According to results recently released by Gallup of a September survey, Americans significantly trust the Republican Party to do a better job on the key issues of "protecting the country from international terrorism and military threats" and on "keeping the country prosperous." On the former, the GOP even had a double-digit lead of 54 to 39 percent, while it was close to it on prosperity, by 50 to 41 percent. Further, more Americans, by 41 to 38 percent, also say that the Republican Party can better handle their "most important" issue.
In his Wednesday write-up for Gallup, Jeffrey M. Jones warned though that these advantages on the issues have not necessarily translated to wins for the GOP.
Jones' "Bottom Line" in part reads:
Americans now generally see the Republican Party as better than the Democratic Party at handling two key government objectives -- protecting citizens from international threats and promoting a strong economy. Despite these issue advantages, the Democratic Party still maintains a slight edge in overall favorability, as it has for nearly all of the past decade even as the GOP has typically led on these issue measures. These results, therefore, suggest the Republican Party has not been able to translate its competence edge on key issues to a more positive image of the party overall.
And, another write-up of his addressed how the Republican Party is viewed slightly less favorable than the Democratic Party, with each having a 40 percent and 43 percent approval rating, respectively.
Jones does acknowledge that not only are these advantages for the GOP, but the highest they've been in years.
"Americans typically see the Republican Party as more capable on national security matters, but the 15-point gap in favor of the GOP this year is the largest since a 16-point advantage in 2015," he wrote.
On prosperity, he noted:
As is the case on international matters, there has been ta seven-point drop in the percentage of Americans who say the Democratic Party is better able to keep the U.S. prosperous, from 48% to 41%. Now, 50% say the Republican Party is better, compared with 47% in 2020.
Republicans have had at least a small advantage on this for most of the past decade, with the current nine-point lead tying 2011 and 2014 as the largest for the GOP during this period. The only years since 2010 that Republicans have not led are 2012 and 2020, the two years in which Democratic candidates were elected president.
The last time that at least half of U.S. adults said the Republicans were better at keeping the country prosperous was in 1989, although there have been several measures of 48% or 49% since then.
Further, not only are results improving for Republicans, they're getting worse for Democrats.
And, just as Independents have soured on President Joe Biden's performance, as Townhall has covered--despite being a key voting bloc in electing him--they've also given the Democratic Party lower marks, as Jones picked up on:
Since last year, there have been double-digit declines in the percentages of independents who say the Democratic Party is better at handling the most important problem (from 42% to 31%), at keeping the nation secure (from 43% to 31%) and at keeping the nation prosperous (from 47% to 35%).
The results come from Gallup's annual Governance survey, conducted September 1-17, with 1,005 adults. The margin of error is at plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Jones does acknowledge, somewhat, that the GOP is poised to take back control of the House, the Senate, or both in 2022:
Most often, performance in midterm elections hinges on the popularity of the incumbent president at the time of the election. With Joe Biden in office and his approval rating slumping, unless it improves substantially over the next year, Republicans would likely gain seats in Congress in next year's elections, and control of one or both chambers of Congress.
Republicans are almost certainly likely to gain seats in the House for 2022. Though they failed to gain back control of the House in 2020, they outperformed expectations by gaining close to 15 seats. And, no Republican incumbent lost a seat. The Democratic majority in the House is now at single digits. Democrats only have a majority in the 50-50 Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris serves as a tie breaking vote.
History teaches that the president's party tends to lose seats for his first mid-term election, with few exceptions. It's even worse when the president's approval rating is below 50 percent. Thursday's RealClearPolitics average has Biden at a 44.6 percent approval rating. And, as Matt and I covered on Thursday, a poll from Quinnipiac University has that approval rating at just 38 percent.
