Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to name Trump as the motive of their choice in legislative elections

The SurveyMonkey survey also revealed that Democrats and Republicans were much more likely to quote the opposite political party for their support for Congress. Voters who support Republicans for Congress were 20% more likely to mention the Democratic Party by explaining their vote than the Republican Party (33% vs. 13%). Similarly, voters supporting Democrats were much more likely to mention the Republican Party than their own party (39% vs. 18%).

This suggests that while Democrats see Trump as something to vote against, Republicans also have their own Boogeyman: The Democratic Party. And in politics, fear is often the most powerful motivator.

Even in many of their responses mentioning Trump, Republican voters cited the danger the Democrats posed to him, rather than simply saying that they like Trump.

"From my point of view, the Democrats are in the effort to pull Donald Trump out of office by any means, even for reasons they can not clearly define," said a Republican response that mirrored that of others. .

Added another more brutally: "Because liberals are nuts [and] Trump has improved the economy. "

The results are consistent with "negative partisanship", the idea that the declining popularity of political parties, their dislike or even antipathy to the opposite party is the greatest unifying force.

This type of thinking has been prominent in many open responses of democratic voters.

"I am against almost everything that Trump represents," said a 46-year-old Illinois supporter of Democrats in Congress.

But even among Republican voters, the desires to support Trump's agenda were mixed with criticism from Democrats. "Because the Democrats are obsessed with Donald Trump's hatred and have forgotten that there is a country to manage, moreover, Donald Trump and the R's have regained a stable and growing economy," said one respondent.

The SurveyMonkey survey showed that even though most people do not volunteer at Trump to describe their vote, voters are paying a lot of attention to it. More than two-thirds (68%) of registered voters said they heard "a lot" about Trump the week before and 19% had heard "a little", with Democrats and Republicans coming to similar levels.

Democratic voters talk about winning the House, while Republicans talk about ideology and economics

While voters' explanations about their support for the Congress were mainly Trump-centric and the parties themselves, those who supported Democrats and Republicans differed significantly in highlighting or ignoring various topics.

Voters with a democratic tendency were much more likely than Republican voters to mention the word "House" (7% vs. 2%), often referring to their desire to see Democrats take control of the House of Representatives. A larger number of Democratic voters also mentioned the "check", generally describing their desire to counter Trump's power as president (2% against virtually no Republican questioned).

Electors with Republican tendencies were more likely to mention political ideologies, with 9% of voters with Republican tendencies mentioning "conservative" and 3% mentioning "socialism". mentioned "liberal", 3% of republican voters have done so).

Republican voters were also slightly more likely to mention two major campaign problems. The economy was mentioned by 4% of Republican supporters and 1% of Democrats, while Republican voters were also somewhat more likely to mention immigration (2% vs. 1%). These differences are small and probably insignificant, but the relative silence of Democrats on these issues indicates that they do not mobilize their supporters.

There is no doubt that Trump plays a major role in voters 'attitudes towards the 2018 elections. The latest poll by the Washington Post-ABC News revealed that more than 8 out of 10 voters approved of Republicans' support for the elections. Congress, while more than 8 out of 10 people disapproved of Democrats. Among the independents, Trump's approval is a strong indicator of how voters sway.

But despite Trump's omnipresence in the press, most voters do not think their own congressional vote is foremost Trump.

The poll was based on interviews with 7,997 registered voters across the country from August 22-28 and included 4,997 responses to the question asking why voters supported a party candidate in Congress. The survey was conducted by SurveyMonkey from a sample of millions of people who conducted an independent survey of the company's platform, a non-probability sampling method of all US voters. The analysis of open survey responses used unweighted data. See right here for more information on the SurveyMonkey methodology.

The survey and analysis above are part of a collaboration between SurveyMonkey, the Washington Post and researchers from the University of Michigan and Georgetown University. The data collection and analysis were managed by Mark Blumenthal and Sarah Cho of SurveyMonkey, with the design and analysis of Josh Pasek, Stuart Soroka and Michael Traugott from the University of Michigan and Jonathan Ladd from Georgetown.

Wording of the question:

If the US House of Representatives elections were held today, would you vote …? Options: Certainly for the Democrat, probably for the Democrat, the leaning Democrat, the Republican leaning, probably for the Republican, certainly for the Republican, would not vote.

Why? [Open-ended]