30 Percent Of Voters Say The Economy Is The Top Issue

Scott reveals why voter priorities right now are bad news for Donald Trump.

Full transcript:

Scott Rasmussen  0:07  

Good morning, Scott Rasmussen here. Welcome to my podcast, Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm gonna jump right into it today. The number today is 30. In terms of how they will vote this year, 30% of voters say the economy is the top issue. And, you know, look, we're in the midst of an economic crisis. That's not really a surprise. In fact, normally, in a economic times like this, I'd expect a whole lot more people would be saying the economy is the issue. But in these times, the number two and three issues have also carved out a very significant place in the mind of the electorate. The second most important issue among all voters nationwide is health care. We're in a pandemic, you know, who could, who could argue with that? The third issue: civil rights. Again, not really a surprise in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the tensions that we're seeing played out around the country. So, these are the top three issues: the economy, health care and civil rights. And I'm going to talk today about why this particular mix of issues is really bad news for Donald Trump. In fact, if the election were held today, he would lose. Now I'll be back to explain that and add some thoughts right after these messages.

Scott Rasmussen  1:31  

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott, and today's number is 30. 30 % of voters nationwide say that the economy is the top voting issue. Number two and three on the voters list: health care and civil rights. I'm going to argue that these, this particular mix of issues, is really bad news for Donald Trump. And, you know, one of the reasons I know that? We've literally just conducted a poll for JusttheNews.com, released it yesterday. It shows the president is trailing Joe Biden by 12 points. If the election were held today among registered voters, it's 48% for Biden, 36% for Trump. Now, look, I know that a lot of the President's fans will say 'Oh, no, that's, that's registered voters, you need to do likely voters. President bace is far more enthusiastic.' And, okay. You know, it might might very well happen that way. It might be that the enthusiasm of President Trump's base would cut that 12-point margin to an eight or nine or 10-point margin. Still, the President would be badly defeated. The Republicans would likely lose the Senate and they'd be wiped out in the House. The only bad news that I can find for Democrats in that poll is that the election is not being held today. And that's a really significant point, because things have changed dramatically in the last four or five months and they could change dramatically again in the next four or five months before votes are cast in November. If you recall, when this year began, you know, before we heard of the coronavirus or before we heard much about it, there was a general sense that the economy was doing well, we were seeing record low unemployment numbers. The consensus such as it was said, basically, if the economy keeps going and there are no big surprises, the President is a favorite for reelection. Far from a sure thing, but again, assuming that the economy kept going, I think most folks would have said, 'Yeah, the President has the advantage.' In fact, Democrats were still trying to decide whether Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders or somebody else was going to be their nominee. Well, things certainly look different today. The top three issues. Two of them are pretty standard, the economy and health care, but they have a much different feeling today than they did in January. Again, in January, we're dealing with record low levels of unemployment and wondering if it would continue. Now, we have dealt with this incredible shutdown of the economy by the government. 40 million people thrown out of work. And the question is, how do we bring it back? Second, big surprise. In the midst of all of that, the healthcare crisis. The healthcare issues are much different. You know, in January, there was still the lingering debate about how do you solve healthcare and people didn't really like the idea of a single-payer plan. Bernie Sanders' approach would have been a real, having him as a nominee presenting his single-payer plan would have been a great gift to Donald Trump. But, instead now we're focused on how do you deal with a pandemic. And the third issue right now, civil rights, wasn't on anybody's mind when the year began. I mean, I shouldn't say that, that's overstating it, but it certainly wasn't one of the top voting issues. And I think what's really significant about this, you know, Republicans and Democrats have their own priorities but independent voters today, the top issue is the economy. Number two is civil rights. The more that the news focuses on civil rights topics, the more that the independent voters focus on these topics, the worse it is for President Trump. This is focusing on one of his big weaknesses. He would much rather be talking about record low unemployment. He's hoping that by November, he can be talking about record numbers of people coming back to work. But if the issue mix stays focused around things, in addition to the economic recovery, well, then the president is likely to lose. Obviously, none of us know what the world is going to look like in late October and early November. So, you can't read too much into this right now. And there are some other cautionary notes in terms of what we might expect going forward. I'll be back with some thoughts on that right after some messages from our sponsor and also want to encourage you to share this podcast and subscribe to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. You can find it wherever you download your favorite podcast. You can also find it at JusttheNews.com. I'll be back with some closing thoughts right after this.

Scott Rasmussen  6:26  

Welcome back to Scott Rasmussen's Number of the Day. I'm Scott, but number today is 30. 30% of voters say that the economy is the top voting issue. Healthcare and civil rights are numbers two and three. And, by the way, for any of the numbers that I talked about, you can find the number of the day at ballotpedia.org. You can find cross tabs at ScottRasmussen.com along with some information about how the survey was done and when and those sorts of things. The presidential poll I mentioned showing Joe Biden up by 12 points was released yesterday at JusttheNews.com. We released new polling data there every day at 2pm ET. But getting back to the the particular issue mix, if we're still talking about civil rights as a big issue in October and November, that's probably going to lead to the defeat of the president unless he changes his tone or his policies. If we are talking about the economy in the context that we're talking about it right now. Yeah, there's a slight preference for the president on economic issues. But very slight, that's not going to be enough to change the dynamic. So, what could change things? What could change the dynamic today? Again, you have to recognize it is possible, because the world looks so, the polling for the presidential race, looks so much different than it did four or five months ago, it could look much different four or five months from now. One hint is if you begin to look at the polling data a couple of weeks ago, the president and Joe Biden were tied among independent voters in our poll. Now, the president trails by 13. But, it's not a case of voters switching from Trump to Biden. Instead, it was a group of Trump supporters who say now, you know, they're a little bit hesitant. They're not sure if they want to support him. The fact that they went from supporting the president to undecided in the midst of all of this suggests, yeah, they still could come home. They might come back and support the president, depending on what happens between now and November. They're really, though the issues themselves, are what will define the race. Let's take a look at the economy. If, in the next three or four months, we have progressively better and better employment numbers, if more and more people are going back to work, and if there is not a recurrence of the pandemic, the President will benefit from the fact that he has been pushing people to reopen, society to reopen the economy consistently. So, if it works, that will help the president a lot, and he could very well win reelection. On the other hand, if there aren't, when you look at health care, if the pandemic, if there's a second wave, if things are looking really bad in September and October, and we're having reports, anything like we saw this spring, the President could suffer an historic defeat, it could be on the magnitude of the way FDR defeated Herbert Hoover in the midst of the depression in 1932. I mean, I don't want to overstate this, but this could be very, very bad for Republicans if the pandemic returns. Now, the other issue and this is one that, you know, is really very unpredictable. I guess all of them are. But it's how do these protests play out? Obviously, there's legitimate reasons to be protesting in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. There is a strong belief in America that there is not equal justice under the law. So, people are concerned about that. And most voters, by the way, say that most of the protesters are peacefully trying to express legitimate grievances. There's a few bad apples out there causing the problems. Well, if that perception shifts, if all of a sudden we're talking about a need for law and order rather than a focus on civil rights, that too, would benefit President Trump. You know, the more you shift to an issue that is stronger for the Republicans, and right now, Republicans are looking at law and order is a very important issue. No other segment of the population is. If that becomes a reality, a more widespread reality, then the numbers could change. The point of all of this, though, you know, in the poll that we're talking about with showing but the key issues and the polls were talking about showing the president trailing badly in the presidential race are the way the world looks today. In normal political times, things don't shift all that much between now and election day. You know, when George Bush and Barack Obama ran for reelection, the numbers didn't change all that much throughout the year. But this year is different. It is very volatile. And we have no idea what is what is going to happen this fall. I could easily make the case that the President will have a very good reelection night. And I could just as easily make the case that he will have, he will suffer a historic defeat. The decision will not be made by his campaign tactics or what Joe Biden says. It will be determined, by the way events play out between now and election day. 

Scott Rasmussen  11:50  

That's it for today's Number of the Day. I'll be back with another number tomorrow morning at 8am. I certainly hope you'll join me for that. Share this podcast with your friends. Subscribe at JusttheNews.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And as always, look for details on the numbers at ScottRasmussen.com. Have a great day.