Democrats have spent years proving they don’t want Americans to have a good life, and now the numbers make it official.
A new national poll from the Searchlight Institute delivers another gut punch to Democrats already reeling from their 2024 pummeling: voters think Republicans focus on real issues, while Democrats chase pointless distractions.
When asked which party focuses more on key issues, voters overwhelmingly view Republicans as caring about immigration, crime, the economy, and foreign policy. Democrats, by contrast, are seen as obsessed with racism, gun control, and abortion.
What matters more to ordinary Americans, whether their job was taken by an illegal migrant, or whether their congressman took a knee for George Floyd? Whether they can afford groceries, or whether some activist in San Diego gets her fifteenth abortion?
On the issues Americans experience daily, Democrats have completely lost the plot.
But the poll’s most damning finding comes from a simple question: which party wants you to have a good life? On nearly every aspirational question, Democrats trail badly.
Definitive majorities believe Republicans want Americans to own homes, raise kids, get married, and retire securely.
Democrats have spent the past decade defining their politics around grievance and identity, portraying America as an irredeemably bigoted nation. America was never great, they claim; everything is broken, and salvation lies in burning it all down.
Republicans run on the basics of work, family, and national strength, a far more uplifting message.
At this year’s March for Life, President Trump declared, “We will again stand proudly for families and for life,” while Vice President Vance added, “I want more babies in the United States of America.”
While Democrats fumed over supposedly racist reports of Haitian migrants eating pets in Ohio, the Trump administration asked the obvious question: Why is the Rust Belt so short on American workers that it must mass import foreign labor?
The poll’s “good life” numbers strike particularly hard because they hit the emotional core of politics.
Ordinary people don’t wake up wondering how to dismantle apparently endemic systemic racism. They wake up wondering if they can afford a mortgage, if their kids are safe, and if they’ll ever retire.
Yet Democrats increasingly treat those concerns as secondary, or worse, signs of right-wing extremism. In the Searchlight poll, Democrats were a whopping 20 points underwater on whether they want Americans to get married or have children.
A party that claims to fight for families has become the party that doesn’t even believe families should exist!
Voters associate the GOP with stability, independence, and self-reliance. They connect the party with owning a home, running a business, and raising kids according to their parents’ values.
And how could they not? Whenever some bureaucrat wants to let boys into girls’ bathrooms, it’s a Democrat. When taxes rise and services collapse, it’s a Democrat on the city council.
Democrats expect Americans to watch their communities crumble and accept whatever insane social theory the ivory-tower elite dreams up next.
When horrified citizens ask how once-great cities like Portland turned into drug-ridden homeless wastelands, they’re told it’s cruel to enforce basic order and that they should mind their own business.
There’s an irony in that.
Democrats built their brand on empathy. “We care more,” they say, “Republicans only want to oppress women and minorities.” But the Searchlight poll shows voters have long stopped believing it.
Democrats can’t preach compassion while seeking to destroy the most basic units of civilization. They can’t claim to stand for opportunity while punishing hard work and ambition. They can’t call themselves the party of the future when their only message is that the past was racist and the country is filled with bigots.
And they certainly can’t claim to represent a free America when they think anyone who disagrees with them should be murdered.
Americans want a government that fixes problems, not one that wallows in them. If Republicans stay focused on material reality, borders, paychecks, safety, and family, they’ll continue to be seen as the adults in the room.
Democrats will continue to lose not because voters misunderstand them, but because voters understand them perfectly.