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Strong leaders missing within the Dem party

gbg3

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Perino mentioned this enormous "strong leaders" difference between the parties yesterday. She viewed it as significant polling info. Today, CNN is out with this piece talking about the same finding in their new poll. Additionally, CNN is seeing the "party of change" poll result as an important piece too, since the party out of office almost always leads in this category. But not now.

"There’s new evidence that the Democratic Party’s reputation is in a bad place. That doesn’t mean the party is doomed, electorally speaking. There’s plenty of reason to doubt that, given lots of history and its performance in the 2025 elections thus far — but it is a complicating factor for the party’s path forward.

And a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS provides insights into the party’s problems. It’s worth a breakdown.

The poll, which was released Sunday, asked a battery of questions about how people view both parties. Perhaps most striking was that people were more likely to view the Republicans than Democrats as the party with strong leaders (40% to 16%) and even the “party of change” (32% to 25%)."


 
Who do you think will be the next Republican leader after Trump?
 
You leave out that the poll actually said.

In the May poll, released on Sunday, respondents were asked which party is best described as “the party with strong leaders.”

More than 4 in 10 people — 43 percent — said “neither party,” while Republicans followed close behind with 40 percent. Only 16 percent of respondents said the statement best describes the Democratic Party.

And while Republican got 40% as 'strong leaders', strong does not mean effective or intelligent leaders.
And the Trump regime has clearly proven that.
 
Then Enten is out with new videos expressing his surprise that Dems have lost all their once large "middle class" advantage as Reps are now tied with Dems among the middle class.

Also, he is surprised at how Reps are leading Dems in the economy category - despite all the news about tariffs and all the Dem predictions of how harmful they will be to the economy.
 
gbg3 said:
I think Vance has the greatest chance at this point but that could certainly change in another year or so.
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Do you think Vance will have the same popularity with Republicans and independents as Trump?
 
I'm not surprised there's more negative sentiment towards Democrats given the shifts in the bases of both parties, where the GOP has now gained ground in the working/middle class voters. What is evident is both parties have taken a hit in terms of how the general voters think of each, and there's not better number to demonstrate that than the growth in independent voters over the past few years.

Personally, I do think the Democrats currently have a leadership problem in that there really isn't a standard bearer for them after the loss of the 2024 election. Whether or not the party is taking a more "wait and see" approach doesn't change the fact they need to sort out the next wave of leadership and have them be more prominent in communicating what their vision is going forward.
 
I will give points - for a change - to the OP, even though I detect a bit of gloating over the fact that the Democrats are indeed leaderless.

He is absolutely right on that note, BUT there is a big BUT....................... everyone thought the Democrats were leaderless until Obama came along.

(Mind you, he wasn't a legal President, as he wasn't born in the U.S.)

Things change. Trump could still screw up badly enough to sink the Republicans. There are, in my humble opinion, strong Democratic leaders out there. What the Dems have to do is stop leaning on DEI (Sorry, I couldn't resist) and stop leaning on the OLD GUARD and pick a leader with some gravitas and get behind him or her.

So, while the gloating is appropriate right now, I would like to make the comparison to what recently happened in Canada. Trudeau was sinking the Liberal Party. Carney came along and projected leadership. He won. The other guy, the Conservative on, couldn't even win his riding. THAT is how quickly things change.
 
[CNN analysis clips copied from my post in an earlier thread]

Democrats do have a brand problem, no doubt. If you have not read these or other reports on Sunday's CNN/SSRS poll informative. Two pastes:

. . . it’s also pretty clear that Democrats have failed to make themselves into a viable and attractive alternative to the party in power.

The new CNN poll also asked which party people viewed as the “party that can get things done.” Republicans led on this by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, 36% to 19%. Only 49% of Democrats and 11% of independents picked the Democratic Party as the more formidable one. -- 2 key findings on Democrats’ brand problem from the new CNN poll, Aaron Blake, CNN, 6/2/2023

While neither political party is viewed as especially strong or effective, skepticism weighs particularly heavily on the Democratic Party. Americans are far more likely to see Republicans than Democrats as the party with strong leaders: 40% say this descriptor applies more to the GOP, with just 16% saying it applies to the Democrats. They’re also more likely to call Republicans the party that can get things done by 36% to 19%, and the party of change, by 32% to 25%. -- CNN Poll: A record share of Americans want the government to get more done. Few trust either party to do it, Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN, 6/1/2025
 
I wonder if they'll run on "saving democracy" again.
 
KingLeo said:
And while Republican got 40% as 'strong leaders', strong does not mean effective or intelligent leaders.
And the Trump regime has clearly proven that.
Click to expand...
That's rich, coming from the party that spent years supporting a guy who couldn't find his way off of a stage.
 
Interesting but "strong leaders" and "change" are woefully amorphous terms, which left undefined, mean different things to different people. The poll tells me more about how people think than any objective assessment of leadership.

To me, a leader doesn't change his mind on important things like tariffs. An effective leader changes his mind only when he realizes he is wrong, which a true leader is capable of doing.

That's my opinion on Trump, the party's leader. As the entire party is composed of Trump sycophants without a mind of their own, my opinion of the GOP is directly a result of its leader.

But nobody polled me.
 
lynnwinslow said:
Vance's big problem is that he can't read a room and hold a room like Trump. I think his ratings are similar to Trump's right now because he's not really on the radar.
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Yeah, he's definitely not the entertainer Trump is, and his personality doesn't seem to show he has that capability. His big draw will likely be being the MAGA candidate, which will work for the base, but whether that translates to the broader alliance centered around Trump specifically.
 
Taylor said:
That's rich, coming from the party that spent years supporting a guy who couldn't find his way off of a stage.
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Even richer you supporting a regime that clearly has no clue what they are doing and are creating disaster at every step.
When the guy Donnie put in charge of FEMA doesn't know there is a hurricane season kind of says it all....the inept putting the clueless in charge.
 
Overall, the Democrats do need to become a lot more cohesive. They need to find some younger candidates with strong messaging, they need to consolidate their messaging, and they need to work on being able to control narratives and turn headlines. They don't seem too proficient at this, and this lack of cohesiveness and lack of messaging is really biting them in the ass.
 
The Democratic Party is feeble. Want proof? Trump and Trumpism are an absolute shitshow of idiocy and corruption at both the state and federal level, and yet so far the Democrats cannot muster an effective counter to them. Whether that's through weakness or complacency or lack of charisma or some combination of factors is hard to say.

There are some firebrands in the party (e.g. AOC, Sanders, Buttigieg) but so far no one has managed to capture the attention of a critical mass of people since Obama.
 
Democrats have lot of time to find someone who as others have mentioned can simply pop-out of nowhere and serve as a formidable candidate. However I would argue that it's their core philosophy or ideology that needs work and refinement. Figure that out first and then find a suitable candidate that can carry that message. Also I think the days of play-it-safe politics is over. If you want to talk change, Trump is way out there. Democrats are going to have to find a suitable candidate who can be more edgy rather than someone like slick Newsom who just pays politics and doesn't really stand for anything.
 
What would a poll in Germany in 1940 have said about which party had strong leaders? How about a poll in Iran in 1970? A poll in Italy in 1940?

What we're seeing is the effect of oligarchy.
 
There are strong leaders in the Democrat Party. Problem is they’re all older than dirt and implicated in the Mad Joe conspiracy.
 
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