Find the full report text here.
About the report:
The 2018 midterm election was arguably one of the most consequential elections in a generation. And as such, we knew it would be one of the most analyzed and overanalyzed. If Republicans held the House of Representatives, experts would say how Donald Trump continues to defy political gravity. If Democrats won, experts would ask why. Was it issue driven? A referendum on Trump? And what lessons could be learned?
As everyone knows, the Democrats had a historic night, flipping the greatest number of seats since Watergate. And we wanted to make sure that the entire progressive community would have the data necessary to learn key lessons about what drove voters.
Thus, starting even before the results were known, The Messina Group partnered with Navigator Research to collect and analyze communications from a variety of sources: campaign and PAC television ads, Tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts by candidates, candidate and party committee websites, issues pages, and Facebook ads.
While the goal of this project was to create a comprehensive compendium of communications for further in-depth analysis as more and more data becomes available, below are some top-line takeaways:
– In this election, Democratic candidates focused on the economy and healthcare, while Republicans focused on the economy and tax cuts.
– Democrats were issue-focused and had a clear message on health care — protecting access to health care for everyone, including people with pre-existing conditions, and ensuring affordable drug coverage — and on taxes — Republican tax cuts are giveaways to wealthy people and corporations, not ordinary Americans, and they jeopardize funding for Social Security and Medicare.
– Despite a seemingly strong economy and the passage of their signature tax bill, Republicans didn’t emphasize positive economic trends or their governing record, instead, they threatened that Democrats would raise taxes, attacked Nancy Pelosi, and stoked anti-immigrant fears.
– Donald Trump was ubiquitous in the news but didn’t get as much attention from Congressional candidates as we expected. When candidates did talk about Trump, it was usually Republicans praising him in districts he won in ’16 or Democrats attacking him in places he lost in ’16; candidates were relatively quiet on Trump if their views differed from the prevailing attitude in their districts.
We’re excited to share our full report with you. In it, we dive deeper into how Democrats and Republicans discuss key issues including healthcare, taxes, immigration, etc. and look at how their communication played into November’s results.