Will This New Poll Send Ripples of Anxiety Through the Democratic Party?

It's time to review another horror show poll for Democrats. It's not quite Donald Trump leading Joe Biden by nine points in a not-so-hypothetical rematch (caveats and outlier cross-tabs granted), but it was likely met with no small measure consternation among Democrats. This batch of data comes from NBC News, and rather than tracking head-to-head dynamics in a way-too-early horse race, it asked Americans about major issues. The results? Not only do Republicans hold a distinct advantage on some of the foremost issues facing the nation, including the biggest one, they are also in better shape than their critics might expect or hope on other fronts, too. Some top lines:

NBC poll on the issues pic.twitter.com/WAIiHkEf4s
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 5, 2023

Voters overwhelmingly say they trust Republicans to do a better job than Democrats dealing with border security, crime, the economy and immigration, a new national NBC News poll finds. By some smaller margins, registered voters also say Democrats are better on health care, abortion, the coronavirus and education. And the two parties are essentially tied on protecting democracy and looking out for the middle class. “On this survey after 20 or 30 years, Republicans dealing with the economy [versus Democrats], immigration and crime are all at their all-time highs,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted the poll alongside Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt and his team at Hart Research.

All-time highs in the decades-long polling series for the GOP, on the top issue on voters' minds (the economy), and other areas of major concern (crime, immigration). If that's not enough to create ripples of panic on the Left, one can imagine how they feel about Republicans running ahead on protecting Constitutional rights, while virtually tied on protecting democracy (!) and caring about the middle class. Bright spots in an otherwise dark poll for Democrats are healthcare and abortion, on which they lead by double digits. Republicans are doing a lousy job of communicating about abortion, including about Democrats' insane stance on the issue, which is compounded by particularly aggressive media bias in that realm. Democrats typically have a big advantage on healthcare, though the direction they'd like to head next on that policy front is quite unpopular (also, with the "Affordable" Care Act in place, though not fully intact, healthcare keeps getting less affordable).

Most mystifying are Democrats' leads on COVID and education. The latter issue has gotten closer in recent years, but given the immense harm Democrats inflicted upon the education and wellbeing of children during COVID, it's distressing to see them ahead at all on these questions. People have short memories. Virginia Republicans are leaning back into education, for very good reason, in the off-year elections. Let's see how those play out. Back to the economy. NBC isn't an outlier in measuring an all-time high water mark for the GOP on this top issue:

GALLUP reports all-time high in voters preferring Republicans on the economy. Series started in 1951. pic.twitter.com/4FcFQu3cAh
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 3, 2023

How is this translating into electoral politics? Nearly every major survey points to a very tight, competitive race right now, at least on the national level. Some state-level polls look very similar to 2020 results, others look slightly better for Trump, and still others look worse for him. It's all too early anyway, but this is a fair overall assessment:

You can doubt all you want to be that the election is going to be this competitive; I'm quite skeptical. But you just can't deny what the polling shows right now, and what it shows right now is that Trump has an excellent chance of pulling the Grover Cleveland. https://t.co/kKrgb2t17I
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) October 5, 2023

I'd replace "excellent" with "real," but that's generally right, as things stand right now. If issue-based dynamics are roughly equivalent to where they are next year around this time, which is a big if, Republicans once again should be well-positioned to win a lot of elections. But we experienced an eerily similar dynamic before the 2022 midterms, and we remember how those turned out. One more caveat: The polling data cited above was all gathered before this dysfunctional chaos gripped House Republicans. I don't tend to believe that such episodes are terribly harmful to the GOP in isolation, but swing and independent voters don't like instability. Republicans were split on the McCarthy ouster; independents...were not. This current ongoing mess could feel like ancient history by next fall, but not if more insanity continues to unfold, and the "can't govern" perceptions are too fresh and strong. I'll leave you with this continuation of a Democratic strategy: