Better late than never: our MaxDiff results for spring 2025

New data on which 2028 likely candidates are seen as the most electable, what issues voters prioritize, and the top democracy threats and reform proposals

As part of our spring 2025 poll, we ran several “maximum difference” (or MaxDiff) questions.

The way a MaxDiff test works is that each respondent is given a randomly selected pair of options from the list and asked to pick between them. If respondents choose randomly, each option would be picked 50% of the time. To interpret MaxDiff results, look at whether a response choice was picked more or less than 50% of the time.

We had some delays processing the data for these questions and ended up postponing release until after exams, but we’re excited to share what we have now. You can find the full MaxDiff results here, and we’d encourage you to take a look at them in addition to reading this post.

Which 2028 candidates are the most electable?

As part of our spring poll, we asked self-identified Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters the following question: “Which of the following candidates do you think would be more likely to win the 2028 presidential election against a Republican?” Keep in mind when interpreting these results that low name recognition might hurt less-prominent candidates, since respondents might be less likely to select a candidate they haven’t heard of before in the MaxDiff pairing.

Among all Democratic voters, the most electable candidate was Mark Cuban (picked 66.5% of the time), followed by Mark Kelly (66%), Gavin Newsom (64.1%), Josh Shapiro (60.5%), and Pete Buttigieg (57.8%). Among Democratic voters under 30, the most electable candidates were Shapiro (65.9%), Cuban (63.1%), Kamala Harris (61.8%), Gavin Newsom (60.8%), and Andy Beshear (65.8%).

The least electable candidates were the same among young voters and Democrats overall: Stephen A. Smith, JB Pritzker, and Ruben Gallego.

Notably, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who came second in our 2028 Democratic primary horserace question, was middle of the pack in electability. She was selected 53% of the time among all Democrats (8th out of 16) and 51.1% of the time by Democrats under 30 (9th out of 16).

Among all self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, the most electable candidate was JD Vance (selected 84.1% of the time), followed by Ron DeSantis (72.1%), Marco Rubio (65.5%), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (61.2%), and Ted Cruz (58.8%). Among Republican voters under 30, the most electable candidates were Vance (80.4%), RFK Jr. (71.2%), Cruz (60.9%), Brian Kemp (56.5%), and Tim Scott (56.4%). The least electable candidate among both young Republicans and Republicans overall was Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Young voters’ top issues: jobs, Social Security, inflation, healthcare, government spending

We also used a MaxDiff question to generate an overall ranking of issues for both young voters and voters.

The top issues among both groups of voters were the same: jobs, Social Security and Medicare, inflation, and healthcare. The least important issues were similar, but with different orderings between groups: Israel and Palestine, oil and gas, race relations, LGBTQ issues, and China.

Notably, certain progressive issues such as student loans, race relations, LGBTQ issues, and Israel-Palestine ranked at the bottom, especially for young voters, but as well for voters overall. Climate change and the environment ranked higher among young voters (8th out of 22) than among voters overall (12th out of 22).

In other words, young voters are more similar to voters overall than the conventional wisdom often suggests. For both groups, the top issues are economic.

Democracy threats/reforms, round 2

Finally, we asked respondents the same MaxDiff questions from our fall 2024 poll on the biggest threats to democracy and the most impactful democracy reforms.

Among voters overall, the biggest threat to democracy was the influence of wealthy donors, followed by extremism from both sides equally, attempts to overturn elections, economic inequality, and voters’ civic illiteracy. The top threats among young voters were the same, but with slightly different ordering. The least significant threats to democracy for both voters overall and young voters were the null message: “our democracy is not really under threat.” Among all voters, the second-least threatening issues were the Electoral College and voter ID laws; among young voters, the second-least threatening issues were lack of patriotism and immigration bringing in new voters who don’t share American values.

In our fall 2024 poll, the biggest threat among voters overall was extremism from both sides equally; for young voters, it was gerrymandering. The influence of wealthy donors ranked 3rd out of 18 among voters overall and 6th out of 18 among young voters in our first poll. The null message came in last among voters overall, while voter ID laws came last among young voters.

It seems plausible that the consensus around wealthy donors posing the largest threat to democracy in the spring survey has been driven by Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration. Elon Musk is pretty unpopular, and a February YouGov poll found that almost half of Americans think Musk has too much influence in the Trump administration.

Among 31 reform proposals we tested, voters overall thought that these three would improve our government the most:

• “We need term limits for Congress. We don’t need career politicians staying in office for decades, twelve years is long enough — that’s two terms for senators and six terms for representatives.”

• “We need to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks and bonds. Members of Congress are already paid over $170,000 per year, almost triple the median income. Elected officials should serve the public interest — not enrich themselves with insider trading.”

• “We need to overturn Citizens United, a 2010 Supreme Court case that struck down campaign contribution limits for corporations. The wealthy have too much influence in politics, and corporations making unlimited donations to candidates is just legalized corruption.”

Among young voters, the top three reform proposals were:

• “We need term limits for Congress. We don’t need career politicians staying in office for decades, twelve years is long enough — that’s two terms for senators and six terms for representatives.”

• “We need a national ban on gerrymandering: the process of politicians redrawing legislative districts to unfairly advantage their party. In a democracy, voters are supposed to pick the politicians — not the other way around.”

• “We need an age limit on candidates for president. Both the current and previous presidents are showing clear signs of cognitive decline. No person over 75 should be eligible for office, and all candidates should be required to take cognitive tests.”

The least popular reforms among both young voters and voters overall were eliminating voter ID laws and statehood for DC and Puerto Rico.

Hopefully, our spring MaxDiff results can offer you a window into what voters prefer and are thinking as we look ahead to 2028, while challenging some common political assumptions in the process. Young voters, assumed to be far more progressive, share more priorities with older voters than expected. We’ll continue analyzing and offering possible explanations of the results in the weeks ahead. For now, you can look into the full MaxDiff results here. If anything especially surprised you, let us know and tag us on X/Twitter.