The poll results, which were provided to The Washington Post on Wednesday night, revisit a pool of voters from the “rising American electorate” — young, diverse and less prone to voting — that was first studied in June. Since the summer, despite President Trump’s struggles, those voters told the pollsters that they’d become a bit less inclined to vote for Democrats in 2018. A 31-point Democratic margin shrank to a 21-point margin.

The problem, according to Greenberg and Zdunkewicz, was a president who blotted out the sun. “It shows a weakening of the Democratic brand, as events and Trump following Bannon’s advice leaves Democrats invisible on the economy and jobs,” they write. “Because voters do not hear Democrats expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo on economics or the balance of power when so many are concerned about the direction of this country, only 4-in-10 … voters say Democrats ‘know what it’s like to live a day in my shoes’ and are ‘for the right kind of change.'”

According to the pollsters, the solution is staring Democrats in their faces. The voters who trust neither party need to be convinced that one party, the Trump-led Republicans, had already betrayed them. One of the best-testing messages mirrored what Democrats had said for years: “Trickle-down has failed and the richest need to pay their fair share of taxes.” They had just not said so effectively about Trump and Republicans in Congress.

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