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Thanks for reading our newsletter. This issue features important pieces from two of our senior leaders at WPA Intelligence. Amanda Iovino advocates for fine-tuning messaging with swing vote women view security issues, which have shifted over the past several years. Matt Knee takes you under the hood of how we built our “Trump Effect” model, which offers clients the opportunity to gauge the impact of an endorsement by the president.

– Michael D. Cohen, Ph.D., CSO, WPA Intelligence

Swing Women – Still Swinging: Security Issues

By Amanda Iovino, Senior Client Strategist

Last month, we looked at how swing women are thinking about health care as a pocketbook issue (and how the GOP needs to meet them where they are).

This second installment on swing women focuses on another issue area where Republican talking points have stayed relatively the same even as swing women’s perspectives have changed: Security Issues.

Republicans tend to do well when security is top of mind with women (see: 2002, 2014). But women today aren’t as worried about foreign-born terrorists coming to the U.S. as they were in those cycles. Instead, they’re worried about the attack being perpetrated by one of our own with a gun.

Adjusting our talking points is going to involve a mental shift for many of us on the Right. Republicans tend to think about the Second Amendment as a Constitutional issue, or as a cultural one, but swing women are viewing gun policy as a security issue. It does not matter that the Las Vegas shooter from 2017 did not fit into the FBI’s definition of “domestic terrorist,” to many women, that’s exactly what he was.

Let me be clear: I am in no way advocating for a Republican candidate to change their position on these issues. But it is vital for our candidates, especially those in swing states and districts, to understand how swing women are thinking about these issues, to put ourselves in their shoes as we figure out how to message to these key voters.

Last fall, Republicans in Virginia tried to stay quiet on the issue of gun control even while it was a top issue among voters, and they lost control of both houses of the Legislature, handing complete control of the state over to Democrats for the first time in a generation.

More broadly, two-thirds (67%) of women nationwide labeled gun violence as a “big problem” in a National Geographic/Ipsos poll late last year (another 19% called it a “moderate problem”).

Credit: National Geographic/Ipsos

Gun control means different things to different voters. Some want the laws on the books evenly enforced, others want universal background checks or red flag laws instituted. Few want Beto’s policies enacted and even fewer are looking for a full repeal of the Second Amendment.

How can candidates better message to swing women on this issue? It all starts with better data. WPAi not only has simple off-the-shelf models of voters’ basic beliefs on the Second Amendment but we can help candidates create custom models designed to pinpoint areas of commonality between a candidate’s and voters’ views on gun policy, allowing each campaign to navigate their unique electorate in a way that is true to the candidate and answers voters’ concerns.

The Trump Effect

By Matt Knee, Director of Analytics

The 2016 election was a powerful reminder of the power of leading figures to fundamentally reshape public opinion. Once Donald Trump became the Republican Party’s standard bearer, partisans on both sides polarized around that new reality on issues from trade to opinions of Russia. Seeing this powerful effect in the wild, we decided to apply social science to harness it for our clients.

We conducted a 6,200-person survey experiment, asking a control group if they supported a congressional bill called the “Government Efficiency Act,” opposed it, or did not know enough to form an opinion. This was chosen because it is ideologically neutral, and no one could possibly have a real opinion about this bill because it doesn’t exist. We made it up for purposes of this study. The treatment group received the same question, instead with the added information that President Trump supported it.

This way, the only thing driving real opinion change on the issue was the endorsement. This information moved 67% to have an opinion, up from 19%.

We then modeled the responses from the treatment and control groups, providing scores for every registered voter in the country. We found that compared to the control group, the information that President Trump supported this fictional bill moved Republicans a net 25 points toward support. Conversely, Trump’s support moved Democrats 20 points in opposition.

These models are available to help primary candidates who have been endorsed by the president best leverage it, those who do not have his endorsement (or are running against a Trump endorsed candidate) have the best chance of victory. Furthermore, these data help advocacy groups navigate the effects of presidential support or opposition and companies that may be mentioned in a Trump tweet or speech best deal with the impact.

The Trump models themselves are ready-made to help primary and general election candidates and advocacy organizations understand and target around the most influential and largest share of voice in American politics. We built a widely applicable model with scientific rigor. If President Trump has weighed in on a candidate, company or issue, for or against, a model like this is a must to leverage or evade it.

President Trump may be the most powerful example, but he is far from the only entity whose support or opposition is invoked to drive people to or from a particular candidate or opinion.

Other high-profile politicians are routinely invoked in political messaging. Much political and advocacy messaging and decision-making rests on people’s inclinations to side with business or labor, with industry or environmentalists, etc. Organizations such as the NRA and Planned Parenthood are routinely invoked in both political and policy debates.

So not only does this model have clear and innovative applications directly, but it is a proof of concept for a broader technique we will deploy in a wide variety of political, corporate and advocacy contexts. This method, based on a controlled experiment, models the causal effect of hearing a politician or organization supports a position. This technique can be used by candidates or advocacy groups to judiciously use outside endorsements or hold opponents’ responsible for theirs, and by advocacy groups to know who would benefit from hearing of their support or opposition (or for whom it should be downplayed or withheld).

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Thanks for reading our newsletter. This issue features timely pieces from two of our Senior Strategists at WPA Intelligence. Conor Maguire outlines how impeaching President Trump is set to boomerang on Democrats, particularly in the House districts they won in 2018. Amanda Iovino takes a look at health care and suburban women, the issue that fueled the 2018 takeover in terms of costs, not coverage.

– Michael D. Cohen, Ph.D., CSO, WPA Intelligence

                                                             Estimated read time: 10 minutes

Impeachment is a Gift

By Conor Maguire, Senior Strategist

It has been 1,127 days since Donald Trump was elected by the people as the 45th President of the United States of America… and Democrats still can’t believe it. Over the last three years, one month, and two days, Democrats have done nothing but fight this fact by doing everything to resist President Trump, continuously attacking his legitimacy and support of our county. Well, with the number of failed attacks on President Trump growing almost as fast as the economy, the chickens may be coming home to roost.

At WPAi, we are very focused on the 31 House Democrats sitting in districts that Trump carried in 2016, and they are poised to be the collateral damage of a near-sighted Democrat Party.

The Democrats’ push for impeachment promised bombshell interviews, facts beyond reasonable doubt, and a clear chain of evidence pointing directly to the self-serving misconduct by the President of the United States. But after all of the hearings, what’s left is nothing of the sort. It turns out that boring, convoluted, and partisan hearings on the extremely esoteric topic of geopolitics is not a way to win over voters and the proof is in the pudding.

Support for an impeachment inquiry peaked in early October, with 52% overall, according to the aggregation of public polls on Real Clear Politics. Today, support for impeachment is down to 48% and the difference with those who oppose is narrowing. Even more interesting is what’s going on with Independents. At the end of October, one outlier poll from IBD/TIPP had support for impeachment at 64%. Today, the RCP average has it at 45%, under the overall average by three points. Bottom line, after all of the hearings, a majority of the American people do not support impeaching President Trump.

Credit: Real Clear Politics

Let’s look at those who will have to take the vote soon. Many 2018 House races (especially in Trump 2016 districts) were won by tiny margins among relatively small numbers of persuadable voters. Newly elected House members who won in a Trump district – including Ben McAdams (UT-04), Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11), Anthony Brindisi (NY-22), and Kendra Horn (OK-05) – are all targets in non-Presidential states, but could feel the blowback from a myopic, politically driven Democrat impeachment push. Trump won the Brindisi seat by 15%, Horn’s by 13%, and McAdams by seven percent. While Trump won Sherrill’s by only one percent, she was lambasted by her constituents in a town hall over the Thanksgiving break, as reported by Politico. The message: vote for impeachment at your peril.

Republicans running in similar districts can hold their Democrat opponent’s feet to the fire no matter how it turns out. With extremely important projects and agreements, like USMCA, being held up by continued attacks on the President, data shows that constituents are open to switch back to voting for Republicans. Even the New York Times highlights this in a recent article where polling indicates that two-thirds of battleground state voters who voted for Trump in 2016, then a Democrat for House in 2018, will be once again be voting for Donald Trump. Voters want to their government to accomplish the basic job it is hired to do, and Republicans should remind voters of this throughout the next year. A Christmas impeachment may end up being a gift… for President Trump and the GOP.

Swing Women – Still Swinging: Health Care Costs

By Amanda Iovino, Senior Client Strategist

While the media blames President Trump, swing women have been a voting bloc equal parts vital and confusing for Republican campaigns for years.

Women voters in the suburbs are concerned about the President and the tone of his Twitter account, but they are also concerned about the same policy issues that campaigns have been talking about for decades. What has happened over the last few election cycles is that, while Republican messaging has stayed roughly the same, the way swing women have been thinking about these issues has changed.

Pocketbook Issues used to mean taxes. “Getting to keep more of your money in your own pocket” has been (and remains) a solid talking point for Republican candidates. However, over the last several years, Republicans – especially in the states – have done such a good job lowering taxes and fees that the issue is not as top-of-mind to voters as it was in 2010.

Instead, health care costs are the main drain on voters’ pocketbooks. Premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and prescription drug costs all eat away at any marginal increase in a family’s budget.

Tax cut savings? Went to pay their deductible when their kid broke his leg. Wage gains thanks to a growing economy? Those have been countered by higher premium costs being deducted from their paychecks.

Earlier this fall, 77% of women told National Geographic/Ipsos that health care costs were a “big problem” in society with another 18% calling costs a “moderate problem” making it the top issue among all women across the country.

Credit: National Geographic/Ipsos

Republicans cannot afford to not talk about health care this cycle, and neither can swing women. They are at a financial breaking point. Not talking about health care as a pocketbook issue is undercutting Republicans’ economic messaging more broadly and makes us appear out of touch with the day-to-day lives of voters.

But knowing how to talk with swing women about health care costs in an authentic and resonant way requires putting data behind the messaging. Using our decades of polling expertise and signature MessageMap technology, WPAi can help develop the messages that will move swing voters back to the Right.

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Thank you for reading our newsletter. This issue features two counter-narrative pieces: an excerpt of CEO Chris Wilson’s Washington Post op-ed, defending digital microtargeted political advertising and mine showing how Republicans can hold onto the suburbs everyone is telling us we’re losing. – Michael D. Cohen, Ph.D., CSO, WPA Intelligence

Getting Rid of Microtargeting in Political Advertising is a Terrible Idea

By Chris Wilson, CEO

Jack Dorsey, chief executive of Twitter, unleashed a frenzy of commentary when he went Pontius Pilate and effectively washed his hands of the false advertising problem online by announcing his platform would no longer take political ads. But perhaps the most alarming reaction came from Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub, who called on social media giants to “stop the practice of microtargeting” ads on their platforms.

As someone who has worked on multiple state and federal election campaigns, I found such comments from the highest campaign regulatory official in the country counterproductive and anti-democratic. Such a radical proposal would limit speech, reward millionaire candidates, protect incumbents and, worst of all, limit the newfound interest and participation in U.S. elections.

Since the adoption of individualized campaign analytics, turnout has skyrocketed. 2016 saw a 6 percent bump in turnout from 2012 — an increase of more than 8 million voters. In the 2018 midterms, 35 million more voters participated than in the 2014 midterms, and 27 million more voters than in 2010 (despite the tea party wave that year).

Unlike typical wave elections, in which one side is motivated and the other side depressed, campaigns from both parties have increased interest through direct, data-driven appeals that spoke directly to each voter. More reluctant voters, previously ignored by most campaigns, are now included in digital advertising that address them directly. Developing new ways to convince people that voting is worthwhile is the primary task of campaign sciences.

To read the full piece, click here.

Socialism in the Suburbs?

By Michael Cohen, Ph.D., Chief Strategy Officer

The narrative coming out of the off-year election is reinforcing the conventional wisdom that Trump is doomed in the suburbs. But elections are choices, so let’s play out a thought experiment based on current information. As Biden fades and many older black primary voters fail to embrace Mayor Pete, what if the Democrats nominate Iowa front-runner Elizabeth Warren, who is campaigning via hashtags on Bernie’s socialist platform, which includes #M4A, #GND, #FreeCollege, and #TwoCents? Who do these suburban voters choose in next year’s general election: someone who has cut taxes or someone who’d raise them?

Public polling released this week by none other than the New York Times (and Siena) suggests that Trump has a shot, if not the inside track, on holding the six battleground states that he won in 2016: AZ, FL, MI, NC, PA, WI. The interesting thing about this poll is that they, at least, attempted to balance the electorate to include non-college educated likely voters, which favor Trump. The baseline suggests that we haven’t moved very far, which means Trump doesn’t have to win the suburbs, or regain what Republicans lost, just narrow the spread. Oh, and Warren doesn’t win any of battlegrounds (as of today).

The cost of socialism apparently doesn’t play well in the suburbs. A couple of cents from “billionaires” won’t be able to fund the #WarrenWishList and, as it turns out, suburban voters would rather keep their hard-earned money. An example from the most recent election would be suburban Texas; while we are told that they are trending blue (not enough for Beto, of course), voters chose to ban a state income tax, and inner-ring suburban voters, were even more likely to do so.

Campaigns are not won in the abstract; generic or uncontested potential nominees haven’t faced the test of a national election. Candidates who were predicted to lose sometimes win because the right team identifies the right voters at the right time with the right message, as we do for our clients.

Should Elizabeth Warren find herself in a debate with President Trump, she’ll be confronted with the question: billionaires cannot pay for all of this so how much will suburban voters have to pay? She won’t have a plan for that question, but Trump will.

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