Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Survey Findings Pre-election polling is tricky work. A number of unknown factors can stand in the way of accurate predictions — problems with identifying registered and likely voters, uncertainties about voter turnout, and last-minute shifts in candidate preference. But estimating voter preferences in biracial elections has been especially difficult. Pre-election surveys, even those taken just […]
The survey of government leaders is based on in-person interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates between October 1997 and February 1998. The presidential appointees and members of the Senior Executive Service who were contacted for interviews were randomly selected from the Summer 1997 edition of the Federal Yellow Book. Interviews were […]
Introduction and Summary President Clinton’s lofty performance ratings are benefiting the Democratic Party, which is now in a stronger position with American voters than it has been for some time. In contrast, continuing negative perceptions of Republican congressional leaders are hamstringing the image of their party. By the biggest margin of the decade, the public […]
Does Specifity Equal Quality? Having a more detailed characterization of sources is no guarantee that a story is accurate. Some stories that have held up well have barely characterized the sources. The Washington Post’s publication of the details of Clinton’s deposition in the Paula Jones litigation effectively offered no guidance at all about the source–even […]
Popular Today vs. Legacy Tomorrow The steady stream of allegations involving a White House sex scandal and cover-up has not eroded President Clinton’s popularity. And while the story continues to interest the public, it appears to have lost some of its resonance: The number of people saying Clinton should be impeached if he lied under […]
Demographics On the whole, both samples (even unweighted) fairly closely reflected the American public. In most demographic categories, both samples differed from U.S. Census figures by 4 percentage points — the statistical margin of error — or less.[1. All demographic comparisons presented in this section are based on unweighted data. Most surveys use mathematical weighting […]
Introduction and Summary Washington’s leaders and the American public are out of step with one another. Public distrust of government is paralleled by a belief among members of Congress, presidential appointees and senior civil servants that the American public is too ill-informed to make wise decisions about important issues. Washington leaders also significantly underestimate the […]
In all, 21% of the reporting was based on anonymous sources. Given the nature of a story involving a grand jury and an ongoing investigation, that may not be so surprising, and some of this reportage three weeks later holds up well. In general, however, the track record of stories with multiple anonymous sources appeared […]
Introduction and Summary A strong State of the Union address combined with public anger at the news media fueled President Clinton’s unexpected lift to a 71% approval rating — even as allegations of a White House sex scandal consumed Washington. When asked in a Pew Research Center re-interview survey why they had changed their minds […]