Democratic nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Getty Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman does not sound pleased with the US presidential election process.

At Bloomberg's The Year Ahead conference in New York on Tuesday, Gorman said it would be more productive to focus on issues that most affect people's lives, rather than on the most opinionated things either candidate has said.

"What can we sensibly say about this electoral process?" Gorman said. "One, is it goes for too long. ... It's like you go to bed every night listening to these voices telling you about the US election."

Rather, Gorman said, "I'm looking forward to a time when we can get past the rhetoric and we can talk about real substance and how real things get changed."

Gorman is originally from Australia and became a US citizen in time for the 2004 election.

He suggested that much of the criticism of the US economy heard on the campaign trail is far from reality.

"Stepping back … the fundamental truth which has come out, to my mind, is the country has done much better than the population, meaning the aggregate performance is better than the individual performance," Gorman said.

"How is it possible this economy with all of this innovation, all of this technological advances ... that the vast majority of people feel that they got left behind not just for five years or 10 years, but for three decades — and in fact, wages would suggest that they're right."

Gorman said he does not believe that much of the campaign rhetoric represents views that would be held in "all circumstances."

"There have been so many things said that are so absurd that the good part of me wants to believe that they're just not truly held beliefs," Gorman said.

"It's the world's leading democracy, and all of us want to see it continue to be that way."