Even before Donald Trump started a disastrous war with Iran last month, his average approval rating was close to a nadir after steadily declining over the past year. That decline has since accelerated as the conflict in the Middle East has devastated the global economy and triggered a historic energy crisis . According to a recent poll from The Economist , Trump’s net approval now stands at negative-23 points among all Americans. This is worse than his previous low and about the same as Joe Biden ’s rock-bottom numbers after his disastrous debate performance in 2024. On the economy and inflation — previously two of Trump’s strongest issues — he now polls deep in the red , with about two-thirds of Americans saying that his policies have worsened economic conditions and driven up prices. On foreign affairs, he has also predictably dropped to a historic low. The last president to poll this poorly during a midterm year was George W. Bush, whose approval rating hovered in the mid‑ to high 30s in 2006. This should be good news for Democrats, who famously rode a blue wave that year to retake both the House and Senate, ending over a decade of Republican control of Congress. Yet it is far from certain whether they will benefit from the current president’s unpopularity to the same extent that they did from Bush’s in 2006. The analogy looks even less favorable once you compare the Democratic Party ’s current polling with its 2006 numbers. Twenty years ago, the Democratic Party had a respectable favorability rating in the mid-50s and ran about 11 points ahead of Republicans in generic congressional ballot polls. Today, those favorability numbers have essentially flipped. According to a new CNN-SSRS survey published last week, the party now has an unfavorability rating of 56%. This is the highest it’s been since pollsters began asking the question about a quarter-century ago, while the party’s favorability rating now sits at an all-time low of 28%. Today’s Democrats are also polling significantly worse in generic congressional ballots, with the average poll showing Democrats only five points ahead of Republicans — way down from 2006 and several points lower than in 2018, when Democrats polled eight points ahead at a similar point. The party now has an unfavorability rating of 56%. The source of the Democratic Party’s current polling troubles isn’t hard to discern. Since Trump was reelected in 2024 there has been a profound loss of faith in its leadership among the base. Indeed, the party’s favorability ratings have dropped the most with self-identified Democrats, falling by nearly 20 points between September 2024 and October 2025. In September, the Pew Research Center found that nearly seven in 10 Democrats are “frustrated” with their own party, mainly over their leadership’s inability or unwillingness to push back hard enough on the Trump administration. Last summer, a poll from Reuters found that a majority of Democrats want to replace their party’s leadership. Much of the anger today reflects the leadership’s impotence against Trump, but the discontent runs deeper than tactics for confronting the president. Across the party there is a growing populist faction rejecting the party establishment due to its long history of enabling the various forces that helped fuel the rise of Trump in the first place. In The Guardian, Bhaskar Sunkara recently pointed to the growing divide between “Democrats whose opposition to Trump is essentially defensive, aimed at preserving norms and institutions, and those who see the Trump era as a reason to challenge concentrated wealth, the security state and the corporate power that shapes both parties.” This rift is increasingly clear in high‑profile races like Maine’s Senate primary, where the state’s centrist governor, Janet Mills, is competing with populist insurgent Graham Platner to challenge four‑term Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Mills and Platner present a clear contrast in politics and style. Mills is a 78-year-old moderate with decades of experience in elected office; Platner is a 41-year-old outsider who has made no secret of his intention to oppose the party’s current leadership if elected.
Since Mills announced her candidacy last October, the race has become a kind of proxy battle between the Democratic Party’s establishment and populist wings. While the governor is backed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and was recruited to run by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Platner has picked up endorsements from populist senators like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and a host of influential progressive groups . Across the party there is a growing populist faction rejecting the party establishment. Mills has the support of the Democratic leadership because of her moderate politics and experience, but also because she is genuinely seen as the more “electable” candidate by leaders like Schumer. That calculation is rooted in a traditional belief that centrism is the safest path to victory in general elections. While this assumption has always had its critics, it now looks increasingly out of step with the times. In almost all the general election polls for the Senate race in Maine, Platner is performing much better against Collins than his primary opponent. While Mills is virtually tied with Collins, Platner has consistently held a decisive lead over the incumbent senator, with the most recent poll showing him up by nine points. Maine is hardly reflective of America as a whole, but it is a state where moderate and centrist politics have long flourished. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of place where the establishment theory of electability might be expected to hold. Platner’s early dominance in the polls — he now has a double-digit lead over Mills — at least hints at the emergence of a new center in American politics. The candidate has built his campaign around economic populism and antimilitarism . He has railed against billionaire and corporate influence and condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza, vowing to vote no on military aid for a country that “right now is exterminating people.” While denouncing Israel’s mass killing of Palestinians as “genocide” is still considered beyond the pale for most establishment Democrats, it increasingly reflects the mainstream view of Americans and especially of Democratic voters, who overwhelmingly side with Palestinians over Israelis. On economic issues, a growing majority of voters also favor Platner’s brand of economic populism and antiestablishment politics. Heading into this year’s midterms, the Democratic leadership is hoping that a deeply unpopular president will help boost the party’s chances of reclaiming both the House and Senate. Ironically, the party’s best shot at achieving this feat might come from nominating the very insurgents who are intent on voting the party’s unpopular leaders out of power.
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