BUCK: Here is a Democratic pollster, for example, saying you know what we have to do, Clay? The Democrats need to pretend that Trump is on the ballot.

WOODBURY: “That’s exactly right, tiffany. Morale is extremely low amongst the Democratic coalition. We are seeing cynicism with a perceived lack of progress on the progressive agenda, and the truth is Democrats have made significant progress on issues most important to Democratic base but they are not telling that story. Part of what we have to do in the midterm is portray a message of unfinished business and there’s two sides of that, a part of that unfinished business, we have to put Trump on the ballot.

The multiracial coalition, the surge that you spoke of in 2018, and that came back out in 2020, what united that surge was an anti-MAGA, anti-Trump, anti-racism sentiment that really started to bubble up in the summer of 2020. We have to put Trump back on the ballot, but that does not mean that we get to make every Republican seem like Trump.”

BUCK: So, can I just point out, Clay, that it’s incongruous? I mean, he really gives away the game with, “Oh, yeah, we’ve made a lot of strides with the progressive agenda,” which is just not true. In fact, the only places where they push with the progressive agenda things like schools where they had these big fights over the “don’t say gay” bill, they’re actually losing ground now. Those battles are going against them. If they were doing well and delivering for the American people, the Democrat Party wouldn’t then turn around and say, “Let’s pretend that Donald Trump is on the ballot.”

CLAY: Well, and it didn’t work in 2021 because that’s what they tried to do, and that was in short order after Trump had been on the ballot. So now two years in, you have to own whatever is going on, good or bad, Joe Biden is responsible for it. You can’t blame the bogeyman of Trump. Now, that certainly may well be the strategy in 2014, Buck, and that’s actually one of the things that concerns me about Trump running in 2024, which I think he’s gonna do, and I think he should win.

But Trump has to run a different campaign in 2024 than he did in 2016. In 2016, he was the change agent. In 2024, what Republicans need to run on is, “Joe Biden was a disaster and we’re not going to be a disaster,” and my one concern about Trump in 2014, is Republicans will have everything set up to win. Will Democrats be able to argue against Trump as opposed to defending Biden?

Because what should be on the ballot in 2024, is all of the failures of the Biden administration. What Democrats…? You just heard. They’re trying to do it in 2022. I think it’s gonna work. It didn’t work in 2021. But if Trump is on the ballot, does Trump become the story as opposed to Biden failures? Because if it’s Biden failures, Republicans win.