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...you make this a campaign issue.

New polling is out today that shows a major shift in the negative perception of Project 2025.

JUNE 24, 2024: -9 points
FAV: 10%
UNFAV: 19%

JULY 14, 2024: -32 points
FAV: 11%
UNFAV: 43%

Project 2025 has gone from net negative 9 point to a net negative 32 points in just three weeks. The more people know about the republicans' Project 2025, the more they hate it. And the more you can connect current and former Trump staffers -- and Trump himself -- to Project 2025, the worse it'll be for the Trump campaign.

And yes, a campaign issue, not the campaign issue.

Project 2025 has gone from net negative 9 point to a net negative 32 points in just three weeks. The more people know about the republicans' Project 2025, the more they hate it.

So....after three weeks of Democratic and progressive efforts, a majority of people still either aren't aware of Project 2025 or have a favorable opinion of it? Not a great start.

Yes, as Democrats raise awareness of Project 2025 among Democrats, Democrats are going to hate it. That's the easy part. Democrats listen to Democrats, and are likely to agree with Democrats. You didn't provide a link in your post, but my google-fu was strong today, so here it is:

https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2...

Looking at the crosstabs, almost all of this is due to Democrats becoming informed about Project 2025 and disliking it. That's especially true among "CNN Democrats" and "MSNBC Democrats," where it's unpopular by 70-10 - and only 20% are unaware of it. Among independents, nearly two-thirds of respondents had no opinion. Three quarters of independents and non-MAGA Republicans had heard only "a little/nothing" about Project 2025.

So, yeah - this seems like very much a waste of time and resources. Several weeks of effort and most folks outside of Democratic-leaning news media consumers still have heard virtually nothing about Project 2025. And even that's just the first step - it takes more resources to tie any specific candidate to Project 2025, which is itself a difficult lift for the reasons we've discussed before.

Navigator is a progressive polling outfit, and they're trying very hard to make Project 2025 happen.

https://navigatorresearch.org/research/?_sf_s=Proj...

Again, I think it's a huge misallocation of resources. Don't spend the money and time trying to create brand awareness of Project 2025 so that you can attack GOP candidates based on what's in Project 2025. Just attack the GOP candidates. Especially with Trump. You don't need Project 2025 to argue that Trump wants to eliminate abortion protections or stack the government with his flunkies or reopen Yucca Mountain or whatever - he's said all that himself! Just tell voters that.

So....after three weeks of Democratic and progressive efforts, a majority of people still either aren't aware of Project 2025 or have a favorable opinion of it? Not a great start.

Yes, as Democrats raise awareness of Project 2025 among Democrats,

Actually it’s quite a good start. It’s how everything starts. You don’t start a movement among people who are opposed to that movement, you don’t sell sneakers to people who don’t run, and you don’t get people to oppose to the Vietnam war by starting with people who support the war. You start with people likely to support you, then you move to the middle, eventually even the other side has to take a look and even better have to respond . Once that happens you are winnng.

When Nixon said “I am not a crook” on national TV it was probably the first time a lot of his supporters said “Wow, enough people think he’s a crook that he has to deny it?”

The Right Wing echo chamber is terrific at this. Something starts on Fox, gets ping-ponged to the Wall Street Journal opinion columns, shows up in the New York Post and Washington Examiner, next thing you know the President is on the defensive in a Press Conference, and suddenly it’s all over main stream media.

Project 2025 is a chance to put Trump (MAGA) on the defensive. It is the richest target area MAGA has yet presented, and (unlike a slithery babble from a podium) it’s all written down in black and white . ABSOLUTELY make them deny it, then make them deny it again, then flip a couple pages and make them deny that, and that, and that.

We’re in the time of hyper-aggressive politics. The West Wing days of comity and good fellowship are over.

Democrats Need to Wake Up From Their ‘West Wing’ Fantasy

Ever since President Biden’s debate performance sucked Democratic leaders and political operatives into a looping vortex of panic, people have been debating how we got here and who is responsible. The president himself? His handlers? The media? All of the above, but I’d like to focus on a different factor: Aaron Sorkin.

A whole generation of political professionals is so enamored of “The West Wing,” Mr. Sorkin’s show about the travails of White House occupants, that they now suffer from what I think of as Terminal “West Wing” Brain.

The show portrays politics and policy not as ruthless powermongering pursued by nihilists but as a higher calling that flawed but idealistic people engage in from a place of civic pride. It depicts America as a place that is divided but that yearns for consensus, for the good of the country. Jed Bartlet, the fictional Democratic president, is often reaching across the aisle to a wrongheaded but often well-meaning Republican. It’s an attractive fantasy that bears little relation to the world we live in, where partisan animosity is about more than policy disagreements and is rarely resolved via civil debate.

Most voters will go to the polls in November not to vote for their guy but to vote against the other guy, a phenomenon known as negative partisanship.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/opinion/democra...

It may also harm down-ballot candidates (House/Senate). Not only the White House is in play. P2025 should be a potent weapon to use against them because it is wildly unpopular, apparently.

albaby1: Yes, as Democrats raise awareness of Project 2025 among Democrats...

Yeah, that's the point: to turn out your voters. You win elections by getting more of your voters to show up on election day than the opposition.

You don't need Project 2025 to argue that Trump wants to eliminate abortion protections or stack the government with his flunkies or reopen Yucca Mountain or whatever - he's said all that himself! Just tell voters that.

Sure. You can still mention P2025 in an offhand manner in those attacks. "Convict Trump wants to [whatever], here's the video of him saying it, just like outlined in P2025", and senate candidate [whomever] "is onboard with convict Trump".

I'm wondering how it would go over if every time his name is mentioned, the Dems add "convict" to it (like I am doing now). It's accurate, he is not (yet) an ex-con who has served his sentence, and in one word is tells people a lot.

The Right Wing echo chamber is terrific at this. Something starts on Fox, gets ping-ponged to the Wall Street Journal opinion columns, shows up in the New York Post and Washington Examiner, next thing you know the President is on the defensive in a Press Conference, and suddenly it’s all over main stream media.

Allow me to call to the stand, in rebuttal, Joe Scarborough:

“You’ve got Republicans being just total idiots, attacking her as being a ‘DEI candidate,’” Scarborough said on “Morning Joe” on Tuesday. “And, I will tell you, 99 percent of Americans don’t even know what those letters stand for. But they know that it’s probably racist.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4787986-republi...

Right? Avid, voracious consumers of Fox News and the WSJ know what DEI is - because conservative-aligned media is constantly using it as an epithet to label progressive policies they hate. And people who are steeped in that media environment know what it is. But outside of that right-wing bubble? Normies don't know what you're talking about. Same thing with CRT (remember CRT? Chris Rufo and the GOP tried to make that a thing in the 2020 elections), and the 1619 Project (ditto) - the people who were anti-woke superfans knew the references, but most voters did not.

And they've had years to try to make DEI and CRT get any cultural traction. Democrats have three months until the election.

Again, it seems to me just as dumb as the DEI candidate line. You're going to build something that is well-known to the folks inside the left-wing bubble, but won't be known outside of it. To use it in a campaign you're creating all these extra steps that can't carry the weight. You have to educate voters to know what Project 2025 is (most don't, and most won't by the election), you have to further reinforce that so they care enough about it to affect their voting choices, and you then still have to educate the voters about a connection between any given candidate and project 2025. And so far, even the first bit has been tough sledding - MSNBC and CNN audiences know about Project 2025 (and hate it), but outside of that media environment people still mostly don't know about it. And again, only a portion of the people who've even heard of it enough to form an opinion will actually care about it.

Run ads that say Donald Trump wants to ban abortion. Don't bother with building up awareness of Project 2025, pointing out that Project 2025 has a plank about banning abortion, and then try to run ads tying Donald Trump to Project 2025's abortion ban. Just run the ads that say Donald Trump wants to ban abortion.

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