CNN
—
Democrats are far more energized than Republicans about participating in next year’s midterms, but deeply negative perceptions of the Democratic Party and its officeholders raise questions about the party’s ability to capitalize on that energy.
Overall, 72% of Democrats and Democratic-aligned registered voters say they are extremely motivated to vote in next year’s congressional election, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. That outpaces by 10 points deep motivation among the same group just weeks before the 2024 presidential election and stands 22 points above the share of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who feel the same way now.
But just 28% of Americans view the Democratic Party favorably, the lowest mark for Democrats in the history of CNN’s polling going back to 1992. Still, only 33% hold a favorable view of the Republican Party, which is the smallest share in CNN polling since just after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
The poll suggests Democrats have a major opportunity next year – especially since midterms often favor the party out of power – but also a perception problem within their own ranks, particularly among younger voters.
Among voters younger than 45 who align with the Democrats, just 52% say most Democratic members of Congress deserve reelection, and 48% say they do not. Older Democratic voters, by contrast, say these elected officials deserve another term by a wide margin, 76% to 24%.
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say most of the Democratic Party’s members of Congress do not deserve reelection and Democrats themselves are 7 points less likely than Republicans to believe members of Congress of their own party deserve reelection. Those historic lows on favorability are partly driven by Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents being less likely to have a favorable view of their own side (76% of Republican-aligned adults have a favorable view of the GOP, while just 58% on the Democratic side feel that way about their party).
The American public largely agrees that full Republican control of the White House and Congress is bad for the country (57% feel that way), with negative views of both President Donald Trump and his party persistent since spring. Sixty percent say most GOP members of Congress do not deserve to be reelected.
And the Democratic Party may hold an advantage among political independents. Nearly two-thirds of independents say full GOP control of the federal government is bad for the country, and slightly more independents say most Democratic members of Congress deserve reelection (38%) than say the same about most Republican members of Congress (33%).
That gap grows to double digits among independent voters who are deeply motivated to vote next year (39% say most Democrats deserve reelection vs. 27% who say the same about most Republicans), though this is driven at least in part by the stronger motivation to vote among independents who lean Democratic.
The Trump brand in politics
Trump won’t be on the ballot in next year’s election, but his presence is likely to loom large for both his supporters and opponents.
While roughly 3 in 10 Americans call themselves Republicans, in a separate question, 37% of US adults say they’re political supporters specifically of Trump. A smaller share has backed his commercial ventures: 11% have purchased the president’s products or stayed in his hotels. That small group is particularly loyal: They are more motivated to vote than other Trump supporters (62% compared with 45% among Trump backers who haven’t done so) and are more apt to say that Republican members of Congress largely deserve reelection (89% vs. 77%).
The president’s self-described supporters are demographically and politically similar regardless of whether they have spent money on a Trump-branded item or hotel stay. They are largely Republican, more male than female, mainly White, and less likely to have a college degree than those who do not consider themselves supporters.
But having spent money on the Trump brand seems connected to a deeper political commitment to the president: 73% in that group say they strongly approve of his handling of the presidency, compared with 44% among those who say they support him politically but haven’t purchased a product or stayed in one of his hotels.
At the other end of the political spectrum, roughly a tenth of Americans say they’ve participated in some form of protest against Trump since his inauguration, with 8% saying they’ve shown up to a protest in person.
With perceptions of both major parties broadly and persistently negative, Americans continue to express interest in a third political party. Overall, 63% say they would favor having a new third political party to run candidates against Republicans and Democrats for major offices. That’s consistent with the appetite for a third party found in other recent public polls and about the same level of support for a third party found in CNN polling in early 2010.
But interest dropped off significantly when voters were asked about the idea of a new party founded by Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who has floated the “America Party” amid his public falling-out with Trump. His idea for a third party has just 25% support, with 74% opposed.
The poll finds impressions of Musk himself deeply negative – 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of him, while just 23% see him favorably. That’s worsened since March, when he was a prominent part of Trump’s efforts to slash spending and jobs in the federal government. That shift is almost entirely due to lost goodwill among the president’s partisans: While 75% of Republicans had a positive view of him in March, that stands at just 42% now. His favorability ratings among Democrats and independents remain largely unchanged and deeply negative. Americans have long been receptive to the idea of a third party, but when specific ideas and agendas are attached to that new party, support tends to drop dramatically, and candidates from existing third parties rarely win meaningful support in American elections.
In 2010, the Obama-era conservative movement known as the Tea Party sparked similar conversations about a third party spin-off from the GOP, as challengers from the right inspired by the Tea Party took on establishment Republicans leading in to that year’s midterm elections.
Later in 2010, though, only about half of Americans (48%) said they would favor the Tea Party movement becoming such a third party.
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from July 10-13 among a random national sample of 1,057 US adults drawn from a probability-based panel. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results among all adults have a margin of sampling error of ±3.5 percentage points.
CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy and Edward Wu contributed to this report.
