As the Democratic Party has elected their new Committee Chair Ken Martin of Minnesota, the party is going through some hard times. Having lost the trifecta of power—the presidency, the majority in the Senate, and the majority in the House—to Donald Trump and the Republicans, they are currently completely locked out of power.
The most the liberal party in America can do now is filibuster major legislation in the Senate. To make matters worse, the GOP also controls a majority of the governorships in the country (27–23), and conservative justices are in a 6–3 majority on the Supreme Court.
While fortunes can change fast in the world of American politics (as we have witnessed after the 2022 midterms), there is no denying that Democrats are at a low point right now. And a poll by Quinnipiac paints an even grimmer picture for them than what most people would imagine.
According to their survey taken at the end of January, only 31 per cent of Americans have a favourable view of the Democratic Party, while 57 per cent have an unfavourable view. That is an abysmal net favourability rating of negative 26 points.
In the same poll, Republicans are also underwater. However, by a much smaller margin, two points (with 43 per cent favourable and 45 per cent unfavourable).
Quinnipiac cannot be accused of being a right-leaning pollster by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, in the 2020 presidential election, they were statistically the most left-leaning pollster in the US. By the 2024 presidential election, they managed to clean up their act quite significantly.
In their final national poll, they had President Trump up by one point over Vice President Kamala Harris in the full field. Trump ended up winning the popular vote by 1.5 points. However, interestingly, they released their final national poll very early, in late September.
In more good polling news for Republicans, President Trump is currently enjoying a positive approval rating. In the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate, he is currently up by 4.6 points, with a 49.4 per cent approval rating. He never had such a ‘honeymoon period’ during his first term in office, when he started off with an approval rating in the mid-40s. This is an especially good sign for the 45th and 47th POTUS, as he has been consistently underpolled throughout his political career.
In the first approval rating of his second term by Gallup, however, he is in the net negative, even if it is just by a single point. America’s most prestigious polling firm measures his national support at 47 per cent—interestingly, that is lower than the percentage he got in the popular vote in the 2024 presidential election, which was 49.8 per cent. Meanwhile, according to Gallup, 48 per cent of Americans disapprove of his work as President.
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