When asked to respond in their own words, voters continue to list the Economy (37%) as the most important issue right now. Another 16% list either Iran (7%), Foreign Policy (6%) or War (3%)*. Politics lands in the third slot with 14%.
Two weeks ago, the war in Iran dropped third place - just the second time since the war began it was not in the top 2 issues for voters. However, last week it went back to number 2 and remains there again this week.
Partisan Differences on Top Issues
The Economy is the most important issue for both parties, including 36% of Republicans and 37% of Democrats.
Republicans: For Republicans, 22% are concerned with either Iran (9%), Foreign Policy (10%), or War (3%), with Politics taking a distant 3rd at 12%.
Democrats: For Democrats, Politics takes 2nd place with 16%, and Iran (6%), Foreign Policy (4%) and War (2%) ring in 3rd place.
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 Gemini, Google's most advanced AI, so that voters can answer the question in their own words.
Consistently, whether given a list of issues or in the open-ended responses, economic issues are the top concerns.
Our most recent list-format results are from our June 26 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, August 10-11, 2026. RMG Research, Inc., conducted the field work for the survey. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1.
