Democratic Party's Low Polling Numbers Explained

[Pototan]

Pundits, and especially MAGA mouthpieces like to recite the low polling numbers for the Democratic Party. Of course, those same polls have the Republicans just a few points better.

I think the reason is simple. The Democratic faithful want the elected Democrats to fight against Trump harder. Trump's approval numbers are abysmal.

Now, I want to defend the elected Democrats. Our system does not give the minority party much power, especially when both branches of the legislature and the President are your opposition. Add to that a MAGA friendly Supreme Court, and you can see the uphill fight our elected men and women have.

The House Democrats, being able to wrangle the handful of Republicans to join in signing discharge petitions, is no small fete. The Epstein files and a vote on extending the ACA are both major accomplishments within the legislature.

But, back to my original point. The special, off year and local elections have been nearly a clean sweep in overperformance. With almost all being double digit improvements over last year's results.

We, as Democratic voters, are willing to give our side the political ammunition needed to combat the Trump agenda. I really don't want to judge Democratic effectiveness until we have a majority in one, or both, branches of Congress.

[FalloutShelter]

1. Many Democrats expect their elected Dem reps to lead the revolution.

That is not their job. They are desperately trying to hold things together as the wrecking ball continues to destroy our nation. The GOP is bent on destruction.
We have to decide if we want to come out of this with a Constitution or not.
Governments officials do not lead Revolutions… that is up to the people.

It is said that critics stand on a high cliff and complain as adversaries do battle in the valley below… then they ride down into the valley and kill all of the survivors.
We NEED the survivors.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. The GOP embraces their protesters and far right spokesmen

The Dems try to stop their grass root protest organizations and will even condemn their far left spokesmen. Look what Obama did with occupy. Only recently have I seen elected Dems go on liberal media shows on YouTube and podcasts.

Instead, Dems try to be mini conservatives and embrace far right economic policy like "free" trade.

But it's really not the fault of the Democratic party. It's how the economic system is rigged. Money makes money. It's never an even playing field. So wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. The few make more capital off their inherited capital. And you can make more capital if you are greedy uncaring, heartless, cruel and a bit stupid. So they are mostly right wing idiots.

And they have most all the wealth and then use it to steal more money. And in a capitalist economy you can die without money so it's value becomes exaggerated. And the right wing idiots then use their money, their stolen loot, to buy up our government.

They are never going to allow their loot to be used for the betterment of all Americans. They use it just for the betterment of themselves because they are a bit stupid. So, they stay away from Democrats because of the 2 parties, the Dems are more likely to help the little guy and not help them get more loot.

But if a Dem acts like a luke warm GOPer, they are more likely to get some of that stolen loot. So, Dems play both sides of the fence, while GOPers just concentrate on the looting.

[Gore1FL]

14. Elected Democratic leaders need to endorse popular Democratic candidates and ideas while fighting the fights they can.

We have not seen that. Instead, we've seen a race to an ever-rightward "center." We've been fed the "only moderates can win" line for 40 years as we watch moderate after moderate lose. Democrats have not had a presidential nominee since Mondale who ran against Reaganomics. Yet, in GOP town halls, we hear voters clamor for healthcare, fair wages, and affordable food and shelter.

If the argument is that they cannot "lead the revolution," it should be reasonable for them not to stymie it, either. "God is on the Throne" Jeffries and "Strongly worded letter" Schumer need to do better.

[JHB]

17. We don't actually need a revolution, we need a counter-revolution. The Reagan Revolution has to go

We're 45 years into that experiment, and it's made a few people super-wealthy but left most of the rest scraping by. Since 1980, the highest virtue in the land was shooting wealth skyward: as much as possible, as fast as possible, as high as possible.

Contrast that with the New Deal framework, which didn't prevent the upward flow but did bottleneck it. Wealth had to circulate at the lower levels for a while before going up the pipe. The system had its flaws, and by the 1970s conditions had changed enough that it needed fixing, but it needed fixing, not dismantlement.

[Justice matters.]

21. One suggestion: Democratic leaders should hold "shadow" hearings and tape them

and then upload them on streaming platforms.

One such hearing should be done with Jack Smith.

Just saying. I wonder why it has not been done already?

[dutch777]

2. There is the day to day process where right now we are weak as the minority. Then there is vision. Which we seem....

....to be scared of. We can beat the affordability drum and seemingly win in the near term. (Although we better figure out how to deliver on that or we will be in even worse position going forward than we are now). But what can we do to excite the aspirational vision that goes beyond the day to day and perhaps can lock in loyalty to the Dems long term rather than losing votes to conflict and conspiracy peddling Repugs? We used to have big ideas, long term goals, aspirations to progress the great American experiment and seems to me we lost that to roll around in the mud with the bullies and brain dead. Yes, we need to beat them where they are, but that is not to say we can't offer more, bigger, better while we do that.

[mopinko]

5. trouble is-

the main thing we need to do if/when we get back in is roll back everything the asshole has done. filling the hole isnt sexy, and we cant move forward til we fill the hole.
i’m sure there will b a lot of support for tearing down the ballroom, if it even gets built. for taking his name off all the things he slaps it on. but all that costs money that we wont have for forward movement.

[Trust_Reality]

18. And these things need to be accomplished in a hard hitting get-it-done manner.

The R party will demand bipartisanship and engage all kinds of resistance tactics.

At primary time Democrats need to demand fearless change makers, not a return to the status quo ("normal"?).

Big money doners can ruin things for the people by bribing, I mean supporting, Democrats just as well as Rs.

A few things that need to be fixed (among hundreds!):
Money is not speech (re: Citizens United).
A corporation is not a person; it is a document, a piece of paper.
Solid social safety nets are a form of cooperative humanity, not government owned corporate socialism or whatever it is Rs use to scare people when they scream "SOCIALISM!" Or is it corporate profiteers and private equity creatures who scream socialism?
The DOJ and Supreme Court need serious overhaul.
Elections need to be more secure to fight off Musk's hacking crew. (I seriously suspect they were able to throw the 2024 election. I'm not a technical expert; I am a listener. For example, I heard Musk's son in the oval office a few days before the election, along with other hints before that from dump himself.)

The high tech billionaires and mobsters have taken us into a new paradigm. We must get our brains outside the box, so to speak.

[WmChris]

3. We need to be more outspoken

With the firehose of lies spewing out of the repukes it should be easy to point to the facts whenever speaking, posting, or being interviewed regardless of the topic. If we can highlight and define the difference between reality and alternative facts on a regular basis we might wake up to a few of the cult members.

[everyonematters]

4. It doesn't fully explain it.

According to Gallup, up to 40% of voters are not registered as Democrats or Republicans. Many voters don't trust either party to make a difference in their lives. They think the party cares more about things like trans boys playing girls sports or using pro-nouns. They see a lot of corruption. Why hasn't the minimum wage been raised since the Clinton administration? There needs to be a push on progressive economic issues and less emphasis on social issues.

[Blues Heron]

6. Corporate media has their thumb on the scale for the pukes as well. It's not an even playing field.

The billionaire owners don’t like dems very much.

[Trust_Reality]

19. Yep. For profit media is for profit first.

[Buckeyeblue]

7. But Democratic candidates are winning

Won two important gubernatorial races. Have flipped some state houses or at least erased supermajorities. Have flipped a house seat. Were very competitive in the Tennessee special election. Won the mayor election in Miami. I'm sure I'm missing some things.

I'm not sure how to read the polls any longer. I think we need to run a very disciplined mid-term election focusing on the economy. Republicans will try to make the election about transsexuals. But I have a feeling the public is tired of talking about that. Republicans may try to make it about immigration but that's going to be difficult given shit show that is ICE.

But a great deal can happen in the next 11 months. Who knows what we'll be talking about in 10 months.

[Tetrachloride]

8. i don't see Dem adrenaline. AOC and Gavin are exceptions

[Martin Eden]

13. Republicans are to the left of "corporate" Democrats?

If not, then you can't dismiss the Republican Party when placing blame for those policies.

What percent of elected Democrats are on record as opposing raising the minimum wage, and supporting tax cuts for billionaires?

What percent of Republicans?

[Martin Eden]

10. It's simple. Low approval for Democrats does NOT equate to approval for Republicans

The more relevant queation is which party people are more likely to vote for in the 2026 midterms.

[Mysterian]

12. Yes, Democrats need to fight harder

and stop pretending this is not a war for the nation's survival.

Meanwhile.... House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries goes on TV and praises Trump's immigration policies.

[Fil1957]

15. Democratic low polling numbers are from Democrats or unaffiliated Democratic leaning voters, 'cause the Democratic

politicians are too passive. Hell, I myself a few months ago disapproved of them. It's better now.

The Republican low polling numbers are from everybody!

[Ol Janx Spirit]

16. Both parties make the same mistake of thinking--or choosing to think--that voters...

...just put them into office based on their social platform--when in fact it is almost always only the economy that the swing voters that turn elections in one direction or the other care about. And when they get polled you can bet that the economy is what is on their minds.

The 2024 election should prove to us that the voters that swing the election in one direction or the other actually do not care one bit about Turnip or his crimes. They aren't salivating for Democrats to do anything to push back or punish--they just want more money in their bank accounts.

And while some Democrats may be looking for more fight against Emperor Tangerine, it is far more safe to assume that they are more frustrated with the perceived Biden/Harris botching of the economic message that led to his return in the last election. That and what seemed to be an almost complete lack of even trying to hold him responsible for January 6th.

But the parties also know that--unlike most swing voters--their bases do not turn out on economic issues alone. They need those social issues as a source of energy. Far fewer people are passionate about commodity prices like they are about issues of equality or abortion. And social issues are incredibly important: they make us who we "are" as a society.

But American voters do not make informed decisions about economic issues when they get to the ballot box. The fact that Republicans have consistently polled better on who voters trust on the economy despite having plenty of data on their actual performance proves that point.

For starters, while some other cultures see income inequality as a moral issue, our Indo-European roots as expressed in Americanism have not ever really been constrained in such a way. A lot of things would be different if Americans did see wealth distribution as a moral issue. But let's face it: when the real "American dream" is to become magically morbidly wealthy overnight without the constraints of social position imposed on people from other countries, most people don't want to pre-emptively limit their moral options on what to do with all that new-found wealth. Dream on Americans...dream on.

Money is the real god we worship in these United States of America.

A lot of more complicated realities spring from this basic fact, but the reality is that it makes it far too easy to create wedge-issues out of what should otherwise be issues of morality, equality, and basic humanity: a living wage, healthcare, retiring with dignity. Republicans have consistently convinced people without much that forcing the people with a whole lot to give them even a little bit more will leave them with nothing--and that has made the efforts of Democrats to help them out unpopular. The policies are quite popular, but somehow the efforts to implement them are generally not.

So, as usual, the next election will be won on economic issues--and as we saw in the last four years: voters need to see actual improvements in their economic reality to reward you with continued support. The fact that the economy was predicted to crash and you did a fantastic job of not letting that happen means nothing to the electorate. They never knew that anyway.

If Democrats want to poll well they will need to figure out how to improve the personal economy of voters in ways that they get credit for and then keep doing that. Republicans may very well reward them next year by following the Wizard of Snooze down the yellow brick tariff road, but what happens after that is going to be a lot harder than just throwing a bucket of water on the evil billionaires.

[pinkstarburst]

20. With a few exceptions (AOC, Gavin, Bernie)

we are coming across as low energy and throwing up our hands in helplessness, as if there is nothing that can be done until 2029 when HOPEFULLY we retake the White House.

That is NOT guaranteed, folks.

When the republicans are not in power, they use every dirty trick in the book to slow down bad legislation, to put holds on promotions, to keep the budget from passing. They act as a team (a dirty team) and they get some of what they want.

We are not in power right now. People get that. But I think a lot of the VALID frustration is coming from seeing how much DRASTIC change Trump has made in just a year's time. Why is it when Democrats are in power, we can't do that, just for the forces of good? Why is it that they are making all these terrible, sweeping changes, and it feels like when we are in power, there is a long list of excuses for why things can't get done... and then when we are NOT in power, we have Chuck Schumer as our lifeless leader, and Hakeem Jeffries trying to come to the middle and praise Trump's efforts.

People want fighters. This is why Trump got elected twice. He's evil, but he got out there and fought and gave republicans what they want. I absolutely believe we are going to wind up nominating someone like Gavin Newsom who is actually not afraid to fight in this moment. Would love to see a Newsom/Buttigieg or Newsom/AOC ticket.