Corruption is voters' top issue ahead of midterm election, CNBC survey shows

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Voters are now more concerned about government corruption than any other issue, including high grocery and gas prices, according to the final CNBC All-America Economic Survey before the Nov. 3 midterm election.
The finding follows a monthslong messaging effort by Democrats to link widespread economic dissatisfaction with what they allege is rampant corruption by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies.
CNBC's survey of 1,000 registered U.S. voters found 36% of respondents pointing to government corruption as one of the most important issues facing the country right now. The cost of food and groceries came second with 34%, followed by protecting democracy and the price of gas, which garnered 23% each.
The nationwide poll, which gauged attitudes about the economy, Trump, Congress, artificial intelligence, the Iran war and more, was conducted Oct. 14-18. It was co-led by Democratic pollster Hart Research Associates and Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies, and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Read the full survey results here.
To be sure, the question asking voters to name their top concerns lists several economy- and cost-related topics separately, subdividing an issue that might otherwise rank higher if lumped into a single category.
But the results nevertheless align with other recent polls showing corruption has shot to the top of voters' list of pressing worries.
A Fox News poll published last week found 60% of registered voters are extremely concerned about government corruption, surpassing concerns about inflation and high prices. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday found some two-thirds of respondents think Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself, up 10 percentage points since September 2025. Gallup recently found perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. have hit multi-decade highs. And an August poll from Reuters/Ipsos found nearly 7 in 10 Americans believe Trump's businesses influence his presidential decisions.
Republicans have also tried to seize on growing anti-corruption sentiment. The Trump administration has launched a task force led by Vice President JD Vance aimed at cracking down on fraud, while the president frequently accuses his Democratic enemies of crookery.
"I just want to say that from day one of my administration, we've waged an unprecedented war on corruption and fraud, and will not let our country be looted and plundered by thieves and pirates and foreign fraudsters and basically scum," Trump said Tuesday while unveiling a new reward program for whistleblowers.
But with Republicans in charge of the federal government — and as high costs linked to Trump's tariffs and the Iran war have put the GOP on defense — Democrats have been able to cast blame more directly.
"Americans have spent well over $100 BILLION extra on gas because Trump chose to go to war with Iran," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said Wednesday on X. "His ego-fueled decisions cost you thousands."
Their arguments often spotlight Trump, attempting to draw a contrast between Americans' widely felt financial struggles with the president's surging net worth, his family's lucrative business dealings and his focus on pricey construction projects.
Other Democratic candidates have widened the scope of the message, delivering a pitch that the system itself is broken.
"The problem is that the people's elected representatives don't represent the people. They represent the donors and special interests," Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said in an April campaign video. "Corruption is why things don't work for ordinary people."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has hammered the claim that Republicans have betrayed their vow to bring down costs.
"The wealthy and well-connected are cashing in. What are Republicans doing to lower costs for everyone else? Absolutely nothing," Jeffries wrote Friday.
Rhetoric and results
Democrats' push appears to be resonating with voters, even as large swaths remain skeptical of both parties.
Respondents to the CNBC survey gave Democrats a 4-point edge over Republicans, 35% to 31%, when asked which party would do a better job dealing with government corruption.
But that gap grew to 17 points in Democrats' favor among voters who said corruption was their most important issue.
And independents, by a 15-point margin, said Democrats would address corruption better than Republicans – though 41% of those respondents think neither party would do a good job.
The apparent rise in concern about corruption is welcome news to critics of the president who have long lamented that Americans have become numb to scandal in the Trump era.
That shift is taking place because voters are feeling the impact of inflation and connecting it to what they see in Washington, said Brian Lemek, executive of the Democrat-backing political action committee Defend the Vote, in an interview.
"It's the only thing people are talking about right now," said Lemek, whose group briefed candidates on the issue in June.
Voters are "looking at the reality that their costs are high" and "making the connection between this corrupt and broken system and their high costs," he said.
Additionally, survey respondents overwhelmingly opposed the idea of elected officials, including the president and members of Congress, personally owning or trading stocks in individual companies that have contracts with the federal government. That should not be allowed, 93% of voters said in the poll.
A similar proportion – 89% – said that companies owned, or invested in, by a sitting president's immediate family members should not be allowed to receive contracts from the federal government.
"This definitely ties back to the corruption issues that we've been talking about," said Alicia Simmons of Hart Research Associates.

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