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.
Norm?
Norman?
Norman Rogers?
*Warning – Possible Troll Alert*
I think more people need to get off their lazy behinds and really look for a job. The Toledo Blade (Ohio) on Sundays has over 4 full pages of jobs, with more than 1 entirely in the medical field. Of course these jobs take an education and some hard work to get which many people don’t want to do. Why do so many people think they should get paid a great wage for doing nothing? Socialism didn’t work in the Soviet Union and it won’t work here. Our country was based on you get what you work for, not making others give you something you don’t deserve. I have gotten my first raise in 10 years so something must be starting to get fixed from 8 years of depression in jobs.
This just out, from Citizens for Tax Justice, an outstanding nonprofit group that has been monitoring the tax code for progressivity for decades now:
DO FAT CATS PAY LOWER TAX RATES THAN WORKERS?
A May 8 analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, released today by Citizens for Tax Justice, shows that the federal tax code has
become so skewed in favor of investors over workers that personal taxes on earnings are now two-and-a-half times greater than personal taxes on
investment income.
The analysis shows that total federal personal taxes paid on wages now average 23.4 percent, while federal personal taxes on investment income now average only 9.6 percent.
The press release is available on CTJ’s website at
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/earnpr.pdf .
The full ITEP analysis can be found at http://www.itepnet.org/earnan.pdf .
(end of CTJ communication)
Edwards in his two Americas speech worked in this theme about this Administration favoring wealth over work in its tax and other economic policies. Most Americans, based on polling results, already know that this Administration favors the wealthy in its tax policies. And that seems not (yet, anyway) to have coincided with the sort of hue and cry one would have hoped for in light of such an outrageous reality.
I liked Edwards’ frame on this. It is a relatively easy to explain values-based statement which seems to resonate better with a broader portion of the public than others I’ve seen used to get at the same point. It is harder to attack with the class warfare line and lends itself better to putting a human face on this issue.
Frank, it is possible to determine the approximate “value” of the “jobs” being created if you take a look at the full report put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tl4.htm.
When you look at the numbers being offered, what you will find is that of those 288K net new “jobs”, 60.1K are in Temporary Help Services and Business Support Services (shorter version: temp jobs) and another 29.8K are in Services to Building and Dwellings (groundskeepers in other words). You will find another 36K in Accomodations and Food Services (about 80% in Food Services and Drinking Places) and another 16.8K in Ambulatory Health Care Services (home health aides in other words). So, just add up these numbers (142.7K total) to see that about 50% of the new positions are in immediately identifiable minimum wage jobs. I haven’t even teased out the other minimum wage jobs contained in the list yet but they can be identified (what percentage of Nursng and Residential Care Facilities positions aren’t minimum wage in your estimation, for example?).
I’ll let you draw your own conclusion about how sustainable Dubya’s growth projections are. Take a look at the BLS report for more detail.
ALERT: John Zogby has placed an article on his website in which he predicts, based on current polling numbers and history, that John Kerry will win the election. His arguments are quite similar to those espoused on this website…
Where are all these new jobs? I am highly educated and skilled, and I’ve been out of work for a year. It’s been ages since I’ve even had an interview.
Is there any way to tell if the new jobs are actually lower paying sector jobs? I smell a rat.
The problem with the Repub/CNBC line about how the economy is improving is that it is based on aggregate statistics. As the public rightly perceives, things aren’t getting be4tter for ordinary people. The tax cuts, while nice sounding in the aggregate, went mostly to 1-2% of the population. New jobs, ok, but no one is saying how much they pay. If they are at Wal-Mart, it isn’t good enough. Corporate profits may be up, but they aren’t being spread around. The public understands that gasoline is going up, interest rates are going up, inflation is going up, wages aren’t going up, and good jobs are still disappearing. As someone upthread said, Bush’s economic policies are succeeding, but the result is bad for 98% of the population.
In my field, information technology, over 900K jobs have been lost since 2001, and since January, 15K have been added.
This is supposed to cheer people up?
Democrats need to understand that, on the economy, Bush has not “failed.” He’s succeeded in what he is trying to do. The only problem is that what he is trying to do, is only really good for about 1% of the population. Bush is trying to shape an economy in which there are tremendous productivity gains, but no wage gains, and guess what we’ve got? Duh!
Perhaps voteres are waking up to the fact that we have embraced an economic policy with the moral equivalence of throwing a huge drunken party complete with booze, dancing girls, and a rented ballroom, then charging it all to our children. . .
Well, probably not.
The most important changes for an optimistic economy are wage growth, control over health care and insurance costs, and secure retirements. Allowing these to be dictated by employers like Bush seems content on doing will only drive more pessimism and insecurity and doubt. The party that wins public support for the economy must raise the federal minimum wage, especially for full time workers, and keep it indexed to price inflation. Sen. Kennedy made this important proposal that should be tacked onto any bill that Republicans use to eviscerate the middle class! Middle class and working class workers can’t pay their bills and mortgages and health care costs, let alone save for retirement of Bush’s ludicrous Health Savings Accounts. Bush is incredibly out of touch and REFUSES to see the error of his ways. Why do Republicans seem to only care about GDP growth, not stagnant wages? about newly unemployed numbers, not those out of work for years and years? Kerry is the only one who understands and aims to help average Americans.
No amount of priveledge can take away the fact that Kerry has the best ideas! And no amount of cowboy antics and acting chumy with voters can take away the fact that Bush’s policies have emasculated most workers who don’t earn, say, $100,000 a year and have only helped the superrich!
The jobs numbers aren’t good according to BushCo’s econ team. An average of 306,00 jobs/month, thanks to tax cuts. At least they outpace population growth again though.
It’ll go away eventually. It lags, of course. I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point that the economy, and particularly the job situation, will be considerably better by this time next year. I used to be afraid that it would improve quickly enough to help Bush, but I’m nearly positive that there’s not enough time at this point. Thank god.
I suspect that SSJPabs is correct about a time lag. Especially given the competing news this week.
I think the key indicator of the economy for most people is “when do I expect my next raise, and how big will it be?” And right now, I now a _lot_ of people for whom that indicator is very negative. Anecdotally, nearly everyone I talk to (including, unfortunately, my own employees) is clear that there will be no raises this year, and unless things change radically, next years’ are likely to be small, too.
This contrasts very, very clearly with memories of the second half of the nineties, where raises (and even bonuses, remember those?) were regular and decently-sized, if not better.
From my reading, no matter what the numbers, the one major thing this recovery has not produced, and doesn’t seem likely to produce, is any real wage growth any time soon.
So for most people, the recovery is not real on a personal level. Everyone is happy that there isn’t any inflation (unless you’re trying to buy a first house), but there certainly isn’t any sense of hope that things are getting any better.
Well I suppose it took a lot of time for the lack of jobs to really impact the public perception on economics, it might take a while for that to be too.
I’m too close to these things, too informed. I honestly admit that I have little in common with the average public in reactions to these numbers.