Bulwark Takes - Democrats in Crisis! Party Hits Record Low Favorability Amid Schumer Revolt!

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

Sam Stein and Lauren Egan talk about how the Democratic Party’s hit ALL TIME record-low polls, voter frustration, and leadership struggles. They discuss Chuck Schumer’s challenges, legislative missteps, and whether Democrats can recover. The Opposition | Chuck Schumer Is Facing a Biden Moment https://www.thebulwark.com/p/chuck-schumer-is-facing-a-biden-moment

Hey guys, Sam Stein, Managing Editor of The Bulwark here, along with Lauren Egan, author of The Opposition newsletter. It's like easily one of the top five newsletters out there right now on the market. She's only done two editions. Don't flatter me. Okay, sorry. Top ten. Top ten. Let's just leave it at that. We're going to get into the topics that you're writing about, but before we do that, subscribe to the feed as usual all right so um let's start with the polls basically it's sunday a number of polls came out uh this morning they were very bleak for democrats uh i'm gonna get into two of them so um cnn survey says democratic party's favorability rating among all Americans is at just 29%. That is a record low

since the network started polling in 1992. Wow. NBC News found that just 27% of registered voters have a positive view of Democratic Party. That is also an all-time low since they started polling in 1990. Here's the catch. Both of those polls were done before the Senate Democratic leadership voted for the Republican authored funding bill, which has enraged Democrats. So it's possible that this goes even lower. This is bad for Democrats. I have a theory about why, but I want your take first. Yeah, I don't think it can get much worse for Democrats. It could get worse.

It could get worse. It could. I mean, this is pretty low. I mean, this is a historic low in, what, 30 years since they started polling these? Almost 30 years? That's very good math. Thank you. Over 30 years.

Thank you. You're right. You're right're right you know i wasn't that far off um this is my right 33 years 33 years yeah um so you think you think it can't get lower um well obviously can get lower but this is bad um what do you think are the factors here i think what democratic voters want to see right now is um think it was NBC had an interesting tidbit, their poll where they were like, the last time Trump was president, we saw voters at the beginning of the Trump administration wanted to see Democrats work with Trump to try and get some priorities passed. They now kind of are like, that's not we know that that's not realistic. We've done this before. We know that's not how it's actually going to pan out. So what they want is party leaders to

fight against Trump, to push back against Trump. And there's just a sense among the party that there's no strong leaders in the democratic party. No one actually has kind of the guts or sort of like the energy to really go after him in a meaningful and a persuasive way and i think that's that's how i read this and that's that's what we're seeing in the polls i think today that just came out it is interesting i sort of my read too um i think a lot of this is just you know democrats hating on democrats right now right like if the if the party's voters thought that the party had their shit together, these numbers would be better.

Yeah, like this is all driven by Democrats being pissed off at Democrats. Yeah, like Republicans are not going to approve of the Democratic Party. And it's in these polls, it's like, independents didn't have like a particularly positive view of Trump either. It's just they, you know,

they don't think the Democratic Party has much to offer them. And I do think a lot of it is just the sense that this party is kind of rudderless and that they don't have – there's not really a leadership – there is a real leadership vacuum. Although I'm trying to remember like in 2017, 2018, I guess Pelosi was there, but they were in the minority then too. Was there similar gripes that the party just didn't have good leaders? I can't recall. I don't remember that from 2017. And again, these polls, these are historic lows.

So, right. So obviously, obviously, the same level of dissatisfaction wasn't there. But I think that that's part of, you know, the first time. Yeah, maybe it's just like we experienced Trump before and for Democrats are like, we know what he is. Right. Right. I think the first time around, even if you wanted to see some more from leadership, even if you had some disagreements, it was all everyone was trying to figure it out. We didn't know what kind of President Trump was going to be. There was a lot of wild cards, a lot of unknowns. We know a lot now. And so I think any

sort of grace that some voters are willing to extend to the party the first time around, that's totally out the window this time. And the first time around, there was all these popular movements though, too, right? Like the Women's March right at that time, really galvanized people and gave them sort of a way to, you know, basically channel their anger and their fears and their sadness. And that is not, there's no outlet right now for that. There is, and I wonder if that would be, if that, if the absence of that would, you know, affect these poll numbers, right? If you had some sort of movement to latch on to, if you had some sort of cause that you could support uh maybe you wouldn't

care as much about what the democratic party isn't doing but they don't have that yeah i just think that there's a sense that like that was all fine and good the first time around but like the second time around like that's just not enough why isn't there why isn't it there the second time around i've kind of struggled with that question yeah i don't have a great answer to it i think like part of it is there is a sense of like okay like so what so what we all go march on um the national mall like what is that going to do for us we've done it before he's still president um well i think there's a bit of an exhaustion with some of it you know i don't know i think there's got to be exhaustion i mean i get it i guess what i'm trying to get at is like there's a sense of like it's almost just like a little too cute to do that this time around in

some ways you know what i mean uh all right yeah so you've been calling around all week about schumer specifically because more than anyone else he kind of finds finds himself at a crossroads. And he also, more than anyone else, is not personified as this older generation Dem who doesn't quite get it. What was your main takeaway from your reporting? I was pretty surprised by how many people were just kind of like, he's in trouble. Is he really though? That's in trouble. Is he really, though? That's the thing.

A lot of strategists were like, I'm surprised by how real this feels. At the same time, what's the solution? You know, I think a lot of people were kind of caught off guard by how sort of visceral a lot of the anger felt. Right. And how immediate the backlash was. It was within seconds of him giving that speech that you saw activists and organizers kind of start to organize protests when he's on book tour next week and all that kind of stuff. Which again, I think the Democratic Party needs to have a meeting about how they maybe should cool it on the book tours. What is their desire? Yeah. What is their desire to write books right

now? I don't get it. He, he's basically been doing the rounds though. Obviously he feels like, you know, he needs to defend his position, but also I, I take that as him sort of recognizing that he's in some trouble. What has he been saying? Yeah, I mean, he's kind of been digging in and he did an interview with the New York Times that was supposed to be about his book and obviously turned in to be a bit about the vote that happened. This is going to be like an all-time bad book tour, I feel like. It's just not going to go well. You know know he's kind of pointed the fact that he's had a good track record of um winning senate seats um that he knows that you know it's not just up to any one leader he likened himself to you know he's he's leading an orchestra and there's

different roles for a lot of different people to play but i mean anyone who knows schumer well says there's just like no chance he's going to uh just willingly go um that he's gonna dig dig in um so and you know we've talked about how this has some um you know eerily similar to uh biden over the summer um although i think schumer has more staying power here schumer's not like ducking media and he doesn't look, I mean, he's old, but he doesn't feel infirm the way Biden did or have. And there's not questions about cognitive ability. It's really just vigor.

It's like, yeah, that's it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. I think it's like, does he, what you hear from everyone is like, does he have what it takes to meet this moment? But that's so ambiguous. What what it takes to meet this moment um but that's

so that's so ambiguous what does it take i know i know meet this moment has like been overused as a phrase in the past and even if even if it wasn't a cliche but like what does it mean does he have what it takes like is he gonna like set fire to you know a building is that what it takes i don't know what it takes what does it take yeah i think like it was a sense of he didn't have what it takes to explain what it takes um but he doesn't have the ability to persuasively communicate and explain to the public his vote yeah and get people on board like either direction because i think what you hear from a lot of people is like okay this was not times we're in a bad position it was bad

option either direction but we don't have a leader who can kind of bring the public on board with us who can get the party all together and in line and explain to the voters here's why we have to vote to keep the government open and this is why this is the best option or whatever direction you're going to go in that no one can organize yeah the big that was that's it it's like that's the complaint i heard the most is like it's one thing to do what you did and vote for this bill but like they they should have at least had like a plan heading into it and when the house democrats all voted against it and you were talking about you know you yourself were saying fight we're gonna fight him we're gonna fight him and then you just don't like that's not it's not a plan or it's not at least a plan that you executed on let's hope

so that was to them like they thought well if you're gonna at least if you're gonna fold you gotta fold correctly um but he's not going anywhere no one thinks he's going anywhere and he's not up until 2028 yeah and like unlike the biden situation it's he's not going anywhere. No one thinks he's going anywhere and he's not up until 2028. Yeah. And like, unlike the Biden situation, it's, it's not like there's an election tomorrow and we have to act fast. This is kind of a bit of a long runway, but I mean, he's, he's got a really tough path ahead of him because he's for sure going to get protested a bunch next week when he's

on book door, LOL. And then let's just be clear. The book is very serious. It's about the rise of antisemitism in this country, but it's just opportunity. It's like the couldn't be worse timing. It's just, he's going to get heckled.

And the reason I'm laughing about it is because Hakeem Jeffries also wrote a book. He was also just came back from book tour and he got protested and interrupted at these book tours. And I think it just kind of crystallizes. Dems want their leaders to be fighting, whatever that means to them. Do you pick up any sense that they're going to fight the debt ceiling because of this? Or do we not know yet? I don't think we really know yet um i don't

know what's your sense on it well i don't know i go back and forth i'm on the one hand like there's such a you know appetite to like have some sort of showdown and get some sort of concessions from the administration but on the other hand it's like if you thought the stakes were too high over government shutdown then it's definitely higher for debt ceiling default. Right. So, I mean, the devs are kind of in the same position. They will be in the same exact position.

I just don't know. I mean, in theory, he could have some leverage there, but he literally just folded. So I think Trump will call his bluff. And that's part of the problem. All right. Final thoughts. So does it get better for the Democrats or are they going to stick in the uh mid to high 20s um that's such a tough question it'll get better for them eventually i don't know when that happens i do think that

there were some positive i have a different theory i don't think any of this matters i honestly doubt what do you mean like the polls or what? These polls, I think, ultimately are going to be, we're going to forget that this even happened. I have a theory that this is just Democratic dissatisfaction and that as they get closer to an election, the numbers will shift. People are going to just galvanize around Trump. He's the incumbent. He's the one in charge. And this is not going to be a referendum on the Democratic Party. It will matter potentially for primaries if we see some sort of Tea Party-like wave.

But by 2026, it's not going to make it. We have such a long time. I mean, I know the voters are clearly really upset, but it's also not a bad thing that they feel so strongly. You know, there is energy on that side of the party. And there were signs in that poll that I think were positive, worrying for Trump and positive for Democrats that they're, you know, trying to organize around midterms. I think, you know, the NBC poll is something like just 18% of voters rated the economy as excellent or good, which is not great. I think for NBC, that was the lowest that they had.

There's a lot of lows in these polls. It was the lowest since 2014 for them, so not a historic low, but that's not good. It's not good. 2014. Does that surprise you? The economy really sucked in

2008 and 2009, so I figured it would be bad. We'll see. All right. Let's leave it there. Everyone should check out the opposition. It's coming out tonight. Subscribe to the feed.

Subscribe to the newsletter. Good luck to your Vanderbilt commanders. Thanks, Sam. Appreciate it. Did I get the mascot correct? All right. My Yukon Huskies will definitely be making the tourney. Talk to y'all.

Talk to y'all later. Goodbye.