Free Republic

Ahead of Thursday’s vice presidential debate, more voters view Joe Biden unfavorably than favorably, while opinions about Paul Ryan are more evenly divided. Biden’s image is far less positive than it was shortly before his 2008 debate with Sarah Palin; Ryan is viewed less favorably than Palin was just prior to the last vice-presidential debate. The national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 4-7 among 1,511 adults, including 1,201 registered voters, finds that 39% of voters view Biden favorably, while 51% offer an unfavorable impression of the vice president. Just more than...

Mitt Romney's post-debate surge appears to have all but wiped out President Obama's once double-digit lead among women voters. A new Pew Research Center survey depicted a remarkable swing in the numbers, with Romney pulling even among women in polling late last week. In September, the same polling outfit showed Obama leading by 18 points among women. Among all likely voters surveyed, Romney climbed from an 8-point deficit last month to a 4-point lead. There's little question that his debate performance has played a role. A separate Gallup survey showed registered voters deemed Romney the winner by 72-20 percent, marking...

Mitt Romney no longer trails Barack Obama in the Pew Research Center’s presidential election polling. By about three-to-one, voters say Romney did a better job than Obama in the Oct. 3 debate, and the Republican is now better regarded on most personal dimensions and on most issues than he was in September. Romney is seen as the candidate who has new ideas and is viewed as better able than Obama to improve the jobs situation and reduce the budget deficit. Fully 66% of registered voters say Romney did the better job in last Wednesday’s debate, compared with just 20% who...

From a 51/43 lead for O last month to a 49/45 lead for Mitt now. Remember when the media said the debates won’t matter?Most exciting poll of the last year? Or most exciting poll of the last four years? Romney now ties Obama in being regarded as a strong leader and runs virtually even with the president in willingness to work with leaders of the other party. And by a 47% to 40% margin, voters pick Romney as the candidate who has new ideas…Romney has made progress on the issues. He and Obama now run about even on dealing with...

Mitt Romney’s debate performance has wiped out President Barack Obama’s advantage, and the Republican nominee now leads by four points among likely voters, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. The president held an eight-point lead among likely voters in last month’s Pew survey. But the new poll, conducted during the four days immediately following the first presidential debate, shows Mr. Romney ahead, 49% to 45%. Nearly two-thirds of voters agreed that Mr. Romney did a better job in the debate, according to the Pew poll. On the heels of that well regarded performance, voters now view the Republican...

Pew and their posse have underwritten a crusade by Canadian environmentalist nonprofits to obstruct the development of the Great White North’s oil sands resources. That obstruction in turn obstructs the possibility of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would connect Canada’s booming oil production with American refineries, and thereby boost both nations’ GDP, create thousands of new jobs, and reduce America’s dependence on oil from nations that are rather less friendly than Canada.

Pop quiz: Which of the following is true? (a) Over the past 40 years, the middle class has shrunk; (b) Over the past 40 years, the middle class has grown poorer; (c) The middle class just suffered through a “lost decade”; (d) All of the above. You could be forgiven for answering (d), given the angst-producing state of discourse on the economy, but the truth is that none of these claims about middle-class decline — made most recently by the Pew Research Center (PRC) — are supported by the best evidence. Like other analyses before it, PRC’s recent report “The...

The Pew Research Center gives Obama his biggest lead of the week, finding that he "holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November": With the exception of jobs and the deficit, on which voter opinion is about evenly divided, Obama leads Romney on most key issues, notably healthcare, Medicare, and abortion. And the survey, conducted amid an outbreak of violence in the Middle East and shortly after the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, shows that Obama has a wide edge when it comes to foreign affairs and national security....

"The people of India deeply love you," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh famously told then US President George Bush in 2008. Apparently, the love affair extends to his successor Barack Obama too. Wait, strike that. India loves America, period. A new Pew research poll has revealed that a solid 58% majority in urban India is favorably disposed toward the United States, seeing America in a more favorable light than they view other major world powers, including India's long time supporter Russia (48%) or the EU (38%). The numbers are so good for the US President that he might want to move...

As they head to the convention, anxious Republicans wonder, do Americans get it? Do they understand what is at stake? Will the liberal media prevail? To which I say: not to worry! Americans are on top of the issues, and ahead of the curve. How can I be so certain? There are several data points, but let’s start with one that is especially gratifying – one that shows that the country no longer believes in the New York Times. In a recent Pew poll, the legendary paper of record was voted less “believable” than ABC News, the Wall Street Journal,...

We’ve finally been vindicated: Members of Generation X have a representative who is anything but a slacker. GOP Congressman Paul Ryan—the tireless, wonky, 42-year-old workout freak—has made history by becoming the first member of our generation to join a presidential ticket. It should come as a surprise to no one that his calling card is reforming entitlements. We hear incessantly about how members of today’s screwed generation face the prospect of less prosperous lives than those lived by their parents. But the maiden generation to stare down that gloomy prognosis was Generation X, the tiny slice of America born between...

Normally I give these polls with ridiculous samples the ol' college try, but I'm not even going to bother with this. You're welcome to it if you want to put in the time. The sample:No need to boot up your computer's calculator. That's 43.5D/24.5R/32I, or D+19. The 2008 presidential exit poll, in a big blue year, was D+7. And yet, even here, we find this:Nate Silver notes that Pew has been polling high for Obama all year and that registered voters tend to skew Democratic vis-a-vis likely voters. If you adjust for those effects, he thinks Obama's actual lead here...

On what alternate universe will Democrats enjoy a D +19 turnout advantage over Republicans on election day? Well, that would be Planet Pew: The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted July 16-26, 2012, among 2,508 adults, including 1,956 registered voters, finds that, in keeping with his favorability advantage, Obama continues to hold a sizable lead over Romney in the election contest. Currently, 51% say they support Obama or lean toward him, while 41% support or lean toward Romney. Except…. Sample Size 459 Republicans 813 Democrats 599 Independents In the best election...

President Obama leads Mitt Romney nationally by 10 points, according to a new poll released Thursday. Obama took 51 percent compared to Romney’s 41 percent of the vote when the Pew Research Center asked which candidate people would vote for if the election were held today. That’s a much wider gap between the two candidates than most recent polls show; the RealClearPolitics national average puts Obama in the lead with an average of 3 points.

New polling data out from Pew Research Center finds President Obama with a double-digit lead over Mitt Romney nationally: Currently, 51% say they support Obama or lean toward him, while 41% support or lean toward Romney. This is largely unchanged from earlier in July and consistent with polling over the course of this year. Across eight Pew Research Center surveys since January, Obama has led Romney by between four and 12 percentage points. Obama holds only a four-point edge (48% to 44%) across 12 of this year’s key battleground states. While the data does not allow a state-by-state analysis, the...

Support for same-sex marriage has risen across the board in the last four years, new polling data shows, signalling a shift in the overall political and social views of Americans. The new data, released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, shows a higher percentage of Democrats, Republicans, whites, minorities and people of all generations support same-sex marriage legalization.... Among voting groups, there has been an increase in support for same-sex marriage even among Republicans. Since 2008, Democrats have jumped in support from 50 to 65 percent; Republicans from 19 to 24 percent; and Independents from 44...

U.S. President Barack Obama leads presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney 50-43 among registered voters nationwide, a poll released Thursday found. snip Obama is favored by 88 percent of Democrats while 89 percent of Republicans favor Romney, who leads among independent voters 46 percent to 45 percent for Obama. The poll found 34 percent of Romney backers said they support him strongly, while 64 percent of Obama voters said they support him strongly. snip Unemployment remains the No. 1 issue for voters overall. Forty-six percent said they favored Romney on the issue, and 42 percent favored Obama. However, Romney has gone...

OVERVIEW Despite the stagnant economy and broad dissatisfaction with national conditions, Barack Obama holds a significant lead over Mitt Romney. Currently, Obama is favored by a 50% to 43% margin among registered voters nationwide. Obama has led by at least a slim margin in every poll this year, and there is no clear trend in either candidate’s support since Romney wrapped up the GOP nomination. The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 28-July 9, 2012 among 2,973 adults, including 2,373 registered voters, finds that Romney has not seized the advantage...

WASHINGTON -- Frankly, I wish the Pew Research Center would occasionally keep its thoughts to itself. Sometimes those thoughts are merely insipid and beneath the attention of serious minds. Sometimes they are alarming and capable of stirring up an already excitable populace. There is talk of cannibalism being practiced by the criminal element. There is Lady Gaga. These are worrisome times. Yet the Pew Research Center has gone and done it again. The Center released a study Monday that employed exhaustive polling and ingenious charts to render my fellow Americans restive, or so it seems. The Pew Research Center's overall...

The gender gap in presidential politics is not new. Democratic candidates have gotten more support from women than men for more than 30 years. Even so, Barack Obama’s advantages among women voters over his GOP rivals are striking. In the Pew Research Center’s most recent national survey, conducted March 7-11, Obama led Mitt Romney by 20 points (58% to 38%) among women voters.