Charlie Sykes & Dave Weigel

**Molly Jong-Fast** (0:00)
Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And an Emerson College poll gives Democrats a 12-point generic ballot advantage. We have such a great show for you today. To The Contrary, Charlie Sykes stops by to talk about Donald Trump starting a war he cannot end. Then we'll talk to Semafor's Dave Weigel about the final stretch of the midterm primaries and the fights both inside the Democratic Party and inside the Republican Party. But first, the news.

**Dave Weigel** (0:38)
So, Molly, the Democrats have tapped South Carolina for its first primary of the 2028 election cycle. This has many people on the left side of things quite mad because they say we're never going to win a state like South Carolina. This largely gives an advantage to more centrist views in a time where populism is being argued. What are you seeing here?

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:00)
I mean, I think some of this is because there were some... There were...
Iowa had that caucus situation, remember that?

**Dave Weigel** (1:10)
I would argue Iowa's had a few caucus situations that have been a little weird.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:14)
Yeah. And so it used to be... What was it? It was Iowa and then...

**Dave Weigel** (1:19)
New Hampshire.

**Molly Jong-Fast** (1:20)
New Hampshire and then South Carolina. I mean, I would argue that Iowa nor New Hampshire are necessarily more liberal than South Carolina. I mean, the reason to do South Carolina first is because it has the largest population of black voters in the primary contest. It may not forever, but for now.
And so, you know, you have a certain group that has the, you know, is really speaks to the Democratic base. Now, there's a real conflict here with Nevada, which has also a lot of Hispanic voters, which is also a big group. And there's a big discussion right now in Democratic politics, which is this idea that is having a populist, but lefty message, the way to win the midterms, or is 2026 the year of the Mikey Sherrills, or is it the year of the Zorans? And the answer is we don't know. But there's some primaries that are really making a lot of people nervous. And now there is a theory of the case. There are two different theories of the case. One is you alienate the left, they stay home, you lose. The other theory of the case, and you could look at the 24 cycle and say, wow, Harris campaigned with Cheney, Cheney is for no one, alienate the left and they stay home. Okay, you could make that case. But you could also say, like these lefty candidates can't win because they can't win over the middle and most of the voters are in the middle. I'm just giving both sides of this argument here. So you have a left that feels that the center is patronizing and is discounting candidates who really do. And again, the original sin here is 2016, right? I'm not sure that I agree with this because I don't know.
But a lot of people think that Bernie could have won and he would have tapped into this populism. And so because Hillary was more of a candidate that was sort of smoothed over and that there was a sense that she had squandered this economic populism. I don't know the answer, but that's where this comes from.

**Dave Weigel** (3:44)
Well, I think that there's an interesting thing here that we're going to finally see an experiment played out that a lot of people have discussed. You know, there's this like Thomas Frank thought that like, you know, every time we've ever nominated a candidate that doesn't excite the left. Now you can say Barack Obama governed as a centrist, but he was perceived by the left as one of them when he was elected. And that any time we don't have that at least illusion up that we lose as a party. Now, one of the more interesting things is we have this governor's race in Wisconsin and then we have this primary for the Senate in Michigan. Both states that Bernie Sanders has won very overwhelmingly, been very, very popular in. And to take it back to the South Carolina thing, I think one of the funniest things about the South Carolina debate is South Carolina is going to be a great tragedy for Bernie Bros. Because Bernie had all this momentum in the primaries, and then he gets to South Carolina and Biden trounces. So it's a very, like, triggering event to then say South Carolina is going to be so even more important to the left. So but I think the most interesting thing we'll see with this primary, particularly with Haley Stevenson, Abdul and Francesca Hong versus Mandela Barnes, is if they both get the nomination, which it looks like they're gonna, does the populism beat out this thing?