With the 2026 midterm elections fast approaching, polling increasingly suggests that the GOP is in for a bad time. As the Iran war drives up inflation and fuel prices, Republicans are on the back foot not just in swing states like Michigan, but in redder parts of the map: Iowa, Texas, and maybe even Kansas, among others. (Not to mention Georgia and North Carolina.) 

It’s shaping up to be a Democratic wave, in other words, and a major repudiation of President Donald Trump. According to Sarah Longwell, the publisher of political news site the Bulwark, there’s a clear reason why this is the cycle that things seem to be falling apart for Trump, who has dodged scandals and bad poll numbers before. “The average person is often voting on instinctual things,” she explains, “and those instincts are a lot of your animalistic desires for things to be okay materially.” And for many voters right now, things are not okay materially.

Longwell would know: She regularly speaks with voters for her podcast, The Focus Group, and she’s the author of the new book How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time. 

Longwell talked with Vox’s Astead Herndon for a special live recording of the America, Actually podcast at the Texas Tribune Festival earlier this month about why voters are both more and less complicated than punditry sometimes suggests, what the future holds for the Republican Party post-Trump, and the lesson Democrats need to learn to capitalize on their wins.

Below is an excerpt of Astead’s conversation with Longwell, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full show, so listen to America, Actually wherever you get your podcasts or watch it on Vox’s YouTube channel.

One of the themes in the book is to talk to voters like real adults. What does that mean? 

There was a long period of time in our history where the artifice of politics was part of the performance of politics.

You could give a good speech. You’d do a debate. Those are not the rules of politics in this communications environment anymore. Every single one of you, if you’re a Bulwark person, you interact with me. I am in your ear, and we’re having a conversation.

We have a parasocial relationship. I walked in here and met a bunch of people, and they were like, “I feel like I know you.” And people want to feel like that about their political leaders now. And so they want to know what makes you tick. Are you a real person? And so the artifice of a debate on CNN is starting to feel really stupid, no offense to CNN.

People demand more now. And a lot of it is just that artifice is falling away for voters. Donald Trump understood that as a person who had been in people’s living rooms as a performer. Democratic politicians still have not figured it out. 

One of the things that comes through in both the book and I think the work that we both do is how voters don’t always fit into those neat ideological boxes.

I always tell the story about when I was at the Iowa caucuses, and I remember in 2019 in the Democratic primary, someone telling me they were stuck between Bernie [Sanders] and [former New York City Mayor Michael] Bloomberg, and asking, “How did you get there?”

And what was the answer? 

I think the short answer was they liked a strong guy where they knew what he believed in. And they did not care which side of that coin that was, as long as it felt consistent and something they could put their hands around.

If ideology is not the controlling paradigm for voters, how should we think about the different ways people are sorting themselves right now? 

My answer is genuinely not to sort them as much. This is the reason people say things like, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and then everybody gets bored with that answer, and they want to talk about 10 other things because they’re like, “Well, that’s so straightforward.”

But I try in the book to say it really is about improving people’s material well-being and ensuring their safety. So you go back to: What are the most human things that people want? They want to be able to afford gas. They want a job. They want a job [where] they think that they can go up the ladder. 

They want their kids to get a good education. Then they want to be safe. They want to know that they’re safe in their community. They want to know they’re safe in the places that they go. And Donald Trump and Republicans really do understand: People vote with weird animal instincts. 

Now, I bet a lot of the people in this room are college-educated suburban voters, but the average voter in a general election is a 55-year-old white guy without a college degree.

The average person is often voting on instinctual things, and those instincts are a lot of your animalistic desires for things to be okay materially — your cost of health care, and then for you to be safe. And so if you think about those base-level desires and then think about what Democrats spend most of their time talking about, you’re like, “Is that the thing that captures all these people?”

When I watch Democrats as somebody who’s an immigrant into the Democratic ecosystem, there’s a lot of, like, “And you get a policy, and you get a policy, and you get a policy.” And I don’t really understand that because everybody needs cheaper gas.

Everybody needs groceries that they can afford. And so talking about the things that unite us or that everybody needs, to me, is the secret sauce for how Democrats should think about policy. 

Three years ago, Democrats thought that being against January 6th was a thing that united everybody. There was a belief that pro-democracy arguments were going to unite people across ideology. Why did that fail in 2024? 

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as Trump gets terrible poll after terrible poll, and this is my point.

The coup, all of the horrible things he said about women, all of the lawsuits — I mean, he told everybody an election was stolen. Why is he underwater right now? Because of gas prices, because of a war in Iran, because the negative personal consequences of his policies are hitting people.

I know that it frustrates people. I’m so aware of the frustration where people are like, “Why are people so selfish? Why don’t they think about the bigger picture of democracy?” And one of the things I try not to do is magic words — consultant stuff, because a lot of consultants do that. They’re like, “Say freedom,” and “Say affordability.”

There’s nothing to back it up. But the one magic word I do think that Democrats should start using is “America,” and swap it in for “democracy.” And the reason is, voters practice democracy in America by its individual things.

They practice free speech. They like rule of law. They like checks and balances. So they like the elements of democracy, but they don’t think about them up here as democracy. And also the word democracy now is very polarized, right? Republicans think that Democrats are a threat to democracy because they stole the 2020 election. And Democrats think Republicans are a threat to democracy because they lied about the election being stolen and then tried to overturn the entire government.

I think one side of that equation is more right than the other. But I think that’s why it didn’t work. 

I want to look ahead. Our show focuses on building a roadmap for American politics without Trump, and part of that question has been about Republicans.

They have made themselves into a new kind of America First-esque party. But what does that mean without Trump at the center of it? When you’re in your focus groups, is it clear what values or principles Republicans believe in besides what Donald Trump says to them?

Absolutely not. They don’t have anything. This is why I wrote the book. I wrote the book because we have 2026, we have 2028, and we have 2032. 

By 2032, there’s going to be a new census, and things are going to get worse for Democrats. Hear me on this. People are not grokking this yet. The map — people are leaving California for Texas, people are leaving New York for Florida, and it’s just going to get harder for Democrats to win if this same trajectory that we’re currently on holds.

But there is a generational opportunity right now, and it’s why I desperately wanted to bring this book and get it out there. The Republican Party at this moment is as hollowed out as … Donald Trump is going to leave it in shambles. There is no Trump heir who can do what Trump does, who has the longstanding parasocial relationship with voters where they give him this blank check that other people don’t get.

But my concern is that 2026 will go really well and that Democrats will say, “See? It’s fine. Everybody likes us.” They don’t.

This was the big mistake in 2022. The midterms were extrapolated [to signal] Biden’s re-election, and those were not the same thing.

They are not the same thing. And again, the average voter is a 55-year-old white man without a college degree. And you can just hold that in your head and picture that guy and say, “Do we have candidates who can appeal to that guy?” 

I was being annoying when I was flying here, tweeting things, and there’s a new poll out for [Pennsylvania Gov.] Josh Shapiro. He is beating his Republican opponent by 21 points in the poll right now. This is the largest swing state in the country, and Democrats hate Josh Shapiro.

Hate feels a little strong. I think the left doesn’t like Josh Shapiro. I don’t think that’s the whole party.

That’s a good point.

I’ll just say, as a slight Josh Shapiro stan, perhaps I feel more than most people’s antipathy to the idea of Josh Shapiro running. I get a lot of people just being like, “Absolutely not. He’s a corporate centrist. We would never consider him. And also he’s Jewish slash Zionist.”

And a lot of this is Twitter discourse, but it feels like he doesn’t get the same buzz or interest, which seems insane to me when you’ve got somebody that popular in such a big, important state that Trump was able to win twice. 

The electoral argument for the Josh Shapiros of the world is clear.

Twenty-one points in Pennsylvania at any rate is impressive, but let’s use him as an example, because I do think it speaks to where some Democrats have gone in the last couple years. The polling will tell you that the majority of Democrats want to see their party reshift its relationship with Israel and want to see things like an arms embargo.

Polling would tell you that the majority of Democrats believe that they shouldn’t be taking corporate money, or that things like AIPAC money are bad. How does a Josh Shapiro — let’s use him as an avatar. … Is that compatible with where the Democratic base is right now, even if it’s clearly compatible with Pennsylvania?

The way that you just said it doesn’t sound compatible. But I don’t think that it’s incompatible. 

This is a book about what the voters think, and the voters want a new relationship with Israel, hands down. Without question. They want America to reevaluate our relationship with Israel. And the next Democratic presidential candidate is going to have to do that.

And I have a theory about this. I do think that the 2028 nominee is very likely to be a Jewish person who is highly critical of Israel, because I think that it helps to heal the deep divide right now on this issue within the Democratic Party.

Now, do I think it’s more likely that that is the very handsome Jon Ossoff? I kind of do. But I just … a big part of this book is, “Don’t you want to win? Don’t you guys want to win?” Like, do you want to win more than you want to be right about everything?

Everyone knows how much gasoline prices matter. The recent spike in gas prices triggered by the war with Iran has fueled deep pessimism about the economy and weighed heavily on President Donald Trump’s approval ratings.

But diesel fuel — the lifeblood of shipping, agriculture, and heavy industry — usually flies under the radar. Its price has surged too, and while truckers and farmers are feeling the initial blow, the rest of the country won’t be far behind.

“Most products in America are shipped along the road via trucks,” Nathan Bomey, a business reporter at Axios, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. Diesel prices “directly affect their cost of doing business, which then eventually trickles down and affects the consumer.”

On the podcast, Bomey discusses what’s driving the price spike, how quickly it’s going to become a problem for everyday consumers, and whether electric semi trucks could offer a way out.

Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

What is happening with diesel?

There was one major geopolitical event this year that disrupted the entire energy economy, which is the US and Israel attacking Iran. Iran is at the center of the oil economy in some ways, but primarily you have to look at the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the jockeying over it that has happened in the months since.

Once they closed the strait, it disrupted the entire global energy economy because it handles a substantial portion of the shipping bringing supplies out of the Middle East. That affected diesel prices, gasoline prices, jet fuel prices, and effectively everything based on crude oil.

Who are the people right now that are profoundly freaked out about the cost of diesel?

First off, truckers are freaked out because their cost of doing business is going much higher. Farmers are also freaked out because they’re already facing real pressures from trade wars and things that are out of control, like climate issues, that have caused their costs to go higher. 

The price of diesel affecting farmers eventually affects the price they charge, which ultimately gets to the consumer because it ends up costing more to pay for things like an ear of corn.

How stark do you think this might be? In a month or two, do you think I could go down to Walmart and see that something I buy all the time is now a dollar more expensive? 

I think the impact is imminent. This flows through very quickly. We’re not talking about months; we’re talking about weeks, if not days, before people will start to notice increases, especially in the grocery aisle. That’s the first place people will notice it because fresh food has to be shipped on a weekly basis. Diesel prices are going to have a big effect on food inflation. This is coming off of several years of food price increases that we experienced in the wake of the pandemic.

We’re also barreling toward the holiday shopping season, which is going to be affected by this as well. If a toy, for example, is made with a resin affected by the cost of crude oil, which also affects the cost of diesel, and then it’s shipped over the road to Walmart in a truck that uses diesel, all of these things add up and will probably lead to higher prices.

We’ve also got an issue with heating oil, which is a fuel used primarily by households in the Northeast to heat their homes. Heating oil, diesel, and all of these oil-based products are caught up in this vortex right now. Ultimately, it is not something the ordinary person can do much about.

Do the industries that rely on diesel have any other options?

There are definitely alternatives to diesel, but in many cases, they cannot be switched to quickly. If you think about the trucking industry, they are invested heavily in big rigs that take products from place A to place B. If you are invested in a truck, yes, you could theoretically switch, but you would be scrapping this huge investment you’ve made. Diesel trucks are not really going anywhere immediately. A lot of times, they’re simply still the best way to get somewhere.

You can switch to rail; railroads are definitely a competitor to trucking, but really only best for certain types of products. There are other types of trucks you can buy. Compressed natural gas or liquid natural gas is an alternative fuel for some trucks, and biodiesel can actually be good. Hydrogen is more of a futuristic thing down the road.

In the short term, there is the possibility of using electric trucks. That is starting to become more realistic. In fact, in recent days, Tesla began major production of the Tesla Semi, an electric semitruck we’ve been waiting for for years. I remember covering this in 2018 when Tesla debuted the semi, and we all thought it was going to be coming out soon.

It has taken nearly a decade for this to finally become a reality in large proportions, but the Tesla Semi is an electric truck that could be an alternative for some. There are other companies making electric trucks too, so that could be viable. But the problem with electric trucks is that the battery is so heavy, making it tough to compete with diesel on shipping heavy items.

It was often joked that when the Tesla Semi first debuted, the very first thing it shipped was a bunch of bags of Cheetos because they were so light and the truck couldn’t handle extra weight. They had a deal with PepsiCo, and it wasn’t ready at the time to ship anything heavy. 

It’s a lot better now, but the issue is still how heavy electric truck batteries are, which will make them somewhat limited in capacity. However, we are seeing some demand for the Tesla Semi that indicates it might become more competitive because of the price of diesel.

So when prices are high, generally somebody somewhere is benefiting. Who is it, in this case?

The people benefiting from diesel prices being so high are the refineries, which a lot of people don’t think about much because they’re the middle person in this entire process. They take the crude oil and turn it into usable diesel for a pickup truck, a semi truck, or farming equipment. 

The refinery business is experiencing high demand right now, and there’s limited capacity to do this because of issues in Russia, Iran, and other places throughout the world. There’s really nowhere else to do this, and therefore they can charge higher prices. That means higher profits for the refineries.

All of this is shaping up to potentially mean a really ugly winter. One thing I think about a lot is that American consumers will accept a lot of pain. We had Covid — the inflation, and shortages of literally everything. Then we had the war in Ukraine, and prices went up again. 

People still keep spending money, even as we predict this one’s going to get bad. People go to the store and spend money, and maybe they gripe, but it’s not like we’re out in the streets. Do you think this coming diesel shock — imminent, in your words — is going to be different?

I’m not an economist, but there is an interesting phenomenon emerging in the economy where consumer sentiment is at rock bottom, but consumer spending is actually really strong. There’s a gap emerging between what people say they feel and what they’re actually doing — in this case, they’re still spending. 

Maybe it’s YOLO spending. They’re thinking they don’t have much going for them, so they’re just going to keep spending. I’ve experienced that a little bit, so I don’t blame anybody.

At the end of the day, the numbers matter a little bit more than what people say they feel. But I do think people are going to hit a breaking point because they simply cannot continue this level of spending if the underlying fundamentals of the economy start to collapse.