Most Voters Think Dems Don’t Have Their Act Together, Insider Poll Shows

Voters still have a sour view of Democrats six weeks after President Donald Trump and Republicans swept into Washington with control of all branches of the federal government, according to a new poll.

A plurality of voters — 40 percent — said the Democratic Party doesn’t have any strategy whatsoever for responding to Trump, according to the survey by the liberal firm Blueprint that was shared first with POLITICO. Another 24 percent said Democrats have a game plan, but it’s a bad one.

A paltry 10 percent said that the party has a solid technique for dealing with Trump. And that’s coming from a Democratic outfit’s survey.

The unsparing findings, issued by a group backed by mega-donor Reid Hoffman, amount to a major rebuke of the party’s approach to the dawn of Trump's second term. And they come at a moment when Democrats are already feeling despondent after their roundly mocked response to Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday, which was lambasted as unproductive and amateurish.

“Voters correctly identified that the Democratic Party has lost its way,” said Evan Roth Smith, the top pollster for Blueprint. “The Democratic response [Tuesday] night was more or less a continuation of what we've seen from Democrats so far. Which is, there was nothing overtly wrong about it, but it didn't actually do anything to ameliorate this core issue Democrats face, which is voters aren't quite sure what we stand for and would like us to get back to the basic principles of the party.”

On Capitol Hill, top Democrats put on a brave face Wednesday in the wake of their widely criticized reaction to Trump’s speech. But across the party, the damage was still reverberating, as elected officials and strategists scrambled to clean up their response. It was an effort mired in finger-pointing and with little agreement over how Democrats should oppose Trump.

The strategy for countering the president’s speech — or lack thereof — laid bare how divided Democrats still are on how to counter Trump's steamrolling of Washington, and how ineffective their efforts to blunt him remain.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had cautioned Democrats to take a measured approach to Trump’s speech at the Capitol. Instead, Democrats walked out of the chamber, interrupted the president and held up signs in protest that read “False” and “This is not normal.” There was no blunt-force attempt by Democrats to reestablish themselves as the party of the working class.

Instead, Symone Sanders, an ex-top aide to former Vice President Kamala Harris, said on the social media platform X that the signs were “not landing.” Progressives complained that Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who delivered the official Democratic response to Trump, positively invoked former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Others on the left disagreed, arguing that Slotkin’s speech represented the respectful, down-to-earth approach they think Democrats should take. To critics, the night embodied many of the party’s tendencies that have turned off voters: that it is performative, too often takes the bait from Republicans and is failing to express a coherent message focused on Americans’ economic well-being.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has been one of the most vocal critics of his party’s approach to Trump, said in an interview that the spectacle from Democrats was “sad AF.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that while he understands “the emotion behind” such outbursts, they are “not my style.”

In an illustration of how sharply Democrats are split over how to take on Trump, one of the party’s rising stars, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-N.Y.), said his colleagues’ rowdiness on Tuesday was the point. He was among a group of Democrats who departed before the end of Trump’s speech.

“It is rude. It is disrespectful,” he said. “That was the whole point of it — to disrespect him.”

Frost said it was old-fashioned to adhere to norms of decorum given the president’s own behavior, pointing to the fact that Trump taunted Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as “Pocahontas” during his speech.

David Axelrod, the past top strategist for former President Barack Obama, said Democrats in blue districts are likely facing enormous pressure from constituents to take a stand against Trump. He compared Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) disrupting Trump to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) calling then-President Joe Biden a “liar” during his State of the Union address in 2023. Green was tossed out of the chamber after he disrupted Trump, yelling "you have no mandate" and shaking his cane.

“I'm sure Rep. Green got plenty of attaboys from the base for his protest. But with many other Americans — and not just Republicans — it was no more appealing than Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert heckling Biden,” Axelrod said. “It's just not particularly helpful.”

And it did win accolades from some within the party. Michael Hardaway, a former aide to Jeffries, said on X that Green was “an American hero” for standing up to Trump. He added in a text message to POLITICO that he applauded Green’s push to draft articles of impeachment against Trump.

Green now faces the possibility of censure after Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) on Wednesday introduced a measure to formally punish him for his outburst.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Green stood by his approach.

“When you are engaged in peaceful protest, you get in the way,” he said. “You sometimes create a disturbance, but you have to be willing to suffer the consequences. And I'm willing to suffer the consequences for my actions.”

Meanwhile, some Democrats insisted there was no disagreement within the party over how to attack Trump, despite evidence to the contrary.

Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) said House Democrats were in lockstep over opposing Speaker Mike Johnson’s push to pass a six-month funding extension to keep the government open beyond March 14, in an effort to slow down Trump and Elon Musk’s dismantling of the federal government.

“It's actually remarkable when people say Democrats are not unified,” she said. “I haven't heard a single Democrat stray away from that message.”

Roth Smith, the Blueprint pollster, said Democrats’ message on Tuesday was “a little highfalutin,” pointing to Slotkin’s nods to Reagan and bipartisanship, when what the party needs is “a reset.”

As much as Democrats are unsure of what to do in the second Trump era, he said voters see a straightforward path: Get back to their roots as a party that defends Social Security and Medicare, workers’ rights and a good economy for all Americans.

As simple as that sounds, it has so far proven elusive for Democrats.