America First Pollster Went To White House To Warn Trump About Midterms – Here’s How POTUS Reacted
'The death of the American dream'
Inside the left’s push to reshape 2028 with ranked-choice voting
If Democrats seem extreme now, wait until they adopt ranked-choice voting. Some activists inside the party want exactly that — a reform that would push presidential nominations even further left and force establishment figures to navigate an ideological gauntlet to win.
Multiple reports indicate that Democratic Party activists and elected officials are pressuring the party to adopt ranked-choice voting for its 2028 presidential primaries. Axios notes that the push has grown serious enough that top party officials met in late October with advocates including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), pollster Celinda Lake, and representatives from FairVote Action.
Ranked-choice voting would pour accelerant on a process already pulling Democrats further left.
Such an effort fits a long pattern: For decades, Democrats have shifted presidential nominations away from party leadership. On ranked-choice voting specifically, several states already use it — Maine and Alaska among them — along with deep-blue cities such as New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Seattle.
Ranked-choice voting takes multiple forms, but New York City’s model illustrates the dynamic. Voters rank up to five candidates. If no candidate wins an initial majority, the last-place candidate drops out, and those voters’ second-choice votes are redistributed. This “loser leaves” process continues until a candidate secures a majority.
Assuming rational behavior, Democratic voters would likely rank candidates from more extreme to less extreme. That pattern would advantage the leftmost candidates again and again as lower-preference votes transfer upward.
This structural boost would encourage both supply and demand for extreme candidacies. Candidates on the ideological edge would have more incentive to run. Voters who prefer them would have more influence. Ranked-choice voting’s supporters tout this expanded participation as a virtue.
Offering voters multiple choices would foster coalition-building. Knowing the race may go to multiple rounds, candidates would angle for second- and third-choice votes. The horse-trading once done in old convention “smoke-filled rooms” would unfold publicly through a series of ranked ballots.
But the key question is simple: Why would ranked-choice voting necessarily supercharge extremism inside the Democratic Party? Because the system rewards voters for casting marginal votes — and among today’s Democrats, “marginal” means “further left.”
The party’s ideological shift is measurable. In Gallup’s 2023 polling, 54% of Democrats identified as liberal — an all-time high. Support for democratic socialists in major-city mayoral primaries shows how rapidly the party’s activist base has moved left. In 1995, the liberal share of the party was 25%, roughly equal to conservatives. Three decades later, conservatives make up just 10% of Democrats.
Exit polling confirms the trend: In 2024, 91% of self-identified liberals voted for Kamala Harris; only 9% of conservatives did.
Extrapolate from this trajectory, and the danger becomes even clearer. Extreme candidates increasingly win Democratic primaries in major cities. Those cities dominate statewide Democratic politics. And in closed primaries, only Democrats vote — meaning the hyper-engaged activist left already sets the terms of competition. Ranked-choice voting would amplify that influence. The same voters who nominated democratic socialists in New York and Seattle would wield disproportionate power in a presidential contest.
RELATED: Democrats are just noticing a long, deep-running problem
Consider how the 2020 Democratic primary might have played out under ranked-choice voting. Joe Biden — an establishment candidate favored by moderates — would have faced a field dominated by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer, and others to his left. Ranked-choice voting would have forced him through a gauntlet designed by the party’s most ideological voters.
This trend is not new. In 1972, George McGovern reshaped Democratic nominating rules and then benefited from the changes. Since then, the party has repeatedly weakened its establishment’s role (with key exceptions). Ranked-choice voting would accelerate that shift dramatically.
With moderates now only 36% of the party, according to Gallup, how could they resist a move toward ranked-choice voting? More importantly, which remaining moderate or establishment Democrat could survive a ranked-choice system dominated by the party’s left wing?
Ranked-choice voting would pour accelerant on a process already pulling Democrats further left. The only question is how long it takes for the party to adopt it — and how long the party can remain viable nationally if it does.
Poll provides clear idea of who's poised to sweep 2028 Republican presidential primary
Those keen to wrest control of the GOP from MAGA conservatives and to resume the course charted by the party prior to President Donald Trump's 2016 election have their work cut out for them.
A new poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics revealed that Vice President JD Vance presently towers over his potential 2028 GOP primary opponents — including Calgary-born Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is poised to run as the kind of George W. Bush-era Republican that Trump crushed in the 2016 and 2024 primaries.
'Voters will sniff out anybody who has seemed to be sort of focused on themselves.'
When asked whom they would vote for if the election were held this month, 57% of respondents said that they would support Vance; 9% said Secretary of State Marco Rubio; 7% said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; 4% said Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; 4% said former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nimarata "Nikki" Haley; 4% said Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; 1% said Ted Cruz; and 1% said Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Two percent of respondents signaled they would vote for someone else, and 10% said they were unsure.
Sources close to the Trump administration recently told Politico that Rubio has telegraphed that he would support Vance if he chooses to run.
One source close to the White House noted that the "expectation is JD as [nominee] and Rubio as VP."
RELATED: The early social media reviews of Cruz's 2028 POTUS trial balloon are in
DeSantis, who secured less than 2% of the votes cast in the 2024 Republican primary before dropping out, recently told CNN's Jake Tapper, "I'm not thinking about anything because I think we have a president now who’s not even been in for a year. We've got a lot that we've got to accomplish."
The Florida governor may have taken the advice that James Blair, a former DeSantis staffer who now serves as Trump's White House deputy chief of staff, recently shared via Politico: "If you're a Republican that wants to run in 2028 right now, you need to focus on keeping Republicans in power for 2026. I think the number one thing everybody can do is focus on the team and helping their team and not focus on themselves."
"Voters will sniff out anybody who has seemed to be sort of focused on themselves," added Blair.
Last month, the University of New Hampshire's Granite State Poll found that while DeSantis didn't place in the top five Republican presidential primary candidates for 2028, he managed the fourth-highest favorability rating.
Vance placed first with a favorability rating among likely Republican primary voters of 77%; Rubio placed second with a 58% rating; Gabbard placed third with a 57% rating; DeSantis came fourth with a 56% rating; and Ramaswamy came fifth with 46%.
Cruz and Haley, meanwhile, were much further down the list with favorability ratings of 38% and 25%, respectively.
Gabbard, polling ahead of Cruz in the Saint Anselm College poll, has not made explicit any intention to run but indicated earlier this year on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that she "will never rule out any opportunity" to serve her country.
On the prediction website Polymarket, Vance is given a 55% chance of winning the primary.
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The right needs bigger ideas than tax cuts
New York City voters last week elected socialist Zohran Mamdani as their next mayor. It wasn’t an isolated win. Across the country, progressives dominated key races, including the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia.
In race after race, conservative, moderate, and establishment Democrats were swept aside by aggressive, hard-left challengers. The message could not be clearer: Conservative messaging — and in some cases, conservative policy — is failing to connect with ordinary voters.
Socialists like Mamdani promise utopia through government control. Conservatives cannot counter that with spreadsheets and slogans.
Mamdani and his progressive allies succeeded because they campaigned on issues that hit home for millions of Americans: the cost of housing, food, personal debt, and the lack of good jobs.
Ironically, those were the very same issues that powered Donald Trump’s 2024 victory and brought working-class voters back to the Republican fold. Now those same voters are drifting back toward socialism, and the reason is painfully simple: It’s still the economy, stupid.
Economic pain drives voters left
Conservatives have not convinced enough Americans — especially voters under 40 — that their policies will improve daily life. Consumer prices remain high, grocery bills keep climbing, and inflation continues to outpace wage growth.
Housing costs are near record levels. The average home now costs seven times the median income, compared to roughly 5.5 times during Trump’s first term. Total household debt has topped $18 trillion for three consecutive quarters — another all-time high.
Millions of Americans feel trapped. And when voters are desperate, they make disastrous choices — like putting a socialist in charge of the nation’s largest city.
What Trump got right
The Trump administration has taken important steps to fight rising costs. Promoting affordable, domestic energy — especially natural gas — has reduced reliance on foreign suppliers. Cutting regulations has also delivered real savings.
In January, Trump ordered federal agencies to repeal 10 rules for every new one adopted. The White House estimates that his deregulation push avoided more than $180 billion in costs in 2025 alone.
He has also pledged to ease housing regulations to increase the supply of affordable homes, while Republicans in Congress have fought to preserve the 2017 tax cuts — a major victory for middle-class taxpayers.
These are important wins. But they lack the sweeping vision that socialists like Mamdani are offering to voters who want transformation, not tinkering.
Socialism’s empty promises
Mamdani’s platform reads like a socialist wish list: 200,000 city-built apartments, a citywide rent freeze, universal childcare, and even government-run grocery stores. It’s a fantasy financed by taxpayers and destined to collapse under its own weight — but it sounds big. It sounds bold.
Conservatives, by comparison, often sound procedural. Deregulation is important but abstract. Tax cuts matter but feel distant. To compete, conservatives must present a clear, moral vision — one that shows how free markets can improve life for working families faster and more permanently than socialism ever could.
So what can conservatives do to counter socialism’s siren song? Here’s a start.
1) Make housing affordable again
Congress should require states and cities to open up millions of lots for homebuilding as a condition of receiving federal funds. Vast stretches of usable land sit idle while housing prices explode. Opening that land to development would lower prices without touching national parks or sensitive ecosystems.
2) Reinvent higher education
The cost of college has soared because of government-backed student loans that inflate tuition and trap young people in debt. Washington should phase out federal lending and restore market discipline to higher education.
In the meantime, Congress can lower loan caps, expand skilled-trade training in high schools, and require public universities that receive federal loan funds to offer extremely low-cost online degrees. That would give students a path to higher education without lifelong debt.
3. Cut taxes — and waste
Lowering sales, gas, and business taxes would immediately ease the cost of living. But real fiscal discipline requires cutting government waste, not inflating the money supply.
The Biden administration admits the federal government has lost $2.4 trillion over the past two decades through payment errors alone. That’s not “spending” — it’s hemorrhaging. Conservatives should treat it as proof that vast savings can be achieved without touching vital programs.
RELATED: Explaining Mamdani’s appeal to the young, with polling
Competing with the socialist vision
Socialists like Mamdani promise utopia through government control. Conservatives cannot counter that with spreadsheets and slogans. They must meet grand promises with grander purpose — rooted in freedom, self-reliance, and opportunity.
America needs a new conservative economic agenda that speaks to the anxieties of working families, not just to Wall Street or Washington. Deregulation and tax reform are essential, but they must serve a larger story: rebuilding an economy that rewards work, expands ownership, and restores faith in the American dream.
Until conservatives reclaim that moral high ground, voters will keep turning to the false hope of socialism.
Pennsylvania County Launches Investigation Into Election Flop That Left 75K Voters Out Of Poll Books
A week after Pennsylvania’s general election, the Chester County Board of Elections is still working through its legal review of 12,100 provisional ballots cast on Nov. 4 so it can come up with election results. It is also preparing for an investigation into why 75,000 third-party registered voters were left out of the poll book. […]The left isn’t collapsing — it’s consolidating power
Since last November, I’ve warned Republican voters not to believe the happy talk coming from friendly media. Nothing suggests the Democratic Party is collapsing — or that Donald Trump has “killed wokeness,” as Eric Trump claimed recently. The fight against the woke left and its Democratic Party embodiment continues, and the results remain mixed.
Trump has made real progress in removing DEI programs from the federal government and institutions that take federal funds. Yet schools, corporations, and other major organizations continue to find new ways to keep the ideology alive.
The Democratic Party is not collapsing. Its radicals are thriving. Black voters are not abandoning it. Conservatives need to stop pretending otherwise.
In blue and purple states, even the most extreme woke policies — like letting biological males compete in women’s sports or enter girls’ locker rooms — barely move voters. More than half the electorate in places like Virginia, New York, Illinois, California, and Oregon appear comfortable with positions that conservatives describe as “80-20 moral issues.” The electoral evidence for such optimism doesn’t exist.
Polls show Democrats holding barely a 30% approval rating — but Republicans don’t fare much better. A recent Gallup survey found the GOP only three points higher in popularity, while Democrats lead by 20 points on “acceptable philosophical positions.”
Democrats also hold a massive financial advantage and dominate the institutions that shape culture and opinion: public-sector unions, schools, universities, corporate media, and Hollywood. Their radical wing isn’t dragging them down; it’s defining them. Just ask Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, or the other progressive Democrats who keep winning elections.
As Ben Domenech recently noted, Democrats’ “bloodthirsty rage” keeps them united — even behind candidates like Jay Jones, the Virginia attorney general hopeful who once texted that he wanted to shoot a Republican lawmaker in the head and hoped the man’s children would die. Strategically, the Democrats may be right to stand by him. On the eve of Election Day, Jones was running neck-and-neck with incumbent Republican Jason Miyares, a capable and articulate attorney general trying to survive in an increasingly blue state.
Jones, who is black, will likely dominate the black vote — a reality Republicans must face. Black voters have come to view hostility toward the mostly white GOP as an expression of group identity. The small gains Trump made with black voters in 2020 haven’t changed that dynamic in a meaningful way.
Republicans should stop pretending they can transform black voting habits and instead focus on persuadable groups: white Christian men, Orthodox Jews, and Hispanics. Some subgroups, such as African immigrants and West Indian evangelicals, remain open to outreach — but the broader trend is clear.
The left’s cultural dominance was driven home for me recently when I learned that local elementary school students came home singing about “Daddy’s new boyfriend.” Teachers in our district overwhelmingly belong to the hard-left American Federation of Teachers and have no hesitation promoting its ideology. Even when warned against it, they keep injecting political dogma into the classroom.
RELATED: Pity equals power for the progressive class
Our borough’s school board still has a Christian majority, but it faces relentless pressure from activist feminists determined to take control of local education. The county newspaper, once a reliable conservative voice, now reads like an MSNBC transcript. And for the first time, our state representative is a progressive Democrat.
These are not isolated anecdotes. I live in a community that once voted Republican by habit — a borough in Pennsylvania’s traditionally red 11th Congressional District. Yet the signs of political drift are unmistakable. The left controls the institutions that shape belief, and that control gives it momentum. As a result, this place is turning purple.
Conservatives need to stop pretending otherwise. We are the weaker side in a long struggle against a relentless opponent. The Democratic Party is not collapsing. Its radicals are thriving. Black voters are not abandoning it. And wokeness, far from being “dead,” continues to define American life — from boardrooms to classrooms to city hall.
The first step toward winning any war is admitting you’re losing one.
SHOCK POLL: Republican leads NY Governor Hochul one year before the election
New York City voters may be on a different page than the rest of the state.
Despite Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani maintaining a significant advantage in the polls ahead of the NYC mayoral election, one Republican is looking to flip the state red next year.
For example, 60% of registered voters in New York ... either strongly support or somewhat support returning to the pre-2019 bail laws.
RealClearPolitics has Mamdani boasting a 15-point lead average across the last six polls in October. With around 46 points, Mamdani's lead has only widened since July.
In new numbers from the Manhattan Institute, the Democratic socialist and alleged communist maintains that lead over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a former Democrat now representing the Fight and Deliver Party.
Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa is third, 24 points behind Mamdani and nine points behind Cuomo.
At the same time, however, pollsters asked respondents how they would vote if the 2026 N.Y. gubernatorial election were held today.
Shockingly, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) held a slim margin over Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul. Stefanik's lead was just one point, 43% to 42%, while "someone else" had 9% support, and "not sure" was at 7%.
RELATED: LGBTQ champion Zohran Mamdani faces backlash over photo with 'anti-homosexuality' Ugandan lawmaker
Stefanik's team responded to the news:
"In a heavily Democrat-leaning state, an independent poll that is heavily weighted toward registered Democrat voters shows Republican Elise Stefanik leading Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul in a head-to-head matchup," Stefanik's spokesperson Bernadette Breslin said in a press release.
Breslin said it was the first time in decades that any Republican candidate for governor of New York has polled ahead of a Democrat incumbent.
The remarks continued, "In a decision that she will come to regret, Kathy Hochul lives up to her title as the worst governor in America when she chose to bend the knee and put New Yorkers LAST by desperately endorsing the defund the police, tax-hiking, raging anti-Semite socialist Zohran Mamdani who will destroy New York."
Though rumors have swirled for months that Stefanik intends to run for governor, she has not formally announced her candidacy. Reports indicate that she will announce sometime after the November 4 election.
RELATED: Cuomo narrows gap in new poll
While Mamdani maintains a strong lead in the city, some of his progressive policy positions range from somewhat unpopular to widely unpopular in updated polling.
For example, 60% of registered voters in New York, including 49% of Democrats, either strongly support or somewhat support returning to the pre-2019 bail laws. This pertains to allowing individuals to be "released until trial rather than being held."
Mamdani has said he wants to reduce the jail population, specifically at Rikers Island.
One of Mamdani's biggest promises, free bus services, saw 58% of New York City respondents oppose the idea. This figure included 48% of Democrats. Meanwhile, 42% of Democrats agreed with the idea that eliminating fares would make public transit more affordable and efficient for working New Yorkers while reducing conflicts between riders and operators.
Other topics — like New York's gifted and talented programs, corporate taxation, and fare evasion — were covered in polling conducted with 600 likely voters in the NYC mayoral election and 300 registered voters across New York state between October 22 and 26. The poll was weighted to reflect the electorate.
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