How two college friends reunited to build a thriving politics podcast

Pantsuit Politics succeeded by not trying to cater to audiences in coastal cities.

Editor’s note: This article was produced by Carson Brunson, a freelance writer based in Nashville.

In 2015, Sarah Stewart Holland picked up the phone to call someone she hadn’t spoken to in years. She and Beth Silvers had been sorority sisters at Transylvania University in Kentucky, but since graduating over a decade earlier, their interactions had been mostly limited to Facebook likes and comments.

But as soon as they started catching up, Holland noticed they had the conversational chemistry that would translate well to a podcast. Before hanging up, she joked, “We’re not going to talk anymore unless we’re recording it.” And that’s what they did.

Both moms to newborns, they carved out late-night hours after bedtime to sit down in front of a microphone and talk politics on their new podcast, Pantsuit Politics. “It met a need for us,” Silvers said. “I was shocked that anyone was listening at all from the beginning. We really weren't trying to make a product. We would have never used that word at the beginning. It was just fulfilling to be able to sit down with another adult and talk about the news.”

More than 10 years earlier, Holland and Silvers went their separate ways after graduating from college in 2003 to attend law school. Holland headed to D.C. and, after earning her law degree, pursued a career in politics as a congressional staffer and campaign aide. Silvers practiced business restructuring law (a hot field during the 2008 financial crisis) before becoming an HR executive. Eventually, Holland moved back to her hometown of Paducah, Kentucky, to start a family and transitioned from politics to blogging. She launched a parenting blog with a friend and also had her own blog where she wrote about politics.

Silvers, on parental leave and spending a lot of time scrolling while feeding her newborn, followed along. “I liked how she would do a stroller review next to thoughts on the civil war in Syria,” she said. “I thought it was really interesting.” She decided to reach out to Holland to see if she could contribute a couple of guest posts. After reading Silvers’ writing and perspectives, Holland wondered: What else could they do together? Holland’s husband, an early podcast devotee, encouraged her to start one herself. While podcasts were gaining popularity, there weren’t many in the political space. After that initial catch-up phone call, the pieces came together, and Holland and Silvers recorded their inaugural Pantsuit Politics episode in November 2015. Just four months later, each episode was pulling in around 5,000 downloads.

Now, nearly a decade later, Pantsuit Politics is still thriving and has grown to include two full-time employees and a contractor. In a recent interview, Holland and Silvers discussed how they grew the podcast’s listenership, how they’ve monetized the podcast (including hosting a widely attended live event in Paducah), why they moved from Patreon to Substack, and what is (and isn’t) next for them.

Let’s jump into the findings…

Building a non-coastal audience

While the podcast primarily focused on politics, its appeal wasn’t just the subject matter. There was a unique dynamic between the hosts: Holland sat on the left side of the political aisle, while Silvers sat on the right. In their premiere episode, they introduced themselves as “a woman from the right and a woman from the left that accessorize the news with a fresh perspective.”