As Townhall has been covering throughout Monday, a CBS News/YouGov poll was released over the weekend showing particularly good news for President-elect Donald Trump, as Americans approve of his transition and the nominees he's put forth to fill his Cabinet. The poll findings aren't just full of hopeful signs for Trump as he gets ready to start his second term, but bad news for Democrats as well. Further, it turns out that there are other polls out there showing bad signs as well, after the Democratic Party faced catastrophic losses earlier this month.
One part of the poll examined how Americans feel following Trump's win, and compared to how they felt in 2016 when he was elected for the first time. More than half, at 54 percent, of Republicans say they feel "excited" when it comes to what Trump will do as president, while 50 percent of Democrats say they're "scared." When it comes to how they feel about Trump's win, 68 percent of Republicans say they're "happy," while close to a majority of Democrats, at 48 percent, say they're "angry." Another 37 percent of Democrats say they're "dissatisfied."
This time, Republicans are more excited than they were in 2016, while Democrats claim to be even more scared. As the poll's write-up highlighted:
Overall, Republicans today are more excited about what Trump will do as president now than they were in 2016 when he was first elected.
Democrats say they feel more scared about what Trump might do than they did in 2016, and a large majority of Democrats think as president he will threaten their rights and freedoms. But at the same time, there seems to be a sense of exhaustion, as fewer than half of Democrats feel motivated to oppose Trump right now.
Americans, and Democrats specifically, do think the Biden administration should work with the incoming Trump administration to ensure a smooth transition, and that congressional Democrats should work with Donald Trump on issues where they find common ground.
When it comes to this motivation for Democrats to "oppose" Trump, more so actually say that the election doesn't motivate them either way. A plurality, at 46 percent, answered that his election "won't motivate [them] to do anything either way." Forty-four percent say they're "motivated to do things to oppose his efforts as president."
Seventy-one percent of Democrats fear that Trump will "threaten your rights and freedoms" as president. Although the poll's language is vague when it comes to mentioning these "rights and freedoms," to Democrats that almost always includes abortion.
While Vice President Kamala Harris, the Harris-Walz ticket, and the Democratic Party as a whole focused on hysterical concerns about abortion, often engaging in fearmongering and spreading lies throughout the campaign, Trump has repeatedly made clear that he sees abortion as an issue for the states to decide. He's also mentioned that he would veto a federal abortion ban if it came across his desk as president.
These concerns, as well as how Democrats are more concerned than they were in 2016, make even less sense with another poll finding, given that 67 percent of Democrats believe that Trump will have "less presidential power than he did his last term."
The write-up also featured a CBS News segment focusing on these Democrats' concerns, with more vague phrasing on "individual rights," though Democrats do want to see some bipartisanship as well.
The poll was conducted November 19-22, though still plenty more Cabinet picks were announced on the poll's last day, which was last Friday. There were 2,232 U.S. adults surveyed, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
Such a poll wasn't just mentioned on CBS News on Sunday, but also on CNN, where Scott Jennings discussed the poll while on "CNN Newsroom," as well as how Democrats should react going forward. As we covered earlier, Julie Roginsky, who was also on the program, tried to bring up obstruction, but Jennings shut that suggestion right down, as he once more reminded, just as he has done in the past, that Trump has a mandate, and also that Republicans also won control of both the House and the Senate.
But, this CBS News poll wasn't the only one with bad news for Democrats. Last Friday, Pew Research released a new poll showing that 49 percent of Democrats and those who lean Democrat feel "pessimistic" about the future of their party. Such a finding was the focus of the headline and the opening of the poll's write-up, given that it's the highest level for Democrats saying so in eight years.
As the write-up from Pew Research also mentioned [Emphasis original]:
Democrats are much more pessimistic about the Democratic Party’s future than people in either party have been about their party since 2016. While 51% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they are very or somewhat optimistic about the party’s future, 49% are pessimistic.
- The share of Democrats who say they are pessimistic about their party’s future is about 20 percentage points higher than it was after the 2022 midterm elections (28%), which yielded mixed results on this question for both parties. It’s also about 10 points higher than after Hillary Clinton’s presidential defeat to Trump in 2016.
- Among Democrats, pessimism is more pronounced among adults under age 50 (55%) than among older people (39%).
- Liberal Democrats (52%) are somewhat more pessimistic than conservative and moderate Democrats (46%).
The poll was conducted November 12-17 with 9,609 U.S. adults and a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
Democrats may certainly have reason to be pessimistic, especially as a poll released last week from Echelon Insights showed that 41 percent of them want Harris as the nominee in 2028 if the primary were held today. Sixteen percent are unsure. As Madeline covered earlier on Monday, she could be running for governor.