Initial 2020 Polling and Message Guidance

Summary

Priorities USA’s first 2020 national survey examined voters’ feelings about their votes in 2018 and their initial thoughts on the upcoming presidential election in 2020. After falling short in the Midwest in 2016 and succeeding there in 2018, we oversampled WI, MI, OH and PA to better inform our messaging strategy moving forward.

Democratic victories in 2018 were achieved by expanding the electorate to bring in new voters and convincing some Trump voters to come back over to the Democratic side. That combination of persuasion and mobilization is the only path to victory for Democrats in 2020.

We identified these critical voters as “Trump to Dem”, meaning those who voted for Trump in 2016 and a Democrat for Congress in 2018, and “New Dem”, meaning those that voted third party or did not vote in 2016, but voted for Democrats in 2018. While these two groups of voters appear on the surface to be different, they have much in common that gives Democrats a big opportunity to shore up and build upon our 2018 gains. Each of these groups, and voters overall, cited health care as the most important issue in deciding who to support in 2020. Additionally, both Trump to Dem voters and New Dem voters cited the same two messages among their top concerns about Trump. First, that he would cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy, and second that he is tearing the country apart by using fear, hate and division to turn Americans against each other.

Understanding that much can change between now and November of 2020, we feel confident that these two message tracks will be critical to Democratic success in the presidential election. As with 2018, we believe that voters will hear far more about Trump’s temperament and the divisions he stokes from the media than they do about his economic policies. Therefore, it will once more be imperative that Democrats use paid media to drive home the economic messages we need voters to hear.

Trump’s Standing with Voters

Overall, President Trump heads into the 2020 cycle with weak numbers with voters. Despite that, we project the race to be extremely close and Democrats will have a lot of work to do if they want to prevail.

In an initial read on the President’s chances of re-election, 49% of voters say they would vote for a Democrat to replace Trump while 40% say they would re-elect him. One in ten voters (11%) say it’s too early to tell suggesting Democrats still have work to do to persuade the electorate to jettison the President. Trump is on the short end of a large enthusiasm gap, with 42% saying they would definitely vote to replace Trump and only 29% saying they would definitely vote to re-elect him.

We asked voters about a range of qualities, and if they had confidence or doubts about Donald Trump when it comes to that subject. Trump is in poor standing across every quality, though his numbers on temperament and style remain worse than on policy. Voters view Trump as mainly looking out for the wealthy and big corporations (54% say this) over regular people (21%), helping to explain why Trump has failed at getting credit for good overall economic conditions.

Voters are, however, split on whether Trump’s economic policies are good for people like you or bad for people like you (42% say good, 42% say bad). This underscores Democrats’ need to better define the negative impacts of Trump policy.

Democrats defined the negative impacts of Republican policy well in 2018 – as a focus on health care propelled Democrats across the country. As voters consider who they plan to support in 2020, health care remains top of mind as every group told us that health care was going to be the most important issue in their decision.

Motivating and Mobilizing New Democratic Voters

Our poll identified a significant chunk of voters (roughly 7% of all voters) who did not vote in 2016 or voted 3rd party and went to the polls on November 6th to vote Democratic. They are a diverse group: younger, more people of color, and 60% female.

They dislike Trump immensely and have grave concerns over both his temperament as President and his policies.
We must mobilize this group across the battleground in 2020 and ensure they show up for the Democratic nominee.

When asked a battery of messages about Trump, the top four with these voters were:

Donald Trump promised to protect Medicare and Social Security, but his tax cuts for the wealthy increased the deficit dramatically, which Republicans now say will mean cuts to Medicare and Social Security
Donald Trump has pushed for health care policies that hurt regular people, including trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions
Donald Trump is tearing the country apart – he uses fear, hate, and division to turn Americans against each other when he should be bringing the country together to solve problems
Donald Trump repeatedly lies and makes false or misleading claims to the American people that many of his supporters believe are true

While they turned out to vote in 2018, Democrats have work to do to cement these gains. Just 45% of these New Democratic voters says that Democrats’ economic policies are good for people like them, while a quarter (24%) say they are bad, and 31% say they don’t have much of an effect either way. To make sure we continue to mobilize these voters in 2020, Democrats should prove to these voters that their policies will help them and communicate with them early, not just toward the end of the campaign.

Midwest Trump to Democrat Voters

While the Midwest is still challenging for Democrats, 2018 showed that we have a path to winning over some Trump voters in these critical states. Throughout the 2018 cycle, poll after poll showed a large percentage of voters saying that they wanted a check on President Trump. This did not mean that they didn’t still support the president, but it did lead many of them to vote for Democrats for federal office in 2018.

This poses both a challenge and an opportunity for Democrats in 2020.

These voters, concentrated in the Midwest, voted for Trump in 2016 and voted for a Democrat for Senate and/or House in 2018. Their profile is the classic Obama-Trump group: older, white, and non-college.
While many still support Trump, 32% say they will vote for the Democrat in 2020 and many side with Democrats on a wide array of issues.

Democrats need to show why his policies are bad and win back some—we don’t need all—of this group, the same way Democrats did across the country this year.
Of the Trump voters in the Midwest who voted for Democrats for federal office in 2018:

68% say they had mixed feelings about voting for Trump
32% want to replace Trump with a Democrat in 2020. When initially asked, 33% say it’s too early to tell and only 17% say they will “definitely” vote to re-elect Trump.

This data shows that while some Midwest Trump voters who voted for a check on Trump in 2018 will likely return to him, roughly a third of them have already abandoned him and are likely to vote for a Democrat for president in 2020. Given Trump’s narrow margins of victory in some of these states, this would represent a sizeable shift in outcome.

However, more work does need to be done to convince these voters that Trump is not on their side, again underscoring the need to better define the impact of Trump policy.

48% say that Trump’s economic policies are good for people like them, as opposed to those that say they are bad for people like them (24%)

Democrats do have effective messages to move these numbers. When asked a battery of messages about Trump, the top four with these voters were:

Donald Trump promised to protect Medicare and Social Security, but his tax cuts for the wealthy increased the deficit dramatically, which Republicans now say will mean cuts to Medicare and Social Security
Donald Trump refuses to change his divisive style even as home-grown terrorism and mass shootings inspired by hate of other people and groups are on the rise in America.
Donald Trump is tearing the country apart – he uses fear, hate, and division to turn Americans against each other when he should be bringing the country together to solve problems
Donald Trump repeatedly lies and makes false or misleading claims to the American people that many of his supporters believe are true

About This Poll

Garin-Hart-Yang and Global Strategy Group conducted this poll via online interviews Nov. 9^th to 11^th, 2018 with a representative national cross section of 1,016 2016 and/or 2018 voters. Additional interviews were conducted in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio for a total of 1,200 interviews among voters from those states.

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