Thursday night’s Republican debate in South Carolina in the wake of John McCain’s comeback victory in New Hampshire and Mike Huckabee’s surprising win in Iowa emphasized what a difference one week can make in the nomination process. And in terms of who will get the nod, it raises more questions than answers. Sen. McCain’s win […]
Summary of Findings In the wake of his victory in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama for the first time supplanted Hillary Clinton as the most visible presidential candidate. Overall, 38% of Americans say they heard the most about Obama in the days immediately after the caucuses (Jan. 4-7), while 28% named Clinton as […]
The failure of the New Hampshire pre-election surveys to mirror the outcome of the Democratic race is one of the most significant miscues in modern polling history. All the published polls, including those that surveyed through Monday, had Sen. Barack Obama comfortably ahead with an average margin of more than 8 percent. These same polls […]
Summary of Findings The American public begins the new year with a highly negative view of national conditions and tempered expectations for 2008. Half of Americans say that as far as they are concerned, 2008 will be a better year than 2007, while 34% say it will be worse. In December 2006, and in several […]
Summary of Findings On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Rudy Giuliani’s once solid lead in nationwide polling of Republican voters has vanished. The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds about equal levels of support for John McCain (22%), Rudy Giuliani (20%), and Mike Huckabee (17%). […]
With the first votes of the 2008 presidential election soon to be cast in the early-decision states, the likely outcome of these contests is more in doubt than in any election cycle in recent history. For the Democratic candidates, the decisive factors are personal and tactical. For Republican contestants, however, the ultimate outcome may be […]
As in previous years, public opinion played an important role in shaping many of 2007’s major news stories. This year, fewer dominant trends were carryovers from the preceding year and those that were assumed a somewhat different — and in the case of the Iraq war less pessimistic — cast. Read full analysis at Pewresearch.org
Summary of Findings Man-made and natural disasters dominated the list of the public’s top news stories in 2007. Nearly half of Americans (45%) tracked news about the shootings of 33 students at Virginia Tech University very closely, while nearly as many paid very close attention to reports on the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the California […]
