The least-engaged Americans have swung 25 points against him since 2024 — about twice the shift among everyone else. Trump has flattened the engagement gap.
I didn't see your prescription; I apologize if I missed it. From your report, It seems clear that getting more information ("news") to those who don't consume much news would benefit Ds and the country generally. The problem is: how to effect an increase the consumption of unbiased news by those who need it. I lived in the Central Valley for 6 years and interacted closely with many who supported Trump. Their ONLY news sources - when they got any - were Fox, Newsmax, and right-wing talk radio or podcasts. They self-select (as, admittedly, I also do) to ensure they hear what they want to.
How does such a distorted news feed get corrected? It's an urgent need.
THANK YOU for your excellent unbiased polling and *data-driven* analyses!
These low-knowledge voters aren't the Fox news watchers. The couple minutes of news they get each month is a headline here, a video there — something that pops up on their feed.
These are folks who tune out if they hear "It's complicated" or "It depends." But they watched the videos from Minneapolis.
The message has to grab them at the first glance, before they scroll away.
Persuading the Fox viewers, that's a different challenge.
May I suggest another possible factor in the statistically significant difference between low-knowledge and high-knowledge voters on prices.
Trump promised to lower prices on day one. Low-knowledge voters believed this promise. They expected lower prices. They know from personal experience that Trump failed to deliver on his promise. Credibility destroyed!
High-knowledge voters on the other hand -- or at least a significant percentage of them -- knew that any promise to lower prices generally is what our favorite pollster refers to in technical jargon as "shit" or what the Marsh Family Singers refer to as "shite." Our most recent experiences with a general reduction of prices in the United States were, to put it mildly, not good or more bluntly "shit" -- 1929-1933 and the 1890s. The high-knowledge voters knew that Trump's economic "policies" were not good; but they were confident that he wouldn't (or couldn't) produce a repeat of the Great Depression or the 19th century "panics". And they recognized the high inflation of the early Biden years as caused by Covid problems. So-o-o-o, as a result they didn't expect lower prices and weren't as disillusioned as the low-knowledge voters by the failure of Trump's promise to produce them.
I especially like it when you briefly cite other academic writings in your analyses, thus providing context and buttressing your own interpretations of the data. It was the major reason I became a paid subscriber--you're very familiar with prior scientific research. Case in point from today's article:
"John Zaller’s The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (1992) is the best framework here. In his model of public opinion, people can resist political messaging only to the extent they have the context to evaluate counterarguments. High-knowledge voters have pre-existing ideological filters through which they can sort new information based on whether it affirms their existing worldview. Low-knowledge voters, on the other hand, lack those filters and absorb information less selectively, which means their opinions move more easily in whatever direction conditions push."
Given the salient topics in the current news cycle, I cannot in good conscience join you in that prayer. I'll just mutter a few words for the soul of America and hope something comes of it.
I do think "low information voter" or "low knowledge voter" is bit of a beltway euphemism which obscures the way folks with technical knowledge or expertise in political science and politics think of or condescend to normal people.
We don't really call folks wearing Yankee's ball caps that do not watch baseball "low information baseball fans." The people who know every edge-case rule and can name player statistics going back decades are rightly viewed as the diehard fans, or else nerds.
I don't have an alternative lingo to suggest, sorry. I'm not even sure we should stop saying "low information voter," if we can remain mindful that what we really mean is just normal folks who are less engaged. My view is we ought to recognize that we are the weird ones if we're in the comments section of a data-based political substack talking about an election that isn't for another 9 months. Whether that requires any change in terminology is debatable.
If people do not know which party controls the House and/or Senate, then these people are low information voters. That is the lowest bar and does not require expertise in political science and politics.
So, to be clear, when I'm talking about whether it's a useful beltway euphemism, I'm not arguing we should be nicer to people. I don't much care about that. The 'low information voter' cohort is not reading political blogs and even less the comments, so in the sense of communicating candidly how you feel about them relative to yourself, the world is your oyster.
Mostly I want to ask whether it is useful and accurate for our own purposes. The risk to me is that as a euphemism it can lead us to make additional assumptions about this cohort that are also not useful. "Low information voter" risks becoming a catalyst for cognitive shortcuts. So if calling folks 'low information voters' leads to you making assumptions about them due to a representatives heuristic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representativeness_heuristic) or a halo effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect), like we should change the label.
For example, G.E. Morris's survey, all we really know about the cohort he's examining is whether they were able to identify control of congress, and yet you've colored your reply to me with some assumptions about bar clearing. The label "low-information" creates a mental prototype of a that person. Once that label is applied, people automatically fill in the blanks with other traits associated with that prototype (e.g., we might think low information also means lazy, irrational, or easily manipulated). But really, the only data point we actually have is that they don't know who controls Congress. If you find yourself feeling antagonistic about the cohort, then you might have had some in-group/out-group biases triggered by the label,"low information voter" and that to me means the label is not useful.
More evidence of GEM's data backed insight, that the non-ideological bloc voted on anti-incumbent vibes in 2024 is coming back to punish MAGA/Trump. All they/he have left is to pitch "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"
Low information voters who didn't know who controls both chambers of Congress would have a 25% chance of guessing right twice. The article might want to point out the high-information group knew -> or guessed <- the answers.
Low information voters are actually about 30% of the electorate, by this measure. Right?
I’m really warming to the idea of instituting a basic civics/current events test as a pre-requisite to voting. A basic pass/fail test provided every 4 years that’s no more difficult than the weekly NYT news quiz.
Given that people the world over have suffered and/or died in part due to the whimsy of these low information voters, I don’t think the idea is entirely unreasonable.
I believe this is pretty much what was done in the South under Jim Crow, made illegal in 1965 after much valiant effort by the Civil Rights activists of the era.
That is the usual reflexive response when this idea is floated. However, the Jim Crow questions were purposefully designed to be confusing and discriminatory toward a particular set of voters.
The basic civics test would be multiple choice and ask such basic questions as "how many branches of government are there?" and "who was president during COVID in 2020?"
And you are confident that such a test would only disenfranchise the otherwise eligible voters you'd prefer didn't vote? and not be used by others (like officials administering the test in the deep south) to disenfranchise different or additional cohorts of otherwise eligible voters?
Who writes the questions? How can you ensure that the people you want writing the questions will be the ones writing the questions when they're out of power?
I worry that that requirement would just encourage Republicans to defund all the schools in blue states.
I have often thought that all people running for office should have to successfully complete the naturalization test immigrants take in order to become citizens.
I'm not sure I see the connection - it would be have to be a requirement mandated at the federal level. Otherwise, some states would implement it while others would not.
I think the other key feature of low-knowledge voters is that they are prone to magical thinking. They not only lack knowledge of the candidates’ policy positions; they also lack knowledge of how the government and the economy work, and thus they think that a new President can come in, wave a magic wand, and solve all their problems. Trump indulged this belief in the magical powers of the President in his 2024 campaign, making preposterous promises that knowledgeable people knew he could not fulfill. These low knowledge voters will thus usually oppose incumbents, because incumbents will never fulfill their fanciful ideas of what a President can actually achieve.
You are discounting the role of poisonous social media in swaying low engagement voters. It seems thatb everything is political these days and insidious posts, videos, etc always seep in.
Anyway- too late, fckers. Miller, Gnome, Bondage, nutlick are already in power and they have no intention to give it up
Trump is lucky that 58% of the electorate believe Democrats are too liberal.
"and how Democrats can win in 2026"
I didn't see your prescription; I apologize if I missed it. From your report, It seems clear that getting more information ("news") to those who don't consume much news would benefit Ds and the country generally. The problem is: how to effect an increase the consumption of unbiased news by those who need it. I lived in the Central Valley for 6 years and interacted closely with many who supported Trump. Their ONLY news sources - when they got any - were Fox, Newsmax, and right-wing talk radio or podcasts. They self-select (as, admittedly, I also do) to ensure they hear what they want to.
How does such a distorted news feed get corrected? It's an urgent need.
THANK YOU for your excellent unbiased polling and *data-driven* analyses!
These low-knowledge voters aren't the Fox news watchers. The couple minutes of news they get each month is a headline here, a video there — something that pops up on their feed.
These are folks who tune out if they hear "It's complicated" or "It depends." But they watched the videos from Minneapolis.
The message has to grab them at the first glance, before they scroll away.
Persuading the Fox viewers, that's a different challenge.
May I suggest another possible factor in the statistically significant difference between low-knowledge and high-knowledge voters on prices.
Trump promised to lower prices on day one. Low-knowledge voters believed this promise. They expected lower prices. They know from personal experience that Trump failed to deliver on his promise. Credibility destroyed!
High-knowledge voters on the other hand -- or at least a significant percentage of them -- knew that any promise to lower prices generally is what our favorite pollster refers to in technical jargon as "shit" or what the Marsh Family Singers refer to as "shite." Our most recent experiences with a general reduction of prices in the United States were, to put it mildly, not good or more bluntly "shit" -- 1929-1933 and the 1890s. The high-knowledge voters knew that Trump's economic "policies" were not good; but they were confident that he wouldn't (or couldn't) produce a repeat of the Great Depression or the 19th century "panics". And they recognized the high inflation of the early Biden years as caused by Covid problems. So-o-o-o, as a result they didn't expect lower prices and weren't as disillusioned as the low-knowledge voters by the failure of Trump's promise to produce them.
I especially like it when you briefly cite other academic writings in your analyses, thus providing context and buttressing your own interpretations of the data. It was the major reason I became a paid subscriber--you're very familiar with prior scientific research. Case in point from today's article:
"John Zaller’s The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (1992) is the best framework here. In his model of public opinion, people can resist political messaging only to the extent they have the context to evaluate counterarguments. High-knowledge voters have pre-existing ideological filters through which they can sort new information based on whether it affirms their existing worldview. Low-knowledge voters, on the other hand, lack those filters and absorb information less selectively, which means their opinions move more easily in whatever direction conditions push."
Given the salient topics in the current news cycle, I cannot in good conscience join you in that prayer. I'll just mutter a few words for the soul of America and hope something comes of it.
I do think "low information voter" or "low knowledge voter" is bit of a beltway euphemism which obscures the way folks with technical knowledge or expertise in political science and politics think of or condescend to normal people.
We don't really call folks wearing Yankee's ball caps that do not watch baseball "low information baseball fans." The people who know every edge-case rule and can name player statistics going back decades are rightly viewed as the diehard fans, or else nerds.
I don't have an alternative lingo to suggest, sorry. I'm not even sure we should stop saying "low information voter," if we can remain mindful that what we really mean is just normal folks who are less engaged. My view is we ought to recognize that we are the weird ones if we're in the comments section of a data-based political substack talking about an election that isn't for another 9 months. Whether that requires any change in terminology is debatable.
If people do not know which party controls the House and/or Senate, then these people are low information voters. That is the lowest bar and does not require expertise in political science and politics.
So, to be clear, when I'm talking about whether it's a useful beltway euphemism, I'm not arguing we should be nicer to people. I don't much care about that. The 'low information voter' cohort is not reading political blogs and even less the comments, so in the sense of communicating candidly how you feel about them relative to yourself, the world is your oyster.
Mostly I want to ask whether it is useful and accurate for our own purposes. The risk to me is that as a euphemism it can lead us to make additional assumptions about this cohort that are also not useful. "Low information voter" risks becoming a catalyst for cognitive shortcuts. So if calling folks 'low information voters' leads to you making assumptions about them due to a representatives heuristic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representativeness_heuristic) or a halo effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect), like we should change the label.
For example, G.E. Morris's survey, all we really know about the cohort he's examining is whether they were able to identify control of congress, and yet you've colored your reply to me with some assumptions about bar clearing. The label "low-information" creates a mental prototype of a that person. Once that label is applied, people automatically fill in the blanks with other traits associated with that prototype (e.g., we might think low information also means lazy, irrational, or easily manipulated). But really, the only data point we actually have is that they don't know who controls Congress. If you find yourself feeling antagonistic about the cohort, then you might have had some in-group/out-group biases triggered by the label,"low information voter" and that to me means the label is not useful.
"Ignoring respondents who said they were “not sure” if they watched the news."
Thank you for the full belly laugh, Mr. Morris!
I can’t help thinking of Cicero’s remark to Cato that he needed to remember that they were living in Romulus' cesspool and not in Plato’s Republic.
Chk out The Rest is History Podcast.
More evidence of GEM's data backed insight, that the non-ideological bloc voted on anti-incumbent vibes in 2024 is coming back to punish MAGA/Trump. All they/he have left is to pitch "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"
I smell a rout.
Low information voters who didn't know who controls both chambers of Congress would have a 25% chance of guessing right twice. The article might want to point out the high-information group knew -> or guessed <- the answers.
Low information voters are actually about 30% of the electorate, by this measure. Right?
I’m really warming to the idea of instituting a basic civics/current events test as a pre-requisite to voting. A basic pass/fail test provided every 4 years that’s no more difficult than the weekly NYT news quiz.
Given that people the world over have suffered and/or died in part due to the whimsy of these low information voters, I don’t think the idea is entirely unreasonable.
I believe this is pretty much what was done in the South under Jim Crow, made illegal in 1965 after much valiant effort by the Civil Rights activists of the era.
https://secure.splcenter.org/page/67431/survey/1?locale=en-US
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/10dxyq1/example_of_a_literacy_test_administered_during/
That is the usual reflexive response when this idea is floated. However, the Jim Crow questions were purposefully designed to be confusing and discriminatory toward a particular set of voters.
The basic civics test would be multiple choice and ask such basic questions as "how many branches of government are there?" and "who was president during COVID in 2020?"
And you are confident that such a test would only disenfranchise the otherwise eligible voters you'd prefer didn't vote? and not be used by others (like officials administering the test in the deep south) to disenfranchise different or additional cohorts of otherwise eligible voters?
Yes
Who writes the questions? How can you ensure that the people you want writing the questions will be the ones writing the questions when they're out of power?
I worry that that requirement would just encourage Republicans to defund all the schools in blue states.
I have often thought that all people running for office should have to successfully complete the naturalization test immigrants take in order to become citizens.
I'm not sure I see the connection - it would be have to be a requirement mandated at the federal level. Otherwise, some states would implement it while others would not.
I think the other key feature of low-knowledge voters is that they are prone to magical thinking. They not only lack knowledge of the candidates’ policy positions; they also lack knowledge of how the government and the economy work, and thus they think that a new President can come in, wave a magic wand, and solve all their problems. Trump indulged this belief in the magical powers of the President in his 2024 campaign, making preposterous promises that knowledgeable people knew he could not fulfill. These low knowledge voters will thus usually oppose incumbents, because incumbents will never fulfill their fanciful ideas of what a President can actually achieve.
You are discounting the role of poisonous social media in swaying low engagement voters. It seems thatb everything is political these days and insidious posts, videos, etc always seep in.
Anyway- too late, fckers. Miller, Gnome, Bondage, nutlick are already in power and they have no intention to give it up
Another GEM of a post from G.E.M!