Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Why Democrats have a BRAND PROBLEM and how they can FIX IT

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Why Democrats have a BRAND PROBLEM and how they can FIX IT · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: Three months until election day, and both Republicans and Democrats
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  Speaker 1: are struggling with poor public perception. And while Republicans face
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  Speaker 1: significant pulling head wins, recent survey shows that the Democratic
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  Speaker 1: Party's favorability is actually even worse, with nearly fifty seven
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  Speaker 1: percent of voters viewing it negatively. Ms NOW Congression reporter
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  Speaker 1: Kevin Fry has been digging into that and he joins
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  Speaker 1: us now also joining the conversation the host of Politics
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  Speaker 1: Nation on ms NOW, the Reverend Al Sharpton. He's also
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  Speaker 1: a president of the National Action Network and ms NOW
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  Speaker 1: national affairs analyst John Holman. He is partner and chief
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  Speaker 1: political columnist at Puck. So, Kevin, let's dig into the
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  Speaker 1: reporting here, because look, poles are telling two different stories.
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  Speaker 1: On one hand, polls are really favoring Democrats come November,
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  Speaker 1: but it seems like a lot of that is perhaps
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  Speaker 1: just an anti Trump sentimented these numbers suggest Democrats still
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  Speaker 1: struggling to make.
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  Speaker 2: A case for themselves.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and so I've been talking. I talked
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  Speaker 3: to two or three dozen Democrats on Capitol Hill just
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  Speaker 3: try to get their sense of why do these numbers
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  Speaker 3: add up the way they do? Because I mean, you
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  Speaker 3: have Trump and the GOP underwater, but certainly the Democratic
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  Speaker 3: brand is not exactly shall we say, gold and shiny either,
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  Speaker 3: And they go back to at the very baseline, this
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  Speaker 3: idea of we need to stand for something and not
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  Speaker 3: just against something. Now, there are all sorts of other reasons.
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  Speaker 3: Be it an age question, be it this perception that
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  Speaker 3: we come in and we lecture and we don't actually
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  Speaker 3: listen to people, that we pretend to be the smartest
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  Speaker 3: person in the room. There's also I spoke to one
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  Speaker 3: Democrat who said, we've allowed the Republicans to define us
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  Speaker 3: too much, that they get away with calling us Democrats
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  Speaker 3: as opposed to Democratic Party emphasis on the rat portion.
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  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, the overwhelming thing
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  Speaker 3: I heard from lawmakers was this idea that nobody knows
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  Speaker 3: what we want. So here's just a sampling of what
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  Speaker 3: we heard.
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  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people aren't sure, depending on
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  Speaker 2: where you're from, what it means to be a Democrat.
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  Speaker 3: What do we stand for?
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  Speaker 2: What are we fighting for as opposed to what we are?
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  Speaker 1: Again, we have to listen first and talk second.
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  Speaker 4: And I don't think that's something that we over time
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  Speaker 4: has done.
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  Speaker 5: We have done that we sometimes show up as if
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  Speaker 5: we're the smartest people in the room, and that we
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  Speaker 5: have the plan. We have to be much more ambitious
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  Speaker 5: than just pointing out Donald Trump's failures. I talk a
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  Speaker 5: lot about fighting the corruption, the corporate power that is
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  Speaker 5: made life more expensive. That's trust, the American dream. I
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  Speaker 5: think that ought to be the heart of what we
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  Speaker 5: do as Democrats and how we'll win in twenty six
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  Speaker 5: and I think in twenty eight as well.
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  Speaker 3: So if this all sounds familiar, it goes back to
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  Speaker 3: this idea of affordability. Affordability. Affordability is kind of this
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  Speaker 3: unifying message. Of course, as we have seen in recent weeks,
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  Speaker 3: they're not necessarily all corralled around the same messages to
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  Speaker 3: what affordability should really look like and how exactly you
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  Speaker 3: bring about that affordability on the campaign trail. The other
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  Speaker 3: thing that Democrats some will candidly admit is that part
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  Speaker 3: of their issue is they know, based on talking to
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  Speaker 3: voters and based on the polling, that they want voters
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  Speaker 3: want the party to be a group of fighters, and
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  Speaker 3: there's only so much you can do when you're in
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  Speaker 3: the minority. As one lawmaker put it, they want us
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  Speaker 3: to be laying in front of the bulldozer, and we
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  Speaker 3: simply just can't be doing that.
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  Speaker 2: So Rev, I mean, you know these lawmakers, you're obviously
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  Speaker 2: your voice carries some influence in the party. When you
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  Speaker 2: see these numbers that the Democrats sure they they're anti
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  Speaker 2: they've done a good job opposing Trump, particularly in the
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  Speaker 2: last year after being sort of shell shocked for the
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  Speaker 2: first couple months of his term. How do they make
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  Speaker 2: the more assertive case for themselves they can turn around
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  Speaker 2: public perception of the party.
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  Speaker 6: And no, I think that they must be perceived more
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  Speaker 6: as fighting and leading the fight against Trump, rather than saying, oh,
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  Speaker 6: hold on, I'm running to catch up with the front
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  Speaker 6: line of my troops that much and without me. But
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  Speaker 6: I also think part of what Kevin and others that
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  Speaker 6: analyzing this must look at it is part of the
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  Speaker 6: Democratic Party exception problem is that they are more democratic
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  Speaker 6: than the Republican The Republicans kind of like stay in line,
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  Speaker 6: where the Democrats do tend to have more internal debate
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  Speaker 6: and allow other voices to be heard. So, in whatever
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  Speaker 6: mild defense I would give of them, even though I
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  Speaker 6: want them to be fighters more on stand for some
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  Speaker 6: I would say the fact that you are allowed to
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  Speaker 6: descend to the Democratic Party, you're not allowed to descend
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  Speaker 6: the Republican Party. So the Republicans get everybody that agrees
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  Speaker 6: with them going positive, whereas it dilutes the Democrats support
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  Speaker 6: because one day you're mad, one day you're not mad
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  Speaker 6: at your own party, because you're allowed to express that.
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  Speaker 3: More to the reference point, one thing that I heard
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  Speaker 3: from more than one lawmaker was an invocation of the
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  Speaker 3: quote from O Rogers, which is, I'm not part of
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  Speaker 3: an organized party. I'm part of the member of the
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  Speaker 3: Democratic Party.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and hommin to that. We're seeing this against the
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  Speaker 1: backdrop of a real intro party debate between moderates and progressives,
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  Speaker 1: and we've see that play out and the primary result
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  Speaker 1: the last week or so, and then that includes last
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  Speaker 1: night in Minnesota and then Wisconsin, where particularly in the
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  Speaker 1: Wisconsin gubernatorial race, a real surprise as polls had Francisca
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  Speaker 1: hung up quite a bit. We knew the race, the
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  Speaker 1: gap was narrowing, but still a stunning result here that
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  Speaker 1: she loses in the end. So give us your takes
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  Speaker 1: on last night and what that tells you about the party.
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  Speaker 4: Well, look here the two big takeaways Jonathan, is that
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  Speaker 4: I think if you if you look, if you combine
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  Speaker 4: what happened last night with what happened in Michigan a
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  Speaker 4: week ago, they're essentially the same result. And by that
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  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, people who thought there was going
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  Speaker 4: to be in these two ultra purple crucial battleground states,
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  Speaker 4: very swingy, that you were going to get some clarity
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  Speaker 4: about where the Democratic Party was headed. On the basis
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  Speaker 4: of what happened in these races, we come out with
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  Speaker 4: no clarity whatsoever. We come out with two razor thin margins.
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  Speaker 4: In one case, the progressive candidate prevails narrowly, very narrowly,
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  Speaker 4: and the other, the most progressive candidate in the race,
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  Speaker 4: the DS candidate, loses narrowly. The party is divided, and
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  Speaker 4: that doesn't mean it can't be put back together, but
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  Speaker 4: the party has a very significant, flat factional split within it,
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  Speaker 4: and you saw that play out in these two races.
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  Speaker 4: The other thing I'd say is the turnout in this race,
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  Speaker 4: like their turnout in Michigan, was off the charts, off
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  Speaker 4: the charts for Democrats, much more so than for Republicans.
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  Speaker 4: In the Michigan Senate race, you had a million and
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  Speaker 4: a half Democrats who voted versus a million Republicans who
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  Speaker 4: voted on the other side. And that's part of a
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  Speaker 4: pattern we've seen over the past eighteen months, which is
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  Speaker 4: Democratic voters are really eager to vote. Whether they are
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  Speaker 4: progressives or whether they're Normis or establishmentarians or moderates, they
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  Speaker 4: are eager to get out and vote, and they're eager
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  Speaker 4: to get to the polls in November to try to
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  Speaker 4: stop Donald Trump and maga Republicans. And so you see
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  Speaker 4: two sides of this coin. The party is divided, and
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  Speaker 4: yet what they agree on and what their energy and
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  Speaker 4: their motivation is all around is about is about voting
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  Speaker 4: and turning out. And you know, the Poles just talk
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  Speaker 4: about that. In terms of the enthusiasm advantage that Democrats have,
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  Speaker 4: that is real, and again we've seen it in off
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  Speaker 4: your elections, special elections, all these primaries. Democrats are just
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  Speaker 4: way more motivated than Republicans to cast ballots. And that
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  Speaker 4: is a very good thing for the Democratic Party. It's
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  Speaker 4: one of the big structural factors that's favoring them when
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  Speaker 4: we get to November three.
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  Speaker 1: No question, we've seen that enthusiasm gap reflect the number
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  Speaker 1: of polls and we of course, need to keep in
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  Speaker 1: mind Trump voters don't tend to turn out nearly the
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  Speaker 1: same way when Trump's name is not actually on the ballots.
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  Speaker 1: M mess Now's Kevin Fry, thank you, thank you for
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  Speaker 1: bringing that reporting to us.