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>> “washington journal”

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continues. host: welcome back to “washington journal.” we’re joined by simon rosenberg, a democratic strategist. simon, welcome to the program. guest: great to be here. host: in your post-election analysis, you wrote this, “2025 was a bluff wave election – blue wave election. democrats not only won the big races, we also won in local races, school board, city council, mayor, county, across the country.” why do you think that was? guest: the election was a clear repudiation of donald trump and his first year in office. the country, he’s donnie norm harm to the country, and people are pissed. and they came out and voted in very large numbers against the republicans all across the country. host: what president trump said, republicans lost because he was not on the ballot. now, he will not be on the ballot anymore. guest: ever again. host: so does that mean republicans are in trouble? guest: the republicans are in trouble. if you look at the party i.d., the whole battlefield has

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shifted to the democrats. and historically, when that happens in an off year like this, it means the party has us, the party that had that kind of shift toward us, would have a very good midterm election. and i think that trump is now facing both incredible levels of unpopularity, but what’s more important for the republican candidates, the republican party, is that his agenda is more unpopular than he is. and they have to run on that agenda. they just try to run on that agenda all across the country and failed. so i do think the republicans are in trouble now. host: the agenda being what? guest: well, what he’s done as president, the economic agenda that’s slowed the economy and raised our prices. they attempt to gut healthcare. they’re raising electricity prices. you know, throwing people into foreign gulags and trampling our civil rights and civil liberties. the broad agenda that’s donnie norm harm to the country and to the american people was roundly rejected. i will tell you as somebody who’s been doing this this a long time of course this is my

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16th or 17th election cycle, the margins of the democratic wins were shocking. i mean, even for us. host: let’s put that on the screen, actually, talking about the margins. looking at new jersey, and these are not final results. those are still coming in. governor-elect mikie sherrill won by 13 points. governor-elect spanberger won by 14 points in virginia. mayor-elect mamdani broke the 50% mark in a three-way race. and then the prop 50 in california redistricting was +28 points. guest: in maine, we had a ballot initiative to limit voting. that won by over 20 points. the retention race in pennsylvania for the three supreme court justices, heavily contested by the republicans, we won by more than 20 points. the candidate in miami, where we haven’t had a democratic win

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since the 1990’s, won more votes and is leading going into the runoff in december. these were huge margins. the california vote was over 20 points. you just don’t see 20, 25-point victories like that on things where republicans contested it. these weren’t things that were sort of willy-nilly that they weren’t fighting. they fought in all these. host: but these are all blue states. what speaker johnson said is democrats voted for democrats, and what’s noteworthy about that? guest: nice try, speaker johnson. in virginia, as you know, there was a republican governor, republican attorney general. republicans controlled the state in virginia. we flipped all that. in maine it was a republican ballot initiative that they brought up. in pennsylvania, they tried to get rid of the three democratic supreme court justices. so wherever there was a contested race, not only did we win, but we won by enormous margins. you know if you had guests on here in the last few weeks, the republicans thought they had a chance of winning the new jersey governor’s race.

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they were very bullish on the mikie sherrill. host: they thought it would be closer. guest: yeah, and it was ableout. i think for anybody who is being honest about the data, democrats performed the very upper end of what was possible for us in this election, meaning we didn’t just win, but we won big, and it was a clear repudiation of trump and his policies. host: we’ve got a question on the future of the democratic party. a question for our guest, simon rosenberg, a democratic strategist. the lines are by party. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. and independents, 202-748-8002. exit polling, abc news exit polling in virginia shows that the most important issue was affordability and cost of living. i know you can’t speak for republicans, but do you think that they just missed that, that that is so important to voters and that they didn’t emphasize that enough?

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guest: look, the problem they have is that donald trump has made things worse for everybody. and when i think about if i were a republican, they have to defend the indefensible. they have to defend the tariffs that have raised our prices and slowed the economy and created large deficits in america. they have to defend the healthcare cuts that are going to make healthcare more expensive and people will lose their care. they have to defend raising electricity costs. one of the most interesting polls that i’ve seen the last few days, a little bit of data, when you ask people what costs are rising, what’s causing them pain, number one is groceries. but number two is electricity costs. i think this is a much bigger issue that people haven’t really settled on. and electricity costs are rising because of republicans and the big ugly bill that they passed earlier this year. so the reason i think that we did so well is that republicans have actually made the lives of people worse. and in the grand scheme of this business, this was not a hard argument to make. things have gotten more expensive because of their

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policies. and donald trump, that was his central promise that he betrayed to the american people. he said he was going to lower costs. they’ve gone up. and i think they paid a big price for it. host: you said electricity costs went up because of the bill? guy: they ended the clean energy subsidies, which caused electricity prices specifically to rise across the country. host: let’s talk about new york city. there’s a new ad from the g.o.p. congressional campaign committee after tuesday’s mamdani win. let’s go ahead and play that, and then you can talk about it. >> a radical left earthquake just hit america. the epicenter, new york. the new socialist mayor zohran mamdani built his movement on defunding the police and abolishing ice. now the socialists are celebrating. they call it progress. we call it chaos. bureaucrats instead of doctors, social workers instead of cops, this is the future house democrats want. and your city could be next.

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stop socialism, stop democrats. host: what do you think? guest: good luck with that. host: why? you don’t think it’s going to resonate? guest: he’s not going to be on the ballot next year. we have democrats running in individual races, just like we all across the country, and voters will be able to make up their mind based on the democrats and republicans that are in those races. host: but this ad is saying that the democratic party has become socialist. guest: it’s silly. host: and that’s going to spread. why do you think that’s not true? guest: because it’s obviously not true, right? look at the agenda the democrats are pursuing in the house and senate. what mikie sherrill and abigail spanberger ran on, what our candidates across the country ran on, yeah, new york is a very unique place. i’m from there. i grew up there. i was born in new york. both of my parents grew up there. new york’s got its own dynamic. i think what happened this election is that candidates who fit their districts, fit their states won. and i think the diversity of the democratic party is our strength. a healthy party is one that has

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diverse voices and has strong internal debates about the future. i think that’s what we’re having, and i think it’s a sign of health, not weakness. host: i want to get to calls, but i want to ask about the shutdown. the impact the shutdown had on the election and what impact you think the results will have. guest: i agree with donald trump. the shutdown had a big impact in what happened. and i think it did in two ways. one is that hakeem jeffries and chuck schumer showed that they were in a fight. for democrats, that fight, the fact that we were fighting trump more aggressively was a motivator for us in this election all across the country. the second thing is, the polling data is very clear. people blame the republicans much more for the shutdown than the democrats. and so i think that trump’s assessment that the shutdown contributed to their losses was correct. host: all right, let’s talk to callers and start with lance in colorado, republican. hi, lance. caller: hello, mimi. thank you for taking my call. and i appreciate c-span.

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rosenberg, is that your name? anyway, you got that everything bad trump. this is what i’m saying. democrats are becoming socialists. it takes four or five to eight years to get rid of everything biden and the democrats did in the past four years, and everybody knows that. you’re an intelligent man. all you can do is blame trump. hey, those are blue states that just nominated communists and democrats. they’ve been blue states. they’re democratic states. we don’t feel bad. i feel bad, and all i can say is anybody that voted for socialism, communism is an idiot. host: all right, let’s get your response. guest: there’s a lot in there. what can i pick out? yeah, look, we feel good about

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what happened. i mean, this is our best election since 2020. we had a tough election last year, a year ago. we’ve been on the losing side of these things. i’ll tell you, as somebody who’s been involved in these elections for a long time, been on both sides of waves, been on winning presidential campaigns and been on losing ones. this was an earthquake election for the republicans. and any attempt to sort of mitigate, to sort of pretend otherwise, sort of look away means that they’re not paying attention to what the message the voters sent them. host: the caller did say socialism a couple of times. do you agree that new york city has gone towards socialism? i mean, a rent-free, free buses, free child care is going to be incredibly expensive. guest: let’s see what the mayor does. obviously he’s a dynamic and powerful new figure in our political ecosystem, in the

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country. you know, let’s see what he does. he’s a young guy. new york is a hard place to govern. you know, i wish him well, but let’s see what i does. host: here’s frank in staten island, new york. independent line. hi, frank. caller: good morning. yes, i voted, i live in staten island, new york, voted for cuomo. didn’t want mamdani at all. and we think a lot of us feel that he would really wreck the city. talk about repudiation of trump’s policies. ok, i’m against the tariffs, too. i’m a capitalist. and stuff like that. but i don’t see how a party moving further and further left becomes a repudiation. i think it shoots themselves in the foot, if you want to use a good metaphor. that’s what the party does. and you can laugh all you want. you’re hurting the democratic party with a candidate like mamdani. guest: the voters of new york chose. i mean, we are a democracy.

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he overcame a lot to win in that election in new york. he obviously inspired a lot of people. the youth turnout there was pretty spectacular. the turnout overall was the highest since the 1960’s. they won their elections, but now they have to govern. governing is a lot harder. host: here is lady in missouri, democrat. you are on the air. caller: yes. i wanted to make the point that what goes on in one county in one state doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be the same in every county in all the states. i think the direction of the democratic party needs to go is

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more of a diffuse policy. the old saying is all races are local and i guess i’m making that point. it seems to me like we want to attach too much importance to the outcome of one particular election in one particular place. guest: if i could just build on that, when back to new jersey, he not only did much better than kamala harris, but jack ciattarelli did far worse than he died four years ago. they fell backwards in new jersey from where they were in 2021. but there candidate to rally behind and i think any republican candidate across the

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country right now, you have to be worried about 2026. donald trump did not campaign with these candidates. she could have gone to various parts of the country in the last few weeks and been out there making the case. they took him off the trail. he didn’t spend any money on them. he abandoned these candidates. post: why do you think that is? guest: i think it was a huge mistake. he’s got 500 million dollars. he should have spent $10 million in virginia and new jersey to show that he was the leader of the party and what he did was he threw them overboard. so for all these people running in 2026 as a republican, who are wondering whether or not you can run on this awful agenda that is deeply unpopular that people fail to be successful with all across the country and now you are wondering what the donald trump is really going to show up for you. as somebody’s been around a long time, i think the white house made enormous error by not looking like it or trying and

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that he was out there fighting for republicans. host: but wouldn’t president trump he really incentivized to campaign in 2026 because he’s afraid to the house? guest: of course, but i think in this town where people read body language and know things, i think there’s probably a day concerned about whether or not he’s going to take care of me. look what happened in california. a bunch of republican congressman’s political careers are over now because of donald trump. he’s got a very small majority in the house and senate and the question is they can only lose three seats in the senate on any vote. they lost the tariff vote three times last week. he started seeing enormous cracks in his congressional coalition. the cracks in the house are so severe that it had to keep the house out promote the last month because they are losing their ideological info about. and i think now the question of whether or not donald trump can maintain this kind of loyalty that he’s had now that his

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agenda has proven to be unpopular and republicans got mowed down all of the country, i think it’s going to weaken his control over congress itself. this is going to be very important of the coming budget negotiation. host: lee. caller: my question is with how the democratic party – party feels about that, also the democratic party seems to like anything that is anti-republican. as far as mamdani or the new jersey attorney general race, they elected a guy who fantasized about killing republicans and their children. to me, that is the democratic party gone crazy.

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as a republican, i would vote for the best person. if you are a democrat and you say the right things and you’re going that way, then republicans are not offering it, i’m going to go democrat. but the way i see the democrats going now is it has turned them all crazy. guest: one thing that’s interesting from the calls today is that democrats won all over the country in places like ohio and texas, mississippi. all across pennsylvania. there were thousands of elections. focusing on one election like this and making it somehow the symbol of the party is absurd on its face. we had moderate centrist candidates ending in new jersey and virginia with much bigger margins than mamdani won in new

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york. this attempt to sort of paint us with a brush from a single candidate i think is incredibly dishonest and is not going to fly with voters. people want to make up their own minds about each individual candidate running in their district and i think the second thing i want to say is that i’m very proud that in the last few weeks democrats actually work with republicans. we had a big moment last week were democrats and republicans came together in the senate to repeal and voted three times to repeal trump’s terrible tariffs. we are not always attacking republicans. we can work with republicans. the other way we work with republicans recently as we voted to release the epstein files in the house at the end of july. it was a nonpartisan effort to release the epstein files, the department of justice has continued to not follow through on the bow that happened and not produce the information required by law to produce. so democrats can work with republicans and i hope that we can work together for the next

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weeks to restore the aca subsidy cuts. host: that’s what i wanted to ask you. there’s negotiations happening now to say look, let’s go ahead and open the government and then the senate is going to promise a vote on the aca. guest: that’s the republican offer. host: do you think the democrats should take it? guest: i think we are in negotiations now. i think that’s not the democratic position. the democratic position is we want to actually path the aca subsidy before the government gets opened. host: so far, they are not doing that. you think they should keep it close? guest: they lost the elections because they mishandled the government shutdown. i think we are in negotiations now. republicans control washington. this notion that somehow democrats shut the government down is absurd. host: if the democrats vote in

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the senate they can reopen the government. guest: but the republicans could also do it tomorrow, this afternoon. host: evening without the filibuster. guest: they have the power to do that. donald trump has done all sorts of illegal and unconstitutional things. this is something they could do legally. if he can do illegal things, why can’t he do illegal things? they are whining because they are losing all the big arguments about health care, about the government shutdown, they lost the elections. they are in a very weakened position so we i think should be pushing even harder for our agenda in the next couple of weeks. host: hears ernest in rhode island, democrat, good morning. caller: first and foremost, let’s understand that the republicans pass the big beautiful bill by themselves and donald trump has refused to even let go of funds that were already authorized.

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there’s no assurance that he will continue to withhold funds. but my call is more concerned about what is happening in this election. in pennsylvania, considered ground zero, democrat flipped control of both in 2023 and now every republican from both of these boards except one. the school board is now 8-1 with democrats taking control. in washington state, all four conservatives on the school board were up for reelection. host: and what do you think that means? caller: well, i think that this is just a little bit of a tremor in the republican party. guest: i agree with the caller.

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it’s been hard, i think, in the aftermath of this election to sort of see the total scope of the victory but anecdotally came from friends of mine around the country, there are these races all across the country and democrats routed republicans in republican areas. republicans were unseated. this wasn’t just democrats electing more democrats. the virginia governor’s race, the attorney general’s race, there were lots of flips all over the country. in texas, we won a bunch of seats. so this was a wave, and as you know from other desk you had on through history, they want a political party in this first year after the presidential election, usually what happens next is another wave that happens veterans the next one against them. if the election has shifted seven or 12 points toward the democrats, that means there are a lot of republican candidate thought, going to be safe school

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now are in competitive races. it means the senate is i think going to be in play for us. i won’t tell you we are going to win it, but i think it is certainly going to be competitive. that chance of us raising the house back has grown very dramatically. host: catonsville, maryland, independent line. caller: pardon me if this is long-winded, i’m trying to figure it out. so i grew up christian and caller mentioned earlier about the attitudes basically being about socialism being the closest thing economically. if you look at a lot of the people and their brand of christianity, it seems like it is all money and bitcoin.

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pardon me if i sound apocalyptic , but chuck schumer, a line of the main democrats want mamdani even though he’s the most popular – not popular, necessarily, but certainly popular and very big story in the national news. but you mentioned that somebody asked you if the democrats have gone socialist. you brought that up. should they be? if we are a christian nation, navy yard, maybe we aren’t. guest: that was a great question. i think the point he’s making is that doing things to help people get ahead in their lives you can

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put all sorts of labels on that the thing that is unifying the democratic party right now is that we are fighting hard for working people to make sure their lives are better. we want them to have good jobs and good schools and opportunities in their lives. to lower the cost when things are going up. these are not very controversial things. the republicans have abandoned the playing field. part of this election is that literally the republican party right now is for higher prices, for you losing health care and higher health care costs. they want your electricity prices to go up. they slow the economy down. the deficit has gone through the roof. these are all things the republican party has done. so we are saying we don’t want higher prices, we want good, affordable health care. we don’t want soaring deficits, we don’t want all of this. in the american people seem to be on our side. host: david in new jersey, republican. caller: yet, i just wanted to

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say couple things. first of all, this fellow here is so smug. i grew up in chicago. i was a democrat and the party is so elitist, all these nuts from san francisco to new york city, they just think they can speak down to people, that people are not aware. tell me one country, one city that has done well under socialism. and mamdani now has come out and said what he really truly feels. he is a socialist. jeffries is a socialist. he waited until the last minute to endorse the sky. chuck schumer is a coward. he did not come out and endorse him and yet i bet he voted for him. host: we got it, go ahead. guest: we are a big-time party.

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but i’m honestly excited about about what is happening right now is that we are moving beyond that era of biden and clinton and pelosi to a new era. we saw new faces emerged in 2025. new tactics, new strategies. we not only have mamdani’s incredible use of political communication and the internet and pioneering the new style, so has gavin newsom. he’s done a remarkable job in california and creating new ways of us challenging trump and nick into the american people. i think you’re seeing a new post-biden, post-pelosi democratic party emerge and that is what we need. we lost the last election. we need to do new things. this is a different democratic party than you would’ve seen a year and a half ago. host: he also saw former president obama coming out on the campaign trail and some

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people have commented that the democrats don’t have a leader and they are having to reach all the way back to obama to get some leadership. what do you think of that? >> i think we are in a period of transition. what we see in his leaders are emerging. gavin newsom and janie pritzker and aoc and chris murphy anna kien jeffries and chuck schumer. it’s an exciting time for us. host: you would include chuck schumer in the future of the democratic party? guest: he is the leader of the senate. listen, but i just laid out is older people, younger people, people from different by the country, different ideologies. i think diversity is our strength. guest: that is simon rosenberg, a democratic strategist.

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