Elaine Godfrey: “It’s a dynamic that has some Democrats chewing their cuticles, despite a fairly promising political landscape for their party. These Democrats expect, of course, that many of their candidates will perform well in November.”

“But they worry that victory will paint a too-cheery gloss over the party’s bigger issues—and prolong the time it takes to solve them.”

Dan Pfeiffer: “Jill Biden’s reemergence and her admission that she was lying to all of us in 2024 is emblematic of a much larger problem that still plagues the Democratic Party with implications for 2026, 2028 and beyond.”

“The broken trust that comes from the President and most of the party telling the public not to believe their eyes when it comes to Biden’s age, and that they were silly to think that an 82-year-old shouldn’t run for reelection.”

“The party’s approach to Biden’s age was part of a broader pattern. They told voters that inflation wasn’t real, that a genocide wasn’t happening in Gaza, and that they had a plan to win when they never did.”

“Working to rebuild that trust needs to be at the center of the Democratic Party’s strategy.”

Paulina Mangubat, creative director for the DNC, was interviewed on the MeidasTouch Network:

MEIDAS TOUCH: Katie Miller has been posting about you. I want to give you the opportunity right now to respond. What do you want to say to her?

MANGUBAT: I want Katie Miller to know that her husband is an ugly fuck.

New York Times: “Propelled by economic anxiety, young men lurched to the right in the 2024 election — a 15-percent swing from 2020 — and helped Mr. Trump win the White House, setting off a round of soul-searching among Democratic politicians and strategists who were dismayed that this once-reliable demographic had fallen away.”

“A year and a half later, some Gen Z men say they are disillusioned by Mr. Trump’s second term.”

“When asked what the worst thing is about Republicans, the most common response among Americans is President Donald Trump or loyalty to him, while the most common response about Democrats is that they are weak and don’t stand up against Trump or for what’s right,” according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.

“The Democratic National Committee was already in a hole. Democrats worry Ken Martin is digging it deeper,” Politico reports.

“Martin’s decision to release and then disavow a scattershot autopsy on the Democrats’ 2024 losses has ratcheted up calls on the embattled Minnesotan to step aside and rattled donors already hesitant to cut checks to a party in deep debt.”

Nate Cohn: “Ever since Kamala Harris’ defeat in 2024, Democratic politicians, activists and policy wonks have argued about whether the party should move toward the left or the center.”

“But in this week’s New York Times/Siena poll, there’s a lot more common ground than one might expect within the Democratic coalition — a group defined here as Democrats, Democratic-leaning independents and independents who voted for Ms. Harris.”

“A surprisingly clear majority of the Democratic coalition is mostly fine with where the party stands on the issues overall. Only 20 percent say it’s ‘too far’ to the left; only 17 percent say it’s ‘too far’ to the right. The dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party seems less about its ideology and more about its failures to stop President Trump — whether in the last election or once in government.”

“Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin is facing a surge of anger and even some calls to resign from congressional Democrats following the release of the DNC’s 2024 election autopsy on Thursday,” Axios reports.

“The chaotic handling of the report builds on concerns among Democrats about Martin’s leadership and the DNC’s anemic fundraising numbers compared to its GOP counterpart.”

“The Democratic Party is entering the midterm elections with the political winds at its back but a fiercely dissatisfied and divided voter base that is trying to steer the party in wildly divergent directions,” a New York Times/Siena poll found.

“More than half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expressed frustration with the party, despite the fact that Democrats appear well positioned to take the House and compete for the Senate in November. Registered voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by 10 percentage points, a sizable margin less than six months out from the midterms.”

“But beneath that strong showing, unhappiness spanned almost every part of the party’s coalition — including young, white, Black and college-educated voters — and was especially strong among Democrats least attached to the party, who are the most likely to swing elections.”

Thomas Edsall: “Despite the collapse of support for President Trump — whose unfavorable ratings have grown to 59 percent from 43 percent a week after inauguration — voters continue to hold Democrats in greater disfavor than Republicans.”

“The difference is slight, but still electorally significant. In a May 1 report, Pew Research found Democrats rated 59 percent unfavorable and 39 percent favorable, for a net negative of 20 percentage points; Republicans were at 58 unfavorable, 40 unfavorable and negative 18. Similarly, the RealClearPolitics average of 11 polls conducted from March 12 through May 11 showed Democrats with a net negative 18.8 favorability level and Republicans with negative 17.1.”

“Is there anything Democrats can do to break free of a deeply polarized political system in which parties are constantly winning and then losing office as voters reflexively turn against those in power?”

“A lot of Democrats are willing to sacrifice Black voting power to beat the GOP,” Politico reports.

“In the two weeks since the Supreme Court significantly narrowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have kicked off a fresh round of redistricting across the South. Their aim is to dismantle majority-minority districts, which they’ve long argued are unconstitutional, and to try to keep control of the House.”

“New results from The Politico Poll show many Democrats want their party leaders to fight back hard — even if it means breaking up districts designed to protect the power of Black voters and other minority communities.”