Dividing People into ’Liberals,’ ’Moderates’ and ’Conservatives’ – Too Simplistic?
Assessing the value of using the labels “moderate,” “liberal” and “conservative” to describe the electorate.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Assessing the value of using the labels “moderate,” “liberal” and “conservative” to describe the electorate.
Opinion about gun control has been split since April 2009, but this marked a substantial change in attitudes from previous years in which majorities of Americans consistently prioritized gun control over gun rights. See a breakdown of opinion about gun control across numerous demographic categories.
The public remains divided — and deeply so along party lines — on the issue of gun control and gun rights. Most Americans say tragic events like the shooting are just the isolated acts of troubled individuals, and not a reflection of broader problems in American society.
There will almost certainly be far more nonvoters than voters this year. Nonvoters are younger, less educated and more financially stressed than likely voters. They are also significantly less Republican and more likely to approve of Obama’s job performance.
His approval has slipped, but is not much different from where Reagan stood at this point in his term. But the public’s conservative shift could be trouble for the president.
With fully a quarter of the U.S. adult population now relying solely on cell phone service, pollsters and other survey researchers face a difficult decision as to whether to include cell phones in their samples. A joint study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Internet & American Life Project takes an up-to-date look at the potential biases in findings based on landline-only surveys.
Perhaps the best way to think about public opinion and its relationship to politics and policymaking is that the American public is typically short on facts, but often long on judgment.
A compilation of the top 15 stories in which public opinion played a significant role, and the year’s most notable “non-barking dogs.”
Surveys taken before the Virginia Tech shootings showed that Americans had become less disposed to support gun control measures than they were in the years surrounding the Columbine school shootings in 1999.
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