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ArticleDemocrats Need to Face Why Trump Won - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-david-shor.html
This is an interesting article/transcript (of Klein's podcast) featuring David Shor, a data scientist at a major Democratic consulting firm. I don't want to tl;dr this because I'd rather everyone read or listened to the source material, rather than me sharing snippets or summaries that can be taken out of context.
However, I will share this part that is relevant to gender criticism, to show the article's relevance to this circle:
(Klein) Famously, one of Trump’s higher testing ads was “Kamala Harris is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” I’m not saying you’re saying diversity, equity and inclusion programs are popular. But I’m not seeing it emerge as a major explanation for 2024 here.I’m curious how you think both about the election and about the role it’s playing in the postelection narrative.
(Shor) The “they/them” ad that everybody talks about was a good ad, but in our testing it was a 70th percentile ad. When you look at Donald Trump’s best-performing ads, it was basically the economy, gas prices, immigration and crime. There has definitely been an overemphasis on D.E.I., wokeness and trans issues.
(Shor) It definitely played a role in elite discourse and in why so many tech chief executive officers have shifted to the right. I believe Republicans are making a mistake to focus on these things instead of concrete issues that people actually care about.
Similarly, 94% of surveyed voters chose cost of living/inflation as more important than LGBTQ issues. Cost of living/inflation was the #1 concern among all respondents. There's a chart in the article that shows this.
I'm fully aware this is one data scientist in one think tank, and other surveys could potentially show different results. But one of my takeaways from this is that both major parties are giving trans stuff more headroom and talking points than is warranted. The average voter just doesn't care as much as we, or the party elites, think they do.
Democrats are going to have to offer more than trans rights support to make inroads and get back the voters they've lost. LGBTQ issues will not be enough to move the needle for them. But we knew that, and now we're seeing the results.