As candidates throw darts at each other in the final weeks of the 2022 midterm election, Utah voters say the economy is their number one concern when choosing a senator or member of Congress.
A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found that 28% of Utah residents selected the economy from a list of nine topics presented in the poll. This means that the opinion of a candidate on the role of the federal government as a second choice has more than doubled to 13%.
Health, education and environmental protection follow with 9%, as well as “other” or a topic that is not on the list. Abortion, gun control/Secondary Protection of the Constitution, immigration, and views on the structure of the US Supreme Court, in that order, rounded out the answers.
Persistent record inflation, high food prices, tight family budgets and the prospect of a recession make the economy an obvious issue on voters’ minds as the midterm elections draw closer.
The poll results point to the challenge facing Democratic and independent candidates in this election cycle, said Chris Karpowitz, co-director of the Center for Election Studies and Democracy at Brigham Young University.
“That probably won’t work in favor of Democrats, but it will work in favor of Republicans,” he said.
Republicans have blamed President Joe Biden for the state of the economy and recorded inflation in campaign speeches and ads. GOP candidates have also blasted what they call the Democrats’ misnamed Anti-Inflation Act, calling it a tax and spending spree and a means of enforcing their partisan agenda.
The law represents the largest investment in fighting climate change in U.S. history, allows Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for the most expensive prescription drugs, and extends health care subsidies through the 2024 election.
The poll showed that Republicans and Democrats are in sharp disagreement over the issue that matters most to them when choosing a senator or congressman.
For Republican voters, the economy was by far the most important issue at 37%, followed by views on the role of the federal government. Environmental protection was the top issue for Democratic voters at 28%, followed by health care.
“One thing you can see from that is just the different agendas that the political parties have. For Democrats, caring for the environment and health care are two top priorities. It’s different for Republicans,” Karpowitz said.
A fifth of non-party or independent voters identified the economy as the most important issue, but it was more evenly distributed across all the issues listed.
Independent voters who choose the economy as the most important issue are unlikely to help the Democrats, Karpowitz said. The fact that independent voters are more evenly spread across multiple issues suggests either they don’t pay much attention to politics or that they have a variety of concerns that can’t be pinpointed to one party or another, he said.
Four out of 10 Utahns who described themselves as “very” or “somewhat” conservative in the poll chose the economy as the top issue in this year’s election. Those who described themselves as “rather” liberal chose health care, while “very” liberal voters chose environmental protection.
Dan Jones & Associates conducted the poll for the Deseret News and Hinckley Institute of 815 registered voters in Utah September 3-21. It has an error rate of plus or minus 3.43 percentage points.
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