In polling conducted this month, Fox News cut to the chase, asking Americans what issues or candidate qualities would be most important to their vote. The responses were interesting, with frequent divides on issue importance among supporters of the two major-party candidates reflecting the extent to which those issues or qualities are understood to be advantageous to the candidates.
It’s an iteration of a perennial chicken-vs.-egg problem in polling: Do people who back Trump do so because they are more likely to cite “candidate age and mental soundness” or immigration as important issues — or are they more likely to point to these as important issues because they back Trump? Are supporters of President Biden more likely to point to “candidate integrity” as important because it’s actually more important to their vote or because both sides understand that “integrity” is a means of evaluating views of Trump’s legal issues?
What stands out in the polling, though, is the issue at the top, the one that the most respondents identified as extremely important to their 2024 presidential vote: the future of American democracy. There’s a partisan split here, too, with Biden supporters (and Democrats more generally) being more likely than independents or Republicans to say that it is extremely or very important to their vote. This makes sense, given the focus Biden has put on the issue, largely as a response to the aftermath of 2020.
But nearly everyone included in the poll says that the issue is at least very important — and very nearly two-thirds of Republicans say it is extremely important to their vote.
The Fox News poll went a useful step further, too, asking people to explain how they actually viewed the perceived threat to democracy. Was it concern about free and fair elections? Or was it more broadly concern about Americans’ rights and freedoms?
Most respondents said it was the latter, including a majority of Republicans and a plurality of Democrats.
Among those with a college degree, a group that leans toward Biden, views were about split. Among those without one, “rights and freedoms” had a wide advantage.
The choices here are admittedly somewhat unsatisfying. But the responses nonetheless undercut the idea that Republican concerns about democracy are centered mostly on the false idea that elections have been tainted by fraud or negative influence. Instead, it suggests that rhetoric from Trump and others accusing Biden or the left of attacking speech or otherwise subverting freedom have been more potent. For Democrats, too, the perceived threat is about more than the literal exercise of democratic rights, probably reflecting concerns about how Trump would conduct himself if reelected.
Asked which candidate they trusted to address the future of democracy, Biden had only a narrow advantage. On net, respondents were 6 points more likely to express trust in Biden than Trump (52 percent to 46 percent).
Remarkably, given the narrative about the 2024 race, Biden had the advantage on a number of issues included in Fox New’s polling. In addition to the 6-point edge on the future of democracy, he also had an advantage on “stability and normalcy” and “standing up to elite interests” — a centerpiece of right-wing rhetoric for years that was viewed as far less important to voters than other issues.
Trump’s advantage on the economy is probably his most important one. He has a wider advantage on immigration — but it’s seen as less important to voters than several other issues, like health care (where Biden has a big advantage). This is where the chicken-egg problem manifests: Republicans think immigration is a centrally important issue and back Trump heavily, but the issue sat in the middle of the pack among those the pollsters asked about.
This is only one poll, of course, and one that lands more than four months before Election Day. Issue importance can and does shift, as do perceptions of who is better able to deal with those issues. It seems safe to assume, though, that the question of American democracy will continue to be at the top of voters’ minds, regardless of party — and that views of the nature of that threat extend well beyond the democratic process itself.
