For years, Democratic senators have treated public opinion like background noise.
Something to acknowledge, not something to obey.
Eighty percent of Democratic voters — not Republicans, not “independents,” not a fringe — the base itself is saying it wants new leadership in the Senate.
Not because they hate the party.
But because they care about it enough to want it to fight harder.
And the question isn’t whether senators have seen the polling.
They have.
They read it.
They talk about it among themselves.
They know exactly what it means.
The real question is whether they believe voters are participants in this project —
or just audience.
Do Democratic senators think leadership is earned?
Or inherited?
Do they believe power should respond when people speak?
Or only when donors do?
Because at some point, ignoring 80% isn’t strategy.
It’s contempt.
And contempt always ends the same way:
With a party that wakes up too late, wondering how it lost the people who were trying to save it.