G2 Analytics is an innovative public opinion research firm that has developed a unique research methodology which combines the rich data of qualitative moment-to-moment (M2M) video scoring with the valuable quantitative data derived from traditional online surveys.
In the days following President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, G2 Analytics applied this methodology to better understand how his speech was received by American voters. In addition to answering pre-and post-exposure survey questions, 300 respondents were asked to watch and score a 6-minute video containing excerpts from the speech covering the topics of Immigration, Tax Reform, Infrastructure, and Obamacare.
Using G2 Analytics’ innovative blend of qualitative and quantitative research, this online focus group uncovers one of the most under reported aspects of Trump’s support base –the foundation might actually be Republican women.
Prior to being exposed to the video of Trump’s speech to Congress, respondents were asked several key pre-exposure survey questions to better understand their general attitudes about national politics and their feelings towards Donald Trump.
One of the most glaring observations from the pre-exposure data was the extreme polarization of women voters. Republican women were the most supportive of Donald Trump, 94% responded that they had favorable opinion (65% very favorable) of the President and by the same margin (94%) they approve of the way he is handling his job as President of the United States (64% strongly approve). Compare that to Democrat women, 76% responded that they had an unfavorable opinion (64% very unfavorable) and 78% disapprove of how he is handling his job (68% strongly disapprove). This is a real gender gap and one that should not be ignored.
Statistically speaking, this intra-gender gap is far greater than the often-reported gender gap of men versus women and even when comparing Democrat men to Republican men. By contrast 92% of Republican men have a favorable opinion of Donald Trump (57% very favorable) and 90% approve of the job he is doing as president (55% strongly approve). Democrat men were also less harsh on the president. While 71% of Democrat men had an unfavorable opinion of the president, only 45% were very unfavorable, which is 18 percentage points less than their female counterparts. When it comes to the president’s job approval, 45% of Democrat men strongly disapprove of his performance –22 percentage points less than Democrat women.
This trend was not only found in the data collected from traditional survey responses, but was supported in the reaction data from the M2M video scoring portion of the survey. In this part of the survey, respondents were asked to watch and score the content of the 6-minute video using the G2 Analytics M2M video scoring platform to indicate when the Liked/Agreed or Disliked/Disagreed with the content of Trump’s speech to Congress.
A quick look of M2M Reaction Shares (percent of positive and negative reactions) broken down by gender and party affiliation, confirms that the highest level of support for Donald Trump comes from Republican women. 97% of Republican women’s reactions indicated that they “liked or agreed” with the content of the president’s speech while 61% of Democrat women’s reactions indicated that they “disliked or disagreed” with the president’s remarks.
The Net Performance Curves generated from the M2M reaction data of female respondents visually displays the polarized views held by Republican and Democrat women. Net Performance is the measurement of positive minus negative reaction. Using the Net Performance Curves, G2Analyticsisolated the segments of Trump’s speech that elicited the highest levels of disagreement between women respondents. You can watch the excerpts from Trump’s speech with the M2M Reaction data overlaid by CLICKING HERE.
As shown in the Net Performance Curves, the highest levels of disagreement between Republican and Democrat women voters are around Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the southern border, and his calls to repeal and replace Obamacare.
When it comes to specific policy proposals discussed by Donald Trump in the video that was shown to respondents, the same intra-gender disagreements among Republican and Democrat women were also evident in the responses to post-exposure survey questions. In terms of repealing and replacing Obamacare, an overwhelming 96% of Republican women supported Trump’s plan, compared to just 22% of Democrat women. Again, in all four policy areas, it was Republican women that offered Trump the highest levels of support (ranging from 80%-96%) and Democrat women consistently expressing the lowest levels of support (ranging from14%-57%).
The one area where Trump was able to receive the support of a majority of all respondents was his call for an infrastructure development plan that encourages the principle of “Hire American, Buy American”. Not only did 57% of Democrat women support this statement, 79% of all respondents (Republican, Independent, and Democrat) were supportive of his proposal.
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Despite this silver lining, there is clearly a significant divide among women voters when it comes to Donald Trump and his administration’s policy objectives. G2 Analytics’ online focus group finds that the bedrock of his opposition can be attributed to Democrat women; the cornerstone of his support base can clearly be assigned to Republican women who overwhelmingly support him and his policies. While the traditional gender gap may play an important role in election year politics, the results from this online focus group indicates that there is a new gender gap that has emerged and is one that is more significant and polarized and has the potential of playing an equally important role in the ever-evolving public opinion of President Trump.
AJ Rehberg is the President of G2 Analytics, a public opinion research firm headquartered in Alexandria, VA. For more information, visit www.g2analytics.co