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Hello, everyone! You may have noticed that it\u2019s been a while since my last newsletter<\/a>. That\u2019s because I\u2019ve been on leave for the last three months \u2014 and I\u2019ll be on leave for most of the next three \u2014 but I wanted to check in with a few thoughts and programming notes.<\/p>\n Since a few of you asked: Yes, The Tilt goes on. The newsletter will ramp back up as I return to work, and needless to say, there is a lot to cover. This is not an ordinary moment in American political history.<\/p>\n Here are a few themes on my mind so far:<\/p>\n From the usual job approval surveys to more profound issues regarding executive power, attitudes about President Trump will probably be the topic of the year.<\/p>\n To that end, my colleagues have already started collecting polls on his approval rating<\/a> (we\u2019ll add charts with the polling average in the weeks ahead).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Already, Mr. Trump has squandered his post-election honeymoon. His approval rating is back under 50 percent, with slightly more Americans disapproving than approving of his performance. This puts his standing more or less where it was before the election.<\/p>\n There are good reasons to think his ratings will continue to slip. One of the better rules of thumb in American politics is that public opinion tends to shift against the direction of policy change. Some political scientists call this \u201cthermostatic public opinion,\u201d in which the public turns up the A.C. to cool things down when the government starts running too hot. Few presidents have run the government as hot as Mr. Trump, and there isn\u2019t much reason to think he\u2019ll turn anything down on his own.<\/p>\n The 2024 election may seem like old news, but it will reverberate for years to come. We have plainly entered a new era of politics, as I wrote in December<\/a>, and there will be no way to make sense of where things are headed without making sense of the enormous changes of the last decade.<\/p>\n Over the next month or so, we\u2019ll finally get the last few important bits of data on the 2024 election. Most important, we\u2019ll have a comprehensive account of exactly who voted, based on voter registration records. We\u2019ll also have most of the results by precinct (my colleagues have been publishing a detailed map<\/a> of those results).<\/p>\n Together with Times\/Siena polling, it will be enough to offer our best answers on the big outstanding questions, like the role of turnout, how demographic groups shifted, and why the polls modestly underestimated Mr. Trump. We\u2019ll do our best to analyze the most surprising shifts of the election, from young men and Hispanic voters to the TikTok effect and the new Silicon Valley right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Trump did not win<\/a> the 2024 election by a wide margin, but Democrats nonetheless suffered an extraordinary defeat.<\/p>\n After all, Mr. Trump \u2014 a felon who lost and then sought to overturn his prior election \u2014 was not a popular candidate. The exit poll found<\/a> that only 46 percent had a favorable view of him, compared with 53 percent who had an unfavorable view. To be blunt: He won because voters thought the Democrats were even worse.<\/p>\n The implication, as we wrote before the election<\/a>, is that Democrats might have lost in a landslide if they had faced a more typical Republican. With the exceptions of abortion and democracy (Republican own-goals), Democrats comprehensively lost the election on essentially every other issue. Democrats haven\u2019t faced a challenge like this since 1980.<\/p>\n The debates about the Democrats\u2019 future have already begun. There are a few novel angles, like the call<\/a> for a politics of \u201cAbundance\u201d co-written by my colleague on the Opinion side, Ezra Klein. But most discussions have been just another rehash of the recurring debate between the party\u2019s moderates and progressives. This time, it\u2019s hard to see how either side can argue they have the answers to the major problems facing the party.<\/p>\n Democrats also face a more immediate challenge: how to respond to Mr. Trump, who will probably do more to shape the future of the Democrats than anything they do themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This will be a big topic this year. The next Democratic presidential primary campaign isn\u2019t as far away as it might seem today; the New York Democratic mayoral race is already underway<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is what it looks like: special elections, the Virginia and New Jersey governors\u2019 elections in November and the run-up to the midterms next year.<\/p>\n I am not sure this will be the most suspenseful year or two of elections. We have already seen enough over the first eight years of the Trump era \u2014 including the first special<\/a> elections<\/a> of his current term \u2014 to be confident that Democrats will fare quite well. We have also seen enough to know that Democrats can fare quite well in these kinds of contests without necessarily having it translate<\/a> to better chances in a presidential election.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll talk more about this in Tuesday\u2019s newsletter, timed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race<\/a> and the special congressional<\/a> elections<\/a> in Florida.<\/p>\n The bottom line: Democrats may face serious questions about their identity and message, but it probably will not stop them from posting big victories over the next few years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe public reaction to Trump\u2019s second term<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
The 2024 election and a new era<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
The Democrats<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
The coming election calendar<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n