Politico-Morning Consult Poll … says voters overwhelmingly list the economy and inflation as their number-one concern. With the Consumer Price Index lingering over 8% and gas prices on the rise again, these voters polled say they trust the GOP far more than Democrats on this issue. 

According to the poll, crime now beats abortion as the “second-tier” issue. This is a big shift from late-summer, when the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and falling gas prices boosted Democrats in the midterms otherwise expected to go the way midterms usually go – against the president’s party.

Comment in the box below, or in the right column if you lean conservative, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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No News in Campaign Ads (TUE 10/18/22)

Democratic and Republican midterm campaigns are disguising mailers as newspapers at the same time many daily newspapers are folding, according to The Washington Post. While both major parties are mailing such “hybrids,” WaPo singles out a “quiet four-state $28 million election-year effort by the liberal leaning American Independent Foundation and partner groups aimed at swaying voters in the midterm elections.” 

For example, AIF mailed (free, of course) a “12-page tabloid with a circulation of 953,000” monthly called “The Pennsylvania Independent” reaching about one in five of the state’s households “with articles from the Associated Press, crosswords, recipes and useful updates on which nearby towns had the lowest gas prices.” 

Our take: Partisan groups like the AIF are taking advantage of a nation already increasingly being deprived of non-partisan journalistic scrutiny of local and state governments as real daily and weekly newspapers continue to fold. We hope no voters are being fooled by this tactic.

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COMMENTS: Go to the comment box in this column (or the one in the right column if that’s the way you lean) or email editors@thehustings.news and identify yourself as right or left in the subject line.

--TL