Voters in Every Congressional District Oppose Cuts to SNAP
Republicans in Congress are currently considering a budget package that would make substantial cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal program that provides assistance to millions of low-income individuals and families to help supplement their grocery budget.
From March 28 to April 14, Data for Progress conducted a series of surveys to assess voters’ attitudes toward SNAP funding levels. Nationwide, 44% of voters want Congress to increase funding for food assistance, 39% want funding to be kept as it is, and 11% want to cut funding.
The surveys were then modeled using a synthetic area weighting technique to estimate results at the congressional district level.
The model finds that in every congressional district in the U.S., less than 15% of voters support cuts to SNAP.
The map below displays the percentage of voters in each congressional district who believe SNAP funding should be cut.
Methodology
To provide estimates of opinion at the congressional district level, we apply a synthetic area weighting technique which constructs a policy support score by first modeling and then applying geographic level iterative proportional fitting, or raking, to ensure congressional level representativeness.
We first fit a regression and score respondents to estimate respondents’ support for a given policy using nationally representative survey data using only individual characteristics such as gender, race, education, age, and vote history as predictors. We assume any residuals from that modeling exercise can be explained by the geographic characteristics of the congressional district of that individual. As such, we apply geographic level iterative proportional fitting on the modeled data to ensure geographic representativeness using key features of the district such as voting history, income, educational attainment, and racial makeup.
Final results represent an estimated share of the likely voters in a congressional district that would select the survey response if they were to be presented with the question.
Survey Questions
Lawmakers in Congress are considering funding levels for each of the following.
For each, please say if you think we should increase or cut its federal funding, or if we should keep federal funding at its current level.
— Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food assistance)
We should increase federal funding for this.
We should keep funding at current levels.
We should cut federal funding for this.
Don’t know
