Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Summary of Findings Public satisfaction with national conditions has fallen to 33%, its lowest level in eight years, in the wake of revelations of prisoner abuse committed by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. President Bush’s overall job approval rating also has dropped into negative territory: 44% approve of his job performance, while […]
by Andrew Kohut in The New York Times
Summary of Findings President Bush’s approval ratings have improved over the month of April even as Americans continue to express strong concerns about Iraq and the way the president is handling that situation. The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center finds 48% approving and 43% disapproving of Bush’s overall job performance. This is […]
Public divisions over access to abortion are long-standing, and have changed only slightly over the past two decades. Currently, 58% say they oppose making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, while 36% are in favor of further restrictions. This is virtually unchanged from polling conducted in the early 1990s. In 1987, […]
Summary of Findings Faced with a growing number of unsolicited telephone calls and armed with increasingly sophisticated technology for screening their calls, more Americans are refusing to participate in telephone polls than was the case just six years ago. Yet a survey research experiment to gauge the effects of respondent cooperation on survey quality indicates […]
Public Opinion Quarterly 70: 759-779 (2006) – This article provides more extensive analysis of data from the study reported in Polls Face Growing Resistance, But Still Representative.
Summary of Findings Public support for war in Iraq has been unaffected by the murders and desecration of the corpses of American citizens in Falluja. However, continued turmoil and violence in Iraq may be taking a toll on President Bush’s approval ratings. More Americans now disapprove of the way he is doing his job than […]
Summary of Findings A growing minority of Americans believe that Jews were responsible for Christ’s death. Roughly a quarter of the public (26%) now expresses that view. This represents a modest but statistically significant increase in the number holding this opinion when compared with a 1997 survey by ABC News which found 19% feeling this […]
Summary of Findings A week’s worth of criticism of his pre-Sept. 11 record on terrorism has had little impact on President Bush’s support among voters. He is now running even with Sen. John Kerry in a head-to-head match-up among registered voters (47% Kerry- 46% Bush) after trailing Kerry by 52%-43% in mid-March. Voter opinions have […]
Summary of Findings The long general election campaign begins with voters paying much more attention than usual and a decidedly greater number of Americans thinking that it matters who wins in the fall than felt that way four years ago. However, roughly half of Americans already say the campaign is too long, “boring” and “too […]