The Crooked Store just launched a bunch of new merch inspired by your favorite Crooked media podcasts,

reminding you to unplug, reconnect, and get festive.

New items include a log-off ornament and a nog-save America mug.

Every order from the Crooked Store will support vote-save America's every last vote fund

to make sure every voice can be heard in the face of unprecedented voter suppression.

Head to Crooked.com slash store to check out the new arrivals now.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Positively Dreadful with me, your host, Brian Boiler.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving break. Donald Trump spent his having dinner with a neon

so there's the bar you have to clear. We'll actually probably talk about that dinner on this

week's show because it's relevant to the topic I have in mind. Something I wrote a lot about in

the run-up to the midterms, which is about how parties and party leaders can help determine what

themes dominate politics, and thus, what voters think matters most as they prepare to cast their

ballots. So I should acknowledge up front most voters are regular partisans. They're probably like

you that probably like me very likely to vote no matter what and even more likely to vote for

candidates of their own party. If you're a politician, you're probably likely to influence

whether these partisan voters vote then which party they vote for. But some voters have little

if any partisan allegiance at all. The increasingly elusive but still decisive swing voters

who's thinking about whether to vote and whom to vote for and why remains confounding despite

their outsize influence over elections. And because these voters are so hard to pigeonhole,

there are different theories about what motivates them and how best to reach them.

Different candidates try different things. I think the candidate who had the most success

motivating swing voters to cast ballots of any kind is Donald Trump. By dint of just inspiring

...