National Poll: A New Group of Young, Ticked-off, and Working Class Voters Has Emerged + New Impacts of Inflation 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 17, 2024) – Cygnal, the nation’s fastest-growing and most accurate private polling firm, released the following national poll (conducted Apr. 9-10) of 1,500 likely general election voters. 

“This latest national poll shows a new key voter group emerging. They are young, ticked-off, diverse, working-class, and trending toward Republicans. These voters also skew more female, tend to be younger than 45, and a majority voted for Trump in 2020,” said Cygnal Pollster Mitchell Brown. “Despite aligning well with the GOP base, these voters are more moderate and slightly more likely to view the Republican Party as more extreme. And while both Trump and Biden are underwater, with Trump just a tad more than Biden, the main difference is that this group is much more inflation focused. At the same time, illegal immigration and tertiary issues like healthcare are distant priorities. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for Republicans. They will need to speak to those top issues while not appearing extreme on fronts that don’t appeal to those issues if they want to maintain the advantage with 18 percent of the electorate that could swing the outcome of the election.”  

Here are Brown’s top takeaways from this new national poll: 

1. The “ticked-off, diverse, young working-class” voter (18%) leans heavily toward Republicans on the generic ballot but are more ideologically moderate than the GOP base.  
2. Inflation and the economy (27%) is the top priority for voters while illegal immigration (25%) remains a close second. Republican voters drive the illegal immigration concerns while Independents drive the economic concerns. Democratic voters are much more dispersed throughout their issue set.  
3. 91% of voters are concerned with the impact of inflation on their households. These are mostly younger women, Republicans, and parents.  
   • Voters are split on their expectations for household finances in the next few years. 34% expect their financial situation to get better while 31% say it will get worse, and only 26% stay the same.
   • 28% say the best indicators of a good economy are when things are cheaper to buy, and 22% say when they aren’t struggling financially. 
   • If voters had to deal with large, unexpected expenses, 31% say they would pay for it with non-retirement savings and still maintain some savings left over, or 22% put it on a credit card. 
4. 25% of Hispanics now say illegal immigration and border security is among their top issues, up five points from last month, closely following inflation and the economy (27%). 
5. Trump remains at a steady +3 over Biden. The full presidential ballot looks like this: Trump 42%, Biden 39%, Kennedy 9%). 8% are still undecided. 18% of Independents support Kennedy, but Trump still leads Independents with 31% and 29% for Biden. With Kennedy presented as a Libertarian candidate, the ballot didn’t move, and in fact, loses 1% support overall.