There’s No Easy Fix for Democrats’ Political Woes

The good news for Democrats: Everyone in the party agrees that they are in trouble and in desperate need of a new direction.

The party’s favorability ratings are at a record low. The party that was once most closely identified with middle and working-class voters is now seen as the party defending the elites. A recent poll by the Democratic polling consortium Navigator found that a majority of independent voters were more likely to see the Democrats as the party representing the wealthy than standing up for the middle class.

The bad news for Democrats is that there’s not an easy or universally agreed-upon fix to their political problems.

First, it’s hard to reshape perceptions of a political party when that party is shut out of power in Washington. The results of the upcoming midterm elections will be driven by perceptions of the party in charge, not the party in the minority. In other words, Democrats’ success in 2026 depends more on Republicans failing than anything else.

What failing means, of course, is also yet to be determined. Many Democrats