Majority Now Say U. S. Beating Terrorists

Despite Most Media’s Bashing Facts Leaking Through

Over half of American voters (51%) now believe the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror, the highest figure recorded in nearly four years by Rasmussen Reports in a nationwide survey.

Only 16% now think the terrorists are on top, while 27% view it as a stalemate. Prior to this week’s survey, the number who believe the terrorists are winning had never fallen below 20%.

Last July, just 36% thought the U.S. and its allies were winning. At that time, an equal number-36%–thought the terrorists were ahead.

Other indicators in the survey also show that Americans have growing confidence that things are looking up in the war on terror.

Forty-two percent (42%) now think the situation in Iraq will improve over the next six months. That’s up from 37% a week ago and 23% a year ago.

Only 23% now expect things to get worse in Iraq, down from 49% last July.

The gap also is narrowing dramatically between those who think history will judge the war in Iraq as a success - 36% now - versus those who think it will be viewed as a failure (39%).

These results continue a trend noted last week when 48% said the U.S. and its allies were winning versus 20% who saw the terrorists ahead. The 28-point difference was the most favorable margin recorded by Rasmussen Reports since tracking began in January 2004. The previous high was established on September 6, 2004, when 52% thought the U.S. and its allies were winning but 26% thought the terrorists were winning — a 26-point favorable margin.

Now 35 points separate those who think the U.S. is ahead as opposed to the terrorists.

For the first time in months, more Democrats (35%) also think the U.S. is winning versus the number who credit the terrorists with being ahead (26%), although nearly a third (31%) are undecided. Last week, only 27% of Democrats thought the U.S. was winning.

Even as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tours the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq on a fact-finding trip, Americans are evenly divided on whether he is too inexperienced to be president. Forty-five percent (45%) say Obama, who has been in the Senate three years after serving as a state legislator in Illinois, lacks the experience to sit in the White House, a number that has been trending higher in recent weeks. An identical percentage disagree.

The results on the war on terror come as a separate Rasmussen Reports national survey this week found that 63% of Americans want the troops brought home from Iraq within a year, reflecting little change in voter attitudes since tracking of this question began last August. Still, just 24% want the troops withdrawn immediately.

Forty-four percent (44%) of voters think the United States is safer today than before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but 39% disagree. Both figures are roughly comparable to the most optimistic figures on record.

Obama and Republican presidential candidate John McCain have stepped up their criticism of each other’s positions on the wars on terror and in Iraq in recent days, largely due to Obama’s current overseas trip. McCain, a longtime supporter of the war in Iraq, has consistently pushed for more U.S. troops there, and this so-called surge of forces is credited with bringing stability to the war-torn country. Obama remains a critic of the war but now acknowledges that the surge, which he opposed, has worked.

In another recent survey, however, 48% of Americans agreed with Obama that Afghanistan, and not Iraq, should be the “central front” in the war on terror.

Still in new polling this week McCain is again trusted by voters more than Obama when it comes to Iraq and the broader issue of national security.

Now 61% of men think the U.S. and its allies are winning the war on terror, up from 54% last week and 49% the week before. The number of women who agree has held steady at 43% for two weeks in a row, up from 37% a week earlier.

The percentage of Republicans who see the U.S. and its allies ahead also stayed roughly the same at 78%. Forty-five percent (45%) of unaffiliated voters, a bloc critical to the upcoming presidential election, agree, up two percentage points from a week earlier and 36% the week before that. Nationally, the race between Barack Obama and John McCain remains very close in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Thirty percent (30%) of likely Obama voters also see the U.S. winning, while 26% of them disagree.

Rasmussen Reports will continue polling weekly on this topic through the election and then resume monthly tracking. Weekly updates are posted on the Obama-McCain: By the Numbers page.

During weekly tracking in Election 2004, confidence that the U.S. and its allies were winning ranged from a low of 45% to a high of 52%, but the number who thought the terrorists were winning never fell below 25%.

The war on terror was the number one issue for voters in the 2004 election cycle. Voters now identify economic issues as their number one concern.

President Bush’s record low approval ratings have improved slightly from the new confidence in the outcome of the war on terror. Forty-six percent (46%) rate his job performance as poor, down from 49% last week, while 27% rate his work as good or excellent for the second week in a row.