Do You Share the Same Political Views as the Candidate You Support? Using ISideWith.com

Many people watch a presidential debate on television, only to find that the debate did not address all of the issues that they wanted to hear. Although valuable in showing how candidates behave under pressure, live debates simply do not have enough time to cover everything.

Image by Theresa Thompson.
*The author of this article is in no way affiliated  
with or financially supported by ISideWth.com.
He simply enjoyed the experience and hoped to
share this resource with others. 

So, where can you go to discover a wide-ranging, comparable list of the presidential candidates’ political views? Here is one suggestion that I have found to be especially helpful:

ISideWith.com was created in 2012 with the intention of helping people rank presidential candidates by their views. This website allows you to take an extensive survey on a broad variety of popular issues such as “Should children of illegal immigrants be granted citizenship,” “Should police officers be required to wear body cameras,” and “Do you support the legalization of same sex marriage?” Then, the website tallies your responses and shows you exactly where the candidates stand on each issue.

ISideWith.com Advantages

• The directness of the questions allows you to keep emotions and other common media distractions to a minimum. 
• “SOURCE” links will redirect you to original sources, so you can double check the survey if you would like.
• You can create a free account and save your results for later. 
• In the footer of each page, the site claims to be unaffiliated with any political party, candidate, or interest group.
• If you would like, you can also share and compare your results with friends and family. 

The website is now internationally available in the United States, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, and India. Are you one of the 39 million people who have already used ISideWith.com to help them choose a candidate? If not, I advise you to check it out today.

You can access the site at: https://www.isidewith.com

But first, here are:

Image by Dru Bloomfield.

Some Tips to Keep in Mind

1. According to ISideWith’sFAQ page, the more questions you answer, the more accurate your results will be. Make sure to select, “Other stances” at the bottom of each question if you would like to view more specific options. To help the website find the right candidate, you can also mark how important each question is to you.

2. After you receive your results, take a few minutes to compare your answers with each of the candidates’ views. In particular, look through the “Issues we do not side on” section at the bottom. Are any of these items more or less important to you? If so, you will definitely want to take this into consideration when choosing a candidate.

3. I have noticed that the website will occasionally say that you do not agree on something because you selected, “Yes” to an issue, but the candidate said, “No, only under a certain unique circumstance.” In these situations, you may find that you do not differ as significantly with a candidate as you might have thought. If the website could not determine a candidate’s position on any of the particular questions, this will also be automatically listed under the “Issues we do not side on” category too.

4. It is interesting to see where the millions of previous survey takers stand on each issue. However, you will want to take in this information with a grain of salt; although a large sample, it may or may not reflect the nation’s population as a whole.

5. Candidates’ political stances are extremely important and sometimes overlooked in our highly opinionated media and society. However, keep in mind that ISideWith surveys do not account for other factors that you should consider such as candidates’ personalities, intelligence, honesty, communication skills, experience, history, etc. The best way to learn about these things is to get out there and talk with other people (try to play nicely!), watch the related television debates, and read articles online. Most importantly, remember to try several sources, including those that you don’t think you will agree with.

Image by Nicole Klauss.

6. ISideWith does update if candidates’ viewpoints change. Be sure to check back right before you place your final vote to make sure that you are still share the same political perspectives with the presidential candidate you are supporting.

Website creators Taylor Peck and Nick Boutelier encourage you to share ISideWith.com with your friends so the website can educate more voters. What other specific advice do you have for using ISideWith.com? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

Related Article

“Twelve Ways You Are Being Manipulated by the News and on Social Media”

* The author of this article is in no way affiliated with or financially supported by ISideWith.com. He simply enjoyed the experience and hoped to share this resource with others.