GOP Trusted More Than Democrats on 10 of 15 Key Issues

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on 10 out of 15 major issues, according to a new poll released Tuesday by Rasmussen Reports.

The poll found the GOP leads by a 44 percent to 37 percent margin on the most important issue on voters' minds: the economy. Democrats had held an advantage on this issue in prior surveys from November 2006 until early 2009, but since June 2009 the GOP has led in all but one survey.

Voters also say they trust Republicans more on job creation, government spending, taxes, national security, immigration, gun control, energy policy, the war in Afghanistan and issues affecting small business. Democrats earned more trust from voters on Social Security, education and the environment.

The two parties run even when it comes to health care, government, ethics and corruption.

Republicans have gathered greater trust on these key issues since late July, when the parties were more evenly divided. At that time, the GOP held the trust of voters on seven issues, while the Democrats led on eight.

Three national surveys of 1,000 likely voters each were conducted on Sept. 8-9, 12-13 and 18-19 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.