Voters Trust Republicans More on Eight of 10 Key Issues

With two weeks to go until Election Day, voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports including the economy and health care.

In late August, Likely Voters nationwide trusted the GOP on all 10 issues.  This is a sharp contrast from this time two years ago when Democrats were trusted more than Republicans on all of these issues.

Voters now trust Democrats over Republicans in only two areas - government ethics and corruption by a 41% to 36% margin and education where Democrats have a slight 42% to 40% edge.

The economy continues to be the most important issue on voters’ minds this election, and 49% place their trust in Republicans to handle this issue.  Thirty-nine percent (39%) trust Democrats more.  These findings show little change from early June 2009.

On the issue of health care, which voters place second on the list of important issues, Republicans hold a modest 47% to 40% advantage. Democrats were trusted more on this issue until the debate over a proposed national health care bill began to heat up in early September of last year.

Most voters continue to favor repeal of the national  health care law, but the number of voters who expect the law to increase the deficit has fallen to the lowest point since its passage by Congress in March.

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Two surveys of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters each were conducted October 12-13 and October 14-15, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.