Barack Obama

The U.S. president’s inaugural address is a speech heard and read around the world, and is interpreted as a sign of America’s intentions going forward. To separate lofty ambitions from more practical realities, it needs to be interpreted in the context of U.S. public opinion.

President Obama on Monday laid out his second term priorities, naming a range of issues: the social safety net, entitlement programs, income inequality, climate change, gay rights and immigration reform. Here is what our surveys have found about public opinion on these topics.

Overview With the public paying close attention to the national debate over gun control, Barack Obama’s gun proposals receive a mixed rating from the public. A 39% plurality say Obama’s proposals are about right while another 13% say they do not go far enough. About three-in-ten (31%) say the president’s proposals go too far; 17% […]

President Obama is in a strong position at the start of his second term. At 52%, his job approval rating is among the highest since the earliest months of his presidency. But it has certainly had its ups and downs. Our chart below displays Obama’s job approval ratings from Pew Research Center polls combined with […]

Overview As he prepares for his second inauguration, Barack Obama is in a stronger position with the public than he was over much of his first term. At 52%, his job approval rating is among the highest since the early months of his presidency. His personal favorability, currently 59%, has rebounded from a low of […]

President Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden Wednesday unveiled their proposals for preventing the kind of mass shootings that most recently occurred at an elementary school in Newtown, Ct. Here are some of our public opinion findings that relate to some of what they had to say.

Overview Barack Obama is viewed as the clear political winner in the fiscal cliff negotiations, but the legislation itself gets only a lukewarm reception from the public: As many disapprove as approve of the new tax legislation, and more say it will have a negative than positive impact on the federal budget deficit, the national […]

Overview The Democrats are in a strong position with the public as they engage in negotiations to find a solution to the fiscal cliff crisis. Barack Obama’s first post-reelection job approval rating has risen to 55%, up five points since July and 11 points since the start of the year. Obama’s job rating is markedly […]

Much of the world cheered the re-election of U.S. president Barack Obama. But the president’s honeymoon may be short lived. Disappointment with Obama’s first term foreign policy may challenge both his popularity and his ability to present a positive image of the United States around the globe.

Obama enjoyed a surge of positive news coverage the last week of the campaign—one of his best weeks in months—in the wake of new polls and Superstorm Sandy. How did Mitt Romney fare? Was the tone of the conversation different on social media than in the mainstream press? A new report offers answers.