Republicans More Knowledgeable
Across the 12 knowledge items tested, the biggest gap between Democrats and Republicans comes over awareness of the current level of the Dow. Republicans also are more likely to correctly name Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and know that Tim Geithner’s position is treasury secretary. In addition, a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats know that Obama decided to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and that Ford is the U.S. automaker that has not taken emergency government loans.
But there is little or no partisan gap in knowledge on some other key items: Democrats and Republicans are about equally likely to know that China holds the most U.S. debt, that Hillary Clinton is secretary of state; and that roughly 4,300 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.
The differences in knowledge levels between Republicans and Democrats are mostly a reflection of the different demographics of the two groups. Republicans tend to be older, more educated, higher income and are more likely to be male; each of these characteristics is strongly associated with political and economic knowledge. When these characteristics are held constant – that is, when Republicans and Democrats with similar demographic characteristics are compared – there is little difference between the two groups.
From Pew Research Center 2009
