Gun Control, Abortion, The Economy and other politically sensitive issues could help or hinder Democratic and Republican election voters….
In an ironic twist, those issues giving them a fighting chance are what traditionally would be considered elements of the “culture wars” that Republicans previously considered their winning talking points. But a wave of mass shootings and the Supreme Court’s watershed ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade have vaulted gun violence and abortion rights way up the charts in terms of voter importance. Those two matters now rank just below the most important issue concerning voters: inflation and stabilizing the economy.
To be sure, Democrats have a huge hurdle to overcome on the economy. As most other polling has shown, voters are furious about runaway inflation. That’s easily the most animating issue in the nation, with 46 percent of voters saying “stabilizing” the economy is one of the two most important issues right now.
The pollsters found that 44 percent of voters “strongly disapprove” of Biden’s job performance, while only 19 percent “strongly approve,” and, furthermore, just 44 percent of Democrats “strongly approve” of Biden’s achievements.
That’s an upside-down position heading into midterms when Biden and Democrats will depend on motivating hardcore partisans to get to the polls.
“The softer they approve of the president,” Newhouse, a co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, said, “the harder it is to turn them out.”
But their work also shows a surging interest among Democratic voters and many independents toward gun control and protecting abortion rights. It’s the type of polling and research that backs up what happened Tuesday in Kansas, when voters in the otherwise very conservative state overwhelmingly approved retaining abortion rights in their state constitution.
Benenson and Newhouse found that on that same voter-priority question, 26 percent chose “protecting a woman’s right” to abortion access as a top issue — essentially tying border security as the No. 2 issue, behind the economy. Just 9 percent of voters chose the antiabortion position as a top-tier issue, giving Democrats a big edge on this front.
Democratic voters in these battleground states now rank abortion rights as, far and away, their most important policy topic….