Ahead of First Debate, Voters Want to Hear About the Economy and Are Concerned Trump Will Cut Taxes for the Wealthy
The first presidential election debate of 2024 between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be hosted by CNN on Thursday, June 27. A new Data for Progress survey examines voters’ impressions of the upcoming election, including what they want to hear from the candidates on the debate stage and what policies they believe Trump will actually try to implement if elected president.
A majority of voters (56%), including 61% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans, say they plan to watch the first presidential election debate, while 32% say maybe and 12% say no.
However, swing voters are more split, with 41% saying they will watch, 43% saying maybe, and 16% saying no.
Data for Progress’ recent report on swing voters, which introduced a new methodology for identifying such voters, underscored that they are less interested in politics than likely voters overall, and this is reflected in this new polling. In addition to reporting a lower rate of planning to watch the debate, swing voters also report a significantly higher rate of becoming “somewhat less interested” or “much less interested” in American politics and elections over the last five years (41%), compared with Democrats (21%) and Republicans (23%).
Next, voters who said they will or might watch the debate were asked which topics they most want to hear Biden and Trump discuss on the debate stage. The two issues these voters want to hear most about are the economy, jobs, and inflation (45%) and immigration (37%).
A plurality of swing voters choose the economy, jobs, and inflation (45%), followed by immigration (29%), programs like Social Security and Medicare (27%), taxes and government spending (21%), and abortion (19%). Democrats’ top issues are abortion (38%) followed by the economy (33%), while Republicans choose the economy (58%) and immigration (55%).
The survey also provided voters with several options to describe how they feel about the 2024 presidential election between Biden and Trump.
A whopping 73% of swing voters say they “wish we had different choices,” compared with 38% of Democrats and 27% of Republicans.
Only 8% of voters, including 11% of Republicans, 8% of Democrats, and 1% of swing voters, say they are “pleased with our options.”
At least a third of voters across party lines say they “want it to be over.”
A plurality of Democrats say they are “nervous,” compared with 30% of Republicans and 21% of swing voters.
A quarter of Republicans (25%) say they are excited, compared with 22% of Democrats and only 7% of swing voters.
Lastly, the survey provided voters with various policies and actions that Trump has proposed for a second term if he is elected president and gauged their concern about each action, as well as whether they think Trump will implement them.
Voters broadly think Trump will implement each of these policies, with the highest percentages of voters saying he will conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants (77%), pardon himself and others for crimes committed on Jan. 6, 2021 (60%), take legal action against his political opponents (58%), roll back clean energy initiatives (58%), and enact a 10% tariff on all imports to the U.S. (55%).
A strong majority of voters say they are concerned that Trump will cut Social Security and Medicare (74%), make it easier to overturn the results of a presidential election (66%), cut taxes for wealthy Americans (64%), eliminate the Department of Education (63%), fire civil service employees (62%), enact a national ban on abortion (61%), withdraw the U.S. from NATO (61%), and loosen restrictions on firearms (60%).
There are a few notable areas where the percentage of voters who are concerned about a particular policy proposal is significantly higher than the percentage who believe that Trump will actually implement that proposal. This includes cutting Social Security and Medicare (+32 points), eliminating the DOE (+24), making it easier to overturn elections (+17), firing civil service employees (+15), withdrawing the U.S. from NATO (+14), cutting taxes for wealthy Americans (+12), and enacting a national ban on abortion (+11).
Broadly, this survey finds that voters who will or might watch the debate are most interested in hearing about the economy and immigration. While voters are highly concerned about potential Trump actions such as cutting Social Security and Medicare, making it easier to overturn elections, and cutting taxes on the wealthy, lower percentages of voters believe that Trump will actually implement these proposals.