For the past four years, Republicans’ main focus has been defining Democrats and Biden policies. The communications and policy environment is about to dramatically change in the new Congress as Republicans now have the White House, Senate and House. This means that the focus can no longer be on Biden policies and their negative consequences. With Republicans in charge, voters want to know what Republicans are doing about the problems facing the country. Republicans must sell their ideas, their policy agenda, legislative accomplishments, and key facts to educate voters about what they are getting done.
Coming out of the election, Republicans have a strategic advantage over Democrats. From our election survey of 1250 respondents who voted in the election, we asked voters to rate themselves on a scale of 1-9 with 1 being very liberal, 5 moderate and 9 very conservative. Voters placed themselves at a 5.41 — center-right. As shown in the chart, the ideology of the average voter (5.41) is closer to Republicans in Congress (6.94) than it is to Democrats in Congress (3.27). This puts Congressional Republicans significantly closer (distance of 1.53) to voters than Congressional Democrats (distance of 2.14).
The two parties’ situation is comparable to two competing stores. The Republican “store” is a distance of 1.53 miles from the average voter, and the Democratic “store” is 2.14 miles away. If the two stores offer comparable products, voters will naturally prefer the store that is closer. But if the products voters are looking for are not available in the nearest store, they will opt for another store that may be farther away but has similar products on its shelves. In a political context, Republicans’ closer proximity to voters is a strategic advantage, but if they don’t offer the products voters are seeking and focus only on how bad they believe Democratic products are, they throw away these issue advantages of being ideologically closer to the electorate. As Republicans must sell their agenda and accomplishments on issues, this advantage is critical to their success and to prospects in 2026.
