Republicans and Democrats have widely different views of what they want discussed in the Iowa presidential caucus campaign.
Republicans overwhelmingly want to hear more about fiscal and defense issues. Democrats are very interested in domestic policy.
The findings come from a new poll by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa poll found 90 percent or more of Republicans said they want to spend a lot of time on the budget deficit, national defense, taxes and terrorist groups.
Topping the Democratic list were energy, at 92 percent, followed by income inequality at 90 percent and the nation’s infrastructure at 88 percent.
Only job creation, which was fifth on the Republican list and fourth among Democrats, showed up in the top five of either party.
“The underlying difference right now between the policy agendas of elites at the top — which has increasingly filtered down into minds of ordinary citizens — is a fundamental disagreement about the role of government in the modern world," Jeff Manza, a professor of sociology at New York University, told the Register.
One other big difference: More than four of five Republicans said they don’t want to hear discussions of climate change. But a nearly equal percentage, 81 percent, of Democrats said they did.
The 2016 Iowa presidential caucuses are current scheduled for early February.