With one day left until Election Day, voters’ focus has shifted to key issues like abortion and immigration — but inflation remains the top issue when it comes to the presidential election.

Those are the findings of the University of South Florida researchers’ fourth and final poll in their 2024 election series.

They surveyed 1,500 registered voters nationwide via an online web panel from October 22-27 to track how social media use affects political polarization, levels of political stress, and belief in misinformation about elections.

“This will be the third election cycle with misinformation and how it’s amplified through social media,” said Megan Corn, a graduate student and research assistant at USF School of Public Affairs.

“A lot of people now turn to social media for news and information, and I think because it’s so easy for misinformation to spread on such platforms, voters accept it and it becomes more and more real to them.”

In addition to seeing which false statements voters believed, the researchers asked which issues were most important when deciding who to vote for.

What do voters care about in this election?

More than a quarter (28%) of respondents identified abortion as one of the top three issues influencing how they would vote, up 7% from August survey results.

“Over the past three months, there has been a small but notable increase in voter focus on abortion and social policy issues,” the report said.

Meanwhile, 37 percent identified immigration as one of the top three issues, down from a high of 51 percent in August.

Pocket issues remain top of mind for polled voters, with inflation and the economy and jobs consistently ranking 1-2 as the top issues in January.

University of South Florida

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A majority (63.3%) of those polled describe the overall state of the US economy as “weak,” with a majority of Republicans describing it as “very weak.”

Election-related disinformation

Survey takers were also asked to indicate whether they thought eight statements about current political events were true or false. Five were based on misinformation.

One of the bogus articles addressed claims that Haitian immigrants currently living in Springfield, Ohio have stolen and eaten pets – a amplified statement by Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.

Of the eight statements, this was the most correctly identified by those who participated in the survey (74.4%) as false.

Of the three true statements, respondents were most closely divided when it came to whether or not they thought voter fraud was rare in US presidential elections. 55.2% voted “definitely true” or “probably true”, compared to 44.8% who chose “probably false” or “definitely false”.

Survey cites studies from the Brennan Center for Justice and a press release from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which says the 2020 US presidential election was “the most secure in American history” with no evidence that votes were deleted, altered or compromised.

Voters are chronically stressed

The survey also found that voter attitudes were barely affected after major political events, leading the researchers to believe we are in a period of what they call “chronic stress.”

The two events researchers used as markers between the May polls and now were the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13 and when Joe Biden abandoned of the presidential race eight days later.

None of these events produced a significant change in the stress level of the survey participants, either positively or negatively.

University of South Florida

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“It wasn’t (until) the third survey (in August) that I realized maybe we’re just stuck,” said Savannah Havird, a graduate student and research assistant at the USF School of Public Affairs. “Maybe we’re so used to the stress that comes around elections that we’re constantly at that level.”

The poll was sponsored by CyberFlorida and conducted with a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of +/- 2.53.

For more detailed survey results, click here.