Rasmussen: McCain winning the trust of voters
posted at 11:30 am on June 1, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Rasmussen’s latest polling shows John McCain maintaining voter trust on the key issues of the upcoming presidential campaign despite getting much less earned-media coverage than his likely opponent, Barack Obama. On economics, national security, and especially on Iraq, McCain has kept ahead of Obama:
When it comes to the economy, 47% of voters trust John McCain more than Barack Obama. Obama is trusted more by 41%. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey also found that, when it comes to the War in Iraq, McCain is trusted more by 49% of voters. Obama is preferred by 37%. McCain has an even larger edge—53% to 31%–on the broader topic of National Security. These results are little changed from a month ago.
Obama enjoys a 43% to 39% advantage when it comes to government ethics and reducing corruption. McCain has a 44% to 38% advantage on taxes.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. As Rasmussen notes, a majority of voters oppose tax increases, and almost two-thirds oppose an increase in capital-gains tax rates. Both positions have been the central policy of the Obama campaign. With that in mind, the Democrats have a built-in disadvantage in November.
More surprising is the gap on Iraq. The war is not popular, and Obama seems to be on the favored side. However, Americans do not favor an immediate withdrawal and apparently don’t trust Obama to get that correct. The 12-point gap on Iraq and the 22-point gap on national security shows McCain how he can defeat Obama, and it shows why the McCain campaign has emphasized Obama’s lack of effort on both Iraq and Afghanistan to get his own information rather than just pandering to MoveOn.
Now that Obama has broken with Trinity United, it will call his judgment into question yet again. If Obama couldn’t figure out that Trinity was radical and objectionable after sitting in its pews for 20 years and only reacted after everyone else had rightly diagnosed TUCC’s demagoguery and hatred, how adept would a President Obama be at diagnosing foreign crises? Acknowledging TUCC’s issues this late underscores the growing notion that Obama is something of a dilettante, someone who goes through the motions without doing any of his own work in determining truth. Those gaps on national security will not shrink in those circumstances.
Obama and the Democrats have a big problem against McCain. Will the superdelegates start considering it, or will they surrender to the media narrative?
