After a summer hiatus and a busy election season…it’s been a while…but Kapwa Compass is back!
Now that Texas has elected a Democratic governor and US senator, Democrats have won control of Congress, and progressives have won up and down the ballot all across the country, the left must implement actual policies that the base wants, or it risks losing these valuable gains in 2028. I argue that researchers on the left should capitalize on this energy by helping the movement understand how and when to pressure newly elected representatives to deliver progressive policies.
For the past decade, I’ve done multi-method political research across different research environments with distinct goals. My research generally falls into three buckets of work: 1) how to increase longer-term voter power by improving voter contact methods, 2) how to get people to change their attitudes by changing what we say to them, and 3) how voters view candidates and how politicians actually represent them in the legislature. Each strand of research is valuable on its own, but securing policy wins is a process of engagement between voters and legislators that happens year-round, outside of elections. We need to move voter behavior and legislative behavior.
The diagnosis in most research on the left is that our voters are under-registered, under-engaged, or need a clear message to support. If only we turned out more voters, or if only we offered a compelling narrative, we could win support across demographics and geographies. Yet a less explored mechanism to strengthen our side is how we pressure our elected officials to deliver the policies we want.
Voting is not the only lever we can pull to pressure elected officials. At the individual level, for example, contacting an elected official to advocate for an issue is one tool. Organizations sending legislators different kinds of information about an issue is another tool to help shape the legislative agenda. Within the legislature, staffers meeting with legislators to hold policy briefings can help cultivate support for a given bill. A dedicated research agenda could explore these levers for various outcomes, such as policies that expand housing or healthcare access, in a coherent manner.
The Pressure Agenda
To build on this year’s momentum, researchers on the left have the opportunity to conduct bold research that helps pressure elected officials to deliver on what so many Americans want—such as affordable housing, universal healthcare, and higher wages—through actual policy changes.
Such an agenda could explore the following questions:
What are the most effective ways to mobilize voters to take non-electoral actions to pressure elected officials?
When should voters take these actions to be the most influential on legislators’ behavior?
What information persuades elected officials to support progressive policies at the federal, state, and local levels of government?
Which organizations elicit the best responses from legislators, and when should these organizations act alone or in concert with others?
What tactics help progressive leaders cultivate support within their legislative chambers?
Developing best practices derived from research on these questions can help our movement secure tangible policy wins at the federal, state, and local levels. These questions are but a few that researchers on the left might consider in their work for the next two years.
At Kapwa Sol Insights, we specialize in high-stakes civic engagement research initiatives. We collaborate with civic engagement research leaders to develop research agendas for new initiatives, architect the governance plans that structure such initiatives, and provide fractional research leadership for these initiatives.
What research are you launching to build on the November 2026 midterms? I’d love to learn more. Let’s connect over a virtual coffee: grab a time that works for you on my Calendly.