EPISODE 321

Veteran political consultant Jim Crounse says Trump’s chaotic presidency is hurting the Republicans’ chances in the 2026 midterms. Jim, a Democrat from the red state of Nebraska, takes the temperature of the election cycle — and sees a path for his party to retake the House and maybe the Senate, because of Trump’s waning popularity and his obsession with things voters don’t really care about. Jim also shares how a Nebraska boy who dreamed of becoming a major league baseball player ended up as a consultant for Obama, Clinton, and Pete Buttigieg, among others. Plus — can the Democrats ever win back the Midwest plains where the letter (D) can sometimes be ‘toxic?’ 

TRANSCRIPT:

ANNOUNCER: It’s You Earned This, the Social Security and Medicare podcast, brought to you by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. And now, your host, Walter Gottlieb. 

WALTER: Hey, it’s Walter, and I’m fighting a cold. That’s why I sound like this. But, the 2026 election cycle is heating up, and it’s time to take the temperature of the race and to talk about what’s at stake for older Americans this November. Our guest is a veteran political consultant and direct mail expert, Jim Crounse. His client list over the decades reads like a who’s who of national politics. He’s also chairman of the board of our organization, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

We talked to Jim about the outlook for the midterms, whether the 2026 elections will be free and fair, and how most of the Midwest, where Jim’s from, turned red a couple of decades ago, and whether the Democrats can ever win it back. 

And joining us from Tucson, Arizona, is Jim Crounse. How are you doing? Good.

JIM: Good! How are you, Walter?

WALTER: Well, I am fighting a cold, Jim, but I’m doing this. But if you or our listeners are wondering why I sound a little congested, well, that is why. It’s just the D.C. winter.

JIM: I think it gives you a deeper and richer radio voice.

WALTER: Am I approaching James Earl Jones status? I don’t know.

JIM: See, you’re getting there.

WALTER: It’s great to talk to you, Jim. So, every election year, we seem to say: “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” But in this era, every election really kind of is, right? So are the upcoming midterms super important? And what is at stake specifically for older Americans, Jim?

JIM: Yeah, I think it really is the most important election we’ve ever faced, because we’ve never had a president like Donald Trump. And as I like to say, for as bad as many of us thought his presidency would be, it’s 100 times worse. 

WALTER: Mhmm. 

JIM: So what’s at stake is: The fundamentals of our democracy, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our way of life. All those things are at stake, because Trump has kind of challenged all of that. I think our role in the world is at stake as well.

Specifically for Social Security and Medicare, we started out his first four or five months — or however long Elon Musk lasted with his Doge process — with a kind of an out-of-control, small group of outside people controlled by Elon Musk. We had “teenage whiz guys” going into federal agencies and snooping around.

But when they start looking up everybody’s Social Security records and all that kind of thing, it’s not what Americans expect. We expect a certain amount of privacy. And they look for savings and they claim they’re gonna find billions of dollars worth of savings… that’s not really what happened. And so all that’s a threat — our privacy is at stake. As the Republicans have cut the administration of Social Security, it means that seniors are not getting the service that they signed up for. And what many of us worry about is that it’s a purposeful means of making the programs unpopular, so the Republicans and Trump can propose a privatization scheme. It would mean that people couldn’t really count on their guaranteed benefits that they’ve worked so hard all their life to earn.

WALTER: Jim, we’ve seen Democrats winning some special elections in red states this season. You know, the headlines are like, “State representative flips red district that voted for Trump by 17 points last time.” Does this actually bode well for the Democrats, or what does it tell us for the fall?

JIM: Yeah, I think it does bode well. What it shows is there’s energy on the Democratic side. People are upset about Trump, they’re angry about Trump, and these elections are kind of the closest thing they have to speaking out about it in a fundamental way — by using their vote.

WALTER: Jim, should we be worried about all the redistricting that’s going on in advance of the 2026 midterms? The Republicans famously did a massive redistricting in Texas and in response, Governor Newsom did it in California. So, where does that leave us?

JIM: You know, you can look seat by seat and sort of see where it leaves us, it might leave us a couple of seats down. But it also makes some of the seats, ironically, a little more competitive. Because to balance all this out, they’ve got to basically say to one incumbent, “Hey, we’re going to take some Republicans from your district, you’re safe. We’re going to put them into this other district, so the Republicans got a better chance of winning.” You know, another district that may tilt a little more Democratic.

In a wave election that puts a lot more seats at risk, because now you’ve taken out some Republicans that Congressman Smith was counting on to get his or her 70% of the vote. So it does put more seats at play, and people in Texas are a little freaked out about it, especially the Republicans. So I don’t know, we’re going to have to see how this dents out, but I think it’s going to be a wash when all is said and done. There are bigger forces at play here that are going to influence this election.

WALTER: Do you think it will end up being a free and fair election in the end?

JIM: Yeah, I do. Not everybody does, but you know, it’s in our Constitution. The states run elections, the federal government does not, it’s pretty clear. And you know, I saw today that Senator John Thune, the majority leader in the Senate, said he didn’t think that was a very good idea. So if you’re seeing responsible Republicans say that, I think there are going to be enough of them who realize that’s a fundamental threat to our democracy. And that’s not a thing that can be tolerated.

And you get a lot of Trump and MAGA people who I think are going to agree with it just because Trump said it. But I don’t believe that’s going to happen. I do believe we’re going to have a free and fair election. It’s not going to be without a lot of court battles, though.

WALTER: Do you think control of the House or Senate could actually come down to various court battles after November?

JIM: Well, possible. I mean, court battles are not uncommon in races that are very close. 

WALTER: Right. 

JIM: And there are famous instances of them. But it’s possible. But if you look at the map right now, it looks like the Democrats have a good shot at retaking the House by more than one seat… or two seats. The Senate is probably tighter, but there are some good races.

But again, you know, if the election were next week, if it were next Tuesday, I think Democrats could potentially pick up a lot of seats, more than most people would suspect,because we’re at a peak amount of anger right now.

WALTER: So, Jim, you seem to be saying that if the election were held right now, that the Democrats might win in a kind of blue wave. But are you saying that if things calm down by the fall, that it might come down to just a few seats?

JIM: Yeah, well, that’s possible, but I don’t think they’re going to calm down. You know, if there’s one thing we know about Donald Trump is that he likes to be President of chaos, you know, each day, each week has several chaotic things going on. And it’s one of the things people don’t like. What voters say is, “You know, I don’t know why he’s doing this stuff in Greenland and Venezuela and this, that and the other. He needs to focus on the fact that I can’t afford my health insurance, or the prices for my family have gone up and it’s a real squeeze.”

Those are the things that people care about. And they don’t like the fact that Trump seems like he’s taking his eye off the ball. You know, he wants to rebuild the Kennedy Center and tear down the White House and all these things that he does on a weekly basis. I don’t think those things stop. That’s just the way he seems to want to be president.

WALTER: You know, it’s very interesting because Kamala Harris ran on some of the things you were talking about at the top of the show, like democracy and the integrity of our republic and so on and so forth. And Trump still won. But I think that affordability thing you’re talking about, he was supposed to fix high grocery prices. He was supposed to fix the affordability thing, and he most clearly has not.

JIM: Or at least convinced that he’s working on fixes for those things and cares about those things, but I don’t think he does. And, you know, you read in the newspapers that the advisers tell him, oh, you know, we’re going to go out to Iowa, we’re going to focus on affordability and we’ll put some signs at your rally that say “affordability” and all that. But they set him up to do that, and then he can’t admit that we still have a problem. The economy’s great, everything’s good, you know.

WALTER: Prices are down!

JIM: Blah, blah, blah. He has an inability to stay on a political message that is suggested to him, and he’s got his own theory of what he thinks works for him, and that is, you know, a lot of chaos that he throws at everybody. So that’s where we’re at.

WALTER: Chaos is his MO, right?

JIM: Yeah, I don’t think he’s gonna wake up and say, “ey, maybe this is not a good way to be president because we’ll lose a lot of seats, and I’m gonna start listening to what the political pros say.” 

You know, if you’re a Republican member of Congress right now and you’ve got a tough race, the last thing you want is for him to be the President of chaos. That’s the last thing you want.

WALTER: Absolutely, and that’s been his MO since he came down the escalator, so none of us really expects him to change. 

You are very involved, Jim, in one particular race, the House race in Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, where John Cavanaugh, a member of the state legislature, is running in the Democratic primary to succeed Republican Don Bacon. Why is this a race worth investing time in, and why is it worth watching?

JIM: Well, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s my hometown, so I care about it. The last two Democrats that got elected to that seat were friends of mine, and I worked on both of those campaigns, so it means a lot to me personally. 

Secondly, it’s a seat that has changed hands quite a bit over the years. It’s what we in the business would call a marginal seat or a swing seat. Omaha, which is 75% of the district, has always been more of a Democratic town, but Democrats have done really well, especially lately there, and so there’s a lot of energy.

JIM: Don Bacon has just barely won his last two races. Now we’ve got a year where the Republican president isn’t popular in a district that is trending Democratic, and so it’s a real pickup opportunity for Democrats. John Cavanaugh is the son of John Cavanaugh Sr., a Democratic congressman from Omaha…

WALTER: And our political election committee has endorsed John Cavanaugh for U.S. House, from Nebraska’s second district. Is that one of the districts that gets apportioned in Nebraska in presidential election years in the electoral vote count?

JIM: Yes, as you know, there are two states in the union that don’t have a winner-take-all system, Maine and Nebraska. And, Nebraska has three congressional districts, each contributing one electoral vote. 

WALTER: Right.

JIM: And that electoral vote, I think three out of the last five elections, has been a Democratic one. And that seat is never… that’s not a Trump stronghold. It’s not a MAGA stronghold by any means. So, you know, it’s a real opportunity to pick up a seat.

WALTER: You are from Omaha, like you said, Jim, and you know the Midwest. So, I have to ask you, there was a time maybe 15 or more years ago when Democrats routinely got elected in states like Nebraska and the Dakotas, Kansas, Montana, and Iowa. And now, those states have gone almost completely red to the point where a D after a candidate’s name is sometimes toxic. So how did that happen? And can the Democrats get the Midwest back at any time or in some way?

JIM: You’re exactly right the way you describe it. And it’s kind of like what happened to the Southern states over the years. There were a lot of Democrats in Southern states elected when I was growing up and that kind of changed. So the “why” of that is complicated. But the fact is, that I think Democrats can rebound in these states, but they need to encourage great candidates to run. Candidate recruitment is not a very common thing that is talked about in the press, but it’s very important. Getting quality people to run is very important, right?

Secondly, helping these candidates get the resources they need to win. And number three, and maybe most important of all, the candidates understanding and developing messages that are winning messages with the voters in those areas. In other words, how can they use their values and their background to connect with people and be relevant to their lives? Because ultimately voters will look at this and they’ll say, “You know, I see these people running for office. I just want to know what’s in it for me. If I vote for candidate A over candidate B, how does that help my life? Do I trust this person? Are they speaking to the issues that matter to me and my family?” 

And the Democrat Party’s just got to do a better job in the Midwest of all these things, recruiting good candidates, getting resources, developing winning messages.

WALTER: But how did the Republicans succeed in making that “D” after the candidate’s name so toxic? I suspect it’s mostly by leveraging cultural issues instead of economic ones, but what’s your take on it real quick? I know you said it’s complicated and I believe you.

JIM: Well, that’s the part of it. That’s part of it. And, you know, I just think they’ve done a better job of defining issues and all the other fundamentals I’ve mentioned. But yeah, some of these cultural issues have played a role as well. There’s no question about that, that they found some issues that in the scheme of things don’t seem all that important and only affect a tiny number of people, but get people charged up nonetheless, so yeah.

WALTER: Okay, well, thank you for that. So Jim, how did you get involved in politics? You told me that when you were a boy, you wanted to be a professional baseball player. So, what was your journey to being a political consultant and direct mail expert as you are?

JIM: Yeah, well, the background was I had a grandfather on my dad’s side, Jacob F. Crounse was his name, was born in Russia and family moved to Omaha, Nebraska in the late 1890s. And Jake got into politics and served a couple of terms in the state legislature in the 30s. I think he was the first Jewish state rep in Nebraska. I’m not 100% sure of that. One of the first.

And my parents were interested in politics and growing up at the time I did, it was a time of change, it was the late 60s, early 70s and civil rights was a huge issue and the war movement, anti-war movement was huge, and my parents loved the Kennedy brothers. So I got inspired. I love baseball, I played a lot of baseball. I was pretty good for the group I played with, but I found out I couldn’t hit a curve ball. So I needed to latch onto something else beside my dream of being a major league baseball player.

And I just loved politics and got to learn a lot about it. When I was 15 years old, I could tell you every United States Senator, where they were from, what their party was, a little bit about them. I knew most of the members of the House of Representatives, kind of useless information, but it fed my dream of what I wanted to do with my career.

JIM: And I got a chance when I was in my second year at Creighton Law School in Omaha and there was a state Senator who was 80 years old and I felt, well, gee, some younger people are running and beating older incumbents. I’m just gonna jump in and run against them. And I had studied campaigns as well, not just having a political science degree but I had paid a lot of attention to campaigns over the years and how they were run and the strategies and the tactics. And so, I filed for office.

And what happened was a week before the filing deadline, the 80-year-old gentleman decides to retire and then nine other people jumped into the race. So, I was a 25-year-old law student with kind of long hair and there were three very accomplished lawyers who jumped into the race, and a hospital exec. So, I didn’t win the primary. I did pretty well. I won a couple of precincts. I was proud of the effort. I spent all the money that I’d saved from my bar mitzvah on yard signs and mail pieces and things you do in a campaign.

But I got to be really good friends with the guy who won the primary. His name is Peter Hoagland. We met the day after the election and he said, I need your help. I know you did pretty well. You’ve got a lot of energy. I think we’re the same, have the same philosophy. And I helped him run and he won that race and went on to serve in Congress. So that’s how I got into it. I feel very lucky and blessed that I’ve had a career where I’ve gotten to do exactly what I wanted to do.

WALTER: So I was one of those kids who memorized all the presidents of the United States. There were fewer of them back then. Were you like that too?

JIM: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And just a sponge for reading about them and talking about them with my parents. And yeah, I was.

WALTER: Did you have trouble in the like 1870s, 1880s keeping all those bearded Republican presidents distinct and separate?

JIM: Yes, yes, I still do. But that movie about James Garfield that came out, yeah, it kind of helped.

WALTER: Oh man, that miniseries, I think it’s called Death by Lightning, was fantastic.

JIM: Yeah, very good.

WALTER: Fantastic.

JIM: Very good.

WALTER: Who knew Chester Allen Arthur was such a character?

JIM: Yeah, yeah, that was great. I agree.

WALTER: Yeah, we endorse that miniseries highly. 

Jim, you got into politics when you were a young man. And by the way, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of anybody using their bar mitzvah money to fund a political campaign. That’s awesome!

JIM: Yeah, well you might find other stories for what people blew their bar mitzvah money on. But this was all, yeah, campaign materials and the like, so.

WALTER: Well, that was a real simcha, thank you.

JIM: I remember back in the day it was popular to give bar mitzvah boys and girls cross pen and pencil sets, of which I think I got seven or eight of them and never, never used. But I’ll have to see if I still have one or two of those around.

WALTER: Gosh, we’re gonna have to get a glossary going for anybody under 55 who’s listening to this. Cross pens, it’ll be like, is that a pen with a cross in it?

JIM: We are the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, so I think we’re preserving some old memories too.

WALTER: We are, and these old memories are important. And that’s a great segue to young people in politics. I have to ask you this because I have a daughter in her early 20s who just graduated college, and several of her friends here in the DC area have gotten jobs in politics, including on Capitol Hill. So what would you say to young people going into politics today? Are you happy to see it? Do you have any wisdom for them based on all of your years of experience? Because things have changed. The whole landscape has changed.

JIM: Yeah, I do, and it is something that I’ve tried to do in my career to encourage people to get into politics. And it’s not as glamorous as it used to be, I think, for some people, because they see all the craziness. But we need good, smart, dedicated young people to get into politics. We badly need that. And the advice I give is for people to just think through what it is about politics they like that attracts them, what they want to do.

When you get somebody who comes to you and says, well, I want to be in politics, I don’t know what I want to do, I don’t know what aspect of it I want to be involved with, it’s a little harder to give somebody advice. If somebody came to me and said, hey, I want to be a pollster, do you have any advice? Or I want to be a direct mail guru, do you have any advice? Or I want to work on the Hill, or I want to be a lobbyist, or all these different aspects of our political system. So it helps if people think through that a little bit.

And then, you know, the other thing I say is you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time, and that doesn’t happen by accident. So you’ve got to be relatively aggressive to go after jobs, because they don’t come up very often. And just, you know, do everything you can to get your name out, your resume out, and work your contacts. All these things are really important.

WALTER: What about the call for generational change in the Democratic Party? One thing that we have done at the National Committee is combat ageism. So, we’ve been trying to spread the message that just because somebody is older doesn’t mean they’re de facto unqualified or don’t have something to offer. At the same time, we’re gratified to see a new generation of leaders rise up. And we interviewed one of them, Maxwell Frost from Florida, the first Gen Z congressman. You look around and you see who’s marching in these protests.

Sure, they’re older people, but it’s a lot of Gen Z and Millennials. So what do you think of all that?

JIM: I think it’s a balance. Having some older people around who have experience is a good thing, I think. But, our party does need some new leadership. And, you know, especially our next candidate for president, we need somebody who’s younger and has got a lot of energy and who can project a different image for our party. And I think people recognize that. Young people are smart, they’re committed, they’re different from my generation, your generation, but we need their energy. And so I’d encourage a young person interested in this to go after it.

And you have to go after it. You can’t just… it’s like show business. You’re not gonna just somebody find you. You know, you have to be willing to work hard and get your name out there and talk to a lot of people and do a lot of informational interviews. People want to help young people. I’m convinced of it. So, you know, I think young people have to just assert themselves.

WALTER: I’m very impressed with the young people that I meet, at least in the DC area. They can discuss the Great Society or the New Deal, the 60s or the 70s. I’m like, “Dude, you weren’t even alive then…” but they really have a command of the history.

JIM: Yeah, don’t. That’s great. I’ve got a lecture series at the University of Nebraska in memory of my friend, Peter Hoagland, who served in Congress, who was just an incredibly smart, talented guy, committed to a lot of things. 

He was an ardent environmentalist, he was big on campaign finance reform and a man with just incredible integrity. And he died at a young age and so my wife and I started this lecture series at the University of Nebraska in his memory, because it was one of the things that was important to him.

He would go to the same high school that we both went to and talk to kids and talk to classes, and he thought it was very important to view a role as a congressperson or any other elected office, as also having a teaching aspect to it. Not many people today view it in those terms, because he felt like we needed the next generations to get involved, and we needed to talk to him about it, educate them about it and encourage them along, and so that’s the purpose of the lecture series. To bring national speakers in to talk to students and  the public. And especially when you grow up in Nebraska, you know Washington DC seems a long way. Oh yeah, “how can I get there?” And just showing people that… No, you can. You can get there and you can do really well.

WALTER: Jim, do these lectures stream online anywhere or do you kind of have to attend in person?

JIM: They do stream online.

WALTER: Yeah, okay, how do people find them?

JIM: Well, they find them. They go to the University of Nebraska foundation website and there’s a whole web page there. Now I don’t know if you can find all the back ones. We had Ted Sorenson speak at the first one, so that was a real thrill to have him speak. It was, you know, a few years before he passed away, and just what an honor to have Ted Sorenson there. And David Axelrod spoke when he was working for Obama in the White House.

And Jim Messina spoke, who ran Obama’s campaign and pollsters like Peter Hart. We’ll have bipartisan lectures sometimes. There’s a republican pollster, Neil Newhouse, he’s a very smart, interesting guy. Amy Walter, who’s, you know, runs the Cook Report, spoke at the last one.

So, it’s been a labor of love, and we don’t have it every year, but we’re having one in September and we’re actually using local people for this one… just to encourage Nebraska kids to see what you can do if you get involved in politics, where you can go.

WALTER: Well, to use a Gen Z term that’s out of style now, but I think it’s lit that you do that lecture series and I hope that you and I hope that people will check it out.

And thank you, Jim, for sitting down and talking to us for a while and sharing your knowledge and wisdom as somebody who’s been in politics for a long time and it’s still very much involved. 

JIM: Thank you, Walter, I’ve really enjoyed it, appreciate it.

WALTER: If you’re interested in seeing Jim’s lecture series at the University of Nebraska online, you can visit NUfoundationorg- that’s N as in Nebraska, U as in University foundationorg.

You can learn more about what we do here at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare by visiting ncpssmorg. That’s ncpssm.org. 

Thanks, as always, for listening. Our producer is Melanie Reilly, our engineer is Shahab Shokouhi, our story editor is Donna Lack and our editor is Steve Lack. Theme music by Simon Laszlo Jansen. Opening voiceover by Nicholas Maloof.

The you earned this jingle was written by Walter Gottlieb, arranged by Jeff Gruber and our You Earned This singers, and recorded at Blue House Productions in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

Special thanks to our colleagues at the National Committee to preserve Social Security and Medicare who helped make this program possible. I’m Walter Gottlieb reminding you: You Earned This!