New Poll Finds A Lot of Dems Remain Disgusted With Their Own Party

A new poll has found that many Democrats are still down on the Democratic Party.

Despite the fact that Democratic candidates have notched a series of wins in recent special elections, a new AP-NORC poll finds views of the Democratic Party among rank-and-file Democrats have not bounced back since President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024.

Only about 7 in 10 Democrats have a positive view of the Democratic Party, according to new polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. While the majority of Democrats still feel good about their party, they’re much less positive than they’ve been in the past.

The midterm elections are still many months away, and lackluster favorability doesn’t necessarily spell electoral doom. Still, there may not be the “blue wave” that leaders of the DNC have been talking about.

Even though, historically, the party not in the White House has picked up seats in Congress in midterm elections, the lack of enthusiasm could be a longer-term problem for the party. Democrats’ favorability of their party plummeted after the 2024 election, from 85% in September 2024 to 67% in October 2025. And despite overwhelming victories in November’s off-season elections and a string of wins since then, those views haven’t recovered. Other polling indicates that a lot of Democrats are deeply frustrated with their party.

In Gallup’s measure of favorability, Democrats’ positive views of their own party declined about 12 percentage points in the last year. That marked the lowest measure in that question’s history, which dates back to 2001. Notably, Democrats did not see a similar decline after their first loss to Trump in 2016.

That diminished view of the Democratic Party in the AP-NORC polling is consistent regardless of Democrats’ age, race, ideology or educational background — suggesting that appealing to a specific group or two won’t fix the problem.

A separate survey from the Pew Research Center last fall found roughly two-thirds of Democrats in September said their own party made them “frustrated” compared to just 4 in 10 Republicans.

Among those frustrated Democrats, about 4 in 10 felt their party was not fighting hard enough against Trump while about 1 in 10 said there was a lack of good leadership or a cohesive agenda.

The Democrat’s loss of favorability is a relatively recent phenomenon. Polling over the last 25 years from Gallup shows that Americans used to feel much more positively toward the Democrats. Around 2010, public sentiment turned against the Democrats. Since then, at least half of Americans have held unfavorable views of the party, according to Gallup. Negative views of the Democrats now rival the most negative points in time for the Republicans.