Summary: As we wrote in an op-ed for The Atlantic published on Thanksgiving Day, our post-election poll reveals key misperceptions Americans had about the priorities that were most important to each party, but especially for Democrats. Our full post-election insights, which we will be highlighting in the coming weeks, can be found here.
Following the 2024 election, More in Common surveyed 5,005 Americans to explore what shaped their voting decisions, how they perceive polarization and division, and – most importantly –how they understand one another.
We found that Americans held critical misperceptions about the priorities that were most important to both parties, but especially for Democrats. We call this a “priority gap” and believe it shaped the 2024 election in significant ways.
1. Inflation was the top concern for all Americans – yet they believe Republicans share it much more than Democrats.
Across every major demographic group – gender, race, class, generation, and geography – Americans ranked inflation as their top issue. Inflation also was the top issue for voters across parties: both Democrat and Republican voters cited inflation as their first priority.
Despite bipartisan consensus on the issue’s importance, only Republicans were perceived as prioritizing inflation. When asked about Republicans’ priorities, all major groups, including both Democrats and Independents, correctly identified that either inflation or the “economy in general” was among Republicans’ top three issues.
Meanwhile, Americans significantly misunderstood Democrats’ policy priorities. Inflation was hardly perceived as a top focus for the party: Americans ranked inflation as fourth for Democrats (tied with healthcare and racism), and the economy as ninth. In reality, Democrats’ self-reported priorities were inflation, abortion, and healthcare.
2. Perceptions of parties’ priorities appear to be influenced by the parties' ideological wings.
Where did these misperceptions come from? In our Hidden Tribes segmentation, we identify ideological wings in the American landscape: the Progressive Activists on the left and Devoted Conservatives on the right. The voices of these highly vocal camps on each side of the political divide are heard more often in the national discourse, often leading their views to be confused for those of their party overall. The result is that each party is seen as holding more “extreme” views than it actually does.
For example, most groups, including Republicans themselves, slightly overestimated how much Republicans are focused on immigration. It is, however, the most common priority for the right wing, Devoted Conservatives, 65% of whom selected it as a top priority.
Similarly, Americans’ perception of Democrats’ agenda more closely corresponds to the priorities of Progressive Activists. When asked about Democrats’ top issues, Americans listed abortion as first, LGBT/ transgender policy as second, and climate change as third. Notably, every single demographic group thought Democrats’ top priority was abortion, overestimating the importance of this issue by an average of 20 percentage points.
3. Across demographic groups, Americans misperceive transgender policy as a leading priority for Democrats.
The most striking perception gap related to Democrats’ prioritization of transgender policy. A majority of Americans perceived Democrats’ second-highest priority to be transgender policy – yet this issue was fourteenth for Democrats, and sixth for Progressive Activists. Notably, this misperception was held across important demographic groups, such as Gen Z, Hispanics, and women.
Given that Progressive Activists only ranked transgender policy as their sixth highest priority, Americans’ misperceptions were even more left than the leftmost wing. This priority gap was likely influenced by the high volume of ads run by Republicans effectively portraying Democrats as prioritizing transgender rights. Moreover, these ads were effective: The New York Times reported that Trump’s “They/Them” advertisement increased voter support by 2.7 percentage points, greater than the margin of victory in the election.
As a result, it appears that this perception gap is an example of how a political opposition can generate disproportionate attention to an issue to define a party from the outside.
Both parties will need to respond to these perception gaps, but it is evident that Americans have a clearer sense of Republicans’ priorities than those of Democrats. As we write in The Atlantic:
If elections are a battle of perceptions, our data suggest that this was a battle Democrats lost in 2024. Despite the Harris campaign spending almost half a billion dollars more than the Trump campaign, Trump appears to have been more effective at defining Democrats’ priorities to the American public. Caught between their leftmost flank and their opponents’ attacks, Democrats were unable to convince the American electorate that they shared voters’ concerns. If the party wants to gain ground in future elections, it will need to solve this perception problem.
You can find our full post-election insights here, which we will be highlighting in the weeks to come.
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Methodology Statement: More in Common conducted online survey interviews among a representative sample of 5,005 adults from November 7th to 13th, 2024. The data was weighted to be representative according to gender/age interlocked, ethnicity, education level, region, and 2024 Presidential vote and turnout. The margin of error (adjusted for weighting) is +/- 1.4 for the US average and is higher for subgroups.
Note: Numbers in data visualizations are rounded to the nearest whole number. Figures may total to larger or smaller than one-hundred percent due to rounding. Unless otherwise noted, all figures indicate %.