The policy choices to watch.

1. End diplomatic and security ties
2. Diplomatic isolation and broad sanctions
3. Maintain ties; suspend military cooperation
4. Maintain ties; restrict most arms transfers
5. Conditional cooperation and civilian safeguards
6. Continue cooperation with targeted restrictions
7. Maintain most existing security cooperation
8. Expand security cooperation with conditions
9. Expand cooperation with few conditions
10. Unconditional diplomatic and security backing

Measures policy toward the Israeli government, not attitudes toward Jewish people or Israeli civilians. Diplomatic recognition alone does not establish an arms-policy score.

1. Reject Palestinian statehood in principle
2. Oppose recognition and statehood initiatives
3. Defer recognition indefinitely
4. Recognition only after a final peace agreement
5. Support negotiated statehood with substantial preconditions
6. Support negotiated Palestinian statehood in principle
7. Support recognition with specified prerequisites
8. Support recognition and diplomatic relations now
9. Actively pursue recognition and full UN membership
10. Make recognition and full sovereignty a central diplomatic priority

Separate from the Israel scale. Support for statehood does not imply support for Hamas or attacks on civilians.

1. Prohibit most private firearm ownership
2. Allow narrow sporting exceptions only
3. Strict licensing and broad weapon restrictions
4. Licensing, checks and targeted weapon bans
5. Regulated ownership with purchase checks
6. Broader ownership with targeted restrictions
7. Ease licensing and expand lawful carry
8. Permitless carry with limited exclusions
9. Repeal most purchase and carry restrictions
10. Remove nearly all civilian firearm restrictions

Rates legal access, not concern about public safety. National legal starting points differ.

1. Ban abortion without exceptions
2. Ban except imminent threat to life
3. Allow life, rape and incest exceptions
4. Allow broader health exceptions only
5. Allow early pregnancy access with substantial limits
6. Allow first-trimester access with medical safeguards
7. Allow access through an extended gestational period
8. Protect access through viability with later medical exceptions
9. Remove major procedural and funding barriers
10. No statutory gestational cutoff; clinical decision-making

A higher score means broader legal access, not a moral endorsement. Gestation, funding and procedure rules can pull in different directions.

1. Abolish the H-1B program
2. Suspend nearly all new H-1B admissions
3. Sharply reduce places or impose major barriers
4. Narrow eligibility and tighten wage rules
5. Retain current cap and rules
6. Retain cap; simplify targeted procedures
7. Modestly expand cap with labor safeguards
8. Substantially expand cap and portability
9. Remove cap for most qualifying specialists
10. Uncapped access with minimal employer restrictions

H-1B is a U.S. visa program. This scale is not applied to French or Brazilian politicians; opposition to abuse does not establish support for abolition.

1. Near-total closure of legal entry
2. Sharp cuts and offshore-only asylum
3. Large admission cuts and narrow asylum
4. Lower admissions and tighter eligibility
5. Maintain admissions with stricter screening
6. Maintain admissions and asylum pathways
7. Targeted expansion of lawful pathways
8. Broader admission and regularization routes
9. Large expansion with strong asylum access
10. Minimal admission limits and broad regularization

This axis covers admission and legal status; border enforcement is a separate dimension. No score is inferred from rhetoric alone.

1. Repeal emissions targets and controls
2. Expand fossil fuels and weaken controls
3. Limit action to voluntary reductions
4. Retain narrow sector-specific controls
5. Maintain existing emissions policy
6. Strengthen selected sector targets
7. Binding economy-wide reduction targets
8. Accelerate clean-energy transition deadlines
9. Rapid transition with strict fossil limits
10. Near-term fossil phaseout across the economy

1. End public healthcare coverage
2. Restrict public care to emergencies
3. Large cuts to eligibility and benefits
4. Target public care to narrower groups
5. Maintain current public coverage
6. Expand selected public benefits
7. Substantial expansion of public eligibility
8. Universal basic public coverage
9. Universal comprehensive public coverage
10. Comprehensive public coverage with no patient charges

Coverage is distinct from public versus private delivery.

1. Flat or regressive taxes; no redistribution
2. Large cuts for highest incomes
3. Lower top rates and capital taxes
4. Modest cuts to top tax rates
5. Maintain current tax distribution
6. Modestly raise high-income taxes
7. Raise top rates and capital taxes
8. Add substantial wealth or inheritance taxes
9. Broad wealth taxes and large redistribution
10. Very high top taxes and extensive redistribution

1. Remove most statutory labor protections
2. Severely restrict collective bargaining
3. Reduce dismissal and bargaining protections
4. Modest labor-market deregulation
5. Retain existing worker protections
6. Targeted wage and workplace safeguards
7. Strengthen unions and collective bargaining
8. Broad protections including platform workers
9. Sector-wide bargaining and strong job security
10. Comprehensive worker control and bargaining rights

1. End immigration detention and most removals
2. Detention only for exceptional threats
3. Large cuts to detention and removals
4. Prioritize removal of serious offenders only
5. Maintain current enforcement priorities
6. Expand targeted border enforcement
7. Expand detention and deportation capacity
8. Broad removal campaigns with defined exceptions
9. Large-scale removals and narrow discretionary relief
10. Maximum detention and deportation with minimal exceptions

Separate from legal immigration admissions, asylum eligibility and H-1B visas.

1. Severely restrict franchise and registration
2. Major limits on early and postal voting
3. Strict registration and ID requirements
4. Modest cuts to early-voting access
5. Maintain existing voting access
6. Expand selected early-voting options
7. Expand early voting and registration access
8. Automatic registration and broad postal access
9. National automatic registration and extensive access
10. Universal adult voting access with minimal administrative barriers

1. End federal public-school funding
2. Large federal education spending cuts
3. Reduce school grants and eligibility
4. Modest cuts to federal education programs
5. Maintain existing federal school investment
6. Target grants to underserved districts
7. Expand school and technical-education funding
8. Major increases in federal education support
9. Broad federal guarantees for school funding
10. Comprehensive federally supported education from preschool onward

1. End federal housing assistance
2. Large cuts to housing benefits
3. Reduce rental and construction subsidies
4. Modest cuts to federal housing programs
5. Maintain existing federal housing assistance
6. Targeted zoning and assistance reforms
7. Expand affordable construction and rental support
8. Major national affordable-housing program
9. Broad housing vouchers and public construction
10. Universal publicly guaranteed housing access

1. Close reactors rapidly
2. Adopt a binding nuclear phaseout
3. Stop new nuclear construction
4. Reduce support and tighten new permits
5. Maintain current nuclear policy
6. Extend existing plants where feasible
7. Support selected new reactors
8. Major new-reactor investment and permitting reform
9. Large expansion including advanced reactors
10. Make nuclear a central priority across electricity supply

1. End all military assistance
2. End weapons transfers; diplomacy only
3. Nonlethal assistance only
4. Limited defensive arms with strict conditions
5. Maintain aid with tight use restrictions
6. Maintain existing assistance commitments
7. Expand weapons and training assistance
8. Expand long-range support with safeguards
9. Large-scale aid with broad use permissions
10. Support direct U.S. combat deployment alongside Ukraine

1. Remove most existing legal protections
2. Roll back marriage and anti-discrimination protections
3. Broad exemptions from equal-treatment rules
4. Narrow existing protections in selected settings
5. Maintain existing civil-rights framework
6. Add targeted anti-discrimination safeguards
7. Expand employment, housing and service protections
8. Broad federal equality legislation
9. Broad equality and access protections including healthcare
10. Comprehensive equality, healthcare and identity-document protections

Measures stated legal policy, not personal identity, religious belief or attitudes toward individual people.

1. Remove nearly all import tariffs
2. Reduce tariffs broadly
3. Cut most sector-specific tariffs
4. Targeted tariff reductions
5. Maintain existing tariff framework
6. Selective new strategic-sector tariffs
7. Broad strategic-sector protection
8. Large tariffs across several industries
9. Near-universal baseline tariffs with major country surcharges
10. Very high tariffs intended to sharply limit most imports

1. Increase criminal penalties for personal use
2. Strict criminal prohibition of all cannabis
3. Retain federal cannabis prohibition
4. Medical exceptions and treatment diversion
5. Reduce personal-possession penalties
6. Federal cannabis decriminalization
7. Remove federal barriers to state cannabis markets
8. Regulated nationwide adult cannabis legality
9. Decriminalize personal possession of additional drugs
10. Broad regulated legal access to currently illicit drugs

1. End relief and income-based repayment
2. Restrict forgiveness and increase repayments
3. Reduce existing cancellation eligibility
4. Tighten targeted relief programs
5. Maintain current relief and repayment programs
6. Expand relief for specific borrower groups
7. Broader income-based repayment and targeted cancellation
8. Large-scale cancellation with income limits
9. Broad cancellation of most federal student debt
10. Cancel all federal student debt and replace loan-based financing