A new poll released Monday showed notable gains for Republicans just three weeks out from Election Day powered by voters’ concerns about the economy and inflation.
Summary
A new New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday showed notable gains for Republicans just three weeks out from Election Day powered by voters’ concerns about the economy and inflation.
- About 49 percent of likely voters said they’d vote for the Republican candidate in November while 45 percent backed the Democrats, a shift in the G.O.P.’s direction from the last NYT/Siena College survey in September that found Democrats leading by one percentage point.
- Independent voters, especially women, have swung towards Republicans as voter concerns over the economy and inflation have grown since the summer. Any polling advantage Democrats gained after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade appears to have dissipated.
- Some elections analysts cautioned against reading too much into the poll’s subsamples due to the small numbers of voters sampled but it’s clear voter preferences are shifting and the economy is the reason why.
- The poll even found former President Donald Trump leading President Joe Biden in a hypothetical rematch by 45 to 44 percent. Both septuagenarians have underwater approval ratings with majorities of voters having unfavorable opinions of the two.
- An AP-NORC poll also released Monday confirmed the NYT/Siena survey’s findings on the economy. According to the poll, 63 percent of voters believe the midterms will have “a great deal or quite a bit of an impact” on the economy and an identical 63 percent disapprove of how President Biden is handling the economy.
- The chief political analyst for The New York Times, Nate Cohn, wrote the NYT/Siena College poll showed a “modest but notable swing” from their September poll and the latest warning sign for Democrats along with strong polls for Republicans in top Senate contests.
- CNN linked the NYT/Siena College poll with recent surveys from CBS/YouGov and AP-NORC that each found substantial majorities of voters think the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction and the economy is worsening on Joe Biden’s watch, tilting the political environment in favor of the G.O.P.
- The Washington Post dispatched reporters to four swing-state NFL stadiums to talk to fans at tailgate lots. Their reporters spoke to voters who said the economy, inflation, immigration, and abortion were some of their top issues ahead of the midterms.
- Fox News highlighted the substantial swing among independent female voters in the NYT/Siena College poll. Independent female voters went from supporting Democrats by 14 points in September to backing Republicans by 18 points in October, a massive 32-point shift.
- National Review’s Charlie Cooke wrote the poll’s results made it clear why Republicans were in the lead – and it’s not complicated: “Americans don’t like their Democratic president, and they aren’t happy with the status quo.”
- Breitbart noted another recent poll – the October Harris Poll/Harris X survey – showed 66% of voters said either inflation or the economy were their top issues. The poll found voters believed the perceived concerns of Republicans better aligned with their priorities than Democrats’ perceived priorities.
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
