Pew Results: Republicans Generally More Knowledgeable on Current Events than Democrats

by Stephan Tawney on December 1, 2011

Those stupid hick Republicans, daring to outperform their Democratic genius betters.

Republicans generally outperformed Democrats on the current quiz. On 13 out of the 19 questions, Republicans score significantly higher than Democrats and there are no questions on which Democrats did better than Republicans. In past knowledge quizzes, partisan differences have been more muted, though Republicans often have scored somewhat higher than Democrats.

Questions on current politics and on geography show particularly wide differences. For example, Republicans are 19 points more likely than Democrats to know that the Republican Party has a majority in just the House of Representatives, and 14 points more likely to know that John Boehner is the speaker of the House. On international questions, Republicans are much more likely to be able to identify Israel on a map (67% vs. 51%), and more likely to know that Greece is the European country experiencing debt problems (71% vs. 54%). Additionally, more Republicans than Democrats could locate Brazil on a map (84% vs. 73%).

The worst part? These are pretty basic questions. Only 54% of Democrats know Greece is the European country with major debt issues? Just 51% can point to Israel on the map? I don’t want to hear crap about ignorant cowboy Republicans from this forward.



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