She saw Trump coming in 2016 better than anyone. What does Salena Zito see for 2024?

If you’ve heard the phrase about how you should take former President Donald Trump “seriously but not literally,” you can thank Salena Zito. The reporter from Pittsburgh coined the incisive observation in a column in The Atlantic in September 2016. When Trump was speaking about the unemployment rate among Black youths in America — a claim that drove fact-checkers crazy — Zito positioned it this way: “When he makes claims like this, the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

Unlike most of the Acela Media — sitting in newsrooms in New York City and Washington, occasionally helicoptering into a small town, talking to a few people in a diner, and heading back to their East Coast home — Zito spent 2016 crisscrossing the country. And not racking up air miles either — she drove. Along the way, she was able to see something most couldn’t: that Trump had a real shot to upset Hillary Clinton and shock the world (and of course, the media itself).

She would go on to write the seminal book about the Trump phenomenon and victory, “The Great Revolt.”

Zito has continued her reporting from the road, and maintains a perspective few have. In addition to traveling across the country, she’s interviewed every major candidate running for president on the Republican side. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Zito over the past few years, and checked in with her again at the end of last week on what she’s seeing now.

As we look ahead to the 2024 election, almost exactly one year from today, we have to look at the elections this week. “We should focus on these moments,” Zito told me. “They tell us a lot about where people are in these moments. Both parties need to understand it and make it part of their platform in 2024.”

Tuesday night was great for the Democrats, and an ominous sign for the Republicans. The Democratic Kentucky governor won reelection easily, while the GOP governor in Mississippi just squeaked by. Democrats now control both houses in Virginia. In Ohio, an abortion amendment passed easily.

But there were other races that were worth watching, according to Zito, that may have flown under the radar. She recently reported on a district attorney race in Allegheny County, Pa., where the Democrat is on the far left and was given millions by George Soros–backed groups. There, the Republican pulled out a victory. “These local elections impact the larger elections next year, and they tell us where the Democratic Party is,” Zito told me.

Zito said another reason to watch these 2022 and 2023 elections closely is because lag time in voters seeing the victorious candidates’ policies actually take effect. She described one example in practice: Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, a far-left candidate who beat a more moderate Democrat, won office in 2021, and, according to Zito, hurt the city she knows so well. “We have homelessness out of control, we have crime out of control, businesses closing left and right, and nobody goes downtown because it smells like urine,” she said. Will voters see the effect of these elections and turn elsewhere in 2024?

And then there’s the 2024 GOP primary race. Zito says there’s a chance the polls showing a big Trump lead might not turn out to be accurate. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Iowa and New Hampshire listening to voters. I can see a scenario, based on anecdotal reporting, where DeSantis wins Iowa, Haley wins New Hampshire, and then all bets are off going into South Carolina,” she told me.

“There is a nuance to Trump supporters,” she continued. “They like what he did, thought his policies were great, but they’re also really exhausted. His behavior is reflected on them because they supported him. So they’re shopping in their head, looking for someone who is willing to go to the mattresses. DeSantis and Haley have proven they have that ability, but also have governing experience, and the ability to be pragmatic. That’s where voters are.”

In fact, Zito laid out a possibility that would astonish the media once again — on not just Trump, but Biden too: “I would not be shocked if neither man is the nominee.”

And then there’s the wildcard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent, seeing upwards of 20 percent in most three-way-race polls, and actually winning independents and young voters when facing Trump and Biden. “He’s the Ross Perot of 1992. It’s unclear who he impacts the most [between Trump and Biden], and that’s what’s interesting,” she told me. “With Trump, it’s comportment. With Biden, it’s his age. RFK can take voters from both sides.”

A new issue has emerged as a potential major factor in the 2024 race — Israel and Hamas. Zito has already seen the effect of the campus craziness being out-of-step with most of the country.

Nationally, she told me, “the Democratic strategy is to marry ‘MAGA extremists’ with abortion, and run on that.” But she cautions the term “extremists” has a new definition since the October 7 terror attack in Israel. “‘Extremist’ has all of a sudden changed based on what we’ve seen in the streets,” she said. “People aren’t dumb. They’re going to say, ‘so what really is an extremist? Is it someone that supports Republicans, or someone out in the streets wanting Jews to die?’”

“Republicans have their own whole set of crazy problems, but this one could stick with Democrats for a generation,” Zito told me.

Put the American reaction to Israel, Trump and his multitude of trials, the Biden “replacement” possibility, RFK Jr.’s presence and any other number of unforeseen twists and turns along the way to November into a blender — and let’s see what comes out at the end. We’re one year away from finding out the culmination of so much media chatter, empty punditry, polls and predictions. Whatever the result, it’s worth continuing to take Salena Zito seriously and literally along the way as she reports on the actual mood the country.

Steve Krakauer, a NewsNation contributor, is the author of “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People” and editor and host of the Fourth Watch newsletter and podcast.