As Republicans head home from Tampa after naming Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to head their ticket in the November presidential election, they face a widespread perception that the GOP is the party of the rich, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.
The study found that 60% of Americans, including 62% who consider themselves middle class, said the Republican Party favored the rich over the middle and lower classes. Slightly less than a quarter said the party favored the middle class.
These views of the GOP were largely unchanged from the 2008 presidential election, the study said.
Nor has Americans' perception of the Democratic Party changed much in four years, with 20% telling researchers Democrats favor the rich, 35% saying they favor the middle class and 32% believing they favor the poor.
Pew conducted telephone interviews July 16–26 with 2,508 people 18 and older. Some 17% of respondents identified themselves as upper (2%) or upper-middle class (15%), 49% said they were middle class and 32% placed themselves in the lower-middle (25%) or lower class (7%).
The study found Americans ambivalent about the rich. On the one hand, large majorities of self-described middle- and lower-class respondents said they admired people who got rich through hard work.
But 58% said the rich did not pay enough in federal staxes, while 26% said they paid their fair share and 8% said they paid too much. Indeed, 52% of those who identified themselves as upper or upper-middle class said high-income Americans did not pay enough in taxes.
Americans see the rich as different in significant ways. On the positive side, 43% of survey respondents said rich people were likelier to be intelligent than average people, while 8% said the rich were less likely to be intelligent. Fifty percent of respondents demurred on the matter.
