Friday Findings #2
Fresh data points right before the weekend.
Welcome to the second edition of Friday Findings! Let’s jump right in.
1. Republican voters are beginning to pay attention to the 2026 midterm
Since we began tracking midterm enthusiasm in August last year, Republican voters saying they are very or extremely motivated to vote have risen from 73% to 81%. Of course, that puts them where the party out of power began in August; now 89% of Democratic voters say they are very or extremely motivated to vote in the 2026 midterm. The Washington Post has recently found a similar gap. When you’re the party in power, it is harder to get voters motivated to turn out.
2. MS NOW recognition suddenly falls off in our monthly survey data
The name change of MSNBC to MS NOW produced a drop in our survey results once we began asking about the new name. Just 9% of likely voters say they watch it to stay informed in last week’s survey, compared to an average of about 19% for the six months prior. This makes it the most dramatic fall we’ve seen in alleged voter viewership of cable news since March 2022. Name recognition in surveys is so often about consistently hearing that one name many times. We’ll keep you posted in the months ahead if it drifts back to where MSNBC was in January.
3. Republican voters and graduate degree holders like data centers
Our latest omnibus asked several questions about data centers. You can find our full thread of findings on X (Twitter), but we figured we should share a little bit here too. While Republicans and graduate degree holders are more enthusiastic for a hypothetical data center across the board, it’s not so simple. We also find voters are more opposed to a data center being built for AI model training in particular:
4. AI is less popular than web services when it comes to a hypothetical data center
There’s a significant 24-point gap in the net support for data centers that will be used for AI model training (opposed 41-18) compared to data centers being built for online searches and video streaming (statistically tied at 25-24.) It turns out that what a data center is for can make a significant impression on voters.
For more Friday findings, stay subscribed. We’ll be sharing new data from Echelon Insights and other places of note every Friday going forward.