Asking the Right Questions in 2026

The mid-terms will be here before you know it, and iVoterGuide began preparations months ago by updating our candidate questionnaire. We do this every election cycle. It’s an important, but laborious, process.  Today, we’re going to give you a peek behind the scenes so that you can have some insight into what goes into asking good questions. 

Hopefully, this brief overview also will help shore up your own discernment process as you listen to election media coverage over the next year. How journalists, voter guides, and moderators frame a question can help or hinder a truthful response. Encouraging the most truthful responses from candidates is our goal at iVoterGuide.

The first thing we do, obviously, is review the previous questionnaire. We consider the national issues of greatest interest to our voter audience. Are there issues that are less relevant and could  be removed? Which issues need to be added? We want to get answers to the issues that are most relevant our Judeo-Christian audience, while keeping the questionnaire brief enough that it won’t be burdensome for candidates.  That is a challenging balance!

We start by updating our questionnaires for both the U.S. Congress and the Statewide/State Legislature. They are similar but not identical because different issues are relevant to different levels of government. Once these “baseline” questionnaires are completed, we work with our partners to customize them for specific states.  We are able to customize and provide different surveys by state and office, so we then propagate similar topics down to our judicial, education and municipal surveys. 

Questions We Avoid

So how do we compose questions to encourage the most honest responses? Below are some types of questions we avoid asking on our questionnaire:

The Leading Question

Example: Do you agree that the government should investigate the origins of COVID-19?

This question nudges a person toward a particular answer—that the government should investigate the origins of COVID-19—and asks the candidate to simply agree. If the candidate does NOT agree with this, then this question puts them in a place where they have to defend their ideas, even as they answer the question.

Here’s the better question: Do you support a federal investigation of the origins of COVID-19?

The Double-barreled Question

Do you believe schools should teach that the rule of law and limited government are essential to sustaining a free and secure nation?

This ONE question presents TWO ideas about what should be taught to students. When a questionnaire is not formatted to accommodate multiple answers, the full picture of the candidate’s position may go unanswered. Questions about multiple ideas or issues should be asked separately to encourage the most truthful answer. At iVoterGuide, we also provide text boxes, so candidates have the option of giving more nuanced answers.

The Loaded Question

Do you support prosecution for women seeking abortions to help reduce the abortion rate? 

This loaded question makes the unproven assumption that prosecuting women seeking abortions does, in fact, reduce abortion rates. In this case it’s just better to ask the straight question:

Do you support the prosecution of women seeking abortions?

Emotionally Charged Questions

Do you support efforts to eliminate government waste and track down corruption utilizing entities such as DOGE?

Negative terms, such as “government waste” and “corruption,” taint the question and confuse the issue. Framing the question in neutral language will encourage a more clear and honest response. Like this:

Do you support the Executive Branch appointing special teams, such as DOGE, to review federal spending?

At iVoterGuide we believe that asking candidates the most objective questions sets us apart from other voter guides and provides our readers with the best information. We hope that thinking through these different types of questions also might help our audience become more discriminating listeners as you attend candidate forums or tune into interviews in the future. We encourage you to do so!