Democrats Are Missing Political Layups And Dooming Us All

The Democratic Party has lost millions of voters since 2020, according to new analysis from the New York Times. Meanwhile, Republicans are gaining ground, even in traditional blue states, as more voters register with the GOP.

“We’re missing layups on the basics right now,” says longtime Democratic strategist Nina Smith, alarmed by the news. “We’re losing on voter registration in 30 states — the only 30 states that track voter registration between parties. We’re losing in every single one.”

This week on The Intercept Briefing, Smith, a former senior adviser to Stacey Abrams with more than two decades in Democratic politics, joined host Jessica Washington to explain why the party keeps failing at the fundamentals — like voter registration, building the base, and party infrastructure — while Donald Trump consolidates power despite record-high disapproval ratings.

“Voter registration is like the layup of Democratic basketball politics,” says Smith. “How do we expect to win elections if we’re not registering voters who are committed to us on our issues?” 

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Transcript

Jessica Washington: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Jessica Washington. 

The Democratic Party has shed millions of voters between the 2020 and 2024 elections, according to new analysis from the New York Times. At the same time, Republicans have gained ground, even in traditional blue states, as an increasing number have registered with the GOP. 

President Donald Trump’s disapproval ratings are at record highs. Yet, many Democrats still describe their own party as “weak” or “ineffective.” And as Trump works to consolidate power, Democrats remain divided on how to respond. 

In recent weeks, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has emerged as one of the few Democrats openly confronting Trump head-on. 

Gavin Newsom: We’re here because Donald Trump on January 6 tried to light democracy on fire. … And here he is once again trying to rig the system. He doesn’t play by a different set of rules. He doesn’t believe in the rules. 

JW: Trump, meanwhile, continues to openly embrace gerrymandering as a strategy to maintain Republican dominance. 

Donald Trump: California is gerrymandered. We should have many more seats in Congress in California — it’s all gerrymandered. And we have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.

JW: For the record, California relies on an independent redistricting commission. But in response to Trump, Newsom is signaling that Democrats can no longer follow the old playbook. 

GN: We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire.

JW: Newsom is countering Trump’s push to gerrymander, aka redraw districts, to give Republicans in Texas five more seats in Congress, with his own aggressive redistricting plan for California. Texas Democrats, for their part, have also tried to block GOP efforts to manipulate congressional maps for Trump’s benefit. But beyond Newsom — and, briefly, Democrats in Texas — few in the party seem willing to match Trump’s intensity. So where is the rest of the Democratic Party?  

To understand what’s still holding the party back, I wanted to speak to Nina Smith, longtime Democratic strategist and former senior advisor to Stacey Abrams. Smith is a communications strategist with over 20 years of experience in policy, communications, crisis, and brand strategy. 

Welcome to the Intercept Briefing, Nina. 

Nina Smith: Thanks for having me. It’s interesting we’re talking about this right now. I just got to say this, like even talking about the Democratic Party and fighting back, like we’re missing layups on the basics right now. We’re losing on voter registration in 30 states — the only 30 states that track voter registration between parties. We’re losing in every single one. Voter registration is like the layup of Democratic basketball politics, right? If you’re thinking about it, how are you missing these layups — like 30 states, not a single one are we leading in voter registration?

And so how do we expect to win elections if we’re not registering voters who are committed to us on our issues? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. So I’m flabbergasted, I’m upset. I just wanted to rant about that really quick. And share that even as we’re talking about the state of the Democratic Party this is exactly the problem.

JW: No, we’re getting right into it. I appreciate that. 

NS: You know, I came ready. 

JW: So let’s get into it. I mean, how would you describe the Democratic Party strategy when it comes to confronting Trump? Is it more reaction than strategy? 

NS: What you’re seeing right now is something that naturally happens and occurs after presidential cycles. The party that lost usually takes a little bit of time to review lessons learned from the loss — assess where they are from a money standpoint and see what they need to do to prepare for the next cycle. I think what you’re seeing here is that the other side is just much better prepared and it’s kind of been something that has been building for the party, I think for a very long time.

There’s been a loss of focus, I think maybe since about the 2006 cycle where the DNC last had a very strategic direction around building infrastructure, around voter registration, and around demonstrating in policy and in messaging who they are. That’s not the Democratic Party we have today.

I think there’s a lot of different folks pulling at the vision of the party. I think there’s a lack of commitment around where we do end up moving into. And I think, at the center of it all, we have a party infrastructure that is just weak and unfortunately aging in some regards and lacking in energy, for lack of a better word.

JW: When you say the 2006 cycle, I mean that’s a really long time ago. What do you attribute to the fact that it’s been that long in your estimation since the party has had a real strategy and a real organized on the ground strategy? 

NS: I think part of it is [that] primaries can be very brutal. I think there was a 2008 primary that really put the DNC in a position where there were other organizations outside of it that could spin off.

I think there were also different reforms that pushed a lot of the organizing to outside groups and weakened the party itself. And I think the party failed to adjust to what we are seeing coming out of the Supreme Court, when it comes to engaging in elections and some of the norms we have under the Voting Rights Act.

And so there’s so many different elements that shifted after 2006 and going into 2008 and even 2010 that I think the party just failed to adapt to those changes. And because of it, again, we find ourselves in a position where we don’t have committed donors, where we are losing on voter registration nationally. And again, our brand, people just don’t buy into us anymore. We used to be the cool kids on the block, and we’ve lost that. And again, a lot of it is party infrastructure; a lot of it is just losing the plot. 

JW: Yeah. On that note, I remember one of the last conversations we had, you mentioned that Democrats need to earn back voters’ trust that voters don’t trust them. And I’m curious, I mean, do you think what we’ve seen from Gavin Newsom, from Texas Democrats where they’re kind of pushing back, do you think that’s the way to regain that trust? Or do you think that’s a slippery slope? 

NS: I mean, I think it’s one way to demonstrate how we’re fighting back, but we also have to take the opportunity to communicate a vision.

Unless we’re doing both of those things, we just look like the opposition party, which I mean, of course we are, and we need to be fighting back and pushing back against an autocratic takeover. That’s exactly what we’re seeing right now. But I also think that the party needs to know and understand what we’re for.

The party needs to know and understand how we’ve been effective. We need to be communicating that out to the public and really engaging them on a very grassroots level. I’m talking what’s the state of the college Democrats, right? How are we investing in the young Democrats? A lot of these organizations for us used to be the farms to really find talent and groom talent and bring them into the party. And we’ve lost those things.

Even if you think about a local central committee for a Democratic Party, those are the local representatives at your county level who represent you and represent the Democratic Party on the county level. And if you don’t have people who are engaged and active on that level, the energy is going to be something that slips election to election. And we need something that’s baked in. We need infrastructure that’s committed. And that’s not what we’re seeing for the party right now. And that’s dangerous.

JW: On that generational note, younger Democrats have been pushing for bold stances on issues from Gaza to climate change. While, it seems like party leadership often shuts down these efforts. For example, my colleague Matt Sledge reported on a Gen Z member of the DNC who pushed a resolution against arms to Israel that was shut down by party leadership, even though only 8 percent of Democrats support Israel’s military actions.

Is this a fundamental problem with the party’s leadership, and does it risk losing or continuing to lose a generation of voters if they keep sidelining younger voices? 

NS: I mean, I believe there’s room for nuance and unfortunately when you have an older, traditional approach to running a party or taking stances on issues, it limits your ability to adapt to the situation to acknowledge the fullness of the party.

There are people within the party who don’t agree with the stance that the leadership has put up, and if you are totally ignoring that, if you’re totally shutting that down, it replicates exactly what we’re fighting against. And we have to be careful to walk that line and to not shut down debate, but to encourage it, and be able to move past it in a real way where everybody feels acknowledged and we’re all working towards the same goal.

And I think that’s, again, where the infighting becomes dangerous. The number one goal for us should be for us to win elections so we have the space to have these policy debates and to figure out how to make them real. And I think that’s where the undermining of the trust comes in, right? Where you’re shutting down debate, there’s no room for nuance to the conversation.

And then when that happens, it really is kind of an unnecessary discord. It ruins a basic consistency that people need to gain trust and build trust with our party. 

JW: On that note, I think of Zohran Mamdani in particular, and the fact that so many senior Democrats seem hesitant to endorse him even though he has this real energy from young voters, but also from older voters, from Black voters as well, from a really mixed coalition in New York.

And obviously New York City isn’t the rest of the country. But I am curious, why do you think there’s that hesitancy and is it to the Democratic Party’s own peril? 

NS: I do think so because what the party’s lacking right now is bold ideas, things that inspire people, but also something that’s as basic as why aren’t we fighting for the minimum wage?

Why aren’t we thinking about those basic economic issues that people care about that we used to really show up for? We were the ones who were introducing legislation to change the minimum wage. We were the ones who were out there for unions, and I think when we stray from those values, it makes it harder for us to engage in elections and to show up as the people who we say we are — the tradition of the Democratic party of what we’ve done in the past. 

And so a lot of what Mamdani is talking about is energizing. It’s new and it’s also practical. And I think for the general public who is constantly bombarded with complicated pieces of information, misinformation, their own concerns, bills, caregiving, what have you. They have all of these things that are compounded by the trauma of Covid and you’re trying to talk at them about statistics that [don’t] really matter to them. What matters to them is, can I get a basic bump in pay? 

When Donald Trump started talking about raising the tipped wage, I was like, OK, this is a punch in the gut because it’s something so simple that so many people can grasp onto that anything else we say can be a bit more complicated unless we’re talking about an increase in the minimum wage or something along those lines. And so it’s just basic issues around economics. Things that we’ve done in the past we’re not standing on those things, we’re not adapting them to the current moment.

Those are definitely opportunities missed for the party, and my hope is that I’ll continue working on these issues, but I think a lot of folks are starting to get a bit discouraged and trying to figure out how to engage right now when we’re losing energy and there’s no room for adaptability or growth.

JW: I think the perception from the outside is part of the reason Democrats refuse to go as hard as they used to on these economic issues is because it upsets donors. I mean, you’re someone who has been in a lot of important rooms in the Democratic Party, and I’m curious what you think about that. 

NS: I think there’s definitely a lack of commitment we’ve seen from the donor class here. And I think yes, there’s definitely a resistance to that. And it’s unfortunate because if they want to see the party win, we have to actually make these sorts of investments in the middle class, in working-class folks — that’s our coalition. That’s the coalition that they’ve chosen to join and be a part of. We can’t lose that commitment in order to feel comfortable and enjoy a certain lifestyle. We have to be realistic about whether we want to save this democracy. I mean, those sorts of choices have led us to where we are right now: Not making D.C. a state has led to where we are right now. There’s certain choices that we’ve made that the moment needed us to adapt and we didn’t do it. And the other side is taking advantage of every opportunity they have when they have access to power, to push forward bold ideas, to introduce basic fundamental ideas around the tipped wage. I mean, Donald Trump said it, and his donor stuck around. He still has billionaires all around him. 

We can’t be weak-kneed in this moment. We need to be bold and sure of ourselves and sure of what we believe in. And if you believe in the Democratic cause, the Democratic cause is unions. The Democratic cause is the New Deal. The Democratic cause is environmental justice. The Democratic cause is social justice. So if all of those things aren’t a part of your pedigree or maybe you don’t believe in all those things, but you believe in some of them, that’s the party you’re choosing to be a part of. And these are the things that we should be fighting for, especially if you want to win elections, especially if you want to win the elections of the future because the stances that they’re taking are fundamentally out of touch with where the future is moving.

We have to be very mindful of that and not lose track of that in order to think we’re winning elections or convince ourselves that we’re doing the right thing by protecting the corporate class and not hurting their feelings. 

JW: There’s a lot of infighting within the Democratic Party. The left doesn’t like centrists. Centrists have really done what seems like everything in their power to try and keep the left — where a lot of the energy is, frankly — from gaining any real power. Is that sustainable for a political party? 

NS: No. And the Democrats have refused to recognize that, but the Republicans did.

Steve Bannon and Elon Musk don’t agree on everything, but they found a way to work together. And I think we could take a page from their book. The Republicans like to steal a lot of our strategy. Maybe we start thinking about a little bit of theirs, right? And see how we can apply it to the work that we do. 

“The Republicans like to steal a lot of our strategy. Maybe we start thinking about a little bit of theirs, right?”

When we are constantly maligning the left and running away from the left, we’re abandoning a whole base of folks. We’re abandoning a whole section of the party that can sustain us where we need to be sustained. It’s like a game of subtraction in the Democratic Party right now, as opposed to a game of, how do we work together? How do we build coalition together? 

You don’t really hear much whenever they bring up extremists on the right they kind of equivocate. They don’t really say much about it. They never really attack their own. There’s infighting, of course, around Donald Trump. I think he encourages that stuff, so that’s why it comes out into the public. But for the most part, they figure out a way to move forward. And even if they have public spats, they still figure out a way to move forward. And that’s what’s missing on the Democratic Party side. 

If we would stop cannibalizing ourselves on the left — and from the centrist perspective, they can’t act like they’re angels and they don’t trash leftist policy every day on national television. It happens. It’s garbage. It doesn’t help the party win. In fact, this is a distraction. It stops us from being able to strategize effectively. It clouds the view of any sort of direction we’re trying to head in. And so we got to let that — pardon, for lack of a better word, and pardon my language — we gotta let that shit go. Like, you know, grow a pair, take some risks. Let it go. Let it flow, like Elsa said.

Let’s move on and try something new because what we’re doing right now is not working, funding the same people who lost us to the election and failed to do basic things like score layups on voter registration, you don’t need to have funding anymore or go somewhere and work with somebody who does know what they’re doing and let them lead the strategy. But what we’re seeing right now, it’s not going to get us a win in 2026, not one that’s sustainable, and it’s not going to position us well for 2028.

JW: Yeah, appreciate your analysis on this because it does feel like a really untenable situation and to hear it from someone who’s been in those rooms, I think is so valuable because from the outside we can say it, you know, it looks this way, it looks that way, but your analysis from, from that inside position, I think is really useful. 

NS: I mean, if you have a different view or you are trying to do something different within the party that’s usually frowned upon and poo-pooed and you know, “Don’t do that, we do things this way.” And we just can’t think about it like that anymore. Folks who are in office right now, what’s your succession plan? What’s your plan for legislation before you leave office? How are you all thinking along those lines? How’s the DCCC thinking about what legislation we should be talking about when we’re out campaigning, right? 

When we’re lifting up what Democrats did: Did we stand up for the minimum wage? Did we fight for human rights at all? Or fight to make sure that we have civil liberties protected within our federal code? Did they fight to make D.C. a state? We have to ask these questions and figure out what we’re doing and how we’re communicating the fight to the American public. And from every institutional corner of the party, you don’t see that happening. And I mean, I don’t blame them. The other side has come well prepared with a playbook and they figured out how to work together and we need to do the same. 

JW: I would imagine that right now is rock bottom for the party in a lot of ways. Not only completely cut out of power, but also policies getting reversed that the party fought hard for.

I guess my question is this their rock bottom? And does that make anyone do anything differently? 

NS: I know of folks who are trying to do things differently. I know folks who are focusing on the local level and trying to see what they can do on the local level. I know of organizations that are trying to fight to do voter registration, but that needs to be matched by what’s happening from inside the party.

If they can’t do voter registration, what are they doing to bring in folks to the young Democrats or bring in folks to the county parties? Those are the sort of strategic thoughts that we need to be engaging in so that we have an accurate assessment of the changing landscape and can adapt enough to win.

Again, we just don’t have folks who are willing to listen to people who are willing to adapt and have really creative ideas for adapting, or they are very committed to the consultants here in D.C. I mean, I’m a consultant, so you know, I’m part of that class. But in my personal work I try to do stuff differently and try to think about things differently in as much as I’m taking into account the practical basics. You can do both things at the same time. You can be practical, adaptable, and innovative. And we don’t have to sacrifice those things. And we’re constantly trying to make that choice and it’s killing us. 

[Break] 

JW: Something that struck me about what you were saying about Zohran Mamdani and also Donald Trump, is that they were putting forward, proactive policies as opposed to being reactive. They were setting the agenda. It seems to me from the outside that Republicans have been very good at controlling the narrative — at saying, immigration is a problem, and then Democrats have to respond to it as if it is a problem. You know, DEI is a problem and so therefore we have to respond to it as a problem and work around the edges. Acceptance of transgender people is making people uncomfortable, so how do we kind of maneuver around that?

And I guess my question is how do they become more proactive rather than reactive? 

NS: I mean, I think it starts by listening, which seems like a reactive action, but I think demonstrating to people that we actually are connected. We’re not stuck inside the beltway, I think, would be super helpful to opening the door for us to have those conversations for people to believe us.

I think, again, some of this pushback we’re seeing against the redistricting — the calling out folks who are willing to put their actual physical selves on the line in order for us to stand for democracy or to push forward on commitments to DEI. I think when we equivocate on those things in a moment where it calls for us to answer about where we sit in history’s long arc, which side are you on? That’s the question we should be asking ourselves whenever we’re challenged. And I think unfortunately what we’re seeing is a lack of asking that question. I think there’s mostly a thought around what is polling best, what makes the donors comfortable, and how not to look like what the other side is saying. 

I think it’s continuing to talk about immigration in a way where we’re fixing a broken system. It’s not just that we’re providing sanctuary to refugees, it’s that we’re not dealing with the fundamental problem of processing them in a very real way so that we have an orderly system for bringing people in and for them bringing their families in.

It’s making sure that everybody has access to jobs, because what’s actually happening with immigration is they’re moving into areas that were dying. People were leaving rural areas and moving to the cities, and they’re revitalizing rural areas. Shouldn’t we be embracing that? You know, that creates more economic opportunity for everyone.

What Democrats need to be engaging in is the conversation around: we can do these basic things and fulfill needs across a certain scale if we all work together. If we all do our part, there’s something really great about being a part of the American dream and making it real for all of us. 

And I think that’s something that from a patriotic standpoint, we could be taking back the narrative on patriotism. What does patriotism look like? Maybe it looks like the trans girl. It looks like the immigrant. It looks like a person who’s been here for generations. It looks like all of us, and there’s room for all of us. Making sure that people feel seen in that fundamental way in policy starts with listening, then with action and practical action at that. Don’t promise them the moon and the stars and don’t deliver, right? Don’t push for big investments [in] broadband, if you can’t explain to folks that this is going to take us several years for us to implement, and this is the expectation around what you can see: It may trickle out initially. But a lot of people aren’t prepared for this. It’s OK, we’re getting them there. 

Like just being real and honest I think is what people are craving. They’re craving the authenticity and then beyond the authenticity, they’re craving practical ideas, practical bold ideas that can be easily implemented and easily captured in their brains. 

JW: I want to talk about something that I think we’ve both discussed and that’s decorum in politics and kind of this obsession with the order of things, with whose turn it is, with who gets to set the message. Democrats are very attached to decorum, but is it time for a new playbook? Do these ideals work in the second Trump era when Democrats are facing off against this broader politics of MAGA? 

NS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we need to throw out the playbook right now, and we need to focus on basics, practical basics, that I keep saying that because we’ve gotten too complicated.

“We’ve gotten too heady … like rooms of elite people just talking to themselves.”

We’ve gotten too heady. We’ve gotten too — it’s like rooms of elite people just talking to themselves. We need to get out of that space. We need to get on the streets. We need to be getting on the ground, right? And engaging in grassroots organizing, grassroots and modern organizing. Not just canvassing, but also digital organizing.

How are we organizing people on social media? How are we targeting our ads? It’s all of those things. But I really feel like something as simple as doubling down on registration, not running away from it; something as basic as looking at party infrastructure and saying, OK, what are the three or so positions that the DNC can find? We send them to the parties. They build the messaging, the organizing and the finances for the party. And then what are we doing to recruit folks that go into our county parties and our young Democrats’ clubs and college Dems, and how are we, building the bench of the future?

And it’s those practical basic building blocks that if the DNC were to engage in those things, that could probably recover what we’ve lost and maybe turn a corner for maybe the next like three cycles or so. 

JW: I guess outside of party infrastructure though, is it also a messaging problem?

Is it also an unwillingness to call Trump out directly, to face him — and I’m not saying to use the tactics that he’s used or that his administration has used in terms of some of the really horrific stuff we’ve seen coming from them on social media — but an unwillingness to call things what they are. Do you think that’s also part of the problem? 

NS: I mean, there are some times where I feel like Democrats try. I think the trust has been so eroded that even when they try, it falls flat. Or it’s a brief flash-in-the-pan moment, and it doesn’t feel like a consistent arc, an escalation. It doesn’t feel strategic. It’s nothing consistent, and it doesn’t feel part of a real pattern that’s designed to move us toward victory.

And so without that feeling of, OK, this is moving us in the right direction, this fight feels strategic because we’re prepared or this fight feels like we can actually win because we have people, we have a whole donor network that is committed to this cause. It doesn’t feel like that at any corner of what we’re engaging in when in the Democratic Party right now. And because of it, it really limits our ability to fight back and have it mean anything. 

JW: Yeah. I want to get back into D.C. because as you know, I care a lot about the city. I’m a fifth-generation Washingtonian, and I really have not heard enough from Democrats. I mean, and if I’m wrong, and there’re a lot of congressional Democrats, national figures who are speaking out on D.C. every day hitting that. But it strikes me that in our seat of government, we have federal troops patrolling the city. We have federal agents snatching people off of the streets, and we’re not hearing anything from Democrats really, especially national Democrats. And I want to ask why you think that is, and whether or not it’s a mistake politically?

NS: So like you, I grew up in the D.C. area. I grew up in Prince George’s County, so that’s right outside of Washington, D.C., and Maryland. And it’s been painful to watch. I try to give the mayor credit, she did in the first administration — a little bit of credit — she did in the first administration try to push back against Trump.

What we’re seeing now is something completely different. It’s a conciliatory tone. It’s a going down to Mar-a-Lago. It’s all these different things to try and pacify an opponent who can’t be pacified. You can’t satisfy what he wants. This is a means to an end for him. And so when you are collateral, you’re going to get damaged.

And that’s what’s happening here because of this walking the line that we’ve seen from [the] city government. And to be frank, they’re not a state. So they’re kind of stuck in this position. So it’s kind of a reinforcing cycle. 

Democrats failed to make D.C. a state when they had power. D.C. is vulnerable to take over. The federal government starts taking over. They start asserting themselves in many different ways. They started through legislation. They went to the budget, and now the federal takeover of their police force. 

It’s interesting because I was even on BW Parkway driving down here from Philadelphia. And on BW Parkway, I was seeing Park police everywhere. For those who don’t know, BW Parkway, it’s a small interstate, but it’s considered an interstate between Baltimore and Washington. It’s the main corridor between the heart of Washington and the heart of Baltimore. And so it’s a major thoroughfare to get around the D.C. area. Cops up and down it, and it’s not typically patrolled that heavy.

So we’re feeling it even on a basic, we’re just driving down the street and we’re seeing all these cops, and we’re seeing all this presence. You’re seeing all these lights and it feels very militarized and it’s terrible. And D.C. has zero power to fight back. And Democrats because of the failings of — I believe, the root of this is infrastructure, and you get your energy from infrastructure. Energy infrastructure equals winning elections. If you lose, you have zero power to fight back. And that’s what the Republicans know, and that’s what a lot of people in D.C. know. So it’s very hard for them. If they go even harder than they have to push back. They could lose all their federal funding. The mayor could lose her seat, her ability to govern the city. And what really happens then?

So we’re in a catch-22 of the Democratic Party’s own making. That’s why you’re seeing this kind of conflicted, “Do we say something? Don’t we say something? Do we want to lose power completely or don’t we?” And I think in this moment you might need to do that. We’re in an unprecedented moment. Going through the courts is not a viable option with the Supreme Court that we have. So what are you going to do? And that’s the question that the mayor and Democrats are faced with right now. 

JW: I want to touch on even just the broader threats to our democracy. I mean, we can see it so visibly in D.C., but of course, all across the country we’re facing an existential threat to our democracy.

You’ve been in rooms with senior party leadership. How do they defend what, from the outside, looks like a ton of inaction in the face of this really existential threat? I mean, what are people saying about why they seem so calm in the face of a crisis? 

NS: There’s a lot of people who have convinced themselves, I think in leadership, that they know this is the right way to move and that they know better than the folks outside of D.C. It’s just something that folks outside of D.C. — I’ve heard from organizers in the South, I’ve heard mostly out of the South, but from other areas of the country — that are chronically unheard, that D.C. doesn’t listen to what we say. And it’s discouraging. It makes people unplug. It makes people not want to come back and break themselves for us to win elections. 

And that’s what I’m talking about when it comes to energy and infrastructure. If you don’t have those things, you can’t win elections. You can’t push through what a lot of us have to push through to show up to work every day. And think of new ideas and to push this party forward when they reject new ideas, when they won’t fund new ideas, when they won’t innovate on strategy. And when they do innovate, they’re listening to the person they feel the most comfortable with instead of taking risks.

It bears out in policy, it bears out in messaging and it bears out in the projects that get funded — until there’s a change in thinking, until there’s an adaptability, a willingness to listen to folks who aren’t stuck in the bubble, who step outside the bubble on a regular basis, talking to regular folks who are tired of what the party is serving.

JW: Do you think that’s why people don’t feel as if the Democratic Party is authentic? Because if I ask you a question and you give me a canned response and then you give me the same response 10 times over, which is kind of what we’re seeing a lot of times with Democrats. Do you think the fact that they’re listening to the same people over and over again, not really hearing these outside voices, do you think that’s why it all comes off so inauthentic?

NS: Bottom line, they listen to the same folks. They’re engaging in the same strategies. They’re targeting the same voters. And because of that there’s no variety there. They’re falling behind on messaging because they’re not listening to those communities to figure it out, right? I think for the Republican Party, it’s so rare for folks of color to engage in their space that a lot of times they’re overly eager to listen to those one individuals, you know, those single individuals.

And so if we maybe started to think about and listen to people who are catching on to the sentiment that’s happening on the ground, who organize in areas that are extremely hard to organize in, maybe you could learn something from that. Maybe you could adapt to that. 

I think what was interesting was initially after Mamdani there were some Democrats who were like, you know what? There are some things within his message that I think are really important for us to remember as Democrats. We were the party of affordability. We were the party that fought for the middle class and the working class. Those are things that are fundamental values for us, but they tentatively talk on it and then pivot away. And it’s like, no man. Like, embrace the fact that we are the affordability party. We fight for working people. We are all about the alms for the poor, you know, all that stuff. Let’s not hold back from that. Embrace it fully. And it’s this tepid — it gives untrustworthy, right? It gives, OK, there’s something going on and I can’t pin it, but this person feels like they’re not really authentic. They’re not really — They don’t really care about me, so I don’t know if I can trust anything they have to say. 

JW: Yeah. Well, Nina, thank you so much for being here and for sharing all of your insights. And I know you have a lot to say all the time, which I really appreciate. And are there any final thoughts that you want to share with our audience? Anything that I didn’t ask you? 

NS:  I’ll just say this, right. We’re trying to build a big coalition, we’ve got to figure out a way to win. And I think if more of us could think along those lines and figure out how we can work towards building that and getting there, I think we’d be in a much better place. And for your listeners — who want us to have a better country or want us to have a better future for our kids, want us to be able to not have anxiety every time we walk out of our doors — I think it’ll be important for us to figure out how to win and how to embrace our values in a way that allows for us to lock arms with people who we don’t always agree with and move forward.

And I think that’s something for progressives that we have to think about if we want to win and get power. And so I’m constantly trying to think about those things because the electoral reality doesn’t match where my heart is personally and where a lot of our hearts are. And it sucks. And we’re going to eat mud for a little bit, but I think we’ll get through it.

And if we can figure out that piece, I feel like we can win. So I’m still hopeful. I’m critical, but I’m hopeful. 

JW: Well, Nina, thank you as always, it is such a pleasure speaking with you and getting all of your insights, and I’m really glad that we got to share them with the audience. Thank you so much for joining me on the Intercept Briefing.

NS: Thank you so much for having me. 

JW: That does it for this episode of The Intercept Briefing. 

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This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Sumi Aggarwal is our executive producer. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. Will Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by Shawn Musgrave. 

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Until next time, I’m Jessica Washington. 

Thanks for listening.

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