Poll shows majority of Americans say Democrats have become 'too liberal' ahead of midterms

WASHINGTON, DC: A new poll shows a significant shift in how Americans perceive the Democratic Party. According to recent findings, more voters now view the party as “too liberal” than at any point in decades.

The CNN survey revealed shifts in the Democratic Party’s ideological base, a trend that could significantly impact the upcoming Midterm elections scheduled for November 2026.

Shifting views within the Democratic party and the poll results

The survey found that the number of Americans who think the Democratic Party has become too liberal has reached an “all‑time high”. Around 58% of voters said they believed the party was too liberal in 2025, up from 48% in 2013. During Bill Clinton’s presidency in 1996, just 42% shared this view, demonstrating a clear shift over the decades.

The poll also points to a surge in support for left‑wing figures within the party. Support for candidates such as Zohran Mamdani, the New York mayor, and Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont, has grown as the party’s democratic socialist wing expands.

This expanding leftward influence may be alienating more conservative Democrats, “The Democrats are moving to the left, the far left is gaining power, and there could be some electoral repercussions because what we see right now is voters, the clear majority, say that they are too liberal,” according to CNN’s senior data analyst Harry Enten.

Enten’s findings also show that the party’s ideological makeup has drastically changed from 1999, when 26% of Democrats identified as conservative and only 5% identified as very liberal.

In contrast, the current poll suggests that the conservative contingent of the party could have shrunk to as little as 8%. Meanwhile, about a third of Democrats now see themselves aligned with the more left‑leaning views of Mamdani and Sanders, with roughly three in five identifying as somewhat liberal or very liberal.

Enten added that the party’s younger members are especially inclined toward left‑wing perspectives. He noted that among Democrats under the age of 35, almost half identify as democratic socialists, further pushing the party’s base toward the left end of the ideological spectrum.

Recent polling shows Biden leading Trump again

In addition to the CNN poll, a separate survey was conducted by Rasmussen, a pollster frequently cited by President Donald Trump on social media. That survey found that only 40% of voters preferred Trump to former President Joe Biden. 

Rasmussen’s head pollster, Mark Mitchell, even claimed on X that Trump would lose to Biden again if an election were held today. The Rasmussen poll also found that 58% of respondents did not feel that Trump’s so‑called “golden age has yet materialized.”

Democratic political strategist Chris D Jackson emphasized the Rasmussen findings on X, noting that they align with two recent surveys by YouGov and Harvard/Harris, which also indicated that voters favored Biden.

Jackson wrote, “Three polls in one week all say the same thing, A majority of Americans believe Joe Biden was a better president than Donald Trump. When even Rasmussen shows it, you know how bad things have gotten for Trump.”