Ezra Klein speaks to Democratic pollster David Shor about what voter data reveals about the 2024 election.

On ethnicity:

Ezra Klein: “Where do we begin?” David Shor: “In 2016, Democrats received 81 percent of the Hispanic moderate vote, while in 2024 they received 58 percent. That’s only 6 percent more than the 52 percent of white moderates that they received in 2024. The main story here is just a continuation of the trends that we saw four years ago. Throughout the entire Trump campaign, we’ve observed this racial depolarization.”

On GOTV:

Klein: “How does that sit with you — the idea that Democrats didn’t lose to Trump, they lost to the couch?” Shor: “It’s just not empirically correct, I would say.”

On gender:

Klein: “I feel like the story you’re implying you believe here is that this polarization among young men and women is driven by young men who were in high school and online during Covid.” Shor: “We’re in the midst of a big cultural change that I think people are really underestimating. […] If you look at zoomers, there are some really interesting ways that they’re very different in the data. They’re much more likely than previous generations to say that making money is extremely important to them. If you look at their psychographic data, they have a lot higher levels of psychometric neuroticism and anxiety than the people before them.”

On messaging:

Klein: “If I’m reading this chart correctly, when Democrats attack Trump for cutting or wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security, his disapproval increases by 2.5 points. If they attack him for letting Elon slash budgets, hurting Americans and putting privacy at risk, that hurts him by 2.2 points. Passing a one-party power grab to cut government services without compromise, that’s 2.1 points. These all look about the same, and none of them creates a very big shift.” Shor: “Can you just think about this scenario for a second: Can you imagine stopping a Trump voter on the street and you say 70 words to them and then there’s a 2.5 percent chance they changed their mind? I think that’s incredible and a big deal.”

You can also read the entire transcript.