Democrats More Highly Engaged with Biden than Republicans are with Trump
Voters Think Trump has “Resolve,” Biden Owns “Trust”
NEW YORK, NY October 25, 2020 – A new presidential engagement survey conducted by Brand Keys, the New York-based emotional engagement and customer loyalty research consultancy (brandkeys.com), places Joe Biden significantly ahead of President Donald J. Trump when it comes to electoral engagement. The most recent wave of research found Joe Biden’s overall electoral engagement rating among Democratic voters 14% higher than Donald Trump’s rating by Republicans.
The Truth About How Voters See The “Ideal” President
Five emotional drivers define the Ideal President: 1. Action (Does the candidate have a comprehensive, well-considered plan for solving problems? 2. Compassion (Does the candidate care about all of the people?). 3. Perception (Does the candidate have a deep understanding of the social, economic, and cultural problems facing all voters?). 4. Resolve (Does the candidate have the strength and leadership to guide the country?). 5. Trust (Is the candidate reliable and truthful, open and lucid?). The order of importance of the drives differs dependent upon a voter’s political affiliation.
Biden received an overall rating of 88% from Democrats. Trump received an overall 74% from Republicans.
Registered Democrats rated Biden strongest on Trust (92%), and relatively weaker on Resolve (84%). Trump was rated highest by registered Republicans on Resolve (85%) and weaker on Compassion (65%). The differences are compelling.
“Loyalty and engagement metrics are leading-indicators of consumer – and voter – behavior,” noted Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys founder and president. “They inform us as to how a voter is going to behave. We recognize that few Republicans in the administration or elected officials risk coming clean about President Trump’s behavior and agendas, but our psychological assessments reveal the truth about how Republican voters really feel about Trump.”
How Democrats Rate Biden and Republicans Rate Trump
Fifteen-hundred (1,500) registered Democrats and 1,500 registered Republicans participated in the evaluation of Joe Biden and Donald Trump between October 18–23, 2020. Differences of +3% are significant at the 95% confidence level. Engagement diagnostics appeared as follows:
Democrats Joseph Biden
- Perception 85%
- Trust 92%
- Resolve 84%
- Compassion 88%
- Action 91%
Electoral Engagement Average: 88%
Republicans Donald J. Trump
- Resolve 85%
- Perception 80%
- Action 70%
- Trust 69%
- Compassion 65%
Electoral Engagement Average: 74%
More Earlier Voting In 2020
“Because Electoral Engagement is more than party affiliation, this year there are even more critical implications. An estimated 50 million Americans have already cast their ballots, eight times higher than the same period in the 2016 election cycle,” cited Passikoff.
Electoral Engagement Assessments Are Highly-Validated
“From an election perspective, our model is highly validated,” said Passikoff. Brand Keys has used these engagement assessments in every Presidential election since Bill Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush in 1992 and has correctly predicted the winner in every presidential election – with the exception of the 2000 race where George W. Bush beat the predicted winner, Al Gore.
“That’s an overall 86% success rate, even more extraordinary when you consider our model wasn’t designed to factor in Supreme Court rulings,” said Passikoff. “We called 2016 for Donald Trump too when virtually all traditional polling reported Hillary was going to win. Her Emotional Engagement with voters wasn’t high either.”
Polls Are Snapshots
Traditional election polls are only snapshots of particular moments in time, so not entirely extrapolative. “But when it comes to emotional engagement assessments,” noted Passikoff, “Whether in the marketplace or the voting booth, whether for pizza or politicians, pandemic or not, they measure what consumers really think, as opposed to what they say they think.”
And, as Emotional Engagement assessments are leading-indicators of voter (and consumer) behavior, candidates seen to best meet expectations overall for the five vote-drivers always turn out to be the winners,” said Passikoff. “This election cycle it looks to be Biden.”
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash.
