Voters Likely Swayed by Media Coverage on Major Issues: Politics Expert

Voters ranked climate change as their least important issue in a poll less than a month before midterm elections, but that could be because it was taken before Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that voters ranked climate change below all other issues asked about, including abortion, immigration, crime, education, inflation and the economy.

Just 13 percent of voters said climate change was the most important issue, while 37 percent considered it a very important issue. The majority of voters said the economy was the most important issue, followed by abortion, inflation, education and schools, immigration, crime and climate change.

One expert told Newsweek that issues strongly covered by the media are more likely to be reflected as important issues in the polls. So, polls likely reflect abortion, immigration and the economy as top issues because those topics have been widely covered in the media.

The poll questioned more than 1,000 adults across the U.S. from September 18 to 21. Numbers for climate change importance might have since shifted because Ian struck Florida a week later. Several reports have speculated that Ian's strength increased because of climate change.

Syracuse University professor Shana Gadarian told Newsweek that polls often reflect an issue people glean as important if it receives mass media coverage.

"It tends to be the case that salient issues or the issues that have been most recently in the news are the ones that get reflected in those 'most important problem' questions depending on the timing of the poll," said Gadarian, a professor of political science and the political science department chair at Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs.

Gadarian said abortion has remained a relevant issue among voters as it moves from the U.S. Supreme Court to "brutal battles at the state level." She said climate change is an issue that has high importance for voters, but only when they see its effects linked through widely covered events.

"Climate is one of those issues for a lot of people that has high saliency to them," Gadarian said. "But for most voters, it is only salient when they are seeing the effects of climate change connected explicitly to a hurricane or heat wave, and the reports are saying 'this is definitely a result of climate change.'"

Despite its poll ranking, climate change is trending upward. The Washington Post-ABC News poll found that those considering climate change as an important issue increased 2 percent over 2018 results and 3 percent over 2014 results.