A new memo from the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) showed the Supreme Court’s recent opinion overturning Roe v. Wade after ruling on the Dobbs case would not help the Democrats win over the support of voters in the November election, as they hoped.
Instead, the memo indicated November would be a “referendum on how Biden and his Democrat allies in the states have destroyed our economy” as the percentage of battleground general election voters worry more economy than abortion as a top issue.
As the poll was taken on Saturday morning, in the peak time after the Dobbs ruling, the RSLC feels confident there has been no change from their January survey. “The results affirm that state Republicans remain on offense this year, as they will continue to run campaigns focused on serving as the counterweight to President Biden’s failing economic policies,” the memo stated.
The polling found Biden’s job approval is also underwater, with 41 percent favorable and 57 percent unfavorable. And only 23 percent of likely voters think the country is on the right track, compared to 74 percent who believe it is on the wrong track.
It is just the latest in a long series of public rejections for the president.
Biden’s approval rating is down to the lowest in his presidency, at only 32 percent approval and 57 percent disapproval, according to the CIVIQS rolling job-approval average as of Saturday. https://t.co/Gj75uI5Qty
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 19, 2022
Additionally, on the generic ballot, Republican state legislative candidates slightly lead Democrats, 47 percent to 45 percent. In fact, among those surveyed, 48 percent said they would prefer a Republican candidate who would act as a check and balance Biden and his policies versus 44 percent who would prefer having a Democrat who supports the president and his policies.
While abortion is an issue the respondents seemed to care about, it was nowhere close to being a topline issue for voters. Not even close, even after the Dobbs ruling. Instead, over half of the respondents cared about the economy as an issue.
When the respondents were asked which issues were most important, 56 percent said either the high cost of living/inflation, the economy in general, or unemployment/jobs in comparison. In comparison, only eight percent said abortion. Even crime polled one percent higher than abortion:
- High cost of living/inflation: 37%
- Economy in general: 16%
- Crime/Violence: 9%
- Abortion: 8%
- Environment/Climate Change: 7%
- Guns: 7%
- Immigration: 6%
- Voting Rights: 5%
- Unemployment/jobs: 3%
- Education: 3%
For independent voters, 60 percent said they care about inflation, the economy in general, and jobs as their top concerns. Additionally, only 21 percent said abortion is the absolute most crucial issue to them.
Overall, only 30 percent of the respondents said a candidate’s position on abortion is the absolute most crucial issue to them, compared to 65 percent who said there are other issues that they consider to be a higher priority when choosing who to support in November’s election.
Additionally, less than 40 percent of the respondents said they wanted to prioritize abortion to the extent that they would be unwilling to vote for a candidate whose views do not align with theirs on the issue.
Forty-nine percent of likely voters said they would be willing to vote for a candidate who has a different view from them on abortion so long as they agree with them on most other issues, compared to 37 percent who said they were unwilling to compromise on abortion.
The RSLC’s memo explained that one reason the economy is the most pressing issue for voters ahead of the fall, even in light of the Dobbs ruling, is due to personal finances worsening since January.
Crowd Prays in Gratitude Outside Supreme Court After Roe v. Wade Overturned pic.twitter.com/iPogzmz4WM
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 24, 2022
Fifty-one percent of the respondents said their personal finances are worse off than they were a year ago, compared to only 13 percent who said they are better off. The majority saying their personal finances are worse off is a 16 percent increase from the RSLC’s January memo. A slightly higher amount of independent respondents (56 percent) said they are also worse off.
Moving into the November election, the likely voters appear to trust state Republicans more than state Democrats when it comes to the economy:
- State Republicans lead 53 percent to 38 percent on trust to handle the economy in general – up from 50 percent to 38 percent in January.
- State Republicans lead 51 percent to 39 percent on trust to handle the high cost of living/inflation – up from 49 percent to 39 percent in January.
- State Republicans lead 50 percent to 39 percent on trust to handle unemployment/jobs – up from 49 percent to 40 percent in January.
As the country is going through skyrocketing inflation, which just saw a 41-year high, 58 percent of the respondents said they supported the Republican position on cutting government spending, reducing taxes, and encouraging small businesses.
This is compared to the 31 percent who supported the Democrat positions of increasing government spending, taxing the wealthy, and imposing more regulations on corporations.
With this, 62 percent of independent respondents had sided with the Republicans’ positions while only 31 percent sided with the Democrats’ position.
The RSLC memo noted:
This data is another reminder that what you see on Twitter and in the press doesn’t necessarily capture reality when it comes to voter behavior. A little more than four months from Election Day, the political environment is still a disaster for state Democrats, state Republicans have a commanding lead on what is far and away the most important issue to voters, and the issues state Democrats are trying to exploit to distract from Biden’s failing economy are not going to be salient enough to save them come November [Emphasis added].
Even with empirical evidence displaying the contrary, we shouldn’t expect to see an end to the Democrat- corporate media joint campaign to make abortion the “game changer” of the 2022 midterms. The media didn’t learn their lesson when they said abortion would hurt Republicans in 2020 after the Amy Coney Barrett nomination and we net-gained two state legislative chambers, or when Democrats made abortion the centerpiece of their campaigns in Virginia in 2021 only to suffer a string of embarrassing defeats and lose the House of Delegates — we shouldn’t expect them to agree with us this time around either [Emphasis added].
[…]
The polling makes clear that we will have a big November if we continue to stay laser-focused on making this election a referendum on the disastrous economic policies of Joe Biden and his state Democrat allies. While Democrats have given us the worst inflation since the Carter years and record-high gas prices, voters across the country support our policies to get the economy back on track [Emphasis added].
Cygnal conducted the RSLC’s poll between June 25 and 26, the two days following the Dobbs decision.
The questions were asked to 2007 likely general election voters in battleground states such as Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.
There was also a margin of error of plus or minus 2.19 percent.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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