The Focus Group Podcast

Voters who came age in the Trump era have a dark view of politics, their country, and the future. Peter Hamby, host of Snapchat’s “Good Luck America” and founder of Puck News, joins Sarah to talk about what voters under 30 are thinking.

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The only thing Americans can agree on is how much they hate each other. David Axelrod, the mastermind behind President Obama's 2008 campaign, joins Sarah to talk about just how deep our divide goes, and where it might take America from here

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The voters who abandoned Trump have been analyzed at length, but the Democrats weren’t the only ones who persuaded Americans to switch sides in 2020. Holding onto these voters will be crucial for future Republican victories. Amy Walter, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Cook Political Report, joins Sarah to talk about who these voters are and why Trump won them over.

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We had planned to focus this episode on the January 6 Committee hearings. Sarah and Amanda talk about that, but something strange also happened in our last two groups: zero Trump voters wanted him to run in 2024. We talk about the hearings, how they matter for history, and whether they’re contributing to the Trump voters’ blues.

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Ready or not, the 2024 election is right around the corner. Donald Trump is set up to run again, and the official line in the White House is that Joe Biden is running. What do our focus groups think of that redux, and who they think their other options are. National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar (at last) joins Sarah to hash out their Twitter disagreement over Trump’s grip on the GOP and to take a look into the future.

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The Supreme Court’s leaked opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade may or may not impact the midterm elections. We talked to a group of swing voters (women from swing states who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020), and they weren’t happy about it. Rachel Vindman, co-host of the podcast The Suburban Women Problem, joins Sarah to listen to…other suburban women. They also discuss how the group feels about the Biden presidency.

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We’re taking stock after a wild run of May primaries. We laughed, we cried, and we saw enemies (and friends) of democracy notch wins.

The Bulwark’s Will Saletan joins Sarah to break down what our focus groups got right, and Sarah takes a victory lap (or two) over Brad Raffensperger’s win in the Republican primary for Georgia Secretary of State.

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A devil has the Republican Party’s soul, but not all of his endorsed candidates are faring too well. In Georgia, former Sen. David Perdue is losing badly to Gov. Brian Kemp despite Trump’s endorsement, and Rep. Mo Brooks was polling so badly in the Alabama Senate race that Trump un-endorsed him. But if you think the voters in our group are souring on Trumpism, think again.

Sarah breaks it all down with The Bulwark’s own Tim Miller, whose book Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell comes out June 28. Pre-order it: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Did-Travelogue-Republican/dp/0063161478

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The Pennsylvania Senate race might just be the craziest of 2022. There’s a Bernie guy who looks like a Trump guy (Lt. Gov. John Fetterman) and a Trump guy who looks like a Biden guy (Dave McCormick). There’s also Doctor Oz and an ultra-ultra-MAGA candidate surging late. POLITICO’s Philadelphia-based national political reporter Holly Otterbein joins Sarah to listen to voters make sense of this madness.

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Sarah has Covid, so we're doing something a little different this week. Rather than bring on a guest and combine analysis with clips from focus groups, we're giving you an hour of unfiltered audio from North Carolina and Alabama Trump voters.

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