NDN's Saliency Index - A New Public Opinion Measure

Over the last few weeks I've been playing around with something I'm calling our Saliency Index.  It is an exercise designed to try to determine which issues matter most to voters available to Democrats in 2022, and to also show just how different the concerns of those voters are from Republicans. 

So I start with the following question and results from the Nov 8th Navigator Research poll:

Look at how different the issue environment is:

Top 5 issues, all voters - jobs/economy, COVID, inflation, immigration, health care

Top 5 Dem issues - COVID, jobs/economy, climate/extreme weather, health care, social security/medicare

Top 5 Indie issues - jobs/economy, COVID, health care, corruption in govt, inflation

Top 5 GOP issues - jobs/economy, immigration, inflation, national security, corruption in goverment

What this shows is that the intensity of feeling by GOP voters about two issues - immigration and inflation - turn issues of lesser concern for Dems and Indies into top tier issues of all voters.  This intensity ends up distorting our understanding of what matters to voters, and is particularly distorting for Democrats.  For Democrats don't get elected by all voters, they get elected mostly by Democrats with a few independents and Republicans mixed in.  So these "all voters" priority lists are just not where Democratic candidates need to be, it is not the information universe they live in. 

In talking to some campaign friends we came up with a formula for what a Dem universe would be.  We estimated that the vote of a typical swing district Dem is about 80% Democratic, 15% Independent, and 5% Republican.  80/15/5.  Applying that formula to that data a Dem district comes out as:

COVID 59% Economy/Jobs 57% Health Care 42% Climate/Extreme Weather 34% Soc Sec/Medicare 33% Inflation 27% Govt Corruption 23% Immigration 21% Nat Security 19% Violent Crime 17% Afghanistan 11% Abortion 11%

As compared to for all voters:

Economy/Jobs 58% COVID 47% Inflation 34% Immigration 33% Health Care 33% Soc Sec/Medicare 31% Climate/Extreme Weather 29% Govt Corruption 28% Nat Security 28% Violent Crime 14% Afghanistan 14% Abortion 10%

A few things of note from this analysis:

- COVID remains the #1 issue for Dem voters.  It is not even a top 5 issue for Republicans right now. Extraordinary finding. The data of course suggests Dems should be spending most of their public messaging time talking about COVID and recovery.  

- Inflation is not a top tier issue for Dem voters right now, nor is immigration even though they are #3 and #4 for all voters.  On inflation, we also see from this same Navigator poll, that 70% of our voters think inflation is due to COVID, and only 20% say it is due to excess government spending.  For R voters, it ranks third as an issue of concern, at 45%, and 73% blame Biden/spending.  So it is pretty clear that the freak out over inflation is not being driven by voters Democrats are talking to right now, and Democrats would be wise to not overreact here. 

- Climate/extreme weather is a top tier issue for Democrats.  This is a new development, and something the center-left family needs to pay attention too. 

- Interested to see if Dems can make reproductive health more salient in the months ahead.  Feel like there is a big opportunity here

As good as this work is from Navigator, and it is very good work, I'm hoping they will debt/deficits as an option in the days ahead.  It's a significant omission. 

Is 80/15/5 the right ratio? As a rule of thumb it seems pretty good, but every competitive state and district will have their own formula.

This is our Saliency Index.  For Dems on Nov 8th, 2021 it is:

COVID 59%

Economy/Jobs 57%

Health Care 42%

Climate/Extreme Weather 34%

Soc Sec/Medicare 33%

Inflation 27%

Govt Corruption 23%

Immigration 21%

Nat Security 19%

Violent Crime 17%

Afghanistan 11%

Abortion 11%

See this recent essay for a discussion about the limitations of using "popularity" in determining whether an issue can move votes and help candidates win.