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What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, December 17, 2011 

It was a newsy week - with the Iraq war coming to a quiet close, the Obama administration’s fight against state anti-immigration efforts going to the U.S. Supreme Court and Newt Gingrich’s runaway train seeming to slow in the Republican presidential race. 

The majority of U.S. voters believe Iraq is better off than when dictator Saddam Hussein was in power, but they’re not so sure the war-torn country will become peaceful and democratic anytime soon.   One thing for sure: If civil war breaks out in Iraq, voters strongly believe U.S. troops should not get involved. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it will decide whether the law Arizona adopted last year to fight illegal immigration violates the Constitution as the U.S. Justice Department contends. But a new survey finds that most voters still support a similar immigration law for their own state. Seventy-three percent (73%) agree that government officials are not doing enough to stop illegal immigration, and 63% think a state should have the right to enforce immigration laws if it believes the federal government is not enforcing them. 

Voters continue to believe strongly that the federal government’s actions are encouraging illegal immigration as the Justice Department ended the week announcing bias charges against a popular Arizona sheriff for his anti-immigration efforts. 

Attorney General Eric Holder has problems of his own as calls for his resignation grow as more revelations about the botched Fast and Furious gun trafficking operation surface. That operation put numerous guns in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, and now more voters than ever have an unfavorable opinion of Holder. 

With the 2012 presidential campaign season scheduled to kick off in less than three weeks with the January 3 Iowa Caucus, the Republican field has a new front-runner in Iowa – for the fifth straight survey. Gingrich now appears to be following in the footsteps of previous “anti-Romney” candidates Rick Perry and Herman Cain. A month ago, Gingrich had jumped to a 32% to 19% lead over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in Iowa, but now the race is Romney 23%, Gingrich 20% and Paul 18%. Still, with a sizable number of Iowa Caucus-goers uncertain of their vote, anything goes as Scott Rasmussen explains in our first video release of Election 2012 data. 

Romney remains on top of the New Hampshire Republican Primary field, but the race for second place between Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul in the January 10 primary is a lot closer than it was just two weeks ago.  Romney earns 33% of the vote, followed by Gingrich at 22%. Paul now picks up 18% support, his best showing in the Granite State so far. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman comes in fourth with 10% of the vote, with no other candidate reaching double digits. Support for Romney, Gingrich and Huntsman is little changed from the previous survey, but Paul has now closed the 10-point gap between him and Gingrich to just four points. 

Many analysts have suggested that there is still time for someone new to enter the Republican presidential race, but there is currently little enthusiasm in New Hampshire for a couple of the bigger names – former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels - to jump in. 

Romney also remains slightly ahead of President Obama in an Election 2012 matchup for the second week in a row. He remains the only GOP presidential hopeful to lead Obama in more than one survey to date, and the two men have been running nearly even in surveys for months. 

The president continues to trail a generic Republican candidate in weekly surveys but beats all his named GOP competitors except Romney in hypothetical Election 2012 matchups. 

At the end of last month, Gingrich held a slight 45% to 43% lead over Obama, but he now trails the president by 10 points. Paul’s support remains unchanged since September as he continues to run several points behind the president. 

Romney is still the Republican candidate that voters like the most, while Perry remains the GOP hopeful they like the least. Among Republican voters, however, Romney and Gingrich are running neck-and-neck, but Gingrich has the edge when it comes to enthusiasm. 

Voters rate Gingrich and Romney evenly when asked which Republican presidential candidate would run strongest against Obama, but among GOP voters, Gingrich is the clear favorite. 

Just over one-third of all Likely U.S. Voters now trust Obama more than the Republican candidates for president when it comes to the handling of the economy, national security and health care. However, the president does have the trust of more voters than any individual GOP candidate at this time. 

But voters have not changed their views of how the president is performing when it comes to the economy. Forty-eight percent (48%) rate Obama’s handling of economic issues as poor, while 33% think he’s doing a good or excellent job in this area. Voters remain more enthusiastic about the president’s handling of national security issues. There’s been no change in the president’s overall job approval ratings as measured by the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. 

Daily consumer and investor confidence as measured by the Rasmussen Consumer and Investor Indexes remain up from three months ago, but two-thirds of both groups also continue to believe the country is still in a recession. 

Most voters continue to believe the economy would be better off if both taxes and government spending were reduced, but if taxes are increased, voters still lean toward raising them only on the rich. 

As it has for most of the year, Congress closed the week haggling over budget issues including a possible tax hike on the wealthy. A plurality (45%) of voters now thinks the agendas of both major political parties in Congress are equally extreme. This is the first time in regular surveying since August of last year that voters have rated the congressional agendas of the two parties so closely alike, although voters continue to see them as poles apart ideologically. 

Republicans continue to lead Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot as they have every week but one since June 2009.