Major struggles continue to hamper a Democratic Party that is still reeling from its November shellacking, according to the latest CNN/SSRS poll.
The poll, published Sunday, spells significant problems for the Democratic Party on a number of fronts, beginning with middle-class voters. Among the registered voters sampled in the poll, 35 percent think Republicans are the party of the middle class, while 35 percent believe Democrats are. Another 29 percent say neither party represents the interests of middle-class Americans.
Though Democrats and Republicans are tied on this front, Democrats have ceded major ground since 2016. According to CNN, Democrats have lost a net 17-point advantage they had on Republicans with the middle class compared to an NBC/CNBC poll from 2016.
Moreover, in 1989, an NBC/CNBC poll found Democrats had a 23-point lead over Republicans with the middle class. However, the margin tightened a few years ago in 2022, when Democrats’ advantage dwindled to four points.
“This, I think, speaks to democratic ills more than anything else. They have traditionally been the party of the middle class. No more!” CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten said of the decades-long trend.
“Donald Trump and the Republican Party have taken that mantle away, and now a key advantage for Democrats historically has gone Adios Amigos,” he added.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Voters said that Republicans are the party of strong leaders, change, and getting things accomplished at a much stronger clip than Democrats.
A mere 15 percent of voters say the Democratic Party is the party of strong leaders. In comparison, a plurality of 44 percent perceive Republicans to be the party of strong leaders, and another 40 percent do not think either party has strong leaders.
And while Democrats won the 2008 election on former President Barack Obama’s message of “hope and change,” only a quarter of Americans currently see Democrats as the party of change. On the other hand, 34 percent view Republicans as the party of change, while 40 percent do not believe either party is the party of change.
The poll further finds that voters believe Republicans are “the party that can get things done” by a two-to-one margin. Of the respondents, 40 percent said Republicans have the capabilities of getting things accomplished, while just 19 percent said the same for Democrats. A plurality of 41 percent would not classify either party as one that can get things done.
The poll sampled 2,539 U.S. adults, and the margin of error is +2.7 percent for the full sample. The portion of registered voters was not provided, but the sampling error for the demographic is ± three percent.
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