There are many ways to judge the relative strength of America’s two major political parties as they focus on the upcoming midterm elections. The most obvious is simply to look at which party controls the levers of power. Another is to examine polls on the public’s approval of Republicans and Democrats. But both these methods serve only as snapshots in time. While one party controls the White House and Congress, some of its actions can prove unpopular and lead to a relatively rapid change of fortune. For example, Joe Biden went from majority approval to underwater immediately following his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and never recovered. And, as has been repeatedly demonstrated over the years, opinion surveys are often all over the map and of questionable accuracy, depending on who conducts the polling, sample size, and demographics. If the polls were reliable, Donald Trump would have lost three straight presidential elections.
So how, then, can we best determine the state of play for the two major parties as they set their eyes on the midterm? The answer is twofold: fundraising and party registration. As asserted often by Liberty Nation News, betting odds are more revealing than popularity polls during an election because people who put their money where their mouth is have more at stake than those who are simply asked for their presidential preference. Similarly, the amount of money contributed to the Republican (RNC) and Democratic (DNC) national committees in the aftermath of elections is the most effective gauge of hard support. Likewise, those who choose to register with one party or the other are obviously more committed than those who register as independent, unaffiliated, or with any number of minor parties.
And as we hit midsummer, the Republicans are cleaning up on both counts while Democrats are gasping for air.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Elected Democrats and their handmaidens in legacy media are predictably arguing that support for President Trump and the GOP is diminishing and bound to drop even further, claiming the Big Beautiful Bill just passed into law is wildly unpopular, even though it codifies the very programs Trump campaigned on in his one-sided win over Kamala Harris. They also attempt to claim Trump’s massive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has been met with widespread disapproval, again using dubious polling to bolster their argument. If these claims were true, you would expect that contributions to the RNC would be drying up and the GOP’s party registration numbers would be flagging.
But the opposite is true. The numbers don’t lie.
The latest disclosures by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reveal that the RNC holds $72 million in reserves, while the DNC had a mere $15 million in cash on hand (and that figure has fallen from an already anemic $22 million on Jan. 1). That means the GOP national organization has almost five times more financial capacity than the Democrats, a striking figure. And it gets worse for the party of the left. In a piece entitled, “The D.N.C. Is in Chaos and Desperate for Cash,” The New York Times reports that “the Democratic National Committee’s financial situation has grown so bleak that top officials have discussed whether they might need to borrow money this year to keep paying the bills.” The article details widespread disappointment with new DNC Chair Ken Martin, whose removal of young activist David Hogg as vice-chair shortly after his appointment sent the Democratic Party into another downward spiral. An audio leak of Martin questioning his own efficacy as chairman made matters even worse.
The Dems’ Bleak Midterm Prognosis
Meanwhile, a report from NBC on party registration numbers is just as depressing for the left. As more and more voters register as independent, the number of self-identified Democrats has been dropping every year since 2000 and now represents just 37% of the electorate, down from 44% at the turn of the century. That means the party has lost 16% of its base in a quarter-century, a drop of millions of voters across the nation. This is especially precipitous considering that broad changes in party identity have always evolved slowly. In comparison, the Republicans have lost 2% of voters since 2000.
