Poll: Primary voters prize ideology over electability, as their parties get low marks

As party primaries kick off ahead of the pivotal battle for control of Congress this fall, Democrats — and especially Republicans — say they are prioritizing ideological alignment instead of electability when they pick candidates, according to a new national NBC News poll.

Meanwhile, the nation overall has a negative view of both parties, led by independents.

The survey asked primary voters whether they prefer to vote for a candidate who comes closest to their views on issues over a candidate who has the best chance to win in November. Seven in 10 Republican primary voters prefer a candidate who comes closest to their views, while 27% prefer a candidate who has a better chance of winning the general election.

Choosing ideological purity or electability has been a particularly fraught topic among Democrats over the past year as the party tries to find a path back into power following President Donald Trump’s election victory in 2024.

Democratic primary voters were more evenly split on the question: 56% say they prefer the candidate closest to their views, while 42% want a candidate more electable in a general election, according to the poll, which was conducted by the Democratic polling firm Hart Research Associates and the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies.

Voters who participated in the poll and spoke with NBC News say that choice is often complicated.

“I struggle with that question because I want someone who’s close to my views, but I know that my views are not the most electable in the state,” said Marley Ross, a 25-year-old California Democrat and self-described progressive.

“I’m tired of having to go with candidates purely on electability, but it feels like once again that’s where we’re stuck,” Ross said. She was not sure whom she would back in California’s competitive primary for governor, describing the candidates as “really weak.”

Jennifer Norkol, a 54-year-old Michigan Democrat, does not yet know whom she’ll be backing in her state’s competitive Senate primary.

“It would be, honestly, someone that has the ability to beat a Republican,” Norkol said, noting Democrats regaining control of Congress is about “saving democracy.”

For Republicans, who control both Congress and the White House, there’s more interest in prioritizing values over electability.

“At the end of the day, our vote is one of the best and only ways we can speak as Americans,” said Coy, a 21-year-old survey respondent from Indiana who declined to share his last name and said he preferred a candidate closest to his own views.

“If you’re wanting something to get done the way you want it to be done, then you need to stick with your own pack and pick the candidate who is best for you,” he added.

The parties haven’t always felt this way when asked similar questions in the past during presidential nominating fights.

Republicans were more concerned about electability in June 2023, when NBC News asked GOP primary voters a similar question, though a majority still favored issue alignment. Then, 56% said they wanted a candidate who aligned with them on the issues, while 39% preferred a presidential nominee who could defeat then-President Joe Biden.

In February 2020, 53% of Democratic presidential primary voters preferred a candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump, while 42% preferred the candidate closest aligned with them on the issues. A year prior, at the start of the presidential primary conversation, 56% of Democratic primary voters preferred a presidential candidate closest to their views and 40% wanted the candidate most likely to defeat Trump.

These calculations are playing out in real time in primaries this year, including on Tuesday, where candidates in both parties’ Senate primaries in Texas made the case that they were best positioned to win.

Matthew Hackworth, a 50-year-old Texas Democrat, said he voted for state Rep. James Talarico, the eventual Democratic Senate nominee, because he viewed Talarico as “the person who’s able to win more so in the statewide election” — though Hackworth was still pessimistic about Democrats’ chances in November.

Some Democrats said ideological alignment and electability are not always mutually exclusive.

“I think that the Democratic establishment has done an incredibly poor job evaluating which candidates have the best chance of winning,” said Scott Damery, a 27-year-old Wisconsin voter who is backing state Rep. Francesca Hong in the crowded, wide-open Democratic primary for governor. Damery suggested Democratic Party leadership has used electability to elevate “straight, white guys” as opposed to candidates of different races or gender identities.

“I am definitely not a person that feels like every candidate that I vote for has to align with everything that I think, 100%,” Damery said. “But I also don’t believe, at this point, when the Democratic Party tells you which candidate is more likely to fare well in the general election.”

Distrust of the institutional Democratic Party among some Democratic voters helps explain why the party continues to receive historically low ratings.

Just 30% of registered voters in the new NBC News poll view the Democratic Party positively, compared to 52% who view it negatively. By comparison, 37% of registered voters view the Republican Party positively while 51% view it negatively — a higher rating, but still underwater.

The lower marks for Democrats are driven in no small part by dissension among their ranks, with 62% of Democrats viewing their party positively, compared to 77% of Republicans who view the GOP positively. Independents have low marks for both parties, as 13% view the Democratic Party positively and 16% view the Republican Party positively.

Multiple Democratic voters told NBC News that they haven’t seen enough fight from Democrats in Washington.

“I feel like they’re not not taking much of a stand. I feel like they’re not punching back. I feel like kind of — they’re just getting owned,” said Norkol, the Michigan Democrat.

“I just feel that we’re all about strongly worded letters and complaining to cameras, but no feasible action is being done consistently,” said Ross, the California Democrat.

The Republicans who spoke to NBC News, meanwhile, were broadly happy with the GOP.

Tina Goldstrom, a 47-year-old from Florida, said she looks at the Republican Party primarily through the lens of Trump, whose 2016 candidacy compelled her to vote for the first time.

“I didn’t get into politics until 2016 — and I kind of wish I hadn’t gotten into it. But I think things needed to be shaken up,” she said.

She added that she believes Republicans in Washington are representing her well, primarily because of her support for Trump’s agenda and those he’s appointed to his administration. She is hopeful that someone like Vice President JD Vance could “step into those shoes and keep it going.”

“I’m making money, I’m saving money, I’ve got money in my 401(k), I don’t have a bunch of homeless people or migrants near me, I think things are going well,” she said.

Multiple Republican voters referenced Vance as a potential future standard bearer for the Republican Party. But the sitting vice president, just like all six politicians who were tested by name in the poll, is underwater with the general electorate.

Thirty-eight percent of registered voters say they have a positive view of Vance, compared to 49% who have a negative view of him — a slight change from October, where 39% viewed him positively and 45% viewed him negatively. Republicans feel overwhelmingly better about him (77% positive) than the majority of independents (56%) and Democrats (88%) who view him negatively.

For Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the other Trump administration official regularly cited by the president as a potential future national candidate, 34% of registered voters view him positively while 41% view him negatively. Two-thirds of Republicans view him positively, while three-quarters of Democrats view him negatively. Independents are more split: 44% view him negatively and 23% view him positively.

The Democrats who spoke to NBC News were less enthusiastic about a handful of potential future leaders, with some struggling to stay whom they want to see run for president in 2028.

“We have too many older people at the top. And they have not given enough young people a chance to get in and develop, [so] that we now have this weird, extreme age gap of very old and very young that I think has led to a leadership gap,” said Ross.

Damery, the Wisconsin voter, said he wants to see Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., elevated into a leadership role in Congress if Democrats take control of the House.

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say they have positive views of Ocasio-Cortez, according to the poll. But more voters broadly view her negatively (42%) than positively (31%), while 15% were unsure.

Ocasio-Cortez did have lower overall negative ratings than two other Democratic leaders tested in the survey: former Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Half of voters (51%) have negative views of Harris, while 34% have positive ones, and 27% view Newsom positively, while 45% have negative views of him. More Democrats say they have positive views of Harris (67%), while 52% say they have positive views of Newsom.

The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters Feb. 27-March 3 via a mix of telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Smaller subgroups have larger margins of error, including Democratic primary voters (plus or minus 5.1 percentage points) and Republican primary voters (plus or minus 5.5 percentage points).

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com