Our foundational research took us beyond mere demographics to more deeply understand our audience and the values that drive their civic choices. Conducted in partnership with Lake Research Partners, Topos, GBAO Strategies, and Precision, this research included individual interviews, surveys, and voter file analysis.
We are continually building on this research by conducting data modeling, studying the traits and values that impact political behavior, and applying lessons from neuroscience to identify who we should connect with and how to effectively engage with them.
Traits & Values that Drive Political & Civic Behavior
Some of our latest research centers on understanding the internal and external factors that influence civic behavior in order to develop strategies that reach the right people with the right message to advance progress.
Galvanize Action’s foundational research identified racial resentment, internalized sexism, and levels of trust in government as drivers of civic behavior. Everyone holds these traits to some extent, so we wanted to dig deeper to understand the intersections and root causes in an effort to identify where we could intervene and find a path forward. We learned, for example, it’s not racial resentment alone that drives political and civic behavior. For many in our audience, racial resentment appears to stem from a “just world view” bias. This is the belief that our institutions are fair, and hard work will be rewarded equally. For these individuals, issues about race become issues about fairness and who they feel is getting extra help.
Voting behavior is just one of many ways that these factors impact civic behavior!
- See definitions and learn about how these traits can help or hinder civic engagement.
- Read about how these traits impact “othering” and how we can bring women together across differences.
- Learn about how these traits can hold women back or inspire them to take civic action.
Our Audience: Traits, Values, and Beliefs
We’ve identified 49.8 million moderate women who are not ideologically entrenched, meaning they are open to new ideas and perspectives and movable on key issues such as reproductive freedom, healthcare, gender equity, climate, and the economy. Our modeling groups women into segments based on the traits our research has shown to most impact their civic behavior. We use research-backed approaches to support this group of women to align their civic impact with their values.
This interactive graph allows you to see how different segments of moderate women share different psychological traits. Learn how these traits are defined and keep in mind that traits and values are held by everyone to some extent. In other words, it’s not that some folks possess compassion, racial resentment, or benevolent sexism and some do not. Rather, it’s where folks fall on a scale and how those traits interact that impact their civic behavior and provides insight into both the barriers to overcome and the opportunities for connection. This knowledge allows us to effectively get the right message to the right woman.
In an effort to deepen our understanding of our audience, we spent the summer of 2023 doing innovative qualitative research with partners at FrameShift and Worthy Strategy Group to understand moderate women’s identity, their perceptions of the world, and how interacting with others may shift those views. This research revealed many new insights, such as what’s underneath a lack of engagement from our youngest segment of moderate women. Understanding these interactions and root causes allows us to develop effective programming that meets women at their current reality; it’s what makes our approach so unique.
We did even more research with FrameShift and Worthy Strategy Group in 2025!
- Read about “Invisible Activists” with Worthy Strategy Group
- Read about narratives that address “othering” from FrameShift
Randomized Controlled Trials & Tracking Surveys
We utilize tracking surveys for nuanced insights on shifts in our audience’s attitudes, opinions, and behaviors over time and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to study the effectiveness of our programming. This research in the field deepens our understanding of moderate white women and allows us to adjust programming to maximize our impact.
Understanding the impact significant current events have on our audience is another benefit of this research. Galvanize Action’s 2022 tracking survey of 2,000 white women across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio asked women to name their top concerns over a seven-month period. We began this survey May 1, 2022, before the leaked draft of the Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade. At that time, just 26.5 percent of those surveyed named abortion as a top concern. In the survey fielded June 28—four days after the Supreme Court’s decision—that number jumped to 40.8 percent.
The 2022 tracking survey also included an RCT. Half of the women—those in the treatment group—saw our ads on reproductive freedom, the economy, healthcare, culture war issues, and democracy. Women in the control group did not see any of these ads. The persuasion programming increased agreement that public officials should take action to ensure all women have the freedom to make their own decisions about abortion by 5pp, and increased the saliency of abortion as a top issue for right-of-center white women voters by 28.7pp. This extraordinary outcome is significantly higher than the average persuasion impact.
Abortion as a Top Issue for Voters
Agreement that Officials Should Protect the Right to Abortion
