How the Democrats Lost Steve - by Scott Ferson

About the Book

In this critical examination of the events leading up to and following the 2024 American presidential election, political advisor Scott Ferson illuminates what went wrong for the Democrats and a potential path forward to reconnect with voters and the promise of democracy.

Book Synopsis

When Donald Trump won the 2024 American Presidential Election, the nation--and world--was shocked. In this critical examination of the events leading up to and following the election, political advisor Scott Ferson goes straight to the source--the American people--to understand how this happened and where we go from here.

In November 2024, the Democrats didn't just lose the election--they lost the voters themselves. In the years and months leading up to the election, a lot of average Joes--enough Joes to swing an election and tilt history's trajectory--were left looking for confidence and answers in uncertain times. These were the voters who've never chosen a party, who work full-time or overtime just to make ends meet, and who simply want to be able to live the American dream that they were promised. A generation ago, these average Joes would have been a Democrat, by tradition or community or through union organizing. Now, these voters are lost to the Democrats, and, for those in disbelief over the 2024 election, the hard lesson is the Democrats never even tried to win them over.

How the Democrats Lost America explains not only why Kamala Harris and the Democrats lost the 2024 election but the larger disconnect the party has with voters in general, particularly those who don't hug both coasts or live in select big cities in between.

Through thousands of interviews over the past eight years, Scott Ferson exposes a larger problem facing our democracy: A profound disconnect with the people. By listening to people and understanding their real concerns, Democrats can find the way forward and take the steps to reconnect the people with the American promise of democracy. Democrats have a choice. These everyday voters can be lost and forgotten, or lost and found.

Review Quotes

"Scott Ferson's How the Democrats Lost America isn't just a post-mortem on the 2024 presidential election. For all the hand-wringing about former President Joe Biden or fears of the rise of an autocracy under President Donald J. Trump, Ferson makes clear that the party that was once aligned with the needs and desires of the 'average' American forgot to listen and engage that 'average' American. If they had, as Ferson has done in thousands of interviews, they would have learned that the path to power is rather simple: it is about connection, about connecting with voters to remind them why government matters. The Democrats lost that capability, but Ferson--in a book that both condemns and tries to uplift the party--provides a practical path forward." --Juliette Kayyem, former Clinton and Obama Administration National Security Official

"Scott Ferson has written flat-out the best book about contemporary electoral politics I've ever read. How the Democrats Lost America is so many things: part political analysis, part oral history, part travelogue, part cri du coeur for a different way of thinking--and not just our thinking about Donald Trump's victory in 2024, or about the Democratic Party's electoral prospects in 2028, or even about the lost art of personal civility between those on opposite ends of partisan spectrum. By documenting with such grace and wit eight years of coast-to-coast travels through the country's smallest towns and largest cities, in states blue and red and purple, Ferson wants us to join him in paying homage to the marvelous scale and scope of America--the multitudes it contains, the contradictions it embodies, the hunger for a better life shared absolutely everywhere. A sorely-needed and bracing reminder that politics still and forever happens one person at a time." --Scott W. Berg, author of The Burning of the World and 38 Nooses

"With his book, Scott Ferson delivers an intimate ethnography that will be the envy of political reporters and social scientists alike. In an age of caricatures and tribal polarization, Ferson sets aside his own ideology and does what many Americans won't: He steps out of his comfort zone, listens, and learns." --Tim Alberta, New York Times best-selling author of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory and American Carnage

About the Author

Scott Ferson has watched and worked in politics for forty years, from the John Anderson for President campaign while in High School, as a press secretary to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a chief strategist for the insurgent congressional campaign of Seth Moulton (D-MA) and advisor to dozens of candidates for office at the local and state level. He is the President/CEO of the strategic communications shop, the Liberty Square Group, and runs a political incubator, the Blue Lab that trains young people how to run campaigns. He is an adjunct professor of Political Science at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts.