Chuck Rocha analyzes the upcoming midterms, noting Democrats gained 30 state legislative seats yet Republicans retain all federal power. Citing Pew data showing 75% frustration with Democrats versus 64% for Republicans, he argues voters prioritize local affordability crises over foreign policy. While addressing Joan's concerns about racial resentment regarding DEI and affirmative action, Rocha highlights the industry's lack of diversity, where his minority-owned firm represents less than 1% of leadership. Ultimately, the discussion suggests election outcomes hinge on economic sensitivity and base turnout rather than persuasion. [Automatically generated summary]
So that shows a momentum of dissatisfaction that we see across the country.
But a special election is a different than an off-year election, but it's also good for your listeners to know that an off-year election is much different than a presidential election.
What do I mean by that?
In a presidential election, which we went through in 2024, there was a giant turnout.
Donald Trump, and I give Donald Trump a lot of credit, he got a lot of people to show up who weren't regular voters.
In an off-year election, which we're heading into, normally about 35 to 40% of the folks who participate in a presidential election do not come back.
So it's the base of both parties and the most active people.
And it's more about turnout than it is persuasion.
And you kind of know who they are from year to year.
And what you've described in the state rep races are special elections that have just happened because somebody retired, they gave up, something happened.
And then you have even more of the base of the base show up in a special election.
And so what you see there is more of a motivation right now by Democrats, which is a great sign for us headed into the midterm along with history.
History that we're fighting right now is normally the party that comes into power.
The other party normally picks up seats.
And that's went on throughout history.
It's only been twice in the history of our great nation where that didn't happen.
Republicans control everything in Washington, D.C.
They control the presidency, the House, and the Senate.
So it's easy to make them the FOIA because they're in charge of everything.
You can be mad at Democrats, and you have your right to be mad at Democrats, but Democrats aren't controlling any lever of power.
So right now, you have a bunch of Republicans that are mad because of what they're seeing with the wars, but even more Democrats that are mad and they're not in charge.
So they're looking for a way to lash out.
And this upcoming election and the special elections that you mentioned are just two of the things that we're seeing.
There's a new poll out by Gallup of just this week that talked about a quarter of all Americans that they talked to have skipped meals to make sure that their children ate.
They were the same quarter of people who said that they were looking at turning their thermostat down just so they could afford their utility bills.
What you see is a crisis of affordability, and I think that's where Democrats are going to focus.
Well, you've had this administration, and I heard a lot of your callers earlier talk about the war, talk about what's going on overseas, all of the things that's been going on in the Oval Office with one world leader after another, which is an important part of the presidency.
But right now, every voter that I talk to are really hyper-focused on what's happening in their neighborhood with their prices, with the price of gasoline, the price of groceries.
That's what I hear over and over from voters all around the country.
One is they were promised by this president that he would bring prices down on day one.
Prices have never come down.
When folks hear that you're going to do something about inflation and people say that they're going to fix that, stopping inflation fixes it, but that's not what they think.
They think that prices are going to come down to pre-Biden, pre-COVID prices, and they just haven't, and they've continued to go up.
And now you have a president and a Congress who says, maybe we need $1.3, $1.5 trillion to pay for this war when we don't have money to pay for health care.
He just said last week for daycare and things that people have to worry with every single day.
Well, let's hear what President Trump said yesterday at that press conference when he was asked about the deadline for ending the war in Iraq, and then I'll get your response in Iran.
unidentified
Your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to war going to be bombing Iran to the Stone Ages.
And we've heard a range of those kind of messages.
Well, I think if you care about the Iran war, if that's your number one issue, you want to hear a solution.
And he's saying he's negotiating, he's giving days.
But what I find with voters, with folks who plan on voting in the upcoming election, this war is not one of their priorities.
And the only thing that they see in reflection to this war is the price of the gasoline that they're paying for and that they're reminded of each week when they go to the gas station or the price of their utility bills.
I keep going back to that because I run campaigns for a living.
And when I talk to voters, the Iran war or what's going on with negotiations or if they have a nuclear bomb or not is not the number one thing on their agenda.
The number one thing on most working families is, what am I going to pay for things this week and what am I going to have to, to that Gallup poll, cut off or not eat today to make sure that my kids eat.
They probably have the biggest impact because what we just spoke about is this is a turnout election for the midterms.
We know the people who love Donald Trump.
We know the people that are Democrats who hate Donald Trump.
But there's a group of folks in the middle who just want their government to work.
They want their government to get out of their way.
And they want prices to come down.
Those are the people that will really determine the number of congressional seats either party would need either to retain power or to pick up power.
So I'm most focused on them.
And that universe is getting better, bigger.
And let me finally say this.
Of registrations right now, especially with young people, especially with young Latinos, more folks are registering as independents than either party because they are frustrated with both parties.
The Latino vote may be the most consequential vote in the U.S. right now because they're swinging back and forth.
It used to be we talked about soccer moms or these blue-collar hard hat steel workers.
Right now, because Latinos are becoming such a growing part of the electorate, and this is mainly second and third generation English speakers, my grandparents came here as immigrants.
These folks were looking for an outlet because they're not tied to either party.
And you saw them swing dramatically for Donald Trump.
But now in the last four or five elections, you've seen them swing back.
And I'm talking about elections in Virginia, New Jersey, the Miami Mayor, and what just happened in this Texas primary in March.
All right, let's talk to callers and start with Joan in New Jersey, Independent Line.
Joan, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
How are you?
Thank you for coming on this morning.
The one thing I want to talk about, and I've called here before and I feel like I get cut off every time I try to have this conversation.
And I heard another caller call in on Sunday with the same topic around racial resentment and the Democratic Party having this stigma of being the party that's sort of the giveaway party.
Like the Democrats are the one that gave away affirmative action, gave away food stamps, gave away equality, DEI, all these different things.
I don't think the Democrats are allowing and giving the other half of the country the grace and the acknowledgement to talk about these issues and letting them know it's okay because it does come across as racist when there are folks that feel that way,
that they don't like DEI, that they don't like to see the advancement of black people, that they don't like to know that they're black women or black men that have jobs that were historically a white man's job, right?
And there's a lot of hate and resentment in this country around that.
And if the Democrats do not start having that conversation and making it okay for white people who are resentful for the different type of programs that came about to make to kind of level this country out and also remind them this country is no way leveled.
There is still a lot of people that have not that are minorities and people of color that are still one or two percent of doing better than we were in the 60s.
But for some reason, there is a temperament in this country that's willing to support white nationalism to bring back the days of when they felt they were supreme.
But it's this hidden sort of like, we can hide behind MAGA and Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and all these people with these hateful policies because they're pushing that agenda for us.
And if you're listening, nobody talks about this on TV very often, is the folks who actually are the strategists behind these campaigns are the power brokers.
And that is a white male and white female dominated area to where my firm, which is one of the only 100% minority owned and operated, is less than 1%.
So we've been trying to make space for people of color in consulting as the, we just talked about this Latino diaspora is becoming such a huge part.
The black diaspora has been such a historic part.
So I've been saying if you want to reach black and Latino