The Democratic Party’s brand has taken quite the beating over the last year, and if a new poll from their own side of the aisle is any indication, this trend is only going to get worse into and through 2026, which is midterm season. Probably not what liberals wanted to hear today.
But it certainly put a smile on my face.
We’re just two months into the second Trump administration and a majority of voters located in what is being called “battleground House districts” are still convinced Democrats in Congress “are more focused on helping other people than people like me,” an internal poll from Democratic group Navigator Research revealed.
When it comes to independent voters, only 27 percent believe Democrats are focused on helping them, compared to 55 percent who say they’re focused on helping others.
“The polling, shared first with POLITICO, is one of the first comprehensive surveys of voters in swing congressional districts since November 2024. House Democratic members and staff are scheduled to hear from one of the researchers, who will present their findings, at their caucus’ Issues Conference on Wednesday in Leesburg, Virginia. The meeting is aimed at guiding members’ messaging as they prepare for the 2026 midterms, and the survey suggests the party has an enormous amount of work to do to repair its image,” Politico reported.
“The Democratic brand is still not where it needs to be in terms of core trust and understanding people’s challenges,” Molly Murphy, one of the pollsters who worked on the research by Navigator, a project from the Hub Project, a Democratic nonprofit group went on to explain. “Even though voters are critical about Trump and some of the things he’s doing, that criticism of Trump doesn’t translate into trust in Democrats. The trust has to be earned.”
Another finding from the survey that has liberal knees knocking is the view voters have of Democrats and work. Only 44 percent of individuals polled say they think Democrats respect work, while less than 39 percent say the party highly values work.
Add to that the fact only 42 percent said Democrats share their values, while 56 percent are convinced that Democrats are not at all looking out for working-class folks, and it’s clear that Democrats are a ship that’s going down fast like the Titanic.
A total of 39 percent of participants said they feel Democrats have their priorities in order. I’d say that number should probably be higher. It’s clear by the agenda items from the previous administration that liberals are focused on fundamentally transforming the entire infrastructure of this country, switching it from a democratic republic into a socialist hellscape.
“We’ve always had the stigma of being the ‘welfare party,’ but I do think this is related to a post-Covid feeling that we don’t care about people working, and we’ve had a very long hangover from that, which feels really, really consequential,” Murphy continued in her analysis. “How can you care about working people if you don’t care about work? It’s going to be really hard in the midterms if voters don’t think we care about work.”
But Democrats’ difficulties appear to go deeper. For example, the poll found a whopping 69 percent of voters said Democrats were “too focused on being politically correct.” Another 51 percent said “elitist” described the Democratic Party well.
Since Trump’s reelection, Democrats have struggled to mount a coherent message, even as the president has sent the stock market into a spiral over tariffs. During the presidential address last week, some congressional Democrats protested Trump with signage and walk-outs, while others mocked those attempts at resistance. It’s a reflection of a party that’s disconnected from its own brand, as 2024 post-mortems found voters saw Democrats as weak and overly focused on diversity and elites.
That problem for Democrats is compounded by findings that House Republicans still hold an advantage on the economy, even amid widespread economic uncertainty in the early weeks of Trump’s term. In the Navigator survey of 62 competitive House districts across the country, voters said they trust Republicans over Democrats on handling the economy by a 5-point margin, 46 percent to 41 percent. Voters also trust Republicans more than Democrats by a 7-point margin on responding to inflation, 44 percent to 37 percent.
Democrats, who used to campaign on being the party for the “little guy,” have now lost touch with working class Americans. And they’ve noticed. Only 38 percent of voters think Democrats and their policies prioritize middle and working class citizens. A total of 35 percent believe their policies help the wealthy. A total of 18 percent said they help the poor.