Overall people were much more likely to prefer Democratic candidates than Republican candidates on all twelve issues. However, Rudy Giuliani came second to Clinton on two issues, as did John McCain. Among the other candidates, Barack Obama came second to Clinton on eight of the issues.

These are some of the results of a recent Harris Poll of 2,335 U.S. adults (ages 18 and older), conducted online by Harris Interactive between December 4 and 12, 2007.

While the views of all adults will be relevant after the two main parties have chosen their candidates, in the short term before the primaries it is essential to consider the views of Republicans and Democrats separately.

Republican Preferences

When the preferences of Republicans are viewed separately several findings leap off the page:

• On eleven of the issues more Republicans say “none ” or “not sure ” than prefer any one candidate, which is a measure of their lack of enthusiasm for their choices;
• Rudy Giuliani is preferred most often on 10 of the 12 issues. John McCain is preferred most often on 2 issues – foreign policy and the war in Iraq, but his small leads over Giuliani are not significant;
• Even though Giuliani is the clear front runner among Republicans, those who prefer him on these issues are only 14 percent to 26 percent of Republicans — far smaller than Clinton ’s numbers among Democrats. His highest score (26%) is on the war on terror.

Democratic Preferences

Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead among Democrats over all her Democratic rivals on all 12 issues. She scores particularly well on health care (54%), abortion (46%) and education (45%). She does less well (but is still the clear front runner) on immigration (28%), the war in Iraq (32%) and the war on terror (33%).

Other interesting findings include:

• Unlike the situation among Republicans, more Democrats prefer their front runner, Clinton, than say “none ” or “not sure ”, on ten of the twelve issues — an indication of greater enthusiasm among Democrats;
• Barack Obama is the second preference on all 12 issues, but he trails Clinton by substantial margins on all of them;
• John Edwards is in third position on all issues, well below Obama and far behind Clinton.

Independent Preferences

In most general elections, the winner is the candidate who wins the biggest share of Independent votes. This poll finds many more Independents preferring Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. It also shows that Clinton is well ahead of other candidates on most, but not all issues. Other interesting findings include:

• More Independents say “none ” or “not sure ” than prefer any one candidate on all 12 issues;
• On most of the issues, Obama is the Independents ’ second preference, ahead of any Republican candidates;
• However, Giuliani is the preferred candidate on the war on terror and McCain is preferred on the war in Iraq (but with only 14 percent compared to 13 percent for Clinton – not a statistically significant difference).

The Relative Importance of These 12 Issues

The old adage is true: the answers you get depend on the questions you ask. Pollsters, including those at Harris Interactive, ask different questions to measure the importance of different issues, and unsurprisingly they do produce different answers.

One of the biggest differences is whether an open-ended question is asked and no issues are shown or read to respondents or whether respondents are asked about a specific set of issues. The Harris Poll ^® regularly asks open-ended questions on issues as we believe it is usually better to measure what ’s on the mind of respondents than to prompt them. With open-ended questions the answers are issues that are “top of mind ” and are probably more indicative of what issues voters are thinking about.

In this survey, however, we wanted to get a sense of the relative importance of the 12 issues on which we evaluated the candidates. When asked this way, some issues are mentioned more often than in response to unprompted open-ended questions. The issues mentioned most often by all adults are health care (42%), social security (32%), economic issues (30%) and taxes (27%). Interestingly all of these are mentioned more often than the war in Iraq (25%) or the war on terror (25%), although the last two are usually mentioned more often – particularly Iraq – than most other issues in reply to open-ended questions.

Differences in the Importance of Issues by Party and Political Philosophy

Some issues are much more important to Republicans than to Democrats or Independents: taxes, the war on terror, immigration and abortion. Others are more important to Democrats (and often to Independents) than to Republicans: health care, social security, education and the environment.

So What Does All This Mean?

This poll gives an interesting picture of public preferences, but it does not provide a prediction of who will be nominated or elected. One common misperception is that voters consider where each candidate stands on each issue and then vote for the candidate whose positions on the issues are the closest to their own. In reality, most voters have only a vague sense of the candidates ’ policy positions, and their votes are determined by many other factors, including their feelings about the candidates, perceptions of their characters and personalities and their track records. Furthermore, voters often feel that one candidate would be better than another on an issue without actually knowing what their positions on the issue actually are.

What this poll measures therefore is public opinion of the candidates based on a mixture of knowledge, emotional reactions to the candidates — and of course what voters have heard from the people they know and what they have seen and read in the media. These opinions are important however little they may be based on solid understanding of the candidates ’ proposals and positions. These attitudes would have a powerful influence on how people actually vote, in both the primary elections and the general election. However, this poll measures the attitudes of all adults nationwide, not the attitudes in Iowa, New Hampshire or other states where candidates who do well will generate momentum — and change of these numbers nationwide and in other states.