# What Democrats are still getting wrong about voters > Sarah Longwell explains why Democrats could win 2026 but still lose the bigger fight for American politics. - Title: What Democrats are still getting wrong about voters · Vox - Summary: Sarah Longwell explains why Democrats could win 2026 but still lose the bigger fight for American politics. Democrats risk winning the 2026 midterms while… - Keywords: sarah longwell, democrats, 2026 midterms, voters, material well-being, donald trump, republican party, josh shapiro, israel, pennsylvania, news, culture - Source: Vox — https://vox.com/america-actually/504619/sarah-longwell-tribune-festival-book-average-voter - Author: Cameron Peters - Published: 2026-09-30T22:10:00+00:00 - Read time: 4 min - Topics: sarah longwell, democrats, 2026 midterms, voters, material well-being, donald trump, republican party, josh shapiro, israel, pennsylvania, news, culture ## GOP faces a bad 2026 The Iran war is driving up inflation and fuel prices, putting Republicans on the back foot in swing states like Michigan and redder parts of the map including Iowa, Texas, and Kansas. ## Why Trump is finally losing Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, says voters are deciding elections on material concerns. For many voters right now, things are not okay materially, which is why this cycle feels different. ## Who is Sarah Longwell Longwell regularly speaks with voters for her podcast The Focus Group and is the author of the new book How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time. ## Talk to voters like adults The artifice of politics is falling away. Voters now want to know what makes their leaders tick and whether they are real people. Democratic politicians still have not figured this out. > Democratic politicians still have not figured it out. ## Voters don't fit neat boxes At the Iowa caucuses in twenty nineteen, Longwell met a Democratic primary voter stuck between Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg. They liked a strong guy where they knew what he believed in, regardless of ideology. ## What voters actually want Voters want to afford gas, get a job with room to advance, ensure their kids get good education, and feel safe in their community. These are the base-level human desires that drive voting. ## The average voter The average voter in a general election is a fifty-five-year-old white guy without a college degree. The average person votes on instinctual things, animalistic desires for things to be okay materially. > 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. ## Democrats' policy problem Democrats spend time talking about individual policies rather than things that unite everyone. Everybody needs cheaper gas and affordable groceries. Talking about what unites voters is the secret sauce for Democratic policy. > Everybody needs cheaper gas. Everybody needs groceries that they can afford. ## Why democracy arguments failed Three years ago, Democrats believed pro-democracy arguments would unite people across ideology. But Trump is underwater now because of gas prices and the Iran war, not because of the coup or his statements about women. ## Use America, not democracy Longwell says Democrats should swap the word America for democracy. Voters practice democracy through individual things like free speech, rule of law, and checks and balances, but do not think about them as democracy. > swap it in for democracy ## Republicans have no principles When Longwell speaks with focus groups, it is not clear what values or principles Republicans believe in besides what Donald Trump says to them. This is why she wrote the book. > Absolutely not. They don't have anything. ## The map is shifting People are leaving California for Texas and New York for Florida. By twenty thirty-two, there will be a new census, and things are going to get worse for Democrats if this trajectory holds. ## Trump leaves Republicans hollowed out The Republican Party is as hollowed out as Donald Trump will leave it. There is no Trump heir who can do what Trump does or has his longstanding parasocial relationship with voters. ## Democrats' 2026 trap Longwell worries that if Democrats win big in twenty twenty-six, they will say everybody likes them. But they do not. This was the mistake in twenty twenty-two, when midterms were extrapolated to signal Biden's re-election. > They don't. ## Josh Shapiro's Pennsylvania strength Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is beating his Republican opponent by twenty-one points in a new poll. This is the largest swing state in the country, yet Democrats on the left do not like Shapiro. ## The Israel divide Polling shows the majority of Democrats want their party to reshape its relationship with Israel and oppose corporate money and AIPAC funding. But Shapiro represents a different approach to these issues. ## A Jewish critic of Israel Longwell theorizes the twenty twenty-eight Democratic nominee will likely be a Jewish person highly critical of Israel, because it could help heal the deep divide on this issue within the Democratic Party. ## Jon Ossoff as possibility Longwell thinks it is more likely that the twenty twenty-eight nominee is Jon Ossoff. Her broader point is that Democrats should ask themselves whether they want to win more than they want to be right about everything. > Do you want to win more than you want to be right about everything? ## Key takeaway Democrats risk winning the 2026 midterms while failing to build lasting appeal to average voters, who prioritize material well-being over abstract arguments about democracy.