Dem
47
GOP
53
It is no secret that the Democratic brand is in rough shape. Many people, including many independents, and even some Democrats, see the Party as "weak and woke," although recent fights such the redistricting battle in Virginia are beginning to chip away at the "weak" part. A recent Verasight poll has the Democrats underwater with 45% favorable and 48% unfavorable, for a net -3. Not great.
But at the moment, the Republicans are even worse. They are at 39% favorable and 55% unfavorable, for a net -16. Also, the Republicans' "very unfavorable" number is 42% vs. 30% for the Democrats. That's even worse, and for House elections, the party brand usually matters more than the individual candidates. Here is the breakdown:
On the positive side for the Democrats, they are almost breaking even, whereas Republicans are deeply underwater. And more people truly detest the Republicans than the Democrats. Many elections require voters to choose the lesser of two evils, and in that context, being the lesser of two evils is a good thing.
Also important is the breakdown by partisanship. Democrats like the Democrats and hate the Republicans and vice versa. But what about independents? Democrats are a net -9 with independents and Republicans are net -30 with independents. A vote for your candidate while the voter is holding his or her nose is a still a vote. The poll also broke down how the voters unhappy with the Democrats are planning to vote—or not:
As expected, Democrats, even unhappy ones, will vote for the Democrats. Republicans will vote for Republicans. More interesting is that among independents unhappy with the "weak and woke" Democrats, more (16%) will nose hold and vote blue than vote red. In short, the Democrats have more soft support than the Republicans—that is, they are the lesser of two evils.
The poll also asked about attributes of the parties. Here are some of the results.
In short, Democrats score high on tolerance; Republicans score high on strength. Interestingly, many of the people who think the Democrats are weak and the Republicans are strong are actual Democrats (as well as many Republicans, of course).
Another result that came out of the poll is that people across the spectrum don't know what the Democrats stand for. They really need something like Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America." It was a simple list but showed what the Republican Party stood for. The Democrats really need something like that. The problem is that they don't agree on what they stand for. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jared Golden (D-ME) don't actually agree on a lot. That's the problem. It is hard to sell a product if you don't know what the product is. (V)