GUEST COLUMN, J. Basil Dannebohm
The frustrated populace, hoping for a “blue wave” at the midterms, will likely have to continue their collective lalochezia for the foreseeable future. As they face the lowest approval ratings in more than three decades, the only thing Democrats seem to agree on is their disdain for Donald Trump. But that alone won’t be enough to persuade independent voters.
“Over time, the increase in the percentage of independents has come more at the expense of Democrats than Republicans, which might be expected since Democrats were previously the largest political group,” Jeffrey Jones, Senior Editor for Gallup, observed.
About 43 percent of U.S. voters now consider themselves to be political independents, with the remaining voting bloc divided between Republicans and Democrats. Due to relentless in-fighting and lack of a tangible political strategy, some experts predict those numbers could spell disaster for the left.
“I don’t see a blue wave. It’s more like a blue trickle,” said Matt Taglia in an interview with Politico’s Danny Nguyen. Taglia is the senior director of Emerson College polling, a non-partisan group that routinely administers political opinion surveys.
Regarding a recent poll conducted by Unite the Country, a Democratic super PAC, The Hill’s Amie Parnes said that voters are “first and foremost, concerned about common sense in a political party, something Democrats evidently see as an afterthought, the poll revealed. The party needs to align its messaging with the commonsense rhetoric and policies voters are looking for.”
At least one red state voter seems inclined to agree.
“[The] Democratic Party could make some simple changes which would greatly enhance the likelihood of picking up many congressional seats in the midterm elections,” wrote one Democrat, who said he feels ostracized by the left because he is, in his own words, “a white man.”
“First, the land pledge at the start of every party meeting should be eliminated. Yes, the native American Indians were treated unfairly by the white settlers, but suggesting that we are simply caretakers for the land, which will be returned to the tribe is bullshit. All the emphasis on pronouns must be dropped and no more special treatment for someone who is willing to get up and claim to be of the opposite gender than their sex or do not identify with any gender so they have some competitive advantage in seeking a party position,” he continued.
Some in the Democratic Party sympathize with his sentiments.
However, it’s worth pointing out that this specific disenfranchised Democrat apparently condones Trump’s retribution campaign and cowers to his local MAGA Senator for fear of the same. His wife serves as chair of a county Democratic committee in deep-red central Kansas.
A survey conducted by the progressive Evangelical group Vote Common Good found that most Christians have little to no trust in the Democrats and believe the party is hostile to their faith.
Meanwhile, a Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that 62 percent of self-identified Democrats said the party should replace its leadership.
“The poll comes at a time of crisis for the party,” wrote Truthout’s Sharon Zhang, “After Democrats suffered enormous losses in the 2024 election, many conservative and mainstream liberal analysts had pushed a false narrative that Democrats lost because they hadn’t gone far enough to the right and embraced more of Republicans’ outright fascist viewpoints. This has consistently been shown to be untrue when voters have been surveyed about their views on key issues. Indeed, the Reuters/Ipsos polling suggested that Democrats want party leaders to go further left on a wide variety of economic and social issues.”
As Democratic centrist Abigail Spanberger campaigns to become Virginia’s next governor and Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is vying to become New York City’s next mayor, divided Democratic primaries are preparing to fire up across the country – and strategists are feeling the heat. An article by Politico’s Elena Schneider and Nicholas Wu notes, “Interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers and strategists reflect a growing anxiety that next year’s primaries may be more combative and complicated than ever before — as waves of candidates frustrated with the GOP-controlled Washington and the Democratic Party’s response to President Donald Trump crowd into primaries.”
Adding insult to injury, Republicans are capitalizing off Democratic division by gerrymandering districts in reliably red states.
Though the often-unpredictable drama from the Trump regime is exhausting, midterm voters seem less inclined to trade MAGA chaos for the polarizing drama that is engulfing the left. It’s imperative that Democrats offer something tangibly different in both behavior and policy or face certain defeat in 2026.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR — J. Basil Dannebohm is a writer, speaker, consultant, former Kansas legislator and intelligencer. His website is www.dannebohm.com. Mr. Dannebohm is a member of the Virginia Press Association and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He writes from the Washington DC metro in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
