Quarterly surveys in closely-divided districts.

SPECIAL EDITION – NAVIGATING THE BATTLEGROUND

Good morning! Today’s Navigator A.M. is part of our NEW series of releases from our first quarterly survey Navigator Research will be conducting in closely-divided House districts. Over the course of the next two years, this new set of surveys — Navigating the Battleground — will aim to provide landscape tracking and messaging guidance on how to communicate about key issues in geographies where the public may be more persuadable on specific policies.

This set of findings comes from a survey conducted April 20-27, 2023* profiling how House battleground constituents view the economic landscape of the country, including how they measure the health of the economy, perceptions of whether things will improve in the near future, and their biggest economic pain points.

Welcome to Navigating the Battleground …

1 BIG TAKEAWAY: DAY-TO-DAY COSTS ARE BATTLEGROUND CONSTITUENTS’ TOP CONCERN AND MOST INDICATIVE OF BOTH THE ECONOMY’S HEALTH AND THEIR PERSONAL FINANCES

VIEW THE REPORT HERE

The rising cost of living is a top concern and is having the biggest impact on personal finances. Nearly seven in ten say that the cost of living is rising and creating financial strains (68 percent), while one in four say the cost of living may not be a problem now, but will be if costs keep going up (24 percent). Just eight percent say they are not concerned with the cost of living. Battleground constituents who say their personal financial situation is negative are significantly more likely by a factor of five to see the rising cost of living as a major financial strain (61 percent) than those who rate their personal financial situation positively (12 percent).

Among a list of economic issues, a majority say day-to-day costs have a major impact on their personal finances (54 percent), topping the list for those in the battleground across party lines, including two in three Republicans (67 percent), a majority of independents (51 percent), and two in five Democrats (41 percent).
There are notable demographic differences in terms of different economic pain points battleground constituents are feeling: those over the age of 65 are most likely to say cuts to Social Security and Medicare have a major impact (70 percent), compared to 42 percent of all in the battleground; Black battleground constituents are most likely to say taxes have a major impact on their personal finances (60 percent), compared to 46 percent of all in the battleground; and, those under the age of 35 say that housing prices are having a major impact on their personal financial situation (52 percent), compared to all in the battleground (35 percent).

Want to see more findings from the latest Navigating the Battleground survey? Sign up here for more!

*This survey was conducted among a sample of 1,500 likely 2024 general election voters from April 20-April 27, 2023. The survey was conducted by a mix of text-to-web (74 percent) and an opt-in, online panel (26 percent). Respondents were verified against a voter file and special care was taken to ensure the demographic composition of our sample matched that of the 61 congressional districts included in the sample across a variety of demographic variables (the full list of districts included in the sample can be found on slide 13 here). The margin of error for the full sample at the 95 percent level of confidence is +/- 2.5 percentage points.

PAID FOR BY NAVIGATOR RESEARCH

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