January 31, 2025 - 7:30pm
It’s a tough time for the Democrats. After defeating Donald Trump four years ago, the party struggled to effectively navigate the US through the fallout from the pandemic and watched as Americans turned against them on issue after issue. Joe Biden became too frail and unpopular to run again, and his refusal to drop out early saddled Democrats with another unpopular candidate in Kamala Harris. All this ultimately resulted in the return of Trump, who has already taken a battering ram to many projects and policies that Democrats hold dear.
But the pain didn’t stop in November. This week has produced fresh evidence of just how far the party has fallen. A new Quinnipiac poll has found that the Democrats’ favourability rating among the public sits at 31%, its lowest point since the firm began tracking that question back in 2008. Meanwhile, 57% hold an unfavourable view. This isn’t just due to a general dissatisfaction among voters — on the other side, Republicans essentially break even, with 43% of the public viewing them favourably (a historic high in this poll) versus 45% unfavourably.
It’s not just Quinnipiac, either. A CNN survey from this month showed that nearly one-third (32%) of Democratic-leaning adults said the political events of the past few years made them feel like they’ve been pushed away from the party, compared to 23% who said they feel closer to it. For the Democrats to dig themselves out of this hole, they will need to honestly address how they got there.
Party leaders must first reckon how, over the past two decades, they came to believe in the idea of an “emerging Democratic majority”: a coalition of racial minorities, women, young people, and the professional class that would deliver them sustained electoral success as many of these groups grew in size. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer once even uttered: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
Yet this was ill-fated in multiple ways. Working-class non-college-educated voters make up 58% of the electorate, giving them substantial influence. The “emerging majority” thesis, rooted in an identitarian understanding of the country, also viewed many of these groups as essentially monolithic, and the party apparently convinced itself that each section of support was unconditional. But as the Trump era has shown, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, some of the party’s largest losses between 2020 and 2024 came from these exact groups.
Additionally, as the Democratic base has shifted from being more moderate and working-class to being better-educated, wealthier, and more liberal, it has trended away from the median American voter. A post-election study from the group Third Way found that voters placed themselves slightly Right-of-centre on an ideological scale, closer to Trump than to Harris. This perfectly captures the party’s predicament: its base is moving further Leftward, even as the country remains steadfastly centre-right.
Many Americans also believed the Democrats cared less about core issues such as the economy and immigration, and more about the ones which motivated their base, such as abortion and LGBT rights. Pre-election polling showed that Democratic voters valued social issues over the economy, perhaps indicative of why the likes of abortion and “democracy protection” were front and centre in Harris’s campaign.
Another key factor in the Democrats’ recent struggles was their inability to govern competently. Though Biden promised to steady the ship after Trump, his own first-term agenda ended up setting in motion a series of events that brought his rival back, including an inflationary stimulus package and misguided immigration reforms — both of which swing voters cited as reasons for not supporting Harris in the election.
Worse still, the party’s difficulty in dealing with crime and the cost of living in deep-blue states has provoked an exodus towards red states, while those who remain have begun swinging Rightward. Some of Trump’s biggest gains between 2020 and 2024 came in historically Democratic strongholds such as New York (+10.6 points), New Jersey (+10), California (+9.1), and Massachusetts (+8.3).
So, where do the Democrats go from here? Some have argued that all they need to do is sit tight, let Trump overreach, and then enjoy the benefits of normal political gravity, which will deliver victories in special elections and the midterms. This worked during Trump’s first term, so why not again? There is some logic to this, at least in the short term, as Democratic voters turn out at higher rates in off-year elections than Republicans.
But the party’s problems run deeper. The Democrats’ brand is underwater, and they must find a way to win back the working-class Americans lost to Trump, move toward the median voter’s values, and demonstrate to the public that their states are better-run and more desirable than Republican ones. If not, they may find themselves sitting at home in November 2028 wondering why America rejected them once again.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe“Americans turned against (the Democrats) on issue after issue.”
I think it’s more that the Democrats turned against Americans on issue after issue.
Very true.
And it started decades ago, during the Clinton years. I can vaguely remember the NY Times saying over and over “Nobody wants those jobs; they’re too hard, too dangerous…” while they were shipping our industrial might to China. No one bothered to ask those workers. Or their spouses and children.
At one point they were recommending that all those pipe fitters, tool-and-die makers, foundrymen, etc. should go into nursing! The Dems had no idea how comical it was.
Well put.
That’s about the size of things. The Democrats are on the brink of being rendered irrelevant not just for years, but for an entire generation. After FDR responded to the Great Depression with his New Deal and the public got behind it, his party controlled Congress for most of the next 4 decades, with their run only truly ending in the 90s.
We won’t necessarily have to wait until 2028 to know how things are going either. There’s a tendency in American politics that has long held true in that the party of the President usually loses Congressional seats at the mid-term. When I say usually I mean almost always in the House of Representatives as in it’s happened four times since the Civil War. The Senate isn’t quite that one sided, but still a major correlation that only looks more reasonable by comparison.
As such, the times this doesn’t happen are noted as being very significant results. Of the four times it’s happened, the first was 1902, where the Republicans gained seats only because the total number of Representatives increased. It wasn’t fixed at the 435 we have today and the Democrats actually gained more. The second occasion was in 1934, two years into the FDR administration in the early years of the New Deal. The third was in 1998, the second year of Bill Clinton’s second term and the first of the only two years since 1949 that the US has had a budget surplus. The fourth and most recent was in 2002, a year after 9/11. If it happens again in 2026, it will be a portent of doom for Democrats.
That’s because it’s not hard to see which historic case is most comparable. There’s no budget surplus on the foreseeable horizon, and barring an act of war/terror, the Democrats won’t have that excuse either, and they’ll have to confront the fact that they’re rapidly being relegated to exactly the same thing the Republicans were in 1933, a party of wealthy coastal elites and urban enclaves, a party of big business and high finance, a party of smug intellectuals looking down upon the unwashed masses. That’s a tried and true recipe for being locked out of power for a long time. That’s presumably not where they want to go, but unless they break from their obsession with racial/social justice, their ties to Wall Street and billionaire donors, and their dreams of one world globalism, that’s exactly where they’ll end up. It may already be too late to stop the avalanche from running all the way down the mountain, but they could at least make an effort to stop it.
Democrats who bang on about how corrupt or otherwise horrible Donald Trump is completely miss the point.
The point is that the public are well aware of all these things, but voted for him anyway. That is what Democrats need to apply their thinking to. They need to work out what it is, about what they offer, that is so terrible that they lose so badly to Mr Trump.
Fortunately, this is a lesson that’s the left in general is simply not prepared to contemplate. And so they continue to fail.
I’ve participated in a number of discussions primarily with Wokey-jokey progressives. There is great resistance to any hint that it might be flawed progressive/Democrat policies. Rather, the progressives say that Trump voters are low-information, biased by Fox/conservative radio, are sexist, are racist, are transphobic, etc. No willingness to rethink any Democratic/progressive views.
Pretty decent analysis. Unless i’m mistaken, this is the first Unherd article by this author. Either way, this kind of concise, to-the-point, essay is welcome.
More please.
Indeed, great article. I agree with it so thoroughly I could have written it myself, albeit using three times as many words.
If you click on the author’s name, you’ll see he’s written several articles on Unherd, mainly about the Democrats. Otherwise, I agree – it’s a good, well argued article.
“chief political analyst at The Liberal Patriot” That is the tiny group of sane Democrats. Fortunately Dem leadership ignores them.
looking at the picture of biden and harris it reminds me a lot of the pictures of the politburo back in the old days
i followed US politics since the 1980s when reagan was in office , since i was not living in the US i had no skin in the game so i just observed from the sidelines learning about the different parties and the political system in the US !
After immigrating in 1995 i had ample time to get a closer look at the parties before becoming a citizen in 2007 .
The conclusion i reached was that picking a party for me wasnt about picking the better option but the lesser of 2 evils .
On the republican side i did not like the warmongering and getting the country involved in one war after the other , i did not like that after the fall of the USSR defense spending was not revised and that we did not dissolve NATO and i also did not like that on one hand every spending that would benefit americans was decried as too costly while at the same time we spend 10 times as much on foreign aid or new defense contracts .
On the democratic side i did not like their attacks on the 2nd Ammendment , the desire to take over health insurance in favor of a single payer system also – altough it was not quite as bad back then – them villifying “the rich” in fact a lot of the talk reminded me too much of communism .
Common things i did not like was the desire for “immigration reform” a.k.a amesty , excuses not to enforce immigration laws , reackless spending ( republicans did not started to embrace fiscal responsibility until the TEA party )
So in 2008 i held my nose voted GOP and then went to the bathroom to vomit !
since then i never been excited about voting but i did my civic duty !
Things changed when trump came along , i really did not think he stood a chance o was even serious but it was a opportunity to stick the finger up to both parties and obviously others felt the same way .
Then he won and the madness started , it was almost like he brought out the worst in democrats showing off the true face of the party .
Now 8 years after trump ran the first time the democratic party has gone so far of the whacker it has become unelectable , at the same time republicans have moved more towards the working class which now makes them a viable alternative for blue collar workers , if trump stays the course on immigration and trade than this legacy will last
Gay Race Communism not working out???
I’m sorry to hear that that, bud. Maybe give it one more try?
real Gay Race Communism has never been tried
For a similar, but much more detailed analysis, see Musa Al-Gharbi’s (free) Substack article titled “A Graveyard of Bad Election Narratives.”
Great article! The author could’ve been describing the UK’s Tory party as they too haven’t come to terms with how unpopular they became.
Isn’t the Tory problem that they did not stop illegals from invading? When you get conservatives in who don’t conservative, you gotta problem.
The real problem is that the “Conservatives” promised to reduce LEGAL immigration at the general elections of 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 but, not only did they not do so, but in the years following 2019 they quadrupled it!
This catastrophic betrayal is the real reason for their meltdown last year, and very well deserved it was.
Beside legal immigration the failure with the small boats and other illegals is a mere bagatelle. But it’s a very exasperating bagatelle and certainly contributed to the Tories evisceration.
Yet for most Parties the instinctive response is to make excuses and many of the potential electorate regard the poor quality of the excuses as insulting. Not a good look.
FYI, Baharaeen is a moderate democrat, who shares “The Liberal Patriot” Substack with, among others, Ruy Teixeira; Ruy is the gold standard for classic democrat values.
Given that Trump’s first favorability rating is 47 percent and that will likely be as good as it gets, perhaps things are not as bleak as the vultures would project. It is true that the Dems need a Phoenix Rising moment, but Trump will help them define what those new features should include. I suspect that honoring our friends in the EU and the Americas (especially Canada and Mexico) and axing all the ill advised tariffs will actually lower prices from the coming all time highs Trump is about to initiate will be a start. And then there is the only home we have, planet Earth. Four years of shear profit taking idiocy by Trump and all the petroleum oligarchs and the billionaires will not in any way improve living standards or working conditions for the poor and working class on this planet.
I am thinking Emperor Don will do a fine job of elucidating the Dems of how to step beyond this cursed point in the affairs of humanity and it would not surprise me if Corporate Capitalism is radically redefined and postured in a far less rampant carefree basis than it exists now.
“Trump’s first favorability rating is 47 percent and that will likely be as good as it gets”
1. Go on run for President, it will be funny.
2. All right, you managed to get the Republican nomination, but works even better for Hilary, she will sweep the elections.
3. Winning the election is as far as it gets, you are getting impeached in a month.
4. Hope you enjoyed the Presidency, you are not getting out of prison.
5. You might have gotten the nomination again, but this time you will lose really badly.
6. Doesn’t matter you became President again and have staggering popularity levels, it’s all downhill from now on.
There’s a place to post nonsense like this. It’s called BlueSky.
Sounds like you know about it.
There’s been a lot of talk about this stuff but pundits ignore the fact that 2024 was a pretty tight election that Trump ended up winning – nothing like his landslide loss in 2020.
The obvious fact is that Trump is utterly incompetent and utterly corrupt. Anyone who pulled the lever for him believing the right wing media lies about Harris and Trump’s own bluster is going to be very disappointed very quickly and the price of gas goes up and the planes go down.
That leaves them with the lunatic MAGA base which isn’t enough to put whatever limp candidate come along after Trump’s blunderings anywhere near the White House. Things will change back pretty quick and Pete Hegseth can get back to boozing and chasing women.
May the internet preserve CS’s comments for many years.
Can we wallpaper your home with her quotes to remind you how poor your vision is???
I think it is an early version of a proto AI troll bot (or some such).
Gas prices go up? Its Democrat policies that have made them so high now! When US hydrocarbon production goes up, the price will only come down.
Virgin.
At a recent Democrat forum to examine why they lost the chairman (Jonathan Capehart) asked the question ‘“a show of hands — how many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris’s defeat?” ‘
Everybody raised their hand and the chairman said they had all passed.
“We have a racist, homophobic, misogynist president and party on the other side,” said Michael Blake, a candidate for DNC vice chairman, “and too often, we’re unwilling just to call it what it is. There is anti-blackness that is happening, there is racism that is happening, there is sexism that is happening, and if we are unwilling to be real about that, that’s why we’re going to keep losing.”
“Too often, we’re unwilling to call it what it is” is so deluded, it’s actually delicious. With ‘analysis’ like this, JDV is a shoo-in for 2028.
Capehart is a craven racist, who clings to his position by DEI thinking.
And he is the poster child for DEI.
Sure, racism and sexism played a role in 2024. If Harris hadn’t been Black, Asian and female she would have lost by 10 pts or more, vs 1.5.
All these analysts are pretty much implying that our world and planet are going to stay in stasis while Emperor Don bumbles his way into incompetence. But that is a delusion. I can not wait until the water wars break out and The Big D somehow blames it on DEI.
None of these analysts have yet to think about the next election where the Emperor will caste aside the Constitution in search of his third term. That election, just like this one will be all about the Big D, but by then the reek of his madness will have permeated every home and most of them will not be better off. The only thing that can save the Alt Right in the next cycle is if the b*****d crumps. No things are not as bad for the Liberals as you all are foretelling.
Deranged.
Great article. I would also add the disasterous foreign policy moves of the Biden presidency which scuppered Ukraine Russian negotiations in Turkey and so started the war. Thus Biden is responsible for a ‘proxy war deathtoll’ which can still only be estimated but is likely to end up greater than a Million, mostly young men, wiped out by the political fetishes of another old white haired fanatic. Of course, the maistream press do not see Biden in these terms, which is another example of ‘leftwashing’.
The roots of the Ukraine disaster lie in the Obama admin, who gave Putin a pass in 2014 when he invaded Crimea. Obama did nothing. Putin knew that ANY Democrat would roll over for him.
which Obama had provoked by getting the CIA to destabilise the previous pro Russian government in Kiev and replace it with a US puppet. All in all a highly embarassing affair that included the famous Victora Newland ‘F*** Europe’ telephone call.
Biden was well paid (thru Hunter) to continue Obama’s plan to push Ukraine into aligning with the west.