Democrats' shrinking coalition

On Monday night, Democratic data firm Catalist released its “What Happened” report detailing shifts and trends in the electorate that impacted the 2024 election. It’s always a comprehensive and highly anticipated read for election nerds and staffers who seek more certainty about what happened in the last election. 

This year’s version of the report is a sobering analysis that contains very little good news for Democrats. The most shocking findings relate to Democrats’ shrinking coalition, as the party’s lock on voters of color and younger audiences seems to be slowly fading from its highs in the early Obama era:

• Voters under the age of 30 dropped from 61% Democratic support in 2020 to 55% in 2024. These drops were larger than drops for any other generation or age group

• Voters of color continue to support Democrats, but support has dropped successively over the past three presidential elections. Latino voter support for Democrats dropped by 9 points from 2020, and dropped by 3 points among Black voters. Support among young Black men dropped from 85% to 75% and support among young Latino men dropped from 63% to 47%.

• Male voters supported the Democratic presidential candidate by the lowest margin in recent memory - just 42%, with a overall gender gap of 13%. The gender gap, or the difference between male and female support, was widest among Gen Z. 

Although not completely responsible for this shift, it seems like there’s a pretty direct line between the results outlined in Catalist’s report, and what I’ve heard about how some key outreach efforts to these communities were funded last year. 

According to leading Democratic operatives I’ve spoken with, in the spring of 2024, a prominent funder shared research that discouraged progressive organizations from registering new young voters of color, out of fear that those new voters would likely end up voting for Trump. This negatively impacted the funding streams of groups working on voter registration, especially those tasked with reaching black and brown voters. Now, some national Democrats seem surprised that those voters either voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all. 

“None of the work was adequately funded early enough,” said Tatenda Musapatike, founder of Voter Formation Project, an organization that uses innovative online tactics to reach, register, and mobilize voters of color. “Especially compared to previous cycles. Funding came much earlier in 2020. And in 2024, it was sure as hell not funded early enough for it to be what we needed to make up the difference. Groups were hamstrung.”

Still, groups like the Voter Formation Project carried out their programs, reaching and registering thousands of black and brown voters via millions of dollars spent on targeted digital advertising, online communications, or offline engagement. In the final weeks of the election, the Voter Formation Project was one of the top-spending political advertisers on Facebook and Instagram ads nationwide.

This week, VFP published a retrospective on what happened last cycle via its 2024 Impact Report, which breaks down some of the group’s key successes in registering and mobilizing voters in key states. For example in Pennsylvania, according to their internal testing, they were responsible for over 11,500 voter registrations and mobilizing over 113,000 people of color to actually vote. 

Musapatike’s program was unique in emphasizing long-term, targeted communications to its audiences instead of a more transactional approach. Sometimes, that means programs can be harder to measure—and in a funding environment dominated by RCTs (randomized controlled trials), some groups inflating their numbers, and a quasi-religious devotion to testing, that’s not always welcome.

“Progressive donors and organizations are embedded in a financial and programmatic system whereby innovation is either impossible or close to impossible,” Musapatike says. “It is very difficult for new entrepreneurs or new nonprofit leaders to bring new ideas to our ecosystem because of how the research-to-efficacy-to-funding pipeline has been constructed.” 

For Democrats looking to grow their coalition in the future, Catalist’s report provides a clear diagnosis of the problem. Numerous organizations, brands, and individuals know how to reach some of these key communities that have left Democrats behind in recent years. The question for people like Musapatike is whether or not progressive donors and DC elites are willing to take risks on new or innovative tactics to do so. 

“Young people in marginalized communities cannot be reached in the same ways and do not take action in the same way as voters did in 2012,” Musapatike says. “The old Obama model of reaching people just isn’t working anymore.” 

WATCH: Bernie Sanders on FLAGRANT

Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared on Andrew Schulz’s FLAGRANT podcast this week. The comedy, culture, and politics-focused show is one of the most popular podcasts in the U.S., and was used by Trump in 2024 to reach young men. (Schulz recently also featured Pete Buttigieg on the pod just a few weeks ago) The entire conversation with Sanders is worth a watch, but this clip (starts at 37:00) on identity politics seems noteworthy. 

Bernie used his appearance to speak directly to young men who are skeptical of the Democratic Party. He specifically criticized Israel’s genocide in Gaza, slammed Super PACs and corruption in DC, and lobbed attacks on “the Democratic establishment.” One of the most viral moments from the exchange was Sanders’ agreement with Schulz that some parts of the Democratic Party are “a threat to Democracy.” As you can imagine, that segment was gleefully shared by conservative media outlets and right-wing influencers. I’m not sure if Bernie cares what Americans think of the Democratic Party, but this is a good illustration of the risk-profile as elected officials choose to do more appearances on non-traditional shows and online programming. 

The right-wing internet comes for Jill Biden

After news broke on Sunday that President Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, conservative influencers lept into action to blame…Jill Biden. “This woman has got to be one of the most evil people on earth,” @libsoftiktok posted. Donald Trump Jr. implied that since the former First Lady is a “Doctor,” she had known about the cancer diagnosis all along and covered it up. For those unaware, Dr. Jill Biden’s degree is in English literature, not medicine. Right-wing X personality Collin Rugg claimed that “Jill Biden could be charged with elder abuse,” and another asserted that she should be “charged with treason.”

This recent wave of Biden hatred is of course coming at a time when Jill Biden and the handful of others in the former President’s inner circle are under a microscope. As most of you know by now, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book about Biden’s decline is out this week, and its sensationalism and insider drama is driving an endless political news cycle. I’m going to refrain from sharing thoughts on the book, but this excellent piece by Jonathan Katz pretty much captures my current mood: “Let Joe go.”

More things you should read: 

• New progressive media projects just dropped: The New York Times published a laundry list of new media and creator-related efforts that some Democratic operatives are pitching to donors. 

• Elon Musk allegedly plans to “cut back” his political spending, after dropping *hundreds of millions of dollars* in support of Trump and MAGA-aligned candidates over the past year. 

• Democratic tech incubator Higher Ground Labs just released its annual political technology landscape report, a comprehensive look at the tools that campaigns on the left use to reach voters and engage supporters. 

• As the Trump administration continues to investigate Democratic fundraising software ActBlue in an act of overt partisan persecution, some Democrats are attempting to get revenge by going after Republicans’ fundraising platform, WinRed. 

• Donald Trump invited the Pope’s MAGA brother to the Oval Office, because of course he did. 

• Former Biden consigliere Mike Donilon demanded and was paid $4 million for his role in the former President’s short-lived campaign, while most staff were paid meager wages and had to relocate to Wilmington, Delaware. 

• Shoutout to Semafor Media for including last week’s issue of Chaotic Era in their newsletter on Sunday night. You should subscribe to Max & Ben’s newsletter if you haven’t already.  

• I had a great time on Way to Win’s “Charting the Way Forward” podcast last week, talking about the group’s new analysis of 2024 TV ad spending. You can watch or listen here. 

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