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The Hill
25 minutes ago
- The Hill
Here's where Democrats stand in polls at Trump's six-month mark
Recent polling is painting a mixed picture for Democrats as they look to chart a path forward in the wake of their loss to President Trump in November. Trump's approval rating remains comfortably underwater as he reaches the six-month mark back in office on Sunday. But while Democrats have scored some notable victories in high-profile elections since then, they've been unable to pull away from the GOP as the party hopes to regroup for the midterms next year. Data experts said Democrats' position has improved since Trump started his second term, but they still have a lot of work to do to win back trust from the American people and be poised to take back control of the House. 'You can't just be on the attack. You can't beat something with nothing,' said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. 'We have to show and tell what we would do, but I think that we're on the precipice of a big opportunity, and I hope we take advantage of it.' Months after Democrats suffered a major blow with Trump sweeping all seven battleground states and the GOP winning control of both houses of Congress, the party is still seeking to put the pieces back together. Halfway through the first year of Trump's term, many data points on where the party stands don't appear bright. Views of the Democratic Party have been at historic lows for a couple months. The percentage of registered voters who view the party favorably reached some of its lowest levels since at least the start of Trump's first term in office in YouGov's average, more than 20 points underwater as of late May. A CNN poll released Thursday found only 28 percent of Americans view the party favorably, a record low in the history of the outlet's polling dating back to 1992. Views of the Republican Party also aren't strong but haven't been quite as poor. A poll conducted by the Democratic super PAC Unite the Country found recently that voters perceive the party as 'out of touch,' 'woke' and 'weak.' An AP-NORC poll found just over a third of Democrats are optimistic about the party's future, compared to 57 percent last July. Surveys have also shown widespread frustration with Democratic leaders and a feeling that Democrats aren't fighting hard enough against the Trump administration and for their voters. This has been particularly pointed against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), whose favorability rating has been stuck in the mid-to-upper 20s throughout Trump's second term, according to the Decision Desk HQ polling average, though his net favorability has improved somewhat more recently. Scott Tranter, the director of data science for DDHQ, said Democrats are still trying to form a coherent message but don't have a clear 'rallying cry,' though some of them have received attention as they've been arrested during faceoffs with Trump administration officials or visited detention centers like 'Alligator Alcatraz' in Florida. 'It's pretty clear that Schumer is not the guy, just based on his approval rating,' Tranter said. 'And one can make the argument that [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi's approval rating was underwater as well, but… Schumer doesn't seem to have that kind of gravitas that she did.' One other common trend in polling over these months is a lack of agreement over who the leader of the Democratic Party is after 2024. A CNN poll found in March that 30 percent of Democrats didn't give a name to respond to a question about which leader best reflects the party's core values. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had the most support but with only 10 percent, while former Vice President Harris had 9 percent and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had 8 percent. An Emerson College Poll found Democrats widely split among the field of potential 2028 presidential contenders, with the leading candidate only with 16 percent. Tranter said this dynamic is somewhat to be expected following a party's loss in the presidential election, pointing to the first months of 2005 for Democrats after John Kerry's loss and of 2013 for Republicans after Mitt Romney's loss. 'Coming out of Kerry, the Democrats were also in the wilderness,' he said. 'And so I think that the takeaway is that every time something like this happens, each party goes through its transformation. I think we're still pretty early on it.' But the data does show some reasons to be optimistic for Democrats. Trump's approval rating and favorability have consistently been underwater, not abnormal for him even as he won the November election, but still presenting Democrats with an opportunity. Democrats have mostly kept a lead in DDHQ's average of the generic congressional ballot since early March, albeit a small one of a couple points at most. They led on that question by 1 point as of Monday. The same CNN poll showing disapproval of the Democratic Party found Democrats are more motivated to vote in next year's midterms. A poll from Republican pollster Fabrizio Ward found Republicans trailing the generic ballot in 28 battleground House districts. Democrats also expressed hope that the passage of Trump's 'big beautiful bill,' extending Trump's tax cuts and increasing border security funding but also cutting Medicaid spending, could give them the opportunity they've been looking for. Multiple polls have shown at least a plurality of registered voters or adults oppose it, though many also say they don't know enough. 'Trump and the Republicans are certainly focused on incredibly unpopular policies that are likely to benefit the Democrats that they deserve leading into the midterms,' said Ryan O'Donnell, the interim executive director of the progressive polling firm Data for Progress. 'But Democrats also have to show that they're hearing people's concerns and actively offering solutions to those concerns to make their lives better and more affordable.' Lake said the lack of a clear leader has a positive side, as the 2028 Democratic field will likely feature many showing what the Democratic alternative is to Trump. But she said the process of a leader or a few leaders emerging has been slower than in the past, and she expects that is unlikely to be 'fixed' before the 2026 midterms. That will require having a unified message if no unified leader, she said. 'They need to have a unified voice and a unified plan, and that plan has to include a proactive, populist economic message about what we're going to do and who we're going to fight for,' Lake said. Lake's polling firm and the Democratic donor network Way to Win partnered to conduct a poll released Thursday evaluating those who voted for President Biden in 2020 but didn't vote in 2024. The poll, conducted from late April to early June, found many of those voters didn't like either candidate and didn't feel that Harris had a strong enough economic message to convince them she would lower costs. Pollsters also found most of those voters lean toward voting for a Democrat if the midterms were held today. Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, the co-founder and vice president of Way to Win, said the feelings of regret that respondents indicated they felt about not voting, particularly as relates to the Medicaid cuts and the cost of living not dropping, give the party an opening. She said the poll, showing the most anguish about cuts to programs that help children and Medicaid, was taken before the law's passage, but those concerns are coming to fruition now. 'I think you can use that, right? You could leverage that to say, 'The thing you care about the most is the thing that is actually happening. And so you need to come and be a part of [the] opposition to this,'' Fernandez Ancona said. And the firm's poll, along with other polling, has shown Democrats want their party to go on offense. 'The table has been set,' she said. 'So the question is, will we be able to take advantage of it? Will we really lean in? Will we not shy away from actually going on offense about this bill? It's all about, can we seize the opportunity?'
Los Angeles Times
25 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
After six months under Trump, California and L.A. are battlegrounds. Who benefits?
Six months into President Trump's second term, his predilection for picking on California has never been on fuller display, turning the state broadly and Los Angeles specifically into key battlegrounds for his right-wing agenda. There are chaotic immigration raids occurring across the state and military troops on L.A. streets. The administration has sued the state or city over sanctuary policies, transgender athletes and the price of eggs. The state has sued the administration more than 30 times, including over funding cuts, voting restrictions and the undoing of birthright citizenship. Federal officials are investigating L.A. County's gun permitting policies, and have sought to overturn a host of education, health and environmental regulations. They have talked not only of enforcing federal laws for the benefit of California residents, but of showing up in full force — soldiers and all — to wrench control from the state's elected leaders. 'We are not going away,' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at a news conference in Los Angeles last month. 'We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country, and what they have tried to insert into this city.' The antagonism toward California is not entirely surprising, having been a feature of Trump's first term and his recent presidential campaign. And yet, the breadth and pace of the administration's attacks, aided by a Republican-controlled Congress and a U.S. Supreme Court convinced of executive power, have stunned many — pleasing some and infuriating others. 'Trump's been able to go much further, much faster than anyone would have calculated, with the assistance of the Supreme Court,' said Bob Shrum, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future. 'In a second Trump term, he's clearly either feeling or acting more emboldened and testing the limits of his power, and Republicans in Congress certainly aren't doing anything to try to rein that in,' said California Sen. Alex Padilla, who was forced to the ground and handcuffed by federal agents after confronting Noem at her news conference. 'It's enraging. It's offensive.' 'What is clear after six months is we now have some measure of checks and balances in California, a counterweight to one-party supermajority control at the state level,' said Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin). 'From securing the border to reversing the ban on gas cars to protecting girls' sports, balance and common sense are returning to our state.' Rob Stutzman, a longtime GOP strategist in California who is no fan of Trump, said the president's motivations for targeting California are obvious, as it 'is the contrast that he basically has built MAGA on.' Visuals of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounding up immigrants in liberal California are red meat to the MAGA base, Stutzman said. 'What they've been able to do in California is basically create the live TV show that they want.' But Trump is hardly the only politician who benefits from his administration being on a war footing with the nation's most populous blue state, Stutzman said. There is a 'symbiotic relationship that Democrats in California have with Trump,' he said, and leaders such as Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also benefit politically when they're seen as standing up to the president. 'If not for Trump's assault on California, was Gavin Newsom in South Carolina?' Stutzman asked, of what many viewed as an early presidential campaign stop earlier this month. 'Would Karen Bass otherwise have been given a lifeline after her disastrous performance with the fires?' Bass, in a statement to The Times, defended her record, saying both homelessness and homicides are down and fire recovery is moving quickly. She said the Trump administration was helpful with early fire response, but 'now they've assaulted our city' with immigration raids — which is why L.A. has joined in litigation to stop them, as her 'number one job is to protect Angelenos.' Bob Salladay, a senior advisor to Newsom, dismissed the idea that battling Trump is in any way good for California or welcomed by its leaders. 'That's not why we're fighting him,' he said. 'We're fighting him because what he's doing is immoral and illegal.' Salladay agreed, however, that the last six months have produced a stunning showdown over American values that few predicted — even with the conservative Project 2025 playbook laying out much of it in advance. 'We knew it would be bad. We didn't know it would be this bad,' Salladay said. 'We didn't know it would be the president of the United States sending U.S. troops into an American city and taking away resources from the National Guard for public theater.' When protests over early immigration raids erupted in scattered pockets of L.A. and downtown, Trump dramatized them as a grave threat to citywide safety, in part to justify bringing in the military. Local officials say masked and militarized agents swarming Latino and other immigrant neighborhoods and racially profiling targets for detention have undermined safety far more than the protests ever did. Trump has since pulled back about half the troops, but thousands remain. A federal judge recently ordered federal agents to stop using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate arrests, but raids continue. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is demanding California counties provide lists of noncitizens in their jails. Beyond L.A., officials and industry leaders say immigration raids have badly spooked workers in farming, construction, street vending and other service sectors, with some leaving the job for fear of being detained. Meanwhile, Trump's tariff war with trading partners has made it more difficult for some farmers to purchase equipment and chemical supplies. The Justice Department is suing the state for allowing transgender girls to compete in girls' sports, alleging such policies violate federal civil rights law. It is suing the state over an animal welfare law protecting hens from being kept in small cages, blaming the policy for driving up the cost of eggs in violation of federal farming regulations. It is investigating L.A. County's gun permitting process, suggesting excessive fees and wait times are violating people's gun rights. Trump signed legislation to undo California's aggressive limits on auto emissions and a landmark rule that would ban new gas-only car sales in the state by 2035. His administration just rescinded billions of dollars for a long-planned high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, calling it a 'boondoggle.' The legal antagonism has cut in the opposite direction, as well, with California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta's office having sued the Trump administration more than 30 times in the last six months over a range of issues. Bonta has sued over billions of dollars in cuts to education funding and billions of dollars in cuts to medical research and development. He has sued over Trump executive orders declaring that California must radically restrict voting access, over Trump's unilateral tariff scheme and over clawbacks of funding and approvals for wind energy and electric vehicle charging stations. Bonta called the Trump administration's targeting of the state 'a lot of show' — and 'disrespectful, inappropriate and unlawful.' He noted a lot of wins in court for the state, but also acknowledged the administration has scored victories, too, particularly at the Supreme Court, which has temporarily cleared the way for mass layoffs of federal employees, the dismantling of the Department of Education and the undoing of birthright citizenship. But those rulings are 'just procedural' for now as litigation continues, Bonta stressed, and the fight continues. 'We are absolutely unapologetic, resolute, committed to meeting the Trump administration in court and beating them back each time they violate the law,' Bonta said. After six months of entrenched political infighting between the U.S. and its largest state, who benefits? Trump, officials in his administration and some state Republicans are adamant that it is good, hardworking, law-abiding people of California, who they allege have long suffered under liberal state policies that reward criminals and unauthorized immigrants. 'What would Los Angeles look like without illegal aliens?' Stephen Miller, one of Trump's top policy advisors, recently asked on Fox News — before suggesting, without proof, that it would have better healthcare and schooling for U.S. children and 'no drug deaths' on the streets. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to The Times that 'Gavin Newscum' — Trump's favorite insult — is 'destroying' the state, and that Trump 'has had to step in and save Californians from Gavin's incompetence.' 'First, when Newscum was chronically unprepared to address the January wildfires, and more recently when he refused to stop violent, left-wing rioters from attacking federal law enforcement,' Jackson said. 'This doesn't even account for Newscum's radical, left-wing policies, which the Administration is working to protect Californians — and all Americans — from, like letting men destroy women's sports, or turning a blind eye to child labor exploitation.' Trump, she said, 'will continue to stand up for Californians like a real leader, while Newsom sips wine in Napa.' Some Republicans in the state strongly agree, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is running for governor. With Trump in office, Bianco said, 'there's finally someone working and looking out for Californians' best interests.' He said Trump called in troops only because of the 'embarrassing' failure of L.A. officials to maintain order. He said the only reason ICE is going after unauthorized immigrants in the streets — with some bystanders admittedly caught in the fray — is that California sanctuary laws prevent agents from just picking them up in jails. 'This is an absolute failure of a Democrat-led agenda and Democrat policy that is forcing the federal government to go into our neighborhoods looking for these criminals,' Bianco said. 'Californians are being punished for it because of failed California leadership, not because of the federal government.' Newsom, Bass and other liberal officials, of course, have framed Trump's actions in the state in very different terms. In a recent filing in the federal case challenging the constitutionality of ICE's immigration tactics in L.A., California and 17 other liberal-led states argued those tactics had left citizens and noncitizens afraid to go outside, turned 'once bustling neighborhoods into ghost towns' and devastated local businesses. State and local officials have said they are fighting the administration so aggressively because Trump's policies threaten billions in federal funding for the state in education, healthcare, transportation and other sectors. California Sen. Adam Schiff, a staunch adversary of Trump, said he has had particularly troubling conversations with farmers up and down the state, who are feeling the pain from Trump's immigration polices and tariffs acutely. 'Their workers are increasingly not showing up. Their raw materials are increasingly more expensive because of the tariffs. Their markets are shrinking because of the recoil by other countries from this kind of indiscriminate turf war,' Schiff said. 'Farmers are really in the epicenter of this.' So, too, Schiff said, are the millions of Californians who could be affected by the administration's decision to cut environmental funding and curtail disaster preparation and relief in the state, including by hampering water management and flood mitigation work and 'slow-walking' wildfire relief in L.A. 'Donald Trump is the first U.S. president who doesn't believe that it's his job to represent the whole country — only the states that voted for him,' Schiff said. 'The president seems to have a particular, personal vendetta against California, which is obviously [a] deep disservice to the millions of residents in our state, no matter whom they voted for.' During her Los Angeles news conference, Noem said that federal officials in L.A. were 'putting together a model and a blueprint' that could be replicated elsewhere — an apparent warning against other blue cities and states bucking the administration. California officials saw it exactly that way. Bass has accused the administration of 'treating Los Angeles as a test case for how far it can go in driving its political agenda forward while pushing the Constitution aside.' What happens next, several political observers said, depends on whether the antagonism continues to work politically, and whether the administration starts acting on its threats to crack down even more. When Bass showed up in person to object to heavily armed immigration agents storming through MacArthur Park recently, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino allegedly told her that she and other L.A. officials and residents 'better get used to' agents being in the city, who 'will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.' Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, when asked if Bass would be arrested, said they were 'keeping everything on the table.' Trump has suggested Newsom should be arrested, too, saying, 'I'd do it.' Padilla was taken forcefully to the ground and handcuffed at a Noem press event. Trump has accused Schiff of criminal fraud for claiming primary residency in mortgage paperwork for a home in his district and one near his work in Washington, D.C., which Schiff called a baseless political attack. Padilla said it's all to be expected from a Republican administration that hates and fears everything that his state stands for, but that Democrats aren't backing down and will continue to 'organize, organize, organize' to defend Californians and win back power in the midterms. 'We're not the fourth largest economy in the world despite our diversity and immigrant population, but because of it,' Padilla said. 'Diversity and migrants doing well and making our country stronger is Donald Trump's worst nightmare — and that has made California his No. 1 target.' Schiff said the administration's actions in California in the last six months are indeed producing 'the TV show that Trump wanted to show his MAGA base,' but 'it's a TV show that is not going over well with the American people.' Trump's approval numbers on immigration are down, Schiff said, because Americans don't want to live in a country where landscapers, car wash employees and farmworkers with zero criminal convictions are terrorized by masked agents in the streets and U.S. citizen children are ripped from their parents. 'The more Trump tries to inflict harm and pain on California, and the more he disrupts life in California cities and communities, the more he makes the Republican brand absolutely toxic,' Schiff said, 'and the more harm that he does to Republican elected leaders up and down the state.'
Washington Post
26 minutes ago
- Washington Post
GOP wants to cut waste. Critics say SNAP exemption could do opposite.
When passing their massive tax and immigration law, Republicans said they wanted to tackle instances of 'waste, fraud, and abuse' in federal programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But, in a last-minute push to secure the vote of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Senate Republicans included a provision that some critics say could encourage some states to maintain — or increase — the number of errors they make in processing critical food assistance benefits.
