Survey: Democrats preferred on issues

Democrats were trusted more on 10 out of 11 issues.

SCRIPPS HOWARD

Most Americans trust Democrats rather than Republicans to handle the war in Iraq, to balance the federal budget and to craft federal policies on thorny issues like abortion and illegal immigration.

Republicans have hit such hard times with most of the American public that they are losing against Democrats on many of the GOP’s historical core issues, according to a national survey of 811 adult residents of the United States conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

The survey asked people from all walks of life whether they thought Republicans or Democrats were more capable of dealing with 11 national and international issues. Democrats came away with the lead in 10 out of 11 areas, with the issue of military preparedness being the single Republican strength.

“The Republicans don’t have a lot going for them in terms of issues,” concluded Rudy Teixeira, a joint fellow of the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress and author of “The Emerging Democratic Majority.”

Teixeira attributed Americans’ faith in Democrats on illegal immigration to the recent failing of an immigration-reform bill, which President Bush supported. “Above all, [Republicans] just seem ineffective,” he said.

On the issue of how to handle the federal deficit — typically considered a conservative issue — 36 percent said Democrats are better equipped to achieve fiscal responsibility, while 25 percent sided with Republicans.

“That was one major concern, that Republicans had lapsed on fiscal stewardship,” said Alison Fraser, director of economic-policy studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Fraser pointed in part to a combination of pork-barrel spending and the high cost of the Medicare prescription-drug benefit as a cause of Republicans’ fall from grace in the realm of fiscal responsibility.

“Over the last 10 years, the amount of earmarks has risen substantially,” she said. “And it wasn’t supposed to be that way.”

For each issue, at least 20 percent of the respondents said they thought neither party was capable of handling the problem.

“It’s clear to me that, at large, Americans are very hesitant to trust Congress in general,” Fraser said.

The Democrats’ advantage over the Republicans varied from 32 percentage points on hunger and 27 percentage points on health care to 5 percentage points on immigration.

On the Iraq war, 35 percent said the Democrats could handle it best, while 26 percent said the Republicans, 27 percent said neither and 12 percent didn’t know or had a similar response.