Unique Swing Six Issue Surveys to Reveal Where the People Stand on Key Issues in 2024 Battleground States

July 23, 2024 – With America awash in sound bites and candidate horse race polls, a series of in-depth surveys on key issues – run in six states that will decide the 2024 election – will soon be launched.

What: A new series of in-depth surveys on key issues, nationally and in the six battleground states that will decide the 2024 election. 

• The Swing Six Issue Surveys will reveal where residents stand on hot topics related to health care, social security, immigration, abortion and birth control, the environment, Ukraine, and many other critical policy areas. 
• These surveys are different and deeper than horse-race candidate polls – people evaluate pro and con arguments for each issue before deciding what policies they support. 

When: Every one to two weeks for the next three months.

Where: Nationally and in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 

“Most federal election discourse is dominated by candidates’ messages, with the public largely limited to responding to horse race polls,” said Director of PPC Steven Kull. “By giving people a greater voice on policy issues, we are bringing the public’s views to the table, encouraging a greater dialogue between the candidates and the people on substantive issues.”

A Unique, In-Depth Methodology

PPC’s surveys – called “public consultation surveys” – go beyond standard polls. Because some respondents have only a cursory understanding of complex issues, their responses to policy questions are not always an accurate reflection of their real values and priorities (or they simply don’t answer). To ensure that all respondents are up-to-speed on the issue being surveyed, working online, respondents:

• get a short briefing on the policy options;
• evaluate pro and con arguments;
• then express their policy preferences. 

In addition to their policy preferences, responses to the pro and con arguments reveal how respondents are thinking about the issues.

In developing surveys, content is reviewed by experts on different sides of the issues to ensure the briefings are accurate and balanced, and that the arguments are the strongest ones being made. 

Surveys will include a national sample of approximately 1,200 people along with samples of approximately 600 in each of the battleground states. Five of those six states (Georgia being the exception) have closely contested U.S. Senate races this fall.

PPC uses non-probability samples provided by Cint, Dynata, and Prodege, with recruitment managed by Quantify AI. For more information about PPC’s non-probability sampling and its performance against benchmarks in a major study, click here.

Funding for PPC’s work developing and fielding public consultation surveys has come from the Fund for Public Consultation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Democracy Fund.