WASHINGTON — Republicans have a surprising, yet slim advantage over Democrats on cost-of-living issues with “swing” voters in eight critical states, a grassroots survey by a right-leaning group found.
When asked which party is more likely to bring costs down, respondents favored Republicans narrowly over Democrats, 44% to 39%, with 16% saying neither, according to Americans for Prosperity’s latest “Americans Unscripted” report.
A plethora of polling, including polls from AFP, has consistently pegged affordability as voters’ top concern heading into the midterm election cycles, which many experts have viewed as a warning sign for the party in power.
Many of those polls have also shown Republicans lagging behind Democrats on the economy and cost of living concerns, with a New York Times/Siena College poll giving the Dems an 8-percentage-point edge over the GOP on that issue, for example.
AFP’s survey quizzed 24,089 “swing” voters in Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. It didn’t have a margin of error, and the survey was largely taken by canvassers going door to door.
The free-market advocacy group had engaged some 98,320 people in those eight states during the month of August, but its finding was based on the “swing” voters’ responses.
“Republicans hold a narrow lead on affordability. But ask those same voters what future they want for the country, and the contrast is striking: nearly 70% favor personal freedom and free-market solutions, compared with fewer than 10% who want more government,” AFP spokesperson Katelyn Bledsoe told The Post.
“Republican candidates have a clear opening,” she added. “Now they need to draw a sharp contrast between conservative solutions and the policies of a Democratic Party increasingly shaped by socialist ideas.”
Critically, a past survey from the group found that 37% of respondents were less likely to back a Democratic socialist, compared to 17% who would and 46% who were unsure.
That survey was fielded across Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Ohio from Aug. 9-16.
“Democrats have played with socialism since the 1930s, but now they’ve let the genie out of the bottle, and it’s out of control,” a man named Charles from Waukee, Iowa, told the group, per the report.
AFP believes concerns about the rise of socialism have created an opening for Republicans.
“Our biggest opportunity is responding to a meaningful shift we have seen in our conversations at the doors,” AFP’s Ohio director Donovan O’Neil explained.
“Beginning in mid-August, concerns about socialism started appearing more frequently among voters, and that concern has continued to grow.”
Republicans have long been viewed as the underdogs when it comes to winning the House, especially given the historical headwinds against the party in control of the White House.
The battle for control of the Senate has generally been seen as something that could go either way.
Democrats have hammered the GOP over the issue of affordability, which has seemingly grown more salient over time as gas prices have soared due to the war in Iran and other geopolitical factors.
