Dems flailing in midterm polls despite Trump; socialists to blame?

Opinion>Opinions - Robby's Radar The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill Dems flailing in midterm polls despite Trump; socialists to blame? Comments: by Robby Soave, opinion contributor - 07/21/26 1:28 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Robby Soave, opinion contributor - 07/21/26 1:28 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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Here’s the question Democrats are currently asking themselves: Why aren’t things going better?

The upcoming midterms should be a wipeout, given the level of dissatisfaction with the current administration. President Trump is not polling well, and Americans are upset with the economy, the lingering war with Iran, and issues of corruption. They still trust Trump on immigration, but the baseline expectation should have been that Dems would retake Congress, handily.

And that’s likely to be true for the House of Representatives. But in the Senate, things are different. I’m not even just talking about the Dems’ complete collapse in Maine, as their candidate Graham Platner had to exit the race over sexual assault allegations. Whoever wins the primary in Michigan will have a tough matchup against the Republican, and James Talarico is having an equally tough time against Ken Paxton in Texas.

So what’s the deal? Shouldn’t this be easier for the Dems?

On X, CNN columnist Ronald Brownstein points out that Trump’s job approval rating is currently worse than Bill Clinton’s in 1994, George W. Bush’s in 2006, Barack Obama’s in 2010, and Trump 1.0 in 2018. And in each of those midterm elections, the incumbent party got absolutely crushed by the opposition. So by some metrics, Trump should be in even worse shape, and Republicans should be worried about getting totally destroyed.

But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. The GOP is expected to narrowly lose the House and even keep the Senate. If that happens, Dems will have some finger pointing to do.

But why wait? We can get started right now.

Sarah Longwell, an ex Republican strategist who went Never Trump and co-founded The Bulwark, thinks surging socialists are turning swing voters away from the Democratic Party. They may be disappointed in Trump, but they don’t want to empower the far left.

She writes on X: “At some point Dems are going to have to grapple with the reality that in the face of all of Trump and Republicans’ manifest horribleness and incompetence, people aren’t rushing toward the Democrats. If you think the DSA stuff is helping, you’ve never talked to a swing voter.”

Similarly, Jamie Metzl, a former Clinton staffer, writes on X:

“Every Democrat and every American should recognize that the DSA represents a fundamental threat to our party and our country. This is not a story about a few idealists seeking to reduce healthcare costs. It is about a small group of radical extremists pursuing a strategy to take over the Democratic Party and ultimately our country in order to impose an agenda that would devastate our economy and fundamentally dismantle our system of government.”

And they are both right about that. The Democratic Socialists of America represent a dangerous vision. They want to implement price controls and mass wealth confiscation. They want to empower the government to micromanage the economy, pursuant to policies that have failed everywhere they are tried.

No doubt the DSA’s rise is alarming to many Americans, even many Americans who don’t love Trump. They might vote for centrist, moderate, reasonable Dems, but they will not vote to turn our country over to people who revere, say, China’s Mao Zedong, a communist dictator whose policies resulted in the starvation of millions.

You know who loves Mao? Hasan Piker! Just listen.

Piker was a featured speaker at a meeting of the College Democrats just a few days ago. Make no mistake, the party is falling under the sway of democratic socialism, despite the opposition of older, more centrist figures like Sarah Longwell and Jamie Metzl. They just haven’t gotten with the times. The Democratic establishment is utterly discredited among partisan Dems, and so their primary voters are now perfectly willing to hand the party over to Piker and his acolytes.

Bad news for Dems, good news, I suppose, for the Trump administration. But more importantly, very bad news for the country. Because we want there to be two reasonable competitive parties fighting for your vote. We certainly don’t want one of those parties to suddenly be run by the revolutionary vanguard of the far left.

Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary.

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