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Who can say if Dems have changed for the better...
There have been a lot of tumultuous relationships in the news this year. Lily Allen and David Harbour, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom… and of course, the Democratic Party and their own voters.
Over the past year, approval of the Democratic Party dropped to historic lows, driven in part by the Democratic base’s strong discontent toward its own leadership. For the past year, Democratic voters have been pleading with their party to fight harder against Trump, while party leaders have felt more like a boyfriend who keeps promising that he’ll change.
After some Democrats (including Chuck Schumer) voted for a Republican spending bill in March, just 27% of Democratic voters gave the party an “A” or “B” when asked to grade its response to Trump.
However, during the recent shutdown, 41% of Democratic voters gave the party an “A” or “B” grade, a +14-point increase. After 8 Democrats cut a deal with the Republicans to end the shutdown, that percentage dropped to 33%.
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That pattern holds for the percentage of Democratic voters who say that the party is “doing a decent job” resisting Trump. In March, only 34% of Democratic voters said the party was doing a decent job. During the shutdown, 48% of Democratic voters expressed the same sentiment, but that percentage has since dropped to 41%.
Democratic leaders are going to have to do a lot more to convince their voters that they can win them back. Then again, JD Vance told voters who are upset about the cost of living to “have a little bit of patience.” So maybe we’re all feeling a bit gaslit these days.
Read the full poll here.
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Donate
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Here are some other highlights from DFP this week:
Climate Change We Can Believe In
This last week marked the 30th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP30. Which means that at this point, the debate about climate change is old enough to have back pain and a lot of sensitivity about being called a millennial instead of Gen-Z.
Much like his general approach to fatherhood, President Trump is noticeably absent from this year’s COP. However, despite Trump’s anti-climate agenda and refusal to engage in global climate leadership, new polling from Data for Progress finds that a majority of voters still think that the U.S. should lead in climate action, regardless of how other countries address the issue.
When asked to choose between two statements, a strong majority (65%) of voters prefer one that says that the United States should take ambitious action on climate change, even if other countries do not.
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And a majority of voters prefer a fossil fuel phaseout, even when posed against arguments that it would raise costs or hurt fossil fuel companies.
If the past thirty years of climate change discourse have told us anything, it’s that we all have some really strong commitment issues. But voters clearly want to see a commitment to reducing emissions.
Read the full poll here.
Primary focus
To our dear Chicago readers, we’re sending our sympathies at this time of year, while you’re all preparing for it to get colder than JD Vance’s takes about women and windy enough to blow off Trump’s comb-over. But get ready, because in four months, Illinois will hold one of the hottest Democratic primaries in the country.
After 25-year incumbent Jan Schakowsky announced her retirement in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District, the race to succeed her in this Chicago-area district has gotten crowded.
In a new poll with the Justice Coalition Action, we find Daniel Biss and Kat Abughazaleh leading the pack, tied with 18% of the vote each. However, a clear plurality of primary voters (31%) remain undecided, which means this primary remains open to major shifts between now and March.
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Meanwhile, while you’re all huddled under your weighted blankets, popping your vitamin D supplements, and thinking that you’d rather be in Hawai’i, you can live vicariously through another Democratic primary happening 4,000 miles away.
Representative Ed Case, a Democrat who has represented Hawai’i’s 1st Congressional District since 2019, is facing primary challenges this election cycle from state Rep. Della Au Belatti and state Senator Jarrett Keohokalole.
In our new poll with Our Hawai’i and Indivisible, we find that Case currently leads his two declared challengers by 24 points — but with nearly 1 in 3 voters saying they’re undecided and most voters not having heard of either challenger, it’s not yet Case closed.
The race tightens when Case faces only one challenger, and he would only be leading a generic Democratic opponent by 7 points.
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All we can say is that with 9 months to go before the primary, a significant share of voters are not yet sold on Case’s continued leadership, and it’s unclear which candidate voters will be saying hi, or HI — or actually, aloha — to in 2026.
Read our IL-09 poll here and our HI-01 poll here.
DFP In The News
Evanston Now: New poll shows Biss, Abughazaleh tied
The Guardian: Pelosi calls Trump ‘the biggest con job in American history’ in reply to climate comment
Deseret News: Opinion: U.S. refugee policy doesn’t match American attitudes toward refugees
Politico: The next Democrat Indivisible wants to boot from Congress
Daily Kos: Democrats were winning the shutdown. So why did they fold?
On Social
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