The issue that's animating a key slice of the Democratic base: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Steve Kornacki digs into an issue split between Democratic leaders and their base. Plus, Matt Dixon explores the fallout from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ interviews with Vanity Fair.

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— Adam Wollner

The issue that's animating a key slice of the Democratic base

Analysis by Steve Kornacki

As the 2026 battlefield takes shape, Democratic leaders are focusing their messaging on issues of affordability and the cost and availability of health care. There’s a good reason for this. Our new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey shows that these are broadly resonant themes, with 44% of all adults saying that it’s either the economy or health care that matters most to them — a number that reaches over 50% among independents.

For both independents and Republicans, the combination of the economy and health care outpaces all other issues in importance. In a twist, though, this is not the case for Democrats, who instead cite a different issue as the most important to them: threats to democracy.

Looking closer, this is driven by a particular segment of the Democratic base. A majority of white Democrats (53%) rate threats to democracy as their most important issue. That number is far lower among Hispanic (25%) and Black (22%) Democrats. Add in educational attainment and the data becomes more stark. Among white Democrats with at least a bachelor’s degree, threats to democracy are three times as resonant as the economy and health care combined.

White, college-educated Americans have been growing in size and force within the Democratic Party, particularly since President Donald Trump’s emergence a decade ago. These numbers reflect how animated these Americans are by Trump himself and by the culture wars that have flared up around him. And they point to some tension within the party’s coalition, which still includes many who aren’t economically upscale and respond more to appeals on bread-and-butter issues.

Heading into next year’s midterm elections, this may not be a problem for the party, since white, college-educated Democrats have demonstrated a strong desire to turn out and vote against the GOP throughout the Trump era. So even if the party’s messaging eschews their top issue, there’s no reason to think they won’t still turn out in droves.

But it’s a dynamic that could be messier after 2026, when Democrats begin to chart a course for the post-Trump era.

💲 More numbers: A majority of U.S. adults (55%) said they will spend less on holiday gifts this year compared with last year, according to the NBC News Decision Desk Poll. Read more →

White House scrambles to address Susie Wiles’ explosive Vanity Fair interviews

Analysis by Matt Dixon

Susie Wiles generally helps quietly shape headlines. She is rarely the focus of them.

That changed in dramatic fashion today after Vanity Fair published a deeply reported profile of the 68-year-old White House chief of staff, whose decades-long career in politics has been defined by a measured, steady-the-ship tone, never one that could be construed as undermining her boss.

In the two-part Vanity Fair piece — which included 11 interviews over nearly a year, with the White House’s cooperation — Wiles comes off as far more candid than her public persona. She not only speaks openly about both President Donald Trump and those who make up the core of his administration, but appears to acknowledge that at times she has been at odds with some of the policies that have been central to Trump’s second term. While not unusual for a chief of staff to disagree with the president they serve, those concerns generally remain part of private conversations.

Wiles revealed there had been “huge disagreements” over implementing tariffs, acknowledged that the administration must “look harder” at its process for mass deportation and said she had to “get on board” with Trump’s decision to give blanket pardons to Jan. 6 defendants. She said she initially believed only those who did not commit violent acts should be pardoned.

The response: The profile prompted an all-hands-on-deck pushback from the White House and Trump’s political orbit. The central talking point became that the profile lacked context, and supporters blasted the outlet for being unfair rather than offering any direct refutation of the authenticity of quotes or what was reported.

Wiles herself also offered rare public condemnation.

“Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story,” she posted on social media. “I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.”

In an interview with the New York Post, Trump defended his top staffer.

“I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided,” he said. Trump added “she’s fantastic” when asked if he continues to have full confidence in Wiles.

What comes next: The broader questions raised by the profile will now likely be twofold: Will Wiles be able to continue to effectively do her job for a president known to be averse to bad headlines, and why did the administration agree to participate?

“I do not know what they were thinking,” said a former administration official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “You can’t trust Vanity Fair. I have full faith in the people around President Trump, but I’m not sure what they were thinking here.”

Read more from Matt →

➡️ Related: Rebecca Shabad has the top takeaways from Wiles’ interviews with Vanity Fair.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

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