Poll: Democrats slightly lead Republicans on economy heading into midterms

Voters are favoring Democrats when it comes to the economy, according to the latest The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, with the midterm elections just over a week away.

“The economy has historically been one of the Republican Party’s strongest issues with voters, so seeing Democrats holding even a slight advantage in voter trust should be a warning sign for Republicans heading into November," said pollster Mike Noble. “When voters aren’t giving you the benefit of the doubt on an issue that’s traditionally been in your wheelhouse, that’s a problem.”

The poll surveyed 2,527 registered voters nationwide Oct. 5-7 and found that 43% trust Democrats more to handle the economy, compared with 40% who trust Republicans.

Among voters who identified as “true independents” without a partisan lean, 13% trusted Democrats more to handle the economy, compared with 9% who favored Republicans. But a substantial majority — 61% — said they trusted neither party more than the other.

Brad Lockerbie, a political science professor at East Carolina University who studies voting behavior and elections, said the results may reflect voters' frustration with Republicans more than a shift toward Democrats.

“I think that shows that even during an economic downturn under the Trump administration, people aren't necessarily enthusiastic about the Democrats, but they’re just pessimistic about the Republicans right now,” Lockerbie told The Center Square.

Even a narrow advantage could have consequences in November, Lockerbie said, particularly in closely contested U.S. House races.

“If things are going bad for your party, it's not good for any of your candidates,” he said.

The Center Square has not asked voters which party they trust more to handle the economy in its polls over the past year, but it has regularly measured voters’ approval of President Donald Trump’s economic performance. Those polls have consistently found that a sizable majority of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, as many other national polls have indicated. In the latest Voters’ Voice Poll, 58% disapproved of Trump's handling of the economy, compared with 40% who approved.

On the question of which party voters trust more to handle the economy, Democrats generally held wider leads among the voter groups they won than Republicans did among groups favoring the GOP.

For instance, among urban voters, 51% trusted Democrats more to handle the economy, compared with 33% who favored Republicans. Republicans, meanwhile, led among rural voters by 12 percentage points, compared with Democrats’ 18-point advantage among urban voters.

A similar pattern emerged across racial groups. White voters were the only group to favor Republicans, 46% to 37%, while every other racial group favored Democrats by a wider margin. Sixty-eight percent of Black voters trust Democrats more on the economy compared to just 17% who favored Republicans. Hispanic voters favored Democrats 48% to 34%, while voters who identified as another race favored Democrats 46% to 28%.

Even among voters identifying with either major party, Democrats showed slightly greater loyalty to their own party on the economy: 86% trusted Democrats more, compared with 3% who favored Republicans. Among Republican voters, 83% trusted the GOP more, while 4% favored Democrats.

Likewise, voters earning less than $50,000 per year favored Democrats by 8 percentage points, 44% to 36%, while those earning more than $100,000 favored Republicans by a 5-point margin, 46% to 41%.

When broken down by age, no age group favored Republicans over Democrats, with the strongest preference for Democrats among voters ages 18 to 39.

Mike Munger, a political science professor at Duke University, cautioned against drawing conclusions about election outcomes from the poll, arguing that individual races are shaped by local factors that questions about voters' general preferences for a political party cannot capture. Still, he expressed surprise that Democrats led Republicans on the economy “almost across the board” among many different categories of voters.

The Center Square partnered with Noble Predictive Insights to survey 2,527 registered voters nationwide using an opt-in online panel and text-to-web cellphone messages. Respondents included 1,136 Republicans, 1,171 Democrats and 220 true independents, with each group weighted separately to reflect its respective national population.