For Democrats, Polls Have Discouraging Findings

Out of power in Washington, Democrats are looking for ways to win voters back. A new poll suggests they have their work cut out for them. The Quinnipiac University survey found that 31% of registered voters have a favorable opinion of their party, while 43% have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party. That amounts to the largest advantage in favorability the GOP has enjoyed since 2008, Axios reports. A CNN poll released last week had similar results.

The flip side in Quinnipiac's poll was no more encouraging for Democrats, with 57% of registered voters reporting an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party and 45% feeling the same way about the GOP. The findings, for which the pollsters report a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, alone aren't evidence that Democrats need despair, Aaron Blake writes in a Washington Post analysis. The same polls showed Republicans were less popular in the first year of President Trump's first term than Democrats are now, he points out. A Quinnipiac poll had Republicans with a 67% unfavorable rating in August 2017.

In addition, another poll released this week found that some of Trump's early actions aren't popular, per Reuters. Most respondents of both parties oppose his moves to end the practice of granting citizenship to children born in the US regardless of the parents' immigration status, for instance. Overall, the share of respondents who disapproved of Trump's performance rose from 39% to 46% since the first two days of his second term. The Reuters/Ipsos poll reported a margin of error of about 4 percentage points. "While it does seem Trump is getting a honeymoon to some extent, his numbers are still not impressive by historical standards," said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. (More polling stories.)