Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Introduction and Summary Americans continue to distrust the government, although there are signs that hostility toward government has begun to diminish. There is also considerable evidence that distrust of government is strongly connected to how people feel about the overall state of the nation. Today, personal satisfaction is soaring, the economy is thriving and confidence […]
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 […]
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 […]
Clinton and Congressional Ratings Unchanged President Clinton’s approval ratings remain high and Americans credit Congress for its accomplishments this year, despite the failure of campaign finance and “fast track” trade legislation in the weeks leading up to the congressional adjournment. Nearly one in four Americans say this Congress has accomplished more than other recent Congresses, […]
Results for the main survey are based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates among a nationwide sample of 1,211 adults, 18 years of age or older, during the period February 20-23, 1997. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable […]
Introduction and Summary The American public is more critical of press practices, less enthusiastic about the news product and less appreciative of the watchdog role played by the news media than it was a dozen years ago when The People & The Press surveys were inaugurated. Those polls concluded that criticism of the way the […]
Opinion of National Media Slumps Increased criticism of specific press practices may have contributed to the more general decline in favorability toward various news media outlets. Favorable ratings for the national network television news have fallen to a twelve year low. Only 15% of Americans now have a very favorable opinion of the network TV […]