The party has been dogged by continued negative polling figures, with an ABC News-Washington Post-Ipsos poll released last month showing 69% of people believe the Democratic Party is out of touch with most people's concerns.

An NBC News Stay Tuned Poll released last month showed that when asked which party fights for people like you, 38% said neither party, while 24% said the Republican Party and only 23% said the Democratic Party.

While the party looks for answers and a leader to guide them to victory in the 2026 and 2028 elections, here are some of the reasons Democrats believe their party has lost its popularity.

Not progressive enough

Hard-left members of the Democratic Party have insisted the party's attempted appeals to centrists during the 2024 campaign were unwise and that they should embrace progressive messages going forward.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have gone on a nationwide "Fight Oligarchy" tour directed against President Donald Trump and Republicans, with stops in Republican areas along with Democratic strongholds. The tour, led by two of the most well-known progressives in Congress, has been criticized by some Democrats like Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). Sanders has pushed back on those critiques.

"Geez, we had 36,000 people out in Los Angeles, 34,000 people in Colorado, we had 30,000 people in Folsom, California, which is kind of a rural area. I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are. I think they understand very well that the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%," Sanders said on NBC News's Meet the Press last month.

"If we don't address that issue, the American people will continue to turn their backs on democracy because they're looking around them saying, 'Does anybody understand what I am going through?' And unfortunately, right now to a large degree neither party does," he said.

Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate and has run for the party's presidential nomination twice, also took aim at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for saying the party was unified as the progressive and establishment wings of the party clash over its direction.