A Cook Report/BSG/GS Strategy Group poll found that voters are more concerned about President Joe Biden’s inflation and open border policies than they are about former President Donald Trump’s abortion policies.
Polls seem to confirm that Trump’s messaging on immigration and the economy is disrupting and undermining Biden’s most popular issue in the 2024 election: health care, essentially making him less politically attractive.
Trump’s platform essentially holds that abortion is a state issue, while Biden sees it as a federal issue, and while Biden has higher approval ratings on the abortion issue, his support for it has not outweighed Trump’s more popular economic and immigration policies, polls have found.
Cook Political Report editor-in-chief Amy Walter and senior editor David Wasserman explained the data behind the cross-pressure nexus:
Among all voters, 73% listed inflation/cost of living as one of their top three issues, followed by immigration/border security at 52% and abortion/reproductive rights at 35%. Among women, abortion ranked third (inflation 73%, immigration 48%, abortion 42%), while abortion/reproductive rights ranked fourth among independents.
When voters were asked whether they were more worried about Biden’s economic policies or Trump’s abortion rights policies, 55% said they were more worried about Biden’s economic policies than Trump’s abortion policies (45%). In fact, college-educated women were the only demographic group outside of Democrats who said they were more worried about Trump’s abortion policies than Biden’s economic policies.
On immigration, the top issue of concern for voters in these battleground states, 53% of voters said they were more concerned about Biden setting immigration policy in a second term, while 47% said they were more concerned about Trump setting abortion policy.
poll investigated Between May 6 and May 13, 2024, 3,969 voters will cast their ballots in seven battleground states.
The Cook Political Report’s findings were first explained by Rui Teixeira, a highly respected liberal political scientist and adjunct senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who wrote a detailed analysis examining the political “cross-pressure” between immigration and health care issues among the 2024 electorate.
The “cross-pressure” nexus identifies a group of voters who support both America First immigration policies (detention and deportation, asylum restrictions, border walls) and Biden’s most popular overall policy: Medicare price negotiations.
In eight pieces of data covering the “reciprocal pressure” nexus, Teixeira argued that Trump’s immigration policies have thwarted and weakened the appeal of Biden’s most popular issues, thus essentially making Biden less politically attractive in 2024.
Teixeira based his analysis on Biden’s historically low approval ratings reported by Breitbart News and Trump’s advantages in battleground states.
Wendell Fsebo is a political reporter for Breitbart News and a former Republican War Room analyst. The Politics of Slave MoralityFollow Wendell “Bat” @WendellHusebø or The truth of society @WendellHusebo.
