Young conservative says GOP needs a ‘wake-up’ after midterm losses

On Weekend Live with me, it's Jackson Gosnell, who's live here on Weekend Live. Jackson, it's good to see you again, my man. How's everything? Good. It's good to see you. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate being with you on a different program this time. So I want to point something out, too. I looked up because you've been spending some time with our friends over at Live Now. And I say out of everybody we've had on over Zoom, you may have the best possible backdrop. What are we looking at behind you, first things first? Yeah, so right behind me is downtown Greenville. Of course, I'm a big South Carolina guy, grew up here, and so got to showcase my city, right? So what you're seeing behind me is a shot over downtown Greenville and our beautiful skyline. Okay, so the last time I talked with you, you joined me in studio some time ago, and we were discussing, really, you have a good perspective of this all, because a lot of voters, a lot of politicians, a lot of people who seek elected office are looking at young voters as the future, because young voters are the future, and that's where you want to grow the support, that's where you want to find people who are going to cast ballots for you, not just now, but for years and decades to come. So give me your takeaway as we saw what happened last. Tuesday with the midterms. Where did Republicans go wrong? And what's is there a big lesson you think they can learn from these results? Well, look, I think this was a setback for Republicans. This is sort of a moment to wake up and reset. We know that voters soundly rejected Republicans across the country. I don't think it's so much a rejection of the policies as it is poor candidates. I think we ran some not so good candidates, and frankly, I think the Democrats that were put up this time around, they did a good job campaigning. Of course, earlier I mentioned that I'm from South Carolina, and paying attention to that race was really interesting. I wasn't surprised totally that Dr. Annie Andrews won and flipped the seat. To Blue, because Darlene Graham did not run a good campaign. And to Annie Andrews' credit, she went everywhere. She talked to a ton of voters. She went on conservative talk radio, stepped into the lion's den, and met people where they were. I think she is one example, but I think largely Democrats campaigned well. They thought they had it in the bag because they won so well in 2024 with the presidency. And I think they just had a lousy run of things. In many cases, they ran last. I think a good lesson to learn from all this, too, and I think it... It's something that we in the media need to pay attention to as well, is that there is no such thing as a slam dunk anymore when it comes to red states or blue states. Because as we've seen, especially since President Trump in 2016, where you had Republicans who were on a bit of a losing streak in the Midwest and Pennsylvania, and President Trump flipped them all. He didn't win them all in 2020, but he won them back in 2024. I think you've got to look at every seat. And I think that also goes into how we cover these races. I've worked in newsrooms before, Jackson, I worked in upstate New York for years, you know, in some heavily Democratic and heavily Republican areas where you sort of just treat every race as inevitable, like, oh, it's heavily Democratic that Democrats are going to win. Nobody should treat like that. Certainly politicians and aspiring politicians shouldn't treat races like that. I want to talk about Gen Z because that was an area where President Trump made incredible gains in 2024. And according to some of the exit polling, it sort of went the other way. So was 2024 less of a realignment than what Republicans thought? Or is this about just what a moment in time and how that guides somebody's vote? I think this is about a moment in time. You know, Gen Z cares about homeownership, starting businesses, escaping inflation. They don't care so much about the political rhetoric. Now, maybe last time around, they were feeling this economic pain in the Biden years, and they thought Trump was going to bring them relief. And I think he's brung relief on some other subjects, but maybe not so much the economy. And I think conservative policies this time around, they focus more on the culture wars. Transing of the children, you know, deporting the illegal people who are here. And I think what Gen Z cares most about is affordability, lower taxes, you know, more money in their pockets. And I think they're naturally skeptical of. Uh, government control and all these, you know, centralized governmental ideas. And so I think when they see these DSA candidates, particularly who are embracing all these things that sound really wonderful, they feel like, oh sure, maybe I can cross over and have a home there. I don't think so much so that Gen Z is looking for a socialist government to run their lives. I don't think that's the case. I think Gen Z wants an economy that's dynamic enough to let them buy a home and let them build a career and keep what they earn. And we've got to deliver. Deliver that message and start talking about it instead of focusing on things that don't matter to young people. I think we can win the voters back over, but we've got to have a come to Jesus meeting and regroup. I think it's a really good point, too, in terms of getting people to the table, because Republicans have done this in the past, I think in 2012 after Mitt Romney lost, which, by the way, that was a year where. I was I keep telling I mean, I feel like everywhere I've worked, there's been some sort of pivotal moment in American history. But I was in Massachusetts at that point where Mitt Romney was the former the former governor. And there was a genuine feeling on the ground in Massachusetts in 2012 among people who were close to Mitt Romney and some Democrats that that election that he he hypothetically could have. Could have carried away with 2012 because President Obama didn't have a whole lot to hang his hat on after he lost the Congress during the Obamacare passage. But again, you have these postmortems where you sit there and you say, OK, what did we do wrong? Where can we go? Right. Republicans did it. Then Democrats had had no choice but to do it after after 2024, although they were very resident reticent to share what they learned. So what does a... I guess going into 2028, what does an ideal political candidate on the conservative side look like to you? Like what is what would be the main focus outside of affordability? Because it's one thing to get up and say, hey, we're going to make life more affordable for you. But how do you go about doing it? Well, I think you have to slash the red tape and sort of deregulate things. And I know the Trump administration will argue that they have done that. But clearly, there's still more work to be done because people can't afford groceries. You know, I was in college. I recently graduated. And you go to the grocery store and it's over 100 bucks, you know, for a week's worth of groceries. I think that's ridiculous. And I understand that with time. prices raise. However, we've got to come back down. We've either got to increase wages and bring costs down or match the wages to what they are right now because there is a disconnect. Everyone is feeling it. And the America that my parents enjoyed and they grew up in where their dollar got further is continuing to get out of reach and further and further away. You look at the average age of a home buyer. You know, the average person making a six-figure salary, et cetera. And I'm not suggesting you have to make six figures to get ahead, but it certainly helps. And I think all of that is just getting further and further and further away. And it's getting out of reach. It's not the America that our families grew up in and that this country was built on. And so we've got to pause from this rhetoric of... Calling people names and doing all the things, that fires up the base. I'll give it to you. It's funny, and I get a good laugh out of some of the nicknames. For example, the president calls them Democrats. Okay, that's funny, and it's always wonderful. However, calling them Democrats clearly didn't help us in terms of winning. So we've got to focus more on the issues. By the way, though, we were talking about this on election night, that President Trump and the Texas Republicans started calling James Talarico, Talafrico. And what did he do? He took that, made it merch, and you had people on election night wearing that proudly. So sometimes, I mean, that's the one thing the president, one of the many things he's done well in the past was, you know. The name, the nicknames didn't really work out when it came to Tallarico. But that brings me to this, Jackson, you are so you're immersed in political social media. I mean, really, that's how you get your voice out. That's how you spread a lot of a lot of your thoughts and you engage with a lot of your followers. But there's this concern on both sides, whether they're young progressives or young conservatives, that people are running these two deeply online campaigns and and ignoring the fact that. A lot of the base, a lot of the people you have to appeal to aren't necessarily residing online. Do you feel like that's something that people should learn from? Yeah, I think so. I think we have to reach voters where they are. And it's no longer just on social media. It's everywhere. And here's the other thing. If people aren't following a candidate, And they're paying for ad-free versions of Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, whatever. They're not getting those political ads that people who were watching broadcast television 15 years ago were getting in the middle of their favorite program. So it's getting harder and harder to reach voters, especially the ones who don't listen to the radio, don't watch broadcast or streaming TV, or maybe they do, but they have these ad-free versions. Those people are harder and harder to reach. I don't know what the perfect solution for reaching them is. But we should no longer take for granted that, you know, this is a red state, we've got it in the bag. Clearly, that's no longer the case, especially here in South Carolina. And I did find it interesting, I'll just note that The Republican governor nominee, he won, so did the attorney general nominee, so did all the other people down the ballot. It was just that Senate seat that flipped, and again, I point to bad candidate quality. I have no personal beef with Darlene Graham. I think she's a nice lady. She needs to take some time off and grieve the loss of her brother. Having said that, she was not built for the U.S. Senate, and I don't know why we were forced so hard into believing that she was going to be this great fighter who was going to the Senate. Nobody bought it, so it's a candidate quality problem. I'm preaching that over and over, but it's so true. And by the way, also, when it comes to younger voters, there's this idea and there's this hunger to see more candidates who look and who have more shared experiences with them than, as you mentioned, I don't necessarily, if Darlene Graham, you know, if you look at her and then Ralph Norman, the longtime Republican congressman, who's a bit older than Darlene But what does it take to get. Young conservative is excited about casting ballots, and do you find that it might be a challenge to get them not just to talk the talk, but walk the walk and run for office, throw their own hats into the ring? Well, I think you're seeing more and more people do that. I was reading a piece by the Wall Street Journal recently, maybe it was New York Times, talking about all the millennial and Gen Z people running for office. I think they increasingly want younger voices. They increasingly want to see people that look like them who are young and who aren't, you know, on their deathbed or somebody who's, you know, like Mitch McConnell who is having to be wheeled in and people, you know, don't even know if he knows he's in the world. People want to get away from that. I think we've got to take back the government. Thank you very much. I hope this is a moment of a reset and a little bit of a wake-up. Last question for you, Jackson, then I've got to go. So it always. I'm at the age now where I see people in political office who are younger than me, which is funny, and to me it's a bit... You know, I'm 46, but you have the vice president, J.D. Vance, who just turned 40 not too long ago. Many people believe he could be the face of the post-Trump Republican Party. What's it going to take for J.D. Vance to to get past Tuesday? And, you know, can he get past Tuesday? Because he did attach himself to some of those candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy in his native Ohio. He did. I think he's going to have to distance a little bit from some of the policies that are not favored by Americans. I think there's not really an appetite for a J.D. Vance in the White House as president right now. Maybe that changes over the course of the next two years. I don't know. But now is the time where people are planning those campaigns. So he's going to have to reset and refocus really quickly because I don't think people are buying it. Having said that, I do think there is other candidates out there who can get the job done. The thing about it is this, and this is what is. What is such a shame? And I know other sides have talked about it previously, but it costs so much money to do this that we want these younger people in, but it is such an uphill battle. You've got to take money from special interest groups. There's no way to do it unless you're just independently wealthy and the mega millions jackpot hit you in the face. There's no way for young people to reasonably do it because of how expensive it is. So I mean, yeah, it sounds great to run younger people. And I think that's true of congressional races, but for president, you're going to have to older person, I don't think there's an appetite for J.D. Vance. I could be wrong. We shall see. And I know you and I are going to have more conversations down the road. Jackson Gosnell joining us here on Weekend Live. Good to see you, man.