Are they that devastated by Donald Trump’s return to the White House? Democrats are hoping history and voter backlash on the GOP agenda will buoy them to electoral success next year. There are many problems, not least being that they have no message, no agenda, and no charismatic leaders to rally around.
They’re a mess—I don’t know how many polls they disregard, but even liberal pollsters know the Democratic Party’s approval rating is trash. The Wall Street Journal found it to be the worst in 35 years, and before they get to a mountain of issues to mount a comeback, they’re failing at persuading voters that they’d do a better job. CNN’s Harry Enten was more brutal: the Democrats are “breaking records in a way you don’t want to break records.”
🚨 NEW POLLS: DEMOCRAT PARTY HITS ‘RECORD LOWS IN FAVORABILITY’
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) July 28, 2025
“The Democrat party is breaking records in a way you don’t want to break records,” says CNN’s Harry Enten pic.twitter.com/5VDOL25FTL
The Democratic Party’s image has eroded to its lowest point in more than three decades, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll, with voters seeing Republicans as better at handling most issues that decide elections.
The new survey finds that 63% of voters hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party—the highest share in Journal polls dating to 1990 and 30 percentage points higher than the 33% who hold a favorable view.
That is a far weaker assessment than voters give to either President Trump or the Republican Party, who are viewed more unfavorably than favorably by 7 points and 11 points, respectively. A mere 8% of voters view the Democrats “very favorably,” compared with 19% who show that level of enthusiasm for the GOP.
Democrats have been hoping that a voter backlash against the president will be powerful enough to restore their majority in the House in next year’s midterm elections, much as it did during Trump’s first term. But the Journal poll shows that the party hasn’t yet accomplished a needed first step in that plan: persuading voters they can do a better job than Trump’s party.
On the whole, voters disapprove of the president’s handling of the economy, inflation, tariffs and foreign policy. And yet in each case, the new Journal poll found, voters nonetheless say they trust Republicans rather than Democrats to handle those same issues in Congress.
I’m skeptical of those polls. Ex-MNSBC host Chris Matthews, who called Trump's first inaugural address “Hitlerian,” said he dismisses the negative polls because the president a) knows the pulse of the country and b) the nation is trending toward Trump on the issues. As of now, Democrats have doubled down on being insane. Some guests may say the right things about the party being too niche, left-wing, radical, and condescending, but the party writ large appears comfortable setting itself on fire again.
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