Scott Rasmussen polled voters on whom they trust, and found that voters prefer Republicans over Democrats on ten of fifteen issues. Not only that, the issues where voters trust the GOP more than Democrats are generally the most important ones: the economy (by seven points), national security (15 points), taxes (seven points) and spending (21 points). Here is the complete list:
There are some interesting findings. The Democrats (and some Republican pundits and politicians) are trying to stampede Republicans into a radical change on immigration policy, but Rasmussen finds that voters prefer the GOP on the issue, by seven points. Then there is gun control: after the better part of a year of Democrat and media hysteria on the subject, voters trust Republicans over Democrats by 46%-39%.
Given those numbers, you would think that Republicans will sweep in 2014–increase their hold on the House, and take the Senate. But that isn’t what voters have in mind. Rasmussen also finds that currently, Democrats lead Republicans in the generic Congressional preference poll by 40%-37%. It’s a paradox: voters prefer Republicans on the issues, but still lean toward voting for Democrats. One could speculate about why that is true; I think it is obvious that the press’s ceaseless attacks on Republicans are part of the explanation. That is a longstanding problem, but the numbers suggest that Republicans will do best if they keep pounding away on the issues, especially the ones where voters are predisposed to favor them.
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