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Being above 50% approval is a helluva accomplishment in today's toxic political environment. For context, President Donald Trump is currently at 41.8% in the RealClearPolitics average, which is about even with Barack Obama’s 42.2% at this stage of his second term and 4 points higher than George W. Bush's 37.8%.
As for Democratic Party leaders, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is at a dismal 24.7% approval, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sits at 26.7%. But two prospects for president in 2028, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), are currently viewed favorably in their purple state homes of Pennsylvania and Georgia, respectively.
Shapiro currently boasts a 56% approval rating in a state Trump won twice and narrowly lost once. Down south, Ossoff has a 5.5% lead over Republican Mike Collins in the RCP average of that Senate race in a state also won by Trump twice and narrowly lost once.
Winning key swing states is the ballgame in presidential elections. And having a Shapiro-Ossoff ticket, or Ossoff-Shapiro ticket, would certainly help capture two very big prizes in gaining 270 electoral votes.
But the problem, of course, is that both men are Jewish. And in a world where more and more Democrats are embracing anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates, it's hard to see how Shapiro and Ossoff can emerge from the primaries, where the far-left has all the money, momentum, and organization.
Today’s Democratic platform is to turn Israel, our staunchest ally, into the enemy. The most recent and despicable example of this new war on Israel from the Left comes via a House vote to strip the country of all offensive and defensive funding from the United States. The defensive part is particularly egregious since that would include the Iron Dome, a highly effective missile defense system that has saved countless civilian lives and perhaps prevented Israel from being wiped off the map entirely.
“Israel is a first-world country, and it can pay for the defensive systems it needs," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) argued while repeatedly accusing Israel of committing "genocide." "We should not be subsidizing them, especially given their egregious violations of human rights law."
Overall, more than 100 Democrats joined Khanna, a 2028 presidential hopeful, in voting against funding the Iron Dome. Khanna is the same lawmaker who staunchly supported Graham Platner, whom Khanna stood by until a rape allegation by an ex-girlfriend made it politically impossible to do so.
Khanna is also the same guy who has appeared on Hasan Piker's show, another profound antisemitic radical socialist who has said that he believes Hamas is "1,000 times better" than Israel and that the U.S. "deserved 9/11.”
"I would go [on Piker's] show" again, proclaimed Khanna, despite this kind of antisemitism, with the California lawmaker arguing that it's important to try to reach new kinds of voters, including those who are fans of Piker for one big obvious reason.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also backed Platner and, on Monday, released a video on X enthusiastically endorsing Abdul el Sayed in Michigan, who recently campaigned with Piker. And just last month, a former staffer of el Sayed was indicted for allegedly conspiring to "terrorize" leaders at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor into severing all ties with Israel.
El Sayed has called Bibi Netanyahu a war criminal and has also called for defunding the police.
But no matter: It's all about regaining the Senate, even if it means sacrificing all integrity, which Warren did long ago.
Van Jones, formerly of the Obama administration and currently of CNN, has had enough of the antisemitic rise in his party.
"Supporting Hamas is not progressive," he wrote on social media this week in a post that went viral. "The idea of 'no police, no prisons, no border'” — which would let pedophiles, human traffickers, terrorists, hate groups and crime syndicates run wild — is not progressive for vulnerable communities. Celebrating the murder of Israeli civilians is not progressive. These ideas are regressive.
"If we can’t tell right from wrong, good from bad, smart from loony tunes — Team Blue will go down the same road that turned the Republican Party into a shell of itself," he wrote. "We can’t let that happen to the Democratic Party."
Jones, along with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), is one of the few examples of establishment Democrats pushing back against the loony tunes Jones described.
"If our party ever becomes, and just make it official, as the anti-Israel party … that’s when I would leave because that’s a bit of moral clarity for me,” Fetterman declared recently.
Add it all up, and Shapiro and/or Ossoff are going to have major difficulties in Democratic primaries. Kamala Harris, the 2024 installed nominee after then-President Joe Biden dropped out, provided a preview of this challenge during her presidential campaign two years ago when tasked with choosing a running mate. The smart money was on Shapiro, a popular governor in a must-win state, but he was strangely passed over for goofy Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.
Shapiro later shared in his book, Where We Keep The Light, that during his vetting process, he was asked if he’d been in contact with undercover Israeli agents at the time.
"I wondered whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running — or if everyone who had not held a federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way," Shapiro wrote.
“What's even the point of asking that question in that way?" asked Aaron Keyak, a board member of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, in an interview with ABC News. "Were they trying to send some sort of message to Gov. Shapiro? Were they trying to intimidate him?”
Keyak also once served on a task force at the State Department to monitor and combat antisemitism.
Ossoff, 39, will obviously face the same high hurdles if he defeats Republican Mike Collins in his Senate race in November. According to a new AP-NORC poll, 58% of Democrats say the U.S. is “too supportive” of Israel. This is a decisive shift from just two years ago, when just 45% of Democrats felt the same way in the same poll, marking a 13-point shift.
Shapiro-Ossoff. Ossoff-Shapiro.
A majority of the people they represent in key swing states believe they're doing a good job. The national conversation around their possible presidential possibilities is growing as a result.
But there's an insidious underbelly to the conversation.
Could each win against JD Vance and/or Marco Rubio in 2028? Perhaps.
Will either or both get the opportunity? Probably not.
This is a party veering off in a very dangerous and ugly direction. A direction that could cost them elections in 2028 and the years to come.
