The Democratic Party’s popularity has hit a new record low, just days after the U.S. Senate Minority Leader endorsed a Republican bill to avert a government shutdown, according to new polls.
The record low came in a pair of damning new polls Sunday – suggesting that things have only gotten worse for the party that suffered a brutal defeat in the November 2024 U.S. election.
An NBC News poll that surveyed a thousand registered voters, found that just 27 percent of people viewed the party positively.
It also revealed that 65 percent of Democrats wanted Democratic lawmakers to stick to their guns – even if this slowed things down in Washington – while just 32 percent believed that bending to Trump to gain his support on legislation was key.
A second poll, released by CNN and conducted by SSRS, also presented dismal findings for the party. Only 29 percent positively favored the Democrats – a record low in CNN’s polling since 1992.
The party has dropped 20 points since January 2021 – when Trump came to the end of his tenure and shortly after the January 6 Capitol attack unfolded on Washington’s steps.
The polls have shone a light on the divisions in the party. By contrast, the CNN survey found that 79 percent of Republicans retained a positive view of the GOP.
Trump has also faced a recent polling blow. A 51 per cent majority disapproves of his performance, and felt pessimistic on issues like the economy, though these did not drop as low as the poorest marks on the issue during the Biden administration, as per the latest NBC poll and a CNBC polling from 2022.
On Friday, it was revealed that 60 per cent of registered voters disapproved of how DOGE was dealing with federal government employees amid massive job cuts, as per a Quinnipiac University survey.
Speaking with The New York Times in an interview Sunday, Chuck Schumer explained the core values of the dwindling opposition party: “We are the party of working people. We feel that very very strongly. That’s who we have always been.
“The Republican Party is a dramatic contrast to that. In the last twenty or thirty years, in my judgment, they’ve been taken over by a cabal of greedy and very wealthy people”, he continued. “And their whole goal is to reduce taxes, cut their own taxes – even though they’re extremely rich, get rid of any government regulation.”
NYT reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro interjected Schumer to tell him that this was not how the American people viewed the Democratic party at present.
Speaking on behalf of several Democratic leaders, Schumer went on to criticize President Trump, stating: “Donald Trump is making the middle-class pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”
He said the president was orchestrating cuts through decisions like slashing funding to Medicaid, education, and driving up tariffs – creating havoc in the economy.
Further cementing the party rift, Schumer came under fire from fellow Democratic leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Friday, hours before the Senate narrowly avoided a shutdown – a move she warned would be a “tremendous mistake.”
“I cannot urge enough how bad of an idea it is to empower and enable Donald Trump and Elon Musk in this moment. It is dangerous and it is reckless,” AOC told CNN’s Jake Tapper.