While midterm elections historically amount to referendums on the incumbent president, voters in this year’s race are most concerned with foreign affairs, pollster and author John Zogby said Thursday on "America’s Forum" on
Newsmax TV.
"It's not Obamacare, it's really for that matter not even about the economy," Zogby said. "The top issue appears to be national security and under that umbrella is both the crisis in the Middle East, foreign policy, including Ukraine, and, of course,
the Ebola virus as well and that is at the doorstep of the Oval Office."
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Zogby weighed in on two tight races
— the Colorado Senate and Florida governor.
Though the Rocky Mountain State’s
Republican candidate Cory Gardner has pulled ahead of Democrat incumbent Sen. Mark Udall in one poll in the past week, Zogby cautioned not to put too much faith in the numbers just yet.
"Michael Bennett, the Democrat, was down in 2010 four years ago and consistently down throughout the pre-Election Day period and there was a huge turnout of Hispanic voters on Election Day," he noted. "There was a great what we call in the business pull that brought Hispanic voters out in large numbers and over 80 percent of them voted for Michael Bennett, which put him over the top. That's why I'm a little hesitant to connect with that seven-point spread. It's a lot closer."
There’s much in the news about "disappointed Latinos," he said, "but in the final analysis they turn out to vote in substantial numbers.
Yes, they're very disappointed in President Obama, but yes, at the same time they really do detest the GOP."
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In the Sunshine State, where the latest Quinnipiac University poll shows the incumbent governor, Republican Rick Scott,
in a dead heat with his Democratic opponent, former Gov. Charlie Crist. Both men are well known to voters, though polling indicates not in a great way. The Quinnipiac poll shows both Scott and Crist with high unfavorability ratings.
"Voters don't like Rick Scott," Zogby said.
"An incumbent governor polling at 42 percent is pretty awful and so it could very well be that these are both the devils that you know, but this is the devil who's not in the governor's mansion at the moment."
Depending on voter turnout, the race could come down to a difference of a few hundred or thousand votes, he said.
Zogby is co-author of
"First Globals Understanding, Managing, & Unleashing the Potential of Our Millennial Generation."
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