Poll Finds Strong Support for GOP Goals : Politics: Times Mirror survey finds lukewarm backing for term limits and capital gains tax cut. Some spending hikes favored.

With an activist, Republican Congress poised at the reins, most Americans strongly support many of the GOP’s top priorities, including crime control, welfare reform and further deficit reduction, according to a Times Mirror poll released Wednesday.

But the survey found only tepid support for other items in the Republican “contract with America,” such as term limits and a capital gains tax cut.

Although the contract calls for major increases in defense spending, the public for the most part wants funding levels to be maintained--44% favored maintaining current levels, 31% favored increases and 23% favored cuts.

And in some areas, significant majorities actually want spending to be increased--such as for crime-fighting (71%), public education (64%) and AIDS research (55%), according to Andrew Kohut, director of the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press, which sponsored the survey. The center is run by Times Mirror Co., which is the owner of the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper, broadcasting and publishing enterprises.

The poll had some distressing news for President Clinton, with 66% of Democrats surveyed saying they would like to see others challenge him for the 1996 nomination.

Overall, Clinton personally had a favorable rating of 51%, with an unfavorable rating of 46%.

Sharp differences over national priorities emerged when gender and political affiliation were factored into the survey, with Republicans and men favoring welfare reform and deficit reduction and Democrats and women favoring health care reform and stricter handgun control.

Cutting welfare benefits to illegal immigrants, while not in the GOP contract, also had strong public support, with 53% in the poll favoring such a law in their state. Such a referendum was overwhelmingly approved by California voters in November, and 58% in the Times Mirror poll said they followed the Proposition 187 controversy either “very closely” or “fairly closely.”

The nationwide poll was conducted Dec. 1-4, under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates. It involved 1,511 adults and has a margin of error of three percentage points.

In the survey, 78% cited crime as the most urgent issue facing Congress, followed by welfare reform (66%), deficit reduction (55%), a school prayer amendment (33%), term limits (33%), and a capital gains tax cut (27%).

In the wake of the GOP’s sweeping gains last month, more Americans now think of themselves as Republicans (35%) than as Democrats (30%)--”a reversal of the usual ordering,” Kohut said.

“The GOP is riding high with the public in the afterglow of its big election victory,” he added.

In the poll, 57% said they are happy with the sweeping Republican victory, 52% approved of the GOP’s legislative agenda and 62% believed that the new Congress will be successful in “getting things done.”

In contrast, Kohut said, public esteem for the Democratic Party was at “an all-time low.” Exactly half the respondents in the poll reported a favorable opinion of the party, as compared with 44% who had a negative opinion. In July, the favorable-unfavorable ratings were 62%-34%.

The Republican Party was viewed favorably by 67% in the poll, while 27% held an unfavorable view--an improvement from July when the numbers were 63%-33%.

While 46% of those surveyed said they had not heard of incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, 25% of those who had heard of him rated him favorably, while 28% rated him unfavorably.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the next chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who made a number of controversial remarks about the President recently, had a 29% favorable rating and a 47% unfavorable rating.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, had a 58% to 28% favorable-unfavorable rating, virtually identical numbers from a July Times Mirror poll.