Education, Abortion top issues for candidates in 2024 cycle
Introduction
A lot of research is being conducted to see which key issues voters are most passionate about headed into this year’s election cycle– but what about the candidates?
Each cycle, our Research team spends thousands of hours gathering candidate profiles for certified candidates on ballots across the country as well as sourcing campaign issue stances directly from candidate websites. This includes data collection of hundreds of thousands of candidates running for federal, state, county and local positions and ranges across over 20 issue categories including Education, Abortion, Immigration, Foreign Policy and more.
This massive research effort has enabled a one-of-a-kind analysis highlighting which issues candidates are focused on the most through their campaigns in 2024. Below, you will find a number of remarkable insights as we break these issue stances down by level of government and compare their popularity to election cycles prior.
These insights include a huge spike in Immigration and Abortion issue stances compared 2020, and a prevalence of Education-related issue stances at all levels of government.
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Which issues are candidates prioritizing?
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How has this changed from cycles prior?
What is a candidate issue stance?
Candidate issue stances are a major component of BallotReady’s Research process and are featured directly on candidate profiles across our voter guides to help inform voters where down-ballot candidates stand on the key issues. These stances are typically gathered directly from candidate websites– and are always linked directly back to the source.
Not all candidates produce candidate stances, but up to this point BallotReady has gathered hundreds of thousands of stances across thousands of candidates at levels of governments. These stances are categorized by our Research team into groups like “Abortion”, “Education”, “Government Reform” based on their topic.
For example, here are some recently gathered issue stances in the “Government Reform” category:
“Every American wants term limits for those in Congress. I will ensure they begin the very day I am sworn in.” - Jason Brisendine
“I propose we elevate and support pro-democracy reforms like ranked-choice voting, open primaries, public funding of elections and term limits. We also need smart reforms to our campaign finance laws and to stop the revolving door for elected and appointed officials who seek to leverage their time in public service into lobbying jobs when they leave government.” – Jason Palmer
“Ban stock trades while in office. Switch to publicly funded campaigns. Ban the revolving door between politicians leaving and becoming lobbyists. Retroactive term limits.” – Gabriel Cornejo
“Stop gerrymandering and limit money in politics. If money is speech, we, the people, will always have our voices drowned out by truckloads of secret corporate cash and out-of-state special interests. “ – Brad Cotton
“Prohibit political consultants from also registering as lobbyists.” – Douglas Mastriano
These issue stances provide immense value to our users by helping them research their candidates and is one of our more popular features drawing millions of users each cycle. Additionally, they can also offer a unique insight into the pulse of political campaigns in America.