A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Let's bring in Doug Sosnik. He's a political strategist who served as senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton. He's now a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Business and Government. Doug, we've been reporting on President Trump's campaign travel to red states instead of battlegrounds. So what does that strategy say to you about how Republicans are making their closing argument?
DOUG SOSNIK: Well, if you just know two things 12 days out from the election - one is where the president and the administration is traveling, and the other is where they're spending their money - that pretty much tells you where the race stands. And if you would've told me a year ago that today the president of the United States - a Republican president of the United States was going to spend the evening in Iowa and that the vice president was going to be traveling to Nebraska, I would've never believed it.
MARTÍNEZ: That those states are in play, that they're vulnerable?
SOSNIK: Absolutely, that they're in play. And as you just mentioned, the fact that Trump is going to Mississippi next week tells you everything.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, on which issues do you think President Trump and, by extension, Republicans who are on the ballot, on which issues do you think they've lost the most support?
SOSNIK: Well, the single most important issue in virtually every single midterm election, with the exception of 2002, is the state of the economy and how people feel about their lives. And I think that there has been a second issue that has emerged in conjunction with that in the last, I would say, 60 days, which is corruption in the Trump administration. And those two issues now have been cojoined. And the corruption issue is much more impactful to people if they're feeling their own economic stress.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And with the economy, I always think that when you drive past a gas station and you see the prices, that is, fair or not, an indication of how the administration is doing.
SOSNIK: Well, that's right. Look, I mean, if you take a step back, the Republicans were supposed to lose seats this cycle. The last five midterm elections, the party in power has lost at least one branch of Congress. But I think this election essentially came down to the decision that Trump made at the end of February to go into Iran. That changed everything in the cycle. And then when he announced in June that he had struck a deal with the Iranians and that life was going to return to normal, and that, as he said, gas prices were going to fall, come down like a rocket - and that deal was undone within a matter of a few weeks. If you look at what happened in terms of the cost of everything, it started to go up in the summer. And in the beginning of September, you began to see in the polling the impact against the Republicans running this year.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, in 2024, culture war issues such as trans rights or free speech, they were front and center. I just got back from reporting in Texas, where I spoke with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa, who thinks that's over with.
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GINA HINOJOSA: Well, nobody can win the culture wars. They are unwinnable wars because the culture wars are dependent on our individual life experiences.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Doug, what do you think? Are those battles really over or at least on pause for the midterms?
SOSNIK: Well, it's on pause in the midterms because there's nothing more important right now than how people feel about their economic situation and their expectation for the future. But in regards to the future, I would say the answer - my answer is, it depends. If the Democrats move away from some of the positions that we've taken in the past on these culture issues, then I do think it will move on. But if we go back to some of the issues that we focused on at the beginning of this decade, then the culture wars are not going to be over.
MARTÍNEZ: You mentioned corruption earlier. And the Democrats' messaging includes allegations of corruption in the administration. In your experience, is that likely to work in their favor?
SOSNIK: Well, I think the single most important thing, as I've said several times now, is the state of the economy is by far the single most important issue in how people are going to vote. I do think, though, that given how brazen Trump and the administration has been about pay to play and making money off of being in office, and the fact that I would say 60% of the people in America, based on the polling, are far worse off now than they were when Donald Trump took office, I think that that issue has more resonance.
MARTÍNEZ: Why isn't the economy always the focus of every single election? It seems like it should be, right?
SOSNIK: It is virtually the focus of every single election. The only exceptions that I'm aware of since World War II was in the 2002 midterms, right after 9/11, and the 2004 presidential election. Other than those two elections, every election has been about the economy.
MARTÍNEZ: Is there any other strong message that either Democrats or Republicans could send in these final campaign days to draw in dissatisfied voters?
SOSNIK: Well, just to keep in mind, you know, in the 2024 presidential election, almost 60% of the people had already voted before Election Day. So - and we're 12 days out. But I think at this point, particularly for the Republicans, it's very, very unlikely that they're going to be - in any shape or form are going to be able to undo the zeitgeist of how people feel in America as they think about voting.
MARTÍNEZ: Doug Sosnik is a political strategist and former senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton. Doug, thanks.
SOSNIK: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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