Gov. Andy Beshear, U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, State Rep. Chris Rabb

24:47So you can look at polling going back to the 30s, going to the 60s. There's always been these discussions of socialism. But they do tend to come out in tougher economic times. And even in this poll, we find, especially young people, saying like they feel opportunities are lesser now than they were for previous generations, that it's harder to get ahead, that the system doesn't work in a fair way. All that's the bigger context. So as you rightly point out, this is a resurgence or reemergence of socialism. Certainly we've seen that this summer. How is it then splitting the Democratic Party specifically?

25:21So one interesting thing is that it is college-educated Democrats who are relatively more favorable for socialism. And yes, they have even slightly higher incomes. We've seen some of that, too, in the votes that you mentioned, the vote patterns in these states. What could be happening there is a sort of relative way, relative expectations. nations, maybe they've got a little more money, but it doesn't buy them as much as they thought. And the other part of it is you ask people, is the Democratic Party as progressive as you'd like it to be? And that is also pretty even. Even as they have this argument amongst themselves, ultimately they've got to go find swing voters, maybe even Republican voters to vote for at least some of these Democrats if they have any hope of retaking control of Congress.

26:01So when you ask Americans overall about socialism and how the Democratic Party is sorting itself, what do they say? So the big question here, I think, is what are the Democrats offering that's in contrast to the Trump economy? And of course, they want this to be a referendum on the Trump economy. But Democrats say they'd like to have bigger ideas from their candidates than smaller or incremental ones. They'd like to see people who they think are fighting for them, almost more affect than anything else. The way that plays going forward is that when you ask people to look back on other times Democrats have been in power, it's not necessarily seen as being successful.

26:38Remember the last time inflation started under Democrats. So do they need to offer something new? In contrast, this is ultimately a fight about what that is. All right. Anthony, we'll talk a little bit more about this later. Thank you for now. Thanks. We'll be right back. I've always dreamed of being able to order my coffee in Italian like a local instead of just pointing at the menu and hoping for the best. There's something about speaking another language with real confidence that opens up a whole new world of experiences. That's why I'm so excited about Rosetta Stone Sapphire. It's their biggest launch in over a decade.

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28:57Welcome back to Face the Nation. We turn now to Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rapp. He's the Democratic Party's nominee in the 3rd District of Pennsylvania. That includes parts of Philadelphia. He is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Representative, you're not congressman yet, but Representative, thank you for being here this morning. We appreciate it. Nope. So I'm curious, and part of the reason why we wanted to have someone like you here, given that you are the Democratic nominee but also a member of the DSA, What is a voter getting from a Democrat and a member of the DSA like you that they aren't necessarily getting from a Democrat like Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who we had on earlier?

29:38That's a great question. I listened to that segment and it seems like we have a lot in common. We're against corruption. We want to fight for working people. We want we believe that health care is a human right. These are things that we want increased wages. I support a living wage for all. So I think we have a lot more in common than people would think. But when he says that socialism is a failed experiment, what's your response to that?

30:06Well, I imagine he supports Social Security. In a purely capitalistic free market system, we would have no Social Security. We would have no Medicare. We would have no Medicaid. We would have no public education. We would have no interstate highway system. We would not have firefighters. These things are things that are brought to us by different different views that have molded us into the nation we are today. It's not one thing. This is not a purely capitalistic society. There is capitalism in China, in Finland, everywhere. Like, this is something that we have to understand is a mixture and it is an evolution.

30:47Pure capitalism has never worked. Communism is not something that we've seen effectively work. What are we doing to make sure that we are moving in the right direction, though? That we are transforming this nation so that it can take care of everyone? How is it that we have our first trillionaire and we still have veterans who are unhoused? You know, our news poll out this morning shows that most Democrats have a positive view of socialism, but among all Americans overall, just 35 percent do. You've made the argument here so far, but I'm curious, what do you do to try to win over skeptics, the two-thirds of the country, who doesn't think this is a good idea?

31:30Well, I wasn't running for socialism. I was running for the people of the third congressional district who want to fight her. And that's something that is more important than the labels that are used in polls, because the poll didn't define socialism. The poll didn't define capitalism. The poll didn't define free market system or free enterprise. It didn't do those. It polled on how people responded to labels that have been put into the ether without any context, historical, any analysis. And I think once you define these things, people can make more informed decisions. You are running in what is the most Democratic district in America, like 40 plus 40 percent Democratic advantage.

32:12So it's perhaps understandable or that it helps explain how a socialist backed candidate can emerge. But there are others in the Democratic Party writ large. No, I have to push back. Why is that? I got to push back. You can't conflate Democratic Performance Index with people who support a Democratic Socialist. I ran for months long before anyone mentioned that I was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. I didn't run for socialism. I ran for the people just because people are more likely to vote for Democrats does not mean that they are inherently more inclined to support this ideology or the other.

32:56It just showed that in my district, in my race for the Democratic primary, that I came out 14 points ahead in a four-person race because I was a fighter. And I talked about issues that mattered. And socialism did not come up. OK. And actually, our poll this morning shows that Democratic voters overall are looking for fighters or people who are certainly promising to do so. I do want to play, however, something that former ambassador, former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel said this morning on Sunday morning in conversation with our colleague Robert Costa regarding the progressive versus rest of the party sort of split or discussion that y 'all are having.

33:36Take a listen to what he said. This, again, I'm about flipping red districts to blue. I'm not about taking blue districts and making a midnight blue. You want to see a raise in the minimum wage? Winning over Democratic districts is not the way to get it. there. You got to win Republican districts. What's your response to the mayor's strategic argument there?

34:01I think listening to folks who have been institutionalists and corporate Dems is probably the wrong thing to do when what your own poll shows is that there is an exhaustion. There is anger at centrists and institutionalists. And this anti-establishment moment means that we want bold things that are not left or right, but what are the things that are going to move people forward? And, hey, take me to Kentucky. I think I can make that case pretty strongly. And as someone who is five generations in Kentucky, I think this is something that transcends blue districts. Okay. On the issue of institutionalists in the party, I'm curious, are you someone who would vote for Hakeem Jeffries to be speaker?

34:47Should Democrats take majority next January?

34:52Sorry about that. He hasn't asked me, but I can tell you this. He's not going to run unless we secure the the new majority, which is what I'm focusing on. I'm focusing on making sure we have good progressive candidates who are winning in these primaries and who will win on November 3rd. And when we get a new Democratic majority, I would love to have that conversation with them. Person to person, we have not yet met. Okay. Now look, I know you're a Democratic candidate for Congress. You are, however, a member of the DSA. And there are opponents of that movement who point to the failed socialist governments in Latin America as proof that socialists don't always work.

35:30And the DSA just in the last few days put out a statement commemorating the 100th birthday of Fidel Castro, which says in part he was an organizer, a fighter, and endures as a stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination for the global South. Do you agree with that sentiment? And does it concern you that this type of celebration of Fidel Castro is what might validate people's concerns with the DSA?

35:57I am not concerned with how people construe this organization. I'm interested in finding what we have in common so we can move this country forward based on bold policies, which that poll suggests people are wanting, irrespective of political ideology or generation. The other thing I want to mention, too, is and this is something that I hear centrist and establishment players talk about is, well, if we want to reach these people who are outside of, you know, blue districts, how about we actually focus on those folks who live in highly populated blue districts who don't show up because they're so exhausted and disaffected with the Democratic Party?

36:35If we reach those folks who are inclined to vote for the Democrats, but don't because we're not fighting for them, we have a far more likely chance of winning than reaching out to folks who under no circumstances would consider folks who embrace values like health care is a human right or housing is a human right or not having a trillionaire class. there's some people we're not going to move but many people we can and i think it's not about left or right it's about moving whole communities forward in the most meaningful ways and as it relates to these statements about other folks in other countries um i hope we're all anti-imperialist i hope we're all anti-fascist i don't think these are particularly controversial um stances all right well we'll leave it there you are a big part of the debate in your party about who it is should be focused on and how to do it, and that's why we wanted you here.

37:27Representative Rab, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. And we'll be right back with our political panel. Stay with us. And we are back with our political panel. Sabrina Rodriguez covers politics at the Wall Street Journal. Paul Cain reports on Congress and politics for notice, or news of the United States. Toulouse Oloronipa is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and our executive director of elections and surveys. Anthony Salvanto is back with us as well. This is kind of a Washington Post reunion. A handful of us have worked there before. We're very proud of the work they continue to do.

37:58And it's the first time for both of you. But Sabrina, ladies first. We look at this ongoing struggle in the Democratic Party to define what it is and how to win. You've been out and about. And I was struck by something someone said to you out in Wisconsin in recent days. They said the Midwest is not Manhattan. There are limits here. It seems the far left may have actually hit a bit of a wall, at least in the last few days. Absolutely. And I mean, we saw in both Wisconsin and Michigan, I think, you know, coming out of the New York primary, there's been so much conversation around this democratic socialism versus establishment fight that's playing out in the party.

38:33But there was the big question, OK, in a state like Michigan, in a state like Wisconsin, states that voted for Donald Trump, these, you know, chronically extremely purple states, is there a lane? And clearly the verdict is it's very divided. It's very complicated. You know, seeing Abdul El-Sayed's win in Michigan, yes, it's a big win for the far left. But there is the question mark. He won by one percentage point. So we're seeing this fight playing out. And it's clearly far from over in terms of what direction the party's going in. Paul, who's also making his Face the Nation debut, you have covered Congress, especially in the contours of the two conferences for this entire century.

39:11So you've seen this once or twice. And that's not to call you old. It's to say that you're not. But you've seen a few or two when it comes to congressional races. And my point is, we've seen the two parties go through cycles like this. And you've written recently that the Democrats have the potential to take back the majority, but may not be able to do it to the extent that they could have in other cycles if they nominate too many extremist candidates. There are, for people my age, a lot of us look at this and think, wow, it's 2006 all over again. Our friend Amy Walter tweeted that, like she's got a sense of deja vu.

39:45There are sex scandals happening, a war in the Middle East, the president in his second term, very unpopular. But at the same time, there's also some 2022 deja vu where Republicans had a lot of great political environment that was going on, But they nominated not just in the Senate where candidates like Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker got a lot of attention, but they nominated a half dozen to a dozen candidates in winnable districts in the House that were just outside of that general mainstream. And they ended up not getting that sort of big bounce. And they ended up with a majority at just 222 seats with four votes to spare if everybody shows up.

40:27And so there are some similarities to 2022 that could be happening here where the wrong candidates in the wrong districts in the wrong states might end up not giving the Democrats the sort of election that they could have otherwise. And to lose, I know that was part of the concern in Michigan, whereas Sabrina said he only won by one point outside. And now there's been polling that suggests he's underwater against the Republican Mike Rogers. And he realizes that. And that's part of the reason he's trying to move things in a direction of saying he wants to be conciliatory. He wants to have a big tent.

41:02He wants to reach out to people who did not vote for him. He wants to reach out to some of those working class voters, some of those black voters who voted for Haley Stevens. He's talked about that on the campaign trail. But this broader civil war that's taking place within Democratic Party, it's really right underneath the surface of all of this sort of kumbaya work together. there's a big tent. We're all united more than we're divided. Right underneath that, there's a lot of opposition between the two sides of the party. And if they're able to muscle their way through to November, I suspect that a lot of those divisions will pop back up as soon as we have to figure out who the speaker is going to be.

41:35We heard from Hakeem Jeffries that he does not support the DSA agenda earlier today. And so there's going to be a lot of working out they're going to have to do to get together if they're able to win the House in November. Signal he doesn't support the DSA agenda, signal he doesn't support Medicare for All. And what does Chris Rabb say? I haven't heard from him yet, so I don't know if I'm voting for him. That's the kind of trouble that could be coming if they govern or try to govern. Yeah, well, that was, you know, you look at 2022 and Kevin McCarthy only has a couple of votes to spare and he ends up getting held hostage again and again for almost nine months until they kick him out.

42:11And then Mike Johnson becomes speaker and he gets held hostage, when you only win a majority by a couple of votes, it gives an opportunity for mischief-making among just a few members. And that's what Hakeem Jeffries could face if they don't win a big enough majority. If he doesn't win the majority, it's an even bigger problem. I would just add, I mean, I think one of the most striking things to me from the poll this morning is the fact that the majority of voters don't, the majority of voters regard the Democratic Party as weak and that a majority of voters do not think that the Democratic Party is effective.

42:47So I know there's this ideological debate that's happening within the party. But part of the opening that Democratic Socialists and the progressive left have had this year is because of the repercussions from the 2024 election, from those bruising losses and this feeling like, what exactly is the party doing? We lost to Donald Trump in 2024. We're heading into a midterm. What exactly is fighting Donald Trump look like? What wins have actually been accomplished in the last two years. And a lot of frustration from the Democratic base questioning what exactly does the Democratic Party stand for and how exactly are we going to win?

43:18Yeah. You found something interesting in the poll regarding Democratic and Republican support when it comes to the economy over a key concept. Oh, price control. Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting here is for all this talk about ideology, you do see that there's a certain you might generously call it pragmatism in an economy where so many people are complaining about inflation. So you ask about price controls in general, and yes, you find a large number of Democrats in favor of independents, but also a slight majority of Republicans. And that's part of what it tells you. Not everybody sits there and maps everything onto an ideological framework for this in this kind of environment.

43:56And the president has been certainly not at all extreme to the left on this, but he has talked about price controls for different types of, or different elements of the economy. So they, they must see this or understand that, that it is something that finds general support. Yeah. And within the Republican party, it's interesting too, for all our talk about the Democrats, there's a big gap between the way that Republicans rate the president on issues like immigration and even foreign policy, and then on inflation in particular, where it's lower and hovered around 20 points lower, still approving, but not as high.

44:30And that gap is going to be because when we do get to the midterms, one of the key questions I think is going to be, what happens to the Republicans who are a little bit dissatisfied with the president? They don't dislike him, but on that issue, maybe not so much. So speaking of the numbers and the way things are tracking, can you give us a sense of where at least CBS sees the House and the Senate sitting right now? Well, one of the key things, and you started to raise it, is that it's different structurally from those last couple of midterms because partisanship has kind of sorted out all of the marginal districts.

45:04In fact, there aren't that many. So to your point, Ed, there's maybe under 20, depending on how you count it, and we do, that are true toss-up House districts, which means that if you just look at the partisan breaks on them, you know, it's within maybe five or six points, something you could move in a persuasion campaign like that. So that really constrains the number in the House at the outset. And then at the Senate side, you have this different dynamic where you don't have a whole lot of competitive races out of the whole scope, but you have Democrats trying to pick up seats from the Republicans in places where they've had a tough time.

45:41I'll pick out Texas as one. They've had a tough time historically winning. Very tough. So that kind of map, it's an interesting dynamic, to say the least. If we can bring back up that Senate map, I want people to sit with the idea of Texas being a light shade of red this year. That's kind of the one that's sitting out there as the maybe. When you, Toulouse, talk to Democrats, Sabrina, when you talk to them, how confident do they feel about that one happening? Texas is a big challenge for Democrats in part because they've been trying to win Texas for the last 30 odd years. And it's always seemed like the one that gets away.

46:18It's a big state. There are a lot of Republicans there. It's a structurally Republican leaning state. And so the fact that Republicans have a flawed candidate and Democrats have what they feel is a candidate that can compete for some of those moderate voters, some of those evangelical voters, some of the voters that are a little bit more less ideological and less willing to vote for a flawed Republican who has issues, both corruption issues and issues in his own personal life. They think the mix is right for the Democrats to win this year. But it is a very big state. It's a very big challenge.

46:49And it seems like they're on an uphill climb to try to win that state. Do they have a sense of what it takes? I mean, it's been the elusive dream for Democrats for a while, as you said. I mean, it's been since 1994. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas. However, there is this opening when you look at, for example, Hispanic voters. You and I have talked to many of them in Texas that moved towards Donald Trump in the 2024 election. They see an opening with James Tallarico. Now, it certainly doesn't help him to get tied to the Democratic Socialists in a state like Texas. But again, there's this Democrats are seeing this real opening because of who Ken Paxton is, because of all the baggage he brings, because of the fact that he had an extremely messy primary that went into a runoff.

47:33We're talking about almost 100 million dollars that were spent in anti-Paxton ads. And that sort of helps this perfect storm. But it's certainly far from guaranteed. But temper the expectations, because we've talked about this, at least internally, there's there's a math issue for Democrats, not only in Texas, but in Iowa, potentially in Alaska. and those other ones where they think they now have a shot. Yeah, well, the math issue in Texas is that you need to move a whole heck of a lot more voters just to make that percentage. A percentage in Texas is not the same thing as a percentage in Iowa.

48:04So you may see the Democrats try to invest more in places where there just aren't as many voters that you need to swing. The other polling part of this, too, is you look at maybe an even poll, maybe one that's in the margin of error. But historically, and this is a case perhaps in Maine, I think, Historically, Susan Collins has turned out her voters. And she's got people there who have voted for her over many, many cycles. You're going against that kind of a headwind. So even if you see a one or two point gap in the polls, that's part of the structure. So in 2006, they won six Senate seats, Democrats, four of which had just voted for George W.

48:42Bush two years earlier. But in at least two of them, there were third party right leaning libertarian type of voters like in Montana that gave the sort of you were talking about the soft Trump supporters who are people who are a little bit upset about inflation and the war. They're just it's hard for them to vote for a Democrat. And so in some of these states, they might need that third party person to give that soft Trump supporter, oh, I'm not going to vote for Tallarico, but I'm not going to vote for Paxton and I'll vote for the Libertarian so that they can win without clearing 50 percent. Because it's so hard to get over 50 percent for a Democrat in these states like Iowa, Ohio and Texas.

49:29Real quick in our remaining seconds here, the South Carolina Republican runoff in about 10 days. Is Darlene Graham in trouble against Ralph Norman? Look, her brother spent$20 million in his primary in June just so that he would not get put into a runoff because he knew that the South Carolina primary runoff voters are not Lindsey Graham voters. They are more bright red. Now you have a late August special election primary runoff where she started with 33%. It's not clear that she can win unless Trump really goes there and really lays down the law and says you've got to vote for her. Well, we'll see if he does that in the next few days because to spend his political capital there would be telling with less than 80 days to go to Election Day.

50:17Sabrina, Paul, Anthony, Toulouse, thanks for being here. We appreciate it. And we'll be back in a moment. That's it for us today. Thank you for watching. Margaret will be back next week. I'm Ed O 'Keefe. Take care. The senior executive producer of Face the Nation is Mary Haggard Laird. The executive producer is Anne Shue. This broadcast was directed by Shelley Schwartz. Face the Nation originates from CBS News in Washington. For more Face the Nation, we're online at facethenation.com and on YouTube. Face the Nation is also rebroadcast on our CBS News 24-7 streaming network at 1230 on Sundays. It's available through our Paramount Plus app.

50:55The critically acclaimed series, Colin from Accounts, returns for a brand new season. But what is it? We're friends. We are togetherly. We're friendly together. With a dog. Colin from Accounts, new season streaming September 10th, only on Paramount Plus.