The Democratic Party has hit a new low with its own voters.
Gallup polls show Democrats are not impressed with efforts to pick up the pieces from a disastrous 2024 election, with 73% of Democrats giving their party a positive review, compared with 91% of Republicans who approve of the GOP.
For Democrats, the finding marked “the lowest on record for that party and a 14-percentage-point drop from November 2024,” when 87% approved, Gallup said.
Independents are not thrilled with either party, giving Democrats a 27% approval rating and Republicans a 28% rating.
Democrats have struggled to find their footing since President Trump returned to the White House, with Republicans calling the shots in both chambers of Congress.
The leaderless party is relatively defenseless on Capitol Hill as Mr. Trump follows through on a range of campaign promises he made regarding tax cuts, immigration and crime, which have infuriated the base of the Democratic Party and addressed issues the party has largely ignored.
Democrats are hoping to seize the momentum in the off-year gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey this fall.
Still, those efforts have largely been overshadowed by the stunning rise of Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race.
The 33-year-old Democratic socialist has rattled the party’s establishment and given Republicans a new target to cast the entire Democratic Party as far-left extremists.
Meanwhile, Ken Martin, the newly appointed chair of the Democratic National Committee, has spent a significant portion of his early tenure resolving party infighting and preparing the party for the 2026 midterm elections.
It has been a financial struggle.
The DNC ended June with $15 million in the bank, while the Republican National Committee was sitting atop nearly $81 million.
The previous low for Democrats among their ground troops was 77% in May 2017, months into Mr. Trump’s first term. Since 2008, Democrats have consistently held a more favorable view of their party, at 88%, compared to Republicans’ view of the GOP, at 83%.
“Thus, the current situation where Republicans like their own party better than Democrats do is unusual, having happened only previously for an extended period toward the end of 2020, the final year of Trump’s first term in office,” Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones writes in the poll analysis.
Gallup has more tough news for Democrats: “Just 34% of U.S. adults view the Democratic Party favorably, the lowest Gallup has measured for the group in its trend since 1992.”
That eclipsed the previous low of 36% after Republicans flipped the Senate in the 2014 election, giving them control of both chambers.
Republicans fared slightly better, with 38% of voters giving them a thumbs up. In November, 44% of voters approved of the GOP.
There was a silver lining in that more voters who affiliate as Democrats, climbing to 46%, from 43% in December, primarily because more independents lean in that direction.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.