When asked to respond in their own words, voters continue to list the Economy first, with 34% of voters saying it as the most important issue right now. Another 17% list Politics, and 14% list either Iran (7%), Foreign Policy (6%) or War (1%)*.
This is only the second week since the Iran war began that it has not been in the top 2 slots among voters' top issues in our regular open-ended question. The first time was 2 weeks ago, when it slipped to #4, just days before the ceasefire ended.
Partisan Differences on Top Issues
The economy is the primary concern for both parties, including 31% of Republicans and 37% of Democrats. However, after that, the concerns differ.
After the economy, Republicans rate the Iran war (18%) as the most pressing issue, with Immigration and Politics tied for the third slot at 17%.
Democrats say the second most important issue is Politics (20%) and then the war in a distant 3rd (10%).
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 built on to of Gemini, Google's most advanced AI, so that voters can answer the question in their own words.
Consistently, in both the list and open-ended format, economic issues are the top issues.
Our most recent list-format results are from our May 26th poll.
*When tracking open-ended responses throughout the war in Iran, we have grouped Foreign Policy, War, and Iran into a single category.
This data is from a Napolitan News Service survey of 1,000 Registered Voters conducted online by Scott Rasmussen, July 20-21 2026. RMG Research, Inc., conducted the field work for the survey. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1.
