Why does everyone still hate the Democrats?

It should be easier to capitalize on the anti-Trump backlash.

Photo by The White House via Wikimedia Commons

Donald Trump’s popularity continues to slowly erode:

Source: Nate Silver

He’s now underwater on almost all of the issues, even on his signature issue of immigration.

And at least as of a couple weeks ago, Democrats were leading Republicans in generic ballot polling for the 2026 Congressional election:

Source: G. Elliott Morris

Yet despite this narrow ballot advantage, the Democrats are, if anything, viewed even less favorably than Trump. G. Elliott Morris’ poll aggregator has Dems looking more unpopular than they’ve been since the early years after 9/11:

Source: G. Elliott Morris

This comes even as some polls show that approval of the GOP has stabilized and even risen slightly since 2012:

Source: WSJ

In his post, Morris points out that some of Dems’ extraordinary unfavorability is due to left-wingers being dissatisfied with the party:

In our Strength In Numbers/Verasight polling, there is a large mass of left-leaning Democrats who are bringing down the party’s favorability rating. In our data, about 20% of the Democrats who call themselves “very liberal” have an unfavorable view of the party. That compares to just 8% of “very conservative” Republicans who view the GOP negatively…In other words, the Democratic Party’s favorability rating is so much lower than Republicans’ almost entirely because of dissatisfaction from in-party ideologues.

If this is true, it means the Dems aren’t in as bad shape electorally as the headline approval numbers might imply. After all, on election day, most leftists will end up holding their noses and voting for the Democrats. But that said, I’m not convinced that the Dems’ unpopularity is mainly due to leftists. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that when it comes to the issues — even ones where people disapprove of Trump — Democrats are losing to Republicans in the court of public opinion:

Source: WSJ

Democrats are still favored on health care and vaccines, but on all the big important issues — on the economy, inflation, immigration, foreign policy, and even tariffs — Americans say they trust Congressional Republicans more. The 17-point gap on immigration and the 24-point gap on illegal immigration are particularly galling, since they come despite the recent backlash against ICE and mass deportations.

That’s highly unlikely to be the result of leftist defection from the Dems, since leftists are highly unlikely to endorse things like mass deportation or Trump’s strong support for Israel. Instead, the public’s preference for Congressional Republicans on the issues probably just reflects moderates who trust the GOP to do things that are more in alignment with what they want.

Then there’s party identification. A recent Pew survey shows how since the pandemic, fewer Americans are identifying as Democrats, even as more identify as Republicans:

Source: Pew

The shift looks similar among all races, genders, and ages; in fact, it’s bigger among nonwhites than among whites. This doesn’t look like the Democrats being punished by their base for being too moderate. It looks like the country slowly turning away from the Democrats in general.