Good news for Democrats! Donald Trump is tanking in recent polls.
Bad news for Democrats! The party is tanking in recent polls.
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Welcome to the reality of the political landscape. In general, outside of die-hard partisans, no one is satisfied with anyone. The question is, what does that mean for elections?
If you look at Trump’s polling numbers, you’d be hard put to see anything good. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week had his approval rating at 42%. Another high-quality poll, from Quinnipiac, had his approval rating at 38%. In that poll, men — considered the core of Trump’s coalition — split evenly, with 46% of men both approving and disapproving of his performance. A majority of women and independents disapproved. It was thanks to self-identified Republicans that Trump mustered as much support as he did, with 86% of them approving of his work.
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Even there, though, there are warning signs. A majority of Republicans in an AP-NORC poll released shortly after Charlie Kirk’s assassination think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Political violence obviously shaped many respondents’ views, but interestingly, there was a huge spike in the number of Republicans under 45 years of age who think things are going wrong, as well as among women. Some of that increase appears to be due to the sputtering economy.
Of course, the Republican Party and Trump are synonymous at this point, so it’s no surprise that the party isn’t looking so hot in the polls either. In the Quinnipiac poll, only 38% of respondents viewed the party favorably. Moreover, if the government ends up shutting down due to an impasse over the budget, polls suggest the Republicans will get the bulk of the blame.
So much for the good news for Democrats. The polls are just as punishing for them as they are for Republicans.
Approval of the party is at historic lows. In the Quinnipiac poll, only 30% of respondents had a favorable view of the Democrats. Moreover, in spite of all of Trump’s problems, voters still think Republicans are better at many key issues than Democrats. In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, 40% of voters think the GOP is better at dealing with crime and immigration, compared to 20% and 22% respectively for Democrats. Even on the economy, 34% think the GOP is better, compared to 24% for Democrats. It’s only on issues like health care and women’s rights that Democrats are viewed more favorably.
Some of the dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party comes from Democrats themselves. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from June showed that almost half of Democrats asked were unhappy with the party leadership, and more than 60% wanted the current leadership replaced.
The party leadership’s lack of fight against Trump has been a sore point for many Democrats. The number of primary challenges that incumbents face is growing because the party seems to be stuck in a political bubble that exists only in its own mind. Faced with growing threats to democracy and Trump sending troops into cities, party leaders seem to think that talking about health care as if it’s 2008 is the proper response.
The reason that Democrats are in such a bad place is that the political landscape is changing rapidly, and Democrats haven’t formulated a new way forward. Instead, the party seems to be relying on consultants who are urging them to talk about the issues where Trump is weak without providing any new ideas to galvanize voters.
Democrats are also faltering on issues because they have been choosing to avoid topics instead of trying to reshape the debate around them. Nowhere is that truer than when it comes to trans rights issues. Polls show that a significant number of voters think that the party is too focused on trans issues at the expense of economic issues. That’s because the party failed to push back hard enough on Republican attacks on trans people. How hard is it to say that the GOP is attacking parental rights by going after trans kids? Apparently, it’s very hard for Democrats.
Instead, you have Democrats who want to abandon principles because that’s easier than coming up with a new approach to issues. Would-be presidential candidate Gavin Newsom happily threw trans people under the bus in an interview with, of all people, Charlie Kirk. New York Times columnist Ezra Klein floated the idea that Democrats should run anti-abortion candidates in red states, even though pro-abortion initiatives have won on the ballot in red states.
Rebuilding a party isn’t easy. Rethinking how to keep your principles while navigating a changing electorate is incredibly hard. But thinking that you can win elections simply because the other guy is doing a bad job isn’t going to work for the Democrats.
Right now, the electorate is unhappy with both parties. Relying on them to be unhappier with your opponent is a lousy strategy.
The polls are telling Democrats they need to be something other than what they were. Unless the party can rise to the challenge, Trump will maintain the advantage of incumbency and all the power it grants him, plus the power that he seizes.
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