A new poll released Tuesday revealed the top priorities for Democratic voters heading into this week’s two-night debates, and reparations weren’t one of them.
The poll, conducted by the New Morning Consult with Politico shows that Democratic voters are most interested in hearing the candidates discuss climate change, gun policy, and recent state legislation regarding abortion above others.
According to the poll, approximately three out of every five Democrats said it was “very important” for the candidates to discuss these three topics. Less than half of Democratic voters felt the same way about issues surrounding the Trump administration and foreign policy issues related to Iran, North Korea, China, and Mexico.
The idea of reparations for slavery and members of the LGBT community were also notably absent from the voters’ list of top debate topics. While the discussion of reparations among candidates has escalated, only 25 percent of Democratic voters said it was “very important” to discuss during the debate.
Gun policy and abortion have usually been prominent, unifying topics of discussion among Democrats and are likely to surface at least at one point in each night of the debates to provide candidates an opportunity to direct attacks on Republican opponents in primetime. Recent discussions, however, have focused more on President Donald Trump’s actions in the White House and reparations for certain groups to allegedly “make right” historical wrongdoings despite candidates heading to Florida following a Planned Parenthood forum in South Carolina.
The New Morning Consult/Politico poll was carried out June 21-24 with a national sample size of 1,991 registered voters using an online survey and a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points. Data was weighted to take into account various independent variables including age, race and ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, and geographic region.
