WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats have strong support for nearly all the measures they want to pass in their first days in charge of the new Congress, according to a CNN poll released Wednesday.

More than eight in 10 Americans back raising the minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans and letting the government haggle with drug companies for lower prices for the Medicare prescription benefit, according to a poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN.

Pollsters interviewed 1,019 American adults on Dec. 15-17. The survey has a sampling error of 4.5 percentage points.

The new Congress convenes Thursday, and Democrats have pledged to pass six bills in the first 100 hours of work on new laws. In addition to raising the minimum wage, overhauling the Medicare drug benefit and cutting student loan rates, they have pledged to lift President Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research; repeal tax breaks for energy companies and put the money toward alternative energy research; and enact the full slate of recommendations of the independent commission that investigated the 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.

Full poll results