What leading Planned Parenthood is like now

Apr 08, 2026 Errin Haines

This story was originally reported by Errin Haines of The 19th. Meet Errin and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

This column first appeared in The Amendment, a newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to her analysis.

When Alexis McGill Johnson took the helm as leader of Planned Parenthood in 2020, the nation’s largest provider of reproductive care and a major force in American politics was already at a critical juncture.

The organization’s last president had lasted just eight months; she followed Cecile Richards, the charismatic and connected leader who was in the role for a dozen years. The future of abortion rights looked potentially shaky, and Donald Trump was in his first term.

In the six years since, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal protections for abortion, a major challenge both for providing care and for the organization’s political arm — then Trump won a second term and moved to take away federal funding, slashing a third of Planned Parenthood’s budget. Under the first Trump administration, Planned Parenthood had more than 600 health centers. Since the start of 2025, 53 have closed. More are threatened since Trump on July 4 signed into law a measure to block them from accepting Medicaid.

The end of federal abortion protections led to a surge in energy around the issue from Democrats and the left. It has faded since then as the president’s military actions and mass deportation strategy dominate attention — but McGill Johnson still has to figure out how to galvanize supporters; keep Planned Parenthood clinics serving patients; and elect Democrats in key races in states including Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio.

As one of the abortion rights movement’s key standard bearers, McGill Johnson is navigating expectations from activists, donors and voters who want a fighter and expect her to deliver. Their sense of urgency can obscure what it means to both lead the fight and provide essential care to millions of Americans in an intentionally overwhelming and chaotic news cycle.

Johnson stands in front of a group of women speaking while those behind her hold signs. — Alexis McGill Johnson’s presence at the top of Planned Parenthood reflects a broader pattern in American institutions, in which Black women are often called on to lead in moments of crisis while having limited room for error and a lack of support. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)

“When I look at where Planned Parenthood is in this moment, we are navigating all of the chaos, but also looking for where the opportunities are inside that chaos,” McGill Johnson said. “Chaos is a strategy: throw everything at people so they don’t know where to look or how to fight.”

McGill Johnson describes her style as collaborative; those who know her best say she’s a master strategist, confronting a challenging political climate with courage, clarity and creativity.

The political climate in which McGill Johnson has led can really not be compared to any other past leader, said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center.

“This isn’t something that’s happened over three decades; this has been the last six years,” said Goss Graves, who first met McGill Johnson in 2017 after Goss Graves became the first Black woman to head her organization. “Alexis was the right person at the right time. It is a big deal that surviving the level of attacks they have faced, that they are still here, they are serving patients, they are still committed, and they have had to make adjustments. The work is what she’s doing.”

Planned Parenthood is shorthand for dual entities: Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nonprofit supporting affiliate clinics across two dozen states; and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the group’s political arm, focused on organizing, advocacy and voter education.

McGill Johnson’s path to leading both came after a career working on voting rights and civil rights, and she approaches the work through a racial and gender lens. She is only the second Black woman leader in the organization’s existence of more than a century.

Her presence at the top of Planned Parenthood reflects a broader pattern in American institutions, in which Black women are often called on to lead in moments of crisis, with limited room for error and a lack of support.

McGill Johnson talked about the added weight of doing this work as a Black woman in a movement that has been largely White at the national level. She said that having lived and worked at the intersection of race and gender has been an asset in her current role.

McGill Johnson is familiar with leading in moments like the one Planned Parenthood is facing, “moments where our leadership is judged more harshly, where we may be granted more scrutiny, less grace.”

“Those are the places where I’ve had to find my center, to remind myself that I’m in this role to be unapologetic about fighting for the liberation of women of color, Black women, at the center of that liberation, because I think that actually transforms the liberation of everyone else,” she said.

Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, the first Black woman to head EMILY’s List, the political action committee focused on electing Democratic women, put it this way when asked about the challenges of leadership for Black women: “It is an expectation whose bumper sticker reads: ‘Fix it for us, please.’ When you look across the movement spaces where both crisis and care are on a collision course, it is Black women like Alexis who are stepping up.”

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended the nearly 50-year precedent of legal abortion access nationwide, angered many Democratic women and motivated them in record numbers in the 2022 midterm elections.

Then-Vice President Kamala Harris championed reproductive rights as a pillar of her 2024 presidential campaign — but her loss was criticized by some, in part, as prioritizing abortion access over the economy. Now, the Democratic Party’s uncertainty around whether and how to talk about abortion to voters adds to McGill Johnson’s challenges in this moment.

The stakes on the ground are still life and death for many Americans, but political strategists say the issue of abortion has proved less politically potent as the national spotlight has moved on.

“For someone fighting on this issue, the progressive movement that was so galvanized is less so because they’re focused on many of the other things that Trump is doing that are dangerous to the country,” said Democratic strategist Karen Finney.

Abortion can still be a motivating issue for Democrats — especially as it’s related to the two biggest issues at the moment, health care and affordability, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

“It’s still motivating to voters for turnout,” Lake said. “Right now, everything is being pushed out by the war and the economy. I think it will reemerge as a much more powerful issue in 2028. Health is the number one issue, the number one pocketbook issue. When you talk about abortion and broaden it, it’s very powerful there.”

McGill Johnson worked to do just that, emphasizing Planned Parenthood’s presence particularly in communities with a lack of options for reproductive care. Politically, she has framed the issue as one of affordability and of democracy, and is focused on a message to voters about how the administration’s actions in recent years are impacting them.

“It may not feel as though abortion is as front and center as it was in the year or two after the Dobbs decision … but when you bring it to people and remind them that these things are happening, it taps directly into that rage,” McGill Johnson said.

She added that part of the job now also looks like acknowledging the concerns of those in the movement as a leader of a complex organization with little room for error. Supporters of abortion rights — and even supporters of McGill Johnson herself — have criticized her for not responding strongly enough to attacks on access, saying they don’t see her fighting in the way they want.

What does it mean when some on the left are more in the mood for a wartime general than a collaborator?

“In the day-to-day, it is a lot of navigating people’s frustrations, anxieties and hopes, and how to keep people focused on that hope and a strategy for how to get there,” McGill Johnson said. “We’re living in moments where philanthropy has pulled back from a number of institutions where there is a federal defund, which has impacted a lot of my colleagues. One day, you’re navigating ICE and the next day, the country’s at war, right? All within the same time period. I think my kind of special superpower is the ability to kind of keep myself at the 30,000-foot view to understand how all of these things are interacting with each other.”

McGill Johnson said the urgent question for her is: Who are we going to be now that we’re no longer defending Roe? It’s one that no other president of Planned Parenthood had to grapple with after the landmark 1973 case that made abortion the law of the land.

Since 2019 when she became interim leader, Planned Parenthood’s supporter base — which includes volunteers, donors, activists and email subscribers — has grown from 13 million to 20 million.

In addition to her focus on the campaign trail, McGill Johnson will also have to continue the work of reimagining Planned Parenthood’s network of clinics as part of the national health care infrastructure. According to the organization, 1 in 3 women in the United States has visited a Planned Parenthood clinic.

“I believe that Planned Parenthood could become the Cleveland Clinic of sexual and reproductive health care, because we have such great clinical excellence,” McGill Johnson said. “We are already a leader in standardizing best-in-class care, on sexual, reproductive health care, including abortion, so I think a lot about what it would mean for us to to focus on seeing as many patients as Planned Parenthood can, but to also export that influence into ensuring everybody else’s is standard of care is raised.”

To get there, McGill Johnson will have to endure and survive the current climate and the demands of the post-Roe era. Reproductive Freedom for All President Mini Timmaraju said meeting the multiple challenges at the local, state and federal level with diminished resources and competing areas of attention is daunting.

“We have to do more than we’ve ever done before, and the funding is not what it should be,” said Timmaraju, the first woman of color to lead her organization. “We are all scrambling to make sure that in the moment where abortion funds need funding, clinics need funding, we also have enough resources for advocacy at every single level, and that’s really challenging in an environment where donors are understandably a little frustrated with progressive entities right after 2024 so we’re having to prove ourselves again, and continually having to prove and reprove, over and over again, the salience of abortion electorally.”

Some Peace & Justice History For 4/12:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm#april12

Randy Rainbow To The Rescue!

(It’s not long, but it’s not a short. However, the figurative ripping of Sec. Hegseth is fine!)

It’s Sunday. Have Some Clay Jones Work!

Ketchup Tacos

I love tacos, but I HATE ketchup

Clay Jones

I had a few other ideas I could have gone with today, but I decided to put them aside and have a little fun with something I wrote a few days ago. I honestly didn’t expect to draw this cartoon the day that I wrote it, along with three other ideas, but as I showed each of those ideas to a couple of friends, it was the one that made them both laugh.

So I decided to take it easy today by drawing this, and I still ended up working until 6 PM on a Saturday. Basically, I feel like this is a cartoon I did not have to draw, but I just wanted to. If nothing else, I should get some satisfaction out of it because I always end up pissing off a MAGAt or two anytime I bring up the word taco.

Fine. I’ll come clean. The biggest reason I wanted to draw this cartoon was for the twist on the Jack in the Box car antenna.

I never thought anyone would put ketchup on a taco, but one of my friends told me some people do. And I thought putting ketchup on eggs was gross. Taco Bell doesn’t stock ketchup, do they? (snip-a bit MORE; click the title. Also I know a couple of people who put ketchup on their Mexican entrees, and yeesh.)

Barron’s Daddy

Melania’s surprise statement that came out of nowhere raises new questions

Clay Jones

Melania Trump came out of nowhere yesterday to deliver a 6-minute address to let us know that she never had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. OK, did somebody ask?

Delivering scripted remarks at a podium in the same room Donald Trump used to address the nation on the war in Iran last week, Melania declared that she “never had a relationship” with, or was ever one of the victims of the late pedophile Epstein she also claimed she never had a relationship with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, despite there being an email between the two where Melania signed it with “love.”

“I have never been friends with Epstein,” she said in her statement. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.”

She went on to say that she and Donald were invited to the same parties as Epstein “from time to time” as “overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach”. But she specifically denied that her emails to Maxwell were anything more than “casual correspondence.”

Melania claimed that she met Epstein for the first time in 2000, at a party she attended with Donald. “I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings,” she said. “Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating (sic) on social media for years now. Be cautious about what you believe.”

The Epstein files released by the Department of Justice earlier this year did contain one brief exchange that appeared to be between Melania and Maxwell. It was signed: “Love, Melania.”

The first email, sent by Melania in October, 2002, with the subject line “HI!” begins “Dear G!” Melania writes that there is a “nice story about JE in NY mag” before asking Maxwell about their travels and to call them when they are back in New York.

In her reply, “G. Max” wrote that while they are already on their way back to the city, they would not have time to see Melania, but they would “try and call.”

Melania and Ghislaine were photographed together a little over two weeks later. Two months later, Epstein was presented with the infamous birthday card containing a drawing of a naked woman and a weird note by Donald Trump. But remember, they’re all just casual acquaintances.

Then, Melania called on Congress to take sworn testimony in a public hearing from Epstein victims…probably just so long that they don’t compel her to testify. They forced Hillary Clinton to testify, who never met Jeffrey Epstein or Maxwell, and congressional Republicans are not going to force former Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify, but sure, let’s hear from all the victims whose names Bondi left unredacted, while leaving Melania alone.

So what spurred Melania to make this public announcement from the White House when Donald Trump is trying to distract all of us from the Epstein files? What was the point of starting a war with Iran to distract us from the Epstein files if Melania was just going to turn our attention right back to them a month later?

Trump even said that he didn’t know this announcement was going to happen, and it took him by surprise, like Kristi Noem’s husband with helium-filled balloon titties.

What happened? Did Barron ask, “Who’s my daddy?” Did Barron ask why there were so many photos of his mother and father with a pedophile? Did Barron eventually come around to asking why there are so many nude photos of his mommy on the internet? Did Barron ask about his father’s claim that you are allowed to grab women by the pussy as long as you are famous? Maybe Barron’s follow-up question was, “Mom, am I famous?” (snip-MORE-it’s great! Click the title to go see.)

A.I. In Telehealth-Yeah, That’ll Make It Better!

It was a yesterday’s Wonkette tab, but I just got to that email over lunch. It’s a horrible story. Of course, the hospital likely is understaffed thanks to policies and practices of our government, but still. Here is this-

Dental Student Dies in ‘Fake ICU’ as Telehealth Doctor Monitored Him from a Video Screen, Lawyer Claims

Conor Hylton’s family alleges in a lawsuit that he was pronounced dead by a “provider on a video screen” who had been monitoring him remotely

By Cara Lynn Shultz

Cara Lynn Shultz is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. Her work has previously appeared in Billboard and Reader’s Digest. People Editorial Guidelines

NEED TO KNOW

Conor Hylton’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital
The ICU where Hylton was treated had no on-site doctors and relied on off-site telehealth monitoring, the complaint alleges
A representative for the hospital tells PEOPLE, “We are unable to comment on pending litigation”

A dental student died in a Connecticut ICU where he wasn’t being cared for by an on-site doctor, but instead, was monitored remotely by an off-site physician via video.

The family of Conor Hylton has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Yale New Haven Health-Bridgeport Hospital after the 26-year-old died in the Milford Campus’s intensive care unit. According to the complaint obtained by PEOPLE, the site is a “tele-ICU meaning there are no qualified ICU intensivists on site.” The complaint further states, “ICU intensivists are located off-site at a centralized remote location, purportedly monitoring critically ill patients through a video screen.”

In a statement to PEOPLE, a representative for the medical group said, “Yale New Haven Health is aware of this lawsuit and is committed to providing the safest and highest quality of care possible, however, we are unable to comment on pending litigation.”

Hylton first arrived at the hospital at 11:08 a.m. on August 14, 2024, with abdominal pain and vomiting, per the complaint, which says he was admitted and diagnosed with “pancreatitis, dehydration, metabolic acidosis, and alcohol withdrawal.” His condition “continued to change and deteriorate over the evening.”

At 4:30 a.m., the complaint says, “Mr. Hylton slid down in bed, his eyes rolled back and he became unresponsive and exhibited seizure-like activity, vomited, became bradycardic and code was called. He was intubated, but he could not be resuscitated, and he was pronounced dead.”

The complaint states that although the pronouncement of Hylton’s death was said to be made by an on-site doctor, it was actually done by a ‘tele-health’ provider on a video screen.”

According to the complaint, an on-site doctor was called to intubate Hylton, but “the provider summoned to perform the intubation did not know how to find the ICU and had to find someone else to show him where it was located. This led to a delay in [care].”

An expert medical opinion included with the lawsuit wrote, “no on-site doctor assessed Mr. Hylton from the time he was admitted to the ICU until after he exhibited seizure activity at 4:30 a.m.”

Joel T. Faxon, partner at Faxon Law Group, which is representing Hylton’s family, said in a press release: “It’s alarming to think in a supposedly intensive care setting: Where is a doctor? Where are the nurses? How does the emergency doctor not know how to get to the ICU to provide life saving care?”

Faxon confirmed to PEOPLE that neither Hylton nor his family were informed there were no on-site doctors at the ICU. As Faxon told PEOPLE exclusively, “If the Hylton family knew that their son was being placed in a fake icu with no doctor present they would have demanded he be transferred to a hospital that could properly treat him. They were never given that option and, tragically, Conor died as a result.”

Every State Has One Of These Candidates Running For Something

Find them, and help them. Then remember to stay on their rear once they’re in office.

Well, I Hate It, But I Gotta Post It-

I love the comic strips. I really hate to share the subject, but it’s an apt comic, as Non Seq. always is apt.

https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2026/04/10

Boise Has Moxie-

Tissue alert. Seriously. But, for happy tears.

Idaho Banned Pride Flags. Boise ‘Complied.’

Delicious compliance.

Doktor Zoom

The new Pride-themed flagpole wraps outside Boise City Hall. Photo: Doktor Zoom.

The Idaho Legislature is steadfastly devoted to terrible ideas, like banning abortion (and losing maternity care), eliminating “pornography” that isn’t in libraries anyway (and forcing some libraries to close), and making the lives of trans people miserable. Last year, just to be jerks, the Lege passed a bill aimed at forcing the city of Boise to stop flying the Pride flag outside City Hall, where it has flown for a decade, just a few blocks down the street from the state Capitol.

The 2025 law forbade any flags on public property other than the flags for US America, Idaho, cities and tribes, military services, and a few other official flags of “a governmental entity.” The bill’s Republican sponsor insisted that this wasn’t culture war, heavens no, it was about promoting unity, and America, and “stuff that we can all agree on.”

The Boise City Council promptly turned right around and passed a resolution adopting the Pride flag as one of three official City of Boise flags, and ran the rainbow colors up the flagpole again. Hooray!

Unwilling to accept such rampant disrespect to their edict, Republicans in the Lege this year passed a whole new flag law, this one adding a new rule saying that only official city or county flags “designated prior to 2023” will be allowed. The new law also added a $2000 per day / per flag fine, to show Boise what serious business this flag war is. The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Ted Hill (R), explained the fine was absolutely necessary to force compliance from “insubordinate government officials. […] It sets a tone of anarchy.” He too said that we must have “unity” under the stars and stripes, or else.

Screenshot of rainbow pride flags flying from light posts in the tree-lined median strip of a residential street in Boise. The grassy median and the trees are lush and green. (In more recent years, the trans-inclusive version of the Pride flag has made up about 50 percent of the flags) — Pride flags along Harrison Blvd. in Boise, 2023. Since Trump’s first term, assholes have stolen and even burned multiple flags each year. They’re then replaced by the volunteers who put ‘em up in the first place. Screenshot, KTVB-TV on YouTube.

In an extra little kick at Boise, where light poles on the median of one major residential street have long displayed Pride flags throughout June, the bill specifically applies to land along “parks, roads, and boulevards.” No nice things for you, Boise.

Just to be a real prick about it, Gov. Brad Little signed the bill on March 31, the Trans Day of Visibility. Little also signed another far worse bill criminalizing trans people who use bathrooms or locker rooms that match their gender identity, not only in schools and public buildings, but also in “public accommodations,” like private businesses. First offense is a misdemeanor, with up to a year in prison, and a second offense would be a felony, with up to five years in prison. The Idaho affiliate of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates called it “the most extreme anti-transgender bathroom ban in the nation.”

In response to the two new laws, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean ordered the Pride flag lowered outside City Hall, but also presided over a special session of the City Council to honor the Trans Day of Visibility. Choking back tears, McLean said to the Council and an audience of about 60 Boiseans, “Many people in this state and around this country are seeking to divide us. They’re seeking to divide us by targeting the most vulnerable among us. I want the people in this room to know that I see you. We see you. You are wanted, important, and unique members of our community.”

That night, City Hall was lit in the colors of the transgender flag.

Photo via Boise State Public Radio.

Then, a week after the Pride flag came down, the three flagpoles in front of City Hall sported new vinyl wraps in the colors of the Pride/Progress flag, and a big new banner was visible in the building’s windows, with the rainbow and the slogan, “Creating a city for everyone.” Yr Dok Zoom went downtown to take some photos, and damn right he plugged in his EV at one of the two free EV chargers at City Hall (still hadda feed the meter, though, so that explains the $1.50 on my company card, Rebecca).

You can see the poles up top, and here’s that nice new sign:

Photo by Doktor Zoom

Boise merchants downtown are also reminding us of that other heretical idea that got a local teacher forced out of her job last year, the divisive phrase “Everyone is welcome here.”

Lightpole banner reading 'Everyone is welcome here,' with colorful abstract blobs, musical notes, and two dancing human figures that resemble Keith Haring paintings if his figures were rounded off instead of angular. — Photo by Doktor Zoom

And now at nighttime, City Hall is lit up in rainbow colors as well. Gosh I like my city a lot!

City Council President Meredith Stead told local TV station CBS2 that the city is observing the new state law to the letter, and joyfully at that. “The law was based on the flag and we are using rainbows, and it’s not at all a flag,” Stead explained, and I hope she was grinning. “So I would say we are in full compliance of the law, that’s certainly the most important thing to us. So we’re going to be sure that we always are, and this was just a different way to celebrate our diversity and values.”

The cost of the flagpole wraps and new banners was $5,931.87, from the city’s operating budget. We think that may also have included the printing costs for these spiffy new stickers you can pick up at City Hall; I got a nice big one that looks great in the rear window of my EV:

Heart-shaped sticker with the multi-colored stripes of the Pride/Progress rainbow flag. Text in white letters: '"A city for EVERYONE means EVERYONE" — Boise Mayor Lauren McLean.' Text in black letters on the white stripe: 'City of Boise.' — We like this “everyone” thing the mayor is going on about! Photo: Dok Zoom.

Needless to say, while all the folks you’d like to hang out with in Boise are delighted by the city’s latest reply to the Lege, the Usual Suspects are big mad about this latest besmirch statement by the city, and we can only imagine what sort of stupid crap law the Idaho Lege will pass next year in another futile attempt to control the wayward capital city. We’ll close with this line from the very timely second season of Andor, which Dallas ally, former Obama official, and teamonger Brandon Friedman says nicely sums up Boise’s Rainbow Battle: “Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle.”

Keep up the good fight, Boise. (snip)

A Few Short Vids: Some Politics/War, Some Not, & A Marriage Proposal!

Well, Here Is This:

Linked in a Wonkette newsletter.

Why Democrats are suddenly winning back the left — and the “double-haters”

Plus, the share of Americans calling themselves Republicans just hit a decade low. Your weekly political data roundup for April 5, 2026.

G. Elliott Morris

Leading off: Very liberal Americans, who have rated the Democratic Party poorly relative to other partisans since 2024, have swung sharply back toward congressional Democrats over the last few months. A new poll also finds voters who dislike both parties now prefer Democrats by 31 points. These gains should reassure a party that has faced internal strife since Trump’s second term began, but look less due to renewed faith in the Democrats and more like anti-Trump consolidation. That might not matter for the midterms — a vote won is a vote won — but it will matter for 2028 and beyond.

On deck this week: Tuesday’s Deep Dive will cover some new research on the level of ideological thinking in the electorate and the value (or not) of ideological moderation by the Democrats, and Friday’s Chart of the Week will respond to whatever’s in the news. I’m also finalizing questions for our April Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll this week — so subscribers, send in your question recommendations if you haven’t already! (Email or comments are fine.)

On with the data.

1. Anti-Trump sentiment, not pro-Democratic enthusiasm, is uniting Democrats again

A new YouGov/The Economist poll, fielded from March 27 – 30, finds that Democratic voters have grown significantly warmer toward their members of Congress over the last few months. Earlier in 2026, Democrats said their party’s MOCs were favorable at a rate just 30 points higher than the rate they said their party was unfavorable. That gap has now grown to +55 — rivaling the favorability of Republican MOCs among Republican voters.

Aggregate Democratic views have increased because very liberal Americans have become sharply more favorable toward congressional Democrats since January. This group evaluated the party’s members of Congress favorably by a net +28 points margin — up from a -13 deficit in January. That’s a 41-point shift in two months:

Among Americans who are liberal but not very liberal, moderate, or conservative (basically everyone else), views of congressional Democrats barely budged.

Overall, U.S. adults give the Democrats a favorability rating of -21, 5 points higher than the rating they currently give Republicans.

That is a meaningful change. Last summer, Strength In Numbers documented that Democratic party favorability was unusually weak even as the party remained competitive on the generic ballot. We dug into the survey microdata and found out that this was because many left-leaning Americans were frustrated with their own side after the 2024 loss. Charles Franklin, who conducts the Marquette University Law School Poll, has been tracking the same dynamic in both national and Wisconsin polling. Among Democratic identifiers in Wisconsin, his data shows a net +56 favorability rating for their party, compared to +74 among Republican identifiers for the GOP.

Franklin finds that while Democrats still disagree about what they’re for, they are virtually unanimous in what they’re against: Donald Trump.

The simplest explanation for Democrats’ gains is that politically active party members on the left — who have had a lot of complaints about how the party is handling Trump 2.0 — are now responding to the same thing many other Americans are right now. That is, the president has moved public policy on many issue domains far to the right and up on the authoritarian axis (certainly far past the policy temperature “set point,” to use the language of the thermostatic model), and progressives are setting their differences with the Democrats aside for the moment as they focus on defeating an increasingly unpopular Republican president. This looks more like anti-Trump unity than pro-Democratic enthusiasm.

But it’s not just the base

The Democrats’ consolidation of left-wing liberalism is one piece of a broader backlash to Trumpism that shows up in the polling data right now. Another notable finding this week is from a new CNN/SSRS survey that found that about one-quarter of the public holds an unfavorable view of both parties. These are the so-called “double haters.” This group prefers Democrats on the 2025 generic ballot by 31 points.

This is a big deal for two reasons. First, that’s a massive shift; Double haters broke for Trump in 2016 and again in 2024. Now they’re swinging hard the other way.

Like Franklin’s polling, the CNN report also finds that Democrats’ gains are driven largely by opposition to the GOP, not enthusiasm for Democrats themselves. When asked what they dislike about Democrats, 22% of double haters called the party “do-nothing” and 11% said they aren’t standing up enough to Trump and the GOP, while 10% said they’re too liberal.

Will 2026 be a Democratic fake out?

So we’ve got two layers of anti-Trump consolidation happening at once. YouGov’s data shows the Democratic left is coming home, and the CNN poll shows voters who dislike both parties — a swing group that has been decisive in recent elections — are breaking heavily toward Democrats for the first time in years. Neither group is necessarily enthusiastic about Democrats. But both are currently heavily voting against Republicans. According to the CNN poll, 79% of voters who plan to support Democrats say their vote is a message of opposition to Trump. (Only 46% of Republican voters say they’ll vote to show support for the president.)

This could make for a big electoral win for Democrats in November, despite the division in the party and its overall nominally unpopular rating. According to CNN, Democratic-aligned voters are 17 points more likely than Republicans to call themselves “extremely motivated” to vote in 2026 — even though they’re 14 points less likely to view their own party favorably. Meanwhile, the Democrats have opened up a large lead in the U.S. House generic congressional ballot for 2026. They are up +6 in both the CNN and YouGov surveys, and closer to +5 on average.

This is the pattern I’d expect in a midterm environment that favors the out-party. But with many Americans (including the vaunted “double-haters”) still viewing the Democrats as weak and ineffectual, a big electoral victory will not completely solve their deeper problems of identity and division.

The trend in this data is good for the Democrats, in other words — but don’t misread a positive trend for a positive level.

2. What Strength In Numbers published last week

Readers of Strength In Numbers got three articles last week — a lighter load, since I was out sick Monday and Tuesday.

This week’s Deep Dive asked a question I’ve been getting a lot lately: if Trump is 20+ points underwater, why aren’t Democrats leading the generic ballot by 20?