Garden State Patriot

While Barack Obama still enjoys fairly solid approval ratings – for now anyway – Congress’ ratings have remained in the toilet. Now, a Rasmussen poll finds Republicans leading Democrats on 6 of 10 key issues.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues, while 39% trust Democrats more.

This is the first time in over two years of polling that the GOP has held the advantage on this issue. The parties were close in May, with the Democrats holding a modest 44% to 43% edge. The latest survey was taken just after General Motors announced it was going into bankruptcy as part of a deal brokered by the Obama administration that gives the government majority ownership of the failing automaker.

Voters not affiliated with either party now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues by a two-to-one margin.

Separate Rasmussen tracking shows that the economy remains the top issue among voters in terms of importance.

Issue	Democrats	Republicans
Health Care	47%	37%
Education	44%	37%
Social Security	43%	37%
Abortion	41%	41%
Economy	39%	45%
Taxes	39%	44%
Iraq	37%	45%
Nat’l Security	36%	51%
Gov’t Ethics	29%	35%
Immigration	29%	43%

This obviously is good news for Republicans as we start thinking ahead to this November, as well as the 2010 off-year elections.

I also find it interesting to see Republicans so far ahead on the issue of immigration considering how it has been used as a wedge in the battle over the ‘Latino vote’ and with McCain losing the Hispanic vote last year by such a wide margin.

While it’s not surprising to see Dems leading on social issues like health care, this is going to be a huge, huge battle in the very near future as Obama & Co. push for socialized medicine. It is a battle Republicans must be prepared to fight with everything they have.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!