Sometimes you have to look a little deeper than the headlines to understand polls, and I did so at New York this week:
A new Reuters-Ipsos poll provides the unsurprising news that rank-and-file Democrats are displeased with their party’s leadership. The numbers are pretty stark:
“Some 62% of self-identified Democrats in the poll agreed with a statement that ‘the leadership of the Democratic Party should be replaced with new people.’ Only 24% disagreed and the rest said they weren’t sure or didn’t answer.”
Some of the more specific complaints the poll identified are a little strange. “Just 17% of Democrats said allowing transgender people to compete in women and girls’ sports should be a priority, but 28% of Democrats think party leaders see it as such.” This is largely hallucinatory. With the arguable exception of those in Maine, who earlier this year fought with the Trump administration over the power to regulate their own school sports programs, most Democrats in the public eye have given this sub-issue (inflated into gigantic proportions by demagogic ads from the Trump campaign last year) a very wide berth. It’s not a great sign that Democrats are viewing their own party through the malevolent eyes of the opposition.
But beyond that problem, there’s a questionable tendency to assume that changing “the leadership” will address concerns that are really just the product of the party having lost all its power in Washington last November. And to some extent, the alleged “disconnect” between party and leadership is exaggerated by the lurid headlines about the poll. For example, “86% of Democrats said changing the federal tax code so wealthy Americans and large corporations pay more in taxes should be a priority, more than the 72% of those surveyed think party leaders make it a top concern.” That’s not a particularly large gap, and, in fact, there are virtually no Democrats in Congress who are not grinding away like cicadas on the message that Republicans are trying to cut taxes on “wealthy Americans and large corporations.”
The more fundamental question may be this: Who, exactly, are the “Democratic leaders” the rank and file wants to replace? It’s not an easy question to answer. I am reasonably confident that a vanishingly small percentage of Democrats could name the current chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, despite some media stories about turmoil at the DNC since his election.
According to a recent Economist-YouGov survey, 36 percent of self-identified Democrats had no opinion of the “Democratic leader” closest to actual power in Washington, Hakeem Jeffries, who is very likely to become Speaker of the House in 2027. Of those who did have an opinion, 51 percent were favorable toward him and 13 percent were unfavorable, which doesn’t sound much like a mandate for “replacing” him. In the same poll, Jeffries’s Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, had a 48 percent favorable and 28 percent unfavorable rating among Democrats, which is surprisingly positive given the massive negative publicity he earned for botching a confrontation with Republicans over a stopgap spending bill in March. Indeed, the favorability ratios for every named Democrat in that poll are a lot better than you’d expect if the rank and file were really in a “throw the bums out” kind of mood: Bernie Sanders is at 82 percent favorable to 8 percent unfavorable; Pete Buttigieg is at 62 percent favorable to 9 percent unfavorable; Elizabeth Warren is at 67 percent favorable to 12 percent unfavorable; Cory Booker is at 56 percent favorable to 11 percent unfavorable; Gavin Newsom is at 56 percent favorable to 17 percent unfavorable; and Gretchen Whitmer is at 49 percent favorable to 11 percent unfavorable.
Democrats obviously don’t have a president to offer unquestioned leadership, but back in the day, losing presidential nominees were often called the “titular leader” of the party until the next nominee was named. Under that definition, the top “Democratic leader” right now is Kamala Harris. Democrats aren’t mad at her, either: Her favorability ratio per Economist-YouGov is a Bernie-esque 84 percent favorable to 10 percent unfavorable. Her 2024 running mate, Tim Walz, comes in at 65 percent favorable and 13 percent unfavorable.
These findings that aren’t consistent with any narrative of a party rank and file in revolt. The source of Democratic unhappiness, it’s reasonably clear, is less about party leaders and more about the party’s dramatic loss of power, even as Donald Trump has asserted the most massive expansion of totally partisan presidential power in U.S. history. No new set of leaders is going to fix that.
Barring a really nasty and divisive nomination contest, the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee will become the unquestioned leader of the party, at least until Election Day. Jeffries, as noted, could enormously raise his profile if Democrats flip the House in 2026, and midterm elections could create new stars. Other Democrats could have big moments like Cory Booker’s after his 26-hour speech deploring Trump’s agenda or Gavin Newsom’s during his toe-to-toe messaging fight with the administration over its assault on his state. But in the end, Democrats on the ground and in the trenches won’t be satisfied until their words can be backed up with real power.
As near as I’ve been able to see so far, Kerry’s stand on the issues is exactly like Bush’s except that he thinks we ought to have some sort of health policy, and he isn’t ready to ban abortions or utterly ban gay marriages.
I don’t think we have that much of a consensus in the voting public. If Bush and Kerry split the Bush vote, that leaves a whole lot of people to vote for someone else if someone else can get funding and organization.
So people can pick Kerry or Bush depending on party loyalty, or whose eyebrows they like better. But it’s a sad state of affairs when that’s what we’re stuck with.
I don’t think working for Nader is going to be a trendy thing to do this year. In fact, I think you would put yourself in serious danger of getting a face full of rotten tomatoes. This might cut down on the effectiveness of Nader’s campaign organization.
Unfortunately, the Republican controlled media will probably give him as much media exposure as they can possibly get away with.
I have to disagree with my Good Friend Charlie Cook whose OP ED appears in today’s NyT….he ought to get out more often..,,,,
If he’d come to visit us in San Francisco, specifically if he were here today, he could see Ralph Nader speak at SFSU.
He and probably not too many others for I saw exactly two, Xerox’ed flyers…
No enthusiasm at a place like State means Ralph is going to have a real hard time breaking 1%…Of course the poll that Charlie easily demolished showed him at 6%..and the Post Poll at 3%
And read Ruy more often Chuck
It’s a long, long time until November, guys. A little too early to be engaged in the practice of chicken counting. I think that these poll numbers are about as good as its going to get for Kerry. Once job numbers begin to improve, which they will, Kerry will go down in the polls. When Osama is caught, which he will, Bush’s numbers will rise.
I feel for you, though. It’s not any fun to root for the stagnation of job creation or to tout the military endeavours of the current administration as failures.
The more Nader is on TV the less impact he has is my observation.
Plus, you need funding to pay for enough “volunteers” to collect all those signatures to gain ballot eligability. Good luck on that.
Campaign finance laws will probably provide enough transparency that the republicans will be exposed if they try too hard to prop up Nader.
No offense Ricky Vandal you may donate your time but the numbers Nader needs to be a player/spoiler won’t come without some cash to get the organization in the states that matter.
Rick, The people who are willing to subjet themselves and their families to the insults, privacy invasion and criticisms of politics seldom have the resume of Mother Theresa. Partly it is the reality of ambitious persons, partly it is what we get for allowing negative campaigning to work. Unfortunately, we have to treat it like sausage making. Enjoy the end product of environmental protection, human rights, more economic democracy etc. and don’t judge the politician by an unrealistic standard of purity. It really, really, really does matter who is in the White House, even if they have the blemishes of major personal ambition.
A lame deduction. A majority of the eligble voters do not vote. That is where Democrats should find voters. Trying to take Naders voters is nonsense. If they liked Cut and Run Kerry they’d vote for the backstabber.
Following up on the Miami Herald poll, it shows Kerry leading Bush 49-43. Amiong Independents, Kerry gets 57% and Bush “a little over a third”. It’s a terribly-written story at http://www.miamiherald.com. Also shows that Graham or Nelson add nothing to the ticket, but that Bush is doing better than in 2000 among Hispanics, carrying them 56-40 (they broke about evenly in 2000, with Bush having a one-point avantage) So maybe Bill Richardson would be the best choice for Florida.
If I understand Florida law correctly, Nader needs 93,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, and he’ll have to have help from the Republicans for that, since he won’t have the Greens.
Nader will only make it onto the ballot in a relative handful of states. So, I don’t care if he’s polling 6 percent, because it won’t impact the race all that much.
“Florida is lost to Kerry.”
Not so fast. This from today’s Miami Herald:
Increasingly critical of President Bush on his handling of the economy and the war in Iraq, more Florida voters now say they plan to support Democrat John Kerry than to help reelect the president, according to a new poll.
The Herald/St. Petersburg Times survey reveals striking vulnerabilities for Bush among key independent voters in the state that narrowly put him into the White House four years ago.
More Florida voters disapprove of his job performance than approve, another sign of the president’s lagging popularity since the 2001 terrorist attacks transformed Bush from a polarizing figure into a popular wartime president.
A majority of voters believe that the United States is ”moving in the wrong direction” under Bush — a marked reversal from two years ago, when 7 in 10 voters, including half of Democrats, approved of Bush’s job performance.
(Unfortunately Nader is still polling 3% in the Sunshine State. Let’s just hope Ruy is right about that fading by election day.)
Thank you!
I have no idea if you are right (though my lone brain cell and my gut tell me you are), but I’ll be able to sleep now.
I don’t see FL as remotely out of play in 2004, though I’d like to hear Ruy speak to that state. Interestingly, The Decembrist makes a decent case for Senator Bill Nelson of FL as VP.
AB
21,000 GOVERNMENT jobs, by the way!
Buchanan is my guess. It was Florida that Nader cost Gore. Florida is lost to Kerry. What he will pick up in 04 will be Ohio and NH, in neither of which will Nader be a factor. The very type of state that will be closer for Kerry will be a type that will not have much of a Nader factor.
Kerry is going to sweep the old North, save Indiana, which was sometimes referred to as Klandiana. The political forces are pushing the Dems in the direction of being the Party of the North, the modern day heir of the Party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. It is a unified base that can be held together. This in-between is what is killing them at times. Resistence is futile. They should accept their destiny as such a party.
The Dems can hold onto the Louisiana seat with Chris John. What they need is more Northern seats so that they do not have to rely on the Southern states, forcing the GOP to rely on them more heavily. Once the parties again become one for the liberal, individualistic North and one for the conservative statist South, although the reverse of 1860, politics will become more civil and more will become involved in elections and party activities.
We need to defeat them one more time. Show them that Lee’s surrender cannot be undone!