In July of that year, Gallup asked voters a question it doesn't often ask. With the now-infamous 2000 election looming, the pollsters asked voters "what single issue or challenge" they were most interested in having the next president address. It was an open-ended question, and people's responses were logged and grouped together as necessary.

The most common response? Education. The issue of terrorism, which has defined much of our foreign policy debate for the past 15 years, didn't even hit a measurable percentage.

There are a number of ways in which the responses in 2000 illuminate our current politics, particularly when you compare the change between what Americans said then and what they said when Gallup asked the same question last month.

Now, the economy tops the list, with nearly a fifth of voters saying that it is the top issue to address. In 2000, only a third as many people said the same thing. Immigration is a key concern, no doubt buoyed by the focus placed on the issue by the presumptive Republican nominee. Education still comes up — but only half as often as it did then.

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Wages and jobs are both much larger concerns now than they were then — even though the unemployment rate right now isn't much higher than it was then. Far less important are taxes, abortion and gun control.

It's important to note that these concerns are not mutually exclusive. Voters can be and are concerned about the economy and terrorism. Gallup's question was one of prominence and priority. More than 90 percent of respondents said that the economy was very or extremely important; 87 percent said the same of terrorism.