Tom Rosentiel

Two experts -- a geneticist and a religion writer and correspondent -- discuss why they believe the current perceived conflict between evolution and faith is unnecessary and destructive.

Most Americans say the news media has devoted too much coverage to Barack Obama's family and personal life, but the right amount to his leadership style and policy proposals.

A close look at reactions to Reagan's first few months in office provides striking parallels with what polls now find about opinions of Obama. And a consideration of the Reagan experience may well give some clues as to what lies ahead for the 44th president.

The Republican Party has continued to lose adherents in 2009. In combined surveys since the start of the year, fewer than a quarter (23%) of Americans identify as Republicans. In total, the GOP has lost roughly a quarter of its base over the past five years. But these losses have not translated into substantial Democratic gains.

The unaffiliated (58%) are the most likely to say there is solid evidence the earth is warming because of human activity while white evangelical Protestants (34%) are the least likely to believe in man-made global warming.

For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades.

More than two months into Barack Obama's presidency, as many people incorrectly identify him as a Muslim as did so during the 2008 campaign with white evangelicals and Republicans most likely to misidentify his religious affiliation.

Americans' perception about the state and direction of the nation usually go hand-in-hand. However, big events, like last fall's election, can split these two indicators of the public's national outlook.

An 86-year-old polling analysis sheds light on why female Americans were slow to appreciate the fruits of the suffragettes' hard-fought 70-year battle for access to the ballot box.

Most people think the new president is doing as much as he can to fix the economy, but the public expresses mixed views of his many major proposals to fix the economy. The public overwhelmingly supports Obama’s plan to remove most combat troops from Iraq by the end of August but a much narrower majority supports his planned troop buildup in Afghanistan.