We’re now less than 100 days before the midterms. What’s going to happen? Who knows? Conventional wisdom says the party out of power will gain seats. But this is a unique year where, despite all the things going for the Democrats, there’s also a lot going against them. Enthusiasm within the party's own ranks is cratering.
The first problem they have is money.
Outside Republican groups, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, are sitting on $657 million. Democrats have roughly $334 million, about half that total. "Democrats, they're much more like this, they're your $1 bills, while Republicans you're much more like this, your 50s, and dare I see even your $100 bills," CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten explained.
The numbers are worse for Democrats at the national committee level.
The Republican National Committee has $129 million on hand as of June 2026. The Democratic National Committee's debt actually exceeds its cash reserves, leaving the party $2 million in the hole.
Money isn't the only problem. I've said before that historic precedent suggests that Democrats should do well this year, but there actually is a historical precedent that bodes quite poorly for them.
Enten pointed to how Democratic voters feel about their own party's leadership in Congress, and those numbers are just as rough. Democrats can't even crack 50% approval from their own voters. Compare that to July 2010, when Republicans were furious with their congressional leadership during the Tea Party revolt. Even then, 52% of Republicans still approved of their own party in Congress. "They're in a worse position — the Democrats in Congress — than Republicans were during their Tea Party wave of 2010," Enten said.
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The Democrat Party's overall brand is even more underwater. In 2018, when the party retook the House, its net favorability sat at a solid plus 1 point. Now, in 2026, that number has cratered to 24 points underwater. "The bottom line is, it's absolutely terrible," Enten said.
Part of the reason is straightforward. A clear majority of voters, 57%, now say that the Democrat Party is too liberal, according to Enten. That number has climbed steadily, from 42% in 1996 to 58% in 2013, and it hasn't moved much since. Voters decided long ago that the party drifted out of the mainstream, and nothing about the last few years has talked them out of it.
That's where the Democratic Socialists of America comes in.
Enten compared the DSA's current standing to the Tea Party's popularity in June 2010, right before that movement reshaped the Republican Party for a decade. Back then, the Tea Party had a net favorability of negative 13 points. "Twice as unpopular as the Tea Party was back in June of 2010," Enten said, describing where the DSA sits now: negative 25 points.
History offers a warning here. The Tea Party helped the Republicans win control of the House but cost them winning control of the Senate. Republicans nominated unelectable candidates like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Those nominees were toxic enough to cost Republicans winnable Senate seats. Democrats are now flirting with the same mistake, except the brand they're tying themselves to polls even worse than the one that sank Republicans 16 years ago, and may not just cost them the Senate but the House, too.
