Voter Values Survey
Hey Voter's Values Profile turns the attention to voters themselves: what matters to them, not which political tribe they fit into. Each person builds an individual profile across seven dimensions - a values radar and a set of views on governance - and any two profiles can be compared to show where values match.
The aim is a foundation for civic discussion: knowing what we have in common before debating what we don't.
One respondent's profile. The radar shows how far each value reaches from the person at the center; each bar shows the balance they strike between two values.
Nearly six in ten Americans have stopped talking about politics with someone because of something they said (Pew Research Center). The conversation most of us avoid is the one this project is built to reopen, by starting from where values match rather than where positions collide.
Most political research starts from ideology. It asks how people would vote on issues, then sorts them into groups: tribes, quadrants, blocs. That lens is good at mapping distance and division. By construction, it cannot show where people agree, because agreement across a dividing line is exactly what a partition throws away.
The Values Profile starts one step earlier, with the voter. It asks what people believe: how society should treat vulnerability, whose lives we weigh when we decide, what counts as fair, who should steer. Each respondent describes their own values, in their own words, and receives an individual profile rather than a group label.
Because every profile is drawn on the same seven dimensions, any two can be compared directly: where values match, where they differ, and by how much. That comparison is the unit of interest. Not the camp, the common ground.
A profile is drawn on seven dimensions: four about who counts, three about how power should work. Each is measured across a named range, and every position on every range is a legitimate answer. The profile records where a person stands, not how far they are from a right answer.
Four dimensions of who counts. Each is measured from the particular to the expansive, starting from the person at the center.
What we owe one another when life gets hard, and how much each of us carries alone.
How much the future should count against the needs of the present.
What people are owed: whether it should track what they put in or what they need.
The reach of obligation: how wide the circle a person feels responsible for runs.
Three dimensions of how power should work, each a genuine tradeoff between two poles. The midpoint is a principled balance, not a refusal to choose.
Who should steer economic life: private markets, public direction, or a deliberate mix.
The trade between freedom and safety: how much liberty is worth giving up for security.
Whether inherited ways are wisdom to keep or structures to remake.
Together, the dimensions and the radar are a different breakdown of political identity: built to show where our values match, instead of how far apart we sit.
The two panels read differently by design. The radar shows distance from the individual at the center: how far each value extends, the range that matters to them. The governance bars show balance: where a person lands between two values that genuinely trade off, Market and Public, Liberty and Security, Tradition and Progress. Together they are built to be compared: one person is a portrait, two people are a measurement of common ground, a population is a map of where values concentrate.
The values radar starts from the person at the center. The shape traces how far each of Care, Time, Fairness, and Reach extends for them: the range of what matters. The three governance bars each show a balance struck between two values, marked by the poles rather than a score. A one-line portrait completes the profile.
Two profiles overlaid. Different parties, if you asked them; close on Care and Time, apart on Fairness. The overlap is measured, not asserted.
Where a whole population concentrates on each dimension, and which dimensions genuinely divide. Published as findings when the data supports them.
Voter Values Survey
Build your Voter Profile across the seven dimensions and see where your values match with the people around you. About 4 minutes. Anonymous. We never ask your name or address.
Take the survey →The Voter Profile is being tested in an open pilot: the values radar, the governance balance, and the language of the descriptors themselves. The survey link is traveling through the newsletters of civic voices who believe in the question. What we publish here will be what we find, including what doesn't fit our model.
Respondents place themselves. There is no quiz guessing politics from proxy questions. The instrument is path-invariant by design: the same person gets the same profile every time.
For each dimension the respondent picks the description that fits, sets their position on the line, and can reword it in their own language. Those words feed the research.
Seven dimensions in two families, drawn from moral and political values research: four values orientations (who counts) and three governance balances (how power works). Full descriptor library published.
No name and no address, ever. A short optional screen at the end asks a few questions about you, including party identification, so the sample can be measured against national benchmarks; every question can be skipped. Values data is sensitive; consent is plain-language and analysis is anonymized.
A dimension that scores badly in the field is a finding we publish, not something we hide.