The Peoria Project is an approach to listening, understanding, and messaging to audiences using 21st century tools. Instead of a traditional left-right dichotomy, Peoria segments voters into distinct audiences based on the values and attitudes that inform political beliefs, including views on the economy, institutions, and the future of the country.

The Peoria Project 1.0 study after the 2016 elections explored issues such as social trust, authoritarianism, racial diversity, capitalism, and globalization. Then in advance of the 2020 cycle, Catalist expanded the project to Peoria 2.0 to include additional questions about religious tolerance and personal efficacy—the belief in one’s ability to shape their own economic and social outcomes—further refining our understanding of the American electorate.

Catalist revalidated Peoria 2.0 in 2026 using recent survey data and The Omnibus Project (TOP), confirming that these clusters continue to accurately reflect the modern electorate. The model groups registered voters into nine audiences and assigns both a primary cluster and probability scores across all clusters, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of how values are distributed within a population.