Economy, healthcare, Iran war top voters’ concerns ahead of midterms: Gallup

The most important issues that U.S. voters care about in the upcoming elections are economy, healthcare and the war in Iran, according to a poll released Thursday.

In Gallup’s latest poll, half of the respondents said the economy and healthcare would be extremely important to their vote this year. About 47 percent of registered voters also highlighted that the war in Iran would be an extremely important issue to their vote, while 30 percent said it was very important.

The conflict, which started earlier this year, has been a persistent matter of concern to the public. Earlier in August, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 50 percent of Americans said they believe the war will decrease stability in the Middle East. Another poll in July showed two-thirds of Americans said the war is not worth the risks.

Out of the 11 issues rated in the Gallup poll, climate change came last, with only 29 percent of voters regarding it as extremely important.

While the economy was highly rated, it was still lower than it was in the poll conducted in 2010, where 63 percent of respondents cited it as an extremely important issue, according to the Gallup report.

The ratings for immigration as an issue fell somewhere in the middle, which Gallup says has not changed much in every midterm since 2018. About 40 percent of respondents rated the issue as extremely important.

The latest poll noted that Democratic voters were more likely to assign importance to the issues compared with the Republicans. Immigration and crime seemed to be the only issues where both sides had similar ratings, with a higher score from Republicans.

Among independent voters, the economy proved to be the issue of highest importance, followed by healthcare and Iran.

The poll was conducted through phone interviews between Oct. 1 and 19 and sampled 1,057 registered voters. The poll has a margin of error of around 4 percentage points.