15 Apr Election 2020 | Swing Voters talk about their priorities
Bowling Green, OH
April 9, 2019
They say playing hard to get can increase attraction and desire. Don’t chase—make them run after you.
Is that what swing voters are doing? Because politicians and media outlets want them really bad. Does this news narrative resonate with them? Do they realize how important this legislation is for them? Don’t they realize that I am the candidate they’re looking for? ARE THEY LISTENING DO THEY LIKE ME/US?
But as we’ve seen now in two focus groups with swing voters, the stories dominating the news cycles aren’t dominating the thinking of our respondents.
Engagious is partnering with Focus Pointe Global to have conversations with swing voters in swing districts across the United States. We conducted the first group March 19 in Appleton, Wisconsin. April 9 we met with a group in Bowling Green, Ohio. Six of them voted for Romney and then Clinton; the other six voted for Obama, and then Trump. (Special thanks to all 12 respondents for sharing their time and insights.)
They don’t view things the same way as media and D.C. elites do. It’s been said in this space before: It’s really important to test messaging outside the Beltway.
The news devotes a lot of space to the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates—who’s in, who’s thinking about it, who’s the best candidate to beat Trump. About half of our swing voters recognized Joe Biden. They were more comfortable identifying Bernie Sanders, and a lot less comfortable identifying the other 13. They weren’t really excited about any of them, and they weren’t all that impressed by the candidate videos we showed them (Gabbard, Buttigieg, O’Rourke, and Castro). They weren’t that excited in 2016, either. Most of them voted against the other guy.
Swing voters were asked, “If given the choice to vote for either former President Obama or President Trump in Election 2020, who would you vote for?”
They want President Obama back.
What are they interested in? Education. Health care. The opioid epidemic. Veterans. Homelessness. Hunger. Clean energy. How do we know? We asked them what they’d like their tax dollars spent on.
The Mueller Report, which has dominated recent news cycles, doesn’t matter much to them personally.
Despite the high stock market and low unemployment, not one person in the focus group would describe our economy as “booming.” It’s benefiting people at the top, not them. None of the respondents had seen a noticeable increase in wages since Trump took office.
How about NAFTA? Ohio manufacturing was hurt by the original trade deal, yet only one of our swing voters knew that the President had negotiated a replacement. Only five of them knew about the deal he’s negotiating with China.
They definitely want paid family leave, but they didn’t agree on who should do the paying for the leaving.
They are largely happy with their health insurance, and they feel secure in case of a medical emergency, though they feel that other Americans would have a problem with surprise medical expenses. They’d rather pay higher premiums for more coverage than lower premiums for less coverage. And they want to know how much their medical treatments will cost before the receive them. More transparency, please.
Speaking of medicine, they hadn’t heard much about Medicare for All.
Or the Green New Deal. What they know about it, they view unfavorably. But they do want the President to take climate change more seriously. They strongly disagree with rolling back climate change regulations. They’d really like the President to call for ramping up private-sector innovation in clean energy to help reduce carbon emissions. They’re meh on paying higher electric bills, and slightly less meh on a carbon tax.
Want more? Get the full report and view highlight videos on our Swing Voter Insights page.
Our next swing-voter group will be May 6, in Sioux City, Iowa.
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