Here are the issues that will affect the 2014 midterm elections

2014 midterm election season is here. With just a couple of weeks left to go, what are the hottest issues that will bring people out to the polls? An early September ABC News/Washington Post poll of registered voters found that 35 percent say the economy and jobs will be the single most important issue affecting their vote for Congress. 15 percent said the most important issue was the way Washington, DC works, 13 percent said health care, and 12 percent said international conflicts. But what will really tip the scales at the voting booth? Former AEI research associate Jennifer Marsico interviews AEI Senior Fellow Karlyn Bowman on this episode of Election Countdown.

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Partial transcript:
Time is growing short for the 2014 midterm election season—with just a couple of weeks left to go, what are the hottest issues that will bring people out to the polls? We’ll talk about those issues with AEI Senior Fellow Karlyn Bowman, on this episode of Election Countdown.

The economy. Education. Health care. Foreign policy. These are all issues that are coming up in several close campaigns throughout the country. An early September ABC News/Washington Post poll of registered voters found that 35 percent say the economy and jobs will be the single most important issue affecting their vote for Congress. 15 percent said the most important issue was the way Washington, DC works, 13 percent said health care, and 12 percent said international conflicts. With us this week to discuss some of these important issues and their potential effects on important elections is AEI Senior Fellow Karlyn Bowman. Karlyn is a public opinion and polling expert and the author of several issue-related public opinion studies at AEI. Karlyn, thanks for being here.

As that ABC News/Washington Post survey found, the economy still seems to be the issue in the forefront of many voters’ minds.
Why do you think that is? Do people not yet feel that the economy is recovering? CBS News and the New York Times had a poll in mid-September that showed that only 4 percent of people said the economy’s condition is very good. However, 4 in ten did rate it as “fairly good.” Should we take that as a sign that people are getting to be more optimistic? Or do you think that negativity about the economy has become more ingrained in Americans?

Now, education was not among the issues listed in the ABC News/Washington Post poll, but it is still an issue that the Political Corner is paying close attention to this fall. Why is education not ranked among the most important issues? Is it because education issues tend to be considered on a more local level? In which states could education be an issue that affects an election’s outcome this year?

The Affordable Health Care Act, or Obamacare, has been law for a while now, but it still ranks high among those most important issues. A recent Kaiser poll found that 63 percent of Americans say that Congress should work to improve the law, while 33 percent say it should be repealed and replaced. Karlyn, we talked about this with Norm Ornstein a few weeks ago, but do you think that people starting to accept the ACA?
Do you think the people who rank health care as their most important issue are still dissatisfied with the law and want it replaced? Is there any way of knowing that?

Foreign policy has definitely been showing up on voters’ radar screen lately. And people seem to be more hawkish than they’ve been in a while. That ABC News/Washington Post poll we discussed before said that now 71 percent support air strikes against ISIS in Iraq. Back in late June, just 45 percent did.
Karlyn, do you think these more hawkish feelings will last, or are they very closely tied to current events? But will these feelings last long enough and be strong enough to change any election outcomes?

Here's the all issues that will affect the 2014 midterm elections