I think that dynamic, frankly, helped Democrats a lot in the midterms because voters don’t turn out to say thank you. They turn out to say, I’m angry, and I want to send a message. And if you feel like you’re losing, you send a message.
And actually, during Trump’s presidency, Republicans felt like they were winning. They want that feeling back. And that is why Donald Trump’s insistence, against all evidence, that he did not really lose the 2020 election is so central to all of this because the core of his value proposition to his voters is, we’re going to win again. I’m going to make you feel like you’re a winner again.
And so whether that is putting up points on the board in terms of policy or whether it is owning the libs, making the other side seem like they are on the back foot, I don’t think that Republican voters are thinking of those as dramatically different things. It is that they feel that they are on the back foot now, and they want to stop feeling that way.
EZRA KLEIN: When you look at the polls of the number of Republicans or percentage of Republicans who believe Donald Trump won in 2020, which is well over a majority, do you believe that position is truly held? Do you believe that is a thing people tell pollsters because they are Republicans and that is what you’re supposed to say? Or do you believe that, in their heart of hearts, like, if I put them and I said, listen, I’m going to hook you up to a polygraph, and if you fail and if polygraphs worked, you have to give me $100, they would say, Donald Trump won the election?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: I think that a lot of times when that question gets asked, when Republican voters are saying that they think Donald Trump was the rightful winner, for many of them, they’re taking sort of the answer that you actually hear Vivek Ramaswamy give in debates from time to time, which was that the playing field wasn’t fair. So Donald Trump would have won in this hypothetical world where the playing field was fair, where the Department of Justice doesn’t tell tech companies to suppress the story of Hunter Biden, et cetera, et cetera, all of the things that you hear come up.