The August Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

The latest Rasmussen trust numbers are out, after what was an odd formatting thing that made me decide to stop reporting them until things settled down.  Short version: Rasmussen has replaced Abortion with Afghanistan in the top ten category; the GOP won all ten, including that perennial heartbreaker Government Ethics; and the numbers nonetheless show a shift away from July’s numbers, mostly because July’s numbers were uniformly awful for the Democrats.

Aug-10 Jul-10
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 40% 48% (8) 40% 51% (11) 3
Education 40% 41% (1) 41% 43% (2) 1
Social Security 38% 44% (6) 37% 46% (9) 3
Abortion
36% 46% (10)
Economy 39% 47% (8) 39% 48% (9) 1
Taxes 36% 52% (16) 36% 52% (16)
Iraq 40% 43% (3) 36% 45% (9) 6
Nat’l Security 37% 49% (12) 34% 51% (17) 5
Gov’t Ethics 38% 40% (2) 33% 29% 4 (6)
Immigration 35% 44% (9) 32% 47% (15) 6
Afghanistan 36% 43% (7)

Do these for a while and you get used to the concept of the ‘dead-cat bounce.’  The Democrats get that a lot in this particular long-term survey; it’s been a long two years for them since the halcyon days of 2008.  I assume that the switching of Afghanistan and abortion as top issues is ‘permanent;’ it’d be interesting to see how that issue will track now that it’s not as much in the news, but they call it a Top Ten list for a reason.

Moving along: do not be surprised when Government Ethics slips next month.  It defaults to Democrats being trusted more; and it will probably continue to do so in months where Democrats are not actually being indicted.  I don’t know whether that’s a feature of the poll or of the electorate, and frankly there’s not much one can do in either case except to steadily indict more corrupt Democrats.  Unfortunately, there’s a regular supply of those.

Moe Lane