report | May 2, 2007

Surge in Support for Social Safety Net

Support for government programs to help disadvantaged Americans, as well as sympathy for the plight of the poor, have surged since 1994 and returned to levels last seen in 1990 prior to welfare reform, with gains occurring among virtually every major social, political and demographic group. Read full analysis at Pewresearch.org

report | May 2, 2007

The Republicans Can’t Possibly Win in ’08…or Can They?

Republicans are facing an increasingly difficult political terrain in 2008. Yet horse race polls are showing that leading Republican candidates match up pretty well against the Democratic front runners. There are several reasons for this, but the bottom line is that Republicans can be competitive in 2008 — if their nominee is seen as an […]

report | Apr 12, 2007

Money Walks

The Republican Party has traditionally garnered it strongest backing from wealthier voters. But the recent overall decline in Republican party affiliation nationwide has even taken a toll on GOP support among affluent voters. The latest Pew surveys find partisan parity among registered voters with annual family incomes in excess of roughly $135,000 per annum. Read […]

report | Apr 4, 2007

The NRA’s Image Improves as Support for Gun Control Slips

Each year since its occurrence in 1999, the April 20 anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy renews debate about the desirability of stricter controls on firearms. Recent surveys, however, find Americans less disposed to gun control than they were in the years surrounding the shootings. Read full analysis at Pewresearch.org

report | Mar 22, 2007

Iraq and Vietnam: A Crucial Difference in Opinion

While public opinion with respect to the rightness and progress of the war in Iraq has followed a path not unlike that charted during the Vietnam War, one important difference stands out: public attitudes toward the military. Read full analysis at pewresearch.org

report | Mar 15, 2007

Trends in Public Opinion about War in Iraq, 2003-2007

Four years after the launch of the U.S. led invasion on March 19, 2003, public opinion about the war in Iraq has turned decidedly negative. Most Americans regret the decision to use military force. Majorities believe the war is not going well, and most say that the United States should bring its troops home as […]

report | Mar 8, 2007

Foreign Policy: The Public Sends a Muddled Message

Both the White House and Congress face difficult decisions with respect to foreign policy in the final two years of Bush’s term. Yet, the polls suggest that policymakers can expect little in the way of clear guidance from the public. Opinion surveys find much in the way of public frustration, but little in the way […]

report | Feb 14, 2007

How Reliable Are the Early Presidential Polls?

The flurry of candidate announcements in an open race has spurred media attention to the 2008 presidential contest even earlier in the electoral cycle than usual. But followers of early poll readings on the relative viability of declared candidates should bear in mind some caveats. Early frontrunners for the Republican nomination in most of the […]

report | Feb 7, 2007

Can You Trust What Polls Say about Obama’s Electoral Prospects?

The strong showing of Democrat Barack Obama in early trial heat polls for the 2008 presidential election raises anew the question of whether the American public is ready to support an African American candidate for president. Recent polling points to two significant shifts on this question. Read the full analysis at PewResearch.org

report | Jan 4, 2007

The Complicated Politics of Free Trade

Crafting effective U.S. trade policies in an era of rapid economic globalization is tough. But the politics of free trade are even tougher — particularly for Democrats, according to a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Read the full analysis at pewresearch.org

report | Dec 20, 2006

What Was — and Wasn’t on the Public’s Mind

Once again, public opinion played a major role in the most important news stories of the year. Some of the strongest 2006 trends in public opinion carried over from previous years — notably growing concern about the Iraq war and mounting dissatisfaction with the performance of the Republican-controlled Congress. In the case of another continuing […]

report | Dec 6, 2006

Civil War: What’s in a Name?

IrA mostly insiders-only debate about whether Iraq is in a state of civil war broke out into the open last week when two major news organizations announced that they would henceforth refer to the conflict as a civil war. According to polling in September by the Pew Research Center, much of the public had already […]

report | Nov 16, 2006

Election ’06: Big Changes in Some Key Groups

Post-mortems on the election have rightly focused on a few big themes: the impact of the war, opinions about President Bush, and the strong Democratic performance among moderates and independents. But the shifting allegiance of some other important voter groups has gotten relatively less attention. One of the biggest stories is about young people. Another […]

report | Nov 14, 2006

The Real Message of the Midterms

A sweeping election tends to invite sweeping conclusions — and the Democrats’ takeover of both houses of Congress this November provides a tempting array of opportunities for exaggeration or misinterpretation. With that in mind, let’s look at the major lessons to be gleaned from the exit polls and opinion polls about how America voted this […]

report | Nov 8, 2006

Centrists Deliver for Democrats

The political center forcefully asserted itself in Tuesday’s midterms. The national exit poll showed that political independents, who divided their votes evenly between George Bush and John Kerry in 2004, swung decisively in favor of the Democrats. With roughly nine-in-ten Republicans and Democrats casting ballots for representatives of their parties, just as they did two […]

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