Chapter 16
Cat: Hi, this is Cat.
Ruby: And this is Ruby!
Cat: And this is Work the Polls, where we take a weekly look at what’s happening with women in politics.
Ruby: And what’s happening this week is…holy shit, Cat, are we about to get a woman president?
Cat: It’s way too soon to speculate, but boy, it kinda feels that way??
Ruby: Okay, so just in case you didn’t see last night’s presidential debate, OH MY GOD, IT RULED.
Cat: And not to be too like “oh we’re lady podcasters talking about lady things,” but can we start with what Senator Jo Sessego wore to the debate?
Ruby: We can, and I think we must.
Cat: Obviously, Senator Sessego has been a progressive folk hero for years, but she’s not super well known outside people who are very politically engaged.
So in a lot of ways, this debate last night was her first time stepping onto a national stage—and she walks out in this vivid pink pantsuit.
It was like fuchsia? It was radiant. She looked incredible.
All the men were wearing black or navy, and she looked like this shining beacon.
Ruby: So then one of the moderators was Ruth Minkow from CNN, aka the world’s hottest lesbian, and Ruth goes, “Wow, Senator Sessego, that’s quite an ensemble.” And Senator Sessego responds, “I didn’t want the voters to forget I was a woman.”
Cat: I lost my mind. I like, physically lost it.
Ruby: Can you tell us why, Cat?
Cat: I think—you know, look. It’s hard to be a woman seeking power in any field, and that’s especially true for women of color like Senator Sessego, and it’s maybe true in politics most of all. And to see her own it like that? Without an ounce of apology? With all this pride? It really moved me.
Ruby: And the thing for me is, it wasn’t an isolated stunt.
Every single question that came back to her, Senator Sessego would bring it back to women’s experiences, to the social safety net, to the economy, to healthcare, to education.
Her knowledge is so expansive, but she always brings it back to real people.
She never lets you forget who she’s running for and what she’s about.
Cat: And that tracks with her personal story—that she was a middle school teacher whose students convinced her to run for city council. It felt like this really American story. It made you believe that the best ideas we have about ourselves as a country could actually be true.
Ruby: The reaction to her debate performance was explosive. The media pretty much universally declared her the winner. She flew directly from the debate to go be live on The Tonight Show—
Cat: Which probably reached a bigger audience than the debate did, let’s be real.
Ruby: Totally! And she crushed that too. She was funny and personable, and she made this great appeal to people to get involved in this race. She had this really memorable line, where she said, “When you feel like you can’t recognize our country, you have to make it look more like you.”
Cat: Chills. Literal chills.
Ruby: The Sessego campaign said last night was their biggest fundraising haul ever.
They raised close to two million dollars online and got thousands of new volunteers.
Online searches for “Jo Sessego” spiked, and I hope I’m not getting too far out over my skis here, Cat, but it feels like we’ve entered a whole new era in this campaign?
Cat: I agree. We’re still three months out from the Iowa caucus, and Andrew Wheeler is far and away the odds-on favorite to win this nomination. But this is starting to feel like a real race now. And it’s starting to feel like a race Jo Sessego could actually win.
“This is a disaster.”
“We don’t know that.” Gabe kept his voice even.
“Eight points?” Lev tapped the briefing packet in front of him. “In a week, she gained eight points?”
The mood had been tense in Wheeler headquarters all week since the debate, but the new batch of polls that hit the press this morning had made things exponentially worse. Gabe had been talking in circles with the media consultants for nearly an hour, trying to figure out their next move.
“It could be a blip, a bounce from the debate,” Gabe reasoned. “And she’s making headway with undecideds, but our numbers haven’t moved. We shouldn’t do anything rash.”
“No, but we don’t want to be caught with our dicks in the wind either.” Hal Robbins was the crankiest and most powerful of the consultants. He was seen in the party as a wartime consigliere; he’d advised every Democratic presidential nominee for the last two decades.
“I agree,” Gabe said. “We should absolutely be prepared if this turns into a more worrying trend, but I don’t think we’re there yet.”
“Good, we’ll move forward on a negative ad.” Margaret Thune was elegant and reserved with tailored suits and coiffed gray hair, but she was arguably the most vicious operative in the room.
“Negative on Sessego?” Gabe asked. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Why, because you used to work for her?” Lev sneered.
“No, because we’ll look like bullies,” Gabe countered.
“She’s polling at twenty-seven percent, we’re at forty-three.
She’s the media’s darling right now, and she’s the only woman in the race.
If we take aim at her, all we’ll do is elevate her profile and give the press an excuse to write that we’re scared of her—which you all may be, but I’m not. Because I worked for her.”
“Say more.” Hal nodded at Gabe.
“Jo Sessego is principled to a fault,” Gabe said.
“That might get you a Senate seat in your home state, but it’s no way to win a national race.
She’s doing well because she has it easy right now, but she doesn’t have the stomach to make the hard choices she’ll need to win the primary, let alone the general. ”
“Let alone serve as president,” Margaret sniffed. “Not exactly the person you want in the situation room.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Gabe said, but the others were already pouncing on his words.
“She’s not up to the task—we need to say that,” Lev pushed. “If that’s the argument against her, the voters need to hear it.”
“It’ll sound misogynist if we say it,” Gabe argued.
“So?” Lev scoffed. “Since when has that been a problem in presidential politics?”
“Lev’s right,” Hal agreed. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s true.”
“We don’t know how it’ll play with women—or with Latinos. It’s a totally irresponsible risk.” Gabe rubbed his temples. He deplored talking about voters in broad demographic swaths, but he’d found that it was usually the only way he could win an argument with this crowd.
“So we put a poll in the field.” Lev looked at Gabe like he was stupid. “Test the message, move it with the groups who want to hear it. It’s like you’ve never done this before.”
“A poll.” Gabe looked up. “That’s what we do.”
“Yeah, that’s what I just said.” Lev frowned at Gabe.
“No—not to test the message.” Gabe shook his head. “We poll for general election matchups.”
“Yes.” Hal nodded, seeing immediately where Gabe was going.
“We need to do it now, before Jo gets more name recognition.” Gabe spoke quickly. “Put her in the weakest possible position versus the president, feed it to the press, start cementing the narrative that there’s no way she can win in November.”
“Democrats love to vote with their hearts until they’re faced with the remotest possibility of losing—then they run screaming into the arms of the nearest centrist,” Hal chuckled. “Viability. That’s the ticket.”
“Good.” Gabe felt relieved. He didn’t like having to go after Jo at all, but at least this was an argument he actually believed was true. “We can move an internal poll, but I think it’d be better to push for some public ones? Head off any whiff of bias?”
“I’ll make some calls.” Margaret was already typing on her phone. “If I can get it moving today, we should have results by Friday.”
“That’s perfect.” Hal nodded. “Gabe, you’ll do the Sunday shows.”
“This Sunday?” Gabe’s stomach clenched. “I can’t, I’m in Chicago this weekend.”
“Chicago?” Lev made a face. “What’s in Chicago?”
“My girlfriend’s family,” Gabe said. “It’s her mother’s yahrzeit. I need to be there.”
“Your girlfriend who works for Sessego?” Margaret raised her eyebrows.
“This isn’t about the campaign,” Gabe said stiffly.
“Maybe not yet.” Hal looked over his glasses at Gabe. “But it will be.”
“Have Jason do the Sunday shows,” Gabe offered. “Sending me makes this seem like too big a deal. The press secretary sends a more confident message.”
“It would, if anyone actually wanted to book Jason,” Margaret pointed out.
“Which is why we need a new press secretary,” Gabe said—not for the first time.
“Except we don’t, because we have you.” Hal’s tone carried a weight of finality. “You are the face of this campaign. And come Sunday morning, I expect to see that face on television.”
Signal group chat transcript: Anya Katz, Kira Liu, and Simone Humphrey
October 30, 2:42 p.m.
Kira: We’re about to hit $5M since the debate
Simone: No fucking way
Kira: Way way fucking way
Anya: Oh my god!!!!!!!!!
Kira: But we also have a problem
Anya: Of course we do
Anya: What’s up?
Kira: Quinnipiac has a poll in the field testing general election matchups
Simone: Damn. Wheeler’s camp is pushing a viability argument?
Kira: Yeppppp
Kira: So here’s what I think we do:
Kira: I want more rallies
Kira: Bigger ones
Kira: We only have a few weeks until we lose the weather. We need to build on this energy and get more volunteers in the door
Simone: Plus the visual of Jo pulling huge crowds will make any argument that she can’t win look totally unfounded
Anya: That’s excellent
Anya: Wait, can we do some rallies in swing states? Wisconsin, Michigan? She won’t like leaving the early states, but that’ll help with the viability argument for sure
Simone: I’m pulling a map of our biggest donation spikes
Simone: We’re looking great in Madison, Minneapolis, and Detroit
Kira: I love it. Let’s start moving
Kira: We’ll put some numbers together. Anya, you take it to JS?
Anya: I’ll talk to her as soon as she gets off this rope line