Greatest concern among voters is inflation, survey finds

Story at a glance

• A number of high-profile races are happening on Tuesday, May 24 in states like Georgia, Texas, Arkansas and Alabama.

• A recent survey from the GenForward Project found that the issue at the top of voters’ minds ahead of the midterm election is inflation and the country’s economic growth.

• While many respondents recognized the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine’s role in making prices go up, many blamed President Biden directly.

Midterm election primaries are taking place in a handful of states Tuesday, which will most likely turn into a referendum election for President Biden. There are some big races on ballots in Georgia, Texas, Arkansas and Alabama with three Republicans facing off in the state to replace U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby.

In Arkansas, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served under former President Trump, is presumed to win the Republican nomination for governor, according to The Associated Press. In Texas, current Attorney General Ken Paxton is facing off against land commissioner George P. Bush, the current only remaining member of the Bush political family who holds elected office.

Some of the most consequential elections are taking place in Georgia, which are pitting fellow party members against one another.

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On Tuesday, voters decide between gubernatorial incumbent Brian Kemp and David Perdue, who are backed by former Vice President Mike Pence and former President Trump, respectively.

Although it is tough to predict the results of an election, researchers behind the GenForward project at the University of Chicago note Americans’ concerns about inflation will play a major role in midterm election outcomes.

“That is going [to] pretty much be the number one issue in the midterms, barring some sort of huge current event between now and November,” said Vladimir Medenica, assistant professor of political science at the University of Delaware and one of the crafters of the survey. “That’s what people encounter on a day-to-day basis.”

Over 4,000 people 18 years old and up participated in the survey, which is typically conducted and released four times a year, according to Medenica.

Inflation in the United States hit a 40-year high in December of 2021 and continued to go up throughout the winter and early spring months, according to data from Statista.  Numbers dropped slightly from March to April, with the price of goods and services increasing by 8.3 percent from the time last year.

As part of the survey, respondents also had to say who or what they attributed inflation to and over a quarter of respondents recognized the COVID-19 pandemic’s unique role in causing prices to skyrocket and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, particularly at the gas pump, Medenica told Changing America.

But almost a quarter of respondents blamed President Biden directly for inflation, according to the survey, something that Medenica said was to be expected.

“Biden is a national figurehead who’s in a very visible, prominent position. So, anything that goes on in the country, it’s pretty easy to blame it on the President,” said Medenica. “That’s going to be something that the Democrats have to sort of grapple with when it comes to the midterms.”

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