The economy is the dominant issue for midterm voters in this fall’s congressional elections.

As Americans express growing concerns about economic conditions and the cost of necessities, 84% of registered voters say the economy is very important to their midterm vote.

It is the top issue among both voters who prefer Republican candidates in the congressional elections (82%) and those who back Democrats (88%).

Clear majorities of Republican and Democratic voters also say the future of democracy is very important to their vote – though Democrats are more likely to say this than Republicans (85% vs. 69%, respectively).

Republican and Democratic voters differ considerably over the importance of many other issues asked about on the survey.

The two largest differences across the 16 items asked on the survey are on “investigations into Trump and his administration” (56 percentage point gap), as well as environmental and climate policy (51 percentage point gap) – both of which rank as very important for most Democratic voters but far fewer Republican voters.

There are also sizable gaps on violent crime (which Republican voters are considerably more likely to see as important to their vote) and issues around race and ethnicity, healthcare and education (which Democrats are more likely to see as important to their vote).

Artificial intelligence (AI) ranks fairly low as an election issue: 44% of voters say it is very important to their vote this year. However, Democratic voters (54%) are more likely to say it is very important to their vote than Republican voters (34%).

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