Health Care and Education Messages Prove Most Persuasive in Shutdown Debate

With a government shutdown looming, new research reveals which Democratic messages resonate with more than just Democratic voters.

Congress has until October 1 to pass a government funding package, or the federal government will shut down. 

Before the last fiscal deadline in March, House Republicans avoided internal division and passed a stopgap funding bill without Democratic votes. In the Senate, however, Democrats faced a difficult choice: vote with their Republican colleagues for a package they didn’t support, or filibuster and risk a government shutdown. Ultimately, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer advised his caucus to vote for the Republican package to avert a potential shutdown.

We’re always curious to measure how events like this land with the public, so we partnered with our friends at Data for Progress on a Rapid Message Test to examine voters’ perceptions of Congress’ funding and policy priorities, and identify which messages most effectively persuade voters to cast their ballot for congressional Democrats. Data for Progress also conducted a poll to further explore sentiments about a potential government shutdown. Results of that research can be found here.  

We ran the test among a general population in the United States, but asked questions about voter registration status and voting behavior to segment respondents by registered and persuadable voters. We put forth ten distinct messages that outlined different topics at stake in the government funding package to understand what would move the needle the most when it comes to vote choice and sentiments on the two political parties and government funding. 

Summary:

• Messages from Democratic candidates on how they will not vote for the GOP’s upcoming funding bill unless it addresses key priorities — particularly health care — can increase their performance at the ballot box. 
• There was some indication that messages on health care or education could be used to increase net trust in Democrats when it comes to the budget more broadly

Findings:

To really put to the test if Democrats stand to gain politically from taking a harder stance on the budget, each message highlighted a firm Democratic position by using language such as:

“Democrats say they will not vote for the Republicans’ government funding package unless…”

“Democrats are taking a stand against this funding package…”

Every single message tested has a directional or significant persuasive net effect on vote choice — making clear that the message framing of Democrats fighting harder is very effective. 

In particular, a broad message about Democrats standing up for health care funding in the budget package increases net Democratic vote choice by +9 points among all registered voters and +28 points among persuadable voters (or, those who say they vote about equally for both parties). Likewise, two education-focused messages also increase net Democratic vote choice by significant margins.

Beyond the exciting results among persuadable voters, there were also promising results among other tough to move voter subgroups, such as moderates, Independents, and Republican voters. 

Looking at the best performing message overall on Health Care, we saw a +21 net increase in Democratic vote share among Moderates, a +18 effect among Independents, and a +10 effect among Republicans. Not only do these messages have broad appeal to sway voters on anticipated vote choice, they can also be used to persuade those who are on the fence, or who often vote for Republicans. 

In addition to vote choice and party trust on budget issues, the test also asked about favorability of both political parties, and who would be to blame if we do see a government shutdown. While several health care and education messages did increase favorability for Democrats, the messages did not effectively move the needle on increasing unfavorability for Republicans and Trump, and increasing sentiments that Republicans would be to blame if the government shuts down. Understanding how to build on the success the messages had on vote choice persuasion to shift more blame to Republicans and decrease favorability is an exciting area for further research.