Jamel Bouie

I mean, the other thing is that these voters weren't voting for the Republican Party.

They were voting for Donald Trump.

And so if Donald Trump is not on the ballot, the electoral problem the Republican Party has always had in the age of Trump is this.

Trump has built a strange cult of personality around himself.

People...

The low propensity voters come out in 2016, 2020, and 24 to vote for the Trump vibe.

They don't know anything about what a Trump administration might look like.

They're not, you know, I remember saying to people, you know, in the 2024, hey, you're not just voting for Donald Trump, you're voting for Stephen Miller.

And these are people who don't care about this.

It means nothing to them, right?

They're voting for Trump the fun uncle or Trump the star of The Apprentice.

the lively dancer, they're voting for Trump, kind of the big, you know, it'd be funny to have a big joke in office, right?

Like that's kind of the whole Trump deal.

A big joke who is a good businessman or something.

And somehow people think he's like very masculine.

I find, I still find that very strange, but that's what they're voting for.

And so the challenge for Republicans has always been

to how can they convert people who vote for Trump into reliable Republicans?

And they just haven't been able to do it.

And so what happened was Democrats who have converted, activated a bunch of high-propensity voters, college-educated voters, moderate to high-income voters, who would have voted for Republicans, who voted for George W. Bush, right?