Are We Listening?

The New York Times published an article on February 2, 2025, with the results of a New York Times/Ipsos poll and a separate poll by Quinnipiac University.  These polls indicate that many Americans do not believe that the Democratic Party is aligned with their priorities.  Indeed, the Quinnipiac University poll released on January 29, 2025, indicates that 57% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party:

 Voters' views of the Democratic Party and Republican Party set new records since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking voters about the parties in November 2008.

In today's poll, 31 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, while 57 percent have an unfavorable opinion. This is the highest percentage of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question.

Forty-three percent of voters have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, while 45 percent have an unfavorable opinion. This is the highest percentage of voters having a favorable opinion of the Republican Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question.

This marks the biggest favorability advantage the Republican Party (43 percent) has held over the Democratic Party (31 percent) since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking these questions.

https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3918

This leads to the question:  Why do so many voters have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party?  The New York Times/Ipsos poll sheds some light on this.  In a nutshell, here is what that poll found:

What Americans Said Were the Most Important Issues for Each Group

Themselves Personally	Democratic Party	Republican Party
The economy	Abortion	Immigration
Health care	LGBTQ+ policy	The economy
Immigration	Climate change	Taxes
Taxes	The state of democracy	Guns
Crime	Health care	Abortion

Top Five Issues Shown - Based on a poll by The New York Times and Ipsos of 2,128 U.S. adults conducted from Jan. 2 to 10, which asked about 23 issues in total. – By The New York Times

We lost the 2024 presidential election to a convicted felon.  Clearly, Democrats must re-evaluate our priorities and the positions we’ve taken in light of this loss.  I believe that our positions are correct, but our priorities and messaging are counterproductive.  We need to do more listening and less lecturing.  “There are none so deaf as those who will not hear.”

The opinions expressed in the SD59 Blog are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent a consensus of thought or position of the DFL.