They aren’t the worst, but they are fucking hopeless. The only reason they are currently getting votes right now is because of protest votes over Trump, not because anyone likes them. Almost half (48%) of Democrat voters currently disapprove of the way the Democratic party is run, and only 18% of all voters approve of their job performance - those are dire statistics.

Heading into a year with midterm elections, 18 percent of voters approve of the way the Democrats in Congress are handling their job, while 73 percent disapprove, which is a record low job approval rating for them, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

Quinnipiac University first began asking this question in 2009 and the previous low was in July 2025 when 19 percent of voters approved of the job the Democrats in Congress were doing, while 72 percent disapproved.

In today’s poll, **among Democrats, 42 percent approve of the way members of their own party in Congress are handling their job, while 48 percent disapprove. **

Democrat voters on lemmy are, in general, much further to the left on almost every issue than the party they support. I think that’s why there is so much friction between Democrats and leftists on Lemmy, because folks tend to judge “the Democrats” on the basis of the official party establishment and policies, rather than on the (often very different) beliefs of the individual they are talking to.

Voters are split on which political party they think is more in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States, as 44 percent say the Democratic party, 42 percent say the Republican party, and 7 percent volunteer that there is no difference.

So the only reasonable conclusion here is that both major parties are incredibly unpopular, but Trump and the Republicans are currently the most unpopular (and yes, I agree they are even worse). And in a 2-party system like the US, even if both parties are horribly unpopular, one of them will win the presidency regardless. That’s a fucking terrible way to do democracy. All each party has to do to win is to be ever so slightly less shitty than the other party, but neither party is incentivized in any way to listen to the people they are supposed to represent. That’s part of the reason why simply voting ≠ democracy, necessarily.

You simply can’t vote your way out of this system without significant electoral changes, which the Democrats do NOT have have the balls for, because they know it would mean the end of the 2-party system. In fact, given these numbers, most people are voting against the policies of the party they hate most, not voting for the policies of the party they reluctantly voted for.

Source: https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3943