Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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State of the Nation Al Gore is benefitting from two seemingly disparate trends — higher satisfaction with the state of the nation and increased worry about longer-term economic issues. A substantial dip in public satisfaction with national conditions, which was particularly evident in the spring and early summer, has reversed itself. More than half of […]
Religion and Politics: The Ambivalent Majority Americans embrace a role for religion in the nation’s political life, but they are conflicted over the extent and contours of that involvement. Compared to a generation ago, more people are comfortable with churches expressing opinions on social and political matters, yet a solid majority of voters say they […]
Gore’s Issues Edge Gore is seen as the candidate who would do the best job on the issues that matter most to Americans — Social Security and Medicare, education and health care. Nearly half of voters (49%) say Gore would be most capable of keeping Social Security and Medicare financially sound, while 36% choose Bush. […]
Social Security, Medicare Top Priorities So far, no single issue has dominated the campaign, reflecting the public’s varied list of policy priorities. Nearly one-quarter of voters (24%) name Social Security and Medicare as the most pressing priorities for the next president, followed closely by education (21%) and health care (19%). There are major differences between […]
Section 1: Americans want a privacy guarantee Privacy has emerged as a central policy concern about the Internet as more Americans go online every day – and recent weeks have brought a ceaseless number of new allegations about privacy violations by Internet companies. In the past three months, a series of events have heightened sensitivities. […]
Introduction and Summary With voters focusing more on the issues than on personal evaluations of the candidates and continuity factors increasingly favoring the Democrats, Al Gore holds a small but significant lead over George W. Bush. A survey of nearly 2,000 registered voters, conducted Aug. 24 – Sept. 10, finds Gore leading Bush by a […]
The Public’s Mood Mellows Satisfaction with the state of the nation is down slightly over the past 12 months, though still high relative to the early 1990s. In the current survey, 47% of citizens say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, down from recent highs of 56% in August […]
Might-Miss TV? Just one-in-ten Americans (13%) plan to watch all or most of the television coverage of the GOP convention, while another 28% say they’ll watch some of it. Older Americans are both more interested in the convention and more apt to watch the television coverage. But even among Republicans, there is scant interest in […]
Coverage of Issues, Debates Popular … Most Americans say they want news organizations to tell them what the candidates stand for — not what they are like personally. Fully 85% say they want more news coverage of the candidates discussing their positions on issues, while 64% want more coverage of the candidates debating each other. […]
Tuned Out The presidential campaign is not on the minds of most Americans. Fewer than half of registered voters (46%) say they have thought a lot about the election. That represents a modest decline from a similar point in the campaign four years ago (when 50% said they gave the campaign a lot of thought) […]