Years of demonization by the Radical Right have made sure most people have no idea what the Democratic Party really is.
Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich presented a gullible audience with a cartoon version of politics, in which the Dems are always the bumbling bad guys, and people bought it. They've made sure that the "debate" ever since is about impressions, emotions, and insults, not facts. When you start checking facts about which policies have benefited American voters and which haven't, the GOP loses big-time. Ask any R voter what the GOP has done for them and they'll usually come up with "they cut our taxes", never mind that the GOP in office has never offered anything more than token tax relief to middle-class voters, and always balanced that with giveaways and deregulation of corps that have cost R voters far more than they've ever paid in taxes, anyway.
If you ain't rich, the GOP is not on your side. Not ever.