Democrats' current state is 'messier than a hoarder’s basement', says CNN data analyst Harry Enten
WASHINGTON, DC: CNN’s number-crunching data wizard Harry Enten is waving a giant red flag for the Democratic Party.
During the Friday, August 1, broadcast of 'CNN News Central', Enten sounded off on the party's ongoing identity crisis, calling the current state of affairs "messier than a hoarder’s basement."
While voters keep waiting for a fresh face to lead the blue team into the future, the Democrats can’t seem to find their footing.
“The water is quite warm. If you‘re a Democrat potentially thinking about running in 2028, jump right in, because at this point there is no frontrunner,” Enten quipped, adding that the party is "historically divided” on what direction to take.
Kamala Harris breaks silence amid Democratic polling disaster
Meanwhile, former Vice President Kamala Harris reemerged from the fog with a lengthy sit-down on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert', which aired on Thursday night. She opened up about her decision to skip a California gubernatorial run and left the door open for a 2028 presidential bid.
CNN anchor Kate Bolduan noted that Harris’ reappearance marked a shift, but it didn’t exactly clear the fog surrounding the party’s future.
Enten wasn’t buying the notion that Harris’ chat helped clarify anything. “One of the reasons why there is no frontrunner,” he said bluntly, “Nobody wants to put anybody up at the top of their ballot list because, at this particular point, the Democratic brand is in the basement.”
He didn’t stop there. “The Democratic Party‘s net favorable rating, record lows in all three. Wall Street Journal, 30 points underwater. CNN, 26 points underwater. Gallup, 26 points underwater,” Enten rattled off. “The Democratic Party is perceived as total and complete garbage in the mind of the American public.”
But this dumpster fire isn’t just lit by Republican opposition. According to Enten, the heat’s coming from inside the house.
“That is being driven in large part by discontent within the Democratic base. The Democratic base wants something different,” he said. “We‘ll ultimately end up seeing who they choose. It will be quite the thing who ultimately gets the rose.”
Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, and Ro Khanna try to break the mold
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sat down with NPR this week. The party, he said, is out of step with the times.
“I think that Democrats have been slow to understand the changes in how people get their information, slow to understand some of the cultural changes that have been happening,” Buttigieg told NPR, “and maybe most problematic of all, to attach to a status quo that has been failing us for a long time.”
Taking aim at both the current administration and his own party’s old guard, he warned, “Right now, you’ve got an administration that is burning down so many of the most important institutions that we have in this country, which is wrong. It is also wrong to imagine that we should have just kept everything going along the way it was.”
Buttigieg insisted Democrats need to “do a better job of addressing the fundamental problems that have led people to mistrust everything."
Representative Ro Khanna and California Governor Gavin Newsom are skipping the usual press circuits in favor of podcasts. These two potential 2028 hopefuls are ditching political gobbledygook in favor of real talk.
On comedian Theo Von’s 'This Past Weekend' podcast, Khanna got fired up over what he sees as a missed branding opportunity.
“I don’t understand how we let Trump become the ‘made in America’ guy,” he said. “We need to be the party that says ‘Here’s our vision for making things in America.’ And wouldn’t it be great if the argument in this country was who was going to build America better?”
