washington, dc

The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

New Coalition Focuses on Better Democratic Messaging

James Hohman’s Daily 202 post, “New coalition aims to improve Democratic messaging against Trump,” focuses more broadly than the title would suggest on developing better Democraric messaging against Republican policies, beginning with the economy and corruption. As Hohman explains,

Many Democratic talking heads make weak arguments on television that fail to move voters. To address this, several groups and top pollsters on the left are teaming up to launch a new project that will conduct surveys and convene focus groups to produce monthly guidance with the most politically potent lines of attack against President Trump and congressional Republicans.

This new initiative, which has not been previously reported, will be called Navigator Research. The debut report, shared first with The Daily 202, offers original polling and talking points related to the economy, political corruption and disruption.

Key players in the new coalition include Jefrey Pollock, the president of Global Strategy Group, Pollock’s partner Nick Gourevitch and Margie Omero from GBA Strategies, along with veterans of the Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns. Members of the group’s advisory council include AFL-CIO political director Mike Podhorzer, the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Navin Nayak, Emily’s List’s Christina Reynolds, the Latino Victory Project’s Stephanie Valencia and the Roosevelt Institute’s Felicia Wong. Also on the board are Arkadi Gerney from The Hub Project, Delvone Michael from Working Families and Ron Klain, former chief of staff to Vice Presidents Biden and Gore and Gore’s lawyer during the Florida recount.

Boiling down the group’s mission, Pollock said, “For years, Republican politicians have been better at paying attention to language cues. We’re trying to do a progressive version of that.”

Navigator’s inaugural edition features findings from a national online survey of 1,009 registered voters conducted April 3-5, 2018. It also includes findings from an online discussion board of 25 voters who are not strong partisans, conducted March 22-23, 2018. Among the conclusions of the first study, 67 percent, or about 2 out of 3 respondents agreed that “The economy may be growing but wealthy people at the top are getting somuch more of the benefit than middleclass and working people,” vs. only 33 percent who said “Things are generally going well economically – the national economy is booming, the stock market is hitting record highs, and business- es are creating new jobs all the time.” Only 37 percent agreed that “The economy might be better in the country as a whole, but in my community, many people are still struggling to pay their bills and keep up a decent standard of living,” while 63 percent preferred “The economy may be growing but wealthy people at the top are getting allthe benefit, while the middle class andworking people are falling further behind.” Further, “This research finds more Americans are worried and uncertain (61%) than are confident and optimistic (39%) about the future of the economy.”

With respect to corruption, the survey indicated that 49 percent agreed that Republicans in congress are “more likely to use government to personally enrich themselves,” compared to 34 percent who said the same about Democrats in Congress and 17 percent who said ‘nether’ — almost exactly the same breakdown when the question  was “Which is more likely to use government to personally enrich their biggest campaign donors?”

 Economic inequality and political corruption may be the two issues which most favor Democrats over the GOP, which has done a superb job of re-branding itself as the party of greed in recent years. Navigator Research’s new findings affirm the Democratic edge on these two concerns, and we look forward to the messages they develop to help Democratic candidates win the midterm electioins.

2 comments on “New Coalition Focuses on Better Democratic Messaging

  1. Candace on

    Maybe its just me but this reads like it would have the impact of using cotton balls in a snow ball fight against a team with an endless supply of dirty ice chunks collected from a late winter plow.

    Reply
  2. Victor on

    Trump managed to win on a robust policy platform.

    After the presidential debates most pundits said Hillary provided more substance.

    Liberals overestimate their own language cues and minimize the policy substance of GOP language cues.

    In the end improving language cues is irrelevant if there are no policy proposals behind the rhetoric.

    Language cues must be shorthands for visions of the country.

    Republicans are better at language cues because they have a short and coherent vision on morality and managing the economy. Even on foreign policy it is clear that the GOP is about power projection foremost.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.