Author & Pollster Patrick Ruffini on His New Book, PARTY OF THE PEOPLE, & the Changing GOP Coalition

Pro Politics with Zac McCrary

Patrick Ruffini, pollster at Echelon Strategies, returns to talk about his new book (released today, 11/7/23) PARTY OF THE PEOPLE - on the transition of the Republican Party from being dominated by wealthy, suburban white voters to a more blue-collar and increasingly-multi-racial coalition. In this conversation, Patrick lays out the data behind these shifts, what is driving the GOP's new-found success with blue-collar voters, why this movement came as a surprise to many, the balance of economic vs. cultural priorities, how Latino/AAPI/Black voters are increasingly persuadable audiences in elections, and expecations as to how these shifts will continue to define American politics for the forseeable future.
IN THIS EPISODE

Patrick lays out the core thesis of Party of the People...
Patrick's favorite data points that illustrate the changing face of the GOP...
Patrick's take on the role of "educational attainment" in changing voting patterns...
Patrick gives a quick tutorial on when and how Democrats have historically been the party of working-class Americans...
How flawed 2012 exit polls have contributed to shifting party coalitions more than a decade later...
Patrick's take on how the "In This House..." yard signs unwittingly speak to tensions within the Democratic coalition...
Economic vs cultural drivers of voter behavior...
Missteps and missed GOP opportunities from the trifecta control of government in 2017 and 2018...
Mining recent data among Hispanic voters...
What Patrick learned about border communities on a trip to the Rio Grande Valley...
Why Lester Chang is important...
Why Black voter behavior has been more stable than Latino and Asian voters...
Patrick's take on the growing segment of biracial and multi-racial Americans...
The impact of free trade and foreign policy on changing partisan coalitions...
What Patrick learned in the process of writing his first book...
AND 7:3 coalitional splits, anti-globalization sentiments, Joe Biden, blurbs, Brexit, George W. Bush, census buckets, charts and data, Hillary Clinton, Nate Cohn, Thomas Dewey, Tom Edsall, Ryan Enos, existential demographic crisis, fading historical patterns, faint echoes, frontier mentalities, the Great Recession, the green transition, Hamiltonian tendencies, illiberal populism, instinctive hawks, Andrew Jackson, jettisoning first principles, Chryl Laird, majority popular tendencies, mercantile progress, the New Deal, Barack Obama, Mike Podhorzer, Ronald Reagan, the Republican autopsy, rivalrous groups, Mitt Romney, sheepskin effects, David Shor, social taboos, Starr County, Steadfast Democrats, Harry Truman, Donald Trump, the UAW, Ismail White, white phenomenons....& more!