Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the

bulwark, and this week we're continuing our autopsy of the 2024 election results. We've got

several angles on this election that we didn't get to last week.

Stad Herndon and I talked for 90 minutes and only got through about half the focus group

sound. And so this week, we've still got to get to Kamala Harris's inexorable ties to Joe Biden,

the culture war, and why abortion didn't seem to be the decisive issue that it was in

2022. And I swear we're going to do a show about what people found appealing about Donald Trump,

but that's not today. We're taking this particular struggle session in-house. I'm excited to

welcome back to the show against his will and I guess mine.

My best friend, Jonathan V. Last, editor of the bulwark and my co-host of the Secret Podcast

and The Next Level. Hey, JVL, thanks for coming back, buddy.

Sarah, I'm so glad that you were forced into having me for this.

You know, the people want this content, unfortunately. They do.

All right. I want to talk about the takes you've been putting out about these voters in a little

bit, because you've got lots of takes about the voters, but I actually made you listen to some

for real. So just for the moment, why don't you paint me a picture of your mental state after

listening to these groups? Well, I mean, I always try to come on this show with a picture of your mental state after listening to these groups?

Well, I mean, I always try to come on this show with a sort of a big picture theme.

And there are like three things that I think are small more that are worth talking about because they're persistent things that came up in these groups over and over again.

One of which was people not liking Kamala Harris running on

abortion. Another of which is that a bunch of people talked over and over again about not liking

the fact that she wasn't nominated through a primary process. Another was a lot of RFK love,

...