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Politics

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    PBS NewsHour Video: Rep. Dennis
    Kucinich Takes the Political Party Quiz

      At the Democratic National Convention, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) took our political news quiz to see where he stands on the political spectrum. Pew Research Center and PBS NewsHour partnered to launch the political party quiz, based on the Pew Research Center’s national survey. Take the quiz to see where you fit on the […]

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    Obama in a Word: From ‘Inexperienced’ and ‘Change’ to ‘Good’ and ‘Trying’

    Four years ago, voters’ descriptions of Barack Obama focused on his newness on the political scene. In September 2008, more voters used the word inexperienced to describe Obama than any other word, while change was the most frequently used positive term. Words like young, charismatic and new were also among the top descriptions. Today, the […]

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    Biden in a Word: ‘Good,’ ‘Idiot’

    Asked for their one-word impression of Joe Biden, more people use negative than positive words to describe the vice president. Many of the negative words disparage Biden’s competence and performance, with idiot, incompetent and clown among the terms used most frequently. Of those offering a word to describe Biden, 38% use negative terms, while 23% […]

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    RNC Highlights: Romney Shares Top Billing With Eastwood

    Overview The public paid far less attention to this year’s Republican convention than it did to the GOP convention four years ago. Just 37% say they watched all or some of the Republican convention, down from 56% in 2008. And while there has been a modest increase in the percentage saying they view Mitt Romney […]

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    Romney in a Word: ’Honest,’ ’Businessman,’ ’Rich’

    As the American public has learned more about Mitt Romney over the course of the past year, his image has changed substantially. Last fall, the one word that came to mind most frequently when people were asked to describe Romney was Mormon. The same question this spring elicited the words rich and no more frequently […]

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    Paul Ryan in a Word: ’Conservative,’ ’Intelligent’

    As Paul Ryan prepares to accept his nomination as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, the American public has a mixed impression of him. When asked what one word comes to mind when thinking about Ryan, the most frequent responses are conservative, intelligent, good, unknown, and young. In the latest national survey by the Pew Research […]

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    More Interest in GOP Platform than Romney’s Speech

    Overview As the Republican convention gets underway, more Americans express interest in learning about what’s in the GOP platform than in the speeches by either Mitt Romney or his running mate. About half of the public (52%) is interested in learning about the Republican Party’s platform, while 44% are interested in Romney’s acceptance speech and […]

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    Political Party Quiz: How We Placed You

    The Political Party scale was determined by selecting a set of questions from the Pew Research Center’s 2012 American political values survey representing a range of political values that are each consistently associated with party identification.

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    A Closer Look at the Parties in 2012

    As the 2012 party conventions approach, the Democratic Party continues to maintain an advantage in party identification among voters, but its lead is much smaller than it was in 2008. In more than 13,000 interviews conducted so far in 2012, 35% of registered voters identify with the Democratic Party, 28% with the Republican Party and […]