Many Democrats see party as ‘weak,’ ‘ineffective’: Survey

Many Democrats describe their party as “weak” or “ineffective,” according to a new survey showing growing pessimism in the party.

In the July poll, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, respondents were asked to share the first word that came to mind when thinking about both parties. Researchers then grouped those words into categories of positive and negative attributes.

More than one-third of Democrats, 35 percent, use negative attributes to describe their party — including roughly 15 percent who use words like “weak” or “apathetic” and 10 percent who describe Democrats as “ineffective” or “disorganized.”

Only 23 percent of Democrats use positive attributes to describe their party.

Among Republicans, the results are nearly flipped.

Republicans are almost twice as likely, at 41 percent, to describe their party positively, with many using words like “patriotic” and “hardworking” or making reference to “freedom.”

And Republicans are almost half as likely, at 19 percent, to describe their party using negative attributes — using terms like “greedy,” “for the rich” or “corrupt.”

About one-third of responses from both parties were categories as “other,” and nearly 1 in 10 respondents said they didn’t know.

The survey comes as polls have increasingly shown Democrats at record-low approval, while Republicans control all levers of power in Washington.

The AP-NORC Center survey was conducted on July 10-14 and included 1,437 adults. The margin of error is 3.6 percentage points.

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