majority in a country where huge swaths are anti-establishment, 3 in 4 voters call themselves “moderate” or “conservative,” under 40% have a college degree, and most essentially don’t follow politics or the news.
I’m not arguing Dems should go all-in on some purely top-to-bottom “moderate” or “progressive” platform. Voters hold eclectic mixes of views.
But as I’ve pointed out before, Americans by and large are “typically lean left of center on economics and typically right of center on culture.” What does that mean?
When Dems win presidential elections it’s not because most voters agree with them on most cultural issues—they often don’t (crime and immigration are particularly tough), or are simply less invested in issues that feel less materially pressing (climate change, protecting democracy).
Rather, Dems are popular when standing as the party that works to directly, materially improve American’s lives, from improving healthcare, to creating good-paying jobs, to providing housing people can afford and quality public schools. Dems need to find creative, attention-holding ways to fight and win on issues like these.
The most under-represented quadrant of voters are economically populist yet socially moderate—and they’re pivotal in high-turnout elections. How can Dems win in this environment?
“Big Ass Trucks” in Arizona vs. Harris “Democracy Talk”
You might be thinking: Hey, urgent things are happening—a military purge, pardoning of Jan 6 rioters, a GOP bill that could kick ten+ million people off their healthcare, and now Marines being deployed into LA. Yes, Dems shouldn’t roll over. But real power still runs through elections, even if work is needed keep them fair and free, and the next one is never far off.
Dems should support candidates who find creative ways to talk persuasively to everyday voters about what they care most about—even if those candidates don’t make a point to check every ideological box.
I loved how Senator Ruben Gallego approached his winning campaign in Arizona. He far outperformed Harris not by compromising on values, but by communicating in a way that resonated—joking about “big ass trucks”:
“I was talking to men, especially Latino men, about the feeling of pride, bringing money home, being able to support your family. A lot of times we are so afraid of communicating that to men, because we think somehow we’re going to also diminish the status of women.
The fact that we don’t talk this way to them makes them think we don’t really care about them. When in fact the Democrats on par are actually very good about the status of working-class men.
It was a joke, but I said a lot when I was talking to Latino men: ‘I’m going to make sure you get out of your mom’s house, get your troquita, or big-ass truck, and you’re gonna go start your own job, and you’re gonna become rich, right?’
These are the conversations that we should be having… These guys don’t want ‘economic stability.’ They want to really live the American dream.”
AI-generated image of a "big ass American truck”—combined with a psychedelic “time travel” vibe, per the blog title.
In contrast, Harris spent her closing argument talking about Trump as a threat to democracy, and moved away from her most effective arguments: the economic ones she pushed at the start of her campaign (about lowering costs, building homes, etc.—see slide 15).
While I believe democracy needs defending around the world, the best way to defend it is to win elections, not necessarily to talk about defending it. The deciding voters in this election were simply far more worried about other topics.
Harris also faced a ton of cultural attacks that went unanswered. One election autopsy found huge majorities of swing voters who chose Trump believed she supported positions she didn’t campaign on: taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries for undocumented immigrants (83%), mandatory electric vehicles by 2035 (82%), decriminalizing border crossings (77%), and defunding the police (72%).
Harris didn’t support those positions in 2024, but she had in the past. The Trump campaign used that history, including footage from prior interviews, to point this out, and the Harris campaign chose not to respond directly. Given how widely those perceptions spread, it would’ve been worth finding a way to thoughtfully address them, even at risk of causing a news cycle—ideally ending with a pivot back to compelling economic points.
Honestly, there’s plenty of blame to go around: Biden’s decision not to step aside after one term (despite implying he would), his difficulty at his age advocating clearly or forcefully for the party agenda, his policy wins that failed to hit voters’ wallets fast enough, and the slow-footed and mismanaged responses to Gaza, sustained inflation, and backlash over historic border crossings.
One caveat for 2026: midterm electorates tend to be smaller, older, and more politically tuned-in—and they’ll be reacting to Trump’s first two years. In that higher-info setting, a culture-forward message (i.e. protecting rights or democracy) could work again, like it did in 2022—especially if paired with a concrete economic pitch. My broad argument here is mostly re: higher-turnout presidential electorates, where the persuasion math looks different.
What Can Dems Do?
The data isn’t subtle. Dems need to meet less consistent voters where they are: focused on their “pocketbook” (is that still a thing?), often culturally skeptical or traditional, and fed up with politics / the system etc.
That doesn’t mean Dems have to shelve every priority. Take climate: polls show most Americans wouldn’t pay an extra $10 a month to fight it, yet Biden’s clean energy investments quietly helped cut U.S. emissions to a 30-year low, and now Republican House members are actually lobbying to keep them (we’ll see). Obviously this is a pressing issue with a long ways to go.
But the lesson here is not drop the issue. It’s that step one is to make sure you win elections so that you can find ways to move things forward. I think of elections like the “keep the balloon in the air” game I’d play as a kid. Once the balloon hits the floor—aka you lose the election—you’re out. Yes, there’s still important organizing to be done, but no formal power.
Building an electoral majority is hard but important. And misreading the electorate won’t win elections or actually improve the lives of the people Dems aim to help.
Okay, I think we all agree that this post has gone on way too long. If you’re still reading, I’m as shocked as you are—thank you. Hit me with a “what’s up” and, if you want, suggest a topic you’d like to see similarly butchered by the Belt.