Poll Results: Top Voter Issues
Election dynamics revolve around the policy issues that voters care most about during the campaign period. And political parties are often branded as “better” or “worse” on particular issues.
When an election revolves around an issue that’s usually considered a Republican strongpoint, like immigration, Republicans tend to do well. When an election revolves around a Democrat strongpoint, like abortion/women’s rights, Democrats tend to do well. A given issue can motivate one party’s base, depress the other party’s base, and also impact the choices of undecided voters.
That’s why poll questions that ask voters what they care most about are so instructive. Our poll has been asking that question for a decade. Here are this year’s results:
Of the six issues that received 10% or more, four of them are considered Republican policy strengths: inflation/cost of living, economy, border/immigration, and crime.
Just two, education and abortion/women’s rights, favor Democrats, and even then it’s not clear that Democrats still have the advantage on education.
Parties and candidates have room to maneuver on these issues when sizeable proportions of the entire electorate care about them. That’s why, for example, Republicans spent years talking about education even though it was historically considered a Democratic Party strength.
Republican voters still cared about education. Republican candidates could talk about it and propose their own policies (teacher raises combined with expanded school choice) – all without too much risk of yielding the entire campaign narrative to a pro-Democrat issue that Republican voters don’t even pay attention to.
The same cannot be said for Democrats and immigration. Take a look at this breakdown:
Source: Presentation by Meeting Street, CPR’s pollster
31% of Republicans rank the border as a top concern, compared to just 2% of Democrats. Similar trends hold in national polling. That partially explains why Democratic officeholders and candidates have largely ignored the issue. It doesn’t motivate their voters, and Republican voters aren’t going to change their minds.
The problem, though, is that enough unaffiliated voters care about the border, too, that Democratic Party silence is getting more painful. Hence the Biden administration’s start-and-stop efforts to “secure the border.”
The reverse dynamic holds for abortion, which may explain why Josh Stein’s first TV ad targets the issue.
In the next post, we’ll discuss polling results on potential constitutional amendments. Interviews were conducted April 25-28, 2024, among N=500 registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 4.38%.
