Politics and Society: Four Surprising Findings
December 2023
When we wrote about the 2023 Public Affairs Pulse Survey in the October issue of Impact, the most notable takeaways involved Americans’ concerns about election integrity and disinformation heading into the election season, as well as corporate involvement in social issues.
The findings showed that 63% of the public believed disinformation will be a factor in the 2024 election, and only 37% believed the elections will be both open and honest. Given that we are firmly entrenched in an age of friction and polarization in both politics and society, those results might be expected.
There were, however, several related findings that might come as a surprise.
- Foreign governments are not expected to be a major source of disinformation in the 2024 elections. For most Americans, it turns out, those ubiquitous headlines of the Russian and Chinese governments disrupting or attempting to disrupt recent U.S. elections via disinformation were either not noticed, quickly forgotten or never taken very seriously. Just 11% of Americans expect foreign governments to be a source of disinformation in the 2024 election, well below social media (42%) and even the news media (40%). Of the seven categories of disinformation measured, only major companies (6%) were considered a less concerning source of disinformation. Also interesting, when asked which methods of spreading disinformation were most worrisome, just 18% said artificial intelligence.
- The percentage of Americans saying companies play a positive role in reducing racism is on the rise, while support for corporate activism is on the decline. In both 2022 and 2023, when asked how serious a problem racism is, 70% of Americans said it was either very serious or somewhat serious. When asked whether major companies are helping to combat racism, just 21% gave companies credit in 2022. In 2023, that figure rose 5 percentage points to 26%, a modest but noteworthy increase. Despite this, the share of Americans supporting corporate involvement in ending discrimination based on race declined from 66% in 2022 to 57% in 2023. It should be noted that support for corporate activism declined across all 12 categories, on everything from ending discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation to supporting human rights and legal access to abortions. These declines could be due to conservative politicians accusing corporations of being too “woke,” or from a public that is generally fatigued about social issues.
- Women are more concerned than men about the openness and honesty of the 2024 elections. There’s not a lot of trust that the 2024 elections will be both honest and open to all who are eligible to vote. When you break it down by party, just 35% of Republicans think the elections will be both honest and open; in contrast, 50% of Democrats are confident on both counts. Not surprising: Republicans are more concerned about the honesty of the elections, whereas Democrats have concerns that the elections won’t be open to everyone entitled to vote. Surprising: Women across all political spectrums have less trust the elections will be both honest and open (32%) than men (42%). While it’s hard to pinpoint why women have less trust — perhaps they’re more concerned about fairness and that marginalized individuals and communities will be left out, or they might have a distaste for the process after the unpleasant aftermath of the 2020 elections — it’s important to note that women make up a larger voting bloc than men, making this a trend worth watching.
- Women value the common good more than individual rights. A new question in this year’s Pulse survey examined how Americans value individual rights and support for the common good (government-funded programs designed to benefit society such as clean air and water, food safety, Social Security and civil rights programs, among others). When asked to choose which they value more, 47% of the public said they value both equally, 20% said they value individual rights more and 19% said they value support for the common good more. The survey found that Donald Trump voters were more likely to put a higher value on individual rights while Joe Biden voters were more likely to value the common good. But some of the most surprising differences in priorities were between men and women. The subgroup that most valued individual rights over the common good was Republican men (32% valuing individual rights), but only 20% of Republican women agreed with this assessment. Among Democrats, 22% of men valued individual rights more, compared with just 12% of Democratic women. In fact, across every group of voters, men consistently valued individual rights more than women did.
If, like me, you value the fact that most democracies inherently embrace the common good, this last finding gives credence to the argument that the world would be better if it were run by women. But you may not want to take my word for it. I am, after all, a bit biased!
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For most Americans, it turns out, those ubiquitous headlines of the Russian and Chinese governments disrupting or attempting to disrupt recent U.S. elections via disinformation were either not noticed, quickly forgotten or never taken very seriously
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