New Data: Democracy Fund and UCLA Release First Wave of Data from Nationscape

For Immediate Release

February 27, 2020

Lauren Strayer
media@voterstudygroup.org
(202) 420-7928

Bethany Sims
media@voterstudygroup.org
(202) 973-4791

Democracy Fund, UCLA Release First Dataset From Largest 2020 Public Opinion Study

Conducting over 500,000 interviews, Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape will uncover deep insights into the American electorate.

Washington, D.C. — February 27, 2020

The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group and UCLA today released the first dataset from its massive study of the American electorate. The project completes roughly 6,250 interviews each week – totaling 500,000 interviews in advance of the 2020 election. This data release promotes a better understanding of Americans’ views in this vitally important election year.

Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape sheds a broad new light on the 2020 election by capturing attitudes on more than 40 policies, measuring how Americans prioritize issues and how their views change over time. The survey’s massive sample size allows for deep insights into localities and hard to measure subgroups of Americans, with interviews taking place in nearly every county, congressional district, and mid-sized U.S. city. Nearly 156,000 U.S. residents have participated in the survey from July 2019 through December 2019.

The study was designed and managed by Nationscape Principal Investigators Chris Tausanovitch and Lynn Vavreck, and is fielded weekly by market research platform Lucid.

“Nationscape helps us understand the diverse and changing perspectives of Americans during an incredibly important election season,” said Democracy Fund Voter Study Group Research Director Robert Griffin. “The scope and depth of the project is unprecedented, and we’re excited to continue publicly releasing this data ahead of 2020.”

Some of the findings from the first dataset release include:

• Sanders may change the Democratic coalition — With Sanders moving into the lead in the Democratic primary, people have begun to wonder what sort of coalition he might be able to muster for the 2020 election. Compared to Biden, Sanders does better with younger and lower income Americans against Trump. However, he does worse with older, higher income, and white college-educated Americans. His candidacy represents both opportunities and challenges for the parties in 2020.

• Generation Z more Democratic-leaning than Millennials — Americans belonging to Generation Z (those born in 1997 and onward) are even more liberal and Democratic leaning than Millennials. While half (50%) of the famously liberal Millennial generation identify as Democrats or are independents who lean towards the Democratic party, slightly more (54%) Generation Z Americans say the same. We see this same pattern on issues that focus on race, gender, and immigration. This will have long term consequences for American politics as they age into the electorate.

NATIONSCAPE METHODOLOGY & TEAM

The Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape survey is conducted online and will interview approximately 6,250 Americans each week over the 80 weeks leading up to the 2020 election and the weeks following the election. The survey is fielded by Lucid, a programmatic market research platform providing access to data that the Nationscape team uses to produce and study weekly, representative samples of the population. The study is led by UCLA political scientists Chris Tausanovitch and Lynn Vavreck. The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group is led by Director Alicia Kolar Prevost, Research Director Robert Griffin, Senior Research Advisor John Sides, and Democracy Fund’s Lauren Strayer.

About Democracy Fund Voter Study Group

The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group is a research collaboration of more than two dozen analysts and scholars from across the political spectrum. Created in the wake of the 2016 election, the Voter Study Group’s goal is to better understand the American electorate by examining and delivering insights on the evolving views of American voters. Research and analysis from Voter Study Group members can be found at www.voterstudygroup.org and on Twitter @democracyfund.

About UCLA

Consistently ranked as one of the world’s top public universities, UCLA is dedicated to research that improves our world, service that benefits our local and global communities, and teaching that offers a world-class education to exceptional students from all backgrounds, including the one-third of UCLA students who go on to become first-generation college graduates. Political Scientists Chris Tausanovitch (@ctausanovitch) and Lynn Vavreck (@vavreck) are the project leads at UCLA.

About Lucid

Lucid is a programmatic market research platform that provides access to authentic, first-party data in over 100 countries. Its products and services enable anyone, in any industry, to ask questions of targeted audiences and find the answers they need — fast. These human answers can be used to uncover consumer motivations, increase revenue, and measure the impact of digital advertising. Founded in 2010, Lucid is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, with offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia. Learn more about Lucid at www.luc.id or follow them on Twitter at @lucid_hq.