{"id":183345,"date":"2026-02-18T19:39:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/183345\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T19:39:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:39:32","slug":"many-democrats-are-still-down-on-the-democratic-party-new-poll-finds-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/183345\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Democrats are still down on the Democratic Party, new poll finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

By LINLEY SANDERS<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Democratic candidates have notched a series of wins in recent special elections \u2014 but a new AP-NORC poll finds views of the Democratic Party among rank-and-file Democrats have not bounced back since President Donald Trump\u2019s victory in 2024.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. While the overwhelming majority of Democrats still feel good about their party, they\u2019re much less positive<\/a> than they\u2019ve been in the past.<\/p>\n

The midterm elections are still many months away, and lackluster favorability doesn\u2019t spell electoral doom. Other factors could benefit Democrats this year, including broadly negative views of Trump and other Republicans. Additionally, recent polling has found that independents tend to<\/a> identify more with the party that\u2019s out of power, which could boost Democrats this year too. Historically, the party not in the White House has picked up seats in Congress in midterm elections.<\/p>\n

But the lack of enthusiasm could be a longer-term problem for the party. Democrats\u2019 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\u2019s off-season elections and a string of wins since then, those views haven\u2019t recovered. Other polling indicates that Democrats are deeply frustrated with their party.<\/p>\n

At the same time, there\u2019s some potential good news for Democrats in the new poll. Although Republicans are slightly more enthusiastic about their own party, Americans in general don\u2019t think highly of either party. Health care is on many Americans\u2019 minds<\/a> this year, and it\u2019s an issue where Democrats have a large advantage, according to the survey. Meanwhile, Republicans have lost some ground on two of Trump\u2019s signature issues, the economy and immigration, although Americans don\u2019t necessarily trust Democrats more on those issues as a result.<\/p>\n

Many Democrats are frustrated
\n\"PartFILE \u2013 Part of the stage with the DNC logo is seen at the Democratic National Convention Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo\/Brynn Anderson, File)<\/p>\n

Other polling suggests that Democrats\u2019 post-2024 slump is unusually large.<\/p>\n

In Gallup\u2019s measure of favorability<\/a>, Democrats\u2019 positive views of their own party declined about 12 percentage points in the last year. That marked the lowest measure in that question\u2019s history, which dates back to 2001. Notably, Democrats did not see a similar decline after their first loss to Trump in 2016.<\/p>\n

That diminished view of the Democratic Party in the AP-NORC polling is consistent regardless of Democrats\u2019 age, race, ideology or educational background \u2014 suggesting that appealing to a specific group or two won\u2019t fix the problem.<\/p>\n

A separate survey from the Pew Research Center<\/a> last fall found roughly two-thirds of Democrats in September said their own party made them \u201cfrustrated\u201d compared to just 4 in 10 Republicans.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Many Americans are negative about both parties
\n\"SenateSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., stepped off the Senate floor, Friday evening, Jan. 30, 2026, at the Capitol in Washington. The Senate voted Friday to fund most of the government through the end of September after President Donald Trump made a deal with Democrats to carve out Homeland Security funding and allow Congress to debate new restrictions on federal immigration raids across the country. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Democrats \u2014 Americans aren\u2019t thrilled with either party right now.<\/p>\n

Roughly one-quarter of Americans have a negative view of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, according to the AP-NORC data. That double-negativity is especially sharp among independents and Americans under 45.<\/p>\n

About half of U.S. adults only view one party positively, and only about 1 in 10 feel good about both parties.<\/p>\n

But Democrats\u2019 loss of goodwill is more recent. 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<\/a>. Since then, at least half of Americans have held unfavorable views of the party, according to Gallup.<\/p>\n

Negative views of the Democrats now rival the most negative points in time for the Republicans.<\/p>\n

Democrats hold health care as a strength
\n\"AFILE \u2013 A podium is prepared before Democrats hold news conference on the health care funding fight on the steps of the House before votes to end the government shutdown on Capitol Hill, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mariam Zuhaib, File)<\/p>\n

With health care at the top of Americans\u2019 priority lists as costs and premiums rise, Democrats have a possible advantage going into the midterm year.<\/p>\n

About one-third of U.S. adults \u2014 35% \u2014 trust the Democrats to do a better job handling health care, compared to 23% for the Republicans. That is broadly in line with the last time the question was asked in October 2025.<\/p>\n

\"PeopleFILE \u2013 People stand outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, June 14, 2016. (AP Photo\/Paul Holston, File)<\/p>\n

At the same time, Republicans have lost some ground on the issues that were key to Trump\u2019s reelection \u2014 the economy and immigration. But Democrats haven\u2019t managed to capitalize on it. Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults, 31%, say Republicans are the party they trust to handle the economy, down slightly from 36% last year. But Democrats haven\u2019t made any gains on this issue; rather, slightly more Americans now say they trust \u201cneither\u201d party to handle the economy.<\/p>\n

Neither party has an edge on who is better equipped to manage the cost of living, which was first asked in the most recent poll.<\/p>\n

Republicans are also down slightly on handling immigration. Only about one-third of U.S. adults trust them to better handle immigration, an apparent decrease from 39% in October. Democrats didn\u2019t appear to benefit from that shift either.<\/p>\n

The AP-NORC poll of 1,156 adults was conducted Feb. 5-8 using a sample drawn from NORC\u2019s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. The margin of sampling error for Democrats overall is plus or minus 6.0 percentage points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By LINLEY SANDERS WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Democratic candidates have notched a series of wins in recent special elections…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1751,1280,143,145,144,8111,1519],"class_list":["post-183345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-democrats","tag-health-care","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-poll","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}