When it comes to four major issues — illegal immigration, gay marriage, federal spending and abortion — Republicans are nowhere near as happy with their party's performance as Democrats are with theirs.
A new Pew Research Center poll has found that Republicans are much more dissatisfied with their party than are Democrats, noting divisions inside the Republican Party among staunch conservatives and more moderate members running much deeper than disagreements inside the Democratic Party.
Pew found that 56 percent of Republicans dislike the job their party is doing when it comes to illegal immigration, but that number includes 33 percent who think Republicans are too soft on the illegal alien question, and 18 percent who think the party is too tough.
Among Democrats, only 44 percent think their party is doing a poor job on illegal immigration, including 21 percent who say the party is too soft and 20 percent who say the party is not soft enough. Hispanic Democrats were in the majority in feeling the Democrats were not doing a good-enough job, at 52 percent.
When it comes to government spending, the same differences apply: 60 percent of Republicans feel their party is not doing a good-enough job of handling the issue, while only 45 percent of Democrats feel their party is not adequately representing their views.
Republican disagreement solidified on one side of the government spending issue, however, with 48 percent of party members polled saying the party is not willing enough to cut government spending and only 8 percent saying the party is too willing.
"Those who express negative views of the party on this issue overwhelmingly criticize it for not being willing enough to cut spending," the poll report says.
On the issue of same-sex marriage, 53 percent of Republicans say the party does not represent their views, with 28 percent saying the party is not willing enough to accept gay marriage and 22 percent saying the party is too willing to accept it.
Among Democrats, 62 percent say their party is doing a good job on gay marriage, and black Democrats were much more unlikely to accept gay marriage than white Democrats, by 43 percent to 28 percent.
Only 44 percent of Republicans say their party does a good job on abortion, while 61 percent of Democrats are happy with their party's abortion performance.
The telephone poll was conducted Sept. 2-9 among 2,002 people.
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