Summary of Findings Turnout in the 2006 midterm election may well be higher than normal, given the level of interest expressed by voters. Today, 51% of voters say they have given a lot of thought to this November’s election, up from 45% at this point in 2002 and 42% in early October of 1998. Even […]
The percent of Democratic voters who think of themselves as “liberals” has been slowly rising in recent years, while the number of conservative Democrats has declined. In polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press from January to September of 2006, 32% of Democrats describe themselves as ideologically liberal, while […]
Summary of Findings Iraq has become the central issue of the midterm elections. There is more dismay about how the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going than at any point since the war began more than three years ago. And the war is the dominant concern among the majority of voters who say they […]
Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Republican Party made sharp gains in party affiliation nationally, nearly wiping out the Democrats’ long-standing advantage. However, the Republican increases have faded and the Democratic Party now holds a slim edge in overall partisanship among registered voters. The modest Democratic recovery has been mostly concentrated in the blue […]
President Bush has gotten a bit of good news in some of this month’s polls by national survey organizations. But that verdict is by no means unanimous. Three polls – by AP/Ipsos, Gallup/USA Today and the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg News – show Bush’s job approval significantly higher than in the beginning of August. But in […]
Summary of Findings As the congressional midterm campaign begins in earnest, the mood of the electorate is sharply drawn. Voters are disappointed with Congress and disapproving of President Bush. Anti-incumbent sentiment, while a bit lower than a few months ago, is far more extensive than in the previous two midterms and remains close to 1994 […]