How To Win the Midterms

With the midterm elections just over the horizon, Ralph makes his impassioned pitch for how the Democrats can beat MAGA Republicans to Democratic pollster, Celinda Lake and executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, Alan Minsky. Plus, the team takes a brief moment to analyze Donald Trump’s apparent obsession with hot male backsides.
Celinda Lake is a political strategist and president of Lake Research Partners. She and her firm are known for cutting-edge research on issues including the economy, health care, the environment and education, and have worked for a number of institutions including the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Governor’s Association, AFL-CIO, SEIU, CWA, Sierra Club, NARAL, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, VoteVets Action Fund, and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Her international work has included work in Liberia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus Ukraine, South Africa, and Central America.
One factor is the most important thing that you can play a major, major role in: We have to get young people out to vote. They are our best voting group in some races...they are so strongly for the candidate. It could be just pulling out every young person to vote. And they vote for our candidates by 70-80%.
Celinda Lake
Democrats have been very good about voting early and getting their ballots in early. And we’ve dominated the early vote 60-70%. So that’s helped to mute [the impact of election interference]. But you can bet on a lot of people trying to interfere with people voting on Election Day, and it’s going to be very, very important for us to insist that everyone can vote and every vote be counted.
Celinda Lake
We have 60% of the voters who don’t like socialism, but only 50% of the voters who say they know what it is.
Celinda Lake
Alan Minsky is a lifelong activist and Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America. Alan has worked as a progressive journalist for the past two decades, and he has coordinated Pacifica Radio’s national coverage of elections. He is the creator and producer of the political podcasts for The Nation and Jacobin, as well as a contributor to Common Dreams and Truthdig.
[Democrats] are told that if they’re going to get Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) money, they can’t be endorsing anybody who’s running against the incumbent Democrat. And that’s relevant in California, because there are some races that are Dem-on-Dem still on November 3rd. And the other thing they’re told is they have to (in advance) endorse Jeffries for speaker. So that’s the kind of pressure they put on even these incoming progressives. And it’s sad. It’s pathetic. It’s absolutely something that we hope that, if and when progressives take over the Democratic Party (and that’s a heavy lift, but that’s what our intention is), something like that will never happen again.
Alan Minsky
News 10/23/26
* Our top story this week is an exposé published in the New Republic showing how Bari Weiss, as editor in chief of CBS News, has weaponized the network against specific Democratic candidates. This piece shows how Weiss, described herein as an “anti-woke crusader…urged her newsroom to cover right-wing conspiracy theories regarding Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed.” Specifically, Weiss encouraged reporters to investigate “El-Sayed’s (nonexistent) ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and 9/11, and Talarico’s (also nonexistent) trip to a mental health facility.” El-Sayed, who is Egyptian American, has in fact denounced the Muslim Brotherhood on numerous occasions. Talarico, who became the subject of a conspiracy theory claiming he had checked into a mental hospital in Ohio after a week-long absence from the campaign trail, simply had the flu. In a viral post, Talarico added “I’ve never even been to Ohio.” TNR notes that, “both Talarico and El-Sayed are progressive candidates who have been critical of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, somet...