Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn said Friday on Fox News that key voter blocs are continuing to abandon the Democratic Party, as it suffers its worst approval rating in modern history.
According to a CNN/SSRS poll conducted from March 6–9, the party’s favorability has dropped to a record low of 29 percent. During an appearance on “Hannity,” Penn expressed surprise at the party’s sharp decline, saying he hasn’t seen its numbers this low in decades.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in over 40 years of polling. The Democratic Party ratings have collapsed from a 47% favorable down to 29, 27 in some of these polls, and that’s an incredible loss of moderate, working-class voters,” Penn told host Sean Hannity.
Penn said the Democratic Party appears to be shrinking to a core base made up largely of left-wing figures such as Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who have been actively campaigning to promote the party’s agenda nationwide.
“Those [are the] kinds of voters that the Democratic Party needs to win elections, and it’s being shrunk to a base of left-wing advocates like Bernie Sanders and AOC who were touring the country carrying the Democratic banner. That’s not helping,” Penn said.
A coalition of national Democratic groups—including the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Association of State Democratic Committees—launched the “People’s Town Halls” tour last Friday in Iowa, focusing on Republican-held districts across the country, the Western Journal reported.
The effort comes in the wake of the Democratic Party’s significant defeats in the 2024 elections, which saw Republicans win the White House and gain control of both chambers of Congress.
Democrats have launched a resistance movement aimed at pushing back against President Donald Trump’s policies—particularly focusing on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, which has overseen major reductions in federal agency staffing.
The establishment of DOGE, designed to streamline government operations and slash spending, has sparked strong opposition from the Democratic Party—but it has also gained broad support from the American public.
In the House, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the Trump-backed government spending bill, labeling it a “slush fund” for Trump and Elon Musk in a social media post. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania pushed back against his party’s opposition to the bill, dismissing their resistance as “total theater,” though he continues to vote along party lines against the policies voters elected Trump and Republicans to enact.
Along those lines, the Department of Homeland Security announced this week that it is revoking the legally questionable “parole” status that former President Joe Biden granted to more than 500,000 unauthorized migrants over the past three years, setting a 30-day deadline for them to leave the U.S.
Biden’s CHNV program had allowed individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the country despite lacking a legal visa.
However, more than two years into the program, the Trump administration claimed that the initiative had failed to meet its objectives, was plagued by fraud, and was no longer necessary.
“Accordingly, [Secretary Kristi Noem], in her discretion, is terminating the CHNV parole programs,” the department said in a new filing in the Federal Register, as reported by the Washington Times.
Biden launched the CHNV program amid a historic surge at the southern border, hoping that by offering migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela a legal pathway into the U.S., they would opt to fly in rather than overwhelm Border Patrol agents already struggling with record numbers, the Times reported.
The program required migrants to secure a U.S.-based sponsor and arrive through an airport, not the border. However, the sponsorship process quickly became chaotic. According to the Times, gang members were serving as sponsors in some instances, while in others, fraudsters were selling sponsorships for up to $5,000 each.
