At Raconteur Media Company, we conducted a nationwide voter research study leading up to the the 2026 Election Cycle. We are calling our research A State-of-the-Art Playbook for Political Campaigns. As a political marketing agency clients are candidates and issue advocacy campaigns, and voters constitute our target audiences. Doing the marketing and advertising for political and issue advocacy campaigns is similar to the business-to-consumer marketing and advertising we do. Therefore, we conducted the research before the 2026 election cycle because we wanted to learn what moves voters to make decisions so that we could better inform our clients.

Key Themes in Our Research

For the 2026 election cycle, we followed these key themes that we found in our research. Engaged voters are hungry for information to help them make decisions. Many voters, especially those who are dependable voters, will decide on a candidate and stay locked on that candidate, unless they become disillusioned or another candidate makes a more compelling argument. Elections, after all, are relative choices. As such, the research tells us voters will anchor on a candidate who shares their mindset.

Early engagement is critical. There’s a substantial time gap between when voters start thinking about elections and when they make final candidate decisions, especially in state and local elections. Candidates have a unique opportunity for early engagement with voters to start building rapport and influencing their voting decisions. 

Personal connection beats traditional advertising. Voters want to see candidates in unfiltered, authentic settings, and they’re unlikely to trust campaign materials that lack that real feel. 

Voters have had enough of typical political rhetoric. What resonates most is practical, common sense messaging that focuses on working together to find solutions that benefit the common good.

Voters are hungry for quality information. Most voters are yearning for more information about state and local candidates, plus integrated fact-checking, expert analysis, and easy ways to see how different, trusted sources handle candidate information.

Our Recommendations

Campaigns need to start early to build momentum and get voters attention. Messaging should be authentic, clear and practical. It should answer the questions: Who Are You?, What Will You Do in Office?, and Why Are You the Best Candidate?

We recommend that campaigns build their own content around these messages and continue to drive it home to the voters. Videos are especially powerful. And given that our research find voters are hungry for authentic, direct messaging from candidates, we recommend campaign invest early in the capability and the practices to develop and distribute video content.

Polling and message development tools will help you shape what you say, but campaigns should begin the content that answers these questions long before polling is complete. By starting early, a campaign can develop messages to test in polling. And some cutting-edge polling will allow you to test different versions of your video and help you determine which version resonates best with voters.

Fielding Information

We fielded our survey to respondents sourced from our partners and a panel for 3,091 responses overall. Of the responses, 1,518 were complete.

Executive Summary

• 1 in 3 voters start thinking about local elections more than three months in advance. More than half begin considering state elections as early as local ones. So, there’s an extended period before election day to capture voters’ attention and send them the most effective messages to guide them to candidates.
• 1 in 2 voters trust live debates most as a source for political information. As you’ll see below, any source that puts candidates on video or shows them in real time builds trust with voters; they want to get to know who will be representing them — how they talk and behave.
• Knowing the truth is essential to voters. Whether they’re fact-checking information themselves or seeking sources with rigorous fact-checking features, verifying information is becoming more and more important.
• Voters struggle to find high-quality political information. Many voters (40%) find it only somewhat easy to find what they need before an election, and only a small percentage are very satisfied with the information they find.
• Candidates can sway decisions. While many voters lock in on a particular candidate, there are still substantial percentages who are open to influence, as long as the message lands right.

A Snapshot Into Our Voters

To understand our findings, we need to first give you a holistic view of the voters who participated in our research.
These voters are highly engaged compared to the general population. Even when looking at Texas voting data specifically, our survey respondents are more likely to vote.

A majority voted in the presidential, congressional, state, county, and city/town elections in the last year. For city and town elections, which typically receive smaller percentages of voter participation, we still see high voter turnout, with 2 in 3 voting in these elections.

In the coming weeks, we’ll dive into different aspects of what the data shows us and how we use this to help our candidates win their elections.