The Focus Group Podcast

The Focus Group Podcast is back for a post-election autopsy. We're starting with a deep dive on how Donald Trump's newest voters found Kamala Harris and the Democrats lacking. Astead Herndon, host of The New York Times podcast The Run-Up joins Sarah to write a first draft of how we got here.

show notes
The Run-Up: The Democrats' Plan to Get Skeptics on Their Side
The Run-Up: Kamala Harris on Kamala Harris
The Bulwark's Bleak Friday Sale

The polls are close enough that this election could go either way. But whatever happens, the focus groups over the last year-plus have given some clues about what's motivating the swing voters voting for Trump, and those voting for Harris. Atlantic senior editor Ron Brownstein joins Sarah to listen to voters and what the Trump and Harris coalitions might look like.

show notes
By Ron Brownstein:
The Democratic Theory of Winning With Less
The Improbable Coalition That Is Harris’s Best Hope

There's one thing Republican and Democratic strategists all agree on right now: no state is more likely to decide this election than Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania-based POLITICO reporter Holly Otterbein joins Sarah to break down Pennsylvania's shift to the right in recent years, and why Democratic Sen. Bob Casey is finding himself in a surprisingly close race.

Show Notes:
Spotlight PA: Democrats in Pa. approach 2024 election with slimmest voter registration advantage in decades

By Holly Otterbein: 
Harris ramps up her appeals to Republican voters in the Philly suburbs
‘Pennsylvania is such a mess’: Inside Team Harris’ unusual levels of finger-pointing
Dems see warning signs for Harris with Latino men in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump may well win both Arizona and Nevada, but Republican Senate candidates there are on the struggle bus. Jon Ralston of the Nevada Independent joins to break down Sarah's recent focus groups with PBS in Nevada, and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez of the Washington Post discusses Arizona's abortion rights referendum and Kari Lake's comeback attempt in the U.S. Senate race.

Editor's note: This episode was taped before the October 17 release of Ruben and Kate Gallego's divorce records.

Michigan and Wisconsin aren't just presidential battlegrounds; their Senate races are getting more competitive down the stretch. So how are swing voters thinking about their options?

Craig Gilbert, former DC bureau chief for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Craig Mauger, political reporter for the Detroit News, join Sarah to break down the electoral landscape in the upper midwest.

Show notes:
By Craig Gilbert: What polling tells us about Wisconsin's undecided voters
The Bulwark's Swing State Swing

The pundit class thought JD Vance performed better than Tim Walz in the vice presidential debate. Voters thought Vance was a good performer, but they couldn't quite shake their skepticism. Puck News's John Heilemann joins Sarah to review voters' reactions to the VP debate and the history of VP picks more broadly.

Some of today's first-time voters were 10 years old when Donald Trump launched his first presidential campaign, so he's all they've known in politics. That's certainly affected how they look at politics, across the political spectrum. Puck's Peter Hamby joins Sarah to discuss the youth vote in the home stretch of the 2024 election.

show notes
September 2024 Harvard Youth Poll

By Peter:
The Left’s Trumpnesia Problem
Kamala’s Generation Gap
The Swift-Rogan Election

Sarah recently sat down with Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger on their podcast Possible to talk about the future of politics, the origins of her focus group work, and how artificial intelligence might impact that work.

https://possible.fm/podcast

We're taking a break from the presidential race this week. The battle for control of the Senate is running through red states, with former Trump voters. Some of them are more persuadable than others. Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report joins Sarah to discuss the Senate races in Ohio, Montana, and Texas, and the role of abortion politics in this year's Senate races.

 Kamala Harris crushed Donald Trump in this week's debate...and swing voters noticed. CNN's Dana Bash joins Sarah to discuss her new book, this week's debate, her experience as the co-moderator of the June 27 debate, and the role of moderator fact-checking in both debates.

show notes
By Dana Bash and David Fisher:
America's Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History