The latest Rasmussen trust numbers are out, after what was an odd formatting thing that made me decide to stop reporting them until things settled down. Short version: Rasmussen has replaced Abortion with Afghanistan in the top ten category; the GOP won all ten, including that perennial heartbreaker Government Ethics; and the numbers nonetheless show a shift away from July’s numbers, mostly because July’s numbers were uniformly awful for the Democrats. Aug-10 Jul-10 Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift Health Care 40% 48% (8) 40% 51% (11) 3 Education 40% 41% (1) 41% 43% (2) 1 Social Security 38% 44% (6) 37% 46% (9) 3 Abortion 36% 46% (10) Economy 39% 47% (8) 39% 48% (9) 1 Taxes 36% 52% (16) 36% 52% (16) – Iraq 40% 43% (3) 36% 45% (9) 6 Nat’l Security 37% 49% (12) 34% 51% (17) 5 Gov’t Ethics 38% 40% (2) 33% 29% 4 (6) Immigration 35% 44% (9) 32% 47% (15) 6 Afghanistan 36% 43% (7) Do these for a while and you get used to the concept of the ‘dead-cat bounce.’ The Democrats get that a lot in this particular long-term survey; it’s been a long two years for them since the halcyon days of 2008 . I assume that the switching of Afghanistan and abortion as top issues is ‘permanent;’ it’d be interesting to see how that issue will track now that it’s not as much in the news, but they call it a Top Ten list for a reason. Moving along: do not be surprised when Government Ethics slips next month. It defaults to Democrats being trusted more; and it will probably continue to do so in months where Democrats are not actually being indicted. I don’t know whether that’s a feature of the poll or of the electorate, and frankly there’s not much one can do in either case except to steadily indict more corrupt Democrats. Unfortunately, there’s a regular supply of those. Moe Lane
More here:
The August Rasmussen Trust Numbers.
