Democrats conducting post-mortems on their big 2024 losses are finding more reason to worry. And the problem isn’t just Kamala Harris or Joe Biden.
In three focus groups, even voters who previously supported the Democrats labeled the party as weak and overly focused on diversity and elites, according to research by the progressive group Navigator Research.
When asked to compare the Democratic Party to an animal, one participant compared the party to an ostrich because “they bury their heads in the sand and are absolutely committed to their own ideas, even when they fail.” Another compared them to koalas, which are “complacent and lazy in achieving the policy wins we really need.” Another said Democrats are “not a friend of the working class anymore.”
The focus group survey, first shared with POLITICO, represents the latest troubling pulse for a party still sorting through the rubble of November’s losses and looking for a path to rebuild. Without a clear party leader and with losses in nearly every demographic group in November, Democrats are heading into a second Trump presidency without a unified strategy to improve their electoral prospects. And while some Democrats blame Biden, others blame inflation and still others “losing grip on the culture,” the focus group feedback showed that Democrats’ problems are even more widespread and potentially longer lasting than a single election cycle.
The focus groups offer “a pretty damning rebuke” of the Democratic Party brand, said Rachael Russell, director of polling and analytics at Navigator Research, a project within the Hub Project, a Democratic nonprofit.
“This weakness they see, [Democrats] not being able to get things done, not being able to actually fight for people – is something that needs to be sorted out,” Russell said. “Maybe it’s not the message, but maybe it’s the policy. It could be something deeper that needs to be addressed by the party.”
The focus groups — held immediately after the 2024 election and conducted by GBAO, a Democratic polling firm — consisted of three types of voters: young men in battleground states who voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024; voters in battleground states who voted for Biden in 2020 but didn’t vote at all in 2024; and voters in blue states who had previously voted for Democrats, a third-party candidate, or who had not voted in 2020 but voted for Trump in 2024.
“I think what the Democratic elites and their politicians believe is often very different from what the average Democratic voter is,” said a Georgia man who voted for Biden in 2020 but voted for Trump in 2024. “The elites who control the Democratic Party lead – I think they are way too obsessed with appealing to this far-left social progressivism that is very popular on college campuses.”
These voters expressed cautious optimism about Trump’s second term, both in the focus groups and in a post-election poll, which showed Trump’s highest approval rating since 2020, according to a GBAO survey. The national poll, which surveyed 1,000 people, found that 47 percent viewed Trump favorably, while 50 percent disapproved of him — the highest marks he has received since leaving office.
Russell argued that Trump’s high numbers reflect a “honeymoon period” that she predicted will fade once he takes office: 100 days to see where things go.”
She also noted that the polls suggest openings for Democrats on issues like abortion, health care and taxing the wealthy, as well as fears that Trump could go too far on tariffs. Their survey also found that two-thirds of voters said inflation should be the new president’s top issue, but only a third of voters believed it was Trump or the Republicans’ top issue.
When focus group participants were asked about inflation and rates, many of them said they did not fully understand the policy, while others acknowledged that they expected prices to rise.
“Obviously I wouldn’t want things to go up, but at the same time, in the long run, would it be better off for America and maybe have more things made here?” said a Wisconsin man.
While focus group voters not only blamed Harris for their distaste for the Democratic Party, they were also unhappy with her candidacy. Participants described her as “inauthentic,” “very dishonest,” and “didn’t seem competent.”
An Arizona man, citing the time Harris said, “You better thank a union member” during a speech in Detroit, said, “That was very disingenuous to me because I didn’t see an honest person who could be president.” ‘
“It seemed like a lot of what she put out and said wasn’t really out of the box, didn’t come from her,” said another man who voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024. Every time she came out and talked about something, it was planned and never did her thoughts seem not real in her mind, whereas Trump, even though you never really knew what he was going to say, when he went to say it, it was always so him and sincere to what he thought so that influenced me.
The feedback about Harris comes as the vice president considers her own future, weighing a third presidential candidate against a bid for California governor in 2026. Some party loyalists have said they would back another presidential candidate, with the argument that Biden’s late exit from the race was a heavy burden on the president. the vice president’s three-month sprint. But others aren’t ready to join in yet.
Several participants also brought up the transgender attack ad the Trump campaign deployed against Harris, which featured a 2019 clip of her expressing support for gender-affirming surgeries for state prison inmates. The ad’s tagline read: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
Democrats disagree on the power of the attack ad, but several participants brought it up unsolicited in the focus groups.
Lagging turnout was a major problem for Democrats in November. A Georgia woman who did not vote in 2024 said she disagreed with Harris’ “thinking that it’s okay for children to change their body parts.”
“I think there should be some parameters for what is accepted in society and what is not. Some of the societal norms, and I think the Democrats have tried to open that up a little too much,” said a Wisconsin woman who also did not vote in 2024.
When asked by the moderator if she was referring to the ‘trans issue’, the woman said ‘mainly that’.
