Democratic voters in Pennsylvania slammed their party’s national leadership as “fractured,” telling the Washington Post that the party lacks a “definitive message” and a figure to rally behind months into President Donald Trump’s second term.
“Right now, there is no leader,” said one of more than 20 Democratic voters whom the Post interviewed in Doylestown and Philadelphia. “There is no strong voice for the people as a whole.”
“We’re fractured. We don’t have a definitive message,” a second voter told the Post, while another said that Democratic leaders need to be “really, genuinely more engaged with their constituents and with their party.”
Other Democrats say that their leaders appear “so powerless” and ineffective. “It’s hard for me to say who they are,” one voter said.
The criticism comes as the Democratic Party has grappled for months with a leadership vacuum and internal feuding. The Democratic National Committee also “wildly trails” its Republican counterpart by nearly all fundraising metrics, as Democratic donors view their party under DNC chairman Ken Martin as “rudderless, off message and leaderless,” Politico reported last month.
Democrats have lost ground to Republicans in all 30 states that record party affiliation, shedding 2.1 million registered voters between the 2020 and 2024 elections while the Republican Party gained 2.4 million, according to a New York Times report last month. “The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before they even go to the polls,” the Times reported.
The Democratic Party’s rating has also plummeted to its lowest point in 35 years, with 63 percent of voters viewing the party unfavorably, according to a Wall Street Journal poll in July. An Associated Press-NORC survey last month found Democrats less enthusiastic about their party than Republicans and more likely to describe it in negative terms.
Some Democrats find the party’s efforts merely performative, according to the Post‘s interviews.
“We are really good at doing little protests and making cute signs and stuff,” one voter said, but “there’s not a lot of action that backs that up.”
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