'The Democratic Party Is Clearly In The Wilderness Right Now': Dritan Nesho Discusses New Poll

On "Forbes Newsroom," HarrisX Founder and CEO Dritan Nesho discussed a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll showing the current state of both major parties.

Transcript

00:00Let's talk about each of these parties now because the Republican Party and the Democrat

00:05Party have faced their own set of unique issues within the past couple of weeks.

00:10The Republican Party has had some issues being unified behind Trump's what he calls

00:15one big beautiful bill. Democrats on the other hand have a major trust issue that they're

00:20dealing with right now as new reporting comes out on President Biden's health, his mental acuity,

00:27his cognitive abilities while he was in office and who knew what when. And I mean, there is a

00:32question of what did who know who knew what when a and B were they lying to the American people?

00:38And Democrats really have to grapple with that right now. How do voters feel about each party today?

00:46Well, the Democratic Party is clearly in the wilderness right now with voters. It has an

00:53approval rating of 42 percent and that is significantly underwater. Also, it's lagging

01:01the approval of the GOP by 10 points. The GOP actually has a net positive approval and perceptions

01:10are growing because voters seem to think that the GOP is actually trying to do something rather than

01:16trying to rehash and litigate the past. And it's taking a more proactive posture and governing rather

01:24than trying to stonewall what is going on. And therein lies the challenge for the Democrats.

01:30They have to shed these negative perceptions and come out with a platform and with a clear set of

01:37policies that stand apart from what Trump is doing or create a choice between the Democrats and the

01:44Republicans at this stage. So I think that that is the challenge that they're facing. There are some

01:54opportunities for them to step up and mount principal challenge like on interpretations as we saw

02:02just in the previous set of data and also in terms of the process. And also when we look at Trump's

02:12approval rating on the various different issues and this really tracks with how Republicans are perceived,

02:19I would say that again, Trump is still a little bit under on the economy at 46 percent approval. He's

02:27doing very well on immigration. That's a strength for Trump and the Republicans at this stage.

02:32There are 46 percent when it comes to foreign affairs. Voters are yet

02:37yet to be convinced that there's a deal coming on Ukraine and Russia or Israel and Gaza or beyond,

02:46although they welcome some of the more recent moves and trade diplomacy with the Middle East,

02:52as we saw at this survey. They think that Trump is doing a decent job administering the government

02:58and the Republicans. And what's driving those positive perceptions and things that are around

03:0447 percent there is the cost cuts that Dodge has made and the fact that a small majority of Americans

03:11actually think Dodge has been affected despite the chaos, despite the fact that they think that

03:18Musk in the beginning was too rough in terms of how he started to make the cuts. They do view that

03:25initiative as being positive. And again, when it comes to reducing the cost of government,

03:31Trump has a 49 percent approval rating. In a similar fashion, returning America to its core values,

03:3951 percent believe that Trump and the Republicans have a positive job approval there. So really what remains

03:46as an Achilles heel for the administration is inflation, where Trump and the Republicans about a 43 percent

03:55job approval rating. And again, trade and tariff policy, where it's 42 percent approval rating

04:02significant underwater because of all of the different disruptions. So in all of these signals,

04:08Republicans have to latch on to the weaknesses of the administration, especially around tariffs,

04:14especially around inflation and especially around how it's going about doing what it's doing and

04:22either try to triangulate the administration or offer a frame of choice that voters can rally around.