When asked to respond in their own words, 42% of voters list the economy as the single most important issue right now. That is up 5 points from 37% last week and the highest in our open ended responses since our November 10-13, 2025 survey. At that time, 44% listed it as the top concern.

In a distant second, at 11%, come the combination of foreign policy (5%), Iran (4%), and war (2%)*. Politics consistently finishes in 3rd place, this week with 10%.

Partisan Differences

The economy is the top concern for Republicans (46%) and Democrats (40%). After that, there are slight differences.

Republicans: After the economy, the war in Iran (13%) and immigration (12%) take center stage.
Democrats: After the economy, politics (14%) and Iran (10%) are their primary concerns.

Behind the Data

There are many ways to ask about the importance of issues. Napolitan News routinely asks an open-ended question that is categorized and summarized by using Jigsaw's open-source Sensemaker tool, which is built on top of Gemeni, Google's most advanced AI, so that voters can answer the question in their own words.

Consistently, whether given a list or in open-ended responses, economic issues are the top concerns.

Our most recent list-format results are included in our August 24-25 poll. In those results, the economy, inflation, and health care are voters' primary concerns.

*When tracking open-ended responses throughout the war in Iran, we have grouped foreign policy, Iran, and war into a single category.

This data is from a Napolitan News Service survey of 1,000 Registered Voters conducted online by Scott Rasmussen, September 8-9, 2026. RMG Research, Inc., conducted the field work for the survey. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1.