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The Democratic Party is in trouble.
Donald Trump swept the battleground states to defeat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, while Democrats ceded control of Congress to Republicans. The president has not been popular over his first months in office, yet Democrats haven’t been able to block Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy or investigate his rank corruption — and Americans have had it with the party’s feckless opposition. Quinnipiac University released a poll last month finding that only 19 percent of voters approve of the job the party is doing in Congress, a historic low.
Democrats hope they can regain control of the House of Representatives after next year’s midterm elections — but according to a new analysis by The New York Times, the party is losing registered voters at an alarming clip.
The Times found that of the 30 states that track voter registration by party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in all 30 of them between 2020 and 2024. The disparity amounted to 4.5 million voters, nationwide, with Democrats losing 2.1 million voters and Republicans gaining 2.4 million voters. The registration advantage Democrats used to hold in battleground states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina has all but evaporated, while other traditional battleground states like Florida have officially flipped to Republicans.
“I can speak to the [Florida] experience very directly: The only windows in the last 20 years where Dems have seen actual gains in [voter registration] were because of party-driven, or candidate-driven VR efforts. Everything else has a trend line going the other way,” Steve Schale, a longtime Democratic strategist based in Florida, wrote in response to the Times’ story, criticizing how the party has turned registration efforts over to nonprofit groups.
One major flaw with that strategy: Charities aren’t allowed to advocate that people vote for a certain candidate — so there’s little guarantee that liberal efforts to register voters are producing registered Democrats, let alone motivated Democrats.
Voter registration efforts aren’t cheap, and the party’s increasingly dire financial situation could hinder its ability to keep pace with Republicans. Politico reported this week that the Democratic National Committee is struggling to raise money, only holding $15 million in cash at the end of June, compared to the $80 million in the Republican National Committee’s coffers. The gap, which is growing, is almost twice as big as it was six months into Trump’s first term.
There’s plenty of data to explain why people aren’t exactly thrilled about giving their hard-earned money to the Democratic Party. Barely a week after Quinnipiac found that only 19 percent of registered voters approve of the job Democrats are doing in Congress, The Wall Street Journal released a survey finding that 63 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of the party, the lowest number since 1990. A few days later, Rolling Stone published a poll from liberal watchdog End Citizens United which found that voters in key congressional districts believe Democrats are more corrupt than Republicans.
Yes, Democrats have been historically lost in the wilderness following Trump’s win last November — when millions upon millions of voters who showed up for the party in 2020 decided to stay at home — but there’s also some data indicating how they may be able to save themselves. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake found last month that Democratic voters who skipped out on the 2024 election favor progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani crushing Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s mayoral primary is certainly another indication that voters want progressive candidates with conviction.
Nevertheless, scores of establishment Democrats — from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — have so far refused to endorse Mamdani, effectively spurning a new direction for the party. It’s abundantly clear that a new direction is necessary, though, if the party wants to win back the voters it has lost, not to mention convincing new voters that Democrats are actually looking out for their welfare.
