Responding to Attacks around Immigration and Crime
Our midterms research at Third Way is focused on how Democrats can respond to attacks on social and cultural issues, which we know Republicans will be placing front and center in their campaigns. Our research thus far has indicated that crime and immigration will be particularly salient issues, given the current crime wave and the surge of migrants at the southern border.
We conducted a round of rapid message testing with the progressive data firm Grow Progress, testing five ways to respond to a Republican attack on crime and five ways to respond to a Republican attack on immigration. The experiment also included a placebo to determine the overall effects of the messaging. Below is an overview of the results.
Crime Attacks
On crime, the experiment tested responses to the below opposition message:
Violent crime is rising in American cities, but Democrats are bent on defunding the police, closing federal prisons, and threatening law enforcement with lawsuits just for doing their job. Their policies will make us less safe.
We then tested the following five responses:
1. Worked in law enforcement: This Democrat worked in law enforcement and is endorsed by local law enforcement officials because they know he will advocate for their needs.
2. Funds for law enforcement: This Democrat used their office to bring federal funds back to our community that will fund law enforcement and make our district safer.
3. Bad slogan: This Democrat has said that "defunding the police" is a bad slogan and bad policy.
4. Stood up to their party: This Democrat stood up to members of their own party to stop efforts to defund the police in our community.
5. Social media: This Democrat doesn't care about what's popular on social media—they told the truth that defunding the police is a bad idea.
In this test, the second message focusing on bringing federal funds for law enforcement to the community was a winner, as well as bad slogan. Worked in law enforcement followed as the next-most persuasive. Voters who heard “funds for law enforcement” were seven points more likely to say they would vote for the Democratic candidate in 2022, compared to the placebo group. Voters who heard “bad slogan” were six points more likely to say they would vote for the Democratic candidate in 2022, compared to the placebo group.
“Funds for law enforcement” was particularly convincing among moderate voters, Independent voters, voters with some college education, and voters living in urban areas. “Bad slogan” was most convincing with Independent voters, voters ages 35-54, and suburban voters.
Immigration Attacks
On immigration, we tested responses to the following opposition message:
Democrats are letting millions of illegal immigrants into our country every year, worsening the crisis at the border and directing money and resources to illegal immigrants instead of American citizens who need help.
We then tested the following five responses:
1. Worked with border patrol: This Democrat believes we need to secure our border and has worked with the border patrol to stop drug traffickers, gangs, and terrorists from entering our country.
2. Invested in border security: This Democrat used their office to invest in border security and improve screening at ports of entry, making our border communities safer.
3. Fix our system: This Democrat has said that they do not support open borders and think we need to fix our system to ensure only those who are legally eligible to enter our country can do so.
4. Stood up to party: This Democrat stood up to members of their own party to stop efforts to open our Southern border.
5. Doesn't care about social media: This Democrat doesn't care about what's popular on social media—they told the truth that opening our border is a bad idea.
The experiment on immigration messaging yielded two winners: worked with border patrol and fix our system. Results in this test were not statistically significant, so more testing is needed.
Both the fix our system message and the worked with border patrol message were particularly convincing to Republican voters. There was evidence of some backlash to these messages among Democratic voters, so use of these messages should be highly targeted to Republican-leaning voters, avoiding base Democrats.
We are following up this first experiment with further research and will be sure to share future findings.
Methodology
Third Way partnered with Grow Progress to conduct an online experiment with 1,192 US adults in battleground districts from May 24-27, 2022.
