The episode features a conversation between Hawk and Zee Cohen-Sanchez from Nationalgroundgame.com about two special elections in Florida for vacant House seats, with candidates Gay Valamont and Josh Weil running in traditionally Republican districts. Zee, who works with National Ground Game, discusses how these races are unexpectedly competitive, with Democratic candidates out-fundraising their Republican opponents by significant margins. The conversation highlights that early voting results are promising for Democrats, and that issues like veteran benefits, Social Security, and recent controversies involving Trump appointees and Republican text message leaks are resonating with voters in these districts.
Zee explains that National Ground Game's approach focuses on "deep canvassing," which involves meaningful conversations with voters about their concerns rather than just asking who they'll vote for. This method has proven effective in flipping traditionally Republican districts in the past. Zee emphasizes that many potential voters in these districts are non-voters rather than Republicans who need to be converted, and that Democratic infrastructure in these areas has been neglected for years. Even if Democrats don't win these races, Zee believes making them competitive is important groundwork for future elections.
The conversation concludes with a discussion about how Democrats have failed to effectively organize in primaries and connect online influence to real-world action, unlike Republicans who have built effective pipelines from social media to political engagement. Zee notes that Democrats appear to have more online talent and followers but haven't utilized them effectively to connect with campaigns. The podcast ends with a call to action for listeners to get involved with National Ground Game through phone banking and canvassing to help with the upcoming special elections.
Follow Zee on TikTok for up to date information about these important races:
https://www.tiktok.com/@zeetothehill
National Ground Game Website:
https://www.nationalgroundgame.com
Start Phone Banking NOW with this link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D8LH7DC1qvZwkM0fGx0tndAv\_qjLujAw9Wkw4rhqCWs/htmlview
Hawk (00:00.925)
All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Hawk podcast. I have a very special guest today who is very busy right now in this weekend. And anybody who's followed me for the last couple of months will recognize my friend Z from national ground game.com. Welcome Z. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Zee (00:22.54)
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Hawk (00:24.921)
And so we're going to talk about the two Florida special elections to fill vacant house seats. And those two candidates gave Alamont and Josh while and the election for both of those districts is this coming Tuesday, April 1. And these are really heating up right now. Because polling is showing the two Democratic candidates doing way better than anybody expected.
to the point that Donald Trump withdrew his nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik, because that would have vacated another house, or another house seat. She's in upstate New York. so Republicans are running scared from these elections. Z's been working and organizing on the ground for these two districts. Tell me what your thoughts are heading into this last weekend, Z.
Zee (01:21.698)
Well...
Definitely unexpected. That's to say the least. mean, just to give everybody sort of a roadmap of what these districts look like and sort of where we started versus where we are now. So Josh Will's district is district six. That's outside of Orlando, which sounds like it would be like a very, obviously Orlando is democratic, right? But far enough away from Orlando that it is not democratic at all. There are some very, very rural
counties in Joshua's district, Putnam County. A lot of these like are not the usual type of counties that we're used to suburban. These are very like very spread out counties. And traditionally, know, Republicans have not campaigned in that district really at all. I mean, there's been very little fundraising over the last decade in that district. It is just not considered flippable. Gays districts up near the Alabama border, so even less flippable. We're talking about 20 plus
30 Republican district. Very, you know, we haven't had like real competition there. Honestly, probably, I mean, Phil Eyre ran in that district. He raised $2 million, but Gay has raised $6 million. So that just to give you sort of an idea of like what that gap looks like. In Josh's district, I don't think a Democrats even hit a million. He's raised $10 million.
Hawk (02:45.15)
I saw that number and I was I was blown away.
Zee (02:49.23)
Yeah, I mean, it really shows that, you know, and sometimes, I mean, you know, a lot of people will say, like, you know, on social media and just in everyday life that, obviously, you know, Hillary, Kamala, they both outrace Trump significantly. So clearly money doesn't matter. But comparing it to a congressional race, like you can't really make those comparisons, right? Because congressional, a 10 million dollars in a congressional race is massive. That is the difference between winning and losing.
Hawk (03:14.536)
Yeah.
Well, and the thing that stunned me, so Josh's opponent is a guy named Randy Fine. He's in the state legislature and he's, I think, can be objectively described as a lunatic. I've seen a lot of the things that he posts on social media and he's just a crazy person. I mean, he's full, full MAGA.
Zee (03:32.236)
Yeah.
Hawk (03:43.482)
and I read that he has only raised something like nine hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars and Josh has raised ten times that amount.
Zee (03:49.548)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Mm-hmm, yeah. So I think he was up to like, I think now that Elon and everybody's jumping in, I think he's at like 1.5 or something. But I mean, you we're out raising him 10 to one. And even more so, I mean, you know, in Gay's district and Josh's district, these initial numbers coming back from early voting are looking really, really strong.
Hawk (04:00.988)
Yeah.
Hawk (04:14.044)
Okay, so early voting is underway. How long has it been underway in these districts?
Zee (04:18.72)
I want to say at least a week, I want to say, maybe even a little bit more than that. And so there's also the absentee ballots coming in. So we have early voting and we have absentee ballots. So clearly, obviously, Democrats usually vote earlier than Republicans. That's, know, everybody says that we all know that we're not trying to sort of mislead people in saying that. But in saying that at the same time, keep in mind that we've seen early numbers come in from these districts in the
Hawk (04:37.64)
Sure. Right.
Zee (04:48.694)
and they are nowhere near the type of turnout that we're seeing right now. Especially in some, like there are some counties in Gay's district that are so deep crimson red that it's like the registration numbers are not even, even if we got every NPA, every Democrat, like the registration numbers are just not there, but we're still like, we're fighting in those districts. We're tying in some of those counties.
Hawk (05:15.166)
So, okay, let's talk about something funny for a moment. I think that you had sent me a video of an incident where Randy Fine was being served with some paperwork.
Zee (05:30.09)
I don't think that was me. Wait, tell me this.
Hawk (05:32.228)
well, I thought it was you. He's like, had camera in his office. Somebody was trying to serve him with something and he was hiding on the floor behind his desk.
Zee (05:41.186)
That's hilarious. my God. I love it.
Hawk (05:45.49)
So if you're watching this, you can go to YouTube and find that. It's absolutely hilarious.
Zee (05:53.41)
Well, such a tough job, can't even get served.
Hawk (05:56.841)
But so let me ask you this. So it's like I was thinking about this Randy Fine guy and he's just he's just one of these mega Republican white men who just fails upward and upward and upward and upward. And it just struck me that this the fact that he's even a candidate for this seat is such a commentary on the extreme partisan gerrymandering that we've got. Because it's like you just give any guy like this the nomination and he's going to win because it's so gerrymandered.
Zee (06:20.675)
Yep.
Hawk (06:27.192)
And now it's looking like that may not be the case or there's a realistic possibility that he might lose. And Trump's freaking out to the point where he's yanking Stefanik's nomination. And so let's say that Elon Musk swoops in and gives him 5 million bucks today. Would that matter if the elections on Tuesday?
Zee (06:46.138)
Not really. mean, the only thing that they, I mean, even at this point, even running TV ads would be extremely difficult. mean, it's, but anything's possible, right? Like, I don't know the connections that they have on their end and how quickly they could do something like that. But the problem really is, that they, they've already sort of set up this narrative that the voters are not buying.
Hawk (06:54.621)
Yeah.
Zee (07:09.356)
Right. so to completely shift your narrative three, four days before the election, because you're scared the voters going to see through that. if they want to spend the money, sure. But my thought is that they're probably going to spend more in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race just because, you know, I think that they know that they've already been there. They've been working on that narrative. They have it more. They feel in the back. I don't think that they do. I think that we're going to see a little bit of an upset there, too.
Hawk (07:10.684)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (07:39.272)
hoping that that's what we see because they've had a lot of really strong groundwork.
in Wisconsin. And this is really the difference, I think, between what we've done in the past as the Democratic Party versus what we're doing now. And the difference really is, that, you know, even, I mean, we saw how, the Democratic Party came into this, right? Like, traditionally, we don't touch these districts, and that's why they get so red. And so the fact that we've actually come in now, we said, yeah, we get that. But at the same time, like, that's not a good enough excuse is really changing. It's changing the way that we could be projecting these elections.
coming 26 and 28.
Hawk (08:17.178)
You know, I was I was thinking about that a little bit over last weekend. And I was just wondering, it's like, are you seeing any Democrat voters in these districts that are just like, thank you for listening to us and thank you for actually fielding a candidate. Thank you for giving us at least an option to participate and vote for.
Zee (08:37.601)
yeah.
Mm-hmm. definitely. Like, I mean, we're hitting doors out, you know, in Josh's district where we're going out to these rural communities and they're saying that I've never had any politician or anybody even representing a politician knock on my door. In fact, I've never even seen a viable Democrat in this district. So, you know, and then we've also seen people that have said, like, listen, you know, I've voted Republican my entire life, but I'm just not, I'm just not going to do that anymore. I'm, you know, a lot of angry veterans in these districts.
are really going to, I think, help us push in a more democratic direction. And to be clear, even if we don't win these races, that doesn't mean that we haven't won. Because the fact that these elections will be up again in 26, along with more important races in Florida, it just shows that we're back in the game. And we haven't been in the game as the Democratic Party in a very long time in Florida.
Hawk (09:34.622)
I mean, has part of the goal, excuse me, part of the goal over the last couple of months in the work that you guys have done in at least these two districts in Florida sort of to rebuild some of that infrastructure for future elections?
Zee (09:51.638)
Yes, absolutely. Like we're saying this is just the initial stepping stone of what we need. Because the reality is, that we have a problem in the Democratic Party and that needs to be fixed, right? Like we cannot fix this. what's that? We can hold on to that, right? But essentially, right, like we.
Hawk (10:05.746)
Just one.
Zee (10:15.734)
We need to protect ourselves. Like right now we're in a burning building, right? And we need to think about how to stop the burning before we continue to think about how we're going to rebuild the building. Like we're not even past the burning stage. And so what we're really trying to do with National Ground Game and with these elections in Florida is to tell people that please do not count us out, right? Because we know that you're angry. We know that Kamala has lost. We understand that we have a lot of work to do, but we're trying to prove to them that that work can be done.
Hawk (10:37.79)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (10:45.808)
And so even if we come within five points of these districts, even if we come within, honestly, ten points of these districts, even if we just move the needle a little bit each time, we're showing that we can actually make a difference in these districts if we invest in the brown game, which is really like the whole point of what we're doing is showing people that you can't just buy TV ads three days before an election and think you're gonna win. It just doesn't work like that.
Hawk (11:10.546)
Yeah. So. So I was able to interview the first district candidate gave Alamont probably six weeks ago and in talking to her about her district, I mean, it's the it's the most western part of the upper Florida panhandle. And yeah, it's like right underneath Alabama. But one thing that I learned from her back then that I think has taken on new significance, especially this week.
is the number of veterans and military in her district. She told me that each branch of the military has a base in that district. Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines. And it's just it's the it. I think I saw on her campaign website that the first district has more active duty military and veterans than any other district in Florida. And the second most of any
Zee (11:49.518)
Yep.
Hawk (12:10.024)
congressional district anywhere in the United States. And so knowing that, you know, and what we've seen this week from Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard with this text thread situation. I mean, have you guys seen anything on the ground is any of that stuff landing with veterans in either of these districts?
Zee (12:12.792)
Wow, that's...
Hawk (12:38.128)
And one of the guys, the guy who started that text thread, Mike Waltz, and invited the senior editor of the Atlantic to join that text thread was the incumbent congressman in the sixth district where Josh was running. It's just like the connections for all of this stuff is insane.
Zee (12:52.513)
Yeah.
Zee (12:57.838)
Yeah, it's basically like the TV show was like written for us, like to be the protagonist. Like they're just like doing the work for us, which is great. But yeah, no, we actually, we purposely partnered with a veteran PAC on phone calls for Gay's district because we know how critical it is to get these veterans. And so we are calling these veterans and Phil Eyre, who ran in this district, who's a veteran himself, he's actually calling the undecided veteran voters because he's like, how could you be
decided right now. Like with everything happening right now, like the last thing you should be is an undecided voter in this election. And so that's been going really well. But honestly, we haven't heard a lot of undecided veteran voters. I mean, they are really, really angry. And honestly, a lot of them are really scared about what's going to happen. And they know that we need to take a different direction. And we're not just calling Democratic veterans. We're calling Republicans that are equally as afraid.
Hawk (13:54.729)
Well, and plus it's like, mean, so I guess it was, I don't know, two months ago that my brother and I were on a live on Zoom and we were trying to figure out something that we could actually do, something tangible. And I had the idea to do something with these two, these, well, there was gonna be three, but these two special elections in Florida. And I made a TikTok about that and that blew up.
And within a couple of days was when I first came into contact with you. And then we had a zoom call and that was a busy week. And it's been, it's been amazing. It's been amazing. Just watching this process and trying to help out with it a little bit. but even back then, you know, one of the points that I made to my brother is that it was my thought that Trump wouldn't be able to help himself, but to make these.
Zee (14:31.628)
Yeah, I know we ate.
Hawk (14:53.672)
two special elections a referendum on him, as opposed to the four candidates that are involved in these two races. And boy, that turns out to have been quite an understatement. Because I don't think any of us fully comprehended at the time, what he and Elon Musk and House Republicans were actually planning on doing. And and again, I mean, referencing Gayes district,
Zee (14:56.418)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Zee (15:05.086)
Yeah.
Zee (15:17.292)
Yeah.
Hawk (15:22.876)
I mean, I don't know, they've fired two or 300,000 federal workers and 30 % of all federal workers are veterans. And they're trying to completely defund the VA. And I can't even imagine how many people in Gays District get their health care through the VA. And then we had this signal chat thing with classified attack information.
Zee (15:29.622)
Yep.
Zee (15:38.86)
get the lot.
Zee (15:43.683)
Yeah.
Hawk (15:47.517)
I'm trying to figure out a question here. It's like, and I, you know, I don't generalize people too much or I try not to, but you know, even MAGA veterans, it's like, are they able to start seeing the reality of what this second term for Donald Trump is actually going to be and what it is as it relates to them? Is it, is any of that landing with veterans?
Zee (16:08.757)
Yeah. Yeah.
I think that it is because I think that, you know, obviously there are some people that are in the Trump cult and they have made it clear that it doesn't, Trump could do anything and they're going to still follow him. Where the problem is, is that we don't know what percentage of voters that falls with, right? So we know, is it 10 % of people that voted for Trump? Is it 50 %? Is it more? We have no idea. But from what we do know,
Hawk (16:33.885)
Yeah.
Zee (16:43.458)
from the conversations that we're having phone banking, from the conversations that we're having canvassing, is that we have not come across a Trump voter, or at least our group at National Ground Game, has not come across anybody yet that has seen that those text messages are not concerning to them, that the veteran benefits are not concerning to them. That has not happened. And that was happening, by the way, in the Trump-Kamala election, right? Like people were not concerned about these issues because they were like, yeah, well, know, yeah, you say that Trump's gonna do that, but he's not really
Hawk (17:07.539)
Yeah.
Zee (17:13.392)
going to do that. You know, he's just saying that for negotiating. Or they'd come up with whatever crazy thing, you know, that, you know, same thing with Social Security and Medicaid, right? Like they were all saying, you know, the Democrats are just using that against him because they want to try to get older voters. Well, now you're seeing it happening in real time. And it feels very different when it actually is affecting your direct benefits, which that unfortunately is what is happening right now in, in, especially in gays districts.
Hawk (17:23.762)
Yeah.
Zee (17:43.342)
but in Joshua's district as well.
Hawk (17:46.259)
Well, I think, yeah, I mean, especially Josh's district, but equally probably across both of them, issues related to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And I mean, I did a TikTok this morning, you know, where I was just like, when did we decide that we were going to allow Elon Musk to dismantle Social Security? When did that happen?
Zee (17:55.278)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (18:09.58)
Yeah. Like that's funny because you know, on TikTok, like I hear these like MAGA debates and they all say like, yeah, you know, I'm getting exactly what I voted for. I wanted Elon to do this. And it's like, like.
What? Trump never was talking about this on the campaign trail, that Elon was going do this. So now they're all of a sudden creating this new narrative in their head of like, oh, well, Trump said that this was going to happen all along. it's just not. And they know that it's nonsense. you're starting to see that come out in Trump talk through the narrative is that they're having a lot more trouble defending this.
Hawk (18:29.5)
No. No.
Yeah.
Hawk (18:45.362)
Yeah.
Hawk (18:53.416)
But I mean, you know, I've also had conversations with people where I was like, I don't think that there's even a possibility that any of this is gonna stop or they're gonna back away from it unless it's people who voted for Trump or the ones who end up making the most noise against it. You know, it's like the calls gotta come from inside the house kind of thing. I mean, I'm starting to see.
Zee (19:11.074)
yet.
Hawk (19:17.914)
anecdotally, a lot more of that on TikTok people who voted for Trump who've gotten fired from their federal jobs are cranky. I don't know how to extrapolate that out to any larger numbers. But I yeah, mean, another another another thing that I've done a few times on on TikTok is I found the TikTok pages for the DNC and the D triple C and
Zee (19:24.823)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (19:32.974)
We're definitely seeing that in the returns. So we know that the cross-
Hawk (19:47.793)
I have duetted and stitched their videos asking, what are you doing to help Gaye Valamont and Josh Wilde? And I've left multiple comments about that. I haven't gotten any response from either of those two groups. Has the DNC or the D triple C done anything to help you guys with these two elections?
Zee (20:06.648)
So they just came in that I want to stay a few days here, right?
Hawk (20:11.87)
Is that so they can just take credit if you guys win?
Zee (20:17.742)
Probably. But here, it's like, this is, I've been working in.
Hawk (20:19.898)
Wow, man.
Zee (20:24.014)
inside and outside of the party for almost 15 years at this point. And I sort of see the same thing. Of course, cycles change, things change, right? But overall, it kind of is the same like pattern, right? And the pattern that we see is that people count out these deep red districts. And so they count them out and so they can't get talent into them. And then they can't get talent into them and they become progressively deeper and deeper red because of that, right? And then the narrative
always becomes, well, we don't have capacity to help everybody, so we should just focus in on these purple districts, or we should just focus in on whatever, right? And so the problem with that is, is that that narrative was fine in Obama 2012, okay? Like, it was fine because sure, like, we're building up democratic power, but we're not faced with fascism. Like, Obama's the president. So, you know, but now the problem is, that we're running that same tired playbook with Obama operatives, by the
Hawk (21:09.822)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (21:24.048)
because a lot of those people that came from Obama 2008, when they created Facebook ads and that was like the biggest thing of the moment, and they're still thinking it's the biggest thing of the moment, that same tired playbook is just no longer working. And so instead of saying, hey, it's not working, let's do something to fix it, we're still sort of in this like...
Hawk (21:25.383)
Yeah.
Hawk (21:35.804)
Right.
Zee (21:46.284)
the same thing, right? And so the only real way that we can see that like really changing is to prove to the DNC that if we can pull off even just one win in this rate or even just something close, it's going to show them that we need to stop counting these districts out. that even like the whole thing with capacity is like, I understand, right? You're one organization. I run a firm. I understand you can't take on every single race all the time. It's just not really
realistic, but there's nothing that's stopping you from putting out the network to other people to run it. There's nothing that's stopping you from putting up a job on your job board saying we're looking for talent for this race, right? Like there are still things that we can do even if that doesn't mean that we're investing a hundred million dollars into a deep red district. Like there are, we have to start to see things as a gradient and we have to start to try to fix things little by little where we can.
Hawk (22:44.146)
Yeah, I've always just kind of envisioned that it would be, it would be so demoralizing to be a democratic voter who lives. It's like, first of all, you got gerrymandered into this district that's, you know, 65, 35 Republican. And then you get the additional indignity of your party basically saying to you, eh, it's not worth our effort.
Zee (23:03.692)
meeting.
Zee (23:13.698)
Mm-hmm.
Hawk (23:14.288)
It's not worth our effort to pay attention to where you live. Yeah.
Zee (23:17.932)
Yeah.
It's tough. It's even, you know, what makes it even more sticky is when you have the Democratic Party that is actively looking for candidates in these districts, telling them to run and then not supporting their campaign. You know, and to me, almost is like worse than just not going there at all. Because then what happens is you get these people that they don't know how to run a political campaign. They don't have any talent that wants to come to their campaign. And then they end up getting two or 3%. And then it's like, you've just made a
Hawk (23:29.107)
Mm-hmm.
Hawk (23:33.202)
Y-UGH
Zee (23:50.002)
district that was red, deeper red, but it didn't have to be. And so we need to start being more strategic around that as well and saying that if we can't get a good candidate, we just shouldn't run them. Because the last thing we want to do is continue to get districts moving deeper and deeper red.
Hawk (23:52.616)
Yeah, right.
Hawk (24:11.624)
Well, and I've had a theory for quite some time that I feel was confirmed to me in the last election that lots of people disagree with me when I voice this opinion, but I believe that there is a majority of the American electorate that are just complete morons and they're incredibly selfish as human beings. And I'm...
Zee (24:38.766)
Wow
Hawk (24:40.964)
I'm deeply concerned with what the impact is going to be on people like that with the eradication of the Department of Education.
Zee (24:51.266)
Yeah.
Hawk (24:53.15)
I just.
Because it's like, kind of view that as being the only thing or one of the main things, I guess I should say, that has a chance of kind of, you know, turning in the cargo ship of this country in a slightly different manner than where we're heading right now. You know, and I was stunned. I was surprised, but not surprised to learn that 23.
of the 25 states that receive the most funding from the Department of Education. 23 of those top 25 are red states. And they're all going, yes, take that away from us. Take that away. They're cheering for it.
Zee (25:32.046)
you
Zee (25:35.758)
you
Yeah, it is. you know, I mean, that just like really gives us even more of a reason to run actual education campaigns because these like when we're going out, we're talking to, you know, voters in District 6 and District 1 in Florida. We're not just doing sort of a, you know, this is Gay Balamah or this is Josh Wheel and this is why you should vote for them. It's a lot deeper than that. Like we're doing what we call deep canvassing in Josh's district specifically, and then we're doing it over the phone for Gay's district just because of funding.
Hawk (25:45.213)
Yeah.
Zee (26:07.156)
It's more of a conversation around like, what are the issues that you care about and trying to really sort of drill down into why aren't you participating in the system? Because most of these people, surprisingly, are just non-voters. That's our biggest problem isn't necessarily converting. Yeah, like, you know, everybody says like, you know, you're going to have to convert X amount of Trump voters. And it's like, we really don't. Like, we really actually could ignore them and just go after every person that has no interest
Hawk (26:23.134)
That's crazy.
Zee (26:36.846)
in our political system and we could absolutely destroy them if we wanted to. But that takes a lot more education, a lot more conversations.
Hawk (26:43.432)
Yeah. It was stunning to me to learn in the last two elections, 24 and 20, that the number of eligible voters who did not vote, that number was larger than the number of votes that either candidate got. I was just like, what, huh? But you just mentioned deep canvassing. I've got your website up on my other screen here, nationalgroundgame.com.
Zee (26:59.392)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Hawk (27:11.708)
and that phrase appears on there. wanted to ask you what what that phrase means deep canvassing.
Zee (27:17.23)
Yeah, so deep canvassing really, so when we talk about canvassing in elections, usually what people mean is that we just call it G-O-T-V canvassing, which is get out the vote. Which essentially what that conversation looks like is, hey, Hawk, I'm at your door and I wanna know, are you voting for Gay Valamon or are you not voting for her? That's the extent usually of the conversation. We might go into a little bit of persuasion if you say like, oh, I don't.
Hawk (27:36.872)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (27:42.018)
you know, want to vote for, we might try to give you a little pitch, but essentially, like our goal is to just get from voter to voter and figure out like where we stand in the election. What we are doing in deep canvassing is actually sort of like the inverse of that. Like we're actually not really even talking about a candidate at all. What we're really doing is we're trying to figure out what the deeper issues are and we're trying to drill down on those issues to see.
Hawk (27:48.509)
Yeah.
Zee (28:06.4)
you know, and it could look different for everybody because some of these people might be Trump voters, they might be non-voters, like whatever it looks like. But our goal is to try to figure out ultimately why you're not participating and how can we get you to understand how important this is and to participate. And typically the way that that happens is us doing a lot less talking and letting the voter really open up about the deeper reasons why they might not be participating. And usually it isn't just sort of a, I just like never thought about that.
It's usually not, I mean, some people, yes, it's that simple and it's like, okay, well, you're gonna have to do it. But typically it's usually because they are disenfranchised. They don't feel like their vote matters. They feel just sort of let down by the system. They don't feel like they fit in, we hear a lot, I don't feel like I fit in either party. That's a really big issue. They say like, yeah.
Hawk (28:41.436)
Yeah.
Hawk (28:58.494)
Mm-hmm.
Hawk (29:04.434)
Yeah.
Zee (29:06.274)
you know, I'm leaning more towards Democrat, but I just don't feel honest voting for a Democrat because I feel like the Democratic Party isn't serving us. I feel like their investments don't make sense for me. So it's more of those conversations to sort of get them to understand that, yes, we are in a very tough situation. Yes, we not we might not fully agree with where the Democratic Party is right now, but it is our responsibility as citizens of this country to participate. And we can't
participate in the Republican Party because it's been taken over by Donald Trump. So it is.
Hawk (29:40.99)
Okay, so that's all fat, that's, I mean.
That's almost overwhelming for me because I've also had a theory for the last eight years that elected Republicans are absolutely terrified of their base, of their MAGA base, because their MAGA base are crazy and violent. And that for as long as I can remember, with elected Democrats, the exact opposite is true. They just don't listen to and ignore their base because they're like, who else are you going to vote for? And we know that you guys aren't crazy and violent. And what you just described
Zee (29:48.012)
it.
Hawk (30:17.156)
of going out and actually listening to voters on a large scale within that context is kind of blowing my mind right now. Because it's like, it's like what a remarkably obvious thing to do. And it's so obvious that no other Democrats are doing it.
Zee (30:27.33)
Yeah, it is, I think that...
Zee (30:32.567)
Yeah.
Zee (30:36.878)
Yeah.
Well, this idea really like for credit really to change the conversation, which is a nonprofit out there that I think it was really, I mean, not the first people to deep canvassing. mean, deep canvassing has been around since the beginning of time, but I mean, have really pushed the conversation in deep canvassing and proven statistically that this works. They worked with somebody named Max Rose in Staten Island. For those of who don't know Staten Island, we're talking like, yeah, it is in New York, obviously, but it's full of cops, firefighters,
Hawk (30:50.194)
Sure.
Hawk (30:59.789)
yeah.
Zee (31:07.5)
It is a very red district, deep red district. Yeah, very red. And I can actually personally attest to this. I went to school in Staten Island and I can tell you, I don't think I met a Democrat there ever. so, know, what Max Rose did as a Democrat that ran in 2017 in that district was that he said, I'm not going to invest heavily into ads. I'm going to invest heavily into deep canvassing. And because of that, he flipped a Republican district for the first time, I want to say in at least 30 years from red to blue.
Hawk (31:10.354)
Very, very red.
Hawk (31:35.934)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (31:37.382)
we know that it works, but the problem with deep canvassing is that you can't make money doing it. It's unfortunate because, you know, as a consultant in this industry, the goal is usually to, yes, win elections, but to make money winning elections. And it is very, very difficult to do that deep canvassing. So that's why you see that most campaigns don't do it and almost no consultants, you know, offer it.
Hawk (31:44.264)
Sure. Yeah.
Hawk (32:05.82)
Yeah.
Hawk (32:11.077)
So, all right, so let's pivot a little bit. I wanna talk about your organization, your website for National Ground Game. I know that just over the last couple of months since my brother and I got involved in some of this stuff, we've been trying to direct everybody to you guys. And so tell people about some of the things that you guys offer to...
people who want to get involved who don't necessarily live in one of these two districts.
Zee (32:42.774)
Yeah, so.
really their goal at National Ground Game, if you guys have never like heard of us before, we're a bunch of old Bernie slash, you know, other progressive staffers that, you know, some may call us Bernie-bers, you know, I'm not sure. But essentially, we believe that we can absolutely take back this country on a populist message. That's what Donald Trump did, even though it was fake populism, but clearly, and we saw that
Hawk (33:11.976)
Mm-hmm.
Zee (33:14.112)
all the polls across the board, Bernie Sanders would have beat Donald Trump by at least plus 10. And some even said up to plus 18, right? So we know that if we get a pot, and we obviously know that Bernie Sanders is not running for office. he's gonna be what, 87 or something by the time that.
Hawk (33:30.216)
Sure.
Hawk (33:33.96)
Something like that, yeah.
Zee (33:35.188)
like that. we know that that's not going to happen. However, you know, we do have other populists around, you know, we have AOC, we have other people, we have Jasmine Crockett, we have people that are running on a more populist platform that are getting ready to potentially move into higher positions later or in the next five to 10 years. So really, our goal is that before we have a populist run in 2028, we need to get out there. We really need to do solid groundwork, particularly in areas that Trump wants.
that he shouldn't have, right? Places like Virginia that were like scarily close to turning red, which has never been a red state, you know? States like that are showing that we have not put in the groundwork that says that we are even close to being ready for a 2028 presidential run against Trump, which by the way could very well happen. mean, Trump has made it clear that he may be looking for a third term. So, you know, and even if it's not against Trump, it's going to be against somebody that's equally as
Hawk (34:13.032)
Yeah. Yeah.
Hawk (34:27.998)
Ugh.
Zee (34:35.032)
dangerous.
We need to get out there. We need to get the groundwork moving right now. So we are working on select places that we think we can move the needle significantly. So what we're doing is we're putting up those opportunities on our link tree and on our website so that we can have people call into those places, send postcards to those places, maybe even, you know, in some select areas, get out on the ground and canvas in those places. So that way we can really start to actually shift and change things before we end up
back at 28 where we're already starting as the underdog.
Hawk (35:11.87)
Okay. All right. I want to ask more of a kind of philosophical question, I guess, ties into what I was saying earlier about elected Democrats kind of ignoring their base. I I think we saw such a such a tangible example of that a couple of weeks ago with Chuck Schumer and the government funding bill.
Zee (35:36.95)
yeah.
Hawk (35:41.247)
But you you mentioned 2016 and Bernie and I just I remember so palpably in the 2008 primaries between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and 2016 between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and just and and and some of the things that I've seen Nancy Pelosi do this term relative to which Democrats want, you know, leadership positions on committees.
which she did the AOC on oversight. mean, it's like, you know, and I've lived in San Francisco for almost 25 years, and this absolutely permeates San Francisco politics as well. It's like certain democratic politicians that are like, No, it's my turn. As opposed to actually competing for things. It's like it becomes, it's my turn, I'm entitled to this position or whatever.
Zee (36:29.388)
Yeah.
Hawk (36:39.26)
or this candidacy and is like, mean, how do we break something like that?
Zee (36:48.406)
You know...
I think we do it in the primaries. mean, that's really like where, and part of our problem is that, you know, we have not properly organized in the primaries or taken primaries necessarily as seriously as we should. I know right now that if Nancy Pelosi is your representative, that Seykhart is running against Nancy Pelosi. Seykhart was a these old chief of staff. Zach Exley is actually running his campaign.
is an old friend that I've known for many, years that has worked with Bernie, that has worked on numerous other races, in fact, worked on politics worldwide. And so we really need to focus in on the primaries and we need to start putting, not just our money where our mouth is, we need to start putting our action where our mouth is because everything that happens online is great, but that needs to somehow translate into calling direct voters. That needs to translate into getting out.
in canvassing and needs to translate into that direct voter contact. And that's sort of been the gap that the Democrats have not filled where the Republicans are filling aggressively, right? Like the Republicans have figured this out to a T. They set up people like Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens and Aidan Ross and Fresh and Fit, and they do all this to make that pipeline, right? And that pipeline has worked because the reality of the situation is if it didn't work, then we
Hawk (38:16.22)
Yeah.
Zee (38:19.568)
would have won the young person vote and we didn't. We didn't win people, right? You know, it's stunning to me too, but it hurts because it feels like, you know,
Hawk (38:23.026)
Yeah, that is still stunning to me. It's stunning.
Zee (38:32.054)
young people should always vote Democrat. They always have voted. Like, why should they not? But they're not because we have not invested in the online infrastructure that has transcended into the real world infrastructure that they've been able to do. And that pains me because the reality is, that if you look at all of it, now that I'm like deeper into TikTok and I'm really trying, really understanding it for the first time, we have the talent there. Like, it's not like the talent doesn't exist, right? Like, in fact, we have
Hawk (38:35.454)
Mm-hmm.
Hawk (38:46.142)
Yeah.
Hawk (38:58.536)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Zee (39:02.128)
I would argue, and maybe this is bold of me, but like I would argue that we have more followers and more talent on the left side, but we don't utilize it in the way that connects to campaigns, that connects to the real world that the Republicans are able to do. And that's a big goal of National Ground Game too, is that we are going to connect those pieces. That is a big goal of ours this year.
Hawk (39:25.222)
Okay. All right, I'm going to wind down a little bit here. So I just want to tell everybody watching this, please go to national ground game.com. This is not just about these two Florida special elections. It's about getting ready for the midterms a year from November. And I want to strongly encourage everybody who sees this to go to that website and get involved.
and start doing the kind of work that Z has been talking about for the last 40 minutes. So just to wrap things up, Z is, I mean, you know, it's lunchtime on Friday, March 28th. the special, well, early voting in these two districts is going on now in Florida. Election day is in three days, on Tuesday, April 1st. Is there anything that people can still do?
To help?
Zee (40:20.846)
yeah, listen, this is like we're in prime time right now. So you can canvas if you so choose, if you're in Florida, that's something that you can do. If you can canvas, please go to our website, sign up to do that. And also because it's so late, you might not get an email. So please also reach out to me. You can DM me on TikTok if you want to canvas. My ad is Z to the Hill or it might come up as my name, which is Z runs campaigns. So please DM me.
so I don't miss you. And then the other thing, most honestly, the most important thing right now is phone banking, phone banking and more phone banking. The more calls that we make, the more people that we are, we are seeing a direct correlation between the calls that we make and the counties that are turning out. So remember that one county right now in Gays District, what I looked at it yesterday was down to the exact vote. We were literally tied by the vote in that county, which means that your one phone call could actually
tip in entire county. Not to put pressure. I've not tried to put pressure, but...
Hawk (41:24.862)
And that's in Matt Gaetz's former district that he won by 30 points in 2024. That's bonkers. That is bonkers.
Zee (41:30.19)
Yes, by 30 points.
Yeah, it was like 1887 to like 1587 and then there was like 200 NPAs in there, right? So like that's how close we're talking. So if you want a phone bank, go to, you can either go to the website. Again, if you go to the website, you might not get contact for a day or two because it's on like a day or two behind cycle. So the fastest way to do it is to go to the link in my bio. You can also visit Hear Me Out on this, who is a good personal friend of mine.
has the link in her bio and you can sign up to phone bank instantly. You don't even have to do a training. We have a YouTube like training that you can just sit in and the dialers open every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. So you can dial any time between those hours between now and election day.
Hawk (42:21.726)
All right, that's amazing. We will get the links to all of those things in the show notes for when you guys see this on YouTube. And once again, I want to thank you so much, Zee, for taking the time out. I know it's three and a half days before this election. And I know you guys are busy, but I really, really appreciate you taking the time.
Zee (42:44.876)
No, thank you so much for having us and for giving us this exposure. We appreciate it so much.
Hawk (42:49.745)
Always, always, always. All right, thanks again for watching everybody. Have a great weekend and be safe.