Dan Pfeiffer

I heard you and Ezra Klein talk about this on his podcast on Saturday.

Saw that pop up on my feed.

I knew you were doing the interview.

I put in my headphones and went for a hike.

And near the top of the hill, I heard you get into this exact question, and I stopped and I screamed into the void.

Because I think the answer is very clear as to why the generic ballot is what it is, why Virginia is close, why New Jersey is close.

And it is that right now at this time, the Democratic Party's approval rating is in the toilet.

They don't like what Trump is doing.

They don't like what Republicans are doing, but they don't trust us.

You can see this in YouGov data where they compare it.

We see a lot of how people approve of how Trump's handling of things.

YouGov a couple of weeks ago asked, who do you trust more on issues, Democrats or Republicans?

And Republicans are winning on almost every issue other than healthcare and climate change.

And so people want an alternative.

We have not given them a viable alternative yet.

That isn't coming upon us.

That's the difference between a...

Two or three-point generic ballot and a seven-point generic ballot like we saw in 2018 when the Democratic Party approval rating was much higher than the Republicans.

Do you think in 2018 – And then we can get – there are specific reasons in New Jersey in particular why that race may be closer than we think it should be.

But that I think goes to the broader question of if Trump is so unpopular, if he's doing so many horrible things, if people disagree with the direction the country is going in, why are they not flocking to Democrats?