Ten years after Donald Trump rode a promise to "drain the swamp" all the way to the White House, veteran journalist Ruth Marcus argues in an essay for The New Yorker that he has not merely failed to drain Washington's swamp — he has made it far swampier than ever. And this time, voters are noticing in a big way.

Citing a Fox News poll released in mid-October, Marcus wrote on Sunday that "corruption in government" now ranks as voters' top concern — ahead of inflation, gas prices and health care. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said they were "extremely" or "very" concerned about the issue. That distinction matters: the poll measures the intensity of voters' concern, while the campaign question is whether that concern changes their choices at the ballot box.

Corruption "has steadily gained in importance on the list of the most critical issues facing the country," Republican pollster Whit Ayres told Marcus. "I never remember corruption as an issue being as important as it is now."

As Marcus observed, corruption is always a tempting message for the party out of power — a playbook Trump himself used in 2016 when he vowed to drain the Washington swamp. Bemoaning corruption is risk-free: no voters are in favor of it, even if they define the term differently, and attacking it allows the opposition party to sidestep the harder task of producing a detailed legislative agenda.

What could catapult the issue from a topic of chronic bellyaching to an actual mechanism for changing votes this cycle, she argued, is the gloomy economic climate. Voters who are feeling flush may be willing to tolerate a degree of self-dealing from politicians — a tolerance that becomes insupportable when grocery bills are high.

That framing echoes research by Robert Boatright, a political-science professor at Clark University and co-author of the 2025 book "American Corruption Talk." Corruption, he noted, "is always a useful word, but it's more effective at some times than others. It's a way to put your finger on people's general dissatisfaction with our politicians, with our economy, with the state of the world."

Marcus went on to detail how Democrats are putting money behind the message, concentrating on Trump's corruption in key Senate races in North Carolina, Maine and Texas.

Republicans, meanwhile, have conceded that their party, whether because of corruption, the economy or other factors, appears seemingly doomed in the upcoming midterm elections. "We've got a week left and we're forced to talk about Mississippi," former Trump Communications director Bryan Lanza told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday. "I've been in politics for nearly 30 years. I don't think we've ever talked about Mississippi in a general election. And here's where we are."

The economy's role in the corruption debate has been underscored by other observers. In October, Robert Reich, who served as Labor Secretary under former President Bill Clinton, wrote in a commentary for AlterNet that prices are rising in part because of tariffs. "The tariffs are import taxes that have increased annual household costs by an estimated $1,100, according to The Budget Lab at Yale," he wrote.

"Again, though, the price increases tell only half the story," Reich continued. "Trump's tariffs have enabled Trump to give out tariff waivers and carve-outs to industries and companies that do him favors."