With the midterm elections less than eight months away and control of the House of Representatives hanging in the balance, new polling is suggesting that voters in primary elections are less concerned with the electability of their candidates and more interested in ideological fidelity.

An NBC News poll released Sunday asked primary voters which matters more to them in choosing a primary candidate: selecting a “candidate who comes closest to your views on issues” or one “with the best chance to beat the [opposing party’s] candidate in November.” A majority (56%) of Democrats responded that selecting a “candidate who comes closest to your views on issues” is a priority, while only 42% favored electability against Republicans. Only one percent said “both,” and 1% said “not sure.”

Among Republican primary voters, the hunger for ideological fidelity is even higher: 70% of GOP primary voters said that they would back a “candidate who comes closest to your views on issues,” while only 27% said that they would prefer a “candidate with the best chance to beat the Democratic candidate in November.” Two percent of Republican primary voters said “both,” and 1% said “not sure.”

Voters were also asked how interested they are in participating in the midterm elections on a scale of one to 10. Nearly 60% of voters ranked their interest in voting in November at 10, while a combined total of 15% of voters ranked their interest in voting at five or lower.

The push among voters for “ideological purity” is particularly significant for the Democratic Party, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand, especially as Democrats face an identity crisis in the absence of strong leadership and grapple to capitalize on surging concern over inflation and affordability. “With the Democratic Party near a historic low point in approval ratings, public disagreement and dysfunction at the Democratic National Committee, and the retirement of longtime power brokers like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the party is starved for leadership and ripe for the picking by the most radical elements of the base,” Carpenter commented.

He pointed to the rise of explicitly socialist candidates as a point of particular concern. “The success of Zohran Mamdani in winning the Democratic primary for mayor of New York — and eventually becoming mayor of New York — is proof to the most radical progressive that the party establishment is wrong to make the argument that ideological purity necessarily harms electability.”

According to NBC’s survey, most Americans (48%) consider inflation and the cost of living to be the most crucial issue facing the nation, with “threats to democracy,” immigration and border security, and the economy more broadly all taking a backseat. A combined total of 73% of voters said that their personal economic situations have either not improved (35%) or have worsened (38%) since President Donald Trump’s return to office, with only 27% saying that their finances have improved. While Trump’s handling of border security received high marks (53% approve), his management of the economy was the lowest-rated (only 36% approve, 62% disapprove) job performance aspect surveyed — lower even than the president’s high-profile deportation campaign (44% approve).

The economic concerns recorded by NBC News are punctuated by a drift towards socialist policies among Democratic voters, according to a Fox News poll published last week. A record-high of 38% of voters surveyed described socialist policies as a “good thing.” The previous record was set in August of 2018, when 36% of voters endorsed socialist policies. Support has waned since then but has seen a sudden surge over the past four years. While a majority (61%) still described socialist policies as a “bad thing,” opposition to socialism has largely fallen since July of 2010.

“We are in the throes of primary season, which means the progressive base has a unique opportunity to support candidates that promise to shake the party establishment and embrace full-heartedly the most radical elements within the party platform, and I suspect some of these radical progressive candidates will prevail in their primaries,” Carpenter opined. “For an individual like Mamdani to get elected in deep-blue New York City is one thing, but to get a similarly progressive candidate elected in a less blue district or state is a much heavier lift. It is well within the realm of possibilities that the Democratic Party enters a purity spiral that significantly weakens them in the run-up to 2028.”