Democrats Can Win On The Child Tax Credit (Unless They Get The Message Wrong)
We analyzed over 169,000 online posts to understand which narratives about the Child Tax Credit were resonating most with voters. Here's what we found.
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Some background on us before we jump into our inaugural finding:
The Main Street One Political Desk uses proprietary social listening tools to analyze millions of online posts to discover what themes are emerging from the online conversation. We look for actionable insights within that data - insights that can guide strategic decisions, prioritize issue focus, and sharpen political messaging. Social conversation is different from other gauges of public sentiment - it captures the topics real people care about enough to post publicly, using the language they would use with their friends, family, and followers, rather than what politicians and polls might use. We can ask questions that polling can’t answer, such as:
What topics are generating enough passion to inspire people to post online?
What new trends are emerging in public conversation that polling has not yet identified?
What messages are resonating most with voters online?
What rhetoric do regular voters use when talking about issues that matter to them?
What is the geographic and demographic breakdown of the people who care most about an issue? Or, working backward, which issues do specific voter segments care about most, based on what they like to discuss online?
Our First Finding:
How To Take Credit For The Child Tax Credit
BIG TAKEAWAY: Americans want to hold Republicans accountable for opposing the CTC, but more Democrats need to tell that story.
Republican opposition to the bill is the main narrative about the CTC online
Hardly any rank-and-file Republicans are defending their party’s opposition online
Some elected Democrats are reinforcing the Republican accountability narrative, but its power is being diluted by competing messages from other elected Democrats
SLEEPER TAKEAWAY: The most prominent positive narrative online is about the CTC cutting child poverty in half - and a winning message might combine those two storylines: this bill is lifting children out of poverty and Republicans tried to stop that from happening.
On July 15, there was an enormous spike in conversation about the child tax credit (a key provision of the American Rescue Plan). The first monthly payments were being direct-deposited into the accounts of eligible taxpayers that day, and Democrats tried a variety of approaches in capitalizing on the accomplishment.
Here’s Majority Leader Schumer with a troop-rallying message that explicitly gives credit to the party itself (#13 in most-shared posts):
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez took a movement-building approach, encouraging her followers to share stories about the impact the CTC was having on their lives (#17 in most-shared posts, but with notably higher overall engagement than Sen. Schumer’s post):
The President took the long view, placing the legislation in historical context (#4 in most-shared posts):
But #3 and #2 were from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, whose account is 10 times smaller in terms of followers than that of the President:
And here are posts #6, #7, #9 and #10, all from far smaller accounts than that of the President:
In fact, out of more than 169,000 posts created or shared about the child tax credit since July 15, more than 1 in 5 were calling out Republicans for their opposition:
And amazingly, in spite of this damaging narrative that is beginning to take hold, rank-and-file Republicans are barely pushing back. When partisans in this conversation identify their political affiliation, right-leaning voices are less than 6% of the discussion.
What’s going on?
The child tax credit is an issue that both fires up the Democratic base and demoralizes the Republican base. And the story about the benefit that Americans want to amplify most isn’t bipartisan, or even pro-Democrat -- it’s anti-Republican.
The risk is that not enough elected Democrats will stick with the Republican accountability messaging for it to properly take hold.
As long as there are competing narratives emerging from prominent voices in the Democratic Party, there is a real risk that the most resonant -- Republican accountability -- will not be amplified enough to take root in the public mind. And that would be a huge missed opportunity to score a political victory on what may end up as the most significant social insurance program since the Great Society.
Is there a positive story to tell?
Though it takes up less space than the anti-Republican narrative, there is a story about the positive benefits of the CTC that is referenced in nearly 17% of all posts - that the benefit will cut child poverty in half:
In fact, the most winning message may be a combination of the two -- the CTC will cut child poverty in half, and Republicans tried to block it.