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    Media, Race and Obama’s First Year

    As a group, African Americans attracted relatively little attention in the U.S. mainstream news media during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency — and what coverage there was tended to focus more on specific episodes than on examining how broader issues and trends affected the lives of blacks generally.

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    Obama’s Policies Seen as Better than Bush’s for Improving the Economy

    Overview While most Americans disapprove of Barack Obama’s handling of the economy, far more think his administration’s policies – rather than those of the Bush administration – would do more to improve economic conditions over the next few years. As Congress gears up for debate over the tax cuts passed when Bush was president, the […]

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    The Reconstruction of a Media Mess

    The Shirley Sherrod saga started with a video posted online and ended with a flurry of finger pointing.  In a special report, PEJ reconstructs a chronology of how the story reverberated around the media echo chamber before dramatically changing course. And this week’s News Coverage Index finds that the tale of the USDA employee prematurely forced out of her job was the No. 2 story in the news agenda.

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    Candidates View the Separation of Church and State from Different Angles

    Two Republican candidates in key U.S. Senate races have stirred controversy by questioning whether there ought to be separation between church and state in America. Nevada Republican candidate Sharron Angle declared in 1995, according tominutes from a meeting of the Nevada Assembly Committee on Education, that “the separation of church and state is an unconstitutional […]

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    A Mosque in the Middle

    The proposed construction of a mosque in the middle of Tennessee has produced a sharp exchange of words between candidates for an open congressional seat. In May, the Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission approved the construction of a 52,000-square-foot facility to house a mosque and Islamic center in Murfreesboro. More than 600 residents turned out […]

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Signature Reports

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Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology

Our typology sorts the public into nine groups based on their political and cultural values, not their party – painting a picture of American politics with far more than two colors.

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Political Typology 2026

Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match.