A new survey shows that despite Americans giving Democrats a higher image rating, they trust Republicans more on handling the country’s key issues.

Both political parties scored low in terms of public opinion in the poll, conducted by Gallup from Sept. 9-13, but the left managed to come in 5 percentage points ahead of the GOP’s 38 percent favorability rating.

Participants in the survey did, however, say they trust Republicans more on dealing with the economy, and keeping the country safe from threats of terrorism.

When asked who does a better job of protecting the country from military threats, Republicans trumped Democrats 52 to 36 percent.

The margin was smaller when it came to economic issues, but the GOP still pulled ahead with 46 percent saying the right would do a better job of keeping the country prosperous versus Democrats’ 44 percent.

Overall, 5 percent more participants said Republicans do a better job of handling issues most important to them.

“To some degree, the discrepancies in party favorability and issue competency could be based on the popularity of the incumbent president, with Americans tending to favor his party regardless of how they feel about which party can do best on the issues,” the survey said. “This appears to have been particularly true when a Democrat is in the White House, as is the case now.”

According to Gallop, with the upcoming presidential election, both parties come away with encouraging news from the results.

The survey was based off telephone interviews of 1,025 people over the age of 18 across the country and leaves a margin or error of plus or minus four.

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