If they can get beyond Donald Trump’s boycott of tonight’s nationally televised debate – the last one before Monday’s Iowa caucuses -- there is plenty for the Republican presidential candidates to talk about that has real meaning for voters.
So far, the candidates have had a lot say about the illegal immigration crisis, the terrorist threat to the U.S., the need to bomb ISIS back into the Stone Age, and how major tax cuts would cure what ails the economy. Executive overreach by President Obama and the need to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act are also staples of the Republican campaign circuit.
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However, other issues of vital concern to voters are getting short-shrift by the Republicans as they focus much of their energy on denouncing Obama and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton. While terrorism and the economy remain the top two concerns of Republican and Democratic voters, according to a new national tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, other issues are near the top of the list – and they are issues that have been strongly embraced by Clinton and her chief rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
For instance, the surging cost of prescription drugs and rising premiums and copayments for health insurance coverage rank third among voter concerns, according to the survey released this week. While GOP frontrunner Donald Trump once publicly criticized the then CEO of Turing Pharmaceutical, Martin Shkreli, for jacking up the price of a 62-year old drug fifty-fold, he and the rest of the GOP field have had relatively little to say about the runaway costs of both new and old prescription drugs.
Republican candidates have clucked at times about the growth of the federal debt during Obama’s two terms in office, even as most of them have promoted major tax cuts that would add trillions to the debt in the coming decade. Yet the deficit and debt rank fifth among voter concerns, according to the new survey. In the wake of the mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and at elementary schools and college campuses, gun control ranks sixth as a voter concern.
And despite the ongoing debate between GOP leaders and the administration over the future of Obamacare, the national health insurance program ranks just eighth in the list of voter concerns. Nearly a quarter of those interviewed said the ACA was extremely important, but only four percent chose it as the most important issue to them.
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Here’s a chart that summarizes the issues most important to voters at this point in the campaign, with the ACA ranking just eighth in importance.
