The Democratic Party’s brand is in rough shape in the congressional battlegrounds.
Nearly two months into the second Donald Trump administration, a majority of voters in battleground House districts still believe Democrats in Congress are “more focused on helping other people than people like me,” according to an internal poll conducted by the Democratic group Navigator Research. Among independents, just 27 percent believe Democrats are focused on helping them, compared with 55 percent who said they’re focused on others.
The polling, shared first with POLITICO, is one of the first comprehensive surveys of voters in swing congressional districts since November 2024. House Democratic members and staff are scheduled to hear from one of the researchers, who will present their findings, at their caucus’ Issues Conference on Wednesday in Leesburg, Virginia. The meeting is aimed at guiding members’ messaging as they prepare for the 2026 midterms, and the survey suggests the party has an enormous amount of work to do to repair its image.
“The Democratic brand is still not where it needs to be in terms of core trust and understanding people’s challenges,” said Molly Murphy, one of the pollsters who worked on the research by Navigator, a project within the Hub Project, a Democratic nonprofit group. “Even though voters are critical about Trump and some of the things he’s doing, that criticism of Trump doesn’t translate into trust in Democrats. The trust has to be earned.”
Especially alarming for Democrats were findings around voters’ views of Democrats and work. Just 44 percent of those polled said they think Democrats respect work, while even fewer — 39 percent — said the party values work. Only 42 percent said Democrats share their values. A majority, meanwhile — 56 percent — said Democrats are not looking out for working people.
Only 39 percent believe Democrats have the right priorities.
“We’ve always had the stigma of being the ‘welfare party,’ but I do think this is related to a post-Covid feeling that we don’t care about people working, and we’ve had a very long hangover from that, which feels really, really consequential,” Murphy said. “How can you care about working people if you don’t care about work? It’s going to be really hard in the midterms if voters don’t think we care about work.”
Republicans, too, face their own branding problems, according to the survey, with 54 percent of voters saying they view Republicans in Congress unfavorably. Only about a third of voters said they approve of the GOP’s handling of the economy.
But Democrats’ difficulties appear to go deeper. For example, the poll found a whopping 69 percent of voters said Democrats were “too focused on being politically correct.” Another 51 percent said “elitist” described the Democratic Party well.
Since Trump’s reelection, Democrats have struggled to mount a coherent message, even as the president has sent the stock market into a spiral over tariffs. During the presidential address last week, some congressional Democrats protested Trump with signage and walk-outs, while others mocked those attempts at resistance. It’s a reflection of a party that’s disconnected from its own brand, as 2024 post-mortems found voters saw Democrats as weak and overly focused on diversity and elites.
That problem for Democrats is compounded by findings that House Republicans still hold an advantage on the economy, even amid widespread economic uncertainty in the early weeks of Trump’s term. In the Navigator survey of 62 competitive House districts across the country, voters said they trust Republicans over Democrats on handling the economy by a 5-point margin, 46 percent to 41 percent. Voters also trust Republicans more than Democrats by a 7-point margin on responding to inflation, 44 percent to 37 percent.
Just 38 percent of voters believe that Democrats’ policies prioritize the middle and working class, while 35 percent believe they primarily benefit the wealthy. Another 18 percent said they’re geared toward the poor. Republicans, too, had only 38 percent of voters who said GOP’s policies were focused on the middle and working class, while 56 percent said they were focused on the wealthy.
“For a long time, Democrats have asked voters to look at their plan, then extrapolate from a list of policies what they stand for, versus telling voters what they stand for, and then voters believe their policies will back that up,” Murphy said.
The data suggests Democrats’ challenges are still “‘what and who we care about,’ and you don’t answer that with a policy list,” she added.
There were some glimmers of hope for Democrats in the research. Their incumbents are more popular in their home districts than their Republican counterparts, as 44 percent view the Democrats favorably compared with 41 percent who see their GOP officials favorably. In a generic ballot match-up ahead of the 2026 midterms, Democrats hold a 2-point advantage, 42 percent to 40 percent.
But to take advantage of that opening, Murphy said, “we can’t get distracted by distractions, and Trump and Republicans are excellent at throwing up those distractions.”
“Democrats need to keep doing what they’re doing on tariffs and health care costs because that’s what voters are telling us they care about,” Murphy said.
The poll, conducted by Impact Research, surveyed 1,500 voters from Feb. 21 to Feb. 25.
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