These Were The Biggest Losers In The Blue Tsunami Midterms: Democratic Strategist

0:02Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me once again is Max Burns. He's a Democratic strategist and the founder of Third Degree Strategies. Max, thanks so much for coming back on.

0:14Max Burns: Thanks so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to the conversation because I initially reached out when the main news story was the Michigan Senate race and Haley Stevens' flip. But before we dive into that, before we dive into those results, I do want to zoom out for just a moment because Democrats had a big week, right? They have a lot to celebrate right now. They reclaimed control of both the House and the Senate, and they won in places where President Trump just two years ago won by double digits. It's been a few days since election day, so we've all had time to sit with the results and let them marinate a bit.

0:49So to start off the conversation, from your perspective as a Democratic strategist, who are the winners and losers here?

0:56Max Burns: Well, the loser for sure is the MAGA movement. I think this ideology that fought and based its redistricting earlier this cycle on the idea that they had permanently sort of realigned politics, that they had won young voters and Hispanic voters and even black men, that's proven to be completely false. Those groups actually moved back to the left in record numbers. And one of the reasons why we're seeing a likely win in Mississippi for a Democrat that hasn't elected a black man to the Senate since 1881. And the big winners obviously have to be the outsider Democrats who universally won their seats.

1:33Max Burns: People like Abdul Al-Sayed in Michigan, Troy Jackson in Maine, looking great for Mary Paltola in Alaska. You had a lot of races that even Democrats didn't think were necessarily competitive a month ago. South Carolina, for example, Mississippi, that have turned in incredible results on the back of voter frustration and just anger at the way things have been the last two years. You mentioned one of the names I do want to talk about, Abdul El-Sayed. He won in Michigan by seven points. And last weekend, it seemed like there was could have been perhaps a little bit of a November surprise because Haley Stevens, less than 24 or less than 48 hours rather ahead of Election Day.

2:17She released this video and she said, here's why I am no longer endorsing Abdul El-Sayed. And now I'm endorsing Mike Rogers, someone just a few months prior. She called a rubber stamp for Donald Trump's dangerous agenda. And I'm curious, what do you make of that reversal? Because clearly it didn't have the impact maybe she wanted it to have because as well, I had one by seven points.

2:41Max Burns: Yeah, I mean, no shortage of surprises in an election cycle that didn't seem to ever quit. I can't speculate personally as to why Haley Stevens chose to do that right at the last minute after not just endorsing El Saeed, but actually doing some great events with him. But it is strange. And I think it hit flat for a lot of voters who knew Mike Rogers' record, who understood that he was handpicked by Donald Trump. And they just thought this was overall very strange. I don't think it's certainly helped mend any of the wounds in Michigan from that brutal primary. But I think it did, in a way, unify people behind Abdul Al-Sayed and remind people that what we're actually fighting for were the kitchen table issues he was talking about, affordability, health care, things that were affecting Michiganders every day.

3:30Max Burns: And they managed to put the distractions to one side and actually get out to the polling place in record numbers in some cities. To that point, when he was asked about this, pretty relentlessly, he kept saying, you know, I don't think about Haley Stevens and would always pivot the conversation back to affordability. And he did that whenever he was asked about controversial topics at all, him campaigning with Hassan Piker, anything about Israel. He always would move the conversation back to affordability. Do you think that was one of the factors of why he won? Yeah, I mean, that's a huge reason.

4:07Max Burns: That message discipline is huge. It's one of the reasons also why Zoran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, won by keeping things focused on affordability issues and local issues for voters instead of getting caught up in social issues, culture, war. And I think you actually see Vice President J.D. Vance agrees a little bit. He posted on Twitter the day after the election, he felt that the Republicans lost in part because they didn't talk enough about affordability, that they were talking too much about Iran and Israel and about these social fights and not meeting voters where they were. So hopefully Republicans can take a lesson from Abdul El Saeed here.

4:45Do you think Democrats will take a lesson at all from his campaign? Because he's really garnered national attention. He's garnered a national spotlight. The way he really claps back at not only Democrats, but Republicans as well. He claps back at the media. He claps back in conversations. He really responds to people. I've seen countless videos of him at town halls. He listens and really has these thoughtful of responses that go viral on social media.

5:14Max Burns: Yeah, I mean, there's no substitute for knowing your issues and really knowing why you're in the race and caring about the things that you say you care about. But I think the lesson for Abdul El-Sayed that he, of course, would say is that there can't be any sort of national model for what a Democrat looks like. What works for El-Sayed in Michigan, very different than what worked for John Ossoff in Georgia or what worked for Amy Acton when she won the governorship in Ohio. But the common thread between all of those is they were willing to take the fight to Republicans, to the media when they felt they were being distracted from the issues and actually engaged voters at their level.

5:51Max Burns: They didn't get bogged down in woke fights or in national media trends. They wanted to talk to people about how they afforded their rent and how they afforded gas. And by and large, we see voters came out to vote based on that. Yeah. Chuck Schumer was asked about that, how the party is now pitching itself as very big tent. You have moderates who won, you had progressives who won, you had DSA candidates who won. And he was asked, you know, are these similar Democrats? I mean, how can they agree? Are there party divisions? And he said, well, they do agree on the three C's chaos, corruption and costs.

6:30Do you think that I mean, what do you make of that narrative that there are these political or these party divisions amongst the Democratic Party and they can only agree on those three things?

6:42Max Burns: I think you'll always have some divisions. It's kind of ironic, too, that a lot of the Democrats who won these Senate races are Democrats who said they wouldn't support Chuck Schumer for a leader if he runs again. But there is some work to do. I mean, Democrats are going to have to hash this out within their caucus, ideally privately, you know, not airing this in the media. But it helps that they have such big majorities, because when you're dependent on one or two votes to make your margin, tensions get real high real fast. When you have this nice cushion like they have, I think there's more room to to work together and to sort of bring these issues in in a way that doesn't hinge everything on one progressive or one centrist senator holding up the entire process.

7:26To that point, I'm curious because I've heard in the past couple of days the word mandate thrown out a lot. I've heard the word specifically from Hakeem Jeffries, change election. Do you think the current party leadership meets this moment? Do you think it would behoove Democrats to still throw their weight behind a House Speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, and a Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer?

7:49Max Burns: Well, I think Hakeem Jeffries is likely a little bit safer in this than Chuck Schumer is, especially because Chuck Schumer introduced Haley Stevens into the Michigan race and backed her initially, made some bad bets in places like Maine that didn't work out. He doesn't have a lot of goodwill with these outsiders, whereas Hakeem Jeffries has worked really purposefully, I think, to build those bridges and to try and be someone who wants to build a big tent house. But I do think there is going to be real conversations about leadership and things do need to change. A lot of these candidates ran on saying we cannot have the same incremental leadership that's been here for 30 years.

8:26Max Burns: Voters will expect them to deliver on that. To that point, where do you think the Democratic Party goes from here? What do you want to see in the next two years? Because they won resoundingly, right? They won decisively. Now they have control. What do you want to see them do with it in those two years? Yeah, this is the big question. You've won the election. Now, how do you govern? What are your priorities? We've seen Democrats say that corruption is going to be a big part of this, that will likely see investigations into the Trump administration, likely crossing party lines to work with Thomas Massey and Republicans who are unhappy with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseff on an impeachment vote that Republicans have actually put forward that has a fair chance of passing the lame duck house.

9:15Max Burns: There's a lot moving forward that I think Democrats will also need to learn how to do, imagining that there's not going to be a lot of support from the White House here. You may get Trump willing to make a deal on the budget, on keeping government open, on some core infrastructure stuff. But for the most part, Democrats have to be a watchdog in this Congress and use that power to make sure that all of the things that have gone unaccountable are now held accountable and that voters can see it. Where do you think then, to that point, Democrats should work with the Trump administration, should work with Republicans?

9:48And where do you think that they should hold firm in their own beliefs? because President Trump, he said Democrats did a good job. He said they fought hard. He also said, hey, I will work with them where I can, but I retain veto power. So hearing him say that, how do you think Democrats should move accordingly?

10:08Max Burns: Yeah, I mean, there's a real opportunity here. I mean, a couple of days ago, Donald Trump was calling himself Mr. Vito and wearing the veto hat and talking about how there's not going to be anything done with Democrats. This week, earlier, a couple of days ago, said was willing to make deals. I think if you flatter Donald Trump, if you let him claim some small wins on things like the budget cliff that's coming up on December 11th, you can get a lot done. It's not hard to work with Donald Trump on these things. If you're willing to let him sort of soothe his ego in the press with how this goes, let him declare victory in Iran if it brings about an agreement to end the war there in Congress.

10:47Max Burns: I think that's a win for everybody. And going forward, what do you think Democrats messaging should be and their priorities? Because like we've been saying, we've been saying it's about costs and corruption. I had a Democrat on yesterday and he said two A's, accountability and affordability. And that seemed to be the message that works right in these midterms. You have a congressman from California, Democrat roqana he said dei is back every time we heard successful democrats on the campaign trail anytime they were asked about social issues they really kind of pivoted like i said earlier to talk about affordability talk about the economy talking about ways to make life cheaper for us all do you think when a democrat's idea is back do you think that's the winning message well i think he's partly being humorous here because the priority is clearly affordability issues you're going to see that immediately upon the new Congress.

11:46Max Burns: And even before that in the lame duck, you're also going to see accountability work. There's a lot to be done in bringing back the independence for the Justice Department. There's a lot to be done in reining in the sort of corporate corruption and weird interactions between tech titans and the White House on things like crypto and data centers that voters want. And those are things that Democrats are prepared to lead in on. But I think you'll see them move fairly quickly on that and they need to they're not going to have six years of patience with their voters who are going to sit and wait for this to happen they promised results they need to start delivering those results if you're a political junkie this is a good week for you this is your super bowl there are just too many podcast episodes to consume too much content to take in everyone's giving their take everyone's giving their post-election analysis everyone's monday morning quarterbacking what happened and what went wrong for Republicans and what went right for Democrats.

12:45Because the big headline, Democrats won decisively. There was a Republican bloodbath here. But from the perspective of a Democratic strategist, I am curious, do you think anything's missing from the national conversation when it comes to the results of the election?

13:01Max Burns: Well, I think one of the big stories here is just the sheer level of enthusiasm. I mean, The young men who moved most over to Trump in 2024 moved back to Democrats by 38 points. I mean, it was the largest shift in their history. Latinos right behind them, I think, about 28 points. Add to the point where you saw James Tallarico in Texas, he actually got more early votes than his opponent Ken Paxton did total votes. So if no one had shown up on election day to vote for Tallarico, he still would have won. I mean, that's a turnout and an excitement. that you do not see regularly. And it also comes with an expectation that you need to act.

13:42And to that point, I mean, I was having conversations, is Texas flippable? And not one person, and I talked to a lot of Democrats about it. I talked to pollsters about it. No one was confident that in the yes there, and he flipped it by double digits. Now, obviously, the midterms are over. The dust is settling a bit. I mean, we're still waiting on results from some races. But, I mean, the headline, Democrats won resoundingly, Republicans lost, Republican bloodbath. I'm curious, what does this all mean for 2028? Because I saw some interesting reporting that Obama's campaign manager from 2012, he reportedly said that this week he's already met with close to 30 potential 2028 candidates.

14:22He said that this week. I'm curious, what are you looking out for in 2028?

14:27Max Burns: Yeah, I don't envy his schedule. But I do think you're going to see a lot, especially on the right here, where this idea that Republican voters will just take what you give them has been thoroughly demolished here. There's going to have to be a rethinking. And I think we're seeing that start with J.D. Vance's post, with Marco Rubio starting to make some rumblings. But on the Democratic side, it's also the point that candidate quality really matters. Democrats did so well this cycle because they let candidates be themselves. They didn't try to orchestrate it from Washington. and they didn't enforce an ideological purity test on them.

15:01Max Burns: They let naturally gifted candidates float to the top. And I hope we follow that same model in 2028. Well, we have a lot to look out for between now and then, and I hope we can have conversations in that time. Max Burns, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you.

15:30Thank you.