How Democrats Can Win the Messaging War: Make Policies as Visible as Possible
By Lew Blank
After Democrats’ loss in Virginia last week, we’re just a year away from the 2022 midterms. Without a strong performance, Democrats could lose their majority in Congress, and with it the chance to pass ambitious progressive policy for years to come.
Perhaps the strongest weapon in Democrats’ arsenal leading up to the midterms is the Build Back Better Act, which is currently being debated in Congress. By passing a massive investment in our communities and climate — from universal pre-K, to a massive expansion of childcare, to creating new clean energy jobs — we can not only help millions of families make ends meet, but also show voters that electing Democrats can lead to transformative improvements in their lives.
But this opportunity is only possible if voters are actually aware of the benefits they’re receiving. And if Democrats aren’t intentional about making the Build Back Better Act as visible, transparent, and direct as possible, voters might never realize how much they’re benefitting from President Biden’s agenda.
Millions of Voters Have No Clue How Much They’re Benefitting From Progressive Policies
In political scientist Suzanne Mettler’s 2011 book The Submerged State, which served as the impetus for this analysis, Mettler describes how American policymaking has historically “submerged” government benefits through private sector subsidies and indirect tax incentives (such as the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction) that are hard for voters to visualize. Mettler argues that distributing benefits in a less-noticeable, “submerged” way hides the vital role that government spending plays in helping millions of Americans make ends meet.
In her book, Mettler cites a 2008 Cornell poll, which showed that millions of Americans who receive government benefits — such as tax credits, government-subsidized loans, Medicare, and Social Security — still report that they do not benefit from government spending. Mettler argues that we should disburse benefits to Americans as clearly and directly as possible to boost their awareness of how government spending benefits them.
In a July survey by Data for Progress, we found that Mettler’s analysis holds largely true today: millions of Americans remain unaware of the government benefits they’re receiving. We asked voters whether or not they financially benefit from government spending, and found that less than half — only 45 percent — report benefiting financially from the federal government. Thirty-eight percent said they’ve received no benefits at all from government spending.
But just as Mettler’s analysis found, a far higher proportion than 45 percent of Americans are actually receiving government benefits. Later in our survey, we provided voters with a list of specific government benefits, and asked them whether or not they’ve received each one. We find that an overwhelming majority of voters who report not benefiting from government spending have actually received benefits from the federal government.
Among voters who reported not benefiting from government spending, 73 percent have received stimulus checks. Additionally, 37 percent of these voters benefit from Medicare, 30 percent have received Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and 20 percent have received unemployment insurance.
This is a serious problem for democracy. For citizens to make informed decisions, it’s essential that they fully understand how the government is impacting their lives.
But it’s also a major problem for the Democratic Party. As Democrats attempt to pass legislation that would significantly expand government spending, many voters have not formed the association between increased spending and the benefits they see in their day-to-day lives. If Democrats want voters to appreciate the importance and urgency of their agenda, it’s crucial that voters recognize the impact that increased spending has on their lives.
Democrats Need to Do a Better Job Connecting Their Policies to Their Brand Identity
In a piece written last December, Data for Progress Senior Analyst Ethan Winter found that a large percentage of voters associate the Republican Party with a variety of progressive policies. For example, while 78 percent of voters correctly associate the Democratic Party with supporting protections for pre-existing conditions, 45 percent incorrectly associate that policy with the Republican Party.
Similarly, Winter found that 25 percent of voters believe the GOP wants to expand Medicaid, while 19 percent believe the party backs the $15 minimum wage — even though these are Democratic proposals that the GOP has consistently opposed.
This means that the Republican Party is consistently getting bailed out for their unpopular positions because many voters don’t recognize just how bad they’ve been on these issues. The GOP should be paying a much stronger price at the polls for opposing popular issues like Medicaid expansion. But since many voters lack a strong association between these policies and the Democratic Party, the GOP is getting a pass.
Through their budget package, Democrats have the opportunity to correct the record. The budget bill can allow the Democratic Party to brand itself as the party of bold, ambitious investments that are directly helping millions of Americans. But this is only possible if voters recognize how they’re benefiting.
Democrats Need to Make Progressive Policymaking As Visible As Possible. The Stimulus Checks Should Serve as a Guide.
As Democrats look to pass a historic budget package, they have the opportunity to become viewed as the party of bold investments in our communities that are overwhelmingly popular with the American people — but only if voters are aware of how they’re benefiting personally from government spending.
As Mettler wrote in The Submerged State, making policies as visible as possible would help demonstrate to voters how progressive government spending can impact their lives. Importantly, it could also lead them to associate these highly popular policies with the Democratic Party, paving the way for future Democratic victories.
The stimulus checks are a good example. These benefits were extremely visible; instead of a hidden tax credit or a corporate subsidy, these were direct transfers of money from the federal government to Americans’ bank accounts. Importantly, the Biden Administration also did a commendable job communicating these benefits to the public, including by sending a letter from the IRS to tens of millions of Americans announcing the benefits.
As noted above, our survey found that 45 percent of voters say they benefit from government spending, while 38 percent report not benefiting. On net, that’s a +7-point margin of voters who say they benefit from the federal government. While in many ways these are disappointing results, they’re a marked improvement from the findings of the 2008 Cornell poll cited by Mettler. In that survey, the majority of voters said they had not benefited from government spending — by a +13-point margin, voters said they had never used a “government social program.”
While there are a variety of explanations for this increase since 2008 in voter awareness of government benefits — for example, the question wording was different between the Cornell poll and ours — it’s likely that the stimulus checks contributed to this increase in voter recognition. In other words, our polling shows that the stimulus checks’ high degree of visibility is helping voters recognize that they’re benefiting from government spending.
According to our polling, stimulus checks are the first government benefit that comes to most voters’ minds. At the beginning of our survey, we ran an open-ended question in which we asked voters to write the first government benefit that came to mind. Of the 426 responses that answered this question and listed a government benefit, more than half (230) cited stimulus checks. Despite receiving assistance from a variety of programs, it’s likely that voters overwhelmingly thought of stimulus checks first due to their highly-visible design and delivery.
Democrats Need to Make the Delivery and Communication of Build Back Better a Top Priority.
Broadly, these results indicate that direct, highly-visible distribution of benefits can help voters recognize the value of progressive policies.
This offers a model for Democrats to emulate for future benefits. With the Build Back Better Act, Democrats need to distribute more benefits in a similar way to the stimulus checks — and less through hidden methods like tax deductions and corporate subsidies. When possible, financial benefits should be sent as direct payments from the government to individuals, and the Biden Administration should aggressively communicate these benefits, following the lead of the letters sent to every household to announce the stimulus checks. Democrats should think creatively about how to adjust the delivery and communication of every program — from universal pre-k, to childcare, to clean energy jobs — to make it clear that these benefits were made possible by President Biden’s spending package.
By making its budget package as visible as possible, the Democratic Party can demonstrate to Americans how they’re benefiting from government spending — and make clear to voters that Democrats are the party of bold, popular investments in our families and communities.
Lew Blank (@LewBlank) is a senior writer at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology:
From July 2 to 6, 2021, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,154 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 ±3 percentage points.