Definition
The Democracy Protection Score indicates a person's likelihood to view the events at the Capitol on January 6th 2021 as a violent riot against our government and support a candidate who shares their views on democracy.
Technical Details
The model was built from the following two polling questions:
Question 1: How do you view the events at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021?
- A violent riot against our government
- A protest that went too far
- A justified protest
Question 2: When deciding which candidate to support, if the candidate from your preferred party DOES NOT share your views on democracy, you would most likely:
- Vote for the candidate from your preferred party anyway
- Vote for a candidate from a different party who DOES share your views on democracy
- Not vote for any candidate in that race
- Don’t know/other response
- Refused to answer/rather not say
Respondents who answered “A violent riot against our government” to Question 1 and “Vote for a candidate from a different party who DOES share your views on democracy” or “Not vote for any candidate in that race” to Question 2 were labeled as supporting democracy protection. All other respondents were labeled as non-supporters.
The Democracy Protection Score was trained on polling data from the Spring 2024 Murmuration poll. We collected 7,000 responses via phone and online from registered voters. The survey used stratified random sampling to ensure national representativeness across age, race, gender, partisanship, education and geography.
The model was trained using gradient-boosted decision trees. Model features were drawn from the Atlas by Murmuration dataset, which includes demographic (age, race, gender, etc.), commercial, geographic, and vote history information for all registered voters nationally.
Scores range from 0-100, where higher scores indicate greater likelihood that a voter believes in protecting democracy. The score represents the model's predicted probability (scaled to 0-100) that an individual believes January 6th was a riot and would only support a political candidate who shares these views.
We validated the model’s accuracy using a held-out test set of 20% of the original survey sample. Among individuals with scores in the top 20% of the Democracy Protection Score, 71% are actual democracy protection supporters—making them 72% more likely to support democracy protection than the average voter. Within a conservative voter universe (defined by Partisan Scores below 50), voters in the top 20% of the score have a 39% chance of reporting they'll vote across the aisle to support democracy, 72% more likely than the average conservative voter.
Use Cases
The Democracy Protection Score can be used in a variety of ways when building a campaign strategy and planning voter engagement, and it can be used independently or in conjunction with other scores. Below are a few examples for how partners could use this score:
- GOTV Outreach: Voters with high Democracy Protection Scores are highly motivated by democratic principles and more likely to respond positively to appeals emphasizing the protection of democratic institutions — making them strong targets for GOTV campaigns tied to democracy-related ballot initiatives. For the most effective outreach, consider layering in a turnout score and focusing on individuals in the low-to-mid range, as these voters may benefit most from additional motivation.
- Persuasion Efforts: The Democracy Protection Score can be used to target voters who may be persuaded to change their voting preferences to protect democracy. For example, to reach likely Republican or conservative voters who prioritize democracy protection enough to change their voting habits, we recommend selecting a low Partisan Score or high Conservative Ideology Score and a mid-to-high Democracy Protection Score. In a conservative voter universe, those in the top quintile of the Democracy Protection Score are significantly more likely to change their voting behavior to support democracy protection than conservative voters in general.
- General Voter Outreach in Specific Elections: Partners can use this score when working in any election that is perceived as a threat to democracy. By targeting voters with high scores, partners will increase the likelihood they reach voters who are motivated by democratic principles. For example, in a city council or other nonpartisan race with democratic principles at stake, partners could use high Democracy Protection Scores to target those most likely to support their effort.
- Messaging, Fundraising and Volunteer Recruitment: This score can be used to understand the importance of democracy protection as an issue either at the community or individual level. We would expect those with high Democracy Protection Scores to be more responsive to messaging that focuses on safeguarding democracy, and therefore potentially more likely to donate or volunteer for a campaign that centers this issue.
Targeting Table
The table below shows the score values associated with each decile to help you more easily target using the Democracy Protection Score nationally. Note: these score cutoffs may be different in your local districts.
| To target the top... | Set the minimum score value as... |
| 10% | 60 |
| 20% | 53 |
| 30% | 47 |
| 40% | 41 |
| 50% | 36 |
| 60% | 31 |
| 70% | 26 |
| 80% | 20 |
| 90% | 14 |
| 100% | 8 |