Voters are inundated with a roller coaster of breaking news stories day in and day out. On Monday, they’re feeling optimistic about the state of affairs and a pandemic plateau. By Tuesday, they could be tracking a quickly evolving protest. Every week feels like a lifetime.
Tracking Real-Time Voter Intelligence
Since the coronavirus pandemic started, Resonate has been tracking real-time voter sentiment through the National Voter Survey and monitoring of 10 billion online events daily. These results and online data are scaled to 200 million U.S. voters using proprietary AI-driven algorithms. Then, on a monthly basis, new insights are released on where voters stand today –– and those insights include bombshells like the fact 79% of voters could opt-out from political ads on social during this election cycle.
What does that mean for you?
It means you need to be staying up to date on real-time voter intelligence in order to stay relevant and communicate effectively with your voter base. You need to know where your voters are now and what matters to them in this moment. Our latest report, Ready For What's Next: Insights to Guide You Through the Next Voter Evolution, dives into the latest.
Voter Outlook on Coronavirus
Voters today are facing waves of uncertainty. Their confidence that life will return to normal anytime in the near future is plummeting and 40% now believe it could take over one year. Those concerned about the health-related consequences of coronavirus has increased 16% since early June and a full 69% of American voters are now concerned about the economy to a large extent.
46% of voters distrust the federal government as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and 58% disagree that the federal government is effective in handling crisis. The numbers are slightly better for state and local governments, with 44% believing they can be trusted and 48% believing they are effective in handling crisis. If you are running a campaign right now, your focus needs to be restoring trust and reassuring the public of your candidate’s ability to be a calm, steady presence in the fact of unprecedented crisis.
And, if you are challenging an incumbent candidate, there’s good news. Across the board, from President to Senate to House of Representatives to Governor, the number of voters who are now looking to vote for the challenger is steadily increasing.
Yet, how do we know which messages will resonate with voters right now?
Importance of Social Justice Messaging in 2020
In our latest report, Americans Are Raising Their Voices: Are You Ready to Listen? | Tracking Consumer Sentiment During the Fight for Social Justice, we surveyed where U.S. voters stand on the fight against systemic racism and the move towards an actively anti-racist society. This movement, spurred by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has caused shockwaves across the country and provoked conversation and protest across communities.
But, what do voters want to hear from candidates regarding these social justice issues? We know that it’s a hot-button issue that impacts voters’ lives and their perception of how effective the federal and state government is in addressing the consequential civil unrest.
This isn’t something that leaders can ignore. In fact, 76% of U.S. voters now believe that elected officials should be dedicating time specifically to addressing and discussing the mistreatment of Black Americans by police. That is up from 71% just one month earlier. Regardless of party affiliation, this is not something that can be ignored if you are speaking to voters in 2020.
Stay Up-to-the-Moment on Voter Sentiment as the Election Cycle Moves On
We know that these numbers will only continue to fluctuate. As voters continue to face a breaking news cycle that’s proving to be nothing but unpredictable, values, beliefs and important issues will adjust accordingly. Voters want to hear from your campaign on what matters to them now –– not what mattered last week or even last month.
To learn more about Resonate’s continuously updated data on U.S. voters’ demographics, behavior, psychographics, motivations, values and more, visit our Politics & Advocacy resource page today or contact us directly for a deep dive into the voter groups that matter most to you.
Heather Bien is a Senior Content Marketing Manager at Resonate, a voter data intelligence leader providing real-time, dynamic insights scaled to the entire U.S. adult population. Creating groundbreaking assets, including the Voter Landscape, Heather and the content team dive into the proprietary data available through the Resonate platform to analyze trends in voter values, preferences, motivations and more.