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Columbia Journalism Review: Brian E. Crowley 1/31
Romney's Hispanic Support: About That Florida Poll
... In Caputo's and Smith's stories, there is a clear example of what is wrong with newspaper polls and the coverage thereof. Both reporters wrote that their poll showed that Romney has a 24-point lead over Gingrich among Hispanic voters -- 52 to 28 percent. But readers were not told important details about these numbers. ...

Gallup 1/30
Romney Seen as More Presidential, Sincere Than Gingrich
Mitt Romney leads Newt Gingrich, 59% to 39%, in U.S. registered voters' perceptions that each "has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have." ...

William Galston 1/30
Romney a Stronger Candidate Than Democrats Think
... The conventional wisdom is that the Republican nominating contest has already damaged Romney severely. ... But it's hard to find much evidence of that trend in Florida, a state whose voters have much more information about Romney, negative as well as positive, than they did two weeks ago, and far more than do voters nationally. ...

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USA Today 1/29
Swing States poll: Romney and Obama tied; Gingrich trails
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney essentially ties Barack Obama in the nation's key battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States survey finds, while rival Newt Gingrich now trails the president by a decisive 14 percentage points. ...

Gallup 1/27
Obama Ratings Historically Polarized
The historically high gap between partisans' job approval ratings of Barack Obama continued during Obama's third year in office, with an average of 80% of Democrats and 12% of Republicans approving of the job he was doing. ...

Andrew Kohut 1/27
Don't Mind the Gap
... What's different these days is that a despondent public, struggling with difficult times and an uncertain future, is upset over a perceived lack of fairness in public policy. ...

NBC News 1/26
Gingrich leads Romney, but badly trails Obama
Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney among Republicans, but he is the weakest of the Republican candidates tested against President Obama, according to an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday evening. ...

Kaiser Family Foundation (pdf) 1/26
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
Earlier this month, parties challenging certain aspects of the 2010 health reform law ... filed their opening briefs with the Supreme Court. As the Court prepares to hear arguments in the case in March, most of the public believes the Justices' own ideological views will play at least some role in their decision. ...

Resurgent Republic 1/26
Obama Underperforms Among Hispanic Voters In Florida
... President Obama continues to underperform among Florida Hispanic voters and has done little to bolster his standing among this critical swing state demographic since our September survey last year. ...

Gallup 1/26
Post-State of the Union Analysis
Gallup data reveal how Americans' views line up with 16 specific issues President Obama raised in his 2012 State of the Union address. ...

New York Times: Marjorie Connelly 1/26
Consumer Confusion on Where Apple Devices Are Made
The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs remains a major sore point for most Americans. But owners of some of the nation's most popular electronics -- including iPhones and iPads -- are less concerned than other Americans about where their purchases are made, according to a nationwide survey conducted by The New York Times. ...

Hollywood Reporter 1/25
Time Warner Opens Medialab at New York Headquarters
Time Warner will on Wednesday formally unveil a newly established Medialab at its midtown Manhattan headquarters designed to provide cutting-edge research for its media and entertainment operations in the digital age. ...

Democracy Corps 1/25
President Obama Scores With Middle Class Message
Dial testing and follow-up focus groups with 50 swing voters in Denver, Colorado, show that President Obama's populist defense of the middle class and their priorities in his State of the Union scored with voters. The President generated strong responses on energy, education and foreign policy, but most important, he made impressive gains on a range of economic measures. ...

ABC News 1/25
Obama Leads by Wide Margins Among Latinos
Only nine months from Election Day, Latino voters -- the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc -- favor President Obama over all the Republican candidates by a wide margin, according to a new poll conducted by Latino Decisions for Univision News and ABC News, a welcome boost for a White House facing a difficult reelection fight. ...

National Journal 1/25
Americans Hold Nuanced Views on Romney, Payroll Cut
A plurality of Americans surveyed favor paying for an extension of the payroll-tax cut with a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes on the wealthy, the plan favored by Democrats, according to the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll. ...

Gallup 1/25
Financial Worries Rival Those of 1992
Americans' worries about maintaining their standard of living (51%), or being able to pay medical bills (43%) or losing their job (34%) in the next 12 months are among the highest Gallup has measured in the past 20 years, on par with the levels seen in 1991 and 1992. ...

Mark Mellman 1/25
Mean and extreme
... The "we-hate-moderates" positioning sells well in Republican primaries, but in 2010, moderates, together with liberals, made up 58 percent of the November electorate, and in the last presidential year, that segment comprised 66 percent of the voters. ...

CBS News 1/24
Most Americans agree with 'Buffett rule' concept
The government taxes income earned through investments at a lower tax rate income earned from working, but half of Americans think that should change, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 1/24
Sharp Swings in Political Popularity as Wild Ride Continues
Unfavorable views of Mitt Romney have soared, doubts about Newt Gingrich remain widespread and Barack Obama has advanced to his highest personal popularity in more than a year -- all in advance of the State of the Union address in which Obama makes his case for a second term. ...

Gallup 1/24
U.S. Economic Confidence Best Since May
U.S. economic confidence is at -25 in the week ending Jan. 22, improved from -29 the prior week and the best since the week ending May 22, 2011. ...

Michael Tesler, Brown University 1/23
Racial Attitudes a Predictor of Obama Vote Preference
Several recent studies by political scientists show racial and ethnocentric attitudes were not only strongly related to 2008 voting behavior, but that these attitudes had a much larger influence on that year's presidential race than they had on the all-white presidential contests of the past. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 1/23
The State of the Union -- In the Public's Eyes
Where does public opinion stand on the eve of President Obama's third State of the Union address? Here's the tale of the tape. ...

Pew 1/23
Public Priorities: Deficit Rising, Terrorism Slipping
As the 2012 State of the Union approaches, the public continues to give the highest priority to economic issues. Fully 86% say that strengthening the economy should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year, and 82% rate improving the job situation as a top priority. ...

Gallup: Lydia Saad 1/23
U.S. Economy Most Toxic of 24 Issues
As President Barack Obama prepares his annual address to Congress, Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the state of the nation in several specific issue areas, with satisfaction down sharply in some cases since January 2008. ...

Washington Post 1/23
Survey paints portrait of black women in America
In a new nationwide survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, a complex portrait emerges of black women who feel confident but vulnerable, who have high self-esteem and see physical beauty as important, who find career success more vital to them than marriage. ...

Ronald Brownstein 1/22
Primary Contest Could Divide GOP Along Clear, Sharp Lines
In South Carolina it appears the two tribes of the Republican Party have settled on their champions for a contest that could divide the party along clear, sharp lines of class, ideology and religious devotion. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 1/21
Newt Gingrich's Turn to Shine
A smashing result among voters who focused on the pre-primary debates lifted Newt Gingrich to victory in South Carolina, breathing new life into his candidacy -- and dealing a stern blow to Mitt Romney, who struggled especially with the state's evangelical and strongly conservative voters. ...

Samuel J. Best, U. of Connecticut 1/21
How Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary
... More than a third of voters - 34 percent - in the South Carolina Republican primary strongly support the Tea Party movement. They overwhelmingly gravitated toward Newt Gingrich, backing him by more than a two-to-one margin over Mitt Romney, 47 percent to 21 percent. ...

John Perry, University of California, Riverside 1/21
Needed: More Political Dimensions
One dimension -- left to right -- doesn't suffice to deal with today's political reality. ... We seem to need at least three dimensions. ...

Gallup: Jeffrey M. Jones 1/20
Obama Averages 44% Approval in 3rd Year
President Barack Obama averaged 44% job approval for his third full year in office, which ended Jan. 19. His third-year average is down slightly from his second-year average of 47% and much lower than his first-year average of 57%. ...

Charlie Cook 1/20
Congress's approval ratings can't get much worse
... With the exception of the immediate aftermath of extraordinary events like 9/11, the public routinely holds Congress in, as they say, "minimum high regard." But now, the new norm is record lows. ...

Pew 1/19
Obama: Weak Job Ratings, But Positive Personal Image
Barack Obama begins his fourth year in office facing a struggling economy, an unhappy public, and a lower job approval rating than most of his recent predecessors at a comparable point in their presidencies. ...

Andrew Gelman, Columbia University 1/19
Governor Romney, Meet Governor Dukakis
... I wouldn't be surprised if, once he has locked up the Republican nomination, Romney takes a big lead in a head-to-head matchup with Obama. ...

New York Times 1/19
Poll Sees Shift in Independent Vote, a Hurdle for Obama
President Obama opens his re-election bid facing significant obstacles among independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with the critical piece of the electorate that cemented his victory four years ago open to denying him a second term. ...

Washington Post 1/18
Electorate is sharply split over Obama
As President Obama prepares to give his third State of the Union address next week, he faces a dispirited and polarized electorate that is sharply divided over his record, worried about the pace of the economic recovery and deeply pessimistic about the country's trajectory. ...

Gallup: Jeffrey M. Jones 1/18
Romney, Santorum Tie for Lead in GOP Positive Intensity
Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum currently generate the strongest positive reactions among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents nationwide, with Positive Intensity Scores of +12, and lead the other contenders by a significant margin. ...

Larry J. Sabato 1/17
What the Polls Can't Tell Us: Anything Can Change
At the start of each presidential election, we think we have a good sense of what will happen. We know the incumbent, the candidates, the conditions and the polls. But then, in most years, the roller-coaster reality of politics makes a jumble of many of our assumptions. ...

Pew 1/17
Impact of Super PACs
... Fully 65% of those who are aware of the new rules on independent expenditures say they are having a negative effect on the 2012 presidential campaign. ...

Washington Post: Dan Balz and Jon Cohen 1/17
Most in poll think Romney will clinch GOP nomination
Mitt Romney holds a strong lead nationally in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, with a 2 to 1 advantage over his closest competitors, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 1/16
Congress Hits a New Low in Approval
Hammered by bipartisan discontent with its partisan rancor, the U.S. Congress reconvenes Tuesday with its lowest approval rating on record in polls dating back nearly 40 years -- ideal fodder not just for late-night comedians, but also for President Obama in the election year ahead. ...

Gallup: Frank Newport 1/16
Romney Has 23-Point GOP Lead Nationally
Mitt Romney has climbed to a commanding 23-point lead over his nearest competitor among Republican registered voters nationally, based on interviewing conducted Jan. 11-15. ...

Gallup: Lydia Saad 1/16
Obama Faces Challenging Re-Election Climate
The U.S. political and economic environment at the start of 2012 is a challenging one for President Barack Obama as he seeks re-election. However, Gallup trends suggest that it is too soon to make any firm predictions about the outcome. ...

Dan Hopkins, Georgetown University 1/13
A magical ride for polls
... [T]here is something about contemporary polls that is impressive and unexpected, if not a touch magical: the fact that overall, they remain accurate in forecasting general election outcomes. ...

Democracy Corps 1/13
Primary contest, pre-Christmas showdown put GOP at risk
This first Democracy Corps national survey of the New Year shows Republicans at risk at every level. ...

Gallup 1/13
Slightly More Want Obama to Set Course Than GOP
Americans say they want Barack Obama (46%) rather than the Republicans in Congress (42%) to have more influence over the direction the nation takes in the next year. ...

Pew 1/12
Many Voters Unaware of Basic Facts about GOP Candidates
Many voters do not know basic facts about the Republican candidates running for president or the early primary calendar. While a sizable majority (69%) knows that Newt Gingrich served as speaker of the House, only about half (53%) identify Massachusetts as the state where Mitt Romney served as governor. ...

Gallup 1/12
Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group
Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. ...

Pew 1/12
Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society
... Many Mormons feel they are misunderstood, discriminated against and not accepted by other Americans as part of mainstream society. Yet, at the same time, a majority of Mormons think that acceptance of Mormonism is rising. ...

Matthew Dickinson, Middlebury College 1/12
Why Mitt Romney Is A Weak Candidate
... Romney is ahead not because he is a strong candidate. It is because his opponents and their supporters face a classic collective action problem: each would prefer any of the other non-Mitts as the nominee, but none are willing to sacrifice their own candidacy to make it happen. ...

Pew 1/11
Rising Share of Americans See Conflict Between Rich, Poor
... Virtually all major demographic groups now perceive significantly more class conflict than two years ago. ...

Gallup 1/11
National Satisfaction Up Slightly at Start of 2012, to 18%
Eighteen percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States today, a slight improvement from the latter half of 2011, when satisfaction levels ranged from 11% to 16%. ...

David R. Jones, Baruch College 1/11
What the N.H. Exit Polls Say about South Carolina
With the primary season moving south in the coming weeks, what do the New Hampshire exit polls suggest about each candidate’s potential strengths and weaknesses in South Carolina? ...

CNN 1/11
Romney dominates more moderate New Hampshire
... Mitt Romney cruised to victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, riding a wave of support from mainstream Yankee Republicans -- fiscally conservative, socially moderate and politically pragmatic. The former Massachusetts governor swept nearly every group of voters, whether categorized by income, ideology or religion. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 1/11
New Hampshire Is Romney's; What Says S.C.?
Perceptions of electability, a fractured opposition and a strong showing in his weaker groups lifted Mitt Romney to victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary -- but without settling how he may play in some of the more conservative climes ahead. ...

Washington Post 1/11
How Romney won the New Hampshire primary
Romney swept to a big win in New Hampshire, with significant strength among the Republican and conservative base, and a big advantage as the most electable GOP candidate. ...

Reuters 1/10
Romney leads Republicans, narrows gap with Obama
U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has sailed farther ahead of rival Republican candidates nationally and narrowed President Barack Obama's lead in the White House race, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. ...Gallup 1/10
Majority of Conservatives See Romney as 'Acceptable'
Mitt Romney is the now the only candidate that a majority of conservative and moderate/liberal Republicans nationwide see as an "acceptable" GOP nominee for president. ...

CBS News 1/9
58% of Republicans want more presidential choices
The nominating process may officially be underway, but Republicans have yet to enthusiastically embrace a potential nominee for president - and despite the late date, most would like to see other candidates enter the race, according to a new CBS News poll. ...

Pew 1/9
GOP Voters Still Unenthused About Presidential Field
On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Republican voters continue to express mixed views of the party's presidential field. ...

Gallup 1/9
Record-High 40% of Americans Identify as Independents
The percentage of Americans identifying as political independents increased in 2011, as is common in a non-election year, although the 40% who did so is the highest Gallup has measured, by one percentage point. ...

National Journal 1/7
What We've Learned
More than three years into the deepest economic downturn since the Depression, Americans are resilient, wary, and divided. That's a central message from the 11 Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor polls conducted each quarter since April 2009. ...

John Avlon 1/7
New Hampshire -- all about the independents
New Hampshire is all about the independents. And that's why it's the best test of general election electability. While Iowa's caucuses are disproportionately dominated by social conservatives, in New Hampshire's open primary, independents can vote -- and they make up more than 40% of the local electorate. ...

Ronald Brownstein 1/6
S.C. Poll Shows Narrowing Window for Romney Foes
Mitt Romney's strong showing in Friday's CNN/Time/ORC South Carolina poll shows how narrow a window his opponents may have to derail him. The poll offers a powerful reminder of how much each caucus and primary resets the dynamic in the states that follow-the same way each shot in billiards reshapes the table. ...

Ronald Brownstein 1/4
Why Romney and Santorum Fought to a Draw in Iowa
Ron Paul expanded the electorate. Mitt Romney slightly advanced from his key beachheads in 2008. Evangelical Christians splintered but gave Rick Santorum the largest slice of their votes. Those dynamics, captured in the Edison Research National Election Pool entrance poll at the Iowa caucuses, explained the tight three-way race among the top contenders in Iowa. ...

CBS News: Samuel J. Best 1/4
Iowa caucus results: Why the race was so close
In the past six months, Iowa Republicans wavered repeatedly in their presidential preferences, sending six different candidates to the top of the pre-election polls in the Hawkeye state. Tuesday night seemingly failed to bring any greater clarity to their preferences. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 1/4
Iowa Mash-up Settles Nothing
... Rick Santorum took advantage of Romney’s weak spots, winning evangelical and very conservative voters, and those focused on moral character, as well as late-deciders. One question is how well Santorum plays in states with fewer evangelicals participating; they accounted for a broad 58 percent in Iowa. Another is how well he withstands the new found scrutiny his showing is sure to bring. ...

CNN 1/4
Iowa didn't change many N.H. minds
The Iowa caucus results appear to have changed few minds in New Hampshire, at least among likely GOP primary voters who watched the caucus results tonight, according to a new survey. But a CNN/ORC International Poll also indicates that former Sen. Rick Santorum gained a small amount of support among Iowa caucus-watchers, moving from 5% to 10% among that group. ...

New York Times 1/4
Electability and Principles Split Iowa Votes
Republicans appeared sharply divided between those whose top priority is defeating President Obama and those seeking someone representing traditional conservative principles and religious values, according to a poll of voters entering the Iowa Republican caucuses on Tuesday. ...

Washington Post: Jon Cohen 1/3
Ahead of the Numbers: The Iowa 'Entrance Poll'
The Tuesday evening kick-off for the Republican nomination contest brings not only the first real votes of 2012, but also the first analyses (and bogus analyses) of exit polls. ...

Gallup 1/2
GOP 2012 Battle to Date Most Akin to Dems in 2003
The lead in the Republican nomination race has thus far changed seven times since May in Gallup polling. Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich each held the top spot at various points in 2011, with Romney's standing rising and falling as other candidates surged and faded. ...

Washington Post: Peyton M. Craighill 1/1
Rating 2012: Personally, for the country and for the world
A New Year's note from the public: 2012 looks bright for me, not so hot for the rest of the country and worse still for the world in general. ...

Matthew Dickinson, Middlebury College 1/1
Iowa Poll: The Two Most Important Things to Know
Here are two most important aspects of the Des Moines Register's poll to ponder with your morning coffee and aspirin: the composition of the respondent pool and when Santorum's surge began. ...

J. Ann Selzer 1/1
Varying scenarios, varying results
At some point, we have to stop interviewing for our Iowa Poll and publish our findings. That is just a fact of life. But what if there is a late-breaking surge of evangelicals who decide to caucus at the last moment? ...

Des Moines Register 1/1/12
Romney leads Paul in new Iowa Poll; Santorum surges
The Des Moines Register's latest Iowa Poll shows a surprise three-way match-up in contention to win the Iowa Republican caucuses: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. ...

Tad Devine 12/31/11
Three ads that can seal the deal for Romney
... If Romney runs the right ads -- which he has the resources to do -- he can seal the nomination, even if a surge by Ron Paul or Rick Santorum spoils his day in Iowa. ...

Yahoo! News: David Chalian 12/31
Ann Selzer, queen of the Iowa caucuses
... Polling the likely Iowa caucusgoing electorate is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack, but Selzer clearly welcomes the challenge. ...

J. Ann Selzer
Polling the Iowa Caucuses
... The long-standing axiom of caucus politics in Iowa is to organize, organize, organize and then get hot at the end. Of the two elements, getting hot is far more important. ... [From The Polling Report archives.]

NBC News 12/30
Three storylines from our Iowa poll
... With just four days left until the Jan. 3 caucuses, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are running neck and neck, with Romney at 23% among likely caucus-goers and Paul at 21%. ... But the poll contains three big storylines beyond the horserace numbers. ...

Gallup 12/29
Americans See Views of GOP Candidates Closer to Own
Americans perceive Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul as closest to themselves ideologically, and Michele Bachmann and Barack Obama as furthest away. ...

Ronald Brownstein 12/28
Divide and Conquer
The latest CNN/Time/ORC surveys released this afternoon for New Hampshire, and especially Iowa, show that on the eve of the first actual voting, the GOP race is reverting to the pattern that has defined it for most of this year: the party's more pragmatic and secular circles are consolidating around Mitt Romney more than the GOP's more ideological and evangelical wings are consolidating around any single alternative to him. ...

Pew 12/28
Most Latinos Oppose Obama's Deportation Policy
By a ratio of more than two-to-one (59% versus 27%), Latinos disapprove of the way the Obama administration is handling deportations of unauthorized immigrants, according to a new national survey of Latino adults by the Pew Hispanic Center. ...

David P. Redlawsk & Caroline J. Tolbert 12/27
What Do Iowans Want in a Candidate?
Let's start here: the premise that the economy is less important in Iowa because things aren't as bad is simply wrong. ...

Theda Skocpol & Vanessa Williamson 12/26
Whose Tea Party Is It?
Newt Gingrich's brief turn as presidential front-runner was only the latest paroxysm of a tumultuous Republican primary season. What's going on? Tensions within the Tea Party help explain the volatility of the Republican primary campaign, as candidates seek to appeal to competing elements of the Tea Party with varying success. ...

Lawrence Jacobs 12/23
What Do Political Polls Really Accomplish?
... Although polls are (mistakenly) equated with tailoring policy to majority opinion, private surveys are primarily geared today to manipulating public opinion – not responding to it. ...

Andrew Gelman 12/22
Do We Hate the Rich or Don't We?
... A vast majority of Americans -- including half of all self-identified Republicans -- think there is "too much power in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations." ... On the other hand, close to 60 percent of Americans do not see the country as "divided into haves and have-nots." ... What gives? ...

Alan I. Abramowitz 12/22
The Anti-Incumbent Election Myth
... When they vote in a House or Senate election, Americans cast their ballots based on their evaluation of their own representative or senator. As a result, the reelection rates for House and Senate incumbents are generally quite high, averaging over 95% for House incumbents and over 80% for Senate incumbents in recent years. ...

Gallup 12/22
Satisfaction in 2011 Ranks as Second Lowest Since 1979
Throughout 2011, an average of 17% of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the United States. That is the second-lowest annual average in the more than 30-year history of the question, after the 15% from 2008. ...

Kaiser (pdf) 12/21
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
After a bumpy fall, American opinion toward the 2010 health reform law returned to the nearly even divide now familiar to opinion watchers, a divide that masks the lasting partisan gap in favorability that has existed since passage. ...

CBS News 12/20
Most back raising taxes on millionaires
Six in ten Americans believe Congress should raise taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million per year, according to a new CBS News poll, while only 35 percent oppose such an increase. ...

Ronald Brownstein 12/20
The Optimism Gap
... For Obama, the most plausible road to reelection continues to look like one that accelerates the Democrats' generation-long transformation from a coalition centered on whites who work with their hands to an upstairs-downstairs alliance revolving primarily around minorities, young people, and well-educated whites, especially women.

Pew 12/20
Tax System Seen as Unfair, in Need of Overhaul
Public dissatisfaction with the tax system has grown over the past decade, and the focus of the public's frustration is not how much they themselves pay, but rather the impression that wealthy people are not paying their fair share. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 12/20
Gingrich, Romney Go to a Tie
Newt Gingrich has relinquished sole front-runner status almost as quickly as he gained it, landing at a dead heat with Mitt Romney in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. And as the GOP hopefuls battle it out, ratings of Barack Obama's prospects have warmed. ...

Washington Post 12/19
Obama's job-approval rating is highest since March
After a difficult summer and a contentious fall, President Obama's job-approval ratings are showing signs of improvement -- a crucial indicator of his reelection chances as he positions himself to seek a second term. ...

Gallup 12/19
Congress Ends 2011 With Record-Low 11% Approval
A new record-low 11% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest single rating in Gallup's history of asking this question since 1974. This earns Congress a 17% yearly average for 2011, the lowest annual congressional approval rating in Gallup history. ...

MSNBC.com 12/18
Gov. Haley questions poll numbers
Appearing on "Meet the Press" Sunday, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley seemed to question the validity of a South Carolina poll that showed her approval rating at 35 percent because, she claimed, the poll also showed that President Obama would win South Carolina, a reliably Republican state over the past three decades. ...

Ronald Brownstein 12/18
Still Frozen: Obama's Ratings Are Consistently Low
Attitudes toward President Obama remain chilly in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll. But the first hint of a spring breeze might be blowing toward the White House in the form of warming expectations about the economy's trajectory. ...

William Galston 12/17
Why Obama's New Populism May Sink His Campaign
President Obama's much-heralded speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, focused on inequality, which, he argued, is undermining our prosperity, weakening our democracy, and shrinking our middle class. While there's a serious data-based argument to be made in favor of that view, recent surveys suggest that most Americans don't share it. ...

Christian Science Monitor 12/16
A third-party candidate in 2012?
A third-party presidential candidate is likely in 2012, introducing considerable uncertainty into the battle to win control of Congress, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg says. ...

NYT Magazine: The Ethicist 12/16
The Polls Don't Lie
Having participated in political polls in the past, I am wondering how I should respond if asked whether I approve of President Obama's job performance. ...

Pew 12/15
Frustration with Congress Could Hurt GOP Incumbents
Public discontent with Congress has reached record levels, and the implications for incumbents in next year's elections could be stark. ...

Kennedy School 12/15
Millennials predict Obama will lose
A new national poll of America's 18- to 29- year olds by Harvard's Institute of Politics, located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, finds more Millennials predict President Barack Obama will lose his bid for re-election (36%) than win (30%). ...

Sasha Issenberg 12/15
'Likely Voters' Lie
... Campaigns are, in essence, relying less on voters' honesty and self-awareness to determine who is a likely voter. ...

Ronald Brownstein 12/15
Where Obama Has Slipped
There's an ominous trend for President Obama in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll: not only is his overall approval rating lagging, but he's lost as much (or even more) ground among groups that favored him in 2008 as among those who resisted him last time. ...

Gallup 12/13
Romney, Gingrich Have Edge Over Obama in Swing States
Registered voters in 12 key swing states give a slight edge to the two leading Republican presidential candidates, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, over Barack Obama as their preference for president in the 2012 election. ...

Ronald Brownstein 12/13
Anger With Congress At '06, '10 Levels
Across a wide array of measures, Americans are now as dissatisfied with Congress as they were immediately before the 2006 and 2010 electoral landslides that ousted the majority party in one or both chambers, according to a year-end United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll. ...

Pew 12/13
Gingrich Leads, But GOP Voters Haven't Ruled Out Romney
Newt Gingrich holds a substantial 35% to 21% lead over Mitt Romney among Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters who say they are very likely to vote in the GOP primaries or caucuses. But clear majorities say there is at least a chance they would vote for either Gingrich or Romney in Republican primaries in their state. ...

Public Policy Institute of California 12/13
California: Most Favor Governor's Tax Proposal
Most Californians favor Governor Jerry Brown's proposal to temporarily increase the state sales tax and the income taxes of high earners, according to a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California. ...

USA Today 12/12
Swing States Poll: Downbeat Dems, resurgent Republicans
President Obama is moving to energize the Democratic base for his re-election campaign, but in the case of a dozen battleground states, he'll have to work harder than four years ago to find it. ...

Bloomberg 12/12
Iowa Focus Group: Evangelical Voters and Newt Gingrich
... The discussion offered insight into potential vulnerabilities for Gingrich among a critical group of voters. In the 2008 Republican caucuses, exit polls showed 60 percent who attended described themselves as born-again or evangelicals. ...

Kaiser Family Foundation/NPR (pdf) 12/12
Long-Term Unemployed Survey
... When it comes to who or what they hold responsible for the country's economic situation, the long-term un- and underemployed dish out blame to Wall Street financial institutions, Congress, changes in the global economy, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) President Obama. ...

Gallup 12/12
64% Rate Honesty, Ethics of Members of Congress Low
Sixty-four percent of Americans rate the honesty and ethical standards of members of Congress as "low" or "very low," tying the record "low"/"very low" rating Gallup has measured for any profession historically. ...

Democracy Corps 12/9
GOP Incumbents Out of Touch, Increasingly Vulnerable
The latest Democracy Corps survey of the Republican House battleground shows the incumbents out of touch with their districts, a climate less favorable to Republicans, weakening support and vulnerability to attack. ...

Gallup 12/9
Record High Anti-Incumbent Sentiment Toward Congress
About three-quarters of registered voters (76%) say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election, the highest such percentage Gallup has measured in its 19-year history of asking this question. ...

Gallup 12/8
Republicans Less Enthusiastic About Voting in 2012
Republicans' enthusiasm about voting in the election for president next year has decreased, with 49% of Republicans and independents who lean Republican now saying they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, down from 58% in September. This narrows the gap between them and Democrats. ...

Barry Sussman 12/7
Why not make a Fox question standard in all news polls?
... I often feel Obama is being cheated on his approval ratings, compared to past presidents. I think his ratings are dragged down by Fox News. ...

CBS News 12/6
Newt Gingrich strong with Iowa evangelicals, Tea Partiers
Newt Gingrich's14-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers is grounded in large part in support from Tea Party and evangelical voters, who have a far more positive view of Gingrich than they do Romney, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. ...

Ronald Brownstein 12/6
Newt's Reach
What's the scariest news for Mitt Romney in the nearly mirror-image polls out today showing Newt Gingrich rocketing into the lead in Iowa, South Carolina and nationally? The short answer: the breadth of Gingrich's support. ...

Pew 12/6
Illegal Immigration: Gaps Between and Within Parties
The public continues to support tough measures to crack down on illegal immigration, but also a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally. ...

Northwestern University 12/6
A Rare Survey of the One Percent
Though little reliable survey research exists about the nation's wealthiest one percent, public discourse is rife with claims about their opinions and attitudes. Now a Northwestern University pilot study sheds light on philanthropic and other behaviors of the so-called one percent. ...

Washington Post 12/6
Gingrich emerges as clear front-runner in Iowa
Propelled by his debate performances and the demise of Herman Cain's candidacy, former House speaker Newt Gingrich sits atop the Republican presidential field in Iowa with a clear lead over his closest competitors, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

Gallup 12/5
Republicans See Gingrich, Romney as 'Acceptable'
Newt Gingrich (62%) and Mitt Romney (54%) are the only two candidates Republicans say would be acceptable presidential nominees from their party, emphasizing the degree to which the GOP race has narrowed down to these two men at this juncture. ...

Gallup 12/5
 '1%' Is More Republican, but Not More Conservative
Politically, the wealthiest 1% of Americans -- those in households earning $500,000 or more annually -- are somewhat to the right of the remaining 99%, but more in terms of party identification than self-professed ideology. ...

Des Moines Register 12/3
Iowa Poll: Newt Gingrich leads three-candidate race
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has carved out a clear lead in what's become a three-candidate race in Iowa, according to The Des Moines Register's new Iowa Poll. ...

Carl Bialik 12/3
Pollsters Go Mobile
... Not only have young adults continued to refrain from getting a wired phone as they aged, but older adults who have had landlines for decades are joining the bandwagon. This has major implications for pollsters, who have enough problems getting Americans to talk to them even when they can reach them by phone. ...

Danny Hayes 12/2
What influences public views on Iran action?
... Public opinion in foreign affairs is driven not only by Americans' own general preferences for force or diplomacy, but also by the arguments made by political leaders. ...

Gallup 12/2
Obama's Nov. Approval Weak From Historical Perspective
President Obama's 43% average job approval rating last month ranks as one of the lowest for an elected president in November of his third year in office. Only Jimmy Carter had a lower rating, at 40%. ...

Hofstra University (pdf) 12/1
Dark mood in the suburbs
... A year before the 2012 elections, President Obama is in trouble in the suburbs, with residents looking for someone else for the White House, even if they have not settled on just who that might be. ...

Brad Plumer 12/1
Can a hot day persuade people that global warming is real?
Weather isn't the same thing as climate. Just because it's sunny or chilly on a given day doesn't tell us all that much about long-term temperature trends. Even so, plenty of research suggests that local weather does heavily influence how people think about climate change. ...

Chris Moody 12/1
Advice for GOP Governors: Always Blame Washington
... How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street? ... [Frank] Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers, and help the governors better handle all these new questions from constituents about "income inequality" and "paying your fair share." ...

Pew 12/1
Evidence of Global Warming
The percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence of global warming has increased modestly over the past two years. ...

Kaiser Family Foundation 11/30
The Most Popular Provision in the ACA?
In our most recent monthly tracking poll, we asked the American people what elements of the health reform law they like and dislike. Surprisingly, the runaway favorite was a relatively obscure requirement that health plans provide consumers with a short, easy to understand description of their benefits and coverage. ...

Washington Post 11/30
Gingrich, Romney equally well liked among conservatives
On the basic question of personal popularity, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich get roughly equally positive ratings from conservatives, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

William Galston 11/30
Any Way You Slice It, Obama Is In Trouble
... The bottom line is that unless things turn around considerably in the next eleven months, key parts of Obama's winning 2008 coalition are poised to deliver both lower margins and smaller shares of the electorate than they did in 2008. ...

Mark Mellman 11/30
Is Obama toast in 2012?
If Barack Obama is "toast," as one now-infamous headline conjectured, why is the broadest-based forecast (Pollyvote) projecting the president will be reelected with 51.1 percent of the vote? ...

Kaiser Family Foundation (pdf) 11/30
Public Opinion on Health Care Issues
The share of the public with an unfavorable view of the health reform law declined between October and November, returning more to the split in opinion running along partisan lines we have seen in the past, but Americans overall remain somewhat more likely to have an unfavorable than a favorable view of the law. ...

Pew 11/29
More Now Disagree with Tea Party
Since the 2010 midterm elections, the Tea Party has not only lost support nationwide, but also in the congressional districts represented by members of the House Tea Party Caucus. ...

Andrew Gelman 11/28
Why Are Primaries Hard To Predict?
... And while presidential elections are predictable, the nominating contests that choose the candidates are not. ...

The Atlantic 11/25
The Polling Guru of the Iowa Caucuses
On Jan. 3, the Iowa caucuses will kick off the presidential primaries. Though plenty of pollsters will be publishing surveys aiming to predict the outcome, there's just one that most political insiders will trust: the Iowa Poll, conducted for the Des Moines Register for more than two decades by J. Ann Selzer. ...

Jonathan Bernstein 11/24
Fifteen Things Political Junkies Should Be Thankful For
... We're politics fans, the way some people are sports fans or movie buffs or weather fans. . . . We all know, too, that this has been a great year for our chosen sport. So, with one last caveat that, of course, there are terribly important things at stake and we shouldn't really just sit back as passive spectators, here's the list of what political junkies should be thankful for. ...

John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira 11/23
Demographics vs. Economics in the Presidential Election
... Heading into 2012, the primary strategic questions will be: Will President Obama withstand continued doubts about the economy and his approach to recovery? Will the president hold sufficient support among communities of color, educated whites, Millennials, single women, and seculars and avoid a catastrophic meltdown among white working-class voters? ...

National Journal 11/23
Unlike Super Committee, Public United on Taxing Wealthy
The deficit-reduction super committee collapsed on Monday after its members failed to negotiate a proposal to reduce the nation's debt, and this week's United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll showed voters likewise struggling to find common, bipartisan ground on specific ways to trim the federal deficit. ...

Pew Forum 11/23
Romney's Mormon Faith Likely a Factor in Primaries
... White evangelical Protestants -- a key element of the GOP electoral base -- are more inclined than the public as a whole to view Mormonism as a non-Christian faith. And this view is linked to opinions about Romney. ...

New York Times 11/23
George Gallup Jr., of Polling Family, Dies at 81
George Gallup Jr., who led the firm that his father made all but synonymous with polling and expanded it to become a barometer of Americans' views on religion as well as their political attitudes, died on Monday in Princeton, N.J. ...

Ronald Brownstein 11/22
Public Opposes Sequestration
With the congressional deficit-reduction super committee collapsing into stalemate, a solid majority of Americans say that Congress should block the automatic spending cuts established as a fallback if the panel deadlocked....

Thomas B. Edsall 11/22
The White Party
... With less than a year to go until the election, poll data suggest that the Republican "white" strategy has a chance of working. Since 2008, the Republican Party's biggest gains, and Obama's sharpest declines, have been among white voters. ...

Gallup 11/21
Support for 'Occupy' Unchanged, More Criticize Approach
Americans have grown a bit more critical over the past month of the methods used by Occupy Wall Street protesters; however, their overall view of the movement and position on its goals have not changed. ...

Chris Cillizza 11/20
Obama's base of support remains solid heading into 2012
Everyone knows that President Obama has a problem with his political base heading into 2012. Except that he doesn't. ...

Religion News Service 11/17
Tea Party, Occupy movements fail to capture hearts
In a war between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement to capture the hearts of Americans, who wins? According to a new poll, it's a draw. ...

Pew 11/17
Obama Job Approval Edges Up
With much of the recent political focus on the ever-changing Republican presidential nomination race, Barack Obama's job rating has improved modestly over the past month, although few Americans (35%) approve of the way he is handling the economy. ...

Robert Blendon, Minah Kang Kim, John Benson 11/17
The Public, Political Parties, and Stem-Cell Research
... A majority of Americans express pro–stem-cell-research views in response to all four of the questions we considered. ... However, on every poll measure for which data are available, Republicans are less supportive than Democrats. ...

Bloomberg 11/17
Republicans on Romney
Republican primary voters are torn between their confidence in Mitt Romney's professional competence and doubts about his political character. ...

Los Angeles Times 11/17
California Republicans favor Romney
A collapse in support for Texas Gov. Rick Perry has left Mitt Romney as the clear front-runner in California's Republican presidential primary, but the former Massachusetts governor is still struggling to rally the party's most conservative voters. ...

PPIC 11/17
CA: Most Say Higher Ed System Heading in Wrong Direction
Most Californians say the state's public higher education system is headed in the wrong direction, according to a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California. ...

Gallup 11/16
Americans Tilt Toward Favoring Repeal of Healthcare Law
Given a choice, 47% of Americans favor repealing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while 42% want it kept in place. Views on this issue are highly partisan, with Republicans strongly in favor of repeal and the large majority of Democrats wanting the law kept in place. ...

Bloomberg 11/16
Romney Holds Commanding Lead in N.H.
Mitt Romney holds a commanding lead in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, more than double the support for his nearest rival, Texas congressman Ron Paul. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 11/16
One in Four Women Reports Workplace Harassment
More than a political issue, sexual harassment in the workplace is a common experience among women — and source of worry among men -- in American society. ...

Bloomberg 11/15
Iowa: GOP Candidates in Four-Way Dead Heat
Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are in a dead heat as the top choices for Iowans likely to attend the Jan. 3 Republican presidential caucuses. ...

Asia Foundation 11/15
Survey of the Afghan People
While nearly half (46%) of Afghans say their country is moving in the right direction, more respondents than at any time since The Asia Foundation began polling there in 2004 say Afghanistan is headed in the wrong direction. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 11/14
Views on Herman Cain Increasingly Negative
Unfavorable views of Herman Cain have soared by 17 points in the face of allegations of past sexual harassment, including a sharp increase in negative views of Cain within his own party. ...

Ronald Brownstein 11/14
Why Newt is Next in Line
The latest CNN/ORC national survey showing Newt Gingrich surging to a statistical tie with Mitt Romney captures not only the continuing volatility of the GOP's most conservative wing, but cracks in Romney's standing among the party's more managerial and moderate voters. ...

NBC News 11/13
GOP support for Perry plummets after debate flub
After his flub at a Republican debate on Wednesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has seen his support plummet among GOP primary voters, according to a re-contact of Republicans surveyed in this month’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. ...

CBS News 11/12
Three in four back Iraq troop pullout
Three in four Americans support President Obama's decisions to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year, a new CBS News survey finds. ...

William Galston (pdf) 11/10
One Year to Go: Obama's Uphill Battle for Reelection
... If the election pitting Obama against the strongest potential Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, were held tomorrow, the president would probably lose. But a year is a very long time in American politics, and three factors could change the odds in Obama's favor. ...

Pew 11/10
Partisan Divide Over Alternative Energy Widens
Public support for increased federal funding on research into alternative energy technology, including solar technology, has decreased substantially since the early months of the Obama administration, with nearly all the decline coming from Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. ...

Glen Bolger 11/10
Obama's Destiny: Demographics vs. Political Environment
Call it the clash of irresistible force of demography/geography versus the immovable object of the political environment. This is the conundrum facing political analysts in looking at President Obama's chances in the presidential election next year. ...

GQRR / Voter Participation Center (pdf) 11/10
Re-Energizing Unmarried Women
Unmarried women -- who make up more than a quarter of America's voting-eligible population -- today feel disengaged and alienated from politics and that threatens their participation in the next election, according to new focus group research. ...

Alan Abramowitz 11/10
Why Obama Has a Good Chance of Winning a Second Term
According to the Time-for-Change forecasting model, which has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every presidential election since 1988, Barack Obama has a good chance of winning a second term in the White House next November. ...

Brendan Nyhan & Jacob Montgomery 11/10
Forecasting 2012: How much does ideology matter?
... As you might expect, scholars have spilled a lot of ink debating the best forecasting indicators for outcomes ranging from the paths of hurricanes to stock prices. But rather than have a philosophical debate, we can evaluate this concern empirically to determine the extent to which specific forecasting models can successfully predict election outcomes beyond the range of the data used to estimate them. ...

New York Times 11/10
Hal Bruno, Director of Election Coverage at ABC, Dies at 83
Hal Bruno, who helped shape political coverage at ABC News for nearly two decades and was a frequent analyst on its radio and television broadcasts, died on Tuesday, Election Day, in Bethesda, Md. ...

Columbia Journalism Review archives 1962
Elmo Roper: A Plea for the Polls
It may be human to err, but to err time and time again, in precisely the same way, is folly of divine dimensions. I am talking about journalists -- when they tackle the job of predicting elections. ...

Univision 11/9
Obama holds advantage with Latino voters
Despite loud complaints from Latinos about high unemployment and unfulfilled campaign promises on immigration, President Obama is well situated to repeat his strong performance with Latino voters in 2012. ...

Mark Mellman 11/9
Myth of the Independent Voter
... Despite their initial attempt to adopt the independent label, leaners vote very much like partisans, giving the vast majority of their support to the party to which they feel closer. ...

David Hill 11/9
Obama's odds worse than bad
Democrats complaining about my judgment that President Obama cannot win reelection insist there's still a chance. ... As I get it, the Dumbercrat dreamers hang their hopes on the possibility that Republicans will nominate someone equally unelectable. ...

Gallup 11/9
Obama Improves on Foreign Affairs, Not on Fiscal Matters
There is a clear division in the way Americans today perceive the job President Barack Obama is doing on issues. He gets largely positive reviews for matters related to foreign affairs, particularly terrorism and the situation in Iraq. At the same time, majorities disapprove of his handling of several fiscal-related matters, including the federal budget deficit, the economy, creating jobs, and healthcare. ...

Washington Post 11/9
Most see deepening wealth gap
More than six in 10 Americans see a widening gap between the wealthy and the less well-off in this country, and about as many want the federal government to try to shrink the divide, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

Resurgent Republic 11/8
Poll: America Worse Off Than When Obama Took Office
If President Obama's reelection campaign is a referendum on the incumbent, as are almost all reelection campaigns, then he remains in deep trouble a year out from the election, because Americans believe the country is worse off than when he was inaugurated. ...

Public Religion Research Institute 11/8
2011 American Values Survey
A strong majority (60 percent) of Americans say that society would be better off if the distribution of wealth were more equal. A new major national survey finds that majorities of every religious group and religiously unaffiliated Americans agree on this point. ...

ABC News 11/8
Hot and Bothered, Frustration Remains High
Americans are steamed, and the economy's providing the heat: The ABC News Frustration Index stands at 72 on its scale of 0 to 100, one of its highest readings on record. ...

National Journal 11/8
Public Doubts Congress Will Aid Economy
With time ticking down on the first session of the 112th Congress, Americans generally prefer that Congress act on priorities supported by Democratic members and the White House, but they are very pessimistic about any of these initiatives actually being realized before the end of the year, according to the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll. ...

Gallup 11/8
Cain's Image Showing Signs of Decline Amid Allegations
Herman Cain's image among Republicans is starting to get worse amid claims that he sexually harassed several women in the 1990s. ...

theGrio.com 11/8
Black Americans more optimistic, enthused about 2012
Nearly half of African-Americans remain optimistic, despite a stubbornly high black unemployment rate. And African-Americans are more enthusiastic about voting in 2012 than in previous elections. ...

NBC News 11/7
Despite national pessimism, Obama tops GOP foes
One year out before President Barack Obama faces voters in his bid for re-election, he encounters an American public that remains deeply pessimistic about the state of the country and its economy, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. ...

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (pdf) 11/7
Americans' Health Agenda
In a period of national debate over government spending priorities, a new poll by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health finds that a majority (52%) of Americans prefer a bigger government providing more services in health, rather than a smaller government providing fewer services in health (37%). ...

Gallup 11/7
Democrats More Liberal, Less White Than in 2008
In many respects, the demographic profile of Democrats nationwide is similar to what it was in 2008, although Democrats have become somewhat less white and more liberal than the party that nominated Barack Obama as its presidential candidate that year. ...

Pew 11/7
The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being
Households headed by older adults have made dramatic gains relative to those headed by younger adults in their economic well-being over the past quarter of a century, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of a wide array of government data. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 11/7
The Question for Romney: Is Electability Enough?
What's with Mitt Romney? He's been the constant in an otherwise shifting Republican landscape, the steady leader or co-leader of the field, the standout choice in ratings of electability -- yet with weaknesses in core GOP groups, shortfalls in views of his personal attributes and no apparent momentum. ...

Washington Post 11/6
A dark mood awaits Obama and GOP rival
One year out from the 2012 election, President Obama faces the most difficult reelection environment of any White House incumbent in two decades, with economic woes at the center of the public's concerns, an electorate that is deeply pessimistic and sharply polarized, and growing questions about the president's capacity to lead. ...

Thomas B. Edsall 11/5
The Politics of Austerity
The economic collapse of 2008 transformed American politics. In place of shared abundance, battles at every level of government now focus on picking the losers who will bear the costs of deficit reduction and austerity. ...

Ronald Brownstein 11/4
Back to Basics
... Most political strategists agree that given today's cynicism about politicians, incumbents can now win reelection with an approval rating of less than 50 percent, the historic danger line. The question is how much less. ...

ABC News 11/4
Cain Shows Initial Resilience in the Face of Controversy
Herman Cain is showing initial resilience in the face of allegations of sexual impropriety: More than half of potential Republican voters say the controversy is not serious, fewer than a quarter say it makes them less likely to support Cain, and he's running essentially evenly with Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination. ...

Gallup 11/4
Obama, Romney Tied Nationally and in Swing States
Registered voters nationally and in 12 key swing states are evenly divided in their preferences for president in the 2012 election between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. ...

Des Moines Register 11/4
Iowa Poll: Many think Cain's 9-9-9 plan would help them
Two-thirds of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers earning less than $50,000 a year believe they personally would be better off or in the same situation under Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan, The Des Moines Register's new Iowa Poll shows. ...

USA Today 11/3
Swing States poll: Obama's path to 2nd term an uphill climb
... While Americans across the nation are downbeat about the economy and the future, a special USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that voters in a dozen key battleground states for the 2012 election are in an even deeper funk about their lives, Obama's tenure and the nation's politics. ...

Anti-Defamation League 11/3
Anti-Semitic Attitudes on Rise in America
A nationwide survey of the American people released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that anti-Semitic attitudes have risen slightly in America, demonstrating once again that "anti-Semitic beliefs continue to hold a vicegrip" on a small but not insubstantial segment of America. ...

Public Religion Research Institute 11/3
Rights and Legal Protections for Transgender People
Overwhelming majorities of Americans, across the political and religious spectrum, believe that transgender people should have the same general rights and legal protections as other people, a new survey finds. ...

Pew 11/3
The Generation Gap and the 2012 Election
... According to the exit polls, younger people have voted substantially more Democratic than other age groups in each election since 2004, while older voters have cast more ballots for Republican candidates in each election since 2006. The latest national polls suggest this pattern may well continue in 2012. ...

Democracy Corps (pdf) 11/3
Winning the Economic Argument
... Democrats are losing the economic argument because right now voters do not see how increased spending helps the economy and they fear increased debt will prevent the economy from growing. ...

Nate Silver 11/3
Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election
... The fundamental flaw with much of what passes for political analysis is the tendency to think small. I blame soccer moms for this. ...

Matthew D. Lassiter 11/3
Who Speaks for the Silent Majority?
American politics might appear polarized along a red-blue divide, but the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements are claiming to do the same thing: defend the real majority against the powerful elites and vocal interest groups that control the political system. ...

New York Times 11/2
Pollster Tells of Suggestive Behavior by Cain
A Republican pollster who is supporting Rick Perry‘s presidential campaign said this morning he had witnessed sexually suggestive behavior by Herman Cain toward a woman in the 1990s, but he denied being the source of the controversy now swirling around the presidential hopeful. ...

National Journal 11/2
On Economy, Neither Party Has Voter Edge
Americans trust Democrats, by a narrow plurality, to do a better job coping with the nation’s major problems over the next few years, but neither party can claim an edge on the economic or fiscal issues likely to dominate the 2012 debate, the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll shows. ...

Andrew Rosenthal 11/2
Fantasy Politics
Americans must be the most polled people in the world. Every morning's news brings at least half a dozen headlines purporting to tell me how the public feels about their government, or other people's governments, or maybe other people's pets. ...

ABC News 11/2
Parties Struggle for Popularity; Interest in an Alternative
Favorable views of the Democratic Party have fallen to their lowest since the Reagan landslide of 1984. Even fewer Americans see the Republican Party positively, and Americans by 2-1 say they’d welcome an independent alternative for president. ...

David Hill 11/2
Obama fails all viability tests
Last week's column asserting that the president is unelectable has triggered strong responses. ... But I must stress that I am not so much making a personal prediction as drawing an informed conclusion based on all the numbers available. ...

Mark Mellman 11/2
Moderate myths and facts
... There is little doubt that Dick Morris, channeling Richard Nixon's well-worn strategy, urged Clinton to move right and that the president used both pronouncements and policy to tack toward the center as the 1996 campaign unfolded. But did it make a difference? ...

NY1 11/1
New York State Voters Support Occupy Wall Street
More New York State voters may support Occupy Wall Street than its grassroots competitor, but they say the Tea Party may have more political clout. ...

New York Times 11/1
Members of Congress Worried About Jobs: Their Own
One of the immutable laws of American politics has been that while voters typically loathe Congress, they tend to tolerate their own lawmaker. Now, with ratings for the institution in the root cellar and approval of individual lawmakers heading there, members of Congress and analysts are beginning to wonder if that law could be repealed next year. ...

National Journal 11/1
Voters Evenly Split On GOP House, Obama
American voters may be in a firing mood. Underscoring widespread discontent with all political leaders, registered voters now divide almost exactly in half on whether President Obama and the Republican majority in the House of Representatives each deserve another term in power, according to the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll. ...

Andrew Kohut 10/31
Religion at the Ballot Box: Correlation, but Not Causation
Religion is a significant factor in the way Americans think about politics. It has a bearing on political affiliation, political values, policy attitudes and candidate choice. No fewer than 70 percent of Americans say it is important to them that a president have strong religious beliefs. ...

Des Moines Register 10/30
Older Iowans less enthusiastic this time
Older voters say they're less likely to attend this year's Iowa GOP caucuses, a phenomenon that, if it holds, could sway turnout, the results of The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll show. ...

J. Ann Selzer 10/30
The Register's pollster asks: What’s up with older Iowans?
Pollsters have a love/hate relationship with unexpected findings. It causes a flurry of scenario-testing, historical comparisons, a multiplicity of special crosstabulations and analyses, and discussions with wiser brains. ...

Los Angeles Times 10/30
Obama's demographic support may not weather economy
Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 by riding two of America's biggest waves of population change -- greater racial diversity and a rise in college graduates. With the 2012 election a year away, his reelection chances depend on those trends overpowering the sour impact of a bad economy. ...

Public Religion Research Institute 10/27
4-in-10 Correctly Identify Romney's Religion as Mormon
Despite continued media attention to presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon religion, only about four-in-ten Americans (42 percent) correctly identify Romney as Mormon, a new survey finds. ...

Charlie Cook 10/27
Underwater
With the 2012 presidential general election just a year away, it's a good time to look at the national polling and talk about the state of play. ...

Gallup 10/27
Obama Job Approval Showing Modest Improvement
President Barack Obama's job approval rating has shown modest improvement in the past week. His latest rating, based on Oct. 24-26 Gallup Daily tracking, is 43%, and his approval has been at or above 42% in each of the last seven days. ...

New York Times 10/27
Facing Hardship, Jobless Still Say They Have Hope
The nation's lingering unemployment crisis has forced many people without work to dip into their savings, borrow from relatives and do without necessities including health insurance, and most people who receive unemployment benefits said that the money was not enough to meet their basic needs, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of jobless Americans. ...

Ronald Brownstein 10/26
Eight Takeaways From Early-State Primary Polls
The TIME/CNN/ORC polls released Wednesday afternoon from the first four states on the 2012 Republican calendar paint a consistent picture of the Republican race. These polls show that the GOP race is being shaped by parallel but disparate movements. ...

Gallup 10/26
Record-Low 26% in U.S. Favor Handgun Ban
A record-low 26% of Americans favor a legal ban on the possession of handguns in the United States other than by police and other authorized people. ...

New York Times 10/26
New Poll Finds a Deep Distrust of Government
With Election Day just over a year away, a deep sense of economic anxiety and doubt about the future hangs over the nation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with Americans' distrust of government at its highest level ever. ...

Mark Mellman 10/26
Ignore the Iowa caucus polls
With the Iowa caucuses a little more than 10 weeks away, polls will proliferate, so I am officially sounding my quadrennial warning -- beware of caucus polling. ...

David Hill 10/26
Stick a fork in Obama -- he's done
On life support. Dead man walking. Down for the count. He's toast. Stick a fork in him; he's done. Pick your own metaphorical cliché as long as it acknowledges that this president is a goner. ...

The Colbert Report 10/25
'Corporations Are People' -- Frank Luntz's Focus Group
Frank Luntz talks about focus groups on The Colbert Report. [See also: Frank Luntz writes about focus groups in The Polling Report.]

ABC News 10/25
Flat Tax Outpaces 9-9-9, Notably Among Conservatives
A flat tax like the one proposed today by Republican presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry engenders a split decision in public opinion -- if not the warmest reception, a better one than the public's broader disapproval of his rival Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan. ...

Charlie Cook 10/25
2012 Narrative Still Being Written
... During the 2006, 2008, and 2010 cycles, the question was how many seats would the victorious party pick up, not which one the political tides would benefit most. But so far for 2012, the weather vanes are just spinning. ...

Pew 10/24
Public Divided Over Occupy Wall Street Movement
About four-in-ten Americans say they support the Occupy Wall Street movement (39%), while nearly as many (35%) say they oppose the movement launched last month in New York's financial district. ...

Gallup 10/24
Americans Would Swap Electoral College for Popular Vote
Nearly 11 years after the 2000 presidential election brought the idiosyncrasies of the United States' Electoral College into full view, 62% of Americans say they would amend the U.S. Constitution to replace that system for electing presidents with a popular vote system. ...

Gallup 10/21
Obama Job Approval Avg. Slides to New Low in 11th Qtr.
President Barack Obama's 11th quarter in office was the worst of his administration, based on his quarterly average job approval ratings. His 41% approval average is down six percentage points from his 10th quarter in office, and is nearly four points below his previous low of 45% during his seventh quarter. ...

National Journal 10/19
Occupy D.C.? Most Back Protests, Surtax
At a time when protests have erupted across the country over a growing inequality of wealth and Congress is considering measures to impose a surtax on those earning more than $1 million annually, the public seems to be in a populist mood -- one that's tempered by skepticism about Washington's ability to do anything about the grim economy. ...

Gallup 10/19
Americans Blame Gov't More Than Wall Street for Economy
Americans are more than twice as likely to blame the federal government in Washington (64%) for the economic problems facing the United States as they are the financial institutions on Wall Street (30%). ...

David Hill 10/19
The whys and wherefores of Cain
Herman Cain's improbable run-up to co-front-runner status in the presidential race might not last, but it's worth pondering its origins and meaning. ...

Mark S. Mellman 10/19
Romney still likely to win GOP nod
... As others rise and fall, Romney's numbers just don't budge. Commentators helpfully remind us that "slow and steady wins the race." But this isn't a track meet. ...

ABC News 10/18
Cain Matches Romney in Favorability
With the stage set for their latest debate, Herman Cain is challenging former Massachusetts' Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry in overall popularity and leading both in strong sentiment among very conservative Americans -- a key Republican constituency that's backed away from Perry in the past month. ...

Pew 10/18
Top One-Word Reaction to Cain Is a Number: 9-9-9
When Americans are asked to describe Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain in a single word, they most frequently offer a series of numbers: "9-9-9." ...

Gallup 10/18
Most Uncertain About 'Occupy Wall Street' Goals
Less than half of Americans express an opinion about either the Occupy Wall Street movement's goals or the way it has conducted its protests. Those with an opinion are more likely to approve than disapprove. ...

The Onion 10/18
Man In Coma Enters GOP Race, Polling Ahead Of Romney
In a dramatic turn for the 2012 presidential race, comatose former congressman John Clarkson ... threw his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination today, and early polls show the immobile, bedridden candidate already ahead of his competition. ...

CNN 10/17
Two-thirds of Republicans say minds are not made up
One day before a CNN Western Republican presidential debate, a new national survey indicates that Mitt Romney and Herman Cain are essentially tied for the lead in the race for the GOP nomination, with Rick Perry dropping to a distant third. ...

Gallup 10/17
Record-High 50% Favor Legalizing Marijuana Use
A record-high 50% of Americans now say the use of marijuana should be made legal, up from 46% last year. ...

Gallup: Frank Newport 10/14
Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party
Could the Occupy Wall Street movement signify a return to enthusiasm on the other side of the spectrum from what we saw last year? ... Since being anti-business generally translates into being Democratic in terms of political orientation, it's possible we could see a return to more proportionate enthusiasm on the two ends of the political spectrum. ...

FTI Strategic Communications (pdf) 10/14
Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor
... The lesson Americans have taken from the economic downturn of the past several years and the recent budget battles in Washington is that debt is undesirable at all levels -- from their personal household budget to the federal government. ... And, the survey also shows an increase from our previous surveys in the belief that "government is not the solution to our economic problems; government is the problem." ...

Time 10/13
Obama Leads Head-to-Head Match-Ups with Rivals
Despite sweeping pessimism about the nation's fortunes and his own sliding approval ratings, President Obama leads potential Republican rivals Mitt Romney and Rick Perry in hypothetical general-election match-ups, according to a new TIME poll. ...

Washington Post: Scott Clement 10/13
Cain ahead in GOP race?
A new poll shows Cain outpacing Romney, but is his lead real? ...

Gallup 10/13
Support for Death Penalty Falls to 39-Year Low
Sixty-one percent of Americans approve of using the death penalty for persons convicted of murder, down from 64% last year. This is the lowest level of support since 1972, the year the Supreme Court voided all existing state death penalty laws in Furman v. Georgia. ...

NBC News 10/12
Cain now leads GOP pack
Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. ...

CBS News: Sarah Dutton 10/12
Polls show longtime support for tax hikes on rich
... Whether the goal is to reduce the federal budget deficit, provide health insurance for those without, or even for no specific reason, there is a history of support in public opinion polls for higher taxes for the most affluent Americans. ...

Gallup 10/12
At 13%, Congress' Approval Ties All-Time Low
The percentage of Americans who approve of the job Congress is doing returned to 13% in October, matching the all-time Gallup low on this measure, first recorded in December 2010 and repeated in August. ...

Reuters 10/12
Romney leads Republicans, Cain second
Mitt Romney leads the field vying for the Republican presidential nomination, but fewer than one in four of the party's voters back him as a surging Herman Cain gains ground, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. ...

NBC News 10/12
Despite defeat, Obama's jobs bill is popular
Even though the United States Senate on Tuesday blocked President Obama's jobs bill, the legislation's specifics -- as well as the idea of taxing the wealthy to pay for it -- are popular with the American public, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. ...

ABC News 10/12
Seven in 10 See Wall Street Negatively
Seven in 10 Americans have an unfavorable impression of the financial institutions on Wall Street, a point of resonance with the protesters camped out in Lower Manhattan and elsewhere. ...

Mark Mellman 10/12
Republicans should stick to traditions
... Since the rise of the modern nominating system, every successful presidential aspirant in both parties, save one (Bill Clinton), has won either Iowa or New Hampshire. ... If you don't win one of these two early contests, your chances of becoming your party's standard-bearer sink to near zero. ...

David Hill 10/12
Primary polls point to Romney
... My reading is that the early strong polling for Perry simply reflected a vote of confidence in his being the governor of one of the reddest red states, Texas. ... Then the debates allowed Republicans to "sample" the product, to use a marketing term, and many voters were profoundly disappointed. ...

Gallup 10/11
Cain's Rise, Perry's Decline in Positive Intensity Continue
The upward trend continues in Republicans' ratings of presidential candidate Herman Cain, as does the downward trend in their ratings of Rick Perry. ...

Washington Post 10/11
Middle-class pain necessary, but widely unpopular
More than eight in 10 Americans say the middle class will have to make financial sacrifices to reduce the nation’s budget deficit, but about as many oppose tax increases on middle-income families and broad-based entitlement cuts, according to a new Washington Post-Bloomberg News poll. ...

Gallup 10/10
Cain Surges, Nearly Ties Romney for Lead
Republicans' support for Herman Cain has surged to 18%, their support for Rick Perry has sagged to 15%, and their support for Mitt Romney remains relatively stable at 20%. ...

Bloomberg 10/10
Cain Even With Romney on Economy for GOP Supporters
Businessman Herman Cain is almost even with Mitt Romney in his appeal as an economic leader to Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. ...

Lindsay A. Owens, Stanford U. 10/7
40-year low in America's view of Wall Street
... Animosity toward Wall Street is at its highest level in at least 40 years. Americans have never exactly loved Wall Street stockbrokers or bankers -- but we certainly didn't always hate them. Why this increasing hostility? ...

WMUR 10/7
NH: Primary Poll Shows Romney With Strong Lead
A new poll shows that Mitt Romney continues to lead the race for the Republican presidential nomination in New Hampshire, and there is a new candidate in second place. ...

Gallup 10/7
Obama's Sept. Approval Rating Remains at Term-Low 41%
President Barack Obama's job approval rating averaged 41% in September, tied with August for the lowest monthly approval average of his administration. ...

Brendan Nyhan 10/6
Obama 2012: Not Exactly the Truman Show
Can President Obama overcome a weak economy and win in 2012 by campaigning against the Republican Congress? The historical evidence for this claim is weaker than his allies would like to admit. ...

Pew 10/6
Obama Motivates Supporters, Opponents in 2012 Matchups
Barack Obama is a leading driver of voter preferences in possible 2012 matchups, among both his supporters and opponents. ...

Pew 10/5
War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11 Era
... Only about one half of one percent of the U.S. population has been on active military duty at any given time during the past decade of sustained warfare. Some 84% of post-9/11 veterans say the public does not understand the problems faced by those in the military or their families. ...

ABC News 10/5
Obama Gains vs. GOP on Jobs as Congress Hits a New Low
Barack Obama has jumped to a 15-point lead over the Republicans in Congress in trust to handle job creation, a sign the beleaguered president’s $450 billion jobs package has hit its mark in public opinion. ...New York Times 10/5
A.C. Nielsen Jr., Who Built Ratings Firm, Dies at 92
Arthur C. Nielsen Jr., who transformed the company his father founded in 1923 into an international leader in market research, helping to make its name synonymous with television ratings, died on Monday in Winnetka, Ill. ...

National Journal: Ronald Brownstein 10/4
Voters of Two Minds on Federal Regulation
A majority of voters worry that government regulation of business has gone too far and is hurting the economy, but most also remain reluctant to block several of the key rules that congressional Republicans want to reverse, according to the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll. ...

Gallup 10/4
Perry Plummets, Cain Surges in Positive Intensity
Rick Perry's image is suffering, with his Positive Intensity Score among Republicans familiar with him down to 15, and below 20 for the first time. Meanwhile, Herman Cain's score is now 30, the highest for any candidate this year. ...

Washington Post 10/4
Perry slips, Cain rises in bid for GOP nomination
After a quick rise in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has experienced an almost equally dramatic decline, losing about half of his support over the past month, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

CBS News 10/4
7 in 10 say Obama has not helped economy
A new CBS News poll finds that nearly seven in 10 Americans believe President Obama has not made real progress in fixing the economy. ...

CBS News 10/4
Most want taxes on millionaires increased
Most Americans believe that taxes on millionaires should be increased in order to reduce the deficit, according to a new CBS News poll. ...

National Journal 10/3
Goeas Quits Bachmann campaign
In yet another sign of the Michele Bachmann meltdown, pollster Ed Goeas is leaving her presidential campaign after the October 18th GOP debate in Las Vegas. ...

The Daily Caller: Ginni Thomas 10/3
John McLaughlin, political savant
... The September 13 congressional special elections in New York and Nevada were a political earthquake striking the White House and the Democratic Party. ... Last week The Daily Caller's Ginni Thomas sat down with John McLaughlin, a respected political consultant who assisted both of these winning campaign teams. ...

Gallup 10/3
Supreme Court Approval Rating Dips to 46%
As the U.S. Supreme Court begins its 2011-2012 term, Americans' approval of the institution is now 46%, a drop of 5 percentage points in the last year and 15 points in the last two years. ...

ABC News 10/3
Majority Expects Obama to Lose Re-election
A majority of Americans expect Barack Obama to be a one-term president, an assessment on which, in past elections, the public more often has been right than wrong. ...

The New Yorker: Jane Mayer 10/3
North Carolina: State for Sale
... Civitas underwrites polls on issues of the day. ... "Civitas was clever," Bob Hall, the executive director of Democracy NC, the progressive watchdog group, says. "It takes campaign expenses -- like polling, message development, and voter-turnout analysis -- and makes them tax-deductible." (Pope, in response, said that the poll results are equally available to everyone.) ...

Boston Herald 10/3
Warren, Brown in dead heat
Democrat Elizabeth Warren's meteoric ascent in Massachusetts politics has landed her in a virtual dead heat with Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown. ...

Wall Street Journal: Jonah Lehrer 10/2
Attention, Shoppers: Go With Your Gut
... In recent years, many scientists have argued that our "emotional brain," that welter of gut instincts and feelings generated by the unconscious, might be better suited for the complexity of 21st-century shopping. ...

CBS News 10/2
60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll: October Edition
A great brand often starts with a name and 27 percent of Americans say the American brand name that makes them most proud belongs to automaker Henry Ford. ...

New York Times 9/30
Obama Charts a New Route to Re-election
With his support among blue-collar white voters far weaker than among white-collar independents, President Obama is charting an alternative course to re-election should he be unable to win Ohio and other industrial states traditionally essential to Democratic presidential victories. ...

Pew 9/29
Is the Nation Divided Into 'Haves' and 'Have-Nots'?
Despite an extended economic downturn, the public's impression of whether the nation is economically divided remains relatively stable. ...

Gallup 9/28
Satisfaction With U.S. Remains Near 32-Year Low
Americans' satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States remains at 11% in September as it was in August, the lowest readings on this measure since December 2008 -- and among the worst on record in a trend that dates to 1979. ...

David Hill 9/27
What Putin could teach Republicans
... America needs a strong new leader to remove a weak one. Will we give primacy to strength, or will we lapse into soft-headed longing for someone who makes us feel good about something that doesn't really matter? ...

Mark S. Mellman 9/27
Crisis of confidence is widespread
It's no secret that America is suffering a crisis of confidence. The breadth and depth of that crisis, however, is overwhelming. ...

NPR 9/27
Retirement: Reality Not As Rosy As Expectations
Americans pride themselves on being optimistic. But Robert Blendon, of the Harvard School of Public Health, says that may not be such a good thing when it comes to planning for retirement. For many Americans, it is proving harder than they imagined, according to a a new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. ...

William A. Galston 9/27
Left Behind: How Democrats Are Losing the Political Center
... Even as the terms of the political debate in Washington, in the eyes of many Democrats, have moved steadily to the right, the electorate is increasingly likely to see itself as ideologically closer to the Republican Party than to Democrats. ...

AJC 9/26
Survey Reveals Declining Jewish Support for Obama
Disappointment with President Obama's handling of the economy and U.S.-Israel relations has caused a falloff in Jewish support for the administration, a just-completed national survey by AJC, a non-partisan advocacy organization, shows. ...

Stan Greenberg 9/26
The Illusive Indie
Who are independent voters anyway? ...

Pew 9/26
Obama Draws More Confidence than GOP on Deficit
As the nation prepares for another round of deficit reduction debates, the public's confidence in congressional leaders, particularly Republican leaders in Congress, has plummeted. ...

Kaiser (pdf) 9/23
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
This month, the bipartisan Congressional "super committee" began negotiations on a deficit reduction package that is likely to include at least some proposed changes to the nation's major health programs, Medicare and Medicaid. Probably reflecting current levels of distrust in Congress documented in many polls, a majority of the public expresses little to no trust in the super committee to make the right recommendations. ...

Pew 9/22
Press Criticized, But Trusted More than Other Info Sources
Negative opinions about the performance of news organizations now equal or surpass all-time highs on nine of 12 core measures the Pew Research Center has been tracking since 1985. ...

Alan I. Abramowitz 9/22
NY's 9th District and Obama's Orthodox Jewish Problem
... But while President Obama may not have big problems with Jewish voters in general, he may very well have big problems with one group of Jewish voters -- the Orthodox -- and that may help to explain the results of last week’s special election in New York. ... Orthodox Jews were unhappy with the Democratic Party and its policies long before Barack Obama appeared on the political scene. ...

Democracy Corps 9/22
The Explosive Republican-Obama Battleground
... The mood of the country is deeply pessimistic and voter anger encompasses the Republicans as well, particularly the new House members. ...

Gallup 9/22
More Voters Considering Romney Than Obama, Perry
More registered voters say they would definitely vote for Mitt Romney or might consider doing so (62%) than say the same about his two main rivals in the 2012 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama (54%) and Republican Rick Perry (53%). ...

Gallup: Frank Newport 9/21
Public Opinion Polls and Public Policy
... At a time when the public's confidence in the elected representatives themselves is at an all-time low, it seems that paying more attention to the distilled wisdom of the average people whom these representatives are elected to represent makes sense. ...

Washington Post 9/21
Obama's favorability drops among African Americans
New cracks have begun to show in President Obama's support amongst African Americans, who have been his strongest supporters. ...

ABC News 9/21
Obama's Favorability Slips, But Perry, Romney No Better
Barack Obama's basic popularity has slipped to its lowest of his presidency, but his top two Republican challengers are no better off: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney are far less known than Obama – and at least as divisive as he is among those who do have an opinion of them. ...

McClatchy 9/21
Obama expected to lose, still tops any Republican 1-on-1
... A new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that Obama looks increasingly vulnerable in next year's election, with a majority of voters believing he'll lose to any Republican, a solid plurality saying they'll definitely vote against him and most potential Republican challengers gaining on him. ...

Pew 9/20
Palestinian Statehood: Mixed Views, Low Visibility
Americans express mixed opinions about a possible independent Palestinian state, an issue that has so far drawn little attention from the press or the public. ...

McClatchy 9/20
As economy sputters, Obama's ratings continues to sink
President Barack Obama's job approval rating has plunged to a dismal 39%, the lowest of his presidency, as increasing numbers disapprove of his handling of the nation's ailing economy, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll. ...

National Journal 9/20
Voters Favor Balance in Cutting Deficit
As President Obama challenged congressional Republicans with his new deficit plan on Monday, voters are rejecting the idea of reducing the nation's debt through spending cuts alone -- but there is no clear-cut enthusiasm for any specific proposal offered by either political party and even less confidence in their ability to get things done. ...

Gallup 9/20
Americans Favor Jobs Proposals, Including Taxing Rich
Americans generally favor raising taxes on higher-income Americans and eliminating tax deductions for some corporations as ways of paying for President Obama's proposed jobs plan. ...

Suzanne Mettler 9/19
Our Hidden Government Benefits
... Americans often fail to recognize government's role in society, even if they have experienced it in their own lives. That is because so much of what government does today is largely invisible. ...

Gallup 9/19
Americans Say Fed Gov't Wastes Over Half of Every Dollar
Americans estimate that the federal government wastes 51 cents of every dollar it spends, a new high in a Gallup trend question first asked in 1979. ...

Resurgent Republic 9/18
Opportunities, Challenges For GOP Among Hispanic Voters
... Compared to 2008 President Obama is underperforming among Hispanic voters, particularly in Florida and New Mexico. ...

New York Times 9/18
Support for Obama Slips; Unease on 2012 Candidates
President Obama's support is eroding among elements of his base, and a yearlong effort to recapture the political center has failed to attract independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, leaving him vulnerable at a moment when pessimism over the country's direction is greater than at any other time since he took office. ...

Stanford University 9/18
'Green' views may help win major elections
A political candidate's electoral victory or defeat is influenced by his or her stance on climate change policy, according to new Stanford University studies of the most recent presidential and congressional elections. ...

Bloomberg 9/18
Hillary Clinton Popularity Prompts Some Buyer's Remorse
The most popular national political figure in America today is one who was rejected by her own party three years ago: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ...

Gallup 9/18
Jewish Support for Obama Down, Not Disproportionately
There is little sign that President Obama is suffering disproportionately in support among Jews; 54% approved of his job performance from Aug. 1-Sept. 15, 13 percentage points higher than his overall 41% approval rating during that time, and similar to the average 14-point gap seen throughout Obama's term. ...

National Journal 9/13
With Doubts, Voters Prefer Obama Jobs Plan
Despite deepening doubts about President Obama's economic agenda, Americans generally prefer the proposals he offered last week for reviving the economy to the competing ideas advanced by congressional Republicans and the GOP's 2012 presidential field, a United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found. ...

Nicole McCleskey 9/12
Hispanic Voters: Opportunity for GOP as Obama Falters?
With much speculation about Hispanics and the 2012 election, we thought it worth taking a look. Anecdotally you hear whispers (some louder than others) about President Obama's erosion in the Hispanic community, that Hispanics are turning against him headed into 2012. But is it true? ...

Gallup 9/12
Congressional Job Approval at 15%
Congressional job approval is now 15%, up slightly from the record-tying low of 13% recorded in August, while disapproval is 82%, compared with 84% last month. ...

Dan Balz 9/10
What the tea party is -- and isn't
.. According to Alan Abramowitz of Emory University, "The tea party movement can best be understood in the context of the long-term growth of partisan-ideological polarization within the American electorate and especially the growing conservatism of the activist base in the Republican Party." ...

John Sides 9/9
What Can Presidential Speeches Do? A Dialogue
Q: So, Obama's jobs speech was a barnburner. Surely this will pull Obama's approval ratings out of the doldrums, no? A: Presidential speeches don't really move the president's job approval ratings. ...

GOOD 9/9
The Information Arms Race
... Gage has found that "anger points," issues that provoke the most ire, are the most effective way to boost turnout. So his surveys are designed to find which issues -- taxes, abortion, guns -- fit each profile in order to get the most persuasive message to the right voter. ...

ABC News 9/9
A Sense of Security Rebounds
Confidence in the country's safety from terrorism has rebounded sharply in the past year to near its highs, with most Americans expressing satisfaction with the steps the country's taken in response to 9/11. But there are two major exceptions: The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ...

New York Times 9/9
Feeling Safer, but Still Wary
Ten years after Sept. 11, Americans are still walking an emotional tightrope, with increased comfort in the government's antiterrorism efforts but a significant number wary that such a catastrophe could happen again. ...

World Public Opinion 9/8
U.S. Response to 9/11 Weakened Its Economy
Six in ten Americans believe that that the U.S. weakened its economy by overspending in its responses to the 9/11 attacks. In particular, respondents felt this was especially true of the U.S. mission in Iraq. ...

Larry J. Sabato 9/8
It's Already About Electoral College Math
Straw polls, real polls, debates, caucuses and primaries -- these comprise the public side of presidential campaigns 14 months before Election Day. But behind the scenes, strategists for President Obama and his major Republican opponents are already focused like a laser on the Electoral College. ...

Yale U. / George Mason U. (pdf) 9/7
Politics & Global Warming
... Majorities of Democrats (78%), Independents (71%) and Republicans (53%) believe that global warming is happening. By contrast, only 34% of Tea Party members believe global warming is happening, while 53% say it is not happening. ...

Glen Bolger 9/7
White Voters Can Jump
... The President's problems with white voters will impact other Democrats. In campaigns where the percentage of white votes hits 75% or more, do not be surprised if Democratic candidates are more reluctant to strongly campaign with Obama. And that's going to be a lot of key places. ...

Resurgent Republic 9/7
President In Deep Trouble As He Delivers Jobs Speech
By almost every measure, President Obama's prospects for reelection are bad. Most Americans: Think the country is on the wrong track (67 percent); Believe Obama has turned out to be a weaker leader than they expected (60 percent); Think his policies have made things worse for most Americans (50 percent) ...

Pew 9/7
From Hyperpower to Declining Power
In the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks, America's global image has followed a remarkable, if now familiar, trajectory. Initially, there was a global outpouring of sympathy for the United States, but it was short-lived. ...

Gallup 9/7
Obama Approval At New Lows Among Whites, Hispanics
President Barack Obama earned the lowest monthly job approval rating of his presidency to date in August. ... He also received term-low monthly job approval ratings from both Hispanics (48%) and whites (33%) and tied his lowest rating from blacks (84%). ...

Public Religion Research Institute 9/6
Attitudes in an Increasingly Diverse America
Ten years after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans believe they are more safe but have less personal freedom and that the country is less respected in the world than it was prior to September 11, 2001. ...

Andrew Gelman (pdf) 9/6
Economic Divisions and Political Polarization
Americans are worried about polarization, but we can't always agree on what exactly we're polarized about. You might say that we're polarized about polarization. ...

AP 9/6
OK to trade some freedoms to fight terrorism
... The same Americans who are increasingly splashing their personal lives across Facebook and Twitter trace a meandering path when asked where the government should draw the line between protecting civil liberties and pursuing terrorism. ...

Washington Post 9/6
Obama ratings sink to new lows as hope fades
Public pessimism about the direction of the country has jumped to its highest level in nearly three years, erasing the sense of hope that followed President Obama's inauguration and pushing his approval ratings to a record low, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

Gallup 9/5
More U.S. Workers Unhappy With Benefits, Promotions
U.S. workers are more dissatisfied today with their health insurance benefits and their chances for promotion than they were before the global economic collapse. These are the biggest movers since August 2008 on a list of 13 specific job aspects Gallup tracks. ...

Gallup 9/2
Americans' Fear of Terrorism in U.S. Is Near Low Point
Americans' fear that a terrorist attack in the U.S. could be imminent has retreated from the high level Gallup recorded shortly after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed at his hiding place in Pakistan on May 1. It is now on the low end of the range seen over the past decade. ...

Cliff Young and Chris Jackson 9/1
Obama at the electoral tipping point
... Taken as a whole, Obama is still a favorite. That being said, he is dangerously close to the tipping point between a clear favorite and a struggling contender. ...

Pew 9/1
United in Remembrance, Divided over Policies
... the public continues to be divided over many of the anti-terrorism policies that arose in the wake of Sept. 11, and these differences extend to opinions about whether U.S. wrongdoing prior to 9/11 may have motivated the attacks: 43% say yes, while 45% disagree. ...

Thomas F. Schaller 9/1
One Year From Convention, What Does Obama Say?
... the calm, cerebral President Obama may need to give way to a more combative, visceral Candidate Obama next year. Indeed, the 2012 presidential race is setting up to be a classic test case of the endangered incumbent. ...

AP 9/1
Japanese distrust leaders after disasters
Five months after the tsunami and nuclear accident, the Japanese people lack confidence in the government's ability to handle another major disaster and generally distrust elected leaders, an Associated Press-GfK poll has found. ...

Bill McInturff (pdf) 8/31
The Debt Ceiling Negotiation and its Consequences
... The debt ceiling negotiation is an extremely significant event that is profoundly and sharply reshaping views of the economy and the federal government. It has led to a scary erosion in confidence in both. ...

Nate Silver 8/31
Despite Keys, Obama is No Lock
The American University political scientist Allan J. Lichtman has issued a prediction that, in the context of an economy that is still teetering on the brink of recession and Barack Obama's 40 percent approval ratings, looks awfully bold. ...

Chris Wilson 8/31
Is Obama more like Harry Truman or Gerald Ford?
Gallup's latest data paints a potentially dire picture for Barak [sic] Obama, but not one so dire that it prevents Democrats from whistling past the graveyard. ...

AP 8/31
AP, NORC partner for in-depth research, journalism
The Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago announced a new research partnership Wednesday, joining to create the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. ...

Gallup 8/31
Approval of Labor Unions Holds Near Its Low, at 52%
In a year marked by contentious negotiations between state governments and public employee unions, a slim majority of Americans, 52%, approve of labor unions. ...

usnews.com 8/30
Never-Wrong Pundit Picks Obama to Win in 2012
Allan Lichtman, the American University professor whose election formula has correctly called every president since Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election, has a belated birthday present for Barack Obama: Rest easy, your re-election is in the bag. ...

Pew 8/30
Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation
As the 1oth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, a comprehensive public opinion survey finds no indication of increased alienation or anger among Muslim Americans in response to concerns about home-grown Islamic terrorists, controversies about the building of mosques and other pressures that have been brought to bear on this high-profile minority group in recent years. ...

Gallup 8/30
Obama Weekly Average Approval Holds at Term-Low 40%
President Barack Obama's job approval rating averaged 40% last week, tying his record-low 40% ratings for the two prior weeks that started on Aug. 8. ...

Kaiser Family Foundation 8/29
Uninsured But Not Yet Informed
If there is one thing there is general agreement on when it comes to the Affordable Care Act it's that it will help the uninsured. ... Therefore, it was a real surprise in our latest tracking poll to learn that most of the uninsured don't know how much the law will benefit them. ...

Gallup 8/29
Computer Industry Rated Best, Federal Gov't Worst
Americans view the computer industry the most positively and the federal government the least positively when asked to rate 25 business and industry sectors.  ...

Gallup 8/26
Tea Party Supporters Backing Perry for GOP Nomination
Rick Perry's candidacy has attracted strong initial support from Republicans who identify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement. ...

Alan I. Abramowitz 8/25
The Electoral College: Democrats' Friend?
... But while it's too soon to predict the outcome of next year's election, there are some things that we can predict about that election with a fairly high degree of confidence based on the results of recent presidential elections and long-term trends in American politics. ...

Pew 8/25
Obama Image Takes a Hit, GOP Ratings Decline
The public is profoundly discontented with conditions in the country, its government, political leadership and several of its major institutions. ...

Women's Voices, Women Vote/Democracy Corps (pdf) 8/24
Creating a New Economic Narrative
... Those in Congress who are concerned about the middle class and those most damaged by the current economic crisis have yet to make the case strongly enough that they can solve the economic problems facing Americans, particularly to unmarried and young voters. ...

Gallup 8/24
One-Third See Improved Race Relations Under Obama
By 35% to 23%, more Americans believe U.S. race relations have gotten better rather than worse with Barack Obama's election as president. ...

Gallup 8/23
Perry Rises in Recognition and Maintains Positive Image
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is now recognized by 67% of Republicans and Republican leaners nationwide, an increase of 13 percentage points from two weeks ago. Still, six of the other nine candidates or potential candidates are better known than Perry, led by Sarah Palin (97%) and Rudy Giuliani (91%). ...

Washington Post 8/22
Legacy of MLK's 'I Have a Dream' speech unfulfilled
Barely more than a third of African Americans see the United States as having realized the vision outlined in Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech -- down from nearly two-thirds just before President Obama's inauguration in 2009. ...

Gallup 8/19
Americans Much More Positive About Local Schools
Americans, and parents in particular, evaluate their community schools more positively than in any year since Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup started asking Americans to grade local schools in 1984. ...

Ronald Brownstein 8/19
Will Perry, Bachmann Divide Voters Resistant to Romney?
... The Republican coalition now divides virtually evenly between the economically-focused managers and the culturally-conservative, viscerally anti-Washington populists. ...

Larry J. Sabato 8/18
The Dirty Thirties
President Obama has found himself in the cellar for the first time since taking office: He fell to 39% in Gallup Poll tracking over the past weekend. ... But if there's any comfort for Obama, it is that every president since Lyndon Johnson has become familiar with the "dirty thirties" at some point in his tenure. ...

Pew 8/18
Women See Value and Benefits of College; Men Lag
At a time when women surpass men by record numbers in college enrollment and completion, they also have a more positive view than men about the value higher education provides, according to a nationwide Pew Research Center survey. ...

Education Week 8/17
Americans Trust Teachers, Split on Teachers' Unions
Governors and teachers' unions are going head-to-head in several states across the country, and the public feels caught in the middle, a new survey on the public's perception of U.S. schools finds. ...

David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam 8/17
Crashing the Tea Party
Given how much sway the Tea Party has among Republicans in Congress and those seeking the Republican presidential nomination, one might think the Tea Party is redefining mainstream American politics. But in fact the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic. ...

New York Times 8/16
NYC: Bloomberg's Approval Rating the Lowest in 6 Years
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's job approval rating among New Yorkers has hit its lowest point in six years, with residents conveying widespread anxieties about the city's economic prospects, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. ...

Gallup 8/16
Perry, Bachmann: More Positive Intensity Than Romney
Newly announced presidential candidate Rick Perry and Iowa Straw Poll winner Michele Bachmann generate more intensely positive reactions from Republicans who know them than does front-runner Mitt Romney. ...

Gallup 8/16
Congressional Job Approval Ties Historic Low of 13%
Americans' evaluation of the job Congress is doing is the worst Gallup has ever measured, with 13% approving, tying the all-time low measured in December 2010. ...

Latino Decisions 8/15
Latino voters support tax increases alongside cuts
... When asked which approach they prefer to reduce the deficit, 46% of Latino registered voters stated raising taxes on the wealthy, compared to only 7% who said cutting existing programs, and 37% who said a combination of both tax increases and cuts. ...

Gallup 8/15
Obama's Weekly Job Approval at Lowest of Administration
President Obama's job approval rating dropped to 40% during the week spanning Aug. 8-14, the lowest weekly average of his administration. ...

Democracy Corps (pdf) 8/15
Voters downgrade Washington
A new survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps reveals voters' growing anger with Washington. ...

Alan Reifman 8/19
Health Care Polls
... Now, I'm not saying the health care reform policy (either when it was working its way through the Congress or as an actually enacted law) has ever been wildly popular. However, "very unpopular" doesn't strike me as an accurate characterization, either. ...

Gallup 8/12
Economic Confidence Drops, Obama Approval Fairly Stable
President Obama's job approval rating for the first 10 days of August is 4 percentage points lower than it was in the first week of July, significantly less of a drop than the 19-point decline in Gallup's Economic Confidence Index over the same period. ...

National Journal 8/11
Obama's Path to Reelection Narrows
Newly released state-by-state approval numbers for President Obama suggest that in 2012 he could face fewer options for assembling an Electoral College majority and increased pressure to capture racially diverse states. ...

Washington Post 8/11
Spreading gloom about government
In the aftermath of the tumultuous debate over raising the debt ceiling, Americans give Washington a strong vote of no confidence, with barely a quarter of those surveyed recently saying the federal government can fix the nation's economic problems and a large majority agreeing that the policymaking process is unstable and ineffective. ...

Gallup 8/10
Tea Party Sparks More Antipathy Than Passion
More Americans consider themselves strong opponents of the Tea Party movement than strong supporters, by 20% to 14%, and the ratio is a similar 22% to 15% among registered voters. ...

Reuters 8/10
Most Americans say U.S. on wrong track
Economic fears are weighing heavily on Americans, with a large majority saying the United States is on the wrong track and nearly half believing the worst is yet to come, a Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Wednesday. ...

Mark Mellman 8/10
Burned on a teacup
... "Tea Party" is becoming a dirty word. ... Republicans running for every office from president to dog catcher are forced to pledge fealty to a group that is increasingly scorned by the American people. ...

Gallup 8/10
Americans Want Debt Supercommittee to Compromise
Six in 10 Americans say members of the new bipartisan "supercommittee" mandated to find new ways of reducing the federal budget deficit should compromise, even if the agreement reached is one they personally disagree with. ...

Gallup 8/9
Record-Low 21% Say Most in Congress Deserve Reelection
About one in five U.S. registered voters (21%) say most members of Congress deserve reelection, the lowest percentage Gallup has found in the 20-year history of asking this question. ...

Pew 8/9
Views of Tea Party Supporters in Congress More Negative
More Americans now think that members of Congress who support the Tea Party are having a negative effect than said that in January, at the start of the new Congress. ...

USA Today 8/8
Will anti-Congress mood cause another 'wave' election?
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds signs that another "wave" election with the potential to dramatically change the capital's political makeup may be building. ...

Gallup 8/8
Plenty of Common Ground Found in Abortion Debate
Self-described "pro-choice" and "pro-life" Americans agree about nine major areas of abortion policy, while disagreeing on eight others. ...

New York Times 8/6
Obama Team Turns Its Focus to Tough Re-election Fight
... Despite an intensive effort by the White House since last November to recapture the political center, Mr. Obama continues to struggle to win back the support of moderate and independent voters, polls show. ...

Washington Post 8/6
Will Obama be reelected? Economy could hold the answer
... Campaigning in last year's midterm elections, Obama argued over and over again that Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch; from now going forward, the question will be why he hasn't towed it out. ...

Ron Brownstein 8/4
Towering Wave of Alienation Threatens Both GOP, Dems
In the shadow of the bitterly fought agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling, the independent voters who usually hold the balance of power in American politics are expressing astronomical levels of discontent with President Obama, Congress, and the Washington system itself. ...

CBS News 8/4
Americans divided on debt limit deal
Americans are divided on Congress' last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling, a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows. ...

New York Times 8/4
Disapproval of Congress at Historic Level
The debate over raising the debt ceiling, which brought the nation to the brink of default, has sent disapproval of Congress to its highest level on record and left most Americans saying that creating jobs should now take priority over cutting spending, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. ...

Gallup 8/4
Tea Party Supporters Oppose Debt Agreement
Tea Party supporters overwhelmingly disapprove of the agreement reached by President Obama and Congress to raise the federal debt ceiling, by a 68% to 22% margin. ...

CNN 8/4
Huntsman chief outlines strategy in memo to donors
In a confidential pair of memos circulated to donors this week, Jon Huntsman's campaign manager and pollster mapped out a nomination strategy that relies heavily on raising the former Utah governor's profile among primary voters and drawing contrasts with his "very weak" field of Republican opponents. ...

National Journal 8/3
Public Doubts Washington Can Get Things Done
Now that the debt crisis has been resolved -- at least for a while -- how is Congress doing in the eyes of the American people? What does survey research suggest about the public's mood heading into the fall when lawmakers will once again have to vote on massive spending cuts? ...

Los Angeles Times 8/3
Nine missing pollsters freed in western Mexico
All nine polling workers who had vanished while taking surveys in a violent slice of western Mexico have been freed, their employers and Mexican authorities said Wednesday morning. ...

Gallup 8/3
More Oppose Than Favor Debt Ceiling Agreement
Americans are more likely to oppose (46%) than favor (39%) the agreement President Obama and Congress reached to raise the federal debt ceiling. Majorities of Democrats and liberals favor the agreement, while conservatives and Republicans largely oppose it. ...

National Journal 8/2
Amidst Debt Fight, Discontent With Congress
Amidst a tumultuous fight over raising the debt ceiling, Americans are deeply dissatisfied with Washington and eager to elect fresh faces to Congress, raising warning flags for Democrats and Republicans alike. ...

Pew 8/1
Public Sees Budget Negotiations as 'Ridiculous,' 'Stupid'
From liberal Democrats to Tea Party Republicans, there is broad public consensus that the budget negotiations of recent weeks can be summed up in words such as ridiculous, disgusting, stupid, and frustrating. ...

Gallup 8/1
U.S. Political Ideology Stable With Conservatives Leading
Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. ...

Stanley Greenberg 7/30
Why Voters Tune Out Democrats
... In analyzing these polls in the United States, I see clearly that voters feel ever more estranged from government -- and that they associate Democrats with government. If Democrats are going to be encumbered by that link, they need to change voters' feelings about government. ...

Gallup 7/29
Obama Approval Drops to New Low of 40%
President Obama's job approval rating is at a new low, averaging 40% in July 26-28 Gallup Daily tracking. His prior low rating of 41% occurred several times, the last of which was in April. As recently as June 7, Obama had 50% job approval. ...

Gallup 7/28
Obama Rates Higher Than Boehner, Reid on Debt Situation
Americans are more likely to approve of the way President Obama is handling the negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling than they are to approve of the handling of the situation by Speaker of the House John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, although opinions about all three are more negative than positive. ...

Pew 7/28
Obama Loses Ground in 2012 Reelection Bid
The sizeable lead Barack Obama held over a generic Republican opponent in polls conducted earlier this year has vanished as his support among independent voters has fallen off. ...

Kaiser Family Foundation 7/28
Americans Gloomy On Some Promises In Health Law
Americans are pessimistic that the new health care law will improve the quality of medicine, do a better job protecting consumers or lower costs, a new poll shows. ...

PPIC 7/28
CA: Support Drops for Nuclear Plants, Rises for Drilling
In the wake of the Japanese nuclear crisis, support for building more nuclear power plants in California has dropped sharply in a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California. ...

Lawrence R. Jacobs 7/27
Who's winning the debt debate?
News reporting is fixated on the D.C. beltway scheming, beaming pictures of government officials zipping in and out of meetings with occasional public comment. Meanwhile, the public is already reaching a verdict, and it is a harsh one -- the Republican Party is out of step with the country's fiscal priorities. ...

Freedom to Marry 7/27
Momentum for the Freedom to Marry
Today at the National Press Club, two leading pollsters, one Republican and one Democratic, released a new analysis of polling data spanning more than a decade regarding the dramatic shift in public attitudes on the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. ...
See also: Marriage polls

Gallup 7/27
Romney Leads Field of Announced GOP Candidates
Mitt Romney is the leader for the GOP nomination among the current field of official candidates, supported by 27% of Republicans, compared with 18% for Michele Bachmann. However, Rick Perry would essentially tie Romney, with Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani close behind, in a scenario in which all three of these undecided candidates entered the race. ...

National Journal 7/26
Voters Fear Debt Deal Will Hurt Medicare
Americans expressed more trust in President Obama than in congressional Republicans to make decisions about both the federal deficit and debt ceiling, but continued to display little urgency about the risk of default if the two sides remain stalemated, a new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll found. ...
Check here for future Congressional Connection Poll releases: Congressional Connection Poll

Reuters 7/26
Americans back mixed solution for debt crisis
Americans overwhelmingly are concerned about the U.S. debt crisis and a majority backs the type of compromise pushed by President Barack Obama, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Tuesday. ...

Human Rights Campaign / GQRR (pdf) 7/26
A Giant Step Forward on the Road to Equality
A recent national survey of 900 adults shows a nation moving inexorably toward equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. ...

Pew 7/26
Public Wants Debt Ceiling Compromise
The public overwhelmingly favors a compromise in the debt ceiling standoff. And even as negotiations aimed at resolving the issue show little progress, a majority thinks that Barack Obama and congressional Republicans will reach a deal before the Aug. 2 deadline on a possible government default. ...

Washington Post 7/26
More Americans unhappy with Obama on economy, jobs
More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama's policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

Religion News Service 7/25
Americans want religious presidents, vague on details
Americans want their presidents to be religious, but many have trouble identifying the faiths of President Obama and leading GOP contenders Mitt Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann, according to a new poll released Monday. ...

Gallup 7/25
Common State Abortion Restrictions Spark Mixed Reviews
Large majorities of Americans favor the broad intent of several types of abortion restriction laws that are now common in many states, but have mixed or negative reactions to others. ...

Pew 7/22
GOP Makes Big Gains among White Voters
As the country enters into the 2012 presidential election cycle, the electorate's partisan affiliations have shifted significantly since Barack Obama won office nearly three years ago. ...

Los Angeles Times 7/22
California voters see some bright spots in grim budget
The budget approved by Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers last month was largely distasteful to voters, a new poll shows, but many felt the process went more smoothly than in past years, when political paralysis gripped the Capitol and left the state starved for cash. ...

Charlie Cook 7/21
Too Close to Call
It's interesting that the race for the Republican presidential nomination is as fluid as it is, given that no primaries or caucuses have been held and that the first important straw poll, in Ames, Iowa, is still three weeks away. ...

Pew 7/21
Muslim-Western Tensions Persist
Muslim and Western publics continue to see relations between them as generally bad, with both sides holding negative stereotypes of the other. ...

Washington Post 7/21
Romney still ahead, but with big vulnerabilities
Mitt Romney leads the wide-open contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. But a new Washington Post-ABC News poll underscores his vulnerabilities as a front-runner, as well as Sarah Palin's lingering power to shake up the race if she decides to run. ...

Gallup 7/21
Obama Maintains Sub-50% Job Approval in 10th Quarter
... Obama is in the company of several former elected presidents who averaged sub-50% approval during their 10th quarters in office. This includes three former presidents who won re-election -- Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan -- and one, Jimmy Carter, who lost. ...

Remapping Debate 7/20
Financial Times, Lazard resist disclosure on poll facts
According to a recent Financial Times report on the extent of public support for green energy development based on a poll sponsored by Lazard, a major international financial advisory and asset management firm, U.S. voters cap their willingness to pay for renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, at $10 per month. ... But can the poll results be trusted? ...

Mark Mellman 7/20
Debt-limit debate views
Don't let anyone tell you a big, widely covered public debate on a topic of vital importance can't shift public opinion. Though a relatively paltry 29 percent are following the discussion closely, attitudes on the debt ceiling are shifting. Dramatically. ...

David Hill 7/20
Time to go for broke on debt
... I'm making a political judgment and believe there might be, in fact, good reasons to risk the alleged political chaos that some say will ensue from a failure to raise the ceiling. ...

NBC News 7/19
Americans want compromise on debt
As Democrats and Republicans wrestle over spending and deficits in advance of an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling, most Americans want their political leaders to compromise rather stand their ground, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. ...

Washington Post 7/19
Public sees dire consequences if no budget deal
With President Obama and congressional Republicans at an impasse in budget negotiations, majorities of Americans see both sides as not being willing enough to compromise to get a deal done, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News Poll. ...

ABC News 7/19
Obama's Advantage on Aiding the Middle Class
Most Americans think the Republicans in Congress have got Wall Street and large corporations' backs, while President Obama prevails on protecting the middle class and small businesses: an edge that helps explain his better-than-dismal job approval in the teeth of a terrible economy. ...

Gallup 7/18
Americans, Including Republicans, Want Debt Compromise
Two-thirds of Americans would like government officials to agree to a compromise plan on the debt and budget deficit negotiations now underway. Fewer than 3 in 10 want lawmakers who share their views on the debt and budget deficit to hold out for their desired plan. ...

CBS News 7/18
Support for debt ceiling increase doubles
Americans are now roughly split on raising the debt ceiling, a new CBS News poll shows, with support for an increase nearly doubling since last month. ...

USA Today 7/18
Low ratings for Obama, Congress on debt talks
... Half of those surveyed in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll say President Obama and the current Congress are doing a worse job than their predecessors in dealing with the nation's problems, and four in 10 call the situation the worst they've seen in their lifetimes. ...

Pew 7/18
Obama Draws More Confidence on Debt Ceiling
The public expresses far more confidence in President Obama than it does in congressional leaders of both parties when it comes to the debate over the debt ceiling. ...

CBS News 7/18
71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis
Americans are unimpressed with their political leaders' handling of the debt ceiling crisis, with a new CBS News poll showing a majority disapprove of all the involved parties' conduct, but Republicans in Congress fare the worst, with just 21 percent backing their resistance to raising taxes. ...

PolitiFact 7/15
Truth-O-Meter (1)
Barack Obama said 80 percent of Americans favor both spending cuts and tax increases to address budget problems. ...

PolitiFact 7/15
Truth-O-Meter (2)
Barack Obama said a "clear majority" of Republican voters think tax revenues should be included as part of a budget deal. ...

Gallup 7/15
Majority of Republicans Can't Name a 2012 Favorite
More than half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 58%, do not express a preference when asked in an open-ended format -- with no candidates' names read -- whom they are most likely to support for the party's 2012 presidential nomination. ...

Pew 7/14
China Seen Overtaking U.S. as Global Superpower
In most regions of the world, opinion of the United States continues to be more favorable than it was in the Bush years, but U.S. image now faces a new challenge: doubts about America's superpower status. ...

Gallup 7/13
Americans Prefer Spending Cuts; Open to Tax Hikes
Americans' preferences for deficit reduction clearly favor spending cuts to tax increases, but most Americans favor a mix of the two approaches. Twenty percent favor an approach that relies only on spending cuts and 4% favor an approach that uses tax increases alone. ...

TheIowaRepublican.com 7/12
Iowa: Look Out for Chris Christie
... TheIowaRepublican.com poll shows that Bachmann is head and shoulders above the current crop of candidates campaigning in Iowa, but that could change if a high-profile candidate enters the race and competes in Iowa. ...

Pew 7/11
Public Now Divided on Debt Limit Debate
As the debate over the nation's debt and deficit continues, the public has grown more concerned that failing to raise the debt limit would force the government into default and hurt the economy. Despite this change, however, about as many Americans are concerned by the consequences of raising the nation's debt limit as by the fallout from not doing so. ...

TheIowaRepublican.com 7/11
Iowa: Bachmann Overtakes Romney
Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has surpassed former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in a recent Iowa poll that was conducted by TheIowaRepublican.com. ...

Gallup 7/8
Cain, Huntsman, Bachmann, Pawlenty Gain in Recognition
Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, and Tim Pawlenty have gained the most in name recognition so far this year of any of the Republican presidential candidates Gallup tracks. ...

Alan I. Abramowitz 7/7
Correcting Myths About Independent Voters
There they go again. The presidential campaign season is barely under way but already pundits and pollsters are making misleading claims about independent voters and the role they play in presidential elections. ...

Pew 7/7
Public Wants Changes in Entitlements, Not Benefits
As policymakers at the state and national level struggle with rising entitlement costs, overwhelming numbers of Americans agree that, over the years, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have been good for the country. ...

Gallup 7/6
Obama Averages 46% Approval in June
President Barack Obama's job approval rating averaged 46% in June, down from 50% in May but similar to his ratings from February through April. ...

Washington Post 7/5
Tea party Democrats do exist
Is there such a thing as a tea party Democrat? The answer, it seems, is yes. Polls show the group exists, but determining its actual impact is difficult. ...

Gallup 7/5
Solid Majority of Jewish Americans Still Approve of Obama
Jewish Americans gave President Barack Obama a 60% job approval rating in June, down from 68% in May, but statistically unchanged from 64% in April. ...

Des Moines Register 7/3
Iowa Poll: Likely GOP caucusgoers are educated, religious
Likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers are a highly educated bunch who are not wildly out of step with the rest of America in their religious profile. That's the stereotype-bucking picture that emerges of those who will get the nation’s first crack at narrowing the Republican presidential field early next year, based on demographic statistics gleaned from a Des Moines Register Iowa Poll taken June 19 to 22 and four Iowa Polls from the 2008 caucus cycle. ...

Ron Brownstein 7/1
The Racial Fault Line
... Huge gaps still routinely separate the preferences of whites and minorities, not only in voting behavior but also in basic attitudes about the role of government. The most recent Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey shows, moreover, that the two demographic groups diverge in their perspectives on an equally fundamental issue: whether the nation’s rapidly growing minority population has too much, too little, or the right amount of influence in the political system. ...

Kaiser Family Foundation (pdf) 6/30
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
The debate over how best to deal with the federal budget deficit continues in Washington, and discussions of Medicare's financial future have been closely tied to this debate. This month's Kaiser Health Tracking Poll takes a look at the views of seniors and the public as they relate to these discussions. ...

CBS News 6/30
Many say economy is in permanent decline
In a sign of increasing pessimism about the direction of the U.S. economy, roughly four in ten Americans now believes it is in permanent decline, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. ...

CBS News 6/30
Most think government should help homeowners in trouble
Most Americans think home ownership is an important part of the American dream, a new CBS News/ New York Times poll shows - so much so, that most also say the government should help homeowners in trouble with mortgage payments as a means of improving the market. ...

Pew 6/29
Government Still Faulted for Troop Support
As President Obama begins to draw down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, most Americans continue to say that government support for troops returning from war is falling short. ...

Gallup 6/29
Obama's Afghanistan Pullout Plan Broadly Favored
Americans broadly support President Barack Obama's plan to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in Afghanistan this year, with additional troops scheduled to leave by the end of next summer and the remainder by 2014. Nearly three-quarters, 72%, are in favor, while 23% are opposed. ...

Gallup 6/28
Bachmann in Strong Position as She Enters 2012 Race
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who formally announced her presidential candidacy Monday in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, enters the race with 69% name recognition among Republicans and ties for the highest Positive Intensity Score of any GOP candidate Gallup tracks. ...

McClatchy 6/28
Voters give Obama lowest rating yet on economy
President Barack Obama is in a fragile position as the 2012 campaign begins: Only 37 percent of registered voters approve of his handling of the economy, his lowest rating ever, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll. ...

CBS News: Brian Montopoli 6/28
Alienated nation: Americans complain of gov't disconnect
Americans see their leaders in Washington as overpaid agents of wealthy individuals and corporations who are largely disconnected from the concerns of average Americans. ...

Des Moines Register 6/27
Iowa Poll: Civil unions are minefield for GOP candidates
Iowa Republicans' long reputation for being hostile to political candidates who oppose ethanol subsidies isn't true today, if it ever was. But the shoe fits when it comes to the conventional wisdom that candidates in the nation's leadoff caucuses could have trouble if they support civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, a new Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows. ...

Sun-Times 6/26
Cell phones throw off poll takers
How do you accurately poll voters in an age when increasing numbers of them own only a cell phone? "I worry about this more than anything else -- you can have a California number and still be living in Iowa," said Ann Selzer, the only pollster to predict Barack Obama would win the Iowa Caucuses by 7 percentage points. ...

Des Moines Register 6/25
Iowa Poll: Romney, Bachmann in lead; Cain third
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann sit atop the standings in the year's first Des Moines Register Iowa Poll on the Republican presidential field. ...

Gallup 6/24
Shift to More Negative View of Libya Military Action
Americans are more likely to say they disapprove than approve of the U.S. military action in Libya. That represents a shift from three months ago, just after the mission began, when approval exceeded disapproval. ...

CBS News: Sarah Dutton 6/23
GOP 2012: It's still too early for most voters
It's still early days for the 2012 presidential election, and while the news media are avidly following the travel schedules, debate performances and general comings and goings of various candidates and potential candidates alike, most voters themselves have yet to focus on the election or the potential field. What's more, that's typical for this point in time in a presidential election cycle. ...

Pew 6/23
Pessimism About National Economy Rises
With a growing number of Americans saying they have been hearing "mostly bad" economic news, opinions about the current state of the national economy remain grim. ...

AP 6/23
Economic Worries Pose New Snags For Obama
Increasingly troubled by the economy, more Americans are convinced the country is headed in the wrong direction and fewer approve of President Barack Obama's economic stewardship. ...

Bloomberg 6/23
Romney Gets 59% Favorable Rating From Republicans
Mitt Romney, the frontrunner in the Republican presidential race, is in strong shape with his party's rank and file as the 2012 nomination race enters a more heated phase. ...

Gallup 6/23
Americans Most Confident in Military, Least in Congress
Americans continue to express greater confidence in the military than in 15 other national institutions, with 78% saying they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in it. ...

Bloomberg 6/22
Americans Worse Since Obama Elected
Two years after the official start of the recovery, the American people remain pessimistic about their current economic circumstances and longer-term prospects. ...

Gallup 6/22
Americans' Views on Immigration Holding Steady
Americans in 2011 continue to show a slight preference for lower immigration levels over keeping the levels the same, while a much smaller percentage favors increased immigration. ...

Pew 6/21
U.S. Image in Pakistan Following bin Laden Killing
Most Pakistanis disapprove of the U.S. military operation that killed Osama bin Laden, and although the al Qaeda leader has not been well-liked in recent years, a majority of Pakistanis describe his death as a bad thing. Only 14% say it is a good thing. ...

Kaiser (pdf) 6/21
HIV/AIDS At 30: A Public Opinion Perspective
... In 1987, two-thirds of Americans named HIV/AIDS as the most urgent health problem facing the country, a share that has declined steadily over the years, and sits at just 7 percent today. ...

Gallup 6/21
N.H. Debate Fails to Shake Up GOP Presidential Race
Gallup Daily tracking finds no major shake-up in the GOP presidential candidates' ratings among Republicans nationwide in the two weeks surrounding a New Hampshire debate that featured seven of the candidates. ...

Pew 6/21
Record Number Favors Removing Troops from Afghanistan
As President Obama prepares to announce his policy for drawing down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the percentage of Americans who favor removing the troops as soon as possible has reached an all-time high in Pew Research Center surveys. ...

Gallup 6/20
22% Are Hesitant to Support a Mormon in 2012
Though the vast majority of Americans say they would vote for their party's nominee for president in 2012 if that person happens to be a Mormon, 22% say they would not, a figure largely unchanged since 1967. ...

Gallup 6/17
Congress' Job Approval Retreats to 17%
Seventeen percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, down seven percentage points from May's 24% approval rating, but similar to where it was in March and April. ...

Gallup 6/16
Voter Preferences for Obama, 'Republican' Remain Close
Forty-four percent of registered voters say they are more likely to vote for "the Republican Party's candidate" and 39% for Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, according to Gallup's June update. ...

Pew 6/16
Social networking sites and our lives
Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? ...

NBC News 6/16
Less than half of GOP primary voters satisfied with field
... [W]ith about eight months until the first GOP nominating contests, less than half of Republican primary voters -- 45% -- say they are satisfied with their current crop of presidential candidates. ...

Gallup 6/15
Obama Approval Rally Largely Over
President Obama's job approval rating averaged 46% for the week ending June 12, a significant decline from his weekly averages for most of May and nearly back to the level before Osama bin Laden's death on May 1. ...

Sacramento Bee 6/15
CA: Support slipping for Jerry Brown, tax extensions
Gov. Jerry Brown still has public support for his tax plan, but the margin has slipped, and so has his public approval rating, according to a Field Poll released today. ...

Pew 6/14
Political Sex Scandals
Most Americans attribute the series of public sex scandals in recent years involving politicians more to the heightened scrutiny they face than to lower moral standards among elected officials. ...

Gallup 6/14
Bachmann: Above-Average Recognition, Intensity
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who formally announced her presidential candidacy at Monday night's Republican debate in New Hampshire, is currently recognized by 62% of Republicans nationwide. Her Positive Intensity Score of 18 essentially ties the better-known Mitt Romney's 19. ...

Adweek 6/14
Social Media, The New Exit Poll?
... Polling has always been an important element to any electoral bid, but now a new type of impromptu assessment is coming to the fore. Third parties, such as analytics startup Likester, are carving out a space for themselves by processing data that is instantaneously available. ...

Latino Decisions 6/14
Latinos divided on Obama and immigration
The number of Latino voters who intend to support President Barack Obama increased by 9% compared with those supporting the president in the previous impreMedia/Latino Decisions poll, conducted two months ago. However, the same group is profoundly divided in their opinions about the Obama administration's actions on immigration policy. ...

CBS News 6/13
Most want Medicare changes, but wary of GOP plan
A new CBS News poll shows that Americans have mixed feelings about what should happen to Medicare: While 53 percent say the program needs fundamental changes, 58 percent say it should continue the way it is set up now. ...

Gallup 6/13
Romney Support Up
Republicans' support for Mitt Romney as their party's 2012 presidential nominee has increased significantly to 24%, compared with 17% in late May. ...

Washington Post: Peyton M. Craighill 6/12
What matters to GOP voters
... Large majorities of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say traits such as gender, race and religion would not matter in their vote for president across a variety of traits tested in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

Pew 6/10
Views of Middle East Unchanged by Recent Events
Major events in the Middle East -- including tensions between the U.S. and Israel, growing political unrest in many Arab countries, and the death of Osama bin Laden -- have had little effect on public attitudes toward the region. ...

Marist (pdf) 6/9
Majority in District Don't Want Cong. Weiner to Resign
As more salacious details about Congressman Anthony Weiner's sex scandal are revealed, politicians from both parties are calling for his resignation, but his constituents don't agree. ...

New York Times 6/9
Americans Still Split on Global Warming
Judging from an annual survey by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities, the American public is roughly as fractured in its attitudes toward climate change today as it was last year. ...

Washington Post 6/9
Americans torn over raising debt limit
A large majority of Americans say the U.S. economy would probably suffer serious harm if Congress fails to give the federal government more borrowing authority. But barely half support raising the government’s debt limit, even if lawmakers also sharply cut spending. ...

CBS News 6/9
Most Republicans don't want Palin to run for president
Most Republicans do not want to see former Alaska governor Sarah Palin enter the presidential race, a new CBS News poll finds. ...

Gallup 6/9
Democratic Party Affiliation Advantage Increases in May
In May, 45% of Americans identified as Democrats or said they were independent but leaned Democratic, compared with 39% who identified as Republicans or leaned Republican. ...

Fox News 6/8
Obama Approval Drops, Romney Tops GOP Preference
The president’s job rating has returned to pre-bin Laden raid levels, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday. ...

Reuters 6/8
More oppose than support Republican Medicare plan
More Americans oppose than support a Republican plan to revamp the Medicare healthcare program for seniors, presenting a challenge to the party ahead of next year's presidential and congressional elections. ...

Pew 6/7
More Blame Wars for Nation's Debt
Far more Americans say that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed a great deal to the nation's debt than say that about increased domestic spending or the tax cuts enacted over the past decade. ...

Gallup 6/7
Romney's Positive Intensity Up; Santorum's Name ID Low
Newly announced presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Positive Intensity Score among Republicans who recognize him is up to 17 this week, essentially tying him with Michele Bachmann. ...

ABC News 6/7
Romney, Palin See Boost; Obama Vulnerable
An announcement bump for Mitt Romney and a bus-tour boost for Sarah Palin put the pair atop the field for the Republican presidential nomination. But while their primary standings are similar, their broader prospects for election look vastly different. ...

ABC News 6/6
Criticism of War Eases, but Still a Majority
Public opposition to the war in Afghanistan has eased from its peak, likely influenced by the killing of Osama bin Laden. But most Americans continue to say the war has not been worth fighting -- and nearly three-quarters favor a substantial withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. ...

Ronald Brownstein 6/6
Obama's Ratings Settle Near 2008 Levels
Among favorable and unfavorable groups alike, President Obama's approval ratings in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll are returning to the levels of support he attracted in his 2008 election, though the headwinds of economic slowdown will challenge his ability to hold those gains. ...

Gallup 6/6
Republicans More Unified Than Democrats on Abortion
As the 2012 Republican presidential contenders begin to hone their campaign messages and court social-issues voters, a Gallup analysis reveals the striking homogeneity of rank-and-file Republicans on abortion. ...

Boston Globe 6/6
MA: Support for state health law rises
Support for the Massachusetts universal health care law has increased since 2009, according to a poll of the state's residents -- even as the law has become the subject of blistering attacks in national and presidential politics, and health care costs soar. ...

Miller-McCune 6/5
On Immigration Polls, a Lot of People Lie
UC Berkeley sociologist Alexander Janus says social desirability pressures cause some liberals to lie about their true feelings on immigration -- even when asked in an anonymous poll. ...

Anchorage Daily News 6/5
Palin flaunts Alaska; Alaskans unsure about her
Former Gov. Sarah Palin's bus touring around the Lower 48 had a big image of the state of Alaska, and she's constantly talking up her home state. But back home, her main initiatives as governor continue to be under attack from fellow Republicans and her poll numbers aren't looking good. ...

Lake Research Partners (pdf) 6/3
Public Attitudes on Family Planning
Public opinion research over the past several years has consistently shown a remarkable level of support for family planning services and an overwhelming consensus that it should be widely accessible and free from restrictions. ...

Democracy Corps (pdf) 6/2
A Path to Democratic Ascendancy on the Economy
... This report shows that Democrats can win in 2012 if they focus on the new tough economic realities, offer a way to a better future, and show how different the choices are that progressives and conservatives will make. ...

Alan I. Abramowitz 6/2
Will Jewish Voters Abandon Obama in 2012?
[H]ow realistic is the belief that a substantial number of Jewish voters would abandon their traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party out of concern over Obama's support for the state of Israel? Based on an analysis of Jewish public opinion and voting behavior over the past two decades, the answer to this question appears to be that such a scenario is not very realistic for at least three reasons. ...

Pew 6/2
Republican Candidates Stir Little Enthusiasm
The emerging Republican presidential field draws tepid ratings. ... Of the party's best-known possible candidates, only Mitt Romney has broad potential appeal. ...

PPIC 6/2
Californians Say Voters Should Have Voice in Budget
The vast majority of Californians think voters should have a say in budget decisions this year, according to a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California. ...

New York Times: David Leonhardt 6/1
One Person, One Vote? Not Exactly
Two economists, Brian Knight and Nathan Schiff, set out a few years ago to determine how much Iowa, New Hampshire and other early-voting states affected presidential nominations. ... The economists estimated that an Iowa or New Hampshire voter had the same impact as five Super Tuesday voters put together. ...

Pew 6/1
Japanese Resilient, but See Economic Challenges Ahead
... The Japanese public applauds how the country's Self Defense Force has responded to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but is highly critical of the how the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company have handled the multiple disasters. ...

Pew 6/1
Top Reaction to GOP Field -- 'Unimpressed'
Americans have decidedly negative reactions to the candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination. Asked for a single word to describe the GOP field, the top response is a variation on "unimpressed," with 42 mentions. ...

Charlie Cook 6/1
All in the Same Boat
... But you don't have to look far to sense that congressional Republicans have stepped in a deep pile of manure with their embrace of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's proposal to convert Medicare into a voucher program. Yet they seem to want to avoid looking at their shoes. ...

Herndon Alliance / Know Your Care (pdf) 6/1
Voters Do Not Want ACA Repealed, Oppose Ryan Budget
A new national poll conducted by Anzalone Liszt Research on behalf of the Herndon Alliance and Know Your Care shows that most voters oppose efforts to repeal the new healthcare law. Even fewer want to prevent the law from going into effect by defunding it, and there is strong opposition to the Ryan plan's proposed changes to Medicare. ...

Mark Mellman 6/1
Iowa, New Hampshire matter
... Since 1976, when proliferating primaries and caucuses became the basis for selecting convention delegates, every single nominee but one, in both parties, won either Iowa or New Hampshire. ...

Gallup 5/31
Newt Gingrich's Image Slides Among Republicans
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's Positive Intensity Score dropped to 6 in the two weeks spanning May 16-29, down from 11 for May 9-22. ...

Democracy Corps 5/27
New York's 26th is not Alone
Republican leaders and conservative pundits have spun Democrat Kathy Hochul's upset win in New York's 26th Congressional District as exceptional . . . . But our national poll completed on Wednesday shows that New York's 26th is not alone. It is an advance indicator of a sharp pull back from Republicans, particularly those in the House. ...

Gallup 5/26
Romney's Appeal Spans Issues, Palin Leads on Values
Mitt Romney, one of the two leaders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, receives generally equal support across Republican political issue groups. Sarah Palin, the other leader, has a more segmented appeal, with greater support among Republicans most concerned about social and moral issues. ...

Brendan Nyhan 5/26
Where Are the Obama Scandals?
... Since Watergate, presidential and executive branch scandal has been an inescapable feature of the American presidency, but the current administration has not yet suffered a major scandal, which I define as a widespread elite perception of wrongdoing. What happened, and what are the odds that the administration's streak will continue? ...

Rhodes Cook 5/26
Will Obama Need to Find His Inner 'Wilson?'
Take a poll of political pundits about next year’s presidential election, and most at this point would probably predict that President Barack Obama would win reelection, but with a reduced margin from 2008 in both the popular and electoral vote. Yet if that actually happens, it would be an historical rarity of the first order. ...

Gallup 5/26
Romney, Palin Lead Reduced GOP Field for 2012
Mitt Romney (17%) and Sarah Palin (15%) now lead a smaller field of potential Republican presidential candidates in rank-and-file Republicans' preferences for the party's 2012 nominee. ...

Resurgent Republic 5/25
Government Regulations and Economic Growth
As pessimism over the economy and job creation rises, voters clearly see too many federal government regulations as more of an economic threat than too few. ...

Kaiser Health News 5/25
Most Americans Oppose GOP Plan To Cut Medicaid
Most Americans oppose the House Republicans' plan to overhaul and slash funding of Medicaid, the state-federal program that covers 56 million low-income people, according to a poll being released today. ...

Pew 5/24
More Concern about Raising Debt Limit than Gov't Default
The public is concerned about both of the possible outcomes of the debt limit debate -- raising the debt limit and failing to do so. But more say they are very concerned about the possible consequences of raising the debt limit than of not raising it. ...

Los Angeles Times 5/24
CA: Polls could influence Prop. 8 legal battle, experts say
A series of recent polls suggesting a majority of Americans support the right of gays to marry may influence the outcome of the legal dispute over California's ban on same-sex marriages, some legal experts and gay rights advocates predict. ....

Alfie Kohn 5/23
What parents aren't asked in school surveys -- and why
... I find myself thinking about how much more -- and less -- there is to polling than meets the eye whenever I come across one of those surveys that school administrators like to distribute to parents. ...

Gallup 5/23
Americans Still Split Along 'Pro-Choice,' 'Pro-Life' Lines
Americans are closely divided between those calling themselves "pro-choice" and those who are "pro-life," now 49% and 45%, respectively, in Gallup's 2011 update on U.S. abortion attitudes. ...

Michael I. Norton & Samuel R. Sommers 5/23
Jockeying for Stigma
Our recent research reveals that white and black Americans agree that bias against blacks was prevalent in the 1950's and 1960's. But while blacks see such racism as continuing, whites tend to see it as a problem that has been more or less "solved." If anything, many whites now believe that it's anti-white bias that's on an upswing. ...

Ronald Brownstein 5/21
Romney's Evangelical Problem
Mike Huckabee, judging by the early opinion polls, would have been among the most formidable challengers to Mitt Romney, the putative front-runner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. But Huckabee's departure from the race, paradoxically, could make it more difficult for Romney to prevail. ...

Whitman Insight Strategies 5/20
Speech Does Little to Calm Fears over Libya Involvement
According to a poll taken by Whitman Insight Strategies just after President Obama's major Middle East speech yesterday and ahead of today's visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Americans remain opposed to US military force involvement in Libya, and want their Congressional representatives to vote against the Authorization of Use of Military Force in that country. ...

Columbia Journalism Review 5/20
John Sides: What we can - and can't - learn from early polls
The 2012 election is almost eighteen months away, but politics junkies are already being treated to polls asking if people plan to vote for Barack Obama in his re-election campaign, and testing how he fares against specific Republican opponents. What can these polls tell us so far ahead of the election, and what opportunities - or perils - do they create for reporters? ...

Gallup 5/20
For First Time, Majority of Favor Legal Gay Marriage
For the first time in Gallup's tracking of the issue, a majority of Americans (53%) believe same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages. ...

Pew Economic Mobility Project (pdf) 5/19
Economic Mobility and the American Dream
Even as Americans acknowledge that the country is digging itself out of recession, the economic downturn has had a severe impact on this nation's psyche -- indeed it would appear that this recession's influence on public psychology has been greater than that of any economic event since the Depression. ...

Public Religion Research Institute 5/19
Majority of Americans support same-sex marriage
A recent Religion and Politics Tracking Survey, conducted by Public Religion Research Institute, is the third national poll in as many months to find majority support for same-sex marriage. ...

Thomas F. Schaller 5/19
Obama's Re-Election and the Democrats' '06 Senate Class
... [H]aving Obama rather than Bush in the White House may be a liability to Harry Reid's quest to maintain his Senate majority, but having Obama running for re-election at the top of the ticket could be a compensatory asset. ...

Fox News 5/18
62% Support U.S. Action in Afghanistan
While support for the war in Afghanistan remains steady, a majority of American voters want U.S. troops to come home this summer as planned, if not sooner, now that Usama bin Laden is dead. ...

Gallup 5/18
High Gas Prices Cause Lifestyle Changes for Many
The slight majority of Americans, 53%, say they have responded to today's steep gas prices by making major changes in their personal lives, while 46% say they have not. ...

Mark Mellman 5/18
Winning the Medicare fight
Republicans, who have been quaking in fear as they contemplate the political damage wreaked by their nearly unanimous embrace of Paul Ryan's Medicare-destroying budget, breathed an undeserved sigh of relief after a Gallup poll found voters evenly split between President Obama's deficit-reduction plan and that offered by Rep. Ryan (R-Wis.). ...

Gallup 5/17
With Huckabee Out, No Clear GOP Front-Runner
With Mike Huckabee out of the race for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, three well-known politicians, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich, emerge as leaders in Republicans' preferences. ...

Pew 5/17
Arab Spring Fails to Improve U.S. Image
As President Obama prepares to make a major address on the tumultuous changes spreading throughout the Middle East, a new survey finds that the rise of pro-democracy movements has not led to an improvement in America's image in the region. ...

Roll Call 5/17
Public Opinion Strategies turns 20
... With 72 House Members and 19 Senators on its current client list, POS has grown over the past two decades into the largest Republican polling firm in the country. It has given founding partners Newhouse, Bolger, Bill McInturff and Gene Ulm a front-seat view of the evolution of campaign polling in the age of 24/7 news cycles and the need for instant results. ...

Ed Goeas 5/16
Voter concerns remain strong
The latest edition of the POLITICO-George Washington University Battleground Poll finds that the political environment should continue to be a cause for concern for President Obama. ...

Celinda Lake, Daniel Gotoff, Matt Price 5/16
GOP's 2010 win short-lived
President Obama's successful targeting of Osama bin Laden, nearly a decade after 9/11, has provided him a much needed boost and set in stark relief the differences between the two Parties on the central dimensions of leadership, competence, resolve, and results. ...

Gallup 5/13
Americans Oppose Raising Debt Ceiling
By a 47% to 19% margin, Americans say they would want their member of Congress to vote against raising the U.S. debt ceiling, while 34% don't know enough to say. ...

Alan Abramowitz 5/12
White Racial Attitudes and Opinions of Obama
... Until now, debates about the influence of racial attitudes on opinions of Obama have been severely hampered by a lack of survey data including relevant questions. However, the availability of a new data set now makes it possible to directly examine the impact of racial attitudes on whites' evaluations of President Obama. ...

Gallup 5/12
Approval of Congress, U.S. Satisfaction Rally
Americans' approval of Congress increased to 24% after the death of Osama bin Laden, up from 17% in April, and by one percentage point the highest it has been since January 2010. ...

AP 5/11
Obama's approval rating hits highest point in 2 years
President Barack Obama's approval rating has hit its highest point in two years -- 60 percent -- and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll taken after U.S. forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. ...

PRRI 5/11
Celebrating Osama bin Laden's Death
Six-in-ten (62%) Americans agree it is wrong to celebrate the death of another human being, no matter how bad that person was. There is strong agreement across party and religious lines. ...

Gallup 5/11
Americans More Positive on Afghanistan
After the death of Osama bin Laden, a slim majority of Americans now say things are going well for the United States in Afghanistan, a four-percentage-point increase from late March. ...

NBC News: Mark Murray 5/9
Economy fears temper Obama's bin Laden bump
In the days after Barack Obama ordered the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden, the president's approval rating on foreign policy issues reached an all-time high, even as public opinion regarding his handling of the economy sunk to the lowest point of his administration. ...

Gallup 5/9
Support for Third U.S. Party Dips, but Is Still Majority View
Fifty-two percent of Americans believe the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing the people that a third party is needed. ...

NYT: John Harwood 5/9
Obama Can't Depend On New Poll Numbers
Politically speaking, President Obama walks taller now that American commandos, on his order, found and killed Osama bin Laden. So what difference does that make? ...

Gallup 5/9
Romney's GOP Supporters Tilt Upscale; Palin's, Downscale
Republican college degree holders are more likely than those without a degree to support Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, 21% vs. 13%. ...

Pew 5/5
Why Are Gas Prices Rising?
As gas prices soar, many Americans pin the blame on greed or a push for higher profits among oil companies, speculators and oil-producing nations. ...

Washington Post 5/5
Number of 'birthers' plummets
The number of Americans saying President Obama was born in another country has been sliced in half, according to a new Washington Post poll. ...

Pew 5/4
Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology
... For political leaders in both parties, the challenge is not only one of appeasing ideological and moderate "wings" within their coalitions, but rather holding together remarkably disparate groups, many of whom have strong disagreements with core principles that have defined each party's political character in recent years. ...

Reason Foundation 5/4
Cutting the Debt Is Important to 96% of Americans
As the federal government rapidly approaches the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, 96 percent of Americans say it is important to reduce the national debt, according to a new Reason Foundation-Rupe poll. ...

New York Times 5/4
For Obama, Big Rise in Poll Numbers After Bin Laden Raid
Support for President Obama has risen sharply following the killing of Osama bin Laden by American military forces in Pakistan, with a majority now approving of his overall job performance, as well as his handling of foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and the threat of terrorism, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. ...

Gallup 5/3
Majority Say Bin Laden's Death Makes America Safer
Americans express mixed views on how Osama bin Laden's demise will affect U.S. national security, according to a Monday night USA Today/Gallup poll. ...

Pew 5/3
More Optimism about Afghanistan
The killing of Osama bin Laden has bolstered the public's confidence on two fronts: that the government can prevent a possible terrorist attack, and that the U.S. will succeed in achieving its goals in Afghanistan. ...

CNN 5/3
Bin Laden killing gives Obama boost
President Barack Obama is seeing a boost in his poll numbers on how he's handling terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan, thanks to his Sunday announcement that Osama bin Laden has been killed, according to a new national survey. ...

Washington Post 5/3
Bin Laden killing gives Obama quick but limited boost
In the immediate aftermath of the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama's approval rating has jumped higher, with big increases in the number of Americans giving him high marks on dealing with terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan. ...

Gallup 5/3
Americans Back Bin Laden Mission
More than 9 in 10 Americans approve of the U.S. military action that killed Osama bin Laden on Sunday, and 79% say his killing is "extremely" or "very important" to the U.S. ...

New York Times 5/2
Americans Favor Budget Cuts Over Raising Corporate Tax
While most Americans say corporations do not pay their fair share in taxes, they still prefer cuts in government spending to increasing taxes on corporations as a means of cutting the federal budget deficit, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 5/2
OBL and Public Opinion
On the public opinion piece of the Osama bin Laden story, a few data points follow: While some bump for the president is entirely possible, how big it is and how long it lasts is an open question. ...

Pew 5/2
Bin Laden Largely Discredited Among Muslim Publics
In the months leading up to Osama bin Laden's death, a survey of Muslim publics around the world found little support for the al Qaeda leader. ...

Gallup 5/2
Optimism About Future for Youth Reaches All-Time Low
Forty-four percent of Americans believe it is likely that today's youth will have a better life than their parents, even fewer than said so amid the 2008-2009 recession, and the lowest on record for a trend dating to 1983. ...

Isaac Wood, U.Va. 4/28
What Fuels Presidential Approval?
With gas prices soaring as summer vacations near, many optimistic Republicans and nervous Democrats are left wondering about what impact those prices will have on President Obama's reelection chances. ...

PPIC 4/28
Californians Favor Income Tax Hike -- For the Wealthiest
... To maintain current funding for K–12 education, a strong majority favor raising income taxes for the wealthiest Californians, but most oppose raising the state sales tax or personal income taxes overall. ...

Kaiser (pfd) 4/27
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
While Congress and the president debate different approaches to reducing the deficit, the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll indicates that the public at large, and seniors specifically, are unfamiliar with the terms Washington is using in talking about potential changes to Medicare to address the deficit. ...

Gallup 4/27
Americans Divided Over Ryan vs. Obama Deficit Plans
U.S. adults are evenly split in their reactions to the major deficit-reduction plans being debated in Washington. Forty-four percent prefer the Democratic plan proposed by President Barack Obama, while 43% say Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's plan is better. ...

Pew 4/26
Latino Electorate in 2010: More Voters, More Non-Voters
More than 6.6 million Latinos voted in last year's election --a record for a midterm -- according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center. ...

Gallup 4/26
More Than 6 in 10 Would Not Vote for Trump, Palin
More than 6 in 10 registered voters nationwide say they would definitely not vote for Donald Trump or Sarah Palin for president in 2012, significantly more than say the same about possible Republican candidates Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, or about President Barack Obama. ...

Resurgent Republic 4/26
Spending Cuts, Budget Reforms and the Debt Limit
President Obama's request that Congress pass another increase in the federal debt limit and his argument that it should be a "clean" debt ceiling increase without preconditions limiting spending meets with overwhelming opposition from voters clearly frustrated by mounting federal debt. ...

Washington Post 4/26
High gas prices cut into driving habits, Obama's ratings
Soaring gasoline prices are biting into household incomes and nibbling at Americans' fuel consumption -- and support for President Obama, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

USA Today 4/25
What kind of president would Donald Trump make?
Republicans may be ready for a fling with Donald Trump, but a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows they have reservations about installing him in the White House. ...

Pew 4/25
Egyptians celebrate dramatic political changes
Egyptians of all ages, from all walks of life, and parts of the country continue to celebrate the dramatic political changes their nation has undergone. Overwhelmingly, they say it is good that former president Hosni Mubarak is gone. ...

Gallup 4/25
53% Worry About Having Enough Money in Retirement
A majority of nonretired Americans do not think they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement, up sharply from about a third who felt this way in 2002. ...

Los Angeles Times 4/24
Californians support tax hikes to help close budget gap
California voters agree with Gov. Jerry Brown that tax increases should help close the state budget deficit, and they want to vote on his plan for raising the revenue, according to a new Times/USC Dornsife poll. ...

New York Times 4/22
Nation's Mood at Lowest Level in Two Years
Americans are more pessimistic about the nation's economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obama's first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the Great Recession, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. ...

New York Times 4/22
Poll Finds Lack of Passion for Republican Candidates
With less than a year to go before the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters have yet to form strong opinions about most of their potential candidates for president in 2012, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. ...

Gallup 4/22
Worldwide, Blame for Climate Change Falls on Humans
World residents are more likely to blame human activities than nature for the rise in temperatures associated with climate change. ...

Gallup 4/22
Huckabee, Trump, Romney Pace GOP Field for 2012
Donald Trump debuts in a first-place tie in Gallup's latest update of Republicans' preferences for the party's 2012 presidential nomination among potential contenders. ...

Gallup 4/21
Obama Averages 46.7% Job Approval in Ninth Quarter
Barack Obama averaged 46.7% job approval in his ninth quarter in office, slightly above his seventh- and eighth-quarter averages but still the third lowest of his presidency. ...

Public Religion Research Institute 4/20
Plurality believe capitalism at odds with Christian values
Overall more Americans believe that Christian values are at odds with capitalism and the free market than believe they are compatible. ...

ABC News 4/20
Obama and Libya War: Criticism Grows in Poll
Disapproval of Barack Obama's handling of the situation in Libya has grown sharply in the past month, with the president facing criticism from Americans who oppose U.S. military involvement -- but also from some of those who say the mission's aim is too limited. ...

Washington Post 4/20
Americans oppose entitlement cuts to deal with debt
Despite growing concerns about the country's long-term fiscal problems and an intensifying debate in Washington about how to deal with them, Americans strongly oppose some of the major remedies under consideration, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. ...

Washington Post 4/19
Economic anxiety threatens Obama, but he edges rivals
Deepening economic pessimism has pushed down President Obama's approval rating to a near record low, but he holds an early advantage over prospective 2012 rivals in part because of widespread dissatisfaction with Republican candidates. ...

AP 4/18
Students optimistic despite money doubts
For young people who came of age in the recession, the American dream of life getting better for each new generation feels like a myth. ...

Gallup 4/18
Americans Split About Whether Their Taxes Are Too High
Half of Americans believe the amount they pay in federal income taxes is too high, while 43% consider it about right and 4% too low. ...

Democracy Corps (pdf) 4/15
Paul Ryan to Seniors: Drop Dead
Congressman Paul Ryan's budget proposal, to be embraced by the House Republican majority today, faces serious obstacles in winning public support. ... The Republican deficit reduction plan does not even win majority support, but when voters learn almost anything about it, they turn sharply and intensely against it. ...

Gallup 4/14
Americans Trust Governors, Business Leaders on Economy
Americans have the most confidence in their state governor and in business leaders to do the right thing for the economy. President Obama comes in third, followed by Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress. ...

Pew 4/12
The Deficit Debate – Where the Public Stands
... In a number of surveys over the past several months, the Pew Research Center has shown where the public stands on the budget deficit -- the seriousness of the problem, views of competing policy proposals, and its confidence in the policy-makers. ...

USA Today 4/12
Budget deal wins support, but Americans wary
Americans overwhelmingly approve of the last-minute budget deal that averted a partial government shutdown, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, but the public is wary and divided about the tough steps that may follow as officials try to curb spiraling deficits. ...

Gallup 4/12
Romney Not Generating Strong Positive Intensity
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who Monday announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, is among the most recognized Republicans who are thought to be most likely to run for president in 2012. At the same time, his Positive Intensity Score among Republicans nationwide does not stand out. ...

Pew 4/11
Budget Negotiations in a Word - 'Ridiculous'
The public has an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the budget negotiations that narrowly avoided a government shutdown. A weekend survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Washington Post finds that "ridiculous" is the word used most frequently to describe the budget negotiations. ...

impreMedia 4/11
Dissatisfied with political parties
A third of registered Latino voters think neither of the country's two main political parties is trying to reach out to them. Those voters are strongly undecided about who they will vote for in the 2012 presidential election, as shown by the most recent impreMedia/Latino Decisions opinion poll. ...

World Public Opinion 4/11
Democratization of Middle East Viewed as Positive for US
An overwhelming majority of Americans think that it would be positive for the United States if the Middle East were to become more democratic and a solid majority would favor this happening even if this resulted in the country being more likely to oppose US policies. ...

Gallup 4/11
Americans Decry Power of Lobbyists, Corporations, Banks
Lobbyists, major corporations, banks, and the federal government all have too much power, according to Americans. ...

Pew 4/8
Tea Party: Better Known, Less Popular
As the Tea Party has evolved from a grass-roots movement to become a major force on Capitol Hill, public views of the Tea Party have grown more negative. ...

FreedomWorks 4/7
Americans Demand Bold Action on Budget
American voters want elected officials to take bold steps to decrease the federal budget deficit and debt, and they won't accept any excuses for failing to do so, according to a survey released today by FreedomWorks. ... A poll of 1,001 likely voters in 14 battleground swing states, conducted April 2-4 by Luntz Global, found that 88% support taking action now to reform Social Security and Medicare. ...

Pew 4/7
Economic Views Sag, Obama Rating Slips
With the public growing more anxious about the economy and concerned about overseas commitments, Barack Obama's job rating has edged lower. ...

Alan Abramowitz 4/7
A Declining Constituency: Union Voters and the Democrats
... Along with the steady decline in the size of the union vote, there has also been a fairly dramatic decline in the loyalty of union voters to the Democratic Party since the 1960s. ...

Gallup 4/7
Americans' Views of Trump
Americans have mixed opinions about businessman, television personality, and potential presidential candidate Donald Trump, with 43% saying their opinion is favorable and 47% holding an unfavorable opinion. ...

NBC 4/7
Democrats want compromise, Republicans prefer resolve
As negotiators in Congress squabble over the size and scope of spending cuts for the remainder of the fiscal year, Democrats and Republicans outside the Beltway differ dramatically in how they want their leaders to handle the budget stalemate, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. ...

Gallup 4/6
Americans Favor Budget Compromise Over Shutdown
With Congress facing a midnight Friday deadline to pass a federal budget before a partial government shutdown occurs, a new Gallup poll finds Americans rooting for a deal. ...

Commonwealth Fund (pdf) 4/6
A Call for Change: Public Views of the U.S. Health System
More than seven of 10 adults believe the U.S. health system needs fundamental change or complete rebuilding. Most adults surveyed reported difficulties accessing care, poor care coordination, and struggles with the costs and administrative hassles of health insurance. ...

Quinnipiac U: Douglas Schwartz 4/5
The Difference a Word Can Make
When pollsters ask people for their view on whether collective bargaining should be limited for public employees should pollsters call collective bargaining a "right"? At the Quinnipiac University Poll, this was the question we faced when we were going into the field two weeks ago with an Ohio poll as this issue was the big issue not just in Ohio but nationally as well. ...

Pew 4/5
Goal of Libyan Operation Less Clear to Public
Two weeks after U.S. and NATO forces began military operations in Libya, the public's reaction to the situation remains mixed. Half (50%) say the United States and its allies made the right decision in conducting airstrikes in Libya, while 37% say it was the wrong decision -- a balance of opinion virtually unchanged from a week ago. ...

Kaiser Family Foundation: Drew Altman 4/5
A Public Opinion Surprise
... If you listen to the inside debate you would think Medicaid is America's most unpopular program. ... It turns out that the insider's view of Medicaid is not the public's view at all. ...

Gallup 4/5
Huckabee in Strongest GOP Position as Obama Announces
... Three possible Republican candidates -- Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich -- are currently best situated among Republicans nationwide in terms of name recognition and Gallup Positive Intensity Scores. ...

AP 4/5
Baby boomers see financially shaky retirements
Baby boomers are starting to retire, but many are agonizing about their finances and believe they'll need to work longer than they had planned, a new poll finds. ...

Washington Post 4/4
Voters still split on blame for possible shutdown
With a potential federal government shutdown closing in, the public remains split down the middle when it comes to which side it would blame for a work stoppage, according to a new Washington Post poll. ...

Pew 4/4
Public Would Blame Both Sides if Government Shuts Down
With an April 8 deadline approaching for a possible shutdown of the federal government, the public remains divided over whether congressional Republicans or the Obama administration would be more to blame if a shutdown occurs. ...

Gallup 4/4
Majority Say Nuclear Power Plants in U.S. Are Safe
Despite concerns about a possible nuclear disaster in the U.S., 58% of Americans think nuclear power plants in the U.S. are safe, while 36% say they are not. ...

J. Ann Selzer 4/4
A wobble, not lurch, to the right
National media have been calling me recently to talk about Iowa's "lurch to the right" and what that means for the Republican caucuses next year. The latest Iowa Poll sheds some light on exactly whether there was, in fact, such a lurch. ...

Gallup 4/1
Obama Still Fares Better on Foreign Than Domestic Issues
Americans continue to generally rate President Barack Obama's handling of international issues better than his handling of domestic issues. Forty-six percent approve of the president's handling of foreign affairs and 44% his handling of Libya, while his highest rating on three domestic issues is 40% for healthcare policy. ...

CNN 4/1
Americans flunk budget IQ test
If you think cutting the government's budget is as easy as taking the ax to some unpopular federal programs, a new national poll suggests that you should think again. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday, most Americans think that the government spends a lot more money than it actually does on such unpopular programs as foreign aid and public broadcasting. ...

Gallup 4/1
More Back Unions Than Governors in State Disputes
With political battles over state budgets and collective bargaining still playing out to varying degrees in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Maine, and several other states, 48% of Americans say they agree more with the unions in these disputes, while 39% agree more with the governors. ...

Ron Brownstein 4/1
The Next America
... [I]n many states the key question for 2012 may be whether Republicans can increase their advantage among whites enough to overcome what's likely to be a growing share of the overall vote cast by minorities, who still break preponderantly for Democrats. ...

Harvard (pdf) 3/31
Obama approval ratings on the rise among Millenials
A new national poll of America's 18 to 29 year olds by Harvard's Institute of Politics, located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, now finds a majority of Millennials (55%) approve of the job performance of President Barack Obama, a rise of six percentage points from IOP polling conducted last October. ...

Pew 3/31
Political Knowledge Update
The public is generally aware of basic facts about several recent national and international news stories, but is much less knowledgeable about current politics in Washington, according to the Pew Research Center's latest News IQ survey. ...

Gallup 3/29
Huckabee Continues to Lead in Positive Intensity Tracking
Mike Huckabee continues to generate the strongest favorable reactions from Republicans who recognize him, with a Positive Intensity Score of 26. Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann follow, with scores of 20. ...

Gallup 3/29
Americans Resist a Major U.S. Role in Libya
Prior to President Barack Obama's speech to the U.S. on Libya Monday night, 10% of Americans said the U.S. should take the lead role in the multi-national military campaign in Libya and 29% said it should have a major role. The plurality, 36%, favors a minor role for the U.S., while 22% think the country should withdraw entirely. ...

World Public Opinion 3/28
Rising Concern about China's Increasing Power
Public concern is growing about China's increasing economic power, according to a new global poll conducted for BBC World Service. ...

Pew 3/28
Modest Support for Libya Airstrikes, No Clear Goal Seen
After several days of airstrikes on Libya by the United States and its allies, the public has mixed reactions to the military operation. ...

Democracy Corps (pdf) 3/28
The Budget Battle in the Republican-Obama Battleground
The Republicans' proposed budget cuts are in trouble in the 50 most competitive Republican-held Congressional districts -- nearly all of which gave a majority to Obama in the last presidential election. ...

Gallup 3/28
Water Issues Worry Americans Most
With Earth Day about a month away, Americans tell Gallup they worry the most about several water-related risks and issues among nine major environmental issues. They worry least about global warming and loss of open spaces. ...

Jonathan Bernstein 3/26
Wag What Dog?
A week into American and allied action in Libya, one political result is already clear: Barack Obama has not benefited in the polls. If anything, Obama's Gallup approval numbers are actually down a few points since American involvement in Libya began. ...

Democracy Corps 3/25
Republican-Obama Battleground Contested
... While Democrats still have work to do with independents and swing voters, they have consolidated their base groups and are winning back Obama voters who defected in 2010. Most importantly, Democratic and Republican voters are equally enthusiastic about their preferences, a very big change from earlier trends. ...

CNN 3/25
Most near nuclear plants not ready for emergency
Most Americans who live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant aren't prepared for a nuclear emergency and don't think the police, hospitals and other emergency services in their community are prepared either, according to a new national poll. ...

Gallup 3/25
Huckabee Has Slight Edge, Palin Down, in GOP Preferences
Mike Huckabee tops a large list of potential GOP presidential candidates in current support for the party's 2012 nomination, with 19% of Republicans saying they are most likely to back him. ...

Religion News Service 3/24
Most Americans don't blame God for natural disasters
We may never know why bad things happen to good people, but most Americans - except evangelicals - reject the idea that natural disasters are divine punishment, a test of faith or some other sign from God, according to a new poll. ...

Gallup 3/24
Worldwide Approval of U.S. Leadership Tops Major Powers
The United States continues to achieve higher global approval ratings than China, Russia, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Gallup's worldwide surveys document a noticeable change in the U.S. global leadership position from 2007 and 2008, when the U.S. trailed other major powers. ...

Public Policy Institute of California 3/24
Support Slips for California Special Election
Public support for a June special election on Governor Jerry Brown's plan to extend temporary tax and fee increases has declined since he proposed it in January, according to a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California. ...

Peter Ubel, Aaron Kay and Gavan Fitzsimons 3/23
Health law's uncertainty problem
... Obama's health-care reform is unpopular not simply because it's complicated, or because it increases government spending at a time when people are in a budget-cutting mood. Rather, it's unpopular largely because it doesn't seem inevitable. ...

Gallup 3/23
Pawlenty Begins Race With 41% GOP Name Recognition
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who this week became the first major Republican to announce the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, has 41% name recognition among Republicans nationwide. He trails a number of other potential GOP presidential candidates on this measure. ...

Pew 3/23
Obama Tests Well at Start of Reelection Run
Barack Obama currently fares as well against a generic opponent in the upcoming presidential election as George W. Bush did in April 2003, a time when Bush's job approval rating was much higher than Obama's is today. ...

CBS News 3/23
Eight in 10 Americans want budget compromise
As President Obama and Democrats in Congress prepare to square off at least one more time with Republicans over the federal budget, about eight in 10 Americans would like to see both sides strike a compromise rather than let the federal government shut down, according to the latest CBS News poll. ...

CBS News 3/23
Nearly 7 in 10 support air strikes in Libya
Nearly seven in ten Americans support the use of military air strikes in Libya in order to protect civilians from attacks by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, a new CBS News poll finds. ...

David Hill 3/23
Five items that point to Obama loss
One of the best things about being a pollster is the process of discovery -- figuring out how politics and elections work. Over time, I've discovered five questions that predict whether an officeholder is likely to be reelected. ...

Mark Mellman 3/23
Wirthlin: The passing of a giant
With Richard Wirthlin's passing, the world of survey research lost a pioneer, the business of political consulting lost a giant and I lost a role model, whose creative mind, interpretative genius, personal grace and commitment to his core values were unsurpassed. ...

Public Religion Research Institute 3/22
Catholic Attitudes on Gay and Lesbian Issues
Catholics are more supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Americans overall. Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or allowing them to form civil unions (31%). ...

Bill McInturff and Lori Weigel 3/22
The Health Debate Is Far From Over
... Being asked to assess differences following the passage of federal health care legislation is revealing for what is absent -- a change in attitudes. Our latest opinion research data almost a full year post passage looks eerily similar to the data immediately following the law's enactment. ...

Celinda Lake, David Mermin and Dan Spicer 3/22
Despite Deep Divisions, Health Law Will Win Over Public
It may be difficult to see from here, but there is little doubt that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will eventually take its rightful place alongside the most cherished social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. ...

American Enterprise Institute (pdf) 3/22
Update on President Obama
The uptick in positive views of President Obama in late December and January appears to be receding. President Obama's support among whites is currently 39 percent, a particularly anemic showing. ...

Gallup 3/22
Americans Approve of Military Action, 47% to 37%
A Gallup poll conducted Monday finds more Americans approving than disapproving of the military action against Libya by the United States and other countries. ...

Gallup 3/22
One Year Later, Americans Split on Health care Law
One year after President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, Americans are divided on its passage, with 46% saying it was a good thing and 44% saying it was a bad thing. ...

Pew 3/21
Opposition to Nuclear Power Rises Amid Japanese Crisis
Not surprisingly, public support for the increased use of nuclear power has declined amid the ongoing nuclear emergency in Japan. Currently, 39% say they favor promoting the increased use of nuclear power while 52% are opposed. ...

ABC News: Gary Langer 3/21
Study Raises New Questions for Opt-in Online Data
A paper published by the U.S. Census Bureau reinforces serious questions about the reliability of surveys filled in by volunteer participants on the internet – and extends those concerns in a new direction. ...

Gallup 3/21
Worries About Economy, Budget Top Other Issues
Nearly three in four Americans (71%) say they worry about the economy "a great deal," more than worry about 13 other issues Gallup measured in a March 3-6 poll. ...

National Journal 3/18
Why Americans still long for their own homes
... Even after a historic real-estate market upheaval that has sent foreclosure rates skyrocketing and housing values plummeting, home­ownership retains a powerful, almost tidal, grip on the American imagination. ...

Bob Moore and Marty Wilson 3/18
Not All Hope Is Lost: Latinos & California Republicans
The growth of the Latino vote in California should compel the state's Republican candidates to learn more about this growing demographic whose share of the statewide vote has consistently grown. ...

ABC News 3/18
Support for Gay Marriage Reaches a Milestone
More than half of Americans say it should be legal for gays and lesbians to marry, a first in nearly a decade of polls by ABC News and The Washington Post. ...

Kaiser (pdf) 3/18
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
Little has changed on the public opinion front since President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law last March 23. More than half of Americans continue to report that they are confused about the law and don’t understand how it will impact them personally. ...

Fox News 3/18
Most Voters Don't Want Military Sent to Libya
... A Fox News poll released Thursday found 59% of voters think the primary goal of U.S. foreign policy should "always be promoting democracy." At the same time, 65% oppose the U.S. military getting involved in Libya. ...

New York Times: Adam Clymer 3/18
Richard Wirthlin, Pollster Who Advised Reagan, Dies at 80
Richard B. Wirthlin, the political consultant and pollster who for 20 years helped Ronald Reagan shape his political message and strategies, both in presidential campaigns and in the White House, died on Wednesday at his home in Salt Lake City. ...

Bloomberg 3/17
Consumer Comfort in Drops to Lowest Level Since August
Consumer confidence plunged last week to the lowest level since August as rising gasoline prices made Americans more pessimistic about the economic outlook and their finances. ...

ABC News 3/17
State Budgets vs. Soc. Security: What's the Real Third Rail?
While Social Security long has been seen as the deadly third rail of American politics, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that state budgets may in fact pose the greater hazard to ax-wielding lawmakers. ...

Pew 3/17
The Internet and Campaign 2010
... Fully 73% of adult internet users (representing 54% of all US adults) went online to get news or information about the 2010 midterm elections, or to get involved in the campaign in one way or another. ...

USA Today 3/16
Fears of nuclear disaster in U.S. rise after Japan quake
Americans' support for nuclear power has fallen, as 70% of those surveyed in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll say they've grown more concerned about the industry's safety based on the crisis unfolding at reactors in Japan. ...

Pew 3/16
Republicans Are Losing Ground on the Deficit
As the budget debate moves into a crucial phase, far fewer Americans say that Republicans in Congress have the better approach to the budget deficit than did so in November, shortly after the GOP's sweeping election victories. ...

Gallup 3/16
Expanding Energy Output Still Trumps Green Concerns
Americans, by 50% to 41%, say the nation should prioritize the development of energy supplies over protecting the environment when the two goals are at odds. ...

Employee Benefit Research Institute 3/16
Retirement Survey: Confidence Drops to Record Lows
The 21st wave of the Retirement Confidence Survey finds that Americans' confidence in their ability to afford a comfortable retirement has plunged to a new low at the same time that the recent declines in other retirement confidence indicators appear to be stabilizing. ...

Washington Post 3/16
Sarah Palin losing more ground among Republicans
Sarah Palin's ratings within the Republican Party are slumping, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a potentially troubling sign for the former Alaska governor as she weighs whether to enter the 2012 presidential race. ...