This isn’t the same Democratic Party as Trump’s first term

Ideologically, Democratic voters have grown more uniformly left in their outlook. Between 2016 and 2024, the percentage of Democrats self-identifying as liberal or very liberal in Gallup polling increased from /48 percent to 55 percent — while the share of those who identify as conservative or very conservative has dropped from 15 percent to 9 percent. It’s a mirror image of the increase in self-identifying conservative or very conservative Republicans under Trump, who now make up 77 percent of GOP voters, versus 70 percent in 2016.

Along with a more liberal ideological base, Democratic voters have shifted toward a more antagonistic stance toward their Republican counterparts, with less support for cooperation across the aisle.

Even as Trump’s first election shocked rank-and-file Democrats and fueled a widespread “Resistance” movement, the party faithful started out more open to working with him on policy. A Pew Research survey in 2017 found that 38 percent of Democrats felt their leaders in Congress were doing too little to work with Trump, while just 6 percent felt they were doing too much outreach.

Today, this dynamic has completely changed, and Democrats are deeply underwater with their base for apparently not resisting Trump enough. In a 2025 CNN/SSRS survey, 73 percent of Democratic-leaning voters felt that Democrats in Congress were not doing enough to oppose Trump.

Perhaps for this reason, voter approval of congressional Democrats has cratered. While 2017 polling from Quinnipiac found that 54 percent of Democratic voters approved of the party’s leaders in Congress, this number had plunged to 39 percent in 2025.

Democratic preferences on policy have shifted, too. For example, Gallup polling found that 61 percent of Democrats supported an independent Palestinian state in 2017, while 76 percent support it in 2025. And while some of this can be attributed to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, it is important to note that the increase in Gallup polling has actually been fairly steady, and began well before the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

Trump’s clashes with Democrats over deportations also fit a broader long-term trend. In 2017, 80 percent of Democrats thought immigration was a net good for the country, and 35 percent wanted to see immigration to the United States increase. By 2025, 91 percent of the party’s voters saw immigration as a net positive, and 44 percent wanted an increase in immigration levels.

One of the most striking shifts, however, is in Democratic voters’ self-image as Americans. Democrats are significantly less likely to report being proud of America now than at any other time in recent history. In 2017, 67 percent of Democrats felt “extremely proud” or “very proud” of their country. Come 2025, this number had shrunk to just 36 percent.

For Democrats, Trump seems to be driving the phenomenon — there were rapid dips in self-described national pride after both his election victories, with a modest rebound after his loss in between.

All in all, the data shows that Democrats simply aren’t dealing with the same voter base they dealt with eight years ago. On multiple policy fronts, from immigration to foreign policy, Democrats have steadily moved left — a reality that lines up closely with the party’s changing preferences on the approach to the Trump administration. The attitudinal shift might also explain why the Democratic base is receptive to politicians like Zohran Mamdani, a self-identified Democratic socialist.

This shift may prove an ominous one for establishment Democrats, particularly as concerns about the overall age of the party’s congressional leaders grow among base voters. Observers and pundits alike will be wise to remember that the Democratic Party of 2026 is not the Democratic Party of 2018, even if the midterm dynamics seem similar.