In the wake of a devastating 2024 electoral defeat, Democrats are confronting a troubling narrative revealed through focus groups: many voters who once supported the party now perceive it as out of touch, ineffective, and overly focused on issues that seem irrelevant to their daily lives. Progressive organization Navigator Research conducted focus groups with swing voters and former Democrats who shifted their support in the 2024 election. The results paint a picture of a party increasingly viewed as complacent and elitist, with a widening disconnect between its leadership and the concerns of the electorate.

When group participants were asked to compare the Democratic Party to an animal, one drew a parallel to an ostrich, explaining, “They’ve got their heads in the sand and are absolutely committed to their own ideas, even when they’re failing,” as reported by POLITICO. Another compared the party to koalas, criticizing them as “complacent and lazy about getting policy wins that we really need.” Expressing severe disillusionment, another participant remarked, “Democrats are not a friend of the working class anymore.”

“I think what the Democratic elites and their politicians believe is often very different from what the average Democratic voter is,” said one Georgia man, who shifted his support from Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024. “The elites that run the Democratic Party — I think they’re way too obsessed with appealing to this very far-left social progressivism that’s very popular on college campuses.”