Making the Pivot: Going from Politics to Policy with Issue-driven Data

Early indicators on the incoming administration’s priorities include Biden’s selection of cabinet members at record speed. Additionally, Biden has said that dealing with the coronavirus situation and passing a broad stimulus package will come before any other major legislative moves. These major reforms will require bipartisan deal-making or cross-party-line agreement depending on who Georgia sends north. In any case, the passage (or blockage) of comprehensive legislation will require ample public backing, the type of support that can be achieved through the right public education and engagement campaigns. And that’s where Resonate can help you.

Why Campaigns Need Issue-driven Data, Not Just Political Data

At Resonate, we specialize in helping our advocacy clients adapt rapidly to legislative developments by executing campaigns that target the right voters in key districts or states based on their support, opposition, or persuadability on actual policy issues.

Our process involves deeply analyzing and targeting voters beyond just their party affiliation or other generic consumer data, which is incapable of finding voters based on where they stand on an issue during the legislative process. We will help you find and message voters based on how they are leaning on the policies most important to your interests, and then the values, motivations and life stages that are informing those issue positions. This is how public support is won during the legislative process and won quickly.

Resonate can build tailored models based on the freshest daily data and can have it segmented for online targeting, each in a matter of minutes. Resonate brings so much data to each engagement that custom research is almost never necessary.  How do we do it? In ongoing survey waves throughout the year, we continuously ask voters, where they stand on a broad range of current policies and regulations industries, are facing, from immigration, infrastructure, government stimulus, and hundreds more. These questions are included in the largest independent voter research study in the country, along with questions related to personal values, motivations, and political activity. We then pair the survey results with online behavioral data — using AI modeling to reveal these insights on over 200 million eligible voters online — effectively allowing us to build issue-based audiences for research and instant digital targeting.

Let’s take a look at a couple of specific online voter audiences based on 2021’s anticipated legislative initiatives or executive decisions.

Coronavirus Crisis and Stimulus

President-elect Biden recently expressed a sense of urgency for the passage of a stimulus package and more specifically, the need for stimulus relief to go to communities in need and state and municipal governments.

Resonate insights show that by and large, the coronavirus situation has led more Americans to be more supportive of expanding the social safety net and therefore, would likely back a Biden administration move to focus stimulus relief on vulnerable communities. Close to 69 million eligible voters say they’re more supportive of expanding the social safety net due to coronavirus, opposed to roughly 13.5 million eligible voters who oppose.

expanding social safety net - issue-driven data

Resonate Ignite Platform, December 2020

Of the eligible online voters more supportive of expanding the social safety net, over 10 million of them identify with the Republican party.

When it comes to providing relief to local and state governments, Resonate has also broken down the eligible electorate based on whether they trust their local governments to handle decisions to combat the coronavirus. While the majority of eligible voters do not have strong feelings, we see that over 53.5 million trust their local governments compared to 45.1 million who do not. When making the case for another round of stimulus and where funds should be directed, both of these audiences could be called upon to lend their voices of support/opposition.

Resonate Ignite Platform, December 2020

Immigration Reform

In his first 100 days, Biden has said he plans to send legislation to Congress that would create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country.

Like other top issues we consistently model, Resonate can break down niche immigration voter audiences based on legislative specifics, such as support for the Dream Act, green card policies, or differences in handling illegal vs legal immigration. However, with this emboldened Biden plan to create a pathway to citizenship, we can enable advocacy campaigns to instantly identify the largest and most passionate voters on both sides of the issue to lend broad public support to their advocacy efforts.

For example, the Resonate platform has identified an audience of over 175 million eligible voters online who believe the U.S., in fact, would benefit from having more immigrants. On the flip side is an eligible voter audience made up of roughly 90 million who oppose more immigration. Both audiences can be segmented into buckets based on the main reason why they support or oppose more immigration. In the middle, we modeled an eligible voter universe of over 51 million voters who are unsure if more immigration is a positive or negative for the country – this audience represents campaign persuadables. It’s worth noting that there are Democrats and Republicans, Trump and Biden voters, in each segment.

immigration - issue-driven data

Resonate Ignite Platform, December 2020

Energy Policies

Similar to the audience modeling we’ve built around immigration, Resonate’s issue-driven data on energy goes deep into how voters feel about a variety of top energy policies including fracking, fossil fuels, alternative energy sources, etc.

For example, Biden has signaled that he plans to grow the EPA back to where it was before the Trump Administration. Where does the public stand on that? When it comes to the EPA – specifically the agency’s role to regulate greenhouse gas emissions – we see that the majority of eligible voters online are persuadable (113.6 million). These persuadables represent an opportunity for campaigns to move them in their direction. We also see that the supporters (82.5 million) far outweigh those that oppose (26.3 million) by a margin of roughly 56 million.

epa regulation - issue-driven data

Resonate Ignite Platform, December 2020

Let Resonate’s Issue-Driven Data Help With Your End of Year Planning

As you build your 2021 advocacy and lobbying plans, let Resonate know what issues are most critical to your interests and where you need to build formidable public support through educating and mobilizing the right audiences. The Resonate Ignite Platform has the political issue-driven data you need, all in one place, and we’ll even take your own data and enrich it with our real-time insights on your most pressing policies.

Interested in learning more? Request a demo or give us a call at 855.855.4320.

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