Republicans Are Crushing Democrats on Cash and Party Registration

Despite their relentlessly negative coverage of President Trump and the Republicans, the corporate “news” media has largely failed to damage either. Not only does Trump enjoy a higher job approval rating among voters than did former President Obama at this point in his second term, but congressional Republicans are also viewed more favorably than their Democrat counterparts according to numerous polls.

Naysayers might retort that Republicans have spent years doubting the accuracy of polls. True enough. But for those who prefer more tangible evidence of the GOP’s ascendancy than public opinion surveys, the Republican Party is also clearly outperforming the Democratic Party in cash contributions and voter registrations – two other key metrics of party strength.

Money talks, to coin a phrase, so we will begin with the story of the latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures for each of the two parties. The Republican National Committee (RNC) had $72 million in reserves, according to an FEC report released on June 21, 2025. The Democratic National Committee (DNC), on the other hand, had a mere $15 million in cash reserves according to an FEC report released on the same day.

The RNC, having nearly five times as much cash on hand as the DNC, is a story in its own right. But according to The New York Times, it’s not just that the DNC is lagging the RNC – the party is now so broke that it may well need to borrow money to stay afloat:

“Six people briefed on the party’s fund-raising, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its finances frankly, said big donors — who are an essential part of the party’s funding — had been very slow to give to the party this year … Senior D.N.C. officials have discussed the possibility of borrowing money in the coming months to keep the operations fully funded, according to two people with direct knowledge of the private discussions who insisted on anonymity.”

Unsurprisingly, the Democrats have spent more money than they took in this year. The FEC report indicates that, since the beginning of 2025, the DNC raised $60 million yet spent more than $67 million during the same time period. Consequently, their cash reserves shrank from an already anemic $22 million on January 1, 2025, to the even more sickly $15 million disclosed in their latest filings. No wonder big donors, who tend to be very sophisticated about finances, are reticent about throwing good money after bad.

Unfortunately for the Democratic Party, this cash shortage is not their only problem. According to a recent NBC report, the percentage of registered Democrats in states and territories that publish the partisan affiliation of voters has also decreased from 44 percent to 37 percent since 2000.

This decline is more dramatic than it may appear at first glance. Expressed as a percentage of 44, this seven-point decline means the Democratic Party has lost 16 percent of its registered voters – millions and millions of people. Most switched their registrations to Independent. Meanwhile, the percentage of registered Republicans has decreased by two points during the same 25-year time period. As NBC explains:

“The analysis shows the increase in the share of independents has come at the cost of the Democratic Party. Except during former President Barack Obama’s 2008 election, the share of registered voters made up by registered Democrats has declined every year since 2000 across the jurisdictions with data … The decline has accelerated in recent years, as the party’s share of the registered voters in jurisdictions with available data fell 1.2 percentage points from 2024 to 2025.”

Evidence that the migration of Democrat voters to the Independent column is an ominous sign can be found in the results of the 2024 presidential election. Edison Research, which conducted exit polls of 22,900 voters, found that Democrat turnout decreased by 11.2 million from 2020 to 2024 while Independent turnout increased by 11 million. From 2020 to 2024, Donald Trump closed the gap among these voters by almost exactly that amount. In 2020, Joe Biden won Independents by 13 percentage points nationally. In 2024, Kamala Harris won them by only three percentage points nationally. Can that have been a mere coincidence?

Trump’s performance among Independent voters was even more startling in the crucial battleground states. He won Independents outright in the must-win states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. In Nevada, he and Harris split their vote evenly, and in Wisconsin, she was only able to eke out a winning margin of one percentage point. There is no doubt that Independent voters drove Trump’s clean sweep of the battleground states. Thus, it’s not too much to say that they put him over the top in the Electoral College. Yet the usual media suspects, like CNN, are producing polls purporting to show that Independents are now unhappy with the President.

But the corporate “news” media have pronounced President Trump politically dead countless times. Meanwhile, they have ignored the increasingly obvious fact that the Democratic Party is moribund. Its disgruntled donors are sitting on their wallets, and its disgusted voters are changing their registrations.

We will know “the Party of Jefferson and Jackson” is a goner if it fails to win back at least one house of Congress in 2026. History suggests that this should be easy. The average midterm loss in the House for the President’s party is between 20 and 30 seats. Yet, this President routinely defies the odds. It’s not wise to bet against Trump.

David Catron is a Senior Editor at the American Spectator. His writing has also appeared in PJ Media, the American Thinker, the Providence Journal, the Catholic Exchange and a variety of other publications.