Voters are smarter than people give them credit for. As demonstrated this Tuesday, voters understand what is happening because they are experiencing it. Former New Orleans Mayor and Infrastructure Czar, Mitch Landrieu, joins Jen to explore this in the wider context of the Democrat’s campaigning and policy strategy.
“[Voters] want people who are going to fight hard for them,” Landrieu explains, “but they clearly want people who are going to solve day to day problems, and not just when ideological arguments.” In this fascinating sit-down, Jen and Landrieu discuss what voters need (according to them!), what Tuesday’s wins signal for campaign strategies, and how Trump’s “I’m a king” fantasy is turning off voters.
Mitch Landrieu is the former mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana. He served as the Senior Advisor to President Biden for Infrastructure Coordination and spearheaded the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act.
Transcript has been edited slightly for formatting.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Inter-in-Chief of The Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, and the former infrastructure czar. Mitch, welcome back.
Mitch Landrieu
Great to be with you. Thank you.
Jen Rubin
You have published a report that comes out of your Working People’s Project. What was that project, and what did you find in putting together this really fascinating report, this deep dive into American workers?
Mitch Landrieu
Well, as everybody, you know, painfully recalls, we got a hand handed to us in the last set of elections that put Donald Trump back. In the White House, notwithstanding the fact that he was for himself, he was for hurting his perceived enemies and enriching his friends, and, you know, we had to ask ourselves, you know, why we lost that race. And one of the clear reasons why we lost is because not to be too simple, but people that used to vote for us, stopped voting for us, and that was primarily the working class folks. It was the first time in, I think, 50 years we lost people that made less than $50,000, and that was just part of a trend, so I’m kind of a simple person. I was like, well, listen. If they used to vote for us and they didn’t, why don’t we go ask them why? And that was what the working class project was about. So we set about working really hard over the last… 9 months, crisscrossing the country. We went to 21 states, we did a massive amount of focus groups, we did longitudinal surveys, we did media consumption surveys, we asked people every which way you could, you know, what are you listening to, what are you thinking about, what are you being influenced by, and what’s really kind of juicing you and moving you one way or the other. And, you know, the message was really pretty clear, although it was really painful to hear. They didn’t, you know, at the time that we’ve been going through, they were like, we don’t know what Democrats stand for. We don’t really think you focused on the things that matter to us. And the things that mattered to this cohort of voters, very important cohort of voters that both sides need to win, basically said, listen, I gotta make my rent. I can’t support my family. I’ve got too much pressure on me because I can’t take care of my kids. You guys told me that if I…went to work, you know, I’d make a living wage where I could make sure that my kids did better than I’m doing right now, and I feel left out and left behind, and I just don’t think everything’s fair. I don’t think the immigration system’s fair for me, because although I know that we’re a nation of immigrants, other people jumped in front of me, and they’re getting stuff that I don’t even get. I don’t think it’s fair for the top 1% to get a tax break when I’ve got to pay more taxes than somebody, you know, that’s making a billion dollars. It doesn’t make sense to me that you’re threatening my healthcare and my food stamps when, you know, other people are walking away scot-free. You know, the message that we took from this, and the message that we sent out to all the candidates, and the one that was resoundingly successful. on Tuesday night was, we see you, we hear you. And we’re gonna pay attention to the things that matter to you most, and that’s pocketbook issues. So, Tuesday night, you know, Democrats have a lot to really, really be proud of. You know, the point of this was we had to demonstrate that we could win, we could win all across the country, we could win with people that called themselves progressives, we could win with people that called themselves moderate, it was of, no, never mind, because all the thing that tied all of these races together was focusing on the things that these folks said they wanted you to focus on, which was their ability to have the American dream. And they spoke very loudly, and I think that we have a lot to build on, although we still have a long way to go.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. In addition to telling you what they wanted to hear, did they tell you how they wanted to hear? How they hear Democrats communicating to them, and what did you learn from that?
Mitch Landrieu
Well, this was really true. It was, listen, we were asking them about everybody. We weren’t just asking them about us. We were trying to learn from them about how we should speak to them, but, you know, they don’t really… they think that Washington is broken, and I mean, I know that seems like a very obvious thing to see right now, given the fact that the government’s shut down, and, you know, we can’t even get food on the table, and we can’t get from here to there by train or plane.mOur car, and they want…they want things to work for them better, but they want people, not to talk down to them. They don’t… they’re very smart, you know, they’re called low-information voters, but that’s BS, they’re not. They’re very dialed in. They may not speak about issues the way that the folks at the United Nations speak about it, but they speak about it the way folks speak about it at the county diner, you know, and at the hardware store, or, you know, wherever you happen to be traversing, you know, the street, whether it’s in the carpool line, or whether it’s at the store, or whether it’s at the cleaners, or whether it’s at the auto repair shop, wherever, you know, you find yourself. They want people who are authentic, that are just going to kind of speak real plain about the things that matter to them, and what matters to them most. It’s not the exclusive thing. They care about, you know, a woman’s right to choose, they care about, civil rights, they care about, tax policy, they care about all of that stuff. But what they care about most…And they can’t really concentrate on anything else, is they can’t make ends meet. And so, when you’re talking to folks that are getting up early and staying up late, and they’re the ones that are actually carrying the burden of America on their shoulder, they need to be able to, the way they say it, they can’t just live from paycheck to paycheck. And they’re just feeling really strung out, and they’re feeling like nobody’s focused on their issues. And so, that’s what they want. And they want to talk to somebody that looks like them, sounds like them, lives in their neighborhood. And talks about issues that matter to them the most. Authenticity was really the coin of the realm, and of course. You saw this play out. You saw it in… you saw it in New Jersey with Mikey Sherrill, who, as you know, has a great national security background, but she’s a mom of four kids. She went to the Naval Academy, but she also served in Congress. She is a Jersey girl through and through. You saw it with Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, where she was speaking directly to the issues. Again. national security background, but she was a mom, she had been out there working for a long, long time, and she spoke in very, you know, simple, clear terms in ways that the people of Virginia felt very, very familiar. Her number one playing ad was about finding people where they are, and with people that had to get up every day and go do their hard work. You saw it with Mom Donnie in New York, notwithstanding all the fault or all about…whether he’s a social democrat or not a social democrat, or what he might be, the coin of the realm in that race was talking to people about how they make their lives easier, with making sure that their rent is limited, make sure that they can get to and from work in an easy and inexpensive, you know, time. Talking about daycare, which is what everybody in America is talking about right now, especially women in the workforce who are like, I can’t go to work. If I don’t have anywhere, you know, for my kids to be safe while I’m doing this. So, that is the one thing that cut across every race in America. And by the way, Democrats won them all. won in Georgia, we won in Mississippi, we won in California, we won in Virginia. Listen to the Democrats out there who are, like, kind of hand-wringing. Listen, dammit, we won.
Jen Rubin
Yes!
Mitch Landrieu
Fun bit.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Mitch Landrieu
it feels like, so feel good about that, and then after you feel good about it, stop and let’s get back to work. But, you know, one thing we’ve demonstrated, when you push back on Donald Trump, when you push back on his policies, when you don’t try to appease him, when you muscle up, right, you… we’re gonna win, and I think…demonstrated that on Tuesday, so we just gotta get back to work, and we’ve got more to do, but we’ve got some blue skies ahead for us if we keep doing, you know, what we did last week.
Jen Rubin
I think what you said is something so important. Too often, the pundits and the media, and maybe even some Democrats, get into this fight about ideology. Who’s left? Who’s more left than somebody else? I want that guy to be less left. What matters is what people hear from the politicians, and you’re right, Mondamu was all about affordability, and he got people incredibly engaged. And he was the right candidate for New York City, just like Abigail Spanner, the right candidate for.
Mitch Landrieu
Well, I suppose one of the views could be that they’re all very different people, and that if Democrats were silly enough to let, you know, the other side pull us apart by saying someone’s in the middle, someone’s on the right, someone’s on the left, that’s just foolish. Look, we’re one team, one fight. The one thing that they all had in common is they were focused on working folks and the issues that made their lives better, and they did not get pulled off track on other issues that are somewhat important, and they’re very important to small groups of people, and I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be talked about. All I’m saying Is the voters that we talked to said, that’s all fine, you can talk about all that stuff. But just talk about it 10% of the time. I need to focus on my stuff 80% of the time, because it’s 80% of what all of us need all the time. And what Democrats need to learn how to do is to win. So this isn’t really about ideology, although it’s not bereft of ideology, but it really is about staying focused and winning. Winning is important. If you don’t win, you do not have the power to impact people’s lives.
Jen Rubin
Why is that?
Mitch Landrieu
Democrats, while you sit around and start thinking about, well, what’s the difference between Mondami and Spanberger and Cheryl and blah blah blah, I promise you that they have much, much more in common than they do with…
Jen Rubin
Excellent.
Mitch Landrieu
that Donald Trump has said or done in his entire life, or what J.D. Vance has done, or what he’s trying to do. The Gulf could not be wider, and it couldn’t be clearer which direction Americans want to go, and they have had enough of Donald Trump’s betrayal. Donald Trump told them when he came into office, that he was going to reduce that cost, and what he has done instead, as predicted is put himself first, not America first. He went after his enemies, as he would say. He made he and his family rich, and he spent time on a $300 million ballroom, a $200 million plane for Christie Noem, and he’s cutting food you know, programs for people in America. I mean, look, these folks in America, they might have been born at night, but they weren’t born last night. They’re looking at this going, you know what, that is not… that is not, you know, what we put into office. And they feel… they feel very upset about that. And, you know, to answer the… there was a serious question after this last election that all the pundits were asking, oh my god, is this a permanent shift? Can you get people back? It turns out that voters are like, you know what? We’re the boss. We get to decide what is important. We’re gonna vote for you, because you work for me. We don’t work. And if you don’t do what we ask you to do, guess what? We’re gonna get somebody else to do it, because we don’t wear red, or we don’t wear blue, we just wear what’s good for us. And I think that that’s a very important lesson. for our candidates to remember. So, good candidate recruitment, authentic candidates, a good message that finds people where they are. And listen, you have to run from the area that you’re from.
Jen Rubin
Minneapolis.
Mitch Landrieu
New York chose Mom Donnie, but the good people of Virginia chose Abigail, and the good people of New Jersey, and all of a sudden, guess what? We got a big tent, we got a lot of talent, and we have people focused on the things that matter the most, and that is a winning formula. So if you like winning Democrats, keep doing the thing that helps succeed. Quit wringing your hands, just shut the hell up, let’s kind of get after it with each other and stay, you know, one team, one fight, and let’s just… let’s be positive. We have a lot of… we got a lot of blue sky in front of us, but it’s gonna be hard. It’s not something we can turn overnight, but we’ve seen a roadmap to success, and we oughta follow it.
Jen Rubin
One thing that really struck me, they were doing, of course, a lot of, you know, voter-on-the-street interviews, is how often that ballroom came up. And I think corruption and the sense that Donald Trump and his rich friends are out for them gives Democrats this opening if they can run through it to make that case. It seems that that is precisely the contrast Democrats need to put up. Do you want the guy with the golden ballroom, or you want the people who are fighting to keep their healthcare affordable? And that seems to be, like, a perfect contrast.
Mitch Landrieu
You know, somebody wonderful said, when somebody shows you or tells you who they are, you should believe them. And Donald Trump has done that, and he snubbed his nose at the people of America, and basically said, let him eat cake. I mean, it’s startling to see that he abused his power by just tearing down the East Wing the way he did, and then insisting that corporate donors pay $300 million for a ballroom while you’re shutting down the government, while you won’t feed people, and all because you want to give the richest 1% a tax break and not give healthcare to people in America. Now listen, that’s an 80% you know, position. People in America really like the fact that they have healthcare, and that they don’t get cut off in their kids because they had pre-existing conditions, or they can move you know, from employer to employer, what they call portability. Americans have gotten to the point of thinking, you know, healthcare really is a right, it’s just not a privilege. And listen, in our focus groups. Some of the most ardent Trump supporters could not believe that this president and Mike Johnson and Congress were gonna cut their healthcare and take the protection for their special needs kids to give a tax cut to the 1%. Now, to be clear. They’re not… this group is not against wealthy people. They actually want to be wealthy, but what they are against is a system that treats them unfairly, and gives an unfair advantage to other folks, and leaves them behind. They are not… they are not for that. And the same thing is true with immigration. They are absolutely in favor. of securing the border and making sure that we take all the bad guys that are part of all the gangs that are doing bad things to bad people and getting them out of here, but they’re not for taking Grandma and throwing her up against the walls, or going into a daycare center and taking the daycare workers, or taking your neighbor who’s gardening and throwing her in a hole. They are not for that, and they feel like the president has really abused his power. And so, you know, both of these things can be true, where you focus on on Donald Trump’s evisceration of democracy, but at the same time, while you’re trying to save that, make sure people are saving dollars in their daily life, and make sure that the promise that we made to each other that we are all part of the American dream, that we have a covenant with each other, that if we go to work and we work hard, our kids are gonna have an opportunity to have a better life than we did. That dream feels gone to a lot of people, and they are insisting that America get her mojo back. And the people that respond to that. I think the folks, you know, that are voting are gonna respond very well, as they did. This week, and this wasn’t just a little bit of a whooping. This was a… this was a serious whooping across.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Mitch Landrieu
across the country, and so I feel… I feel like…what we learned in the working class project was accurate. I feel like the folks that picked up the research that we did and used it succeeded. I like to say to people, if you did it and it worked, try it again. Because that’s a good way to do it. At the end of the day, winning is everything, so focus on what we have in common, stay away from letting them tear us apart, we’re one team, one fight, and we’re gonna beat these guys.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. One other thing that I think you embody and really came across in many of these races where Democrats did so well is they really want someone who’s going to fight for them. It’s a lot of this… none of this, you know, kind of wishy-washiness, none of this DC talk, none of this, you know, we want to make… cut some deal with the Republicans. There’s a certain energy that people want. They want to champion. They want someone to fight for them, because they feel like they’ve been given a raw deal.
Mitch Landrieu
Well, I think that Donald Trump’s election was traumatic for a lot of people because he basically decided that he was gonna be a king. And this is a man who has been very abusive with the power that the American people gave him. I don’t really think that folks don’t want the president to be powerful, but they want him to use the power to help people, to lift them up, not to push them down, to bring people together, not to separate them, not to throw people in a hole, not to eviscerate the Constitution by demeaning the judiciary, or Congress, or etc, etc, but in anything that this guy has touched. He has gone overboard, he’s been abusive, and he obviously doesn’t care about the people. Now, you know, here’s the thing about running for office. Talk is cheap. Once you get in office, you have to do something. And the things that you do, people will see. So if you just go look at the things that Donald Trump has done, regular, really smart American citizens are going, I didn’t… that’s not what I voted for. I didn’t… that doesn’t make any sense to me, what he’s doing. That’s not what he said. And even a guy who lies as much as he does. They find it kind of weird that he’s being so, patently, obvious in his disdain for the people that actually voted for him. And these people, I’m telling you, we call them low-information voters, these are very smart voters. They have a lot of common sense, they’re the ones who make the world go round, and, you know, people absolutely want somebody to fight back. And the reason… the reason it’s so important right now is because Donald Trump has basically said to us. He is gonna take your lunch money if you don’t… unless you stop him. He will not stop. This man will not stop. He doesn’t see any barriers unless you stand up to him. And when you stand up to him, whether it’s through the courts or whether it’s at the ballot box, then you push him back, but he’s not stopping unless you do it. So therefore, the voters go, okay, great. Then we need people who are willing to fight. If you don’t want to fight, go sit on the bench. This guy requires you, you know, to punch back. And that’s what the Democrats did, and we did it well, and we should just kind of take a moment, pat ourselves on the back, and say, that was good, now we gotta do it again.
Jen Rubin
Let’s get back out and keep working at it, and if we do, I think we’re gonna meet with success as.
Mitch Landrieu
as we should, because we will then be representing, you know, the hopes and the values and the dreams of the American people.
Jen Rubin
Last thing that I noticed, and it was borne out, actually, New York Times had a story about it, that Democrats actually won back some Trump voters. And they won in areas like in Southwest Virginia, which is not exactly a hotbed of progressivism. It’s the sense you have to show up, you have to keep trying with voters. You may not win them all, but you’re gonna win some of them, and that’s gonna lead to some really big wins in a state like Virginia.
Mitch Landrieu
I would really encourage my fellow Americans to be… to have a better imagination about their fellow Americans. In other words, we get stuck thinking red versus blue. People are very complicated in many ways, meaning we have lots of… not… no two people are the same. Everybody has a lot of thoughts in their mind, and they don’t all come out the same way in terms of how people process it. The one thing that they all think is if you don’t come see me talk to me. If you don’t come ask me, I find that disrespectful so that I can’t be for you. And sometimes, people, politicians particularly, will go, oh, that’s a rad county, I’m not going there. Well, that’s just really foolish, and the reason is, is because there are people that live in that county that have voted and will vote, but if you don’t go see them, they’re much less likely to be for you. So I, you know, I’m in a red state, a one state twice. You gotta go everywhere. You gotta see everybody, because when you do the math. When you do the math, if you go pull a couple of votes out of a red precinct, you know, then you have to get fewer votes in the blue precinct that you go to, and when you add it all…
Jen Rubin
Absolutely.
Mitch Landrieu
That equals… that’s the difference between winning and losing. And so, the other thing is, people just really appreciate you coming and talk to them, and you should.
Jen Rubin
Exactly.
Mitch Landrieu
Because they have a lot to tell you, and even… let me say, even if you’re not going to get their votes, you can learn a lot from people about why they tell you no, and then you can get better. But ignoring people? That’s a pretty good prescription for failure. So, I just encourage people not to do that.
Jen Rubin
And it’s also what makes the difference between winning by 5 points and winning by 15 points.
Mitch Landrieu
Or better yet, it’s by winning by one vote, rather than losing by one. Listen, I had an election, my first election. I won by 35 votes. That I am sure that I got on election day, because I got up early in the morning, and I did not go to bed until the polls closed. And I learned that lesson, and I have never, ever forgotten it. You gotta… and listen, every vote, this is true, without being Pollyannish about it. Every vote is equally important. And critically important, I might add, as well. And when you don’t treat voters like that, they can feel it, and they can justifiably say, you never came to see me, you never asked. The greatest sin in politics, not asking.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Don’t do that. And I will close on this. What was so gratifying to see, whether it was Mondami, or whether it was Mikey Sherrill, or whether it was, Abigail Spanberger, is when they got elected, they say, I’m gonna be a governor, a mayor for everybody, whether you voted for me or not. And that was so refreshing, because Donald Trump has never gotten this through his head, that he’s the president of everybody. It’s just his little people, his donors.
Mitch Landrieu
You know, that’s a really wonderful thing that you’ve observed, because I have a strong opinion about this, and I’m…I think that I’m correct. That really, in the next couple years, because the nation has been so divided, and we’re kind of just really tired of going to Thanksgiving dinner, or wherever we go, and not being able to talk to our family members, that people are going to want, at some point in time, for us to figure out how to work better together, right? And so, what…What the big fight is about now is groups of people on the left and the right who want to divide us and believe that you can win, you know, a zero-sum game. And the other side of it is people…on both sides of the aisle who want to find a way to find common ground, and to get together, and to move us forward. And I think there’s a… there is an element on both sides, I might say, that believe that division wins. I believe that addition wins, and I think that the American people, at some point in time, are going to want to go, look, I feel very strongly about stuff, but we gotta figure out how to solve a problem, and not just argue about it, because there are real consequences to not being able to get to yes. And I think they’re gonna be more demanding of elected officials and people who can actually do it. They want people who are gonna fight hard for them, but they clearly want people who are gonna solve day-to-day problems and not just win ideological arguments.
Jen Rubin
Oh, boy, is that true. And they don’t really care who keeps their healthcare cost down. They’re gonna vote for the guy or the gal who did, regardless whether it’s a D or an R. Mitch, your work has been so important and so interesting. We’re gonna have you back, and hopefully, they won’t have amnesia and forget this lesson, in a week or a month, because they’re gonna need it, for the next 12 months. So thank you so much for joining us.
Mitch Landrieu
Just don’t forget, winning is everything, and we won, so let’s go do it again. Thank you.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely.
