The party is the problem

Late Friday evening, the Wall Street Journal published a poll that fell solidly in the affirming-but-not-surprising category: the Democratic Party is viewed more unfavorably now than at any point in the past 35 years. The Democratic Party is viewed more negatively than either the Republican Party or Donald Trump, with the Journal’s report noting that Republicans are also given the advantage on “most issues that decide elections.”

And yet! In the same poll, more respondents indicated they planned to vote for the Democrat in next year’s House elections than indicated they planned to vote for the Republican — a 3-point advantage that isn’t statistically significant but which belies the idea that Democrats are in complete free-fall.

It’s easy to over-read one poll result (he said, clearing his throat). But this comports with a pattern that’s been evident since at least 2021 — and probably since well before 2015. To wit: Parties are something to run against, not alongside.

I am not offering this as a particularly novel observation. The travails of the U.S.’s major parties have been well-documented. Julia Azari’s 2016 articulation of our system being comprised of strong partisanship and weak parties remains essential to understanding where we are and how we got here. I’m simply highlighting the extent to which party and candidates diverge in the moment and for Democrats.

A similar divergence on the right was resolved when one candidate, Trump, consumed the party entirely. He did so by running against the party whose presidential nomination he sought, positioning himself as something other than a traditional Republican and thereby appealing to people skeptical of the institution itself.

Similar efforts on the left have been less successful, in part because there’s been less hostility toward the Democratic Party among Democrats. But running against the party has yielded successes: Bernie Sanders’ surges in 2016 and 2020, for example, and the emergence of viable (at least in some places) candidates who describe themselves as Democratic Socialists.

As I’ve noted before, it’s not an accident that the most vibrant expressions of opposition to Trump have emerged from people who sit at a distance from the party; Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s barnstorming events around the country are engaging in a way that the Democratic Party isn’t. Being able to be critical of the party — and to exist outside of the constraints that travel along with its money and resources — is valuable.

It’s through this lens that we should consider the Wall Street Journal poll. Or, because we can dig into the details more easily, a new poll from the Journal’s corporate sibling: Fox News.

I know, I know. Fox News as a media entity cannot generally be relied upon to offer a useful, objective view of the world. But Fox News’s polling arm can be — to the degree that it comes under fire from Trump and even from Fox News personalities themselves. The poll is conducted by firms that generally poll for candidates on either side of the partisan divide and the result is consistently reliable.

He said, clearing his throat again.

So let’s look at the Fox poll. Let’s start by noting that, for all of the Democratic Party’s problems, Trump’s not doing so hot either. More than 4 in 10 Americans view the job he’s doing with strong disapproval. Even among Republicans, only about half view his performance with strong approval. Among Democrats, 8 in 10 view him strongly negatively.

As you might expect, given those numbers, Trump’s approval on specific issues is also generally underwater (meaning he is viewed more negatively than positively). In Fox’s poll, he’s only net-positive on “border security” — an issue that is distinct from “immigration,” where his approval is net-negative. Among independents, there’s a 24-point downward shift between net approval on the border and net approval on immigration.

In this poll, too, the Democratic Party is viewed crummily. But there are some caveats.

One is that the total favorability (strongly favorable plus somewhat favorable) ratings are about the same for both parties. The central difference is that Republicans view the Republican Party more strongly favorably than Democrats view the Democratic Party.

Republicans look at the Republican Party, slowly digesting deep within Trump’s belly, and think, this looks good to me. Democrats, on the other hand, look at their party and express much less warmth.

And yet! Asked which party was preferred on a range of issues, it was Democrats who consistently had an advantage. Even on a range of issues selected by the Fox News team that works with the pollsters to develop the questions, there were more places where Democrats had a distinct advantage than ones where the Republicans did.

At the risk of being overly cute, I’ll note that the responses presented to respondents on these questions asked them to choose between “The Democrats” and “The Republicans,” rather than to the parties themselves.

A more important point comes from CNN pollster Ariel Edwards-Levy, who noted on social media that the Journal poll gives Republicans a much bigger advantage on inflation than is shown in the Fox one. Her informed explanation is that this is a function of the Journal poll having offered people the ability to choose “neither” Democrats nor Republicans. That option was selected by nearly a quarter of respondents in the case of inflation.

Forced to pick in the Fox News poll, respondents kept picking the Democrats — or both parties equally. This is not fairly interpreted as a sign that people reject Democratic candidates or policies, nor, clearly, is it an indicator that Trump has gobbled down the American public in the way he devoured the GOP.

There are still significant advantages to political parties. That D or R next to a name on a ballot continues to serve as an effective indicator of what the candidate stands for, if not a complete one. The question at the moment appears to center on what the Democratic Party itself stands for — particularly among Democrats. Consider the results when Fox asked respondents which party had a “clear plan” for addressing America’s problems.

Eight in 10 Republicans said their party did. Only half of Democrats agreed.

There’s one last point worth making here. It seems revealing that the Wall Street Journal described its poll results as showing a GOP advantage on “most issues that decide elections.” Beyond the ludicrousness of knowing what issues will decide future elections (consider what people in 2019 would have expected to dominate the 2020 contest), this is editorializing masquerading as summation. Issues decide elections because they are made salient to voters, either through circumstance or cajoling. There is not some set of eternal issues that are necessarily compelling to people casting ballots.

A Democratic Party that effectively cajoles voters into centering specific issues in their electoral decision-making is a party that is perceived as having a clear plan and a party that wins elections. If they continue to do a poor job on this front, Democratic candidates will be well served to run against or apart from the party as much as possible.