Trump’s Return Is a Civil Society Failure

A key question emerging from the 2024 elections is whether the Democratic Party is significantly — or even permanently — wounded. Can it return to fighting trim in 2026 and 2028?

A post-election YouGov poll commissioned by the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank, sent a clear message to party loyalists.

YouGov asked 5,098 working-class voters (defined as those without college degrees) — primarily in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, along with 881 people elsewhere in the nation — to evaluate the political parties on measures of trust and commitment.

Asked which party they trusted “more to improve the economy, protect Americans from crime, handle the issue of immigration,” majorities of respondents chose the Republican Party, ranging from 55 to 34 percent on the economy to 57 to 29 percent on immigration.

Asked whether the Democratic Party or the Republican Party was “in touch or out of touch” and “strong or weak,” majorities of working-class voters described the Democrats as out of touch (53 to 34 percent) and weak (50 to 32) and the Republicans as “in touch” (52 to 35) and “strong” (63 to 23).

More significant, on two survey questions that previously favored Democrats — whether the party “on my side or not” and which party respondents trusted “to fight for people like me” — the Democrats lost ground to Republicans. Fifty percent of voters participating in the survey said that the Republican Party would fight for people “like me,” while 36 percent said the Democratic Party would.