You know things are bad for Democrats when even CNN starts telling the truth. This week, the network’s resident numbers guru Harry Enten went on air and delivered what can only be described as a political autopsy on a patient that’s still technically alive. According to CNN’s own polling, the Democratic Party’s favorability rating has cratered to 28%. Not 48. Not 38. Twenty-eight percent. That means nearly three out of four Americans look at the Democratic Party and think, “No thanks, I’d rather eat gas station sushi.”
And here’s the part that made every Democrat strategist in Washington choke on their oat milk latte: Republicans are now ahead by five points in net favorability heading into the 2026 midterms. That’s the first time in modern history that the president’s party has entered a midterm cycle with a positive net favorability rating. Let me say that again for the people in the back who spent the last year planning their “Blue Wave 2.0” merch line: the president’s party is MORE popular than the opposition going into midterms. That doesn’t happen. Except now it does.
Enten laid out the comparison in terms so simple that even a CNN viewer could understand. In 2006, when Democrats swept the midterms, they had an 11-point net favorability advantage. In 2018, when they rode the anti-Trump wave to take the House, they had an 8-point edge. In 2026? Democrats are running five points BEHIND Republicans. That’s not a warning sign — that’s a five-alarm fire, which is exactly what multiple conservative outlets called it before CNN even had the guts to air the segment.
Now, you might be asking yourself: how does a party manage to become this unpopular while the president they oppose has approval ratings hovering around minus-20 to minus-30? That’s like losing a footrace to a guy running in cement shoes. It takes genuine, dedicated, industrial-grade incompetence.
Let me help you understand how they pulled it off.
First, they spent the last year telling Americans that the economy was terrible while simultaneously blocking every bill designed to fix it. They held DHS workers’ paychecks hostage for 48 days over a budget fight, caused 510 TSA officers to quit, and then went on television to say they were “very proud” of the shutdown. Proud. Of making airport security lines longer. That’s their platform now — longer lines and smugness about it.
Second, they’ve positioned themselves as the party that thinks your biggest concern should be pronouns and proper diplomatic language while your grocery bill went up 2.4% in a single month because a terrorist regime shut down a shipping lane. When normal people are worried about the price of eggs, Democrats are worried about the President’s tone on social media. There’s a disconnect there, and voters can smell it from a mile away.
Third — and this is the one that really kills them — they have no message. None. Ask ten Democrats what their party stands for in 2026 and you’ll get twelve different answers, all of which somehow involve the word “democracy” while proposing nothing democratic. Their entire pitch for the midterms so far has been “Trump is scary,” which is the same pitch they’ve been running since 2016. At some point, voters stop being scared and start being annoyed.
The Senate map is particularly brutal. Democrats need to flip seats in states where Trump is still popular, and they’re trying to do it with a brand that only 28% of the country finds appealing. Enten specifically noted that Democrats “need to be running well ahead” of their current benchmarks to have any shot at taking back the Senate, “given that map.” Translation: they need to be way more popular than they are, and they’re getting less popular by the week.
What makes this especially delicious is watching the same pundits who spent the last year predicting a Democratic wave now quietly updating their forecasts. Remember when every major outlet ran breathless pieces about how Democrats were “already measuring the drapes” for their midterm takeover? Remember the confident predictions about suburban women and independent voters swinging hard left? Well, the numbers are in, and it turns out the suburbs don’t love a party whose biggest accomplishment this year was holding government workers’ paychecks hostage and calling the President names.
The “double haters” — people who dislike both parties — are even breaking toward Democrats by only a slim margin, nowhere near the massive advantage Democrats held with that group in 2018. When people who hate everybody still don’t like you very much, your rebrand isn’t working.
Look, we’re still seven months from Election Day. Things can change. But the fundamentals right now are about as friendly to Democrats as a rattlesnake in a sleeping bag. Their favorability is at historic lows, their opponent’s party is at historic highs for a midterm year, and their best argument is still just pointing at the other guy and screaming.
Maybe — just maybe — voters want a party that actually does something besides complain. And right now, 72% of America is saying the Democrats aren’t it.
Even CNN can see it. That’s when you know it’s real.
