3 Minutes 
The Swing Voter Project is an ongoing collaboration between Sago and Engagious. This initiative gives swing voters—those who voted for Trump in 2016 and then for Biden in 2020—the opportunity to share their viewpoints through monthly online focus groups.
Each respondent group comprises swing voters from the ten most competitive states in the 2020 U.S. elections. In September 2022, the spotlight was on North Carolina.
Understanding the North Carolina Swing Voter Group
For this session, we spoke with 11 Trump-to-Biden swing voters from North Carolina, a state that elected a Democratic governor despite also voting for Donald Trump in 2020. Our discussion centered around candidate/party preference and the divisive issues that tend to nudge unaffiliated voters in one direction versus the other.
The rise and fall and rise again of Biden’s poll numbers
Over the course of his term, we witnessed President Biden’s numbers show strong at the start of his presidency, nosedive around one year ago, and then rise again more recently. We wanted to know if this shift in public support reflected our panelists’ own sentiments—and if yes, what their take on it was.
“I liked how he came in; I liked how he was handling things. Then I was a little nervous because he wasn’t accomplishing the things he set out to accomplish. But now I think he’s handling things better, just running the country better than I previously thought.”
Specifically, the issues that swayed our swing voters’ opinions of Joe Biden included student loan debt relief (8 out of 11 support this), the rise and fall of gas prices (a negative to positive trend), inflation (7 out 11 see this trending in a positive direction), and Biden’s response to the Covid pandemic (a mixed bag).
For the second straight month, 0 respondents said they would vote Trump back into office in a hypothetical rematch with Biden.
Diving deeper on inflation
Tellingly, the only federal government action our respondents were aware of to combat inflation was the raising of interest rates by the federal reserve. But what about price controls?
7 of the 11 respondents said they would support federal price controls on consumer goods.
The United States Senate election in North Carolina
In what should be a wakeup call for every office holder, 0 of the 11 respondents knew the name of their three-term U.S. senator who is retiring at the end of this year (Richard Burr, Republican).
Only 3 of the 11 could identify an unlabeled photo of this year’s Republican nominee (Ted Budd), while 8 of the 11 could identify the Democratic nominee (Cheri Beasley).
Speaking with our panelists, we learned that Budd might be struggling with this demographic because he is backed by Trump and as a reaction to the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Diving deeper on abortion
By pressing the topic of abortion, we were able to discover a few key insights.
9 of the 11 respondents said protecting abortion rights is a top three voting issue for them in November.
Several from our group were passionate about the subject, saying the overturning of Roe v. Wade was enough to push them in the left direction.
Based on this feedback from our sample group, we can surmise that the Dobbs decision may serve as a tipping point for on-the-fence, non-affiliated voters.
