Republicans have some strong signals for momentum with President Joe Biden’s first year in office wrapping up, as voters mostly siding with Republicans over Democrats to handle the key issues heading into 2022, a midterm election year, according to the latest The Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday.
Republicans are stronger on the securing the border, immigration, crime, taxes, inflation, controlling spending, the economy, and dealing with China. Democrats are stronger on healthcare, education, and social programs.
Republicans top Democrats as the preferred party in Congress to handle these issues by the following margins:
- Securing the border 36 percentage points.
- Reducing crime 20 percentage points.
- Holding the line on taxes 19 percentage points.
- Getting inflation under control 18 percentage points.
- Deal with China 17 percentage points.
- Control federal spending 16 percentage points.
- Fixing immigration 14 percentage points.
- Reduce the deficit 13 percentage points.
- Rebuilding the economy 11 percentage points.
- Economic policy 9 percentage points.
- Make it easier to return to work 9 percentage points.
Democrats do top Republicans as the preferred party in Congress to handle by the following margins:
- Make healthcare affordable 22 percentage points.
- Getting pandemic under control 16 percentage points.
- Reduce prescription drugs cost 14 percentage points.
- Protect Social Security and Medicare 13 percentage points.
- Improve education 9 percentage points.
- Rebuilding infrastructure 7 percentage points.
- Making the tax system fair 7 percentage points.
- Look out for the middle class 5 percentage points.
The poll also found President Joe Biden sinking on approval among voters: 57% said they disapprove of Biden’s job performance, with 46% strongly disapproving, and more voters said they would vote for a Republican (44%) than a Democrat (41%) if they election were held today. Notably, the sample included a plurality of voters (47%) who voted for Biden and just 41% that voted for former President Donald Trump.
The Wall Street Journal poll was conducted Nov. 16-22 among 1,500 registered voters. The results had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.