Nurse Voter Survey 2026: What 830 Nurses Want From Lawmakers This November
Introducing the findings from Nurse.org’s Nurse Voter Survey 2026, based on responses from 830 licensed nurses before the November midterms.
The nurses who took our survey don’t vote as one bloc. They identify as Democrats, Republicans, independents, and none of the above, and most told us that nursing issues and broader national issues weigh about the same when they decide how to vote. What nurses do share is a close-up view of how US healthcare works, and that is what we asked them about.
From September 1 through October 25, we asked nurses on Nurse.org which issues matter most to them this November. We did not ask about candidates, endorsements, or how anyone plans to vote. Three questions were adapted from Gallup polls, so nurses’ answers could be set alongside the public’s. Nurses at every level answered, from LPNs to nurse practitioners to PhDs.
One note before the numbers: this survey reflects the nurses who chose to take it on our site, not all nurses everywhere. They skew older than the profession as a whole (68.0% of those who gave an age are 50 or older), and more of them identify as Democrats (36.2%) than as independents (23.3%) or Republicans (20.9%). The full details are in the methodology at the end.
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We gave nurses a list of ten nursing and healthcare issues and asked them to pick up to three they most want lawmakers to work on. Safe staffing came first by a wide margin.
Here is the full list, with the share of nurses who picked each issue. Nurses could pick up to three, so the column adds to more than 100%.
| Issue | % who picked it |
| Safe staffing laws that limit how many patients one nurse can be assigned | 66.4% |
| Better pay for nurses | 51.1% |
| Stronger protections against violence at work | 38.0% |
| Protecting Medicaid and Medicare funding | 31.1% |
| Mental health and burnout support for healthcare workers | 28.4% |
| Rules for how AI is used in healthcare | 23.1% |
| Letting NPs and other advanced practice nurses practice to the full extent of their training | 17.8% |
| Making nursing education more affordable | 16.5% |
| Funding for public health and emergency preparedness | 15.9% |
| Limits on mandatory overtime | 7.5% |
830 licensed nurses answered this question. Source: Nurse.org, Nurse Voter Survey 2026.
Staffing beat pay by 15 points. One nurse put it this way: “It comes down to patient safety and nurse safety! We shouldn’t have to push for safer staffing, it should be required!” Another wrote that lawmakers should “reevaluate and revise nurse-to-patient staffing ratio requirements to establish safer, more realistic limits on the number of patients assigned to each nurse.” Staffing laws are decided mostly in state legislatures, which makes this year’s state legislative races especially relevant to nurses. Voters in some states will also decide ballot measures that touch healthcare more broadly.
Violence protections came third at 38.0%. One nurse said the problem isn’t the law, it’s enforcement: “Assaulting a caregiver is a felony, but there are very few local levels of the justice system that actually prosecute these individuals.” Whether assault on a nurse is a felony actually varies by state, and our nurse safety laws review maps where it is and is not.
One result further down the list stands out: 23.1% of nurses picked rules for how AI is used in healthcare, more than picked practice authority or making nursing education more affordable. As one nurse wrote, the concern is “allowing AI companies to sell their products to healthcare organizations without proving they will make healthcare safer or more affordable.”
Several LPNs and LVNs also used the written answers to say the policy conversation leaves them out: “LVN’s are left out of most of these conversations and legislative decisions. They are licensed nurses too, and their abilities and impacts should be part of these topics!”
Priorities differ by where nurses work. Among nurses working in patient care, 71.2% picked safe staffing, compared with 51.7% of nurses working in nursing outside patient care. Pay shows the same pattern: 59.8% of patient-care nurses picked it, against 38.3% of their non-bedside colleagues.
The same split shows up by age. Better pay is a top-three issue for 62.9% of nurses under 50, versus 45.3% of nurses 50 and older. And among patient-care nurses under 50, pay essentially ties staffing at the top: 72.0% picked pay and 72.5% picked safe staffing. Across the full survey, staffing leads pay by more than 15 points. For younger nurses at the bedside, that gap closes.
Their general-election priorities split by age too, in a different way. Housing and cost of living is a top vote issue for 42.9% of nurses under 50 but 24.1% of those 50 and older, and inflation follows the same pattern (42.1% versus 27.8%). Social Security and Medicare run the other way: a top issue for 36.5% of nurses 50 and older, but just 8.3% of those under 50.
We asked about six federal healthcare ideas, from a minimum staffing law to help with medical debt. Most nurses supported every one. We asked about the ideas, not specific bills, and we didn’t ask about cost. 38.3% of nurses answered “strongly support” to all six.
The table below shows each question as we asked it, with the breakdown by answer, sorted by the share who said “strongly support.”
| What we asked | Strongly support | Somewhat support | Unsure | Oppose |
| Would you support or oppose increasing federal criminal penalties for assaulting healthcare workers? | 88.6% | 9.6% | 1.1% | 0.7% |
| Would you support or oppose federal funding for rural hospitals and clinics? | 81.4% | 14.5% | 1.9% | 2.2% |
| Would you support or oppose federal funding for nursing education and training programs? | 77.1% | 15.8% | 3.3% | 3.9% |
| Would you support or oppose federal regulation of prescription drug prices? | 77.0% | 16.5% | 3.5% | 3.0% |
| Would you support or oppose a federal law setting minimum nurse staffing levels? | 74.3% | 14.1% | 6.6% | 4.9% |
| Would you support or oppose federal programs addressing medical debt? | 64.9% | 22.7% | 7.1% | 5.3% |
830 licensed nurses answered all six questions. Oppose combines somewhat and strongly oppose. Source: Nurse.org, Nurse Voter Survey 2026.
The support crosses party lines on every item. A federal minimum staffing law draws support from 91.3% of Democrats, 88.1% of independents, and 85.5% of Republicans in the survey. The widest party gap is on medical debt, where 94.7% of Democrats support federal programs compared with 78.6% of Republicans, still a large majority of both.
Some of these ideas have related bills in Congress, including the bipartisan Save Healthcare Workers Act on assault penalties, the bipartisan Title VIII nursing workforce reauthorization, and the Patient Debt Relief Act and Medical Debt Relief Act on medical debt. CMS already runs the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program. Our questions asked about the ideas, not these bills, and none of the bills had become law as of late October 2026.
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Nursing issues matter to these voters, but most say broader national issues carry just as much weight. Asked what matters more when they decide how to vote, 61.0% said both about equally, 23.1% said broader national issues, and 13.5% said issues that affect nursing and healthcare.
When we asked which issues will matter most in November and let nurses pick up to three from a list of sixteen, healthcare came first.
Nurses could pick up to three issues from the list below, so percentages add to more than 100%.
| Issue | % who picked it |
| Healthcare | 54.6% |
| Inflation & Prices | 31.8% |
| Housing & Cost of Living | 29.6% |
| Social Security & Medicare | 27.7% |
| Civil Rights & Liberties | 23.0% |
| Government Ethics & Political Reform | 21.9% |
| Taxes & Government Spending | 19.4% |
| Jobs & the Economy | 18.2% |
| Immigration | 15.3% |
| National Security | 10.3% |
| Climate & Environment | 9.8% |
| Crime & Public Safety | 9.7% |
| Abortion | 9.6% |
| Education | 9.1% |
| Guns | 3.9% |
| Foreign Policy | 2.4% |
823 nurses answered this question; the handful who said they definitely will not vote in November skipped it. Source: Nurse.org, Nurse Voter Survey 2026.
Healthcare ranked first among Democrats, Republicans, and independents who answered: 61.3% of Democrats picked it, 50.0% of independents, and 45.1% of Republicans. After healthcare, the three groups diverge: civil rights was second for Democrats (35.7%), inflation was second for independents (38.0%), and immigration was second for Republicans (32.9%).
How these answers compare with the general public is in our companion piece on nurses versus the public. Our review of where candidates stand on nursing issues in 20 competitive races covers the other half of this story: what the people on the ballot are saying about the issues nurses just ranked.
Nurses in our survey rate the US healthcare system more harshly than the public does. Three of our questions were adapted from Gallup’s long-running national polling so the comparison is possible.
Gallup surveys a national sample by phone. Ours was online, on our site. Treat these as rough comparisons.
| How they see US healthcare | Nurses | US adults |
| In a state of crisis | 44.1% | 23% |
| Quality is excellent or good | 34.6% | 46% |
830 licensed nurses answered these questions. Public figures are Gallup’s healthcare system trends, from the November 3-25, 2025 fielding reported in Gallup’s December 2025 release. Source: Nurse.org, Nurse Voter Survey 2026; Gallup.
96.3% of nurses said the healthcare system is in crisis or has major problems, compared with 70% of US adults. And 51.6% of nurses picked the cost of healthcare as the most urgent health problem facing the country. 29% of US adults named cost in Gallup’s open-ended version of that question, but because our survey offered a list of answers and Gallup asked people to volunteer one, those percentages shouldn’t be treated as a direct gap.
The full comparison, including what it does and doesn’t tell us about where nurses and the public actually agree, is in a companion piece.
83.5% of the nurses in our survey say elected officials represent people like them not very well or not at all on healthcare. That feeling crosses party lines: 85.0% of independents, 82.7% of Democrats, and 79.2% of Republicans. Our companion piece on representation looks at that pattern in nurses’ own words, with the full breakdown of civic actions.
These are not disengaged voters. 87.0% say they definitely will vote in November and another 7.0% say they probably will, though saying you’ll vote and voting aren’t the same, and nurses who take a voter survey likely lean more engaged. 88.0% have taken at least one civic action we asked about, from encouraging others to vote to testifying publicly, and 47.6% have contacted a lawmaker about a nursing or healthcare issue.
Nurses are also on the ballot this year: 18 are running for Congress and at least 140 are running for state legislatures across 42 states.
Many nurses in our survey also said they feel they need to keep their political views quiet at work. Our companion piece on politics at work goes into that finding.
One bedside nurse put the stakes plainly: “Neglect the nurses and you neglect the entire American population.”
Nurses don’t vote as one group, and this survey didn’t try to make them one. They differed by party, age, and the work they do. But clear majorities in every party picked healthcare as a top vote issue, backed all six federal healthcare proposals we asked about, and said elected officials represent people like them poorly on healthcare. Safe staffing was the issue nurses picked most. The full results, question by question, are below.
More from the 2026 Nurse Voter Survey
🤔 Which issue tops your list this November? Tell us in the comments below.
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Every closed-response question, in the order we asked it. Percentages are of the 830 licensed nurses who finished the survey unless noted. The four optional written-answer questions are not included here. Source for all tables below: Nurse.org, Nurse Voter Survey 2026.
What is your highest license or degree completed?
| Response | % |
| RN (BSN) | 41.3% |
| RN (ADN) | 19.6% |
| MSN | 17.8% |
| LPN/LVN | 5.9% |
| NP | 5.1% |
| PhD | 3.6% |
| RN (Diploma) | 3.5% |
| DNP | 3.1% |
Which best describes your current work status?
| Response | % |
| I’m working as a nurse in patient care | 58.1% |
| I’m working in nursing, but not in patient care | 18.0% |
| I’m retired from nursing | 11.9% |
| I’m a nurse, but not currently working | 7.1% |
| None of these describe me | 3.0% |
| I’m working in healthcare, but not as a nurse | 1.2% |
| I’m a nursing student | 0.4% |
| I’ve left nursing for a different career | 0.4% |
What is your primary nursing specialty? (792 answered)
| Specialty | % | Specialty | % |
| Other | 11.0% | NICU | 1.1% |
| Medical-Surgical | 10.4% | Dialysis/Nephrology | 0.9% |
| Educator | 7.2% | Telemetry | 0.9% |
| Critical Care (ICU/Neuro ICU/CVICU) | 5.9% | Psychiatric Mental Health NP | 0.9% |
| Ambulatory/Outpatient Care | 4.9% | Radiology/Imaging | 0.6% |
| Case Management | 4.3% | Wound Care | 0.6% |
| Geriatrics | 3.9% | Cath Lab | 0.6% |
| OR-Perioperative/First Assist | 3.8% | Urgent Care | 0.5% |
| Emergency | 3.7% | Women’s Health NP | 0.5% |
| Family NP | 3.4% | Research | 0.5% |
| Psychiatric | 3.3% | Adult-Gerontology NP | 0.5% |
| Leadership/Administration | 3.3% | Pediatric NP | 0.4% |
| Home Health | 3.3% | Informatics | 0.4% |
| Long-Term Care | 2.8% | Neurology | 0.4% |
| Labor & Delivery | 2.7% | Clinical Nurse Specialist | 0.4% |
| Pediatrics | 2.4% | Palliative Care | 0.3% |
| PACU/Perianesthesia | 2.3% | Wellness/Functional Medicine | 0.3% |
| Hospice | 2.1% | Pediatric ICU | 0.3% |
| Step-Down/Progressive Care | 2.0% | Orthopedics | 0.3% |
| Nurse Practitioner | 1.8% | Certified Nurse Midwife | 0.3% |
| Rehabilitation | 1.6% | Transport/Flight Nurse | 0.1% |
| Postpartum/Mother-Baby | 1.6% | Aesthetic/Dermatology | 0.1% |
| Oncology | 1.5% | CRNA | 0.1% |
Are you registered to vote in the US?
| Response | % |
| Yes | 98.4% |
| Not yet, but I plan to register | 0.8% |
| No, and I don’t plan to register | 0.7% |
(Respondents not eligible to vote in US elections ended the survey at this question and are not included in results.)
Many nursing and healthcare issues may matter to you. Select up to 3 that you most want lawmakers to focus on.
| Issue | % who picked it |
| Safe staffing laws | 66.4% |
| Better pay for nurses | 51.1% |
| Stronger protections against violence at work | 38.0% |
| Protecting Medicaid and Medicare funding | 31.1% |
| Mental health and burnout support | 28.4% |
| Rules for how AI is used in healthcare | 23.1% |
| Letting NPs and other advanced practice nurses practice to the full extent of their training | 17.8% |
| Making nursing education more affordable | 16.5% |
| Funding for public health and emergency preparedness | 15.9% |
| Limits on mandatory overtime | 7.5% |
How likely are you to vote in this November’s elections?
| Response | % |
| Definitely will vote | 87.0% |
| Probably will vote | 7.0% |
| Might or might not | 3.9% |
| Probably won’t vote | 1.3% |
| Definitely won’t vote | 0.8% |
Which of these issues will matter most to you when you vote this November? Select up to 3. (823 answered; definite non-voters skipped this question)
| Issue | % who picked it |
| Healthcare | 54.6% |
| Inflation & Prices | 31.8% |
| Housing & Cost of Living | 29.6% |
| Social Security & Medicare | 27.7% |
| Civil Rights & Liberties | 23.0% |
| Government Ethics & Political Reform | 21.9% |
| Taxes & Government Spending | 19.4% |
| Jobs & the Economy | 18.2% |
| Immigration | 15.3% |
| National Security | 10.3% |
| Climate & Environment | 9.8% |
| Crime & Public Safety | 9.7% |
| Abortion | 9.6% |
| Education | 9.1% |
| Guns | 3.9% |
| Foreign Policy | 2.4% |
When you decide how to vote, what matters more to you? (823 answered)
| Response | % |
| Both about equally | 61.0% |
| Broader national issues | 23.1% |
| Issues that affect nursing and healthcare | 13.5% |
| Unsure | 2.4% |
Would you support or oppose a federal law setting minimum nurse staffing levels?
| Response | % |
| Strongly support | 74.3% |
| Somewhat support | 14.1% |
| Unsure | 6.6% |
| Somewhat oppose | 2.5% |
| Strongly oppose | 2.4% |
Would you support or oppose increasing federal criminal penalties for assaulting healthcare workers?
| Response | % |
| Strongly support | 88.6% |
| Somewhat support | 9.6% |
| Unsure | 1.1% |
| Strongly oppose | 0.5% |
| Somewhat oppose | 0.2% |
Would you support or oppose federal funding for nursing education and training programs?
| Response | % |
| Strongly support | 77.1% |
| Somewhat support | 15.8% |
| Unsure | 3.3% |
| Somewhat oppose | 3.0% |
| Strongly oppose | 0.8% |
Would you support or oppose federal funding for rural hospitals and clinics?
| Response | % |
| Strongly support | 81.4% |
| Somewhat support | 14.5% |
| Unsure | 1.9% |
| Somewhat oppose | 1.8% |
| Strongly oppose | 0.4% |
Would you support or oppose federal regulation of prescription drug prices?
| Response | % |
| Strongly support | 77.0% |
| Somewhat support | 16.5% |
| Unsure | 3.5% |
| Somewhat oppose | 2.4% |
| Strongly oppose | 0.6% |
Would you support or oppose federal programs addressing medical debt?
| Response | % |
| Strongly support | 64.9% |
| Somewhat support | 22.7% |
| Unsure | 7.1% |
| Somewhat oppose | 4.1% |
| Strongly oppose | 1.2% |
What would you say is the most urgent health problem facing this country right now?
| Response | % |
| The cost of healthcare | 51.6% |
| Access to healthcare | 22.2% |
| Mental health | 15.2% |
| Drug and alcohol abuse | 3.6% |
| Something else | 3.0% |
| Obesity | 2.9% |
| Cancer | 0.8% |
| Unsure | 0.5% |
| Flu and other viruses | 0.2% |
Overall, how would you rate the quality of healthcare in this country?
| Response | % |
| Excellent | 4.9% |
| Good | 29.6% |
| Only fair | 41.7% |
| Poor | 23.0% |
| Unsure | 0.7% |
Which of these statements do you think best describes the US health care system today?
| Response | % |
| It is in a state of crisis | 44.1% |
| It has major problems | 52.2% |
| It has minor problems | 2.9% |
| It does not have any problems | 0.1% |
| Unsure | 0.7% |
Have you ever done any of the following? (Select all that apply)
| Action | % |
| Encouraged coworkers, friends, or patients to vote | 76.1% |
| Contacted a lawmaker or elected official about a nursing or healthcare issue | 47.6% |
| Joined or taken part in advocacy through a nursing organization | 39.2% |
| Taken part in an advocacy day, rally, or organized campaign | 34.8% |
| Spoken publicly or testified about a nursing or healthcare issue | 14.3% |
| None of these | 12.0% |
When it comes to healthcare, how well do you feel elected officials represent people like you?
| Response | % |
| Not very well | 55.3% |
| Not at all | 28.2% |
| Somewhat well | 12.8% |
| Unsure | 2.2% |
| Very well | 1.6% |
In the past two years, has the political environment affected any of the following for you? (Select all that apply)
| Effect | % |
| My stress level at work | 46.3% |
| How I feel about nursing overall | 42.4% |
| Where I’m willing to live or work | 39.4% |
| My interactions with patients or their families | 38.6% |
| My decision to stay in or leave a job | 30.6% |
| My relationships with coworkers | 28.2% |
| None of these | 18.6% |
Overall, would you say the political environment’s effect on you has been: (reported among the 676 nurses who selected at least one effect above)
| Response | % |
| Mostly negative | 65.4% |
| A mix of both | 27.5% |
| It hasn’t really affected me | 3.3% |
| Mostly positive | 3.0% |
| Unsure | 0.9% |
(This question was shown to everyone; per our reporting rules, direction is reported only among nurses who reported at least one effect. The 22 nurses who selected an effect but then answered “it hasn’t really affected me” are kept in the denominator.)
Do you ever feel like you need to keep your political views quiet at work?
| Response | % |
| Yes, often | 53.9% |
| Yes, sometimes | 29.6% |
| Rarely | 8.1% |
| Not currently working | 5.4% |
| Never | 3.0% |
Optional: What is your age group? (799 answered)
| Age | % |
| 55-64 | 30.0% |
| 65 or older | 26.0% |
| 50-54 | 11.9% |
| 45-49 | 10.3% |
| 40-44 | 7.5% |
| 35-39 | 6.5% |
| 30-34 | 4.1% |
| 25-29 | 2.5% |
| 18-24 | 1.1% |
Optional: In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent? (829 answered)
| Response | % |
| Democrat | 36.2% |
| Independent | 23.3% |
| Republican | 20.9% |
| Prefer not to say | 14.6% |
| Something else | 5.1% |
The Nurse Voter Survey ran on Nurse.org from September 1 through October 25, 2026, embedded across the site. Of 905 submissions, 26 ended at the eligibility screen (not eligible to vote in US elections) and 18 were removed in data cleaning: 17 as repeat submissions matched by email address or email-platform contact ID (the earliest response kept in each duplicate group), and 1 as a non-genuine response flagged by implausibly short completion time and inconsistent answers. That left 861 completed surveys, 830 of them from licensed nurses (LPN/LVN through doctoral degrees), the basis for every finding here. We found no evidence of bots or coordinated submissions.
This is a survey of nurses who chose to take it on Nurse.org, not a national sample of all nurses, and no finding here should be read as a measurement of the whole profession. Respondents skew older than the US nursing workforce, and results are reported unweighted. Several of the article’s main findings held similarly across age groups, including safe staffing as a top priority, cost as the most urgent health problem, support for the six federal proposals, and poor representation on healthcare. Others differed by age, notably better pay, housing, Social Security and Medicare, and ratings of healthcare quality. As a sensitivity check, we also weighted the Democratic, Republican, and independent groups equally; the three healthcare-system measures moved by about two points or less, and the direction held. This does not correct for the survey’s nonrepresentative sampling. Where a question was skipped because of an earlier answer, the percentages use the number of nurses who saw the question, noted with each result.
Three healthcare-perception questions were adapted from Gallup’s long-running national polling so nurses’ answers could be set alongside the public’s; the comparisons are directional, because Gallup interviews a national sample by phone and this was a self-administered web survey. Gallup’s public figures cited here come from the healthcare system trend, fielded November 3 to 25, 2025. The six policy questions measured support for each idea as worded, and results are not endorsements of any specific bill. Questions about effects of the political environment measured whether respondents said they were affected, not harm, and direction is reported only among those who reported at least one effect. The survey asked respondents’ an optional question about party identification; the optional written-answer questions did not ask about candidates, parties, or political labels, and a keyword review of those written answers found about one in seven respondents named a politician, party, or label unprompted.
No incentive was offered. Repeat participation was limited by browser-level blocking and screened again at analysis. Open-text responses may be quoted with no name attached. Percentages are shown to one decimal.
Nurse.org Original Research
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Published on
October 27, 2026
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