With just three months to go before Election Day, President Donald Trump and his party are facing stark headwinds in the polls. But they’re not the only ones underwater.
While the GOP’s favorability is currently about 14 points in the red, according to a YouGov tracking poll, the Democratic brand is even worse. Roughly 57% of voters have a negative view of the Democratic Party, compared with the 41% who hold a favorable view.
If you ask Democrats on Capitol Hill why their party is having such an image problem — particularly as President Donald Trump and the GOP turn off voters — lawmakers have all sorts of answers. Some blame a general disenchantment with politics. Some say it’s because voters don’t know what the party stands for.
But one explanation — or, some might argue, excuse — came up in several interviews with MS NOW: Voters are urgently looking for their party to put up a fight, and there’s only so much Democrats can do in the congressional minority.
“They sometimes don’t understand the argument that we’re in the minority,” Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, told MS NOW. “They’re just like: ‘Well, why don’t you do it now? Why don’t you shut down the House? Why don’t you lay down in front of the bulldozers?’”
Pingree noted that voters are “rightfully” frustrated. But she argued it’s something that “we’re not going to be able to completely turn around until we are back in power.”
“And then, I think, it’s all on us,” she said.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., echoed that sentiment, telling MS NOW that “people just are so outraged by Donald Trump, and don’t have an answer because we haven’t stopped him.”
“All of that changes if we get the majority, right? Because then we can start doing the oversight,” he said. “We can do lawsuits on behalf of Congress that have much more stature.”
The diagnosis from Democratic lawmakers, however, goes beyond the practical limitations of being in the minority.
Rep. Jim Clyburn — a mainstay of House Democratic leadership for two decades and a kingmaker in South Carolina politics — argued his party has allowed the opposition to define them. As an example, he pointed to how Republicans refer to the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Party” — emphasis on rat.
“We’ve allowed your branding to affect our landing, and that’s a fact,” Clyburn said.
Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts argued the age of Democratic leaders in Washington is also impacting voter perceptions, casting the older “generation” and their “playbook” as out of touch.
“People are frustrated with Trump,” Moulton said. “But they look at the Democratic Party and they don’t see leadership that can get us out of this mess, and that’s why I am such a champion for next generation leadership.”
(Moulton, 47, is currently running to oust incumbent Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, 80, in part by making the case for generational change.)
And Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., said Democrats too often “show up as if we’re the smartest people in the room.”
“We have to listen first and talk second,” Balint said. “Sometimes the most important thing is to let people know we understand the struggles that you are going through.”
But most Democrats who spoke with MS NOW returned to a central theme: To improve the party’s public standing, they need to more clearly define and communicate not just what Democrats are against — namely, Trump — but what they stand for.
It’s a belief shared across the Democratic coalition — from progressives to moderates and long-time lawmakers to freshmen.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told MS NOW “we’re going to win by default no matter what” in the November midterms. But, he added, “that’s not enough.”
“We need to tell people what we’re for,” McGovern said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she wasn’t sure that people know what it means to be a Democrat.
“What do we stand for?” Ocasio-Cortez said.
And Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington — the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — said that Democrats can’t just be “an opposition party.”
“We have to be a proposition party,” she said.
Jayapal added that Democrats have to tell voters what they stand for, including what their vision is for restoring health care. And, she said, “we have to show how we’re going to take on corruption.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., said Democrats should “strive to be more than the lesser of two evils.”
“We should build a brand that excites, and inspires Democratic voters and beyond,” he said.
And Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa., said Democrats need to be “much more ambitious than just pointing out Donald Trump’s failures.”
As to answering the ‘what do we stand for?’ question, so far this cycle, Democrats have broadly rallied around combatting the rising cost of living as their main priority, with “affordability” serving as the centerpiece of their midterm message.
But the party is hardly offering a unified vision to voters. The primaries this year have exposed notable and at times nasty fissures in the Democratic coalition — whether it be progressive versus moderate, insider versus outsider, or old guard versus younger generation.
Ocasio-Cortez cast the active primaries this year as a feature, not a bug.
“We’re having much deeper substantive conversations than just you know what is the color next to the box on your name,” she said. “It’s more about: what are we doing on wages? What are we doing on prices? What are we doing on housing?”
Some, like Torres, admitted the infighting may not necessarily help their brand issues.
“I wish Democrats would focus on attacking Republicans rather than fellow Democrats,” Torres said.
But — at the same time — Torres also argued Democrats are a big tent, invoking the old Will Rogers aphorism: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
Some also point to the diversity of thought and approach as offering a silver lining. Yes, they acknowledge, the overall party brand itself may need improvement, but ask a voter about their local lawmaker or candidate, and they may view them more positively.
“There’s how the party polls, but then there’s … how people feel about your elected representative in their own community,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
As Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., put it, “We all represent very unique districts.”
“And so we need to bring those voices,” she continued.
That leaves Democrats with one particularly difficult question: If restoring the party’s brand requires lawmakers to show they are willing to put up a fight, what happens if they only win back one lever of power — with Trump still holding the presidential veto pen?
Jayapal said voters are “smart.”
“We have to say, look, this is not just a day fight,” she told MS NOW. “We have to prime the pump. We have to get these things done, but we can’t settle for less.”
Freshman Rep. Johnny Olszewski of Maryland argued Democrats should try to box Trump into a corner.
“We have to at least deliver on passing legislation and putting President Trump in a position where he is either going to be vetoing really popular legislation that will reform our government and lower costs — or sign it,” Olszewski said.
“We’ll make some progress and we’ll have a better story to tell heading into the presidential,” he added.
Hunter Woodall contributed to this report.
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