What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending October 27, 2018

The closer we are to the date, the more all news seems tied to the midterm elections, whether it’s the state of the economy, the Honduran caravan traveling through Mexico to the U.S. border, or even gender identity.

Voters agree with President Trump’s efforts to stop the horde of Hondurans marching through Mexico from entering the United States illegally. 

But Trump and the economy are the major concerns for voters going into the midterm congressional elections.

Voters also think the media are trying to help Democrats in the upcoming elections which helps explain why Democratic voters are much bigger fans of election news coverage than others are.

As the election nears, Democrats hold a small lead over Republicans on this week’s Generic Congressional Ballot, and voters are slightly more confident in the nation’s political players to lead the country into the future.

Rasmussen Reports invites you to be a part of our first-ever Citizen-Sourced National Midterm Election Polling Project. Learn more about how you can contribute.

Trump called the Federal Reserve his “biggest threat” in a recent interview, claiming that the central bank is raising interest rates too fast. But it appears Americans have warmed up to the Fed these days.

Republican and Democratic candidates alike are making their last-minute attempts at earning the middle class vote. But while Americans may not agree on what income qualifies as middle class, most are pretty sure they fall into that category. Even among the country’s highest earners, only one-in-five consider themselves wealthy.

Further afield, voters say the disappearance and death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a matter of U.S. national security. But regardless of whether voters see this as a national security issue or media overreaction, most support the Trump administration’s plan to organize several Middle Eastern nations into a so-called “Arab NATO.”

If the Saudi government was involved in the death of Khashoggi, most voters think the nation should be reprimanded by the United States.

In other surveys last week:

-- Health care is a major factor when it comes to whom voters will choose at the ballot this midterm election, but they continue to look to the free market, not the government, to solve the woes of rising health care costs.

-- Canada last year became the 10^th country to allow residents to choose a gender option other than male or female on their passports, but most Americans agree with the Trump administration’s current consideration of limiting the definition of gender strictly to biology and oppose a third gender option on legal documents in this country.

-- Many Americans continue to feel the impact of bullying but now are more convinced that schools rather than parents need to do something about it.

-- For the third week in a row, 43% of voters think the country is heading in the right direction.

Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the latest current polling coverage of events in the news. The page is updated several times each day.

Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.