Main Page/Issues
Issues represent the concerns of the global, national, local, and American community. These pressing matters have to be tackled one way or another, with the general public having different opinions on how they should be handled, depending on their individual views, party affiliation, and other factors. Candidates different views may affect their success or failure depending on how effectively they are at making them known to the general public.
Affecting issues will require a combination of Ads, HQs, Speeches, Political Action Cards, and more. With some of the best ways to amplify and change issue stances being through the long term use of Ads, multiple Speeches (especially attack ones on popular issues), the newly introduced Think Tank, and certain state PAC operatives such as the Spin Doctor, Smear Merchant, Extremist, and Hardliner.
These are great options to turn the tide in any swing state. Paying attention to State issues will be important towards managing an effective national campaign that ultimately decides the most important votes on election day. Additionally, knowing about your candidate's issue scores will matter a lot, as having good issue scores will save you countless turns and Stamina in speeches, ads, and HQ building that you otherwise may have to invest in to offset the marginal difference in polling to overcome any disadvantages. Checking and comparing your candidate's starting maps and margins in certain states is a key way to gauge how well certain candidates perform on certain issue scores.
Stance calculation
In order to understand how voter and candidate stance is calculated, it's important to understand how the values are calculated. Each issue has two basic values:
- Importance determines how vital the issue is to a given party. Having a strong stance on a favorable issue won't matter if the top issues have an importance of anywhere from 100 to 300.
- Position determines whether the party opposes, favors, or is indifferent to the issue. Having negative stances on a certain popular issues may very well mean the difference between being 1 point up nationally to being 2 or even 3 points down. This could mean the difference between winning by 30 electoral votes, to losing by 70.
The two values are then multiplied to arrive at a basic value that is then modified by individual state values, giving the stance values shown below:
| Stance Value | -50 and below | -49 to -20 | -19 to -10 | -9 to 9 | 10 to 19 | 20 to 49 | 50 and above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stance |  |
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A number of states have pre-set issue stances, according to unique cultural and historical circumstances. For instance, Agriculture Support is a very important issue in the crucial primary and presidential swing state of Iowa and all parties attach very high importance to the issue, such that negative issue stances may cost your candidate anywhere from 5-10% of the vote depending on the importance of said issue.
