The following is from Gallup News.
Amid the heightened numbers of migrants entering the United States at the Southern border and discord in the Middle East, Americans have grown more anxious about immigration and terrorism over the past year. At the same time, with the inflation rate down from 2023, public concern about that issue has eased.
Nevertheless, more Americans still say they worry about inflation than any of 13 other issues rated in the new survey.
Gallup finds a slightly different rank-order of concerns with its “most important problem facing this country” question.
For the second straight month, immigration leads Americans’ unprompted answers about what most ails the nation, with inflation also figuring prominently.
Six Issues Worrisome to Majority of Americans
Gallup asks Americans to rate their concern about a variety of national issues each March as part of its Environment poll. This year’s survey, conducted March 1-20, asked respondents about 14 different issues, most of which have been tracked regularly since 2001.
The 55% of Americans who worry “a great deal” about inflation is just slightly above the percentages concerned about five other domestic issues that are troubling to majorities of Americans.
These are crime and violence (53%), hunger and homelessness (52%), the economy (52%), the availability and affordability of healthcare (51%), and federal spending and the budget deficit (51%).
Another four issues are highly concerning to less than half but at least four in 10 Americans: illegal immigration (48%), drug use (45%), the Social Security system (43%) and the possibility of future terrorist attacks in the U.S. (43%).
In addition, fewer than four in 10 worry a great deal about the availability and affordability of energy (37%) and the quality of the environment (37%).
Race relations (35%) and unemployment (33%) garner the least concern, with about a third highly worried about each.
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The problem with this NATIONAL poll is that the US votes for president with the electoral college, NOT the popular vote. Hence, a national poll ranking the importance of issues isn’t really applicable to a national election or the way a president gets elected.
For instance, abortion isn’t considered by this poll as an important issue, and it’s become less of a national issue since it was ruled a matter for states to decide for themselves. Yet a controversy just broke out in Arizona due to its Supreme Court resurrecting an Arizona law from over 100 years ago banning abortion. That could conceivably become the biggest issue for Arizona voters in the coming election while not being a major issue for other states and not even being a blip in this Gallup pole.
Yet how Arizona votes could possibly determine the result of the presidential election via the electoral vote, based on a single issue — a hundred-year-old Arizona law that has ZERO impact on any other state.
This isn’t the first, or even the tenth time I’ve pointed out that Gallup polls are often wrong or meaningless.