New Pew Survey Shows Surprising Areas of National Political Agreement

As President Biden and former President Trump prepare to face off on Thursday evening in their first 2024 presidential debate, a new Pew Research Center survey is indicating that differences between their supporters may not be as great as popularly imagined.

The just-released survey of just over 8,700 scientifically weighted adults revealed that both self-identified Democrats and Republicans have a generally low expectation that the federal government does the right thing “just about always or most of the time.”

And both sides express a somewhat high level of frustration with the federal government in general – some 60% of all respondents in total.

But in a sustained area of agreement, both Democrat and Republican respondents overwhelmingly said they are against any efforts that might reduce Social Security benefits.

Indeed, the survey showed that 83% of responding Democrats and an equally large 77% of Republicans agree with the statement that “Social Security benefits should not be reduced in any way.”

Opposition to reducing Social Security benefits crosses demographic lines, with 79% of white and 83% of black respondents against any cuts. Similarly, 78% of Hispanic respondents and 74% of Asian respondents were opposed to benefit reductions.

General popular support of the federal government, meanwhile, remains notably low: only 22% of all respondents said they had any faith in Washington doing the right thing. While that figure must sober the President and members of Congress, it is actually up from a dismal 15% recorded during the Great Recession.

All recent figures, however, pale in comparison to the later years of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency and the three years of the John F. Kennedy administration, when the level of trust averaged around 75%.

Says a narrative accompanying the Pew survey: “Frustration toward the federal government is the dominant emotion for both Republicans and Democrats, regardless of which party is in control of the White House.”

But in a country that has had functioning and well-organized Democrat and Republican presidential candidates facing off against each other since 1856, it is probably not surprising that partisan anger with the government is “higher when administrations from the other party are in power. Contentment is higher among people who favor the party of the president.”

On that note, the Pew survey reveals that 28% of registered Democrats said they are currently content with the federal government, compared to 8% of the Republican respondents who said the same thing.

By Garry Boulard

Image Credit: Courtesy of Pixabay

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