OSLO — The latest release of the study, conducted by NayaDaya, YouGov, and Statista, reveals that US voters having both positive and negative feelings about their own financial situation emotionally favor Biden’s election over Trump’s. Biden’s lead is particularly significant among people with financial worries.

This unconventional study, different from traditional polls, was conducted in the US in Oct. 16-19, 2020. It reveals the correlation between voters’ own financial situation and their emotions and behavior in the context of the presidential election.

According to the study, voters’ emotions about their personal finances are polarized at the moment. The three most chosen emotions toward the US voters’ personal finances are contentment, fear, and disappointment. Contentment is about fulfilling needs sufficiently, fear about uncontrollable threats and worries, and disappointment about failing promises and expectations.

“It’s noteworthy that even if contentment is the most common emotion regarding voters’ own financial situation, overall, there are still more negative emotions than positive ones. Contentment is an emotion that implies satisfaction with the current situation and therefore, generally, does not engage people to act to change the situation,” said Marcello Mortillaro, Ph.D and senior scientist, partner of NayaDaya Inc.

Almost equal percentages of voters expressed positive (41 %) and negative (43 %) emotions about their finances. From the Trump’s point of view, the challenge are the people having negative emotions for their financial situation — 61 % of them express negative, and only 27 % positive emotions and behavior, toward his re-election.

“According to our data and analytics, voters who have positive emotions about their finances favor Biden’s election over Trump’s. However, among the people who face financial threats, worries, and disappointments, emotions and expected behavior are strongly against Trump’s re-election. It seems that the more the personal financial situation has impact on voting behavior, the more unlikely it is for Trump to become re-elected,” said Timo Järvinen, CEO at NayaDaya Inc.

The emotion data, collected by the YouGov online-panels in the US, was analyzed with the NayaDaya Emotional and Behavioral Intelligence. This method, algorithm, and analytics are based on the scientific theory and research, which has been independently conducted and published by the Geneva Emotion Research Group at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Study facts:

YouGov online panel Oct 16-19, 2020.

Samples represent the US adult population.

N=1,259, margin of error ±2.5 percentage points.