Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
The Democratic Party’s image has eroded to its lowest point in more than three decades, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll, with voters seeing Republicans as better at handling most issues that decide elections.
The new survey finds that 63% of voters hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party—the highest share in Journal polls dating to 1990 and 30 percentage points higher than the 33% who hold a favorable view.
That is a far weaker assessment than voters give to either President Trump or the Republican Party, who are viewed more unfavorably than favorably by 7 points and 11 points, respectively. A mere 8% of voters view the Democrats “very favorably,” compared with 19% who show that level of enthusiasm for the GOP.
BUT...
.It may be “the economy stupid” for Presidential elections, but no economic indicator (consumer confidence, inflation, stock market returns) correlates consistently to midterm outcomes. What does correlate (high R2)? Presidential Approval. Midterms are referendums on the party in power, usually narrowing the mandate given at the last election. And absent >60% approval, the President’s party loses seats. Trump is currently at 44.6% approval. Advantage Democrats.
