The latest Emerson poll of likely voters from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 once again shows that the top issues in the 2024 election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are the economy and inflation at 41 percent and immigration at 17 percent—and Trump still holds substantial leads over Harris on both issues.
On those saying the economy and inflation are the top issues, Trump’s lead was 62.5 percent to 35.2 percent. On those saying immigration, Trump’s lead was 84.1 percent to 15.8 percent. The most important issues remained consistent from September, when Emerson showed 43 percent saying the economy and inflation and 15 percent saying immigration.
The other top issues were threats to democracy at 11 percent, abortion access at 7 percent, health care at 6 percent and housing affordability at 5 percent, with Harris holding substantial leads on all of those issues.
On democracy voters, Harris leads 92.1 percent to 7.9 percent. Among abortion voters, Harris leads 90.2 percent to 8.3 percent. On health care voters, Harris leads 72.9 percent to 23.7 percent. And on housing affordability, Harris leads 81.8 percent to 18.2 percent.
On that basis, with voters evenly divided among their issues groups, Harris holds a narrow 2-point lead for the national popular vote, 49.6 percent to 48.2 percent — with 1.2 percent saying someone else and 1 percent saying undecided.
Among independents, Trump led the poll 53.9 percent to 41.1 percent, Harris leads Democrats 94.2 percent to 4.6 percent. And among Republicans, Trump leads 89.4 percent to 9.7 percent.
That could still be bad news for Harris, given the recent history of Democrats winning pluralities of the popular vote but not majorities, and ultimately losing narrowly in the Electoral College, as Al Gore and Hillary Clinton did in 2000 and 2016.
For example, election forecaster Nate Silver’s most recent projection states that if Harris wins the popular vote by less than 2 points — the Emerson poll shows a 1.4 percent edge — when that breaks down into the Electoral College, that translates to a 68.4 percent chance of Trump prevailing with about a 281 to 254 Electoral College win.
Suffice to say, if the election boils down to the economy and immigration it could be a very good day for Trump in November.
On the other hand, given the pluralities on the issues of importance — with no clear majority saying any particular issue — and their stability month to month in the Emerson and other polls the race looks very, very close with little margin for change given only 1 percent say they are undecided. With just a month to go, all eyes will be looking towards get out the vote operations in the critical battleground states. Stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
