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Of those surveyed, 57 percent reported the cost of living as one of their three most pressing issues in this midterm election.
Democrats have finally begun to listen to a growing number of campaign veterans, including some who have written here at the Prospect, about the need to center the economy and the cost-of-living challenges for ordinary Americans in their closing midterm message. As The New York Times pointed out on Tuesday (crediting us), Democrats have shifted from a primary focus on the loss of abortion rights from the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, unveiling messages about their record of passing legislation to lower costs, as well as Republican threats to bedrock financial security programs like Social Security.
A new poll from Democracy Corps shared with the Prospect shows how Democrats lost ground by failing to foreground that economic message sooner, as well as how progress can still be made with a laser-like focus on those concerns.
Like other polls, the survey shows Republicans gaining ground, moving from being down three points in the generic ballot in September among all respondents (47-50) to even (49-49), and to +2 among likely voters (50-48). Democrats have lost support among all subgroups, but particularly Gen Z (-8), white unmarried women (-6), and white working-class women under 50 (-6). Support from moderate Republicans (+9) and Republican defectors (+3) has actually picked up, but support from moderate Democrats has fallen off (-8).
While Democrats are seeing real damage on immigration and the border—as pollster Stan Greenberg, who conducted the 2,500-person survey, put it in a statement, this is “exactly what the Republican governors intended when they put those refugees on buses”—the election remains primarily about the cost of living. Of those surveyed, 57 percent reported the cost of living as one of their three most pressing issues; nothing else registered above 39 percent, and crime and violence (35 percent) and immigration (26 percent) were even lower than that. (The future of democratic elections registered at only 15 percent; abortion was down to 22 percent.)
But this focus on inflation and rising costs also offers an opportunity for Democrats by using the message they are pivoting to in the race’s final stages.
Democracy Corps tested four messages from Democrats. The first empathizes with voters (“Working people haven’t seen a real pay increase in years”), foregrounds what Democrats have done on rising costs (“Democrats raised taxes on the big corporations and lowered costs for working families by cutting their taxes, reducing health care, prescription drug, and energy costs, and went after price gouging”), and adds how Republicans have worked to stop these efforts (“Republicans get their money from big oil and big pharmaceutical special interests”).
After this message, voters give Democrats positive approval marks, and it raises Democrats’ standing in the generic ballot by one point. The most resonant part of the message, respondents say, is the part about how working people haven’t seen a raise in years, a message that shows understanding of the plight of ordinary people.
The other three messages tested do not fare nearly as well. Democracy Corps tested splitting the cost-of-living message by adding a line about abortion; or making it cost of living and abortion, plus a line about extreme Republican candidates who don’t support sensible changes to gun laws; and a “national message” that pairs a laundry list of Democratic accomplishments (like the infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act to reshore semiconductor manufacturing) with the messages on extreme Republicans and abortion. After hearing all three of these other messages, Democrats lose ground in the generic ballot.
The most resonant part of the message is the part about how working people haven’t seen a raise in years.
“This survey shows that embracing the cost-of-living message keeps you in the game,” Greenberg said. “The opposite happens if Democrats continue with their current, out-of-touch national message.”
Democrats could point to real-world data to buttress this message. Corporations continue to raise prices, claiming they have to in order to meet their profit targets. Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider, in the same breath, lamented in an analyst call last week that the company is “in catch-up mode towards repairing and restoring our gross margin,” while also announcing that the company would have enough money in reserve to buy the Seattle’s Best Coffee brand away from Starbucks. Though profits were supposed to crater in the third quarter, over two-thirds have beaten estimates, which is above the historic average.
Last weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi updated members with her closing argument, “Democrats’ Fight to Lower the Cost of Living,” which is somewhat consistent with the cost-of-living message that fared well in tests. The letter notes that “we’re all feeling the sting of higher prices here at home,” and hits “greedy corporations and special interests” who have taken advantage of supply chain shortages by “raising prices to obscene levels.” It highlights how Democrats attempted to make progress through lowering the cost of prescription drugs in future years, cutting energy bills, “delivering a vital lifeline” by expanding the Child Tax Credit, attempting to prevent price-gouging, and “making the wealthiest few and corporations pay their fair share.” And it notes that Republicans voted against all of these measures.
While promising to do more to bring down rising costs based on bills the House passed (like investments in housing and family care and extending the expanded Child Tax Credit), Pelosi notes that Republicans “are deep in the pocket of the ultra-rich donors and big corporations who fill their campaign coffers.” She notes that Republicans would seek to roll back the Medicare drug price negotiation passed in the Inflation Reduction Act, and are taking openly about using the debt limit to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Setting aside what Democrats would actually be willing to do with renewed control of Congress, this message and the one that proved successful in polling tests are broadly similar.
