ThinkNow’s Voter Insights Report: Engagement Gaps, Information Habits, and What They Mean for Public Outreach

Public agencies and nonprofit organizations are being asked to reach increasingly fragmented audiences while maintaining trust and participation across very different communities. ThinkNow’s latest voter insights report highlights several patterns that organizations should pay close attention to as they plan outreach and communication efforts.

Download the full report here.

Passive Audiences Are Larger Than Many Organizations Assume

One of the clearest trends in our report is the difference between consuming information and actively engaging with it. Nationally, 35% of voters reported watching political videos online, but only 24% participate in online discussions. Among independents, participation drops to just 16%, despite 29% reporting regular content consumption.  We also found a noticeable participation gap among Latino voters. While 54% reported consuming political content online, only 34% reported actively engaging with that content.  Overall, our report shows that communities may be seeing information without interacting with it, sharing it, or taking action afterward. Outreach strategies that rely heavily on passive digital exposure may therefore be overestimating actual engagement levels.

Media Use Remains Highly Segmented Across Communities

Our report also shows major differences in where people get information depending on age, language preference, and community background.  In Georgia, 73% of younger voters reported relying primarily on social media for political information. At the same time, 54% of Black voters reported depending on local television. In Los Angeles County, Spanish-dominant Latino respondents reported especially high social media use at 70%, while local television remained influential among Latino audiences overall at 51%.  Our findings show that communication preferences rmain highly segmented, particularly in multilingual communities and among audiences with different levels of political participation.  These distinctions matter because many outreach campaigns still assume broad channel consistency across populations.

Economic Concerns Continue to Override Partisan Differences

While media habits and participation levels varied widely across groups, economic concerns remain strikingly consistent.  In Wisconsin, is the top major concern by 89% of Democrats, 83% of Republicans, and 77% of independents. Housing affordability also ranked among the top concerns across multiple demographic groups and regions.

Organizations working in public outreach, education, health, transportation, or community services should prioritize programs tied to affordability, economic stability, and practical day-to-day concerns.

What Organizations Should Take From the Data

Our report reinforces several challenges that government agencies and nonprofit organizations are already confronting: declining participation, fragmented media behavior, and growing difficulty measuring meaningful engagement. At the same time, the findings point to opportunities for more targeted communication strategies grounded in how communities consume information and what issues they prioritize most consistently.