Campaign Issues: Economy, Immigration, and AI Deepfakes

Campaign issues in US elections are the policy questions that decide how people vote, and the ones carrying the most weight right now are the economy and inflation, immigration and the border, healthcare and Medicaid, abortion, the state of democracy and election rules, climate and energy, education, and the flood of money in politics. The two parties’ voters rank these in almost opposite orders, which is why the 2024 race and the run-up to the 2026 midterms often sound like two different conversations.

The Economy Stays on Top

The economy has been the single most important issue for American voters in recent cycles. A Gallup poll of registered voters found 52% rated it “extremely important” to their 2024 vote, the highest since 2008, and nine in ten called it at least “very important.”¹ Pew Research Center put the number at 81%.²

The anxiety had a specific source. U.S. inflation hit 9% in 2022, the highest in over four decades, and even after the rate slowed, prices remained more than 20% higher than four years earlier. CBS News exit polls found 75% of voters reported moderate or severe hardship from inflation over the prior year, and 45% said they were worse off than four years ago.³ The issue tilted sharply Republican: 93% of Trump supporters called the economy “very important,” versus 68% of Harris supporters.²

The candidates offered sharply different platforms. Kamala Harris proposed raising taxes on corporations and individuals earning over $400,000, expanding the child tax credit, capping insulin at $35 per month for Medicare patients, and banning food price gouging.⁴ Donald Trump centered his message on domestic energy production and proposed a 10% tariff on all imports, 60% on Chinese goods, and a 15% corporate tax rate for domestic manufacturers.⁵

Tariffs and Prices

Trump’s tariff proposals moved from talk to policy after his inauguration. In 2025, the average effective U.S. tariff rate rose from 2.4% to 9.6%, the highest in 80 years, and tariff revenue as a share of GDP reached its most restrictive point in 110 years. Tariff revenue in 2025 totaled $264 billion, more than triple the 2024 figure.⁶

Roughly 90% of tariff costs were passed through to U.S. importers rather than absorbed by foreign exporters.⁶ Durable goods prices rose noticeably, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis estimated tariffs accounted for roughly 0.5 percentage points of annualized headline inflation during mid-2025, with pharmaceuticals, glassware, and personal care products hit hardest.⁷

In February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the president had exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose about 70% of the 2025 tariffs.⁸ The administration responded by imposing new 15% global tariffs under a different legal authority.⁶ Trade policy remains a live campaign issue heading into the midterms.

Healthcare and Medicaid

Healthcare has become a defining issue for the 2026 midterms. By January 2026, 31% of voters cited it as their top economic concern, and 59% reported being worried about affording prescription drugs, the highest level KFF has recorded since 2018. Forty percent of voters trust Democrats on health care costs, compared to 28% for Republicans.⁹

The catalyst is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, signed into law on July 4, 2025. It includes the largest Medicaid cuts in the program’s history, projected at roughly $1 trillion over a decade. It imposes work requirements starting in late 2026, mandates more frequent eligibility checks, and requires out-of-pocket copays for beneficiaries above the poverty line.¹⁰ The American Medical Association estimated the bill would cause 11.8 million people to lose health coverage.¹¹ Rural hospitals are projected to lose $70 billion over ten years.

Democrats have made the cuts a centerpiece of their midterm strategy, launching digital ad campaigns in 26 congressional districts targeting vulnerable Republicans. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who opposed the bill, reportedly warned Senate leadership that the cuts could cost Republicans both chambers. Public reaction depends on framing: when presented with the bill’s specific impacts, 74% to 79% of adults viewed it unfavorably, though 62% supported Medicaid work requirements in the abstract.¹⁰

Immigration and the Border

Immigration ranked as the second most important problem facing the country in the 2024 AP VoteCast survey, cited by roughly 20% of voters.¹² It surged in importance between 2020 and 2024: the share of voters calling it “very important” rose 9 points overall and 21 points among Trump supporters.²

The candidates could hardly have differed more. Trump promised the “largest domestic deportation in U.S. history,” involving the National Guard, federal agents, and local police, and proposed ending birthright citizenship, reinstating “Remain in Mexico,” invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and implementing ideological screening. Harris endorsed reviving a bipartisan Senate border bill that failed in early 2024, which would have toughened asylum standards and funded more border agents, immigration judges, and asylum officers, while also supporting an earned pathway to citizenship.¹³

For context: border crossings hit a record high in December 2023 before declining sharply, and annual deportations during the first Trump administration never exceeded 350,000, compared to 432,000 under the Obama administration in 2013.¹³

Democracy and Election Rules

The state of American democracy itself became a top-tier issue in 2024. When AP VoteCast asked what most influenced their vote, about half of voters cited “the future of democracy,” outranking inflation, the border, abortion, and free speech.¹² A Georgetown University poll found 81% of voters believed democracy was threatened.¹⁴

Both parties claimed the issue while meaning different things by it. Democrats framed the threat around Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 Capitol attack, and Harris expanded it to “fundamental freedoms,” including voting and bodily autonomy. Trump and his supporters described the Biden administration as the real threat, alleging weaponization of the Justice Department.¹⁵ The PRRI American Values Survey found 62% of Republicans believed the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump, while 53% of all Americans believed Trump likely broke the law trying to stay in power.¹⁶

The SAVE Act and Proof of Citizenship

Election rules have become a campaign issue on their own. In March 2025, Trump issued an executive order aimed at enforcing citizenship requirements for voting and requiring ballots to be received by Election Day.¹⁷ Congressional Republicans advanced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register, strict photo ID at the polls, and a federal database check for potential noncitizens. The House passed the bill in February 2026 and it was being debated in the Senate as of March 2026.¹⁸

Research suggests up to 21 million eligible citizens lack ready access to the documents the bill would require.¹⁹ A similar law in Kansas resulted in 31,000 eligible citizens being blocked from registering despite vanishingly rare noncitizen registration.²⁰ Five states have already adopted comparable proof-of-citizenship requirements for the 2026 midterms.

Voter sentiment reflects competing anxieties. An Ipsos/Reuters poll in April 2026 found 57% of respondents concerned about eligible voters being prevented from voting, 50% concerned about ineligible voters casting ballots, and 69% concerned about attempts to overturn official results. Forced to choose, 59% in a Marist/NPR/PBS poll prioritized making sure everyone who wants to vote can do so over preventing ineligible voting.²¹

Abortion and Reproductive Rights

Abortion surged as a campaign issue after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade. By 2024, 67% of Harris supporters called it “very important” to their vote, nearly double the 35% of Biden supporters who said the same in 2020.² Harris supported codifying a national right to abortion; Trump said the issue should be left to states.⁵

Since Dobbs, 12 states have passed ballot initiatives on abortion.²² In 2024, voters approved abortion protections in seven states, including Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Montana.²³ For 2026, both sides are using ballot measures:

In Virginia, a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive freedom until the third trimester is headed for the November ballot after lawmakers approved it for a second time in January 2026.²⁴
In Nevada, voters will cast the second and final required vote on a measure enshrining abortion access in the state constitution.²⁴
In Missouri, the legislature referred a measure that would repeal the voter-approved 2024 protections and ban most abortions from conception, with limited exceptions.²²
In Idaho, advocates are gathering signatures for a statutory right to reproductive freedom, though the measure faces significant legal hurdles.²²

The Missouri contest is notable: voters approved reproductive freedom protections two years ago, and the legislature is now asking them to reverse that decision.

Climate and Energy

Climate ranked relatively low on 2024 voter priority lists, with only 21% calling it “extremely important” in Gallup’s polling.¹ But the policy gap between the parties was wide. Harris called climate change an existential threat and supported the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean-energy investments; Trump questioned the severity of climate change, opposed electric vehicle subsidies, and pledged to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.⁵

Since taking office, Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement on his first day, with the exit formally effective in January 2026.²⁵ The administration dissolved the State Department’s Office of Global Change, did not send a delegation to the 2025 Bonn climate talks or COP30, rescinded $4 billion in Green Climate Fund pledges, and pulled out of energy transition partnerships with South Africa, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Its focus on “energy dominance” has included accelerating oil and gas drilling in protected areas in Alaska. The Inflation Reduction Act’s climate provisions are being dismantled through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, rendering the U.S. 2035 emissions reduction target effectively unattainable according to analysts.²⁶

Education

Education sits in an unusual place. Fewer than 3% of adults call it the single most important national issue, yet 88% consider it important, and it ranks among the top five priorities for Democratic voters.² The debate breaks into two fights: school choice and curriculum.

Trump has proposed eliminating the Department of Education and has championed school vouchers and education savings accounts. In 2024, Georgia and Louisiana created new voucher programs, though South Carolina’s supreme court struck down its state’s program as unconstitutional. Sixty percent of adults support vouchers and 65% support education savings accounts, but the coalitions differ by program.²⁷

On curriculum, Trump signed executive orders in January 2025 aimed at curbing what the administration calls “radical indoctrination” in schools, though the White House lacks unilateral authority to pull federal education funding or dictate local curriculum. A federal appeals court upheld an Arkansas law banning classroom instruction deemed to constitute indoctrination in July 2025. Research suggests campaigns focused on banning critical race theory have contributed to measurable declines in public trust in local schools.²⁸

Money in Politics

The 2024 election shattered spending records. Presidential candidates raised $2 billion, congressional candidates $3.8 billion, and political parties $2.7 billion. Super PACs alone raised over $5 billion and spent $2.7 billion, and independent expenditures totaled $4.4 billion.²⁹

Dark money, spending by groups that do not disclose their donors, reached at least $1.9 billion in 2024, nearly double the previous record of $1 billion in 2020. Rather than buying ads directly, dark money groups now funnel money to allied super PACs, which must disclose their donors but effectively launder the original source. In 2024, dark money groups contributed $1.3 billion to super PACs, and committees supporting Trump or Harris received over $500 million from such groups.³⁰

For the 2025–2026 cycle, individual contribution limits to federal candidates are $3,500 per election.³¹ The DISCLOSE Act of 2026, reintroduced in March 2026, would require organizations spending over $10,000 on elections to reveal donors who gave more than $10,000, and would extend disclosure requirements to payments to social media influencers. It has the support of all 47 senators who caucus with Democrats but is given virtually no chance of passage.³²

Meanwhile, the FEC itself has been without a quorum since April 2025, the longest such lapse in the agency’s history, leaving it unable to approve enforcement actions, authorize new investigations, or issue advisory opinions.³³ The Campaign Legal Center has used a provision of federal law to bypass the agency and sue alleged violators directly in court, including cases alleging illegal coordination between the NRA and federal campaigns.³⁴

AI and Deepfakes in Campaigns

Regulation of AI-generated political content has moved quickly from theoretical concern to active lawmaking. Twenty-nine states have enacted statutes regulating AI in political messaging. Twenty-seven require disclaimers on AI-manipulated media, and two, Minnesota and Texas, ban the publication of political deepfakes within a set period before an election. Colorado and Utah require metadata disclosures that track file creation and editing history.³⁵

Courts have pushed back. A U.S. District Court struck down California’s deepfake law in August 2025, finding its harm threshold too vague and its provision allowing any viewer to sue overly broad. Hawaii’s deepfake statute was struck down on similar grounds.³⁵ The tension between combating deceptive election content and protecting free speech is likely to intensify as more states legislate.

Why the Two Parties Sound Like They’re in Different Countries

One of the most striking features of recent campaigns is that the two parties’ voters worry about almost entirely different things. Gallup found zero overlap between the top five issues for Republican and Democratic voters in 2024. Republicans prioritized the economy, immigration, national security, crime, and taxes. Democrats prioritized democracy, Supreme Court appointments, abortion, healthcare, and education.¹ Harris supporters also spread their concern more broadly: 32% considered at least eight of ten surveyed issues “very important,” compared to 17% of Trump supporters.²

That divergence helps explain why campaigns often seem to talk past each other. When a message about the border lands with one base but is barely audible to the other side’s voters, and the same happens in reverse on abortion or healthcare, the “most important issue” in a given election depends almost entirely on which coalition turns out. Heading into the 2026 midterms, inflation, jobs, and the economy still lead voter concern, with 71% rating the economy as “fair or poor” and only 29% expecting to be better off in a year.³⁶ Medicaid cuts, tariff-driven prices, abortion ballot measures, and the fight over election rules are the specific fronts on which those broader issues will be argued.

1
Gallup. Economy Most Important Issue to 2024 Presidential Vote
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Pew Research Center. Issues and the 2024 Election
3
Johns Hopkins Hub. How Inflation Impacted the 2024 Election
4
Al Jazeera. US Election 2024: What Are Harris and Trump’s Positions on the Key Issues
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Washington Post. Presidential Candidates 2024 Policies and Issues
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Brookings Institution. Tariffs in 2025: Short-Run Impacts on the US Economy
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Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. How Tariffs Are Affecting Prices in 2025
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Yale Budget Lab. Tracking Economic Effects of Tariffs
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KFF. A Preview of the Role Health Care May Play in the 2026 Election
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The Hill. Trump, Democrats, Medicaid Cuts, 2026 Midterms
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American Medical Association. Changes to Medicaid, ACA, and Other Key Provisions in One Big Beautiful Bill
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PBS NewsHour. Economy Ranked as a Top Issue, but Concerns Over Democracy Drove Many Voters to Polls
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Associated Press. Where Trump and Harris Stand on Immigration and Border Security
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Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. New Poll: 81% of Voters Believe Democracy Is Threatened
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Associated Press. Majority of US Adults Say Democracy Is on the Ballot, but They Differ on the Threat
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PRRI. Challenges to Democracy: The 2024 Election in Focus
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White House. Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections
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National Conference of State Legislatures. 9 Things to Know About the Proposed SAVE America Act
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Brennan Center for Justice. States Already Enacting Harmful SAVE Act Policies Requiring Proof
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Bipartisan Policy Center. Five Things to Know About the SAVE Act
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Votebeat. 2026 Midterm Election Administration Polls: Voter Fraud and Access Concerns
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KFF. Abortion on the 2026 Ballot: The Evolving Landscape of State Abortion Initiatives
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MultiState. States to Watch on Reproductive Health and Abortion Policy in 2025
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State Court Report. 2026 Abortion-Related Ballot Measures
25
White House. Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements
26
Heinrich Böll Foundation. Trump Can Leave Paris Agreement Behind, Not America’s Climate Finance Obligations
27
ABC News/FiveThirtyEight. 2024 Election’s Big Impact on Education Policy
28
Education Week. Critical Race Theory
29
Federal Election Commission. Statistical Summary of 24-Month Campaign Activity of the 2023-2024 Election Cycle
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Brennan Center for Justice. Dark Money Hit Record High of $1.9 Billion in 2024 Federal Races
31
Federal Election Commission. Contribution Limits
32
Office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Whitehouse, Pappas and Colleagues Reintroduce Updated DISCLOSE Act
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Federal Election Commission. Semiannual Report to Congress, October 2025–March 2026
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Campaign Legal Center. CLC Steps to Promote Enforcement of Federal Campaign Finance Law
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National Conference of State Legislatures. Artificial Intelligence in Elections and Campaigns
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Brookings Institution. What History Tells Us About the 2026 Midterm Elections