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A liberal pundit recently offered an explanation for the current state of the Democratic Party after examining a July Wall Street Journal poll that found positive views of Democrats to be at an all-time low.
John Halpin pointed out on his Substack, “The Liberal Patriot,” that despite net negative views on President Donald Trump’s handling of certain issues, US adults have even worse views of Democrats. The same respondents also said that they trust congressional Republicans more than Democrats to handle all but two major political issues.
As CatholicVote previously reported, the Journal poll found that 63% of US adults hold unfavorable views of the Democratic Party, the highest percentage since the poll began in 1990. Respondents also generally said that even if they disagreed with Trump’s handling of certain issues, such as the economy and foreign policy, they still would prefer to have congressional Republicans handle the issues rather than Democrats.
Analyzing the data, Halpin noted that the most drastic drop in Democrats’ net favorability across the years occurred during the Biden administration.
He offered four possible explanations based on past research and known trends.
First, he said one of the leading arguments is that Democrats are seen as “out of touch” and without a clear leader, writing that “nothing has really changed since the collapse of the Biden-Harris administration in last year’s election.”
“President Biden’s age and declining capacities, and the lengths to which party leaders went to ignore or downplay it, left a permanently sour taste in the mouths of many Americans,” he wrote. “Six months into a second Trump term, nothing appears to have dislodged these beliefs. Democrats are increasingly viewed as a washed-up party with uninspiring leadership.”
Halpin’s second hypothesis is that turning the Democratic Party into an “anti-Trump” party hasn’t done it any favors; Democrats’ “inchoate rage” might actually help Trump, rather than hurt him.
Halpin said a third explanation is that Democrats still focus on radical approaches to social issues like immigration, crime, transgenderism, and others, without adapting to the culture’s demands for more moderate positions.
Finally, he wrote that the Democrats’ last economic plan, Bidenomics, “was a colossal failure in the eyes of many voters.”
“Considerable amounts of new government spending, new EV regulations, student debt elimination, and other expensive steps left no lasting impression with voters other than wasted money and high inflation,” Halpin said, adding that Republican economic policies are receiving more support from voters than the former policies did.
According to Halpin, Democrats may still be able to win back the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm election, given that voters have said they are slightly more likely to back a Democratic candidate for Congress. He also said that 57% of voters say that Congress is not doing enough “to act as a check and balance on Trump’s powers.”
Halpin added, “Ahead of the 2028 presidential race, however, Democrats have much more to do to show voters they have truly learned their lessons by offering up new voices without cultural baggage united behind a common pitch for economic uplift for America’s working- and middle-class families.”
