Does the Democrats’ election sweep change anything?

0:00Lauren Fedor: Right now, someone is asking AI a question about your industry. They're looking for the perfect recommendation or an accurate solution, and they're ready to act on it. When AI gives an answer, is your brand a part of it or not? Most companies have no idea which. GIST changes that. We show you where you're visible, where you're not, and give you the tools to do something about it. It's time to make AI work for your brand with GIST. Learn more at gist.ai.

0:33Democrats are celebrating some big election victories this week.

0:37Lauren Fedor: Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up. And Republicans are figuring out what comes next. We got our asses handed to us in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City. Democrats swept all three.

1:11This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the Financial Times, where we talk about all of the things happening in U.S. politics, finance and the economy. I'm Mark Filippino. And this week we're asking, does the Democrats' great night change anything? Here with me to discuss is Lauren Feodor, the FT's Deputy Washington Bureau Chief. Lauren, always great to have you. Thanks for having me, Mark. And we've got Guy Jezan, the FT's U.S. national correspondent. Hello, Guy. Hi, Guy. So, Lauren, Guy, it was only a year ago, a year ago this week, actually, that we had another election. Donald Trump won that one to become president for a second term.

1:44This year, there were a bunch of local elections in a handful of states. Where were the biggest races happening?

1:51Lauren Fedor: Well, I would say that the biggest races were happening in New York City, where voters were selecting their next mayor, and two closely watched governor's races. One in New Jersey, so just across the Hudson River from New York City, and one in Virginia, in our backyard here in D.C. Right. And Guy, what were your big picture reactions to Tuesday's results? Were you surprised by anything? Not really, no. Polls ahead of the election had predicted that Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate, was the frontrunner. And so it proved. I mean, he ended up as the clear winner in that election. And it's a really historic election in many ways, because he will become the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor of New York City.

2:36Yeah, Donald Trump and Mamdani are really diametrically opposed. There's a long-running battle happening between them. Is there any chance this victory will help Republicans by giving them a key figure to focus their base on, kind of like what happened with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? I think so, definitely. I mean, I spoke to Republicans ahead of the election who said exactly that, that they would very much seek to depict Mamdani as the face of the Democratic Party in future elections such as the midterms next year. So it is clear already that they will try to use him as a new kind of bogeyman like they have done for, as you said, AOC in the past, other Democratic socialists, Bernie Sanders, that kind of thing.

3:19but it'll be interesting to see whether that strategy works because I think a lot of people do understand that New York is in a way a bit of an exception and they're not going to draw too many conclusions from the mayoral race in New York City.

3:34Lauren Fedor: Yeah I would just to pick up on what Guy said two things one is that the midterms may now be a year away but we've already seen the Republicans hammering home that message within hours of Mom Donnie's victory the campaign arms for the Republican Party were spamming reporters like myself with press release after press release after press release, tying candidate after candidate after candidate to Momdani. So it's clearly their message heading into next year. In terms of Guy's point about kind of voters' sophistication and whether or not they can differentiate between New York City and the rest of the country, I think that even on Tuesday we saw that.

4:11Lauren Fedor: So in these governor's races, for example, and I think Abigail Spanberger in particular in Virginia, she makes no qualms about the fact that she's a centrist. She's much more moderate. She made explicit appeals to Republicans and independents in her campaign and did in her victory speech, too. And she's offering a different image of the Democratic Party. And Mom Donnie's candidacy seemed to didn't really affect her winning one way or the other. I do want to talk about how Democrats are handling Mom Donnie, because I think it's a really interesting case study for how the Democrats move forward.

4:43You know, it seems like they're distancing themselves from him to a certain extent. Why is that? Why not take ownership in the way that Republicans are actually painting him as the new faces of the Democratic Party? Is it because Republicans are doing that?

4:57Lauren Fedor: No, I think we should probably rewind here and say that, you know, he was the Democratic Party candidate, but he is also a Democratic Socialist. That is an organization, a political group that endorses policy positions both in domestic politics and in international politics that are much more associated with the left wing than the mainstream establishment Democratic Party. And some of those policy positions are seen as potentially alienating for more centrist parts of the country. There are economic policies, for example, high levels of taxation to fund sweeping expansion of public services. But then there's also foreign policy positions.

5:37Lauren Fedor: He's been very critical of Israel, for example. And that is something that when we look back and see which Democratic Party politicians held back on endorsing him, Chuck Schumer is one that really stands out. Schumer made clear that their disagreements over Israel were one of his hangups, I guess, in terms of getting behind Mamdani. All of that said, that seems to be ancient history now. Schumer's congratulated Mamdani on his victory. And I think broadly speaking, National Democrats want to give him the kind of benefit of the doubt moving forward. I do want to hear from a National Democrat. Senator Bernie Sanders was speaking with reporters on Mamdani's win on Wednesday.

6:16What is the risk for the midterms next year if the party leadership does not embrace this flank on the party? Well, party leadership did not support Mamdani in New York, anyone. So I think it is, you know, I think there is a growing understanding that leadership and defending the status quo and the inequalities that exist in America is not where the American people are. Guy, what do you make of that? I think Mamdani actually has a lot to teach the Democrats. I mean, obviously, a lot of what he says and does is controversial. He's been very, very harshly critical of Israel, as Lauren has said, and the rest of the party might not embrace that.

6:50But I think the fact that he focused so heavily and so tightly on the affordability crisis in New York, that was a huge benefit. And I think it really boosted his support. And I think the Democrats could learn a lot from that. I think everybody who I spoke to in this campaign said if Kamala Harris had done the same last year, she would have got a lot more votes. and people in New York are really suffering. The cost of living is just increasing all the time and ordinary working people are really, really finding it hard to get by. And I think Mamdani, in every speech that I heard, he just had this relentless focus on that.

7:28So I think there's certainly a lot of things that one could look at and say, huh, maybe that would work in my election campaign too.

7:37Lauren Fedor: I completely agree with Guy. I think that affordability has become the buzzword of not only that campaign, but now you see national Democrats picking up on it, talking about it more and more because the cost of living is a concern not only in New York City, which is obviously an incredibly expensive place to live, but across the country. And so I think when it comes to kind of issues, there's a lesson there. But there's also, I think, a model perhaps that Momdani provides just in terms of running a disciplined campaign. I think even his harshest critics will acknowledge that he's an exceptional retail politician.

8:12Lauren Fedor: He's very good on the stump. He's very good at social media. Very good at social media. You know, he doesn't sound like an old person, right? He connected with younger voters in particular, not only because he is younger, but because he reached them where they are on TikTok, on social media. And I think that it's important that candidates, if they want to win, look to that for lessons, too, going forward. I do want to focus on the rest of the elections, the rest of the country in a moment. But I think there is one more big question about Momdani that I want to ask that I think our listeners at the Financial Times are probably very interested in.

8:47And that is, what happens to New York City as a financial capital of the world? So if you looked at a map of New York and where everybody voted for not Momdani, I suppose, you saw the typical pockets, which are the more conservative parts of Staten Island and South Brooklyn, but then you saw squarely in Wall Street, right? And the concern is that millionaires and billionaires are going to flee New York because of Mamdani's democratic socialist message. What does this do to that very important part of the city? I think it's interesting. I mean, obviously, he had these very ambitious plans to tax the wealthy, but it was always unclear whether the New York state governor, Kathy Hochul, would actually endorse these and sort of greenlight them.

9:33And she was very, very sceptical about raising taxes. And Mamdani during the campaign was quite conciliatory on that. He sort of backed away from this sort of tax the rich message and said, well, you know, if you can find me other ways of paying for my programmes, then I'll do that. If we can do efficiency gains. If we can sort of cut funding for programs that aren't working, then we'll do that instead. He also did a hell of a lot of outreach to the business community after winning the Democratic primary in June. He met hundreds of CEOs and tried to calm them and reassure them and basically sort of say, look, I'm not going to socialize your business.

10:11I'm not going to defund the police. I'm not going to do anything crazy. I want to work together with you to make New York a better place to live. And I think a lot of them were actually quite encouraged by the message that he was trying to send out. Let's move back to the Republicans for a second. Lauren, you said earlier that they were gearing up for the midterms. And while this was not a great night for Republicans, let's again put this all into perspective that these were local elections in predominantly blue states, even though some of these braces were tight. these are blue states. What do Republicans do from here to the midterms and the midterms and beyond?

10:53Lauren Fedor: I think you're completely right that not only were these races that we're talking about, but there was also a ballot measure in California. There was a Supreme Court retention vote in Pennsylvania. There were other races that we were keeping an eye on and referenda, I guess, that we were watching as well. And across the board, the Democrats did really, really well. Even Donald Trump admitted it was not a good night for his party. Yeah. So in the short term, you know, let's talk about where the Republicans go from here, because I think a big factor in what's going on is the government shutdown and the blame that is being cast on Republicans for that.

11:29Donald Trump was at a breakfast with Senate Republicans the other day.

11:32Lauren Fedor: If you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. Negative for the Republicans. So voters are blaming the Republicans for the shutdown. What do you make of that? Well, just to give listeners a little sense of place, that breakfast was pretty hastily arranged. It was Wednesday morning, shortly after the election results came in. Donald Trump basically summoned all the senators to the White House to meet with him. And in that clip, you heard him giving them a little bit of a dressing down for the previous night's results. And he's also playing pundit a little bit there.

12:06Lauren Fedor: But the polls bear it out. Voters are blaming the president and congressional Republicans for the shutdown, which this week now set a record for the longest in history. It is beginning to bite in a variety of ways. There are obviously hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have now been furloughed for five weeks and counting. But there are also tens of millions of Americans who aren't receiving SNAP benefits or food stamps. President Trump is aware of all of that, and he basically wants to make this problem go away. The problem is, is that he needs sign-on from Democrats. And the Democrats right now on Capitol Hill are feeling pretty good and don't really see why they would need to compromise with him.

12:48Lauren Fedor: And so without going off on a completely different tangent, the president is basically going for the nuclear option here. He's trying to put pressure on Senate Republicans in particular to scrap the filibuster, which is the rule that requires buy-in from 60 senators to get nearly anything done, and saying, well, let's throw out the convention. Let's just go with a simple majority. Let's reopen the government. Oh, and while we're at it, since we've gotten rid of the filibuster, why don't you just give me carte blanche to do whatever I want when it comes to my legislative agenda between now and the midterms?

13:20Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up the midterms. Guy, what implications do you think this election has for the run-up to the midterms, which are a year away? Well, I think for me, the most interesting aspect is really what's going to happen to the Democratic Party, because in a way, the election results were good for the Democrats, but they were also quite inconclusive. You had a progressive Democratic Socialist winning in New York, and you had two centrist candidates winning in Virginia and New Jersey. So that doesn't really settle the question of which direction the Democratic Party should go in.

13:56And so it also sort of leaves a big question mark over who they're actually going to choose as their candidate for the 2028 elections. I mean, obviously, that's way in the future. But it is going to be fascinating to really see that debate play out within the party and what kind of candidate they coalesce around heading into the next presidential election.

14:18Lauren Fedor: I think the reality is, is that Democrats from across the kind of spectrum, whether it's from the left to the center, all found something to feel good about on Tuesday night. So the centrists can point to Spanberger in Virginia or Cheryl in New Jersey and say, look, that's the path for us. And I think it's important to note in those races, while those were purple or blue states, those candidates did exceptionally well. They won by double digits in states that Kamala Harris won by six points last year. So it's nothing to sniff about and we shouldn't kind of dismiss it as, oh, it was always going to happen.

14:50Lauren Fedor: No, they did really, really well in terms of beating expectations. I want to thank our guest, Lauren Fedor is the FD's Deputy Washington Bureau Chief. Thanks, Lauren. Thanks for having me. And Guy Chazanne, he's our U.S. national correspondent in New York. Thanks, Guy. Thanks for having me. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and we will be right back.

15:18Lauren Fedor: Right now, someone is asking AI a question about your industry. They're looking for the perfect recommendation or an accurate solution. and they're ready to act on it. When AI gives an answer, is your brand a part of it or not? Most companies have no idea which. GIST changes that. We show you where you're visible, where you're not, and give you the tools to do something about it. It's time to make AI work for your brand with GIST. Learn more at gist.ai.

15:52We are back. This week, I'm joined by Sonia Hudson. You may recognize her from hosting this show when I'm away or from the FT News briefing. Hi, Sonia. Hey, Mark. So, Sonia, you know that we get a lot of big questions about U.S. politics and the economy. You're here today because you've got a new way to look at those questions. Yeah, that's right. We're going to be launching a special podcast series right here on the Swamp Notes feed where we'll dive into Donald Trump's economy, immigration, political divisions, basically any hot button issue that you can think of. We're going to talk about it.

16:25And we're going to talk about it all through the lens of one particular city. It's called Bethlehem. It's in Pennsylvania. And for the next few years, the FT is going to be spending a lot of time there getting to know the city and the people that live there. Yeah. Bethlehem, just for anyone who's curious and knows Pennsylvania, is about an hour west of Philadelphia. Can I ask why this city in particular? So first of all, it's in a swing state. Pennsylvania is like the swingiest of all swing states. Secondly, it is both a former steel town and has a really big immigrant and Hispanic population.

17:01So in a lot of ways, it encapsulates a bunch of different stories that American politicians are telling about the country and who it's for, basically. You know, we've got declining blue collar jobs, the impact of tariffs, deportation and just really hotly contested, divisive politics. And these are all stories that Bethlehem tells really well. So we should tell listeners that the first episode will go up on Monday. And as Sonia said, it'll be right in this feed, so you don't need to subscribe to anything else. What can we expect from that first episode? So the first episode will just kind of give you a little bit of an introduction to Bethlehem, what it's all about.

17:41And then we're going to talk about the issue of immigration. There was an immigration raid that happened earlier this year, and it really sent kind of a chill through the community and exposed a lot of fault lines in this debate about immigration. And immigration is just one of several really controversial issues that we'll be covering over the course of the series. In fact, I believe that we have a little bit of a mini trailer to hear some of the sounds from this upcoming episode and following episodes. So why don't we play that now?

18:11Lauren Fedor: Growing up, I thought Bethlehem was just like your average small town. Recently, though, I've realized we're really in the center of a lot of things. I know that my citizenship and my status is just a legal decision and that it can be taken away from me. Every young man has someone in their life who has more of a blue collar job. And I think that the perceived threat is that illegal immigrants are going to take blue collar jobs. It's also just a symbol of pride and like a symbol of, you know, those working class roots. Like I've many friends like just drop me for being conservative. of, you can definitely just tell who started to lean more right, who started to lean more left.

18:54And gender is definitely a big thing I notice.

18:57Lauren Fedor: I don't think politicians should be dictating what women should do with their bodies. The biggest thing now is with AI. It's like, you know, you have to be careful with what you choose to go into. It's a, you know, historic town, but I think it's pushing towards the future.

19:21All right, that's the FT's Sonia Hudson. I'm excited for this. Thanks, Sonia. Thanks, Mark. And make sure to check back on Monday for Swamp Notes Bethlehem.

19:35This is Swamp Notes, the U.S. politics show from the FT. If you want to sign up for the Swamp Notes newsletter, we've got a link to that in the show notes. Our show was produced by Henry Larson. It was mixed by Sam Giovinco. Special thanks, as always, to Pierre Nicholson. I'm your host, Mark Filippino. Our acting co-head of audio is Topher Forges. Original music by Hannes Brown. Check back next week for more U.S. political analysis from the Financial Times.

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20:26Lauren Fedor: Right now, someone is asking AI a question about your industry. They're looking for the perfect recommendation or an accurate solution, and they're ready to act on it. When AI gives an answer, is your brand a part of it or not? Most companies have no idea which. GIST changes that. We show you where you're visible, where you're not, and give you the tools to do something about it. It's time to make AI work for your brand with GIST. Learn more at gist.ai.