When asked to respond in their own words, 43% of voters list the economy as the single most important issue right now. That's the fourth straight week 43% have placed that concern at the top, and 43% remains the yearly high.

In a distant second, for the second week in a row, 13% list politics in general (while another 7% mention Donald Trump specifically). In third comes the combination of Iran (5%), foreign policy (4%), and war (3%)*. That is up 4 points from last week, though concern about Iran has generally receeded, dropping to single digits 3 times in the past 5 weeks.

Partisan Differences

As usual, the economy is the top concern for Republicans and Democrats. Forty-four percent (44%) of Republicans list it first, along with 42% of Democrats.

For Republicans, the number 2 and 3 issues are Iran/Foreign Policy/War (13%), and Immigration (12%). For Democrats, the second most concerning issue is Politics (16%), and Donald Trump takes the third slot with 11% naming him the top concern.

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 September 28-29 poll. In those results, the economy, inflation, and health care continue to be voters' primary concerns, and have since May.

*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, October 12-13, 2026. RMG Research, Inc., conducted the field work for the survey. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1.