It’s Not Just ‘The Economy, Stupid’: Political Corruption Giving Inflation Run For Its Money As Top Voter Issue

Corruption has become a top issue alongside affordability for many voters ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Polls show that corruption has joined affordability as the issues voters are most concerned with in the 2026 midterm election cycle as the latter issue is often linked to President Donald Trump’s war against Iran in voters’ minds. Trump, his family and administration officials have been accused of several corrupt actions, including accepting a plane from Qatar and pardoning a cryptocurrency exchange CEO tied to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s business ventures.

Sarah Chamberlain, the president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that corruption became the “number one issue” because of current economic conditions.

“Usually, the polling is much better for the Republican than it has been,” Chamberlain told the DCNF. “I think it’s just across the board, people are tired of the corruption … If the economy were healthier, no one would pay attention to the corruption. But because they’re struggling, corruption is a bigger deal on their minds.”

A Fox News poll found government corruption to be the top issue, with 60% of registered voters being “extremely concerned,” while 58% expressed the same level of concern about inflation. Seventy-two percent of Democrats said they were “extremely concerned” about corruption and 47% of Republicans said the same.

Thirty-six percent of voters said government corruption was their top concern in a CNBC poll from Friday, while 34% said grocery costs were their biggest concern. Nineteen percent of registered voters said corruption was their top issue in a CNN poll from Wednesday.

A Financial Times survey found that 91% of Democratic voters and 72% of independent voters were “concerned about corruption, self-dealing or conflicts of interests” in the Trump administration. Another survey by Navigator Research, a Democratic-aligned polling organization, found that 81% of voters believe corruption in government is contributing to rising costs.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned on Oct. 13 after the administration asked her to step down. Guilfoyle allegedly asked Trump donor Eric Deters to wire $100,000 to her American Express account in exchange for getting access to Trump. The wire transfer never occurred.

The State Department’s Office of Inspector General is investigating Guilfoyle after her alleged solicitation.

Democrats vowed to investigate Trump and administration officials for corruption if they take back Congress in January, including Trump’s family and their finances. Trump made more than $1 billion off of cryptocurrency and promoted companies after buying their stock, according to a CNN investigation. He accepted a jet as a gift from Qatar to use as Air Force One, which is supposed to be transferred to his presidential library. The White House repeatedly denied any allegations of wrongdoing.

Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, in October 2025. Zhao and Binance had established business ties with World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that Trump launched with his sons, Don Jr. and Eric. Trump planned to host a dinner on Nov. 22 for the top 185 holders of $TRUMP meme coin after hosting a similar event at his Washington, D.C., area golf club in 2025.

Melissa Toufanian, Navigator’s managing director, said people would not be “so worried about all this corruption if I were doing better,” according to The Financial Times.

“It’s when people are not doing so well financially and they see others benefiting to an obscene degree that the frustration begins to build,” Toufanian said.

Voters remained dissatisfied with the economy throughout the election cycle, which commonly is a top issue for voters in elections. The issue prompted Democratic strategist James Carville to coin the famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” while advising former President Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential election.

Gas prices increased over $4 per gallon on average, while Diesel prices exceeded $6 per gallon since the Iran war began. The price of food also increased since the start of the war.

Republican Utah Sen. John Curtis urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden as part of an investigation into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit in a letter from Sept. 22. The committee has not appeared to address the letter or began any investigations.

“[Corruption] is the number one issue right now, and it’s across the board. It’s not just Republicans,” Chamberlain said. “[Voters] are struggling to pay their bills, and they’re seeing the fraud that [Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] was involved in. They’re seeing different types of fraud and they don’t like that because they don’t have the money to go out to dinner. So usually, fraud is not a big issue, but when you have an economy that is stretched, fraud is a big issue.”

Chamberlain said the fraud in Minnesota and a Russian oligarch paying for Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding caused corruption to become a top issue. She stated that fraud could have a major impact in the Senate races, particularly Texas and Minnesota.

Republican Minnesota Senate nominee Michele Tafoya trailed Democratic Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan by an average of five points in a state where former Vice President Kamala Harris won by a 51.1% to 46.9% margin, according to RealClearPolling. Tafoya centered her campaign around the fraud that took place statewide throughout Walz’s administration, in which Flanagan was apart of.

“I think you could really see a surprise there in which [Tafoya] wins because of the corruption out there,” Chamberlain said.

Fraudsters, most of whom were of Somali descent, allegedly stole hundreds of millions of Minnesotans’ taxpayer dollars from state programs since 2018, such as Feeding Our Future, which provided meals for low-income children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged 80 suspects with stealing around $250 million from Feeding Our Future.

Somali fraudsters allegedly stole over $90 million from Medicaid and child care programs throughout the state, including $46.6 million in autism fraud (EIDBI), $22 million in individualized home supports and $15.7 million in housing stabilization services, according to the DOJ.

“Billions were stolen under Peggy’s watch while she became a millionaire in public office,” Tafoya told the DCNF. “Minnesotans are tired of career politicians who let corruption run rampant while taxpayers are left holding the bill. I will be an equal opportunity pain in the ass for any corrupt politician.”

Flanagan’s campaign did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Corruption became a front-and-center issue in the Texas Senate race, where Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic Texas Senate nominee James Talarico face a competitive matchup. The Republican-controlled Texas state Legislature impeached Paxton in 2023 on bribery and abuse of power charges, although the state Senate acquitted him.

Paxton was accused of misusing the office of the attorney general to protect and assist Austin real estate developer and political donor Nate Paul, who faced federal investigations. He allegedly intervened in lawsuits, issued favorable legal opinions to protect Paul’s properties from foreclosure and hired a special prosecutor to investigate claims helpful to Paul.

Paul allegedly paid for expensive renovations to Paxton’s home and employed a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair. Paxton denied all wrongdoing.

During the Republican primary, Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn and his allies referred to Paxton as “Crooked Ken” and called him “corrupt to the core” in one ad. Talarico and his allies released attack ads calling out Paxton’s alleged corruption.

“Ken Paxton was impeached by his own party for taking bribes from wealthy donors while blocking overtime pay for Texas workers and gutting our health care,” one of Talarico’s ads said. “We cannot afford Ken Paxton’s corruption.”

An October University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll found voters trusted Talarico more on handling corruption than Paxton by ten percentage points.

“Ken Paxton has taken on the federal bureaucrats and the corporations ripping off Texans, and he has beaten them,” Paxton spokeswoman Madison Cercy told the Post. “Democrats have spent years trying to destroy him, just like they tried with President Trump, and every attack has come up empty.”

One Republican said he was voting for Talarico over Paxton because of corruption.

“It’s just confusing to me that people are willing to throw away their morals or what they would call their Republican morals, in order purely to support keeping a Republican majority in the Senate,” Sam Clark, a Dallas Republican, told The Washington Post.

Paxton and Talarico’s campaign did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Talarico said during a Fort Worth town hall that Paxton’s net worth shot up while he was in office and argued his legal entanglements should disqualify him from being senator. Paxton’s net worth rose from $174,000 when he first entered the state Legislature in 2003 to an estimated $13 million currently, according to Forbes.

Corruption advertisements were the second most common topic for Democrats after the economy, according to a Washington Post review of more than 8,000 ads. Democrats spent about $306 million on ethics-focused ads in early October, while Republicans spent $187 million.

Former Democratic Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola’s campaign reportedly plotted to sabotage Republican Alaska Sen. Dan S. Sullivan’s reelection bid by recruiting a candidate with the same name, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Peltola’s team actively searched for other Dan Sullivans to be on the ballot in November to boost the Democrat’s chances of winning, a review by the Times found. An operative introduced by aides from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) made secret trips to Alaskan communities while using a fake name and pitched his idea to would-be candidates over beers at brew pubs.

Peltola’s campaign lawyers and senior aides at the DSCC participated in regular conversations about the effort and considered forming a new political party to draw conservatives to the ballot, according to the Times.

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