What issues do the majority of voters really care about?

In general we get a biased view of what issues American voters care about most. That is because a few issues have aggressive proponents who manage to garner a deceptively large proportion of the media attention.

The Gallup polling group has been tracking voter priorities in an open-ended poll (that is – voters themselves mention what worries them, rather that ranking a pre-made list. See the full report here). The results are interesting.

It is no surprise that the state of the economy is the top concern. 

The top non-economic issues, in order are

2. Dissatisfaction with government (hence the current voter revolt)

3. Immigration and illegal immigrants

4. Race relations and racism

5. Terrorism & national security

Notice that climate change isn’t a big issue with most voters, even though it gets a lot of press and is a big liberal cause. Notice that gay marriage and abortion aren’t top issues, even though they are a big conservative issue.  Notice that although terrorism and national security are among the top 5 issues, they certainly aren’t the most important – the economy is the most important.

I assume candidates are paying attention to polls like this, and although they do have to pander to the issues their bases care about, I assume they will put their major efforts into positions on these top issues.