Don't just listen to what voters say — they will show what they care about

For decades, campaigns have relied on polling to guide strategy, messaging, and resource allocation. But polling has a fundamental blind spot: It only tells you what voters say they care about, not what they’re actually paying attention to.

That gap is widening, and it is costing campaigns.

Take the 2025 Democratic gubernatorial primary in New Jersey. Most candidates focused on national politics, President Trump, and the economy in their messaging. Traditional polling supported that focus. But real-time news engagement data told a different story.

Among likely Democratic voters, education coverage was the top-performing issue by a wide margin. It accounted for 30 percent of all top-read local news content (up from just 18 percent the previous cycle), overtaking economic coverage for the first time. Yet polling from the same period showed only 5 percent of voters ranking education as their top concern.

Why the disconnect? Voters don’t always engage most with the issues they claim to prioritize. The data shows that stated preferences can often diverge sharply from demonstrated ones — and that gap has strategic consequences.

Campaigns that rely solely on polling are making high-stakes decisions — from ad strategy to field targeting — based on static data. Behavioral data, in contrast, gives campaigns a dynamic, real-time picture of what voters are thinking about right now, and how that attention shifts over time.

Think of it this time: Polling is a snapshot, but voter behavior is a live feed.

During the 2024 presidential election, voters in Pennsylvania who lacked college degrees were consistently reading stories about job loss and plant closures, even while national headlines painted a picture of a stable economy. In North Carolina, younger and non-white voters gravitated toward stories about business closures in their own neighborhoods, while major media outlets focused on the political horse race.

These weren't minor deviations. They were early indicators of what would influence voter turnout. And they weren’t reflected in the polling.

Timing plays a critical role as well. In New Jersey, voters who had already returned their ballots were mostly consuming national political stories. But those who hadn’t — the persuadable, undecided voters — were focused on local and practical issues. Still, many campaigns aimed their closing arguments at the former group, missing the chance to shift opinion where it mattered most.

This is the opportunity heading into 2026 — to move from reactive strategies based on outdated assumptions to proactive strategies grounded in what voters are paying attention to in real time.

Behavioral data offers that opportunity. By tracking the news content that voters are reading and engaging with — and tying that behavior to location, demographics, and vote history — campaigns can segment audiences more effectively and deliver messaging that aligns with the moment.

Polling still has value, but it is no longer enough on its own. In a digital media environment that changes by the hour, campaigns need tools that evolve just as quickly.

Too often, campaigns wait until after the election to realize they missed key warning signs in voter behavior. By then, it's too late. Behavioral data allows for real-time course correction — a vital capability in an environment where a single week’s narrative can change the trajectory of an entire race.

Behavioral data isn’t just another metric. It’s a strategic advantage. It provides insight not only into what voters care about, but when and why. It offers the ability to adjust messaging midstream and avoid the trap of building strategy on outdated perceptions.

The winning campaigns in 2026 will be the ones that recognize: Voters’ stated preferences matter, but where they focus their attention matters just as much.

Aimee Bigham is Chief Strategy Officer of MV Digital Group.