What It Takes

Jackie Payne on the Moderate Women Who Decide Elections After Donald Trump won in 2016, Jackie Payne did something unusual. She got in a car and spent two years just listening to women. What she found was a huge number of moderate women — in the suburbs and small towns — that both parties keep underestimating, and keep getting wrong. Closing that gap with America’s largest single voting bloc would...

Democrats have a branding problem. Joe Walsh and Yemisi Egbewole think they know why. They took very different roads into the Democratic Party. Walsh was a Tea Party congressman who campaigned for Donald Trump in 2016. Egbewole ran communications in Joe Biden's White House — and now she's a political commentator on Fox News. They both have ideas about why the Democratic Party feels so out of touch...

Bobby Pulido spent thirty years building a career as a Tejano music star. Now he's running for Congress in South Texas, in one of the poorest parts of the state, trying to unseat a Republican incumbent. Pulido's opponent mocked his music career, saying the election wasn't about who you want performing at your niece's quinceañera. So he turned that dig into four thousand invitations to quinceañeras...

Nikki Budzinski is the kind of Democrat a lot of people say the party needs more of — a reluctant politician who came up in the labor movement and now represents a sprawling district in downstate Illinois. But she'd be the first to tell you her party has lost touch with the voters she grew up around. She was born in Peoria, moved around as a kid, and landed back in the heartland. She likes to say...

Rahm Emanuel believes in Israel. He also thinks its government is making historic mistakes. In Part 2 of our conversation, he aims his critique in every direction. Sarah McCammon spoke with Ambassador Emanuel in Chicago about the Jewish upbringing that still shapes him, why he confronted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his face in 2009, and why he says the party's divide on Israel is...

Rahm Emanuel has a reputation for two things: a tough demeanor and a policy nerd's command of detail. In Part 1 of our interview, he lives up to both. Ambassador Emanuel argues that America has spent 25 years sleepwalking — through the Iraq war, the Great Recession, and the pandemic — and that the people responsible were never held accountable. His solution starts somewhere you might not expect: a...

Catherine Cortez Masto has run and won twice in Nevada — even in an environment where Republicans had a six-point advantage. She's already the person many presidential hopefuls want to talk to as Democratic hopefuls plot their path to victory in the Silver State, first in a Democratic primary as Nevadans lobby to be first in the nation, and then as a battleground in the general election.   The gra...

In 2025, Eileen Higgins was elected the first female mayor of Miami and the first Democrat to lead the city in nearly thirty years. She beat a Trump-endorsed candidate by close to twenty points—in neighborhoods where many residents were skeptical of Democrats. Higgins left a corporate career to run the Peace Corps in Belize, served as a diplomat, then won a county commission seat representing Litt...

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill flipped five Trump counties last year and outran Kamala Harris statewide — with a message aimed squarely at voters in the middle, promising to tackle the cost of living and get government working. Sherrill is a former Navy pilot and the first female veteran ever elected governor. Sarah McCammon talks to Gov. Sherrill in Trenton about how she actually flipped Trum...

What It Takes with Sarah McCammon is Unmoderated News's flagship podcast that examines the personal stories that shape a new generation of leaders. The first episode premieres Thursday, May 14 featuring an exclusive conversation with New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal da...