Current Affairs Of Pakistan & World: GOP voters: affordability

GOP voters: affordability > protecting democracy

Oct 15, 2026

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By Irie Sentner

Presented by JPMorganChase

THE CATCH-UP

Democrats still care about democracy. Republicans, not as much.

Pluralities of Democratic midterm voters (49%) and Republican midterm voters (44%) say democracy should be a central part of a candidate’s campaign and time in office, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll, reported here for the first time. But while Republicans see defending democracy as an important issue, they are far less likely to believe it is under threat.

More than half of Democratic voters say democracy is more threatened than ever — compared with just 30% of Republican voters who say the same.

Democrats also lean more toward wanting a candidate who will protect democracy, even if they’re not sure where they stand on affordability — the top election issue for most Americans. That is flipped for Republicans: They’re more likely to want a candidate who will improve affordability, even if they’re not sure where they stand on protecting democracy.

A chart shows data from The POLITICO Poll

But voters in both parties can agree on one thing: Nearly six years out from the 2020 election and Jan. 6 Capitol attack that followed in 2021, they want candidates to leave the past in the rearview.

More than half of both Republican and Democratic midterm voters said they’d prefer candidates stop talking about the 2020 presidential election and focus on other issues in their campaign, the poll found, including 56% of Republicans and 62% of Democrats.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, continues to fixate on Joe Biden and the 2020 election — which he continues to claim, without evidence, that he won.

“We had the greatest first term, financially speaking, in the history of our country,” Trump told a crowd in Bullhead City, Arizona, last night. “And I get elected and then we had a rigged election, so that was not so good. But because we did so well, because we actually won by millions and millions of votes, it was just rigged — they rigged it through Covid and other things — I said let's do it again.”

Just a day earlier at a Wasilla, Alaska, rally Playbook attended, Trump twice brought up 2020. He urged voters to “follow” their votes “to make sure they don't play around with it like they did in 2020.” About 20 minutes later, he added: “They rigged the election, and this crooked guy came in.”

Taken together, the findings indicate that in a midterm contest in which both parties have centered affordability in their messaging, democracy remains an issue that Democrats can use to pump up their base — but it’s less likely to resonate on the other side of the aisle.

Republican midterm voters (27%) are more likely than Democrats (16%) to say candidates should focus on other issues — not democracy — both on the campaign trail and in office.

Still, Democrats have largely shied away from overt democracy talk this cycle — perhaps due to painful memories of 2024, when most strategists agree that Kamala Harris leaned too heavily into democracy and didn’t focus enough on the cost of living. The “No Kings” resistance movement — despite turning out thousands across a series of demonstrations — has been mostly ineffective. And Democrats have largely replaced “democracy” with messaging about White House corruption, cronyism and oligarchy.

Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at isentner@politico.com.

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5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. THE EXECUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED: Trump today called off livestreaming the execution of the convicted Fort Hood shooter following bipartisan pushback just weeks out from Election Day. “Streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like [Nidal] Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.” More from POLITICO’s Jack Detsch and Gregory Svirnovskiy

2. WAR AND PEACE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is sounding off on Trump and the U.S. Ukraine is set to defy the president and restart strikes on Russian oil refineries, Zelenskyy told the FT’s Alec Russell and Ben Hall in an interview published today. Zelenskyy also slammed Trump for cozying up to autocrats: “He speaks about it openly and loudly that he loves such people and he respects such people. Because for him people who can be leaders for 30 years, 30 years, 40 years, it means they can be very strong,” Zelenskyy said.

The background: “Starlink Suspicions and a Frantic Warning: Inside Trump’s Turn on Zelensky,” by WSJ’s Robbie Gramer and colleagues: “In recent days, Trump has offered to buy Moscow’s oil in a lucrative diesel deal, demanded that Zelensky step down and declared an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that Moscow almost immediately violated. The result: a livid Ukraine, rattled U.S. allies and a widening rift in the Republican Party over Trump’s foreign policy ahead of the midterm elections.”

Meanwhile: A bipartisan group of House lawmakers urged Trump to follow through on the Russia sanctions law he signed last month, warning on Thursday against giving Moscow economic relief as a key enforcement deadline approaches, POLITICO’s Jalen Beckford reports. In a letter led by Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) and shared first with POLITICO, 22 House lawmakers asked Trump to fully implement the sanctions law named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham by Oct. 18 and scrap his administration’s recent Russian diesel deal.

3. LAST CALL?: Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) today said he expects Republicans in the chamber to move a party-line legislative package after the midterm elections — especially if Democrats flip one or both chambers, POLITICO’s Mia McCarthy reports. “We will do a reconciliation bill — one way or the other we will,” Moreno told reporters at the Capitol. “Obviously, if we lose control of Congress, it’ll be the Last Supper.” Such a bill, he added, would be “giant” and would include “all the Republican priorities that we can get done.”

4. HOW TO WIN WISCONSIN: GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany is increasingly distancing himself from Trump on Iran and data centers in his tight race against Democrat David Crowley for the Wisconsin governor’s mansion — despite being one of his closest allies in Washington, AP’s Scott Bauer reports. And Tiffany is spurning Trump’s request that Republican voters pretend he’s on the ballot in November. “People of Wisconsin are really savvy voters,” Tiffany said. “They’re like, ‘We’re not voting for president in this election. We’re voting for the governor.’” That’s helping the race remain tighter than Democrats hoped in this year’s environment, after Crowley beat out Democratic socialist Francesca Hong in the state’s dramatic primary.

5. MICROSOFT MISSIVE: Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith delivered a broadside against Trump’s push to block the path to permanent residency for highly-skilled immigrants, warning the White House that its plan could cripple the U.S. tech sector for over a generation, POLITICO’s Brendan Bordelon reports from Dublin, Ireland. “In an exclusive interview with Decoded by POLITICO, Microsoft’s informal No. 2 suggested it was ironic that the White House chose to target his company’s foreign workers on the same day it gave a medal to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, a former H-1B skilled visa holder from India.”

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TALK OF THE TOWN

BELLES OF THE BALLROOM — A secret list of donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom obtained by WaPo’s Jonathan O'Connell and colleagues includes “previously undisclosed contributors who have benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts and, in one case, a pardon for a family member.” Nvidia, Apple, the Adelson family and Charles Ergen each committed the maximum $25 million; Google gave $22 million; Lockheed Martin and Microsoft each gave $10 million. And one of the earliest commitments, $2.5 million, came from Isabela Herrera, whose father Julio Herrera Velutini — indicted by the DOJ on bribery charges — Trump pardoned months later.

GET OUT THE VOTE — “This baby red panda is cute, fluffy and needs you to name her,” by WaPo’s Dana Hedgpeth: The National Zoo “has come up with three possible names and is asking the public to vote by Oct. 17. They are: Dolly, inspired by country music legend Dolly Parton; Pyra, which means heat in Greek; and Dolpa, a region in Nepal where red pandas scamper in the wild.”

MEDIA MOVE — Ethan Selzer is joining City Cast DC as general manager. He most recently worked at WaPo.

TRANSITION — Hannah Thoburn is joining the Center for European Policy Analysis as a senior fellow. She most recently worked at Anduril Industries and is a Senate Foreign Relations alum.

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