Poll time!

I love this moment in the political season because the polls pour in and invariably something tucked in among the questions catches my eye but doesn’t grab the headlines.

I have selected two that get us away from the presidential race, both of which highlight just how much trouble the Republican brand continues to find itself in despite the party’s many legislative and statehouse victories in 2010. Public sentiment is slowly drifting away from the Republicans in a way that must be giving the party’s long-range strategists sleepless nights.

The first question comes from the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey released on Tuesday (it’s question number 27). It read:

When it comes to (READ ITEM), which party do you feel is most attuned and sensitive to issues that affect this group.

Here is the list of items the poll-takers read and the way people answered:

The New York Times

The chart illustrates just how narrow Republican support is. Respondents viewed Republicans as more sensitive to religious conservatives, people in the military and small business owners. That’s not enough for a winning coalition. For everyone else — including the middle class, young adults and Hispanics — Democrats won out. Democrats even scored higher than Republicans among some groups that conventional wisdom associates with supporting Republicans, like retirees and stay-at-home moms. (I wish that the pollsters had also asked about men and racial groups, but unfortunately they did not.)

The second question comes from a Gallup morality poll that was also released on Tuesday. The question read:

Next, I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong.

Here are the issues and how people responded:

The New York Times

Of the 18 moral issues, Democrats were more permissive than Republicans on 14. No surprise there. But what was a bit surprising was that on seven issues, independents eked out a small margin of permissiveness over Democrats. (This may be due in part to the fact that some devout Democrats like blacks are rather conservative, socially speaking.)

Republicans were only more permissive than Democrats and independents on three measures and they all had to do with the killing of people and animals — the death penalty, buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur and medical testing on animals. Interpret that as you will.

Independents were closer to Democrats than to Republicans on 13 of the 18 issues outlined. The only exceptions were medical research using embryonic stem cells, the death penalty, suicide and human cloning. (On cloning animals, Democrats and Republicans were both less permissive than independents, and in equal measure).

When people are asked to identify themselves by political ideology, Americans may appear to be center-right, but independents look more like Democrats than Republicans on moral issues.

This does not bode well for Republicans as the composition and conscience of the country continues to change. We are slowly becoming less religious, more diverse and increasingly open-minded.

That is completely at odds with today’s Republican Party.