Signs point to the GOP having a “very good night” on Election Night, CNN reported, citing the fact that voters are far more concerned about crime, a traditional GOP strong point, rather than abortion, an issue Democrats use to sway the public toward them.
Statistician Harry Enten appeared on CNN’s “New Day” with John Berman and Brianna Keilar to discuss the numbers and how they indicate a possible GOP blowout, as Enten cited a recent Monmouth University poll released which showed 82% of respondents felt inflation was the most important issue for the federal government to address while 72% thought crime was the most important issue. Those issues were followed by elections/voting (70%), jobs/unemployment (68%), immigration (57%), infrastructure (57%) and finally abortion, at (56%).
“This split, between crime being so high and abortion so low, was quite a shocker to me,” Enten declared.
Enten compared which issue prompted more Google searches, crime and abortion. In April, before the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade was released in June, among people searching for one issue or the other, 74% of searches were looking for crime, while only 26% were searching for abortion.
But in June, the situation was reversed; 70% of searches were looking for abortion while only 30% of searchers looked for crime. The situation didn’t last long; in July, 49% of searchers looked for crime and 51% looked for abortion, and by August the numbers read 61% for crime and 39% for abortion. In September, the numbers resembled the numbers before the SCOTUS decision, with 71% of searchers looking for crime and 29% for abortion.
Berman prompted, “It matters, because when you look at these issues, which parties are doing better with them?”
Using Fox News and NBC News as sources, Enten pointed out that when asked which party they trusted more on issues, the GOP was favored by 23 points on crime, 19 points on the economy, and immigration by 17 points, while the Democrats led on abortion by 17 points.
Referring to the 23-point differential on crime, Enten commented, “Democrats do not want to be in this ballpark. They want to be talking about abortion. … The more that voters care about crime, the worse it is for Democrats.”
Berman cited a Gallup poll that found that when respondents were asked about the issue most important to them, 48% said the GOP would handle it better while only 37% asserted they would trust the Democrats more.
“This is a huge gap,” Enten commented. “An eleven-point gap, which is what we have right now, and I looked at all the mid-term elections going back to 1946, this eleven-point edge is near the top.”
Enten showed a chart of the mid-term election results during a Democratic presidency since 1946, showing the GOP had a 17-point edge in 1946, when they won 246 seats in the House, a four-point edge the 1994 and 2014 elections, when the party won 230 and 247 seats, respectively, and the 2010 election when the GOP held a two-point edge and won 242 seats. All of these results went well beyond the 218-vote threshold to win a majority in the House of Representatives.
“If this election looks anything like this, if voters react in the way that they normally do, then Republicans are going to have a very good night on Election Night,” he concluded.