In individual-level polling data, two-thirds of Trump disapprovers who aren’t backing Democrats on the generic ballot look like closeted Republicans, not swing voters waiting for a pivot on crime
As always, Elliott gives us excellent analysis. I hope Democratic party officials are reading Strength in Numbers and learning. The article also suggests to me that we need to tie Trump's failures to his Republican enablers in the House and Senate. After all, the Senate confirmed the incompetents who are in the cabinet, and the House and Senate have eagerly done Trump's bidding, which is why no war powers vote has succeeded.
The bigger hope for Group 3 is for them to stay at home or vote 3rd party.
I have a good friend who is an old-school Christian conservative who never voted for Trump. I'm sure would say "disapprove", but absolutely would not vote for any Dem under any circumstances.
But, like with Trump, in a given race he might vote 3rd party if he feels he can't support the Republican candidate.
I (left-libertarian) asked a relative (hard-left progressive) why in 2024 more than half the voters voted for Trump. She quickly corrected me: Trump only got 31% of registered voters. 30% went for Harris. Ok. So after Trump 1.0, when everyone could see plainly what was at stake, 70% of the registered voters elected to vote for Trump or not vote at all.
How unattractive must the Democratic party appear to not have a better showing? I agree with LiverpoolFCFan's point about Dem's messaging failures, though perhaps not with the new message Liverpool proposes. Republicans amplified certain policies that they knew were not popular or of less concern among a broad cross-section of likely voters: abortion anytime, defund the police, biological boys on girls' sports, teams, energy policies
I really hope that the Democrats in charge read this column, rather than pay attention to pundits saying that Dems need to moderate their messaging in order to try and capture Republican voters that are highly unlikely to EVER vote for a Democrat - at least for a Federal office. (I think ticket splitting is more likely down ballot for local races).
The GOP has already shed a lot of "soft" Republicans. There is long list of actions by Trump that served as a bridge too far for registered Republicans who saw themselves as moderates. Some of them re-registered as unaffiliated, but I expect some of them stayed as registered Republicans - especially those living in ruby red states that rarely see Democratic candidates, voters with MAGA family members, and/or states with closed primaries.
This means that the people left in the GOP are more likely to be either hard-core MAGA or who would never vote for anyone with a D next to their name - it is just simple math!
IMO, messaging should focus on the fact that Trump's priorities (war in Iran, massive spending on ICE, the Trump ballroom, etc.) are costing us money and guaranteeing that we won't get lower prices, affordable health care, or quality education for our kids, etc. I also think the massive grift and unfair playing field (i.e., we've worked hard for the American Dream but billionaires and corporate CEOs are stealing our opportunities) will also play well!
I'm a postcard writer and this spring, Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) had a series of postcard campaigns in 5 states with important US senate races (GA, IA, ME, MI, and NC). The targeted moderate, low-propensity voters got 5 different postcards with actual news headlines about the damage the Trump Regime was causing. The first one linked the Medicaid cuts in the big ugly bill to rural hospital closures that would put rural residents at risk. The final one linked Trump's tariffs to a $1000/family hit on their bottom line.
PTSS piloted this program last year in VA. It was run as a randomized control experiment to quantity the impact of receiving the postcards. There will be a YouTube Live on Tues. May 12 at 8 pm ET to discuss their midterm postcard campaigns and the results of last years "news boosting" postcards. You can register here: https://www.mobilize.us/ptp/event/937762/. It is likely to "get in the weeds" of the data, but I expect that won't be an issue for readers of this substack!
Sorry one more comment on this. The results you talk about in the middle part aren't surprising. During a time of skyrocketing gas prices, of course only MAGA psychos are going to rate immigration and crime *above prices* in importance. How many people list immigration and crime as number 2 or 3 or 4 in importance though?
The difference between someone's issue 1 vs 2 is probably not that significant for many people. Most people care about multiple things at once. So why focus exclusively on number 1? It really feels like you are trying to pick relatively meaningless numbers that get the results you want.
Elliott — I like your data and analysis, but you need to edit your posts more aggressively. Your whole section 4 was just repeating data and analysis you had already presented. Remember that, unlike Dickens, you are not paid by the word.
This gets at my whole theory of the Senate election: lots of red state Republicans don’t like Trump’s policies, especially the economic ones, but are still highly unlikely to vote for Dems. This is why I distrust the recent Emerson poll showing Talerico leading in TX. IMHO the only way Dems win those races is if GOP turnout collapses. Which may happen if oil prices keep rising.
So 38% of Pool 3 *doesn't* consider themselves conservative, and 34% of Pool 3 *didn't* vote Trump in '24. 30-some percent of Pool 3 is 2+ percent of voters, almost as big a group as Pool 1. (I'd like to see how big a pool of *likely* voters these three are, btw.) Seems like jumping the gun to say that these voters aren't winnable, just based on the information you present here. Especially given the very well-documented phenomenon of Obama-to-Trump-to-Biden-to-Trump voters.
But suppose your analysis is correct. What we should conclude, then, is that Democrats can't have a good chance at the Senate unless they convert some Republicans into Democrats. Because as things stand, our chances in the Senate aren't that great. Best we can maybe do is a nail-biting limp across the finish line in a year when Trump has done everything wrong he possibly could.
Democrats need to be able to reliably, repeatedly win voters in the median Senate state, even if that state is currently not purple but red. That is the only way to stop MAGA judicial appointments from happening over and over again.
Maybe Sherrod Brown will win in Ohio this year, since Trump has destroyed the price of gas and so on. That would be great. But we need to get the party to a place where a Democrat can win statewide in Ohio even in a year when an insane R president hasn't destroyed the economy. Do you seriously think that can be done without moving right on issues that Ohioans care about?
Joe Manchin was persona non grata in our party, despite being too far left to win re-election in West Virginia. The obvious conclusion to draw is that we need to get to the point where someone to the right of Joe Manchin is persona grata, or else we give up on that state completely. Maybe it's worth giving up on WV (although a veto-proof majority someday would be amazing), but is it worth giving up on Ohio and Indiana? Meanwhile the electoral college situation is going to get worse, not better, as the "blue wall" states lose population.
Not saying Jain is right about everything. I doubt that crime, per se, is the crux of the issue. From what I can tell, it's a bunch of things like guns, affirmative action (terribly unpopular), teacher unions, and energy (especially, lots of people don't want to switch to EVs--I don't agree with these people, this is not me slipping in my own policy preferences).
The party can't turn on a dime and suddenly attract a bunch of Pool 3 voters in six months, but changes need to happen in the medium term. Or else we're gonna lose where it matters (Senate), win where it doesn't matter (House) and sit powerless through a long MAGA reign of terror under Trump and then probably Vance.
Extremely important! You’re so patient—or at least hiding your frustration well.
One thing that should be baked into our consciousness about crime is white collar grift and plutocratic embezzlement, basically. THAT kind of crime would be an excellent topic to measure people’s opinions on, esp if you give people polled a bit of info about the regime’s theft, self-dealing, and the sale of data illegally extracted by DOGE.
No one likes corruption, but neither is it automatically in the same category as “crime”—which topic I still see as uncomfortably and inaccurately associated with immigrants without paperwork. The real crime against the people is the regime. It always is in autocracies. But putting the question to the people about who they trust more to keep self-dealing out of elected office, to hold accountable those who have ALREADY stolen a significant amount from the people—well, I’d love to see that.
Thank you for all of this logic and fact. It’s essential in our fighting our way forward into becoming a better nation.
They voted for an adjudicated rapist and fraudster who tried to violently overthrow the government; preventing crime doesn't historically appear to be their defining issue.
In her Law Day post, Joyce Vance wrote about her 22-year-old son, who answered her question - What would it take to get people like him—smart, well educated, possibly more interested in football and video games than politics, but decent, caring people—to want to read a book about saving democracy? by saying that the evidence before him was that Democracy was a con game.
Vance asked him what about working to make it better?
He answered that demonstrations don't work, the president doesn't believe in democracy, Congress won't work for democracy, and he's got no power. (And the Supreme Court has just proven its position on democracy.) And it makes him angry.
This is the seed, right here.
Being disdained, belittled, disenfranchised, makes everybody angry, around the world. If you ain't angry, you ain't right.
The question is, young people who do not vote, do you think that you'll be allowed to live a nice life so long as you just keep your mouth shut and your head down? What does the evidence show us? Read Anne Applebaum's Autocracy Inc., read Masha Gessen's The Future is History.
"would require flipping Republican-aligned voters, who are still behaving like Republican voters" - so follow GEMs suggestions for pools 1 & 2, and maybe some number of pool 3 will be two-for-one.
"One of the tired things I see pundits do a lot is they point out a big problem in politics, and then shoehorn in their favored ideological fix for that problem" - a conspiracy minded person might wonder how many of these pundits are actually maga plants...
GEM: Need polls and analysis of primary in California, especially the race for governor.
As always, Elliott gives us excellent analysis. I hope Democratic party officials are reading Strength in Numbers and learning. The article also suggests to me that we need to tie Trump's failures to his Republican enablers in the House and Senate. After all, the Senate confirmed the incompetents who are in the cabinet, and the House and Senate have eagerly done Trump's bidding, which is why no war powers vote has succeeded.
The bigger hope for Group 3 is for them to stay at home or vote 3rd party.
I have a good friend who is an old-school Christian conservative who never voted for Trump. I'm sure would say "disapprove", but absolutely would not vote for any Dem under any circumstances.
But, like with Trump, in a given race he might vote 3rd party if he feels he can't support the Republican candidate.
I (left-libertarian) asked a relative (hard-left progressive) why in 2024 more than half the voters voted for Trump. She quickly corrected me: Trump only got 31% of registered voters. 30% went for Harris. Ok. So after Trump 1.0, when everyone could see plainly what was at stake, 70% of the registered voters elected to vote for Trump or not vote at all.
How unattractive must the Democratic party appear to not have a better showing? I agree with LiverpoolFCFan's point about Dem's messaging failures, though perhaps not with the new message Liverpool proposes. Republicans amplified certain policies that they knew were not popular or of less concern among a broad cross-section of likely voters: abortion anytime, defund the police, biological boys on girls' sports, teams, energy policies
I really hope that the Democrats in charge read this column, rather than pay attention to pundits saying that Dems need to moderate their messaging in order to try and capture Republican voters that are highly unlikely to EVER vote for a Democrat - at least for a Federal office. (I think ticket splitting is more likely down ballot for local races).
The GOP has already shed a lot of "soft" Republicans. There is long list of actions by Trump that served as a bridge too far for registered Republicans who saw themselves as moderates. Some of them re-registered as unaffiliated, but I expect some of them stayed as registered Republicans - especially those living in ruby red states that rarely see Democratic candidates, voters with MAGA family members, and/or states with closed primaries.
This means that the people left in the GOP are more likely to be either hard-core MAGA or who would never vote for anyone with a D next to their name - it is just simple math!
IMO, messaging should focus on the fact that Trump's priorities (war in Iran, massive spending on ICE, the Trump ballroom, etc.) are costing us money and guaranteeing that we won't get lower prices, affordable health care, or quality education for our kids, etc. I also think the massive grift and unfair playing field (i.e., we've worked hard for the American Dream but billionaires and corporate CEOs are stealing our opportunities) will also play well!
I'm a postcard writer and this spring, Postcards to Swing States (https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/) had a series of postcard campaigns in 5 states with important US senate races (GA, IA, ME, MI, and NC). The targeted moderate, low-propensity voters got 5 different postcards with actual news headlines about the damage the Trump Regime was causing. The first one linked the Medicaid cuts in the big ugly bill to rural hospital closures that would put rural residents at risk. The final one linked Trump's tariffs to a $1000/family hit on their bottom line.
PTSS piloted this program last year in VA. It was run as a randomized control experiment to quantity the impact of receiving the postcards. There will be a YouTube Live on Tues. May 12 at 8 pm ET to discuss their midterm postcard campaigns and the results of last years "news boosting" postcards. You can register here: https://www.mobilize.us/ptp/event/937762/. It is likely to "get in the weeds" of the data, but I expect that won't be an issue for readers of this substack!
Sorry one more comment on this. The results you talk about in the middle part aren't surprising. During a time of skyrocketing gas prices, of course only MAGA psychos are going to rate immigration and crime *above prices* in importance. How many people list immigration and crime as number 2 or 3 or 4 in importance though?
The difference between someone's issue 1 vs 2 is probably not that significant for many people. Most people care about multiple things at once. So why focus exclusively on number 1? It really feels like you are trying to pick relatively meaningless numbers that get the results you want.
Grateful that you keep correcting this pundit bias! https://substack.com/@patticrane636836/note/c-252331989?r=1atxk
I'm calling b.s. on "crime" as an important issue for Republicans.
Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts and adjudicated as a rapist. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
If you truly oppose crime, you have to oppose the entire Trump organized crime family.
Elliott — I like your data and analysis, but you need to edit your posts more aggressively. Your whole section 4 was just repeating data and analysis you had already presented. Remember that, unlike Dickens, you are not paid by the word.
This gets at my whole theory of the Senate election: lots of red state Republicans don’t like Trump’s policies, especially the economic ones, but are still highly unlikely to vote for Dems. This is why I distrust the recent Emerson poll showing Talerico leading in TX. IMHO the only way Dems win those races is if GOP turnout collapses. Which may happen if oil prices keep rising.
So 38% of Pool 3 *doesn't* consider themselves conservative, and 34% of Pool 3 *didn't* vote Trump in '24. 30-some percent of Pool 3 is 2+ percent of voters, almost as big a group as Pool 1. (I'd like to see how big a pool of *likely* voters these three are, btw.) Seems like jumping the gun to say that these voters aren't winnable, just based on the information you present here. Especially given the very well-documented phenomenon of Obama-to-Trump-to-Biden-to-Trump voters.
But suppose your analysis is correct. What we should conclude, then, is that Democrats can't have a good chance at the Senate unless they convert some Republicans into Democrats. Because as things stand, our chances in the Senate aren't that great. Best we can maybe do is a nail-biting limp across the finish line in a year when Trump has done everything wrong he possibly could.
Democrats need to be able to reliably, repeatedly win voters in the median Senate state, even if that state is currently not purple but red. That is the only way to stop MAGA judicial appointments from happening over and over again.
Maybe Sherrod Brown will win in Ohio this year, since Trump has destroyed the price of gas and so on. That would be great. But we need to get the party to a place where a Democrat can win statewide in Ohio even in a year when an insane R president hasn't destroyed the economy. Do you seriously think that can be done without moving right on issues that Ohioans care about?
Joe Manchin was persona non grata in our party, despite being too far left to win re-election in West Virginia. The obvious conclusion to draw is that we need to get to the point where someone to the right of Joe Manchin is persona grata, or else we give up on that state completely. Maybe it's worth giving up on WV (although a veto-proof majority someday would be amazing), but is it worth giving up on Ohio and Indiana? Meanwhile the electoral college situation is going to get worse, not better, as the "blue wall" states lose population.
Not saying Jain is right about everything. I doubt that crime, per se, is the crux of the issue. From what I can tell, it's a bunch of things like guns, affirmative action (terribly unpopular), teacher unions, and energy (especially, lots of people don't want to switch to EVs--I don't agree with these people, this is not me slipping in my own policy preferences).
The party can't turn on a dime and suddenly attract a bunch of Pool 3 voters in six months, but changes need to happen in the medium term. Or else we're gonna lose where it matters (Senate), win where it doesn't matter (House) and sit powerless through a long MAGA reign of terror under Trump and then probably Vance.
Extremely important! You’re so patient—or at least hiding your frustration well.
One thing that should be baked into our consciousness about crime is white collar grift and plutocratic embezzlement, basically. THAT kind of crime would be an excellent topic to measure people’s opinions on, esp if you give people polled a bit of info about the regime’s theft, self-dealing, and the sale of data illegally extracted by DOGE.
No one likes corruption, but neither is it automatically in the same category as “crime”—which topic I still see as uncomfortably and inaccurately associated with immigrants without paperwork. The real crime against the people is the regime. It always is in autocracies. But putting the question to the people about who they trust more to keep self-dealing out of elected office, to hold accountable those who have ALREADY stolen a significant amount from the people—well, I’d love to see that.
Thank you for all of this logic and fact. It’s essential in our fighting our way forward into becoming a better nation.
Brilliant analysis! Hopefully the Democratic Party brain trust subscribes to “Strength in Numbers.”
They voted for an adjudicated rapist and fraudster who tried to violently overthrow the government; preventing crime doesn't historically appear to be their defining issue.
In her Law Day post, Joyce Vance wrote about her 22-year-old son, who answered her question - What would it take to get people like him—smart, well educated, possibly more interested in football and video games than politics, but decent, caring people—to want to read a book about saving democracy? by saying that the evidence before him was that Democracy was a con game.
Vance asked him what about working to make it better?
He answered that demonstrations don't work, the president doesn't believe in democracy, Congress won't work for democracy, and he's got no power. (And the Supreme Court has just proven its position on democracy.) And it makes him angry.
This is the seed, right here.
Being disdained, belittled, disenfranchised, makes everybody angry, around the world. If you ain't angry, you ain't right.
The question is, young people who do not vote, do you think that you'll be allowed to live a nice life so long as you just keep your mouth shut and your head down? What does the evidence show us? Read Anne Applebaum's Autocracy Inc., read Masha Gessen's The Future is History.
"would require flipping Republican-aligned voters, who are still behaving like Republican voters" - so follow GEMs suggestions for pools 1 & 2, and maybe some number of pool 3 will be two-for-one.
"One of the tired things I see pundits do a lot is they point out a big problem in politics, and then shoehorn in their favored ideological fix for that problem" - a conspiracy minded person might wonder how many of these pundits are actually maga plants...