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DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS SHOULD BE VERY AFRAID.  
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Lakshya Jain
March 21, 2025
Politico
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_ Democratic voters are even angrier than you think. _

A constituent shouts comments during a town hall hosted by Democratic
Rep. Emily Randall in Tacoma, Wash., Friday, March 7, 2025., Manuel
Valdes/AP

 

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer knows better than anyone, the
Democratic base is pissed off. And not just a little.

The intensity of the anger roiling the party is at a historic level,
suggesting a breach between congressional Democrats and the party
grassroots so severe that it could reshape the 2026 primary election
season.

 

Congressional Democrats have typically enjoyed higher popularity with
their voting base than their Republican counterparts. But the trauma
of the 2024 presidential election defeat appears to have ruptured that
relationship. A review of Quinnipiac University’s annual
first-quarter congressional polling reveals that, for the first time
in the poll’s history, congressional Democrats are now underwater
with their own voters in approval ratings.

 

Just 40 percent of Democrats approve of the job performance of
congressional Democrats, compared to 49 percent who disapprove.
That’s a dramatic change from this time last year, when 75 percent
of Democrats approved compared to just 21 percent who disapproved. The
Democratic base’s disillusionment runs so deep that it’s eerily
reminiscent of Republican grassroots sentiment in the period leading
up to Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party.

The numbers are clear: No longer satisfied with the status quo in
their party, Democrats are on the verge of a Tea Party-style,
intra-party revolt.

The Democratic approval data is unlike any in recent history — and
it isn’t a case of bitter, disaffected partisans reacting to a loss
in the last election. The first time Democrats lost an election to
Donald Trump, their congressional approval ratings within the party
actually ticked _up_, as Democratic base voters largely approved of
the ways that party leadership resisted the Trump administration in
early 2017. The same phenomenon surfaced among Republicans in 2021
when, despite Trump’s defeat and the subsequent chaos of Jan. 6,
Republican voters remained generally positive regarding their views on
the congressional GOP.

The closest partisan parallel to the level of anger currently gripping
Democratic voters would be roughly a decade ago, when Republican
political unknown Dave Brat toppled House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
in a shocking 2014 primary upset.

Two years later, Trump tore through a crowded field of accomplished
establishment candidates and forever upended Republican politics.

Despite the restive energy in the party’s progressive wing, the
Democratic discontent does not seem to be centered around a desire to
pull the party to the left or the right. Democrats cannot seem to
agree on which direction the party should move in — recent Gallup
polling
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found that 45 percent wanted the party to become more moderate, while
29 percent felt it should become more liberal, and 22 percent wanted
it to stay the same.

Instead, the numbers suggest that the fury is at least partly fueled
by the Democratic base’s dissatisfaction with congressional
leadership’s relatively conciliatory approach to Trump this time
around, and their inability to stop him. Recent polls from CNN
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and Data For Progress
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supermajorities of Democratic voters calling for the party’s
congressional leadership to do more to oppose the president — a
sentiment that sparked the fierce backlash against Schumer’s recent
move to facilitate the GOP’s passage of a continuing resolution
funding the government.

Historic precedent suggests it would be extremely unusual for this
kind of dissatisfaction to persist without any major changes in the
party, especially because these voters don’t have anywhere else to
go. Third parties continue to see their vote shares decline, and
polarization between the two major parties continues to rise
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meaning that the odds of these dissatisfied Democrats voting for
non-Democratic candidates are extremely low.

That ratchets up pressure in the 2026 primary election season.
Political [[link removed]] science
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suggests that partisans angry enough to have an opinion on their party
leadership are also the likeliest to show up and vote for Democrats
anyway — so it is not clear that the party will incur a turnout
penalty as a result.

Instead, these numbers open the door to a potentially bruising string
of primaries in both the House and Senate. There are 13
Democratic-held Senate seats up for reelection next year — many of
them involving veteran senators in the bluest states — raising the
prospect of a stream of younger, insurgent candidates more closely
aligned with the party base, similar to what the GOP has contended
with over the past 15 years.

A handful of liberal groups
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have already called for Chuck Schumer to step down as party leader
after voting last week for a GOP stopgap funding bill. Democratic
House members have also felt the sting of grassroots rage in recent
days at town halls marked by testy exchanges
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with deeply frustrated liberal constituents.

Hoping that the unrest blows over, and that Democratic voters return
to the fold eventually, isn’t a smart option. The Republican
establishment learned it the hard way in 2010 and the two subsequent
election cycles, when House and Senate incumbents and other
party-backed candidates were frequently dragged into bruising
primaries that resulted in shocking upsets.

Just ask Eric Cantor.

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