Data Don’t Lie: Parsing 2024 to win in 2026

July 25, 2025 - News, Views and To-Dos for Democrats

Nancy Kohn

and

Art Friedson

Jul 25, 2025

What Art Friedson Has On His Mind

I’m no expert on the New Testament, but when John 8:32 states, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free," I’m all in.

As Donny and the MAGAts make us crazy with their constant stream of lies, I find solace and hope in good, hard data. And the singular place for hard data for Dems is Catalist, a data utility that takes publicly available vote history data and precinct-level election results from every state, combines it with Census data, runs it through their proprietary modeling and polling, and comes out with a highly accurate look at partisan leanings of the electorate all the way down to the precinct level.

Their analysis of the 2024 presidential election, What Happened in 2024, is not just a geek’s paradise, it is a solid roadmap to victory in 2026 and 2028. I’ll take you through the highlights, but feel free to soak yourselves in their good clean truthiness at your leisure.

I won’t keep you in suspense. Their overall conclusion is that the Harris/Walz ticket retained most parts of the Biden 2020 coalition, but there was slippage among a key set of subgroups, including young voters, men, voters of color, less frequent voters, and urban voters. The slippage was not as bad in major battleground states, but the margins in those states were too small to withstand even these slightly lower vote totals.

National turnout was high (64%), but even higher in battleground states (70%). Turnout was higher for white voters who made up 72% of the total. Harris was 2% behind Biden 2020 with white voters, and given the size of the group, it hurt. I wonder if in our righteous, well-intentioned fervor for fairness, we sometimes forget our biggest single audience.

Slippage was worse among voters of color. Compared to 2020, support for the ticket eroded by 9 points for Latino voters (which is why Republicans in Texas are going ahead with redistricting even though it’s a risky move for them), 4 points for Asian and Pacific Islander voters, 3 points for Black voters, and 5 points for “other” voters, a catch-all that includes Native Americans, Middle Eastern and North African voters (MENA), and multiracial voters.

In all of these categories, the slippage was most profound in younger voters, particularly young men. Support for Harris/Walz by young Black men went from 85% to 75%, and support among young Latino men dropped from 63% to 47%!

Voters under the age of 30 dropped from 61% Democratic support in 2020 to 55% in 2024. The younger the voter, the worse the drop, which is especially troubling since Gen Z will be a growing presence in upcoming elections.

As we all know, education levels played a huge role in the shift to Republicans. Barack Obama won 40% of white non-college voters. Hillary Clinton got 36%. Joe Biden managed to claw back to 38%, but Kamala Harris got only 36%.

An interesting aside is that the share of college-level voters continues to increase. At the same time, the number of women who are graduating from college now far exceeds the number of men. So look for the gender gap to widen in coming years.

Catalist concludes that Harris lost due to a combination of support and turnout drops among key groups, particularly among the least engaged, least affiliated voters, whom they call “rotating voters.” Previous Democratic wins were a combination of strong turnout among the Democratic faithful and picking up a good share of these rotating voters. Neither happened in 2024. Going forward, Catalist confirms that we are going to have to work on both turnout and persuasion if we’re going to win.

Let’s zoom in on these low-engagement voters. They occur across all major racial groups, and the biggest factor among all of them is age. What do we know about these fickle young voters and how can we win them back? I’ll give you a few answers.

Tyler Ashe, Senior Trends Analyst for GWI, a business-focused data analytics firm, notes that a whopping 58% of Gen-Z voters are more likely to consume political information on social media than on TV. He cites YouTube, X and TikTok as key platforms, and adds that they distrust and dislike attack ads (who doesn’t?).

The Republicans were onto this way before we were. I recently viewed a private interview with John Della Volpe, the Polling Director at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He made it very simple: win 60% of the youth vote and you win an election.

He said Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, set out in 2012 to increase the Republican share of young voters by 10% over a decade. They did it in four years.

But wait! There’s hope.

Della Volpe has been talking to these young men in focus groups. He said their generation is economically fragile and they are scared. Many of them still live with their parents. They rely on side gigs to make ends meet and live with the constant fear that one unexpected expense - a car repair or a broken arm - will set them hopelessly back.

They feel they have no hope of attaining the American Dream; that they are way worse off than their parents’ generation. They want a sense of purpose, and as crazy as it sounds, they believe Trump provides that.

But here’s the good news. When you ask them what they care about, they will tell you that the purpose of government is to protect the middle class, build infrastructure and invest in K-12 education. Wait a second! That’s been the Democratic raison d'être for decades. If we can reach them, we can sway them.

In fact, they already appear to have some serious buyers’ remorse. Pollster G Elliott Morris reports that Trump’s approval rating among 18-to-25 year-olds has plunged dramatically, hitting -40 on the approve/disapprove survey question.

We can win again. Bill Clinton did it after three devastating losses for Democrats by tacking to the center and admitting where we were wrong. While he may or may not be the right messenger, Rahm Emanuel’s new stump speech is spot on when he says all of our focus should be on restoring the American Dream.

We’ve got almost two years to figure out who the right spokesperson will be, but the highest likelihood is that it won’t be anyone we are talking about today. Bill Clinton was not on anyone’s radar in 1990. In the meantime, let’s hang the Big Beastly Bill, the recissions, the chaos and the corruption on the Republicans and return Congress to its rightful constitutional role. We can build from there.

Check It Out with Nancy Kohn

Science is being dismantled. It’s shocking how the Trump Administration is literally dismantling the engine of science in America. We follow Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, the author of a wildly popular fact-filled Substack page called Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE).

In this post, she lists some of the 5,500 (!) research projects that have been abruptly halted by Executive Orders in the last six months. They include studies on HIV/AIDS, mental health, cancer, chronic diseases, obesity, and reproductive health. Trump is dragging us into the dark ages, much like the way Pol Pot turned Cambodia into an impoverished agrarian society in the 1960s.

Joe Biden launched a moonshot effort to eliminate cancer in our lifetime, while Donald Trump is eliminating some of the most important scientific experimentation in the world today. It’s so unfathomable that learning the specifics of what is being done to the American scientific scene is useful and important.

These Dems need help. One of the questions I am asked most often is “Where should I be directing my political donations?” Oath is an organization that helps donors by giving data-driven recommendations on where their dollars will have the most significant impact. They surface underfunded and under-the-radar races (mostly down-ballot) where dollars go further. These races typically cost 3% of what a US Senate race costs, so collective dollars can make a real difference.

Given the importance of taking back the House, they are currently focused on five Democratic incumbent races where they believe your money will be best spent: Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Jared Golden (ME-02), Don Davis (NC-01), Derek Tran (CA-45), and Adam Gray (CA-1). Check them out today.

IWIL-TA is being honored. If you’re not moved to attend the IDCCA County Chairs’ Brunch to hear from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, or if don’t want to join the largest gathering of Democrats in Illinois, or if you don’t want to go from the brunch to Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair, perhaps you’ll want to go because this year they are honoring the Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership Training with their prestigious Party Builder Award.

IWIL Training Academy prepares and trains Democratic, pro-choice women to run for elected office, seek public appointments, and govern effectively at all levels in Illinois. I’m proud to serve on their Board. Congratulations!

Ask someone who knows. Think it’s impossible for Dems to win in red states or districts? Tell that to Democrat Laura Kelly who is currently serving her second term as governor of ruby-red Kansas. Check out this brief but very insightful interview with her from the op-ed page of the NYTimes.

Paid subscribers to the NKC Update should stay tuned for our next live Zoom meeting in September with another Democrat who knows a whole lot about running successfully in red districts, former Congresswoman Cheri Bustos.

Just for fun. Hot enough for you? As we endure another bout of crazy hot weather in Chicago, be sure to check out Small batches, enormous flavor: 12 artisanal Chicago ice cream shops that change the rules from the Chicago Sun-Times.

What I’m reading. I just finished listening to "The First Gentleman" by James Patterson and Bill Clinton - it was so good that sometimes I wanted to sit in my car and listen after I parked!

On The Calendar

Celebrate Medicare and Medicaid. Wednesday, July 30th, marks 60 years since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid — programs that transformed American life by guaranteeing healthcare for seniors, children, people with disabilities, and low-income families. Citizen Action/Illinois will be marking the occasion with rallies in Carbondale, Peoria, and Chicago. The Chicago event is from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Access Living, 115 W. Chicago Avenue. Get more details here.

Alderman Bennett Lawson. Please join Friends of Bennett Lawson (our very own Alderman…woo hoo!) for a Summer Party on Tuesday, July 29th, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., at Vines on Clark. Click here to RSVP and donate.

Supporting Alderman Debra Silverstein. “The Chicago Commission on Human Relations, or CCHR, just released its annual report on hate crimes and incidents in Chicago, which showed that anti-Jewish hate crimes rose a stunning 58% last year. Antisemitism accounted for more than 37% of all hate crimes reported to the Chicago Police Department in 2024. Jewish Chicagoans make up only 3% of the city’s total population, yet we were the target of more than a third of all the hate crimes reported in the entire city.” Chicago Tribune Op-Ed by Debra Silverstein.

Please join Jeff Aeder, Joe Antunovich, Warren Baker, Norm Bobins, Neil Book, Mark Fettner, Stuart Frankenthal, Art Friedson & Nancy Kohn, Andrew Hochberg, Hon. Lucy Moog, Michael Patel, Bhavesh Patel, Kerry Peck, Joshua Rogers, Hon. Carol Ronen, Zack Rudzki, Jake Shapiro, Nerwal Shewakramani, Ashur Shiba, and Michael Zaransky for a reception in support of Alderman Debra Silverstein on Monday, August 4th, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Summer House Santa Monica in Chicago. Click here to RSVP.

Brunch with Democrats: The Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association 2025 County Chairs’ Brunch is Wednesday, August 13th, at 9:00 am, in Springfield. Click here to learn more.

Meet Abigail Spanberger. Please join Christie Hefner as she hosts a reception for the next Governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, in her home with co-host Gila Bronner on Wednesday, August 13th, at 6:30 p.m. Click here to RSVP or donate.

What you do matters. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s 2025 Risa K. Lambert Chicago Luncheon will be held on Wednesday, September 3rd, at the Sheraton Grand Chicago. Registration opens at 11:00 a.m., and the program starts at noon.

This year, the keynote speaker will be David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group. Rachel and David Sternberg are the luncheon chairs, and the National Leadership Award will be presented to Sally and Jon Kovler.

Click here to purchase tickets and donate.

Save the date! Planned Parenthood Illinois Action (PPIA PAC) will be holding their 2025 Fighting Forward event for reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy on Thursday, September 18th, at Taste 222 in Chicago. VIP Reception at 5:30 p.m. followed by general admission at 6:30 p.m. RSVP or donate here.

Restore Justice. The criminal justice system can sometimes seem irreparably broken. Repair Justice works to eliminate extreme sentences of young people in Illinois. You can support them by attending their annual luncheon, Stories of Transformation, on Friday, October 17th, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Click here to RSVP or donate.

Jobs and Internships

NEW! ADL is the leading anti-hate organization in the world. They are seeking a Regional Director (Midwest) to provide strategic, programmatic, and operational oversight of ADL’s Midwest region, including multiple regional offices across the states served. Click here for more information.

The Obama Foundation’s mission is to inspire people to take action, empower them to change their world for the better, and connect them so they can achieve more together than they can alone. They are now hiring an Executive Vice President, Chief Development Officer. Click here for more information.

The Woods Fund Chicago has links to job openings at various organizations that they fund. Check out their newsletter and scroll down for the job listings.

Impact for Equity has grown from a small, upstart public interest law firm into one of Chicago’s most respected law and policy centers, driving statewide change across Illinois in pursuit of racial, economic, and social justice. They are seeking an Executive Director who will provide leadership in developing and implementing a new strategic plan to address the evolving needs of Impact for Equity and its stakeholders; consistently engage in sophisticated/innovative strategic communications, public advocacy and visibility; and establish and maintain relationships with individual donors, donor organizations, universities, public officials, civic and partner organizations in a manner that promotes the mission and work of Impact for Equity. Get more information and apply here.

Advance Illinois is a not-for-profit policy and advocacy organization that works toward a healthy public education system, preparing students to achieve success in college, career, and civic life. They are currently seeking to fill two positions: a Senior Government Relations Associate to work on issues related to state education policy, and a Senior Development Associate to lead a comprehensive, growing, and sustainable year-round fundraising program that supports and expands the general operations and programs of Advance Illinois. Click on the appropriate position for more information and to apply.

Nourishing Hope has connected people facing hunger with food for over 55 years. They are currently seeking an Executive Director who is a passionate, committed, and authentic leader with relevant professional experience in managing and leading an organization of similar complexity and scope. This person is driven to provide healthy solutions to alleviate hunger and promote mental well-being among our community. Get more information and apply here.

Internship! Ready to kickstart your career in politics? Apply for the IWIL Training Academy’s fall internship! If you’re passionate about empowering pro-choice Democratic women to lead, this is your chance to make a difference. You’ll gain hands-on experience and connect with inspiring leaders. Internships are hybrid and unpaid; school credit is an option. Interested applicants should email a cover letter and resume to Sofia Rodriguez at staff@iwiltrainingacademy.org

Brandon’s Internships Bulletin is now Brandon’s Hillternship Hub. The new site links to four tables, which contain the internship pages for every Democratic House office, House committee website, Senate office, and Senate committee. In addition, it includes info on whether the internship application is open, the application deadline, and key details on the position (dates, pay, time commitment, etc.). He also publishes a weekly email with the latest listings for internships in progressive politics, nonprofits, and foreign policy/international affairs. Subscribe at brandonsbulletin.substack.com.

Finally, here are some useful links to check out if you’re searching for a job in politics, policy, or advocacy:

Daybook is a valuable resource for individuals seeking political, policy, and government jobs nationwide.

Want to work with progressive organizations or nonprofits doing good? Check out the listings at Democracy Partners, Grossman Solutions, NPAG, and Forefront.

Here are two good sites to land campaign jobs at the entry level and beyond: Emily’s List and GainPower.

Rebecca Sive (photo from rebeccasive.com)

We were saddened by the news of the untimely passing of writer and speaker, friend and mentor, Rebecca Sive after a valiant year-long battle following a stroke. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle posted this on Facebook:

May her memory be a blessing.

Thanks for reading and welcome to our new subscribers. Special thanks to the growing ranks of great folks who have demonstrated their support by becoming paid subscribers; you’re an exceptional bunch and we hope you’ll stay tuned for an upcoming Zoom event with Congresswoman Cheri Bustos in September.

Who are we? Since 2003, we’ve been sharing our news, views and to-dos. The NKC Occasional Update is brought to you by Nancy Kohn, a seasoned political consultant in Chicago, and Art Friedson, a dedicated political enthusiast. We enjoy hearing from our readers, so feel free to post directly on this article or send us an email. Thank you for your support!

Nancy Kohn nkohn@kohnconsulting.com Art Friedson art.friedson@gmail.com