The Most Important Chart You’ll See Today

By Ethan Winter

Political scientist E. E. Schattschneider understood power as potential. To him, much of the work of politics focused on deciding what kinds of conflict were worth socializing and what kinds should be suppressed. Rather than seeing politics as a contest that moves from one piece of granular policy to the next, so much of the work of politicians is to try to raise the salience of issue spaces that are favorable to them while working to minimize issue spaces that disadvantage them. 

As part of an October survey, we sought to measure what issue spaces advantage Democrats and what advantages Republicans. To do this, we asked likely voters what party—Democrat or Republican—they trust more on a range of issue spaces. This question of trust matters because as the salience of specific topics are heightened and lowered, it advantages one party or the other. Healthcare, for instance, is a conventionally understood as an issue that favors Democrats. This means that Democratic politicians want to contest questions on this issue. They’ll work to raise the prominence of the topic through, say, paid advertising. 

We find that on a whole range of policies, Democrats are trusted more than Republicans. On healthcare, the coronavirus pandemic, and race relations—all topics that loomed large during this general election—Democrats are more trusted by an 18-percentage-point, 19-point, and 20-point margin, respectively. Hence, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, has consistently led President Trump, a Republican in the polls.

Two other results merit special consideration. First, by a 26-point margin, likely voters trust the Democratic Party on climate change more than the Republican Party. This result is in line with an August finding that showed that on climate Biden is trusted more than Trump by a 20-point margin. If Biden’s first act as president is to try to secure the passage of a massive clean energy infrastructure and jobs stimulus bill, this bodes well. 

The second point is Republicans’ shrinking advantage on the topic of jobs and the economy. This is an issue space that Republicans have typically had an advantage on. Now, likely voters are evenly divided here at 41 percent. In August, we found that Biden actually was trusted by two-points more on the economy than Trump. This suggests that not only is Trump’s mishandling of the economy hurting him but, also  it’s eroding likely voters’ perception of how Republicans manage jobs and the economy more generally.  

 
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A central thesis of Schattschneider’s work is that “conflicts compete with each other.” Politicians want to contest issues on which they hold favorable ground, that is, on what issues they’re trusted. This chart shows us that on several of the most important issues, Democrats have the upper hand, and that on issues that traditionally advantaged Republicans, the latter’s position may be eroding. 


Ethan Winter (@EthanBWinter) is an analyst at Data for Progress. You can email him at ethan@dataforprogress.org

Methodology 

From October 28 to October 29, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,253 likely voters nationally using web-panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±2.8 percentage points.

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