Commentary: Survey finds fear, desire for reset in Washington. Will Trump accept the results?

Virginians are distressed – for their wallets and our democracy – as we approach tomorrow’s congressional elections, according to an online survey that more than 350 Virginia Mercury readers responded to.

As well they should be.

It’s not just kitchen-table issues that are animating voters and driving them to the polls in huge numbers, at least through early voting for a midterm election. The cost of groceries, healthcare, and gasoline and diesel fuel has forced Virginians to make some tough choices about what to pay for – and what to do without.

The war of choice in Iran has contributed to the angst, too.

Virginia Mercury readers head toward midterms with rising bills and doubts about Washington

Many also fear that President Donald Trump and his administration will try to overturn accurate results in a number of states, including the U.S. Senate race in Alaska. The administration has also questioned the legitimacy of 20,000 ballots in California; state officials and legal advocates have pushed back against the federal intrusion.

“Stopping Trump,” “Threat to democracy,” and “The illegal actions of our president and non-action of Congress to stop him!” and similar comments were repeated throughout the responses by Virginia Mercury readers.

Trump is threatening actions that the United States would have condemned had they occurred elsewhere. He’s spouting falsehoods because polls show Republicans will lose their majorities in the House (definitely) and the Senate (possibly). He has lied repeatedly about the accuracy and security of our election apparatus. Trump often sounds unhinged in his pronouncements.

As of Thursday, 1.41 million voters had cast ballots early in Virginia, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. That figure already surpasses the 976,558 total for the entire early voting period in 2022, when the last midterms occurred.

Virginia had nearly 6.47 million registered voters on Oct. 1, according to the state Department of Elections.

The Mercury conducted the unscientific survey – the first of its kind for this news organization – between Sept. 22 and Oct. 17.

Participants could select one of seven options as their biggest concern heading into Tuesday’s elections or fill in their own. The choices the news site offered: shrinking healthcare access, government waste and fraud, higher food prices, rising energy costs, lack of affordable housing, data centers and climate change. 

As my colleague Markus Schmidt wrote, some respondents view this election as a chance to rein in presidential power, while others said healthcare access and costs were utmost on their minds.

“My main issue is getting universal healthcare coverage for all and neither candidate (Republican incumbent Rob Wittman or Democrat Shannon Taylor in the 1st District) speaks to that,” wrote John Meszaros of Midlothian.

That dovetails with what Amber Kostka, co-owner and chief operations officer of three restaurants in South Hampton Roads, told me last week. I learned about her through a recent article at Time.com that discussed healthcare costs and quoted the restaurateur.

Even though Kostka provides health insurance to her employees and splits the cost of premiums with them, more and more told her they can’t afford the benefit. About 35% of her eligible employees now buy the employer-sponsored health insurance, she told Time.com, down from 50% before the COVID outbreak.

“Really, it’s just like everything is getting more expensive” for her employees, Kostka, 38, told me. “Their rents are going up. Their groceries are increasing … so where can they cut?”

Kostka even took a part-time job so she could cut back on her own salary to help out her employees. 

I reached out to Eric Claville for his take on the midterms. He’s a political and legal analyst at Norfolk State University, and we’ve appeared together on PBS affiliate WHRV-FM.

“The concerns expressed by Virginia voters in the (Virginia Mercury) survey are synonymous with what voters have expressed to me and from what I’ve read in other polls,” Claville told me by email. “Virginians are concerned about affordability, the voluntary war in Iran, and democracy under this president overall.”

“Based upon voter concerns about the actions of the Trump administration, the economy and the war,” he added, “and the lack of checks and balances within Congress and the Supreme Court, voters want a change.” 

That’s why the answers to the Virginia Mercury survey are suggestive. The looming question is whether this president accepts the will of voters or instead tries to subvert the results.