Scoop: Senate Democrats to host Ezra Klein as retreat special guest
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Ezra Klein talks with talk show host Seth Meyers in a 2017 interview. Photo: Lloyd Bishop/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Senate Democrats have invited New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Democratic data guru David Shor to talk to senators at their annual one-day issues retreat on Wednesday, sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: Democrats are still processing how they lost the 2024 election and are looking for new ways to appeal to a changing electorate that neither party clearly owns.
- Klein, whose podcast is a big hit on the left, will have a dialogue with senators at the Mount Vernon retreat, with an opportunity for them to ask questions, according to Klein and two people familiar with the matter.
- Shor, who has been a consistent critic of his party's ability to connect with young men, will share his polling deck on what the numbers actually say. (It's not pretty.)
- A spokesperson for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the steering and policy committee and organizes the retreat, declined to comment. Klein and Shor will appear separately.
Zoom in: Shor has said he wants to use data "to listen to voters and understand this moment in politics." (Request the deck.)
- He briefed Democratic chiefs of staff last month and has been sharing his presentations with donors.
- In 2024, he estimates a 23-percentage-point swing against Democratic candidates among immigrants, which was especially pronounced among Hispanics who consider themselves conservatives.
- He's frightened by the surge of conservatism among young people — especially dudes.
The intrigue: Klein said something "is wrong in the Democratic Party" when he hosted Shor on his New York Times podcast in March.
- "Democrats are losing working-class voters. They're seeing their margins among nonwhite voters erode and vanish. They're losing young voters," Klein said in his introduction.
- Klein's new book, "Abundance," challenges liberals to create a more dynamic and prosperous society by cutting regulations and embracing new technologies.
- The book, co-authored with The Atlantic's Derek Thompson, exhorts progressives to think long-term and discard an anti-growth mentality on issues like housing and energy.
"My condition for these is always that it's a dialogue, and I've been doing dialogues like this with Democrats and Republicans alike," Klein told Axios in an email.
- "It's good for me to hear how these ideas fall for the people actually doing the work of government, and I'm thrilled there's so much interest in the ideas of Abundance!" he said.
The bottom line: When Klein speaks, many in the Democratic Party listen.
- That was true when he warned about President Biden's age in February 2024 and through the Democrats' tumultuous summer when they ultimately jettisoned Biden and settled on Vice President Harris.
