Black Voters View Gun Control as a Major Priority

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White voters are more concerned about terrorism, Hispanic voters are more concerned about immigration and black voters are more concerned about gun control, according to a TIME/SurveyMonkey poll.

In an online tracking poll of 5,478 registered voters taken Sept. 28-29 after the first presidential debate, 60 percent of white registered voters listed terrorism as one of their top three priorities for the next President, compared to only around 50 percent of registered voters who identified as black, Hispanic or another race.

On immigration, 39 percent of Hispanic voters listed it as a top priority, compared to 30 percent of white voters, 22 percent of those who chose another race and just 12 percent of black voters.

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There was also a significant gap in the importance of gun control: 40 percent of black voters listed it as a top priority, compared to 28 percent of Hispanic voters, 22 percent among those who chose another race and just 18 percent of white voters.

Respondents were asked to choose among 11 topics, including the economy and jobs, terrorism and national security, health care, immigration, the budget deficit, gun control, Social Security, climate change, government regulation, energy policy and abortion or to name another topic of their own.

Overall, 61 percent of respondents chose the economy and jobs, 58 percent chose terrorism and national security, 38 percent chose health care, 28 percent chose immigration, 22 percent chose the deficit, 21 percent chose gun control, 19 percent chose Social Security, 15 percent chose climate change, 12 percent chose regulations, seven percent chose energy, six percent chose another topic and three percent chose abortion.

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The SurveyMonkey Election Tracking survey was conducted online in cooperation with TIME magazine on those two days. Respondents were chosen from the nearly 3 million people who take surveys on SurveyMonkey each day. The poll has a bootstrap confidence interval—a measure of the pollsters’ confidence in the results—of plus or minus two percentage points for registered voters. You can read more about the methodology here.

 

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