And david daley, author of why your vote doesnt count and the upcoming book unrigged, how americans battle back of democracy. Im a citizen of cherokee nation, a journalist and host of the podcast this land and im really, really excited to dig into this conversation in the next hour. I think its more important now than ever. I think in this moment of a Global Pandemic we are seeing the systemic failures of our government right now. You know, sort of all of the cracks that were existing are more apparent than ever and i think a lot of us have our eyes on this upcoming election, if that election is going to be a solution or make the problem worse. So, steve, i ill direct the first question to you. A lot of democrats have seen a singular focus on beating donald trump in november. Theres a lot of debate whether or not those efforts should be voted on or should be focused on converting trump voters, working class white voters over to the democratic side or increasing turnout or people of color voting democrat. What is the strategy . All of the empirempirecal da people of color with minority progressive whites. 37 to 40 of white voters. And so, that has been thats a majority of people in the country, its a majority of eligible voters for not only who voted in obamas election, but 2015 what you forget is Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. Thats the winning coalition, all the notion around we have to win back the working class voters. And thats the data and those largely with us, who are the more progressive sector of the population. And then, i think the overarching fact that people dont appreciate that. Democrats have not won the white vote overall since 1964, prior to Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights act. Jimmy carter lost the white vote when he ran. White, southern governor with a drawl, right . So this notion that theres this huge like say win back the working class white voters. They have not been there for 40, 50 years. Exactly. And then you take, add to that the trend from the population, the Fastest Growing population are the people of color, africanamericans latinos, asians and then white. If you look at whats shrinking, the logical thing to double down on and go to those who have historically been receptive to a democratic message. Logical, but and in a column you wrote for the nation about a year ago, which i think in coronavirus years, it feels like a decade ago now. You talked about that, how trump and his reelection bid is actually not the frontrunner statistically because and part of that is because of the shifting demographics. Yes, absolutely and again, thats also that was the foundation of actually why i wrote my book, brown is the new white i felt that people were not grasping the lessons of the Obama Coalition of actually how obama won. People dont realize that obama would have lost to reagan because the country was that much less diverse at the time. So that shows how all that plays itself out. Back to the thing about trump, the presumption is hes been so terrible and so much destruction and so much damage that he must be very popular, he must have a lot of support and he must be very hard to defeat. He has not and has never had majority support. He didnt win the election majority support. He lost by 3 million votes in the popular vote in the three states where he won the election, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, he didnt win a majority in those states. What you had was peopsplinterin and going to other parties. And never been 50 and maybe the height and people would give him around the pandemic, but already have come back down. So he does not and never has majority support. It will feel like anybody that confident and cavalier must have support, he does not. I think its important that progressives carry themselves with a confidence that we in fact represent the majority of the people in the country and he does not. And many people support him, but thats not the majority of the people. Yeah, and i think thats one thing that i think, too a lot about a lot. The conversation how are we going to win over trump voters. If you look at his approval ratings, theyve been low. Theyve moved some, but havent moved that dramatically and i also think to myself a lot, if everything that trump has done has not already converted trump voters, what could democrats possibly do in 2020 that would change peoples minds . Yeah, now on our last in our podcast we had in the beginning of march we had ron brownstein, a columnist for cnn and the atlantic, and he coined one of the best, were engaged in the battle between the coalition, Obama Coalition, multiracial and multicultural and make America Great again crowd and taking it back. I think its very similar extension from the postcivil war period. So there arent many people up for grabs. Youre either in one of these two camps and i think thats what a lot of people dont understand about politics at this moment. Yeah, and we know that the president ial election is just one piece of sort of the big policy shifts that a lot of people are talking about, and another really important part of that piece is congress and they state houses and state united states. And so i want to bring in david daley to talk about this aspect because one important piece of that is not just whos voting and in what numbers, but how those votes are counted and actually equal representation and so you literally wrote the back on gerrymandering. So can you talk to us about how voter turnout is sort of one piece of the pie that we have to be thinking about in terms of winning elections . Rebecca, i signed onto steves analysis and i think he got to exactly right. And run rampant on a formulation of this as well. Coalitions, transformation versus coalition of restoration. And when two groups are relatively equally matched, where the lines are drawn between them in competitive states and who controls the drawing of those lines matters an awful lot, and my first book really tells the story of two elections. Its the story of 2008 in which you get the election of barack obama. You get a democratic super majority in the u. S. Senate and a renewed democratic majority in the house. If you look back at the News Coverage of that night. People at that you can about how the change in demographics of this nation was going to make the Republican Party a Minority Party for a generation to come. It didnt work out that way, did it . And a handful of really sophisticated republican strategists realized was that as important and historic an election as 2008 may have been, 2010 had the potential to be that much more consequential because it was a redistricting year, a census year and every congressional line in the country was going to be redrawn immediately after the 2010 election. And there was the ability to use redistricting as a path back to power if they could flip state legislatures in all of these key states and force democrats out of the room entirely when these new lines were being drawn. So they launched a plan, red redistricting majority. And they targeted inexpensive races in states like pennsylvania, ohio, michigan, North Carolina, wisconsin. States we keep talking about, states that are closely divided swing states, the power to draw the lines is the power to decide winners or losers for a decade to come and thats exactly what happened. By winning 107 key state legislative race ins 2010, republicans were able to control not only drawing almost all able to control not only a huge majority of congressional seats. The republicans were able to draw almost 61 by themselves over democrats in 2011 for congress and they were also able to draw the lines for all of the state legislators and it defined the state of play and it pushed policy further to the right in these states and leads to an attack on an assault on Voting Rights, and what you continue to see ises played out in wisconsin, march and april is a direct result of the state legislative elections in 2010 that republicans focused on and that democrats simply fell asleep on. They had a huge impact so in 2012 we reelect barack obama. Democrats still have the u. S. Senate and they get 1. 4 million more votes for congress for the house and yet, republicans hold onto the house, 234201. Its not even close in all of those states, in pennsylvania, in North Carolina, in wisconsin, in michigan, and ohio. Democrats get more votes for the state house, they get more votes for congress, but what you see are these delegations that are entirely lopsided towards the right. 135 in pennsylvania. 124 in ohio, 103 in North Carolina. Super majorities in state legislators that are won with fewer votes and it has pushed politics to the right and it gave them the ability then to gerrymandering is the first step and what you then see is voter i. D. Laws are purging of voters rolls, our precinct closures, making it more difficult to vote absentee in many of these states. Again and again and again, so, you have these two close sides, these two coalitions in a pitched battle, but one side is making most of the rules about how those elections are being fought and waged and theyre doing so with the support of the courts and theyre doing so in a way that continues to give themselves unfair and antidemocratic and ant antimajortarian advantages again and again and again. Steve, can you speak to that, too, because some of the hope and changing demographics that you talk about that is good news for the Democratic Party, it seems its been met equally with Voter Suppression, especially among communities of color. You know, during the democratic primary, we already saw extremely long lines in communities of color. You know, in milwaukee during a Global Pandemic, a city that normally has 180 polling locations, people were crammed into just five. And so how is Voter Suppression in communities of color going to impact the outcome of the 2020 election . And what can be done about it . Right, you mean like how the Wisconsin Supreme Court by teleconference to go out in public and defy that people should go out and vote in public, that kind of suppression. And may i ask david a question around what he was talking about. And a comment and a question. One thing that people dont understand about 2010 is how much there was a lack of voter turnout on the democratic side, and so theres a misperception what happened and all of these people voted for obama and changed their mind and voted republican because of health care. But thats actually not what the data shows. The democratic vote dropped dramatically. So, you know, its important for people to bear in mind, but i was interested in terms of your research, david. Who was behind and who had both the insight and if you know anything about the funding on the right, to say this is what were going after . Because clearly it was not a priority on the progressive side. How they came to focus on that as the thing to go after. Its a fascinating story and it really starts as simple as a republican strategist chris ja jahncowski, worked at and reads an article in the New York Times one day how the census a coming up and its going to the governors elected in 2010 are going to be in the legislatures. He worked with the attorney general association and it was almost like an eureka moment for him and he takes this back to the rslc, which is led by ed gillespie former chair of the party and they begin making a power point and they begin taking it around the country. They raise 30 million and its from the usual sources on the right, you know, its philip morris, its altria, its the chamber of commerce. Eighths lot of the usual funding sources. And writes an oped in the wall street journal in 2010 that lays the entire plan out. You see it now and you want to indict the entire leadership of Democratic Party for incompetence for not laying it out. Rove lays out the strategy and what the consequences are going to be and the individual states and neighborhoods theyre going to lay in. Were going to take control of state legislators and when the redistricts are redrawn the following year were going to control the process and do this less than 30 million. You cant lose a senate race now for that price. And this is the biggest heist in modern american politics. And youve got all of these different major donors on the progressive side. Yes. Spending far more money in terms of the various allocations that they make, so this is, you know, we create we work with millions on the president ial campaigns. If he had spent that money on Building Infrastructure for state legislature. Once again, were talking 2020, in another state legislature year. If bloomberg and stire if theyd put it down ballot in pennsylvania, in texas, in arizona, in some of these important states where once again, a handful could determine the balance of power for a decade to could many. It would have been so much more valuable than lighting it on fire and and in thinking about what is coming up with redistricting. One thing i wanted to ask you about, david, is about the u. S. Census, because now that were in this moment of coronavirus, we know that the u. S. Census is doing a lot less doortodoor work and i could just speak from for the communities, native americans living on reservations where the most likely, you know, they call us hard to count, but the most likely to not get counted and we also have one of the highest rates of where somebody comes and knocks on your door and talks to you. That has been paused because of Public Safety concerns, but what im hearing from tribal leaders and people advocating on the hill in washington, its panic that the undercount in 2020 is going to be historically high and we already know that communities of color are undercounted and White Communities are overcounted in the census. Can we talk about why the census count is so pontiac for republican representations and with the landscape of coronavirus to make sure that people get counted. The census is a hot mess. I mean, it is crucial. The census is the Building Block of first reapportionment which determines how many members of congress a state gets and once you determine how many members of congress and the beginning of the Electoral College votes your state gets. And then after apportionment is set, the census becomes the Building Block of legislature and seats. So an accurate count is absolutely key for all of those reasons, in addition to the trillions of dollars of funding that the census control. And steve, i want to get back to you, and thinking about Democratic Politics leading up to the 2020 election. You know, during the primary season we see people sort of discussing different votes and different voter profiles, and we see the white vote gets talked about in this way that is endlessly complex. So, there are rural voters, urban voters, suburban voters. White, male men without a college education. White women with a college education, but when voters of color are talked about, its always just one big group, where there is the black vote or the latino vote. I was wondering if you think this lack of nuance or complexity, international conversation, specifically among democrats, this advantag advantages disadvantages voters of color . Yes and no. I was obama got 96 of the black vote ap i always want to say, i really want to know who is the 4 of that whole what is at stake in this country, right. I did a piece for the New York Times called trump trying to make America White again and thats the fundamental dividing line within this country. The very first immigration in this country, 1790 i mmigration naturalization act, that was immigration policy from 1790 until the 1950s. And so, this whole question, are you white or not remains at the core of the american identity, the american politics and so, its so in some sense, and that update is a big part of why 90 of africanamericans vote democrat versus against the republicans. And so, to that extent, i would sometimes joke or sarcastically comment, theres a lot of talk in democrat operative spaces about modeling and you could have the models and targets, and look at what kind of, you know, beer they drink and cars they drive and figure out who is progressive, et cetera. And my joke, which isnt a joke at all. In the modeling, how do you find progressive white people because you will you have have to do is find black people and terms to be more progressive in terms of voting and whatnot. To a certain extent, there is a basis that africanamericans in particular, or people of color in general are treated differently and more negatively by the country as a whole and thats what we have this gargantuan racial wealth gap and different distinctions, who holds power and who doesnt hold power. At that level it is a clearcut thing, but it does not lend itself towards deeper and that also its important, which i think is a very important part for 2020, is because the country is so narrowly divided any kind of small incursions make an impact. One of the things that people dont grasp is that there was a Something Like 6 to 8 plus percent drop in the male in the democratic ticket. Women are there, 93 plus . There were some men went over to trump, and wouldnt argue against that being because he was running against a woman. And peeling off they dont need to win black voters, they need to whittle the margins down a little. So the sophistication on the right is deeper in that regard than it is to the democratic side. I think in terms of actually deeply understanding and authentically connecting to the different communities, that having that level of depth of knowledge and insight and so that to know that the majority of latinos in texas are mexican american, but the majority much latinos in florida are cuban and puerto rican with very different backgrounds, right. So, just your average white consultant isnt necessarily going to have that kind of insight and that does work against the effectiveness of the work that democrats will be doing. Yeah, just go ahead, david. You can try to peel off individual Percentage Points of that vote or you can try to put up barriers to the ballot box it 0 make it harder to vote. You know . Yeah, and you can do both of those things and, i mean, if you look at in 2016 again, you know, i mean, Hillary Clinton wins by the popular vote by 3 million votes, but donald trump wins the electoral vote by 80,000 votes by the gerrymandered states and suppression tools in front of voters, especially voters of color in milwaukee, detroit, in philadelphia. That is enough in many cases. I mean, the voter i. D. Bill that was enacted by that gerrymandered legislation in Congress Helped drive down turnout of black voters in milwaukee by a couple hundred thousand votes in 2016 over 2012 and certainly some of that could be obama not being on the ticket and hillary being on the ticket. But that is a significant number and the i. D. Bill made a big difference. In North Carolina where a federal court found that what the gerrymandered legislature there did, they targeted black vote,with surgical precision. What they did, they enacted a voter i. D. Bill and then the legislature decided that they would research the very specific kinds of i. D. That black voters in the state were least likely to have. That turned out to be a drivers license and so thats what they required voters have. I was the first reporter to get his hands on the redistricting files of the late republican master mind who is behind so much of this. And as i went through his files last year, what i found was the map he used in drawing the North Carolina congressional districts and fame lously there are is a line between greensboro, a majority black city and goes through the heart of the oldest historically black university in the nation, it divides seven dorms on one side, six dorms on the other, two districts that conservative white republicans and thomas hofler had in his files spread sheets of the name of every Single College voter in the state, their race, the dorms that they lived in. Wow. And whether they had a drivers license or not. That is the level of specificity theyre working when they draw these lines. Yeah, we saw similar policies at play in north dakota after the native vote in north dakota helped to deliver heidi hidecamp a democrat in a pretty red state. And native americans who dont have a street address and only have a po box. If thats on your i. D. It wasnt enough. And so, tribes actually did a huge intervention to increase voter turnout and actually to issue people tribal i. D. s which are federal i. D. s that you can fly with, you can vote with, you can do anything with a drivers license where people could actually get a physical address. So, the specificity and the creativeness when it comes to Voter Suppression and you know, there is no theres no end. There is absolutely no end and my favorite to the North Carolina story though is that while heidi hidecamp doesnt win in 2018 the turnout in the tribal lands goes through the roof and one of the people elected. The first native american woman, and man she defeats the man who in 2013 first proposed that voter i. D. Bill. So, theres good news out of that story. And with that good news, its not just coincidence, it wasnt just that people were mad and they voted in historic numbers, there was a huge effort on the ground to organize people to get people regulistered to vote to get the the i. D. They needed and to get them to the poll. And we know that that type of sort of longterm onto ground organizing is the type of thing that makes differences in elections, way more than pundits talking about things, than polling, then tv ads. And we were going to have a representative here from she the people, but she couldnt join us. So, steve, i was wondering if you could talk about the work that theyre doing, because theyre investing in longterm Coalition Building among women of color, across the country, but also really focusing on that onto ground organizing of increasing voter turnout of women of color in Battle Ground states. Could you talk about the work theyre doing for 2020 . Yeah, no, actually, the whole effort incubated with people of color about of they went off and launched this national effort. Often what people dont realize, people, sometimes i think minimize and marginalize the roles women of color, well, its a subset of women and subset of people of color. But in point of fact, we live in a society of people that have systemic profound widespread racism and widespread sexism and they have insight into connection to a relationship between the vast majority of people in the country who are, in fact, the people are who are more disadvantaged in terms of the opportunities and things that come along. What people are trying to do is build a network of women of color, organizers, leaders, activists, lift up those voices and back those people on the work that theyre actually trying to do. A lot of them before, like black women and elections and jones in alabama when he flipped that seat in alabama, it was 97, 98 of black women backed him that was actually able to get him over the line. And then also, theres a professor at berkley, who has done a lot of research. She literally wrote the book on latino policies or a book thats called latino politics and she talks about this whole issue around having Community Civic web is what shes talking about. The core of this web, usually its a woman and a woman of color in the latino community, and then building around that person. So that person has relationships with their family members, and the influence in their family and relation ins their community and neighborhood, they influence those people, so thats the fashion by which women of color are such a senseless part of politics within the country, but there had not previously been a National Organization specifically focused on women of color until she created she the people and thats lifting up those issues, those leaders, those people, people under the radar, underappreciated, almost revolutionary change is happening in virginia. Virginia has taken complete control of the state government. The democrats control the legislature, the governorship, the attorney general and theyre passing they got rid of the law making holiday the state legislatures, the law honoring con fedrate soldiers. Theyre vote by mail and democracy and raised a Million People in virginia are going to have increase in their wages to the minimum wage. Much of that was driven by an organization and coordinated by one of the new organizations, run by a woman of color. And so thats an example of the outsized leveraging impact. In florida youve not andrea mercado, doing the crit calm wocalm critical one there. And in texas. Sticking those leaders together into more of a formal force is what she the people is doing and that that is a very overdue and needed addition to the Political Landscape in the country. And looking forward to the election in november, which i think for a lot of us, its hard to take our mind off of because so much is at stake. We know that with this Global Pandemic that elections arent going to look the same in the near future and may not look the same in a while. So, in response, you know, a lot of leaders are talking about universal mailin ballots, but theres growing opposition to that idea. I wonder if you could talk about who doesnt want there to be mailin voting and why . Thats a big question and a complicated question. As you know, you know, covering tribal issues as you do, this is going to be an election like no other in recent memory, if ever. And what i think is going to happen is what we just saw in wisconsin is not just a warning sign for whats going to happen. That was a dress rehearsal for a republican plan in 2020. Its going to be very, very difficult in many states, in many cities to conduct traditional inperson voting. There is still going to be plenty of inperson voting in this election, but there are places we dont know what november is going to look like. Whether theres, you know, in cooler months again in the fall. Whether this comes back again. So what i think we have to be planning for right now is how we safeguard this election. The problems in wisconsin in many ways started with request for absentee ballots that deluged an overwhelmed, underfunded election board that were not prepared to send back 1. 2 million absentee ballots requests. And what you saw happen was that the u. S. Supreme court was asked to step in and give a little bit more time to clarify the rules and they shut that down 54 along strict party lines. Imagine now how that played out in multiple states, you know . Youre going to be im sorry, go ahead. I was going to say the National Leaders have called if theres another coronavirus package, that is negotiated, that democrats need to leverage that to guarantee universal mailin ballots. Absolutely need to be forcing republicans to expand the amount of money that is available for vote by mail and to change the law that i mean, as it is right now, only in twothirds of the states can you cast an absentee ballot without an excuse. In one third of the states you need an excuse and a pandemic is not enough. We need access to absentee ballots for everybody. We need to be properly funded in every state so that these election boards are ready, that they have the scanners that they need so that the laws can be changed so the vote can be counted on time. In pennsylvania and in michigan, two states that were pretty important back in 2016, pretty close, you have laws on the books that say you cant open any ballots until election day. That might work when 10 of your votes are absentee, but when twothirds are, you might not have a result for a week and then imagine what the president is going to do going on claiming voter fraud every single night on the news as the numbers change. Hes already trying to poison the idea of vote by mail. Now, vote by mail is not perfect. Vote by mail has got many challenges. If you are in rural areas, if you are in tribal land, if youre in public housing, you might not have safe and secure and equal access to the mail. In my new book, i drive around in utah in the county where in new jersey, and there are three post offices and you have to go hours in between these post offices and if you are a tribal elder, you might make that trip by every five or six weeks maybe, if at all. And these post offices are not safe. Theyre in the back of gas stations and you see the mail just, you know, thrown in dumpsters, it may or may not be getting to people. In many states what you see are young voters and voters of color, are the first to have their votes thrown out when its vote by mail, because of signature matching requirements and laws in many states are not equal on whether or not they have to tell you if you have a signature match problem. Yeah. So theres there are lots of things that have to be done and weve got 200 days left to try to get that out. And the republican plan here is to slow it down to make it really, really difficult to do all the stuff youve got to do to inadequately fund it and now there are stories about the post office not even yeah, thats scary. All of this works in one direction. Yeah, so not a perfect system for vote by mail, but something we definitely need to fight or for protect and you brought up San Juan County which is another gerrymandering story and its the majority native country and it had had a majority. He talked about that county not reporting investigation but now that is representative of the people that live there, for whom that fight is not important but sacred, the county now supports maintaining that site. I think there are a lot of those stories out there about the importance of access. I wanted to switch topics for amended and steve, something youve written about recently, which is as are talking about the Vice President being a woman, the Vice President nominee for the Democratic Party, you argue that person should actually be a woman of color. First of all, i could not agree more, but for all the naysayers who will say things like identity doesnt matter or wheu do look at peoples policies and politics and history, i just tweeted something about that today and already ive people say we cant just took based on identity. We need to make sure that persons politics are in line with what we believe is a party which, of course is true, but i think is a way to escape from the important conversation about how to build a more representative democracy. I was wondering if you could speak to that and what youve written about before . Ive got a piece in the New York Times around this that really looking at the specific weaknesses that biden has and why, who he actually needs to fill those weaknesses. Thats a particular point and theres also the point was making before. In a society that has as profound a gender pay gap and racial wealth gap as we do, people keep saying, we cant be about identity. Those are identitybased realities. You cant create something, you cant create a problem by focusing on identity and then say were not going to look at identity in terms of redressing the problem. Theres a real fundamental challenge because i guess from the starting point conceptually. But putting that aside looking specifically at biden, and what i talk about in this, yet three major weaknesses, challenges. One is young people. Young people michigan where he won largely, my significant margin, yet 90 of the vote of young people under 30. I just want to say when you e talk about biden losing the young vote, in some states the talk but people under 35 in some states its people under 40. In some states he lost people under 50. When we hear young vote, people saying collegeage people, people in the early 20s but its a much group than that. Go on. Thats one huge need. There is a latino vote. He lost the latino vote in every single state that actually voted. That is now the largest nonwhite population within the country. Third, maybe i should say first, is the issue of black enthusiasm. This is my biggest fear and concern for you. Already people around his Campaign Site will find black people turkey did well with black people to get such large support from africanamericans in the primaries first, not appreciating that. The reason they voted for him in a primaries is because theyre confident helpful at why people would vote for him. Its like heres a guy who will do well with white people. We ran a woman last time, lets get somebody in there who those folks will go for. Even putting that aside, more fundamentally, clinton also did extraordinarily well in the primaries against young people and then went with the white running mate. She had an allwhite ticket that did not incite, inspire and enthuse and motivate people to come out in large numbers. Black voter turnout fell to its lowest level in 16 years and lost michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania with all the obsession with White Working Class in the states. We also talked about detroit, milwaukee and philadelphia. Thats the easiest vote in terms of the most likely reliable democratic vote. Its got to be inspired and motivated and turned out in big numbers. All of that argues from an electoral advantage standpoint having the woman of color on the ticket, and if you look even more deeply at the numbers around the past electoral performance of the people being mentioned in terms of the various statewide races they have run income Stacey Abrams does stand out, georgia, that she won young people in georgia by 25 points whereas, i i didnt realize is not working on this, obama lost in georgia by three points. He had a 28point approval of obamas performance with young people in georgia. She actually about people run the best among latinas, 88 of latinos voted for her. There is nobody who has turned out more black people devote than Stacey Abrams, and at the level of increased they had 2014 over 2018. She got 92 of the vote. I would argue that the data shows that that is a person who actually would be his strongest ally, but theres also other women of color who could also have some of the benefit that he needs with those constituencies as well. I think that speaks to Something Else you wrote in a column for the guardian before super tuesday which again feels like ages ago. So much has changed since then. But you wrote whoever wins the nomination will owe their success to the love and support of people of color. The question is, you wrote, will the nominee love them back . I think we saw that both with biden and sanders. Back to back i think you wrote this right after south carolina, right after the latino vote carried sanders to victory in nevada, and then biden had that victory that was a complete uturn for his candidacy in south carolina. Biden is the nominee, what do you think that not all he but the Democratic Party as a whole need to prioritize in 2020 . It is a situation we can talk but in terms of getting out the voters of color. If you extrapolate out the reality of racial wealth gap, then there are many more obstacles to voting if you dont have as much money, right . Its harder to get off the job, you may have more than one job, your childcare, transportation. That requires resources to be able to help people overcome those obstacles, be able to get out and vote. That means, then the program youre talking that in north dakota, a lot of that was hiring people who are either from or have connections to the community to do the work of going door to door. Its not Rocket Science but its not a priority among too many people in the Democratic Party. Youve got the largest super pac party, usa spend 150 million in the selection but only digital ads so that we getting people to talk to people, and you cant go to door to door during a pandemic. You can. The resources are not being allocated in that fashion at one point in time before you solve a bill from the primaries, bloomberg was going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to defeat trump. You got 63 billion, so even after 809 he spent is he still of tons of money to be able to try to step up but hes not going now he has given 18 million which is pocket change due to the Democratic Party. The wisest investment 200 million in hiring of people from these communities to make sure people get out the vote . Thats kind of what my frustration is. Its not that complicated but it requires a level of prioritization of how the assets are going to be allocated. I used to work as a Community Organizer in baltimore on the east coast and we did a twoyear campaign when we kind of quadrupled voter turnout at one polling place. And so in a primary election, so not the general election, we had higher voter turnout entering like a regular general president ial election, and it was through doing everything from if you come to this coquette and your voter id card you get a free hotdog, doing doorknocking, doing calls, taking people to the polls. There was a pastor in the community, elder harris, who was a pretty [inaudible] he lived on the roof of his church until 500 people voted in early voting to get people to the polls. It made this enormous difference where it was so hard to get even a City Council Person or like a state representative or a state senator to a community meeting. But then once they saw that that neighborhood voted, they were there every month. It made such a big difference. So, david, as our last question before we have to wrap up, i was wondering if you could talk about importance of local elections. It is so hard not to focus on trump. I mean, we live in the media cycle that is the trump show. But we also live in a nightmare that has been the Trump Presidency, and for a lot of really good reasons people are hyper focused on getting trump out of the white house. But that is only one piece of the puzzle to really protecting our democracy. In closing, can you talk about how we also need to be thinking about local elections in november . The nightmare of the Trump Presidency began long before we elected donald trump, and it will not end with the defeat of donald trump because of the way that the Republican Party has systematically worked electoral rolls in this country. This has been a process that has been going on for a long, long time. The right to vote and the fight over the right to vote has been with us from the very founding of the country. And is no less so in our politics today. What we need to keep in mind is, as 2020 arrives is that, yes, we are electing a president. We also electing state legislatures. We are electing the u. S. House. We are electing a third of u. S. Senate. Where electing people up and down the ballot this decade of our politics was largely created by the 2010 election in which democrats simply did not show up. They believe after 2008 that this was a coalition of the ascendant, that a change of the american demographics and generations on the rise would do the work for us, and it doesnt work that way. You need to show up and vote every single election because republicans did. They showed up in 2010. They had had a plan. Executed. They won state legislatures. They redrew as as a nation ands it is right now, 59 million americans live in in a state wh one or both chambers of the state legislature is controlled by the party that one fewer votes than 22. All 59 billion of those people live in a in a state which dems get more votes, republicans hold all the power. In the states they gone after your right to vote. That gun after your right to healthcare and reproductive rights and organize a union and the environment, the building of localities to pass laws that, the ability of let states to override laws passed by local governments. All of this is a growing and increasing antimajority and is in our politics. It is aimed at holding down the changing demographics and color of the nation, and that can work because it is worked for this entire decade for the republicans. They have a choice in 2010 they have a choice in 2010 of which direction to going to take after barack obama and the democrats want them in 2008. They couldve decided to find a way to talk to all americans and try to persuade voters, and this is the device given to them in the autopsy, the famous gop autopsy, or they could try to put barriers and for the people in the ballot box and make it hard for people who dont run on their side to vote. Thats the path they took pic thats the path that is going to have to be defeated. Its not going to be easy because they control courts and have to be defeated on these maps. But if we dont do in 2020, our next shot at these maps comes in 2030, and god knows what this country looks like if that is the case, if they are successful. But the good news, and ill wrap up, im sorry, i saw that look. But the good news is that around the country whether its north dakota, whether it is medicaid reform that was passed in idaho, or whether it is felled and Voting Rights in florida, whether it is the Redistricting Commission and michigan, missouri, colorado, utah, all of which passed with a big majorities, i think americans are, understand that there is elections matter. And i think we are learning really, really quickly here that company, dr. King talked about the moral of the universe being long but bending towards justice, and it only been towards justice when all of us get our hands on it and report towards justice. Because their folks here trying to vote the other way. We cant let that happen. If i could add just to put things on that come is that if we do step back and look at and think about this country being in the battle between the coalition of frustration, the coalition of transformation which i argue sometimes jokingly but not actual fundament et al. Is an extension of the civil war within this country. We had reconstruction and then that was attacked, and we were in a postreconstruction internet in terms of where which direction going to go. Those kinds of National Battles take place at state and local levels over the country. Similar to the way the rise of trump was predicated i think by the tea party state and local level. Similarly we have the potential, we have the numbers at the state and local level to be able to advance these types of changes and create more of the National Progressive social Justice Foundation and momentum. And so there have been i believe eight governorships have flipped since trump got elected . So you got that and then you got progressive policy taking place in different cities as well. Much of the country lives in the different areas. Were not at the mercy sold of what happens in d. C. And from this white house. Uca plate itself out in the pandemic where you have more enlightened and factbased driven leadership of the state and local level. San francisco come when the first cities in the country to actually have shut down to be able to flatten the curve and using the results of that now. If you extrapolate that out to the politics and the public policies, we could start to advance social justice publicpolicy agenda all over the country in these different pockets or even more than pockets where we have is the american majority that is rooted in a in a more social justice, social justice, injustice and [inaudible] i think just and on like one tidbit. Were i live in oklahoma is one of the reddest states in the country. And when you look at the county map, theres this little blue dot in the northeastern corner, and thats the county where i live, cherokee county, and my state representative is a democrat in a house of republican, super majority. Republicans have been trying hes actually up for reelection right now, matt meredith. They are trying in all their power to crack that hold, but here in sc of red in the middle of the country theres this really strongly democrat county, and one of [inaudible] the reasons that is because the party has been very active here for decades. We had again democrat club. We have voter turnout. During election cycles to open up offices. Things that are think a lot of people dont think would be taking place in oklahoma are happening here, too. And so i think that this whole conversation just goes to underline that electoral politics come down to maps at the end of the day. And moving those numbers are things that you think about any comprehensive and holistic way that i think could come for decades republicans have out strategized and outgained the Democratic Party, and we not only need to out strategized but outwork them if were going to see those results that we need to see in 2020. So i think everybody i thank everybody for turning in after listening to Voting Rights. Why dont we just leave where viewers can find and read your work . Steve, you want to go first . Democracy and,. Com is where you can find our podcast and links to the different work were doing, and so we got a Facebook Page democracy, as well you can follow a work of the things we putting out there as well. David . This is unrigged, newly published, available in bookstores everywhere and independent bookstores need you. The story about republicans gerrymandered the nation. Thanks so much for anybody who wants to follow my work and finally on twitter. Im just at rebecca nagle. Thank you so much for tuning in and whatever you do, dont forget to vote. Tonight on booktv a look at bestsellers and awardwinning books beginning at 8 p. M. Eastern. Watch booktv tonight and over the weekend on cspan2. Having lived through a thros of confidence in our institutions, away the cynicism that is left is unable to trust what we are told by anyone who calls themselves an expert it becomes very difficult for us to rise to challenge like this. Our first reaction is to say no, they are lying to us. They are only in it for themselves. And a lot of our National Institutions have got to take on the challenge of persuading people begin that they exist for us, at their here for the country. Sunday june 7 at noon eastern on in depth a live conversation with author and American EnterpriseInstitute Scholar yuval levin. His most recent book is a time to build. Other titles include the great debate, and the fractured republic. Join the conversation witou