By For the first time in over three decades, Americans are split evenly on which political party they believe actually cares about people like them—a seismic shift in public sentiment that upends a core narrative of modern politics.
A new Quinnipiac University poll finds Democrats and Republicans tied at 33% on the question of which party is more attuned to the needs of everyday Americans. Since 1994, Democrats have consistently led on this metric, even during conservative surges like the Gingrich Revolution or the Tea Party wave. That lead is now gone, writes Fox News.
CNN’s Harry Enten, a senior data reporter and longtime observer of public opinion trends, called the result “shocking.” His reaction wasn’t hyperbole. “All of a sudden, the Democrats, who are the party of the people, no more!” he said during a Friday segment. “We’ve got a tie.”
A shocker for me given the tariff war: The GOP seems to be in their best position ever for the party who cares more for the needs of people like yourself.
A tie on a metric that Dems have historically led by double digits.
The reason? Huge GOP gains among the working class. pic.twitter.com/BItuHBd2rM
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) April 11, 2025
The shift isn’t random. It reflects a deeper realignment—one that’s been building quietly for years but now seems to be accelerating under President Donald Trump’s second term. In particular, working-class Americans without college degrees are abandoning the Democratic Party in droves. As recently as 2017, they leaned Democratic by seven points. Today, they favor Republicans by nine. That’s a sixteen-point swing in less than a decade.
Trump’s populist economic agenda may be contributing to this shift. His decision to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign imports rattled global markets—briefly. But at home, the political response has been markedly different. After an initial dip, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounded dramatically, rising nearly 3,000 points in a single trading session. To working-class voters, it was proof that Trump’s economic nationalism could hit back at global competitors without tanking the domestic economy.
There’s also inflation—or, more precisely, the easing of it. The Consumer Price Index rose just 2.4% in March, the slowest pace since the pandemic began. Wholesale inflation, as measured by the Producer Price Index, actually fell 0.4% last month. After years of painful price hikes, these numbers are giving Republicans new ammunition to argue they—not Democrats—are the better stewards of the economy.
Immigration is another area where Trump’s message appears to be resonating. Border enforcement metrics, often a political flashpoint, have shifted sharply. Just over 7,100 crossings were reported in March—the lowest monthly total ever recorded by Border Patrol—following a coordinated crackdown that included mass deportations and expanded surveillance.
A March poll from NBC News painted a bleak picture for the Democratic Party. Among 1,000 registered voters surveyed between March 7 and 11, 55 percent said they hold a negative view of the party, while just 27 percent offered a positive one. The poll carries a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
These numbers mark a new low in public perception—both the highest unfavorable rating and the lowest favorable rating the Democrats have received since NBC began tracking this data more than 30 years ago.
Digging deeper, 38 percent of respondents described their opinion of the party as “very negative,” compared to only 7 percent who said they feel “very positive.” Independent voters were especially sour: just 11 percent ha
The broader takeaway? For decades, Democrats relied on a built-in advantage—the assumption that they were the party that cared. But in the post-Biden, post-COVID political landscape, that assumption no longer holds. Republicans have become the party of the people.
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