For all the challenges they face in 2018, Republicans now hold a historically high trust advantage when it comes to the economy, according to a new poll.
An NBC News-Wall Street Journal survey of 900 registered voters conducted last week asked which party would do a better job dealing with the economy. Forty-three percent of respondents picked the GOP, versus only 29 percent who went with Democrats. According to NBC, the 14-point margin constitutes the GOP’s “biggest lead on this question in the poll’s history.” For comparison, the week before they retook control of the Senate in 2014, Republicans held a nine-point advantage on the question.
For the GOP, that sounds like good news when it comes to the midterm elections. But at the same time, the poll “showed Democrats with an 8-point lead in congressional preference, with 50 percent of voters preferring a Democratic-controlled Congress and with 42 percent wanting Republicans in charge,” NBC reports. And the survey found an enthusiasm gap favorable to Democrats as well. According to NBC, “63 percent of Democratic voters express a high level of interest in the upcoming elections — registering either a ‘9’ or ’10’ on a 10-point scale — compared with 52 percent of GOP voters who do the same.”
Still, Republicans’ advantage on the economy is important because it’s important to voters. An Axios-SurveyMonkey poll of adults conducted earlier this month found 30 percent of independents and 34 percent of Republicans rank jobs and the economy as the issue that matters most to them right now. For both independents and Republicans, it was the top issue. And it could take some of the bite out of a strong Democratic performance in November.
