How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time by Sarah Longwell — the first book from the publisher of The Bulwark and one of the most closely watched focus-group practitioners in American politics. Foreword by Jonathan V. Last.
After the 2024 election, Longwell did what she has done nearly every week since 2018: she sat down with voters. Hundreds of focus groups. Thousands of ordinary Americans — Republicans, Democrats, and the politically homeless.
Those conversations are the heart of this book. Longwell, a former Republican operative who left the party and helped build The Bulwark, argues that defeating MAGA-style politics is not a matter of one more poll or a fight over whether Democrats should move left or center. It is a communications fight: dominate the narrative, build infrastructure the way the right has for decades, and talk to voters like adults.
Equal parts memoir, playbook, and pep talk, How to Eat an Elephant weaves her own journey — from GOP politics in the 2000s to the anti-MAGA project — with the fears, frustrations, and hopes she hears again and again from the people who decide elections.
How do you eat an elephant? One voter at a time.
