This week’s Voter Gravity Presidential flash poll was conducted in Georgia. It was conducted with GOP primary voters who voted in 4 of the last 4 primaries in addition to both of the last 2 Presidential primaries, as our target for these polls remains exclusively the Republican base.

The poll was conducted using Gravity’s touchtone survey tool, and had 6,745 respondents from across Georgia. All our clients have access to this same resource to poll voters in their respective districts at any time.

Scott Walker continues to do very well with top tier GOP Primary voters across all states within this polling, as do Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee. Breitbart’s recent article on Voter Gravity polling referenced Rand Paul’s low numbers in state and national polls in comparison to his CPAC win. There is a pretty simple reason for this. A Voter Gravity poll recipient is at least 24 years old, with most being 40 or older.

Why is this? Because we are drawing from the voter’s election history to determine status as a consistent GOP primary voter. Younger voters have not had the opportunity to establish such historical voting patterns.

This asks a much more significant question for candidates like Senator Paul, who do very well in younger demographics, like those who participated in the CPAC straw poll. Can he carry GOP primary voters over 40, who as the General Social Survey and Fifty Thirty Eight Politics have shown that, “The average ‘strong Republican’ was 52.3 years old in the 2010 and 2012.”

Unquestionably, the dynamics change in a general election, but does carrying the smaller demographic of youth voters matter in a Republican Primary? As any campaign manager will tell you – mathematically, the millennial vote is not as important as older voters in the GOP primary.

Therefore – narrative is going to matter sooner than later. How issues are shaped and related to the respective demographics is going to play an important role in what supporters the respective candidates can earn.

Surprising absolutely no one, when the GOP Presidential Primary becomes a real race – the winning candidate will define a narrative that resonates with older voters to secure a win, but keeps younger voters interested enough to translate to the general election.

With regards to millennial voters, one thing remains very clear – their top concerns are not the same as older voters, with Reason-Rupe Polling actually calling them the “Politically Unclaimed Generation.”

So, what narratives will successfully walk the tight rope that bridges older and younger voters?

We don’t yet know, but the smart campaigns should be in the field doing issues based ID work right now, so they can make the right decision when the time comes. In 2016, the name ID leads will wear off, and the candidate who can best emotionally connect to voters will win the day. Data must help inform that message and tone, and 2015 is when that research should be done.

This is why Voter Gravity exists – to provide tools for data collection that inform decision making, and turn data into votes.

If you are interested in signing up with Voter Gravity to help your campaign or organization, simply request a demo of our system here.

Click here to view the flash poll results!

Many campaigns will choose to have at least one direct mail effort, sometimes issue-based, sometimes non-partisan “feel good” pieces to improve the candidate’s standing in the eyes of their constituents. Regardless of why it’s released, the question needs to be asked: do they make a difference? Are they worth the time and effort needed to get them sorted and sent out? According to a paper by University of Alabama professor Dr. George Hawley, released by Voter Gravity, they can be. He writes:

Tens of billions of advertisements and solicitations are sent to Americans in the mail every single year. A substantial percentage of the population will receive more than 1,000 solicitations for charitable donations within a single year. For this reason, one might be justifiably concerned that voters may become overwhelmed by campaign material and tune everything out entirely. There is little evidence that this occurs, however. A study conducted in 2009 reached the following conclusion: while people find direct mail solicitations annoying, that annoyance does not stop them from sending donations.

Dr. Hawley explains in the course of the paper the amount of voters who can potentially be reached in comparison to other media options like TV and how using different methods of conviction can influence how effective a mailing can be. He summarizes:

Direct mail is an important element of campaigning, but it is expensive. In order to make direct mail worth the expense, it is important to be realistic about what it can do, and what can be better accomplished via other campaigning methods, such as door-to-door canvassing. Direct mail is probably not your best bet for ensuring high turnout among your voters, but it can be an effective way to raise money, and it may be an effective means of voter persuasion. However, to maximize effectiveness, direct mail campaigns should be carefully targeted.

Targeting, messages, and cost-benefit ratio are all things that must be taken into account before proceeding with a direct mail effort. Dr. Hawley further explains methods of determining this in his paper which can be found here.

Voter Gravity is now releasing a flash poll each week. (Check out last week’s Iowa poll here.) We conducted this week’s flash poll in North Carolina. Those surveyed were GOP primary voters who had voted in the last 4 primaries: 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014. Our purpose in doing these snapshots is to gauge how the Republican base feels about potential GOP nominees. We’re using Voter Gravity’s touchstone survey feature, which allows hundreds of thousands of voters to instantly take telephone surveys, and bring the results into any Voter Gravity account for analysis.

There were 4,102 respondents in this poll. Some points of interest: Walker continues to perform very well, as he has in virtually every poll being conducted at the moment. Carly Fiorina and Bobby Jindal have some work to do, while Ben Carson polled ahead of Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Only 12% said ‘Other’ in this poll.

Ted Cruz and Chris Christie were not listed as options in this poll as we dropped the three lowest vote getters from last week’s poll, and we’ll do the same for the next poll: we’ll drop the lowest three and add Cruz, Christie and likely Rick Santorum. We might even throw in Sarah Palin in a future poll. Our hope is that eventually we’ll get to a consensus top eight potentials in the upcoming weeks and months and then track their progress as we get into the spring and summer.

Click here to see the North Carolina February 2 Voter Gravity Presidential Flash Poll

We’ve decided at Voter Gravity we’re going to make these “flash polls” a weekly occurrence. To understand the dynamics and reasoning behind what we’re doing, we’re using Voter Gravity’s touchtone survey feature to try and gauge support for 2016 candidates among the super primary GOP voters. Click here to see the poll results. It was run on Saturday, January 24, 2015 of GOP primary voters in Iowa who have voted in 5 of the last 5 GOP primaries: 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. We’re of the opinion that, especially in primaries, vote history is a very significant indicator in likelihood to vote (see George Hawley’s white paper on turnout).

There are limitations to doing touchtone surveys with such a potentially large GOP field: you can only list 9 options. We believe that there are at least 7 others who should be in a flash poll to gauge interest (thus the 400 who would support Other): Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Mike Pence, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina should be included, and no doubt we will rotate some of those names in for future “flash polls.”

So take the poll for what it’s worth: hardcore GOP primary voters who are very likely to be involved in voting in 2016 primaries and caucuses, letting us know how they feel about potential GOP nominees. One interesting note about the below: Huckabee and Romney are well know quantities in Iowa already, and quite frankly, so is the name Bush. Scott Walker is the really interesting number. He is quickly being considered a Tier 1 candidate, which is no real surprise.

Click here to see the January 24 Presidential Flash Poll.

A campaign staffer bursting into your office Monday morning waving a newspaper is probably one of the worst things short of losing the race a campaign manager or candidate could experience. Here are a few practical tips on how to work with the press. Continue reading →

Midterm election turnouts are always significantly lower than on presidential election years. This is a natural byproduct of what voters perceive to be a less significant election, so no one is surprised by low midterm turnout.

However, this cycle, candidates and consultants alike were surprised at the very low turnout in 2014. A mere 36.4% of eligible voters actually voted.

Such a low voter turnout has not occurred since World War II. In the 1942 midterms, turnout came to 33.9% of eligible voters. One would think that the same cycle that set campaign expenditure records would also have turned out more voters. The opposite seems to be true. Record high expenditures seemed to only be able to produce a little bit of involvement.

Here is a comparison of midterm election involvement since 1950:

• 1950: 44%
• 1954: 44%
• 1958: 45%
• 1962: 48%
• 1966: 49%
• 1970: 47%
• 1974: 39%
• 1978: 39%
• 1982: 43%
• 1986: 39%
• 1990: 40%
• 1994: 42%
• 1998: 39%
• 2002: 41%
• 2006: 41%
• 2010: 42%
• 2014: 36%

These figures definitely demonstrate significant variance in voter turnout during midterm election cycles. However, it is fascinating to realize that just over 42 percent of eligible voters on average determine who our elected officials are.

Not only was this year’s turnout incredibly low, but turnout is just low in general. Only two people in five, roughly, make their voices heard about who will govern them. This country is truly run by a minority of its overall population.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Upon reaching the top of the hill, Jack got distracted because he saw dozens of empty pails all sitting around the well. Some of these pails were very nice, so he and Jill both grabbed as many pails as they could carry and walked back down the hill. When they got to the bottom of the hill Jack and Jill were both soundly scolded because they had wasted all kinds of time collecting more pails than they would ever need, when all they were supposed to do was fill their one pail with water so that they would have something to revive their unconscious, and overheated mother.

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American Majority Action used Voter Gravity in Wisconsin this fall. Take a look at their latest report:

Thank you to all of our volunteers and staff who knocked on doors and turned out the conservative vote needed to win around the country last week! These races were won on the ground and every single voter contact was critical to sending a strong message to Washington that we need to change course.

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The best advice comes from those with experience. Which is why I enjoyed this piece by Dan Bongino, former candidate for the MD-6 Congressional District, as a post election analysis of his own campaign. I want to highlight five of his eight insightful points: Continue reading →