The reaction to Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s official Democratic response to President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress this week provides some helpful insight into the major question her party has to answer these days:
Is the Blue Team able to accommodate its new coalition?
Republicans have been and still are going through a good bit of difficulty in becoming the party of both the rich and the working class. Many of the current fights in the GOP about foreign policy and tariffs speak to the split between the haves and the have-lesses on the Republican side. Blue-collar Americans tend to like protectionism and dislike foreign intervention, regardless of which party they are in, while members of the upper-middle class tend to take a more pro-engagement view on trade and foreign affairs.
But in the age of mega-MAGA, there’s no question about whether the priorities of the new working-class voter base of the GOP is having its way. What was the party of the suburbs for most of the 20th century looks a lot more like a party arranged around small-town and rural voters’ demands. Farmers tend to dislike tariffs for obvious reasons, but other than that, the policy priorities for the Republicans seem aligned with their core voters’ on core issues.
But what about the Democrats?
In her response to Trump, Slotkin — the newest Jewish member of the Senate — touted her national security background and her work in the administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. She heaped praise on Ronald Reagan’s understanding “that true strength required America to combine our military and economic might with moral clarity.” It was an effective message for a woman who just won a Senate race in a state Kamala Harris lost.
But for many Democrats, praising Reagan and talking about one’s work in the post-9/11 CIA doesn’t appeal.
“If parading Liz Cheney around didn’t help Democrats win, maybe praising Ronald Reagan won’t either,” wrote former Michigan state Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D).
Aiyash, who represented a district on the north side of Detroit that included parts of Hamtramck — a little city with a big Arab population — was one of the leaders of the effort to sink Joe Biden in Michigan’s primary because of Biden’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas. As Democratic leader in the state House, he won lots of attention as a 30-year-old who combined the hard-left progressivism of Bernie Sanders with the anti-Israel views of so many in Metro Detroit’s large Arab community.
There’s no case to be made that Aiyash and the Uncommitted movement in Michigan cost Democrats’ the presidency last year. The shift toward Donald Trump from 2020 to 2024 was sharp in Michigan, indeed. But the red-to-blue effect was not as pronounced as it was in other swing states like Nevada and Arizona, where there are not substantial Arab populations of the kind that mobilized in Michigan.
But Uncommitted can certainly be said to have cost Democrats.
As Harris started her brief general-election campaign last year, the Biden administration in which she served had managed to make a complete political hash out of the issue of Israel. Biden and Harris managed to be seen as both insufficiently pro-Isreal by many Jewish voters and moderates but also anti-Palestinian in the eyes of progressives and Arab voters. If Aiyash could say the administration was “fund[ing] a genocide” at the same time that pro-Israel Democrats in Congress were defending the Jewish state amid frequent White House criticism about its tactics in the war, Biden and Harris had managed to lose with both sides of the argument.
By the time Harris was choosing a running mate in August, the problem was front and center. Harris courted and considered Pennsylvania’s very popular and proudly Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro. But in addition to being pro-Israel, he had also denounced the antisemitism that had infected the campus protests at the University of Pennsylvania and other elite schools in the spring of last year. Moderate, popular, and from the most important swing state, Shapiro looked like a lock. When Harris snubbed him, though, we were told it was because she “clicked” better with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Chemistry is great, but plenty of tickets have won without it. It seemed more likely that Shapiro was deemed “too controversial” because of his views on Israel and the protesters. Walz had the robust backing of many in his home state’s substantial Muslim population and of hard-line progressives. Walz was the safe pick with the Democratic base while Shapiro was the pick to reach out to the middle. Either could have made sense. What made no sense, though, was toying with Shapiro and then snubbing him.
To understand Harris’s choice, consider the new numbers from Gallup on Democrats’ views on Israel. As recently as 2016, 53 percent of Democrats said their sympathies were more with Israelis than the Palestinians. Just 23 percent took the Palestinian side. Now, it’s reversed: 59 percent for the Palestinians and 21 percent for the Israelis.
This is not entirely surprising given the carnage of the war and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergence as a friend of the GOP, but even considering all that, it’s still a stark number. So where does that leave pro-Israel Democrats, particularly Jewish Americans?
Increasingly with the other party, as it turns out.
Figuring out how the estimated 6 million Jews in the American electorate cast their ballots is no easy task. The census doesn’t track Judaism as either a religion or an ethnicity, and polling on the question is tricky. But the data gurus at Split Ticket gave it their best shot by using polling data but also focusing in on the 2024 results in several communities that are predominantly or substantially Jewish. What they found was that Jews swung 6 points nationally from blue to red, but perhaps even more in places like Squirrel Hill, Pa.; Teaneck, N.J.; and Scarsdale, N.Y.
A 36-point advantage with Jews is still very robust, but maybe not good enough. As the authors explain:
“More dangerously for Democrats are the long term implications of a change in Jewish voting habits in combination with other trends, particularly among working class Hispanic and Asian Americans. The 2024 presidential election in New Jersey is particularly illustrative, with the state shifting from D+16% to D+6% between 2020 and 2024. While the 5-10 point rightward swing among Jewish voters is clearly insufficient to explain what happened in New Jersey, it could be a key factor: in places like Wisconsin, Democratic gains in educated suburbs have mitigated continued bleeding in rural areas, but in places like New Jersey and New York, a swing right among college-educated Jews may have doomed the party’s attempt to mitigate the strong GOP gains of 2024.”
The message is that if the Republican Party continues to make inroads with lower-income Americans, Democrats will not be able to afford any slippage with educated, affluent, upwardly mobile voters. The kind of folks you are likely to find in places like Scarsdale and Squirrel Hill.
It would be a mistake to do with Jewish voters and Israel what both parties did with Hispanic voters and immigration in the previous 20 years. Jewish voters are not monolithic and their individual interests and concerns are far broader and more complicated than the issues of Israel and domestic antisemitism.
But it is certainly correct to say that a viable coalition for Democrats will demand supermajorities of the kinds of voters who very often happen to come from Jewish communities. The same could be said of many Asian American families. Affluent and educated, Democrats need them to come out for the blue team again and again.
A party that can’t comfortably contain Abraham Aiyash and Elissa Slotkin isn’t a party that can win national elections.
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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Trump Job Performance
Average Approval: 46.2%
Average Disapproval: 49.2%
Net Score: -3.0 points
Change from last week: no change
[Average includes: Marist/NPR/PBS: 45% approve – 49% disapprove; TIPP: 46% approve – 43% disapprove; Ipsos/Reuters: 44% approve – 51% disapprove; Washington Post: 48% approve – 51% disapprove; CNN/SSRS: 48% approve – 52% disapprove]
Independents sour on Trump’s economic policy
Would you describe the direction in which President Trump is moving the
U.S. economy as:
- Change for the better:
- Republicans: 82%
- Democrats: 14%
- Independents: 32%
- Change for the worse:
- Republicans: 10%
- Democrats: 79%
- Independents: 52%
[NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll of National Adults, February 2025]
ON THE SIDE: PRAIRIE GROOVING
New York Times: “Hydraulic machines whooshed in a sprawling Kansas factory as melted vinyl squeezed through molded stampers like pancake batter, turning out fresh new albums about once a minute. Workers inspected the grooves for imperfections, fed album jackets into a shrink-wrapper and stacked the finished products on tall dollies for shipping. Acoustic Sounds occupies a hodgepodge of squat industrial buildings in Salina, a city of about 50,000 near the geographic center of the 48 contiguous states, where grain elevators and a gigantic frozen pizza plant jut out from the flat plains landscape. Over the last 15 years, this unassuming complex has become a leading manufacturer of the music industry’s most surprising hot format: vinyl LPs. … Pacing the floor was Chad Kassem, the company’s founder, who was bit by the audiophile bug as a 22-year-old who’d run into trouble with the law. … ‘What I’m all about,’ he said, ‘is saving the world from bad sound.’”
PRIME CUTS
Dems’ online fundraising platform in chaos: New York Times: “ActBlue, the online fund-raising organization that powers Democratic candidates, has plunged into turmoil, with at least seven senior officials resigning late last month and a remaining lawyer suggesting he faced internal retaliation. … The exodus has set off deep concerns about ActBlue’s future. Last week, two unions representing the group’s workers sent a blistering letter to ActBlue’s board of directors. … If ActBlue were to become severely diminished, Democrats running for offices at all levels of government could face setbacks in their efforts to raise cash. Candidates for offices ranging from school boards and city councils to the presidency rely on the platform for their online fund-raising, while Republicans have spent years trying to catch up. … ActBlue, which is based in Somerville, Mass., says it has raised more than $16 billion for Democratic candidates and causes since its founding in 2004.”
GOP optimistic about flipping Arizona governor’s mansion: The Hill: “Republicans see a prime pickup opportunity next year in the Arizona governor’s race, where Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs faces a tough reelection. … Two Republicans so far have entered the race: developer Karrin Taylor Robson … and Rep. Andy Biggs. … Yet even as the GOP has reasons to be optimistic, the party also acknowledges beating Hobbs will be no easy feat. … Hobbs is also not without resources, currently sitting on $3.4 million cash on hand. … Republicans believe they might be able to change historical headwinds during the midterm cycle and achieve an upset at the governor’s mansion — despite the fact that an incumbent Arizona governor hasn’t lost reelection since 1966. … While Robson’s team says she has Trump’s endorsement, Biggs’s allies assert it’s still an open question.”
GOP Senators demand votes on DOGE cuts: The Hill: “Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill. … Rand Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval. … Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said there’s broad desire within the Senate GOP conference for a vote on DOGE’s recommended cuts. … Many Republican senators have complained publicly and privately about being blindsided by Musk’s proposed funding freezes and reductions in workforce. ‘Every day’s another surprise,’ Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said last week of the frequent news bombshells from DOGE.”
Rural Republicans sweat Trump tariffs: Politico: “‘Uneasy, I think, is a word,’ said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). … Dozens of other GOP lawmakers represent states with major agriculture industries that are among the first targets of trade retaliation from Ottawa and Mexico City. The Canadian government has already disclosed more than $20 billion worth of U.S. goods it plans to slap with higher tariffs, including food products such as poultry, beef, fish and yogurt. The fallout for ag producers, a traditionally conservative-leaning industry, will be severe. And it’s prompting Republicans in those states to take on an uncomfortable position in the party right now — questioning, albeit quietly, a major plank of Trump’s agenda. … But a number of Republicans said Monday night they were confident the Trump administration would find a way to compensate farmers who lose money and market share from the newly launched trade wars.”
SHORT ORDER
Rest in peace, Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas)—Texas Tribune
Dems play defense in heavily Latino districts—Politico
Ten Democrats join GOP to censure Rep. Al Green (D-Texas)—The Hill
Council speaker Adrienne Adams joins crowded NYC mayoral field—Gothamist
TABLE TALK
Old School Rap
“I think it was a big mistake. … I’m an old school traditional type guy, I think we should be treating the president with deference. So I think it was inappropriate.”—Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) criticizes fellow Democrat Al Green for his disruption of Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday.
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FOR DESSERT
Dorks 1, Nerds 0: Scientific American: “Math solutions can be found in surprising places, including the dark realms of the Internet. In 2011 an anonymous poster on the now infamously controversial image board 4chan posed a mathematical puzzle about the cult classic anime series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. … [T]hat original post led to a solution to the sophisticated math problem. The first season of this anime series consists of 14 episodes that were designed so that you can watch them in any order you like. At some point in a 2011 discussion of the series on 4chan, someone asked the minimum number of episodes they would have to watch to have seen it in every possible order. In fact, this question is related to so-called superpermutations. And as it turns out, this mathematical area holds many puzzles: to this day, mathematicians are still unable to fully answer the problem that the 4chan user had posed.”
Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of The Hill Sunday on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media. Nate Moore contributed to this report.
