MICHAEL USHER: The US Presidential race will be the blueprint of Australia’s Federal election

I’ve been curious about the American voter in recent weeks and what they’re thinking about their next commander-in-chief.

Are they thinking so differently that none of us outside those 50 United States could possibly predict how they’re going to vote?

Or do we have a lot in common, and find ourselves surprisingly in lock-step with American voters on life’s daily trials and tribulations to determine our vote?

The top issues affecting voters in the US are surprising in some ways and remarkably familiar in others. I’ll get to that in a few words, but this much I do know.

Do not listen to US commentators who live and breathe in big coastal cities like New York and Los Angeles. They ain’t the good folks who’ll decide this vote or any prior. They’re good at talking, but they’re not plugged in.

They’re saying lots of things that sound good and work well in media, but they haven’t bought a loaf of bread or a quart of milk in a long time, and the cost-of-living crisis for them is something playing out in parts of America a long way from where they live.

The real kingmakers deciding the next president live a long way from the opinion-charged Gotham cities on the east and west coasts. There in middle rural America, where sea breeze is a nice fabric softener, and sandy shores a pleasant retirement home, American presidents are picked or pruned.

And the issues shaping their decisions are not too far from our own at the moment. The most pressing concern, according to every poll I can read this week, is the cost of living and the economy, hands down.

By a long shot — for 81 per cent of all voters — inflation, prices, and household costs all outrank every other issue. Among Donald Trump’s supporters, these issues are more consuming. It’s about 55 per cent among Kamala Harris’s supporters.

Health care comes in second in most polls. It’s a mess in America and Donald Trump has been careful to avoid committing to new policy on the hotbed issue of affordable health care. Prescription drugs and affordability are major issues for US voters. Long live our Medicare and pharmaceutical benefits scheme.

Immigration comes in a solid third place on most polls. The extremely contentious issue of the southern border with Mexico and that wall remains a challenging issue for both sides. Trump scores for starting to build a wall, Harris falters for being soft on illegal immigrants.

Immigration and inflation rate very highly as issues that matter to Republicans, while health care and abortion are highest for Democrats.

Education, crime and civil rights come in at fourth, fifth and sixth place in most polls ranking voter concerns, and switch around a bit depending on who’s taking the poll.

Abortion rates in the top 10 also. Unique to the US and its voters is the highly politicised issue of the Supreme Court and nominees for highly influential Justices. Imagine that being an electoral issue here — or more to the point, imagine any of us being able to name our equivalent High Court judges.

Perhaps of great interest in all this polling was the glaring omission of the environment and climate change in anyone’s top five and in some cases top 10.

Voters just aren’t in a frame of mind, or shape of pocket, to care much about extremes in weather and what that’s costing the economy. Concern about climate change is a luxury item in tougher times, and in the US at least it just ain’t going to affect who becomes the next president.

Think about it. Has Trump or Harris raised it once? Not a chance. In fact, they’ve dodged climate change at any cost. This, it seems, just isn’t the election to go big picture on saving the big round thing on which we exist.

And here cometh the lesson for our leaders at home in next year’s Federal election.

Don’t think for a second our politicians aren’t watching these top 10 voter issues in the US. These times are all about the hip pocket, not the hip hop of popular issues. It’s a practical time where voters are hurting and looking inward and caring more about over-heated inflation than the over-heated oceans.

It’s where a conviction politician like Anthony Albanese is having to watch the practical politician Peter Dutton, who’s already out of the blocks on inflation, economy and immigration. Affordable health care is always Labor’s strength and Mr Albanese will sell that hard.

But watch this space on the climate and environment. I’m betting, like in America, the major parties won’t touch it with a very long stick. The teals and Greens will platform it, but given they might hold a bigger and longer stick in deciding government, they’ll be under pressure to prove where they stand on the economy more than climate. They may well have casting votes on serious economic policy in the next government.

The environment it seems, despite all the dire data, is a luxury item in tougher times and less appealing as a do-good issue in grittier elections. At least, that’s the case in the US, and I reckon it won’t be much different here next year.