‘Danger Zone’: One Key Issue Is Driving Voters To The GOP In Droves, MSNBC Data Guru Says

‘Danger Zone’: One Key Issue Is Driving Voters To The GOP In Droves, MSNBC Data Guru Says

Harold Hutchison on November 7, 2022

MSNBC data analyst Steve Kornacki said during a Monday night appearance that voters are swinging to the GOP in droves over the economy.

“Just on the approval rating, which historically has driven midterm results in a lot of ways, Biden is right in that danger zone and Democrats are right in that danger zone. You layer on top of that the feelings, the environment, the attitude, when it comes to the economy, our poll finding that more than eight in ten voters say they are dissatisfied with the current state of the economy,” Kornacki said. “We haven’t seen a number that high on this question since 2009, 2010, around the time of the crash, the Great Recession, that period of time.

“And then, when you ask people straight-up, what’s the most important issue as you make up your mind, the economy and cost of living, inflation,” Kornacki added. “Those two combined for 37% here in terms of being the top issue. And the folks who cite that as their top issue are breaking in our poll for Republicans by a 43-point margin.”

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The Consumer Price Index increased 8.2% year-to-year in September after rising by 8.3% in August, 8.6% in July, 9.1% in June and 8.5% in May. While gross domestic produce increased by 2.6% in the third quarter of 2022, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, it dropped by 1.4% in the first quarter and declined 0.6% in the second quarter.

Two consecutive quarters of falling GDP is often considered an indication of a recession, according to Investopedia.

Kornacki said that Democrats did have hope despite what he described as “headwinds.”

“Are we at a point in this midterm elections where Democrats may get voters motivated who in the past would not have been? Maybe they’re not wild about Biden, maybe they’re not wild about the economy, but maybe, there is a idea there of voting against Republicans, voting against Donald Trump, maybe that kind of thing, or environment now, where it can drive turnout in a way that it hasn’t in past midterms,” Kornacki said. “Basically, if Democrats walk away with a good night tomorrow, and our poll does give them a couple of things to be hopeful about, if they walk away with a good night, I kind of see the rules of politics getting rewritten a little bit.”

The NBC poll of 1,000 registered voters carried out Nov. 3-5 with a 3.1% margin of error noted that President Joe Biden’s approval rating was at 44%, with 81% of respondents expressing dissatisfaction with the state of the economy.