Americans increasingly see foreign policy as among the most pressing issues facing the federal government, a poll published Monday found, as the next presidential election looms in 10 months.
With Russia still fighting Ukraine and a historically bloody war raging in the Middle East, 38% of Americans said foreign policy amounts to a top-five issue for the U.S. government, according to the survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. More than 1,000 people were polled.
It’s a change from a year ago, when 18% of voters described foreign policy as a top issue, The AP reported. The new poll was conducted in late November and early December.
The economy remains the ultimate issue for voters, according to The AP: Three-quarters of Americans said it was a top-5 issue.
The primacy of the pocketbook in the pecking order of political issues led James Carville to coin the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” as he advised Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.
President Biden, seeking reelection, has been trying to convince a skeptical public that he has strengthened the economy and cooled high prices that hammered many Americans as the country pulled out of the COVID pandemic.
Some economic indicators — including unemployment rates, and the trajectory of inflation and stock market returns — are rosy. But voters have been wary.
In November, 50% of U.S. adults scored the economy as “poor,” compared with 17% who graded it “good,” according to Gallup polling data.
Foreign policy has created another political challenge for Biden as Israel wages a U.S.-supported war in Gaza that has divided the Democratic Party.
About 57% of Americans opposed Biden’s handling of the war in a Siena College/New York Times poll last month.
Forty-six percent of polled voters said they trusted Donald Trump more than Joe Biden to handle the Israel-Palestine conflict, according to the survey. Thirty-eight percent said they trusted Biden more.
Biden and Trump, the front-runner in the GOP primary, seem to be hurtling toward a 2024 rematch. Polls show a tight race.
