AGAR: What kind of voter are you?

In this election, which voter are you?

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Tribal Voters

That’s me. I vote Conservative. That is my tribe. I know people I respect who are tribal Liberal voters. We see the world essentially differently.

But those of us who are tribal are not the people who move the election, generally. We are not swing voters.

We could be accused of voting for an intellectually challenged chimp if he wore the team shirt.

Low Information Voters Low-information voters are less likely to vote, tend to be swing voters, who have not developed clear-cut ideological preferences

The low information voter is particularly dangerous in the age of misinformation, as the small amount of information that voter is operating from may not in fact be true.

They are likely to be at best headline deep in knowledge.

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Emotional Voters

In this election, they are people who might agree that Pierre Poilievre’s polices, especially on energy, are better than Carney’s, but they don’t like Poilievre. They will put emotion ahead of what is good for the country and for themselves – and vote Liberal.

It baffles me. We are not voting for a boyfriend or golfing buddy.

This is why we don’t let 12-year-olds vote.

A combination of tribal and emotional leads us to Intellectually Dishonest Voters.

You can put an unassailable fact in front of one of those people and they will ignore it like an anti-vaxer.

They are likely to say, “Well, I have a right to my opinion,” as if that means anything intellectually.

This is the group that potentially benefits from the Liberals and their policies in place. Everyone from a company that is the benefit of some climate change grant, to government workers afraid of cutbacks, to Liberal staffers. They all know the gravy train isn’t sustainable, but they don’t want their meal ticket to be threatened.

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I find this next voter interesting.

Voters on The Wave

That happened with Justin Trudeau the first time around. He was new, dreamy, and all the cool kids were voting for him.

The cool new guy. The Black guy. The woman. It is a form of low information voting, but the information they do have is just that; on the wave.

It is a bandwagon.

And finally on my list of types of voters is the Voters Protecting Their Assets.

We see that right now with older voters going Liberal.

Older people who own a house seem to believe that the Liberals will keep the gravy train going. They don’t care that home prices are sky high. They don’t really care that young people can’t afford a house.

That’s their nest egg.

Business investment in Canada is down. In the USA, it is up. That doesn’t portend a great future for young people.

Young people see that a decade of Liberal policies has diminished their opportunities, as they have diminished Canada’s opportunities, but it is the difference between long term and short time thinking.

Public sector employment in Canada is growing and outpacing private sector employment as well as self-employment.

Not good for the future.

Our GDP per capita is going down while the rest of the G7 sees increases.

Not good for the future.

I think of that meme that says, “If you hate your grandchildren, vote Liberal.”

Short term, versus long term.

Which are you?

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