Democrats: It’s more than “just the economy, stupid”

Donald Trump held a marathon press briefing on Tuesday, ostensibly to celebrate the first anniversary of his triumphant return to the White House before he set off for the World Economic Forum in Davos to announce his takeover of the world. He carried a thick sheaf of papers with hundreds of numbered “accomplishments” he has supposedly achieved, from saving millions of lives to banning paper straws through executive decree. But that wasn’t the real reason he emerged to make such an unexpected appearance before getting on a plane for an important speech and meeting with world leaders. He obviously saw the latest polls — and they aren’t good.

We know this because Trump mentioned it in the White House briefing room. Going on and on (and on) about his alleged economic genius, shouting out nonsensical numbers for what felt like hours, he couldn’t help but whine a little. “I mean, I’m not getting — maybe I have the — bad public relations people, but we’re not getting it across.” Coming from the man who bills himself as the greatest leader, the best deal maker and the most compelling salesman the world has ever known, his words were a tell. 

Trump knows that people aren’t buying his lies. Some of his own voters are, to quote Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, “sneaking away.” But because he has no idea what to do about it other than slap tariffs on everyone and misrepresent the results, the president’s only move is to go on camera and tell the American people that they aren’t experiencing what they’re in fact experiencing. 

The latest polling holds very bad news for Trump. According to the most recent Economist/YouGov poll, which was taken Jan. 16-19, 37% of Americans approve of his job performance, while 57% disapprove. At a net approval of -20%, this is the lowest rating he has received in any Economist poll save one during his first term. 

The stark numbers were apparently driven by a drop in GOP voters’ approval, which fell nine points to 79% over the course of a week. Americans’ opinions of Trump’s “strength, honesty and likeability” have also fallen precipitously. (Did people actually once rate him more highly on those qualities?) Those who say the country is on the right track (31%) versus the wrong track (61%) are similarly dismal. 

If it is true that the midterm elections are a referendum on the party in power, and that presidential approval ratings serve as a signal for how that’s going, then Republicans are in trouble. According to G. Elliott Morris’ Strength In Numbers/Verasight analysis, Democrats hold an eight-point lead on the generic ballot — a figure even greater than their numbers in the historic blue wave of 2018.

All the polling shows that Democratic voters are much more motivated than Republicans at this point, and it appears that is largely because of negative partisanship. A recent Pew survey found that Democrats do not have a high opinion of their own party compared to Republicans, which could explain why the party is so much less popular than the GOP in polling. However, voting patterns in off-year elections, combined with findings that Democrats have a large advantage in the generic ballot, indicates that many Americans may loathe Trump enough to overcome their antipathy to vote blue.

What’s more, the GOP gerrymandering shenanigans appear to have backfired, with the Blue states stepping up to fight fire with fire. We are also awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on Louisiana v. Callais, the voting rights case that might eventually give the GOP a structural lock on the House for decades to come. Whether that will affect 2026 depends on when they hand down the opinion and how quickly the states could adapt. At this point it seems unlikely that the Republicans will be able to exploit this advantage, if they get it, until 2028.

Until recently, it seemed that Democrats might not have even a slim chance of winning the Senate, but a possible path has emerged in recent weeks. If everything breaks perfectly, the party could possibly pick up seats in Alaska, Maine, Ohio and North Carolina, with an outside chance in Iowa, and get a majority. That outcome could prevent the unthinkable legacy of Donald Trump leaving office having put five justices on the Supreme Court should Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito retire, as some court watchers have speculated.

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The Democrats are, as usual, publicly navel gazing about what kind of messaging they should use to leverage what looks to be a solid advantage. Should they use the term “abolish ICE” and campaign on the president’s toxic wrecking ball of the Homeland Security Department, or should they adopt less aggressive rhetoric, such as “restrain and reform ICE” to insure they aren’t tarred as soft on illegal immigration? Are they better off focusing exclusively on “affordability,” since it’s the issue that most people name as their top priority (and on which Trump’s dreadful performance is dragging down Republicans into the low 30s)? Should they follow the polls that say that the public wants more compromise in Washington, or should they take a strong stand against the GOP’s authoritarian onslaught? 

There is a great temptation, as happens so often in politics, to fight the last war. Working under the assumption that because voters said they voted for Trump in 2024 because of the economy, too many strategists still seem to ignore the fact that the country had just gone through unprecedented national trauma with the Covid-19 pandemic and, like virtually every country in the world, reacted by tossing out incumbents. It’s not that people weren’t reeling from the economic upheaval; they were also reeling from five years of death, disruption and despair. It was never just about the eggs.

American voters inexplicably thought that Trump could restore the relative tranquility that existed before that maelstrom. Instead, he has created even more chaos and fear. 

However Democratic congressional candidates ultimately decide to approach this, they simply cannot behave as if we are living through a time of politics as usual. A Republican majority that is allowing Trump to use tariffs as a weapon that hurts average Americans, occupy American cities with paramilitary forces, brutalize immigrants, depose foreign leaders, threaten allies, blackmail law firms and universities, defund science and education, and essentially tear up the Constitution, all in order to appease a tyrant, is simply not something they can ignore. Democrats can’t pretend the only thing that matters is the economy.

All of those are now kitchen table issues. People know that things are hurtling out of control, and they’re talking about it. They’re taking to the streets to protest in their own neighborhoods and in huge numbers all over the country. If voters aren’t laying out that whole panoply of atrocities to pollsters and canvassers, it’s not because they aren’t feeling it — it’s because they’re terrified by the apparent impotence of everyone with any power to stop it. 

According to the latest CNN poll, 58% of Americans say Trump’s first year back in office has been an abject failure. The number one job for Democratic candidates is to make it clear to the American people that every single member of the Republican Party is complicit in everything he is doing — and the only way to fix that is to elect a Democratic Congress to fulfill its constitutional duty as a co-equal branch of government. 

From the looks of the latest polling, that’s fundamentally what people want from the Democrats right now, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to make the case that they’re prepared and equipped to make that happen.

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