Republicans on Capitol Hill are locked in an uncomfortable fight over cutting Medicaid and other services people like. Donald Trump’s tariffs are kicking in for real now, and his approval numbers remain among the lowest of his political career. Should be a good week to be a Democrat, in theory.
In practice it seems to be quite challenging, as Semafor detailed in a recent piece about Dem poll numbers, which remain persistently low despite the public souring on MAGA. An interesting thing happens when one asks Democrats about this situation – this gift of a week fades out of view and the continuing party identity crisis pops right back to the surface, as though it was mid-November of last year.
“What are we for? We’ve got to show that,” Sen. Peter Welch told NOTUS yesterday.
Political operatives will tell you it’s very early to think about polls in an election sense, or a voter engagement sense. Some Democratic strategists we talked to say Trump’s numbers are more important now, pointing to his losing voter confidence in some of his strongest issue areas, like immigration and the economy. That creates space for Dems to build in, they say.
Democrats have been on an aggressive outreach tour this year, even hosting events in red districts in an effort to channel public anger at Trump 2.0 toward increased support. But at least on Tuesday, how that project translates to Capitol Hill was unclear, as NOTUS’ Claire Heddles and Casey Murray report. Yesterday, as Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent testified at one House hearing and Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem at another, “visible anger was in short supply” from the opposition party, they write.
Democrats are still trying to figure this out, clearly.
The 2026 Senate map is pretty much miracle territory for Democrats, as NOTUS has reported. So it will likely be the House where the real effort to turn sagging Trump support into a Blue Wave will be focused. Officially, Democrats are projecting confidence.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton pointed us to a recent NewsNation poll showing Democrats leading the generic ballot 45-40 (methodology: “an online sample of 1,448 registered voters, by TrueDot.ai, the AI-accelerated research platform”).
“The midterms are shaping up to be a referendum on who is going to lower costs and help improve the lives of everyday Americans, not the wealthy and well-connected,” Shelton said. “By all accounts, House Republicans are failing miserably, and it’s why House Democrats are favored to re-take the majority. House Democrats have the better message, stronger candidates, more resources, and a favorable political environment as we go into 2026.”
It’s true that history suggests the party out of the White House has the wind at its back heading into a midterm. But for Democrats to turn that into a history-making rebuke of Trump, they still need to figure out how to rebuild confidence with their base and also expand their reach.
“It’s early, so I’m not worried about whether the base enthusiasm is clearly there,” said Rep. Ami Bera, who co-chairs the DCCC’s Frontline program, which focuses on defending the most competitive seats.
“I think a lot of Democrats are just scared and angry at everyone,” Bera said, “but in individual districts, I bet if you did individual polling, voters would be happy with their member of Congress.”
A guy like Bera needs a Democratic Party that can be trusted stewards of government in purple places where people may be recoiling from this chaotic period. But there also needs to be some fight, say other Democrats.
“I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why Democratic Party approval ratings are pretty low,” Sen. Chris Murphy told us. “It’s because a lot of folks who are really angry at what Trump has done are taking it out both on Trump and on the party that they think should be stopping him.”
How much fight? And on what? Open questions that need to be answered before Democrats can capitalize on the moment Republicans have created. Some of those questions remain very basic identity-level stuff.
“Our voters, and the independent voters, and the disaffected voters who are against Trump and Musk’s abuses, want to see the Democratic Party transform into a pro-worker, anti-billionaire party,” Rep. Greg Casar, chair of the progressive caucus, told NOTUS. “And if we get there, I think you’ll see a big shift in our numbers; that’s how you turn the tide.”
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Evan McMorris-Santoro is a reporter at NOTUS. Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.