America’s small business community is a powerful voting bloc. In fact, individuals who work for or run a small business comprise 70 million people in the United States—that’s one-third of the U.S. voting population. But if we don’t keep in mind the small business issues that are important to all of our economic security, those numbers don’t mean much.
The National Small Business Association is the nation’s oldest small business advocacy group. We operate on a staunchly nonpartisan basis and represent businesses in every industry in every state across the country. And while our members are as diverse as the economy they fuel, they are uniquely united in their frustration with the growing inability of our lawmakers to simply do their jobs.
According to NSBA’s recent Politics of Small Business Survey, we found that 82 percent of small business owners don’t vote a straight party ticket, and the overwhelming majority rank economic and fiscal issues as the top factor in determining how they vote.
And boy, do they vote.
Ninety-five percent of small business owners vote regularly in national contests. When asked to rate which party was better on a host of small business issues, the option “neither party” was the highest rated response on more issues than not. Furthermore, one-third said that neither party best represents their business.
Unfortunately, American politics have embraced a new normal whereby elections matter more than progress, where lawmakers think it’s perfectly OK to punt on major issues facing our country, and where our votes have been marginalized to mere numbers on a blue and red map.
But small business owners aren’t fooled by the introduction of bills that stand no chance of going anywhere or by the oft-repeated yet empty campaign promises to support America’s small businesses. In just the last year alone, there has been a host of key small business issues that have been all but ignored, or, much worse, used simply for talking points.
And despite what some may think, no one party owns the small business vote. NSBA has embraced this mantra for more than
75 years. We work with any lawmaker genuinely interested in helping small business. And we urge small business owners, their employees and family and friends to vote on small business issues.
We recently launched a get-out-the-vote initiative at www.nsba.biz/vote, which provides a variety of resources, including a “how-to” document on talking to employees about politics, a voting poster to hang in the workplace and a variety of other resources employers can share with their employees—all with the goal of getting the small business community to vote on small business issues.
We can be fed up, frustrated and dismayed with our political system, but ultimately, it’s up to us to make sure we take our small business into the voting booth with us.
