Democratic Registration Taking Dive Like Palooka Boxer
'Good news, everyone. We're still technically alive!'
Things aren’t going well for Democrats right now — unless you’re completely delusional, in which case everything is awesome and you’re also enjoying some delightful hallucinations. In mine, Jennifer Simard is collaborating with me on my latest musical comedy production.
The New York Times reports that the Democratic Party is “hemorrhaging voters” and has lost ground to Republicans in the 30 states that track voter registration by political party. (In the states where we can’t see voter registration, let’s just assume everything’s still as tight as our 20something asses.) This sharp decline occurred between the 2020 and 2024 elections, that brief national “time out” from Trump’s reign of terror known as the Biden administration. Democrats lost 2.1 million voters, and Republicans picked up 2.4 million — a swing of 4.5 million voters to the GOP, which is a problem for the complex political reason that voters decide elections.
This isn’t just happening in solid-red states, either. Democrats lost voters in solid-blue states, as well, including Oregon, Colorado, California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. There’s also significant erosion in battleground states, such as Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, where Democrats “suffered the steepest percentage-point plunge of any state but West Virginia.” Trump flipped Nevada for the first time since Bush carried the state in 2004. There is no realistic path to a Senate majority without North Carolina, and we really can’t afford Pennsylvania becoming another Ohio or Florida. That would be game over unless we can somehow clone California (maybe then I could buy a place in San Diego).
After reading the Time article, I can’t help wondering if the entire Never Trump Republican movement is a big scam. Many prominent Never Trumpers even publicly switched parties, but it’s like when highly paid ad executives and legal partners switch firms but don’t actually bring any major clients with them, despite all their boasting. It turns out that Never Trump Republicans don’t actually have their fingers on the pulse of most normal voters, which might explain why Trump’s MAGA movement defeated them so easily in the first place.
Of course, I don’t want to offend Never Trumpers because we need all the help we can get right now. However, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton all made significant overtures to non-Trump Republicans, and we’ve seen little return on that investment. Several former and sort-of-still Republicans — Stephanie Grisham, Ana Navarro, Jon Giles, Olivia Troye, Geoff Duncan, and Adam Kinzinger — spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention while there was no room on stage for actual Democratic Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman. Still, more new voters chose to become Republicans and not Democrats last year.
Perhaps it’s not wise for prominent Democrats to say that we need a “strong” Republican party or to insist that today’s MAGA GOP is not like “your father’s GOP,” which was never any good in the first place.
Democratic weakness is most pronounced among men and younger voters. The latter is most concerning because younger voters is how we make older voters. Top Democratic strategists have closely looked at the data and are freaking out with all appropriate discretion.
“I don’t want to say, ‘The death cycle of the Democratic Party,’ but there seems to be no end to this,” said Michael Pruser, who tracks voter registration closely as the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, an election-analysis site. “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year.”
I’ve voted Democratic my entire adult life, and I admit that a growing issue for us is that we can be annoying and obnoxious. It’s who we are. It’s part of our lifestyle. Alas, our charming nature is apparently holding up like parachute pants or the second Spice Girls album.
A consistent theme over the past decade has been that voters should pick Democrats — vote “blue no matter who” (under certain conditions) — over Republicans because they’re racist, bigoted, and terrible, and you’re racist, bigoted, and terrible if you don’t vote for Democrats. We’ll even troll voters online: “So, your house got destroyed in a tornado? Well, you should’ve voted for Kamala!” (This is perhaps a good example of “annoying and obnoxious.”) Inexplicably, this compelling form of outreach — i.e. “nana nana boo boo politics” — has not proven effective.
Democrats are perhaps even more unpopular than Trump: A Wall Street Journal poll has the party with 38 percent approval, the lowest in 35 years. They managed a 27 percent positive rating in a March NBC News poll, and a CNN poll from July had Democrats with just 28 percent approval, the lowest since 1992. (That year had mixed results for Democrats: Bill Clinton won the presidency, but Democrats lost seats in the House — thanks to 1990 redistricting. It’s all a circle.)
Now, “nana nana boo boo politics” could still prevail in the upcoming midterms, as Donald Trump is historically unpopular with a 55 percent disapproval rating. That is usually fatal for the president’s party during midterms. Also, Democrats have over-performed in special elections this year, although such elections usually have an electorate that favors the current Democratic Party (high-information, college grads, etc).
Even more encouraging is that the CNN poll shows that 72 percent of Democratic voters say they are “extremely motivated” to vote in next year’s midterm elections, compared to 50 percent of Republican voters. (That’s probably why Trump is sending troops into U.S. cities.)
Low polling for Democrats is largely a result of actual Democrats who aren’t satisfied with how Democrats are combatting Trump. They’re not going to vote for Republicans and probably won’t just stay home (as they don’t have terminal Jill Stein brain rot). They’ll still vote for Democrats. However, these numbers remind me of the Tea Party primary rout when establishment Republicans first felt voter’s wrath. They fell to a monster of their own making, brought to life with a bolt of lightning from right-wing media. Establishment Democrats are prime to fall more from basic inertia.
Still, the numbers are concerning. Before the 2018 midterms, 34 percent of new voter registrations nationwide were Democrats, and Republicans were just 20 percent. We then enjoyed a Blue Wave, even if Ron DeSantis also seized control of Florida. In 2024, Republicans were ahead of Democrats among new registrants. We all remember how that went. It’s not a feeling I’m in a hurry to repeat.
I am blaming the lack of fight from many Dems, although that is changing, and Dems reliance on consistently wrong and expensive political consultants and focus groups.
It's interesting reading about those numbers, yet seeing TACO freak out about the midterms to such an extent that he's already gotten Texas to gerrymander their House seats even more in favor of the repubs. His "policies" are so unpopular (and Epstein continues to be an anchor around his neck, no matter what he does) that an unpopular party just might beat his party in the midterms.
If only all elected Dems would take up the fight, like Newsom, AOC, Warren, Sanders, Crockett, and Moore have done.
I sometimes wonder how this era would have gone if there was a functioning opposition party. The intraparty combat right now suggests this is a fight between Left and Center, as though we are turning off voters because we’re too far Left or not Left enough. I think the problem is more that we show constant weakness and convey the image of pampered elites—it’s galling because the Republicans are the ones actually serving the elite, but image can overcome reality. When our side gives focus grouped responses to everything, talks about class politics in a way that’s suited more for a college lecture hall than the lawn chairs outside a gas station, and responds to Trump’s WWE act with “we will fight back” but no follow-up, it’d be more surprising if we were popular.
I hope Democrats win the midterms by default because they’re sure not winning it on the merits.