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A recent Gallup poll refutes the claim made by Barack Obama on March 9, 2008 that “we are no longer a Christian nation.” Gallup found that three quarters of all Americans - a supermajority - identify themselves as Christians, with only five percent saying they are practicing members of a non-Christian faith. “We find, looking at our data, that America does in fact remain a predominantly Christian nation,” Dr. Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor in chief, said of the poll released on Christmas Eve. “Now, our overall estimation of what percent of Americans identify with the Christian religion depends a little...

A new study of how criminals vote found that most convicts register Democratic, a key reason in why liberal lawmakers and governors are eager for them to get back into the voting booth after their release. “Democrats would benefit from additional ex-felon participation,” said the authoritative study in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The authors, professors from the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University, found that in some states, felons register Democratic by more than six-to-one. In New York, for example, 61.5 percent of convicts are Democrats, just 9 percent Republican. They also cited...

<p>Public’s Views on Human Evolution evolution2013-1According to a new Pew Research Center analysis, six-in-ten Americans (60%) say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while a third (33%) reject the idea of evolution, saying that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” The share of the general public that says that humans have evolved over time is about the same as it was in 2009, when Pew Research last asked the question.</p>

Poll: Americans rank Obama, Hillary Clinton most admired Reuters 8:41 a.m. CST, December 30, 2013 (Reuters) - Americans named President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the world's most admired living man and woman in 2013, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday. Obama topped the annual list for the sixth consecutive year, a typical ranking for a sitting U.S. president, the polling organization said. But the percentage of those surveyed who choose him as the most admired man fell to 16 percent this year, down from 30 percent in 2012. The president's job approval...

Democrats have lost their advantange and Republicans now have a slight edge in the battle for control of Congress, according to a new national poll. A CNN/ORC International survey released Thursday also indicates that President Barack Obama may be dragging down Democratic congressional candidates, and that the 2014 midterm elections are shaping up to be a low-turnout event, with only three in 10 registered voters extremely or very enthusiastic about voting next year. Two months ago, Democrats held a 50%-42% advantage among registered voters in a generic ballot, which asked respondents to choose between a Democrat or Republican in their...

The last few months have taken their toll on President Obama's popularity. Currently vacationing in Hawaii, Obama is finishing 2013 with approval ratings at an all-time low – and the lowest they've been for any president at this point in their term since Richard Nixon, according to one new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The Real Clear Politics average puts Obama's approval rating at just over 42 percent, and his disapproval rating at 54 percent. The numbers are particularly striking when you consider that just a year ago, they were reversed, with approval ratings of about 54 percent and disapproval ratings...

Democrat Charlie Crist is enjoying a resurgence in his new party and currently leads Governor Rick Scott in internal polling conducted for the governor, according to CBS4 news partner the Miami Herald. The survey was conducted by Governor Scott’s pollster and showed Crist with a four-point lead over Scott among likely voters. Looking at a potential Democratic primary challenge from Senator Bill Nelson; Crist leads the long-time Democrat by 13 points. According to the Herald, in a hypothetical Democratic gubernatorial primary, Crist beats Senator Nelson by a 45-32 percent margin. Nineteen percent of democrats surveyed said they were undecided in...

Congress has itself to blame for its low ratings among the American people. Policymaking is all about choices; it is the calculus of weighing costs and benefits and the distribution of those costs and benefits. In theory, there are lots of policies that can make everyone better off, but they can only be accomplished by redistributing the gains of the policy.

Nearly five years after George W. Bush left office, half the public still blames the former president for the nation’s economic woes, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week.

While the vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas, only about half say they see it as mostly a religious holiday, according to a recent Pew Research study. One third of those polled consider it a cultural celebration focused on exchanging gifts and spending time with family. While 86 percent of Americans say they plan to attend a gathering of family or friends on Christmas Eve or Christmas and purchase presents for loved ones, only 54 percent plan to attend a religious service over the holiday that theologically observes the birth of Jesus Christ.

President Barack Obama’s approval rating in Iowa hit its lowest point ever in a new poll, and it’s nearly his worst rating of any state polled by Quinnipiac. Just 38 percent of Iowa voters approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 59 percent disapprove in a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday.

Following on the heels of other political groups, President Obama's liberal base is abandoning him, giving him an even lower level of support from his base than George W. Bush had from conservatives five years into his presidency, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.

President Obama’s disapproval rating has shot up to 53 percent, the highest rating the McClatchy-Marist poll has recorded for him in nearly 30 surveys. Obama's approval rating stood at 43 percent the poll released Tuesday. Obama’s approval rating has been hanging in the low 40s for the last few months as the 16-day government shutdown and the shaky rollout of the healthcare exchange website dominated the news. But there is plenty of disapproval to go around. A plurality of people, 38 percent, would grade all Washington officials with an “F,” according to the poll. Another 31 percent would give them...

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the various polls on Barack Obama’s performance and noted the dramatic decline in approval on both policy areas and personal qualities. Today, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan take a look at the former, and inform readers that Obama is in much bigger trouble than just dropping below 40% overall approval: Recent polling from the Pew Research Center and Quinnipiac University has shown Obama’s approval rating on almost all major issues plunging into the 30s — below even his lowest-ever overall approval rating, which has stood around 40 percent...

One of President Obama's chief political assets has been his ability to excite young people like almost no politician in history. But the days of America's youth fawning over the president are over.A new Harvard University Institute of Politics poll released Wednesday confirms what other surveys have shown in recent months: Millennials have soured on Obama so much this year that their opinion of him largely mirrors the American public's.

In mid-November, a series of national surveys included tantalizing nuggets suggesting that Millennials -- America's youngest voters -- were turning against the man they'd overwhelmingly supported for president twice. Young people were especially unforgiving on questions about Barack Obama's honesty and trustworthiness, a dramatic turn of events. But that data was derived from relatively small sub-samples of broader polls. Would a coast-to-coast survey of exclusively 18-to-29 year olds confirm or belie those apparent trends? We have our answer, courtesy of a new poll commissioned by Harvard University's Institute of Politics: Young Americans are turning against Barack Obama and Obamacare, according...

If there’s one thing that feeds the ObamaCare beast, it’s young, healthy consumers — the same people who voted and worked to put Barack Obama in the White House twice. In order for the system to work, insurers need to get them into the system, paying exorbitant premiums for services they will likely never use, in order to keep prices down for older, less healthy Americans who not coincidentally tend to be more politically engaged. Gallup inadvertently tested that hypothesis and proved it its latest survey: Americans younger than 30, a key group targeted by the Affordable Care Act, continue...

Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) could be facing a tough reelection campaign next year, according to a Washington Free Beacon poll of Virginia voters conducted last week. Fifty percent of Virginians said that Warner should be reelected against a generic candidate; 45 percent saying they would elect someone new. By a 49 to 43 percent margin, Independents said they would rather have a different senator than stick with Warner. Regionally, Warner is over 50 percent only in Northern Virginia, while 63 percent of residents in Shenandoah favor the nameless, faceless new candidate. The poll suggests that President Barack Obama’s dropping...

"Trust is like virginity: once you lose it it's hard to get it back." So spoke pollster John Zogby, commenting on his latest poll on President Obama's handling of his office. Quoted by Paul Bedard in the Washington Examiner: "Most ominous for Mr. Obama is that 57 percent now disapprove of his job. That is his worst number yet. This includes 57 percent of men and 55 percent of women; 51 percent of moderates, 24 percent of liberals and 24 percent of Democrats; 66 percent of independents and 40 percent of Hispanics. Meanwhile, a separate poll by CNN/ORC International...

The latest update of Stimson’s policy mood series suggests that the American public in 2012 was more conservative than at any point since 1952. (Actually, since mood in each year is estimated with some error, it seems safer to say that the current level of conservatism roughly equals the previous highs recorded in 1980 and 1952.) While the slight increase in conservatism from 2011 to 2012 is too small to be significant, it continues a marked trend that began as soon as Barack Obama moved into the White House.