SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox's "Disagree Better" ad campaign that featured state leaders of opposing parties promoting civil dialogue was shown to decrease partisan animosity of voters and actually increase their favorable view of the governors involved, according to an independent study presented at Cox's final "Disagree Better" event in Salt Lake City on Thursday.
"I can assure you nobody is more relieved than I am that we didn't just waste a year of our time and energy," Cox told a few hundred attendees, including 13 other governors, in the Grand Ballroom of the Grand America Hotel.
Cox is wrapping up one year as chairman of the bipartisan National Governors Association and with it his call for all 55 of the nation's governors (including territories) to model constructive ways of navigating divisive issues.
"We have, now, scientific proof that this will actually help candidates perform and that you can win elections with a positive message like this one," Cox told the Deseret News. "And that's certainly something we'll be sharing across the country now that we have some data to back it up."
'Disagree Better' by the numbers
Stanford sociology professor Rob Willer conducted a study among 6,500 Americans on the effectiveness of Cox's "Disagree Better" campaign and presented his findings for the first time on Thursday.
Willer said he was "very impressed" when Cox and the National Governors Association allowed him to move forward with his study because he had "no incentive to show you a rosy picture."
Willer, along with his colleagues, Stanford data scientist Chagai Weiss and Columbia political scientist Donald Green, exposed half of the study participants to three "Disagree Better" ads, and the other half to three nonpolitical public service announcements, during the course of a political survey.
The participants who viewed the "Disagree Better" ads, as opposed to the placebo, saw a marked decrease in partisan animosity and an increase in conversational receptiveness and support for bipartisanship that was comparable to the better-performing polarization interventions Willer had studied previously.
"Seeing these results ... I want to see people beyond you all — state representatives, U.S. congresspeople — taking up the 'Disagree Better' mantle and carrying forward and following your leadership," Willer said.
What is 'Disagree Better'?
The governor's tenure as chairman, beginning in July 2023, gave him the opportunity to promote any message of his choice. Cox chose "Disagree Better," or the idea that Americans must learn to disagree without hating each other, which he saw as one of the central problems facing the United States.
The National Governors Association under Cox's lead has held four gatherings across the country — in New Hampshire, Colorado, Tennessee and Utah — to educate the nation's governors on what leads to toxic political polarization and what tools can be used to help politicians, young people and college campuses reverse the trend.
In February, Cox brought "Disagree Better" to Washington, where he headlined a forum with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, spoke at George Washington University and met with President Joe Biden, who praised the "Disagree Better" initiative. And in April, Cox gave his pitch to his biggest audience yet with a TED Talks speech.
The initiative also included commercials with 21 governors patterned after Cox's viral 2020 ad filmed with his Democratic gubernatorial opponent Chris Peterson. The videos featured governors speaking with a leader from the other side of the aisle about the importance of seeing past Republican and Democratic labels to solve the problems constituents face.
'Disagree Better' can help with campaigns
Willer, who had previously used Cox's 2020 video as part of his Strengthening Democracy Challenge, said he was sympathetic to politicians not wanting to experiment with "Disagree Better" during their campaigns the same way Cox had. But he took a deeper look at the data and found that appearing in a "Disagree Better" ad didn't hurt the governors involved — it did the opposite.
"We actually found a bigger effect on support for the governors that were in the public service announcements," Willer said.
This finding was consistent between general election voters and primary voters and carried over to voters who placed themselves on the extreme ends of the political spectrum.
"They were impressed. It increased their respect," Willer said. "It's enough of an effect size to where if you were in the context of a campaign, you might consider doing disagree better to advance your candidacy."
This influence on candidate favorability likely comes from the "Disagree Better" approach being so novel in today's political environment, Willer said.
Cox requested that Willer provide all the governors with the data from his study, including a breakdown by age and gender. He said he is excited to promote the results of his campaign among his fellow governors even after he steps down from his position as National Governors Association chairman on Friday.
"It would be great if everybody just did this because it's good for America and good for our souls. But I know it won't happen unless it's also good to help people get reelected," Cox said. "And so that data, I think, is the most compelling."
