US Democrats’ deep pessimism about their party’s future.
The Associated Press reported that only a third of Democrats are “very optimistic” or “somewhat optimistic,” according to a poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
“I’m not optimistic about the Democrats right now,” said Damien Williams, a 48-year-old Democrat from Illinois, who participated in the poll. “I don’t think they’re doing enough to push back against Donald Trump.”
In a July 2024 poll, one in 10 Democrats said they were optimistic about the future of their party.
The poll comes at a critical time for the Democratic Party, which is looking to make progress after losing the White House and Congress in the general elections last fall.
Democrats in the Associated Press/Norwegian poll expressed mixed opinions about some of their party’s prominent elected officials, including Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and expressed concern about how party leaders are chosen in the American political system.
The results showed that in addition to Democrats’ negative view of the future of their party, a majority (55 percent) are pessimistic about the way leaders are chosen in America. Last summer, when Joe Biden was still in the White House, 45 percent had a pessimistic view on this issue.
The results showed that despite Democrats’ increasing pessimism about the party’s future, neither of the two major American parties, the Democrats or the Republicans, is popular among adults.
The poll’s results showed that Republicans are slightly more optimistic about the future of their party than Democrats. The findings suggest that about half of Republicans, 55 percent, are very or somewhat optimistic about the future of the GOP. This level of optimism among party members was 47% last summer.