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Politics

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    No Improvement in Public’s Views of Economic News

    Survey Report As the Federal Reserve meets to discuss whether to keep up its $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program, the public’s perceptions of recent economic news have shown little change. Six-in-ten (60%) are hearing a mix of good and bad news about the economy. Far more say they are hearing mostly bad news about the economy (31%) […]

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    Liberal Democrats still approve of Obama, but many don’t feel strongly

    President Obama continues to have sky-high job ratings among liberal Democrats — 90% approve and just 8% disapprove in Pew Research’s poll earlier this month. Their approval of his job performance is twice the rating given by the public as a whole (which rose slightly to 45% after steadily declining over six months). But many […]

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    Republicans More Optimistic than Democrats about Midterms

    Less than a year out from the 2014 midterm elections, Republicans are more optimistic than Democrats about their party’s electoral prospects. But the “expectations gap” is far more modest now than it was prior to the 2010 election, when Republicans were brimming with confidence, or 2006, when most Democrats anticipated a midterm victory.

  • short reads

    A year after Newtown, little change in public opinion on guns

    After the horrific shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., a year ago claiming the lives of 20 children and six adults, there was a sense in the country – especially among gun-control supporters — that the tragedy would be different from similar ones in the past and push the nation to action. But ultimately, a sustained change in public opinion did not materialize, and a bill to tighten gun laws died in the Senate.

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    About the Survey

    The analysis for this report is based on telephone interviews conducted December 3-8, 2013 among a national sample of 2,001 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (1,000 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 1,001 were interviewed on a cell phone, including […]

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    Obama Job Rating Regains Some Ground, But 2013 Has Taken a Toll

    Survey Report For the first time since last spring, Barack Obama’s steadily declining job rating has shown a modest improvement. And while his signature legislative accomplishment – the 2010 health care law – remains unpopular, Obama engenders much more public confidence on health care policy than do Republican leaders in Congress. The flawed rollout of […]