What do voters want?

With early voting in Arizona for the primary elections just about two weeks away, the question is what do voters care about? Joining us on Arizona Horizon to discuss this topic is Sybil Francis, president and CEO of the Center for the Future of Arizona.

Francis’s background

Sybil Francis is the president & CEO of the Center for the Future of Arizona and was part of its founding team. Francis kicked off the beginning of her career working for the U.S. House of Representatives. Later on she spent time working in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where she focused her time on on national research policy.

As Francis is the president and CEO of Arizona Voters Agenda, let’s take a look at what they have listed for what early voters might want to hear from candidates.

The results show the majority of likely Arizona voters across the political spectrum agree on what they value and what they want from their political leaders:

• Priorities on likely voters’ minds
  • Responses to the open-ended question, “What do you want the candidates to be discussing as they compete for your vote in this year’s election?” revealed themes consistent with key issues facing the state as seen in previous surveys.
  • The top responses (in order of the number of mentions, in descending order): immigration, economy, education, environment, politics & elections.
• Likely voters want positions and solutions from candidates
  • In response to the question, “When it comes to selecting a candidate to vote for, which of the following is the top factor that helps you to make your decision?” nearly two-thirds of all likely voters will choose candidates on their plans and where they stand on key issues, and rank ideology much lower:
    • 38% Position on the issues
    • 27% Has clear plans or solutions
    • 12% Ideology
    • 10% Party registration
    • 7% Trust
    • 3% Other
• Voters agree more than disagree
  • We asked likely voters to answer questions on public policy and to rank the importance of the following issues: education, economy & inflation, water, environment, election reform, and immigration.
  • Despite polarized political dialogue, there is significant agreement and common ground among voters on many public policy issues.

Other topics voters want to know about

With early voting upon us, these were other topics that Arizona voters would like to know what candidates are going to be doing on the following:

• Education
• Economy and Inflation
• Water
• Environment
• Election Reform
• Immigration

Visit the Center for the Future of Arizona’s website to learn more about the Arizona Voters Agenda.