Sen. John McCain took up the cause of conservative judges this morning, announcing at a meeting of the National Sherriff's Association that if elected, he would appoint justices who mirror the views of Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia.

His attention to the issue is a foray into one of the few domestic issues on which McCain and his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, are closely matched. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 45 percent said they trusted Obama more to handle the appointment of Supreme Court justices, 43 percent preferred McCain. On most other domestic issues, including the economy, health care, taxes, gas prices and issues of special concern to women, Obama held larger leads.

The Post-ABC News poll suggests McCain may be able to attract some Democrats on this issue. McCain garnered greater support among Democrats (19 percent) than Obama did from Republicans (7 percent). But independents, who are likely to be a key swing group this cycle, gave Obama a narrow edge, 45 percent to 39 percent.

Beyond party affiliation, some of the most high-profile issues the Court has considered deeply divide voters. Those in gun-owning households favored McCain on appointments to the Court, 50 percent to 37 percent, while those without a gun in the house broke for Obama, 52 percent to 37 percent. Opinions on abortion led to a similar schism: Fifty-six percent of those who said abortion should be legal in most or all cases said they trust Obama more to appoint justices, while 55 percent of those who believe it should be illegal in most or all cases said they prefer McCain.

Feminists gave Obama a wide lead on Supreme Court appointments, 67 percent to 23 percent, while white evangelical Protestants were largely in McCain's corner, 64 percent to 22 percent. Those who felt African Americans in their community face discrimination occasionally or more trust Obama by a 2 to 1 margin, while those who said such discrimination does not happen where they live preferred McCain 54 percent to 31 percent.

Q. Regardless of who you may support, who do you trust more to handle appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court - Obama or McCain?

SOURCE: Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted by telephone June 11-15, 2008 among a random national sample of 561 adults. Results have a four point error margin.

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today overturned a 32-year-old District of Columbia law limiting private gun ownership, for the first time expressly extending the Constitution's Second Amendment to private citizens.

That ruling is also a split decision with respect to where the public stands on these issues.

In a recent Washington Post poll, 72 percent of all Americans said they believe individuals have gun rights under the Second Amendment, that such protections are not limited to "militias." Twenty percent thought the constitutional guarantee covers "only the rights of the states to maintain militias."

But 58 percent in that national poll supported a D.C.-like ban on private handguns and trigger lock requirements; 38 percent opposed those restrictions. (In a January Post poll in the District itself, even more, 76 percent, favored the law, including 60 percent who said they were "strongly" behind the city ordinance.)

Those data are here.

In last week's Post-ABC national poll, just 1 percent called guns or gun control the election's single top concern. But that may underestimate the issue's potential political importance.

Forty-two percent of all American adults reported having a gun in the house, and they broke for John McCain over Barack Obama by a wide, 17 percentage point, margin. That gap crosses party lines, and independents from households with at least one gun tilt toward McCain, while those without firearms lean toward Obama. (George W. Bush beat John F. Kerry in 2004 by 27 points among gun owners, according to the network exit polls.)

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:

"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

In your opinion does this guarantee only the right of the states to maintain militias, or also the right of individuals to own guns?

SOURCE: Washington Post poll conducted by telephone by ICR, an independent research company. Interviews were conducted from March 7 - 10, 2008 among a nationally representative sample of 707 respondents age 18 and older. Results have a four point error margin.

As the debate over energy and environmentalism between John McCain and Barack Obama gets hotter than a D.C. afternoon in August, recent polling on the issue shows the public broadly prefers Obama to handle related issues, but both have proposed policies that appear to garner widespread support.

In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, majorities said they trust Obama more to handle gasoline prices, energy policy more broadly and global warming and other environmental issues.

His lead holds among both Democrats and independents, but Republicans favor their own standard bearer, with only about one in five choosing Obama over McCain in each of these areas.

The issues surrounding rising gas prices gained prominence in the public's mind well before the candidates' sparring this week. In the same poll, conducted June 12 through 15, more than three-quarters reported increased gas prices were a financial hardship, a majority called them a "serious" one. And nearly as many people cited gas and oil prices, energy issues, and environmental concerns as their top issue in the presidential contest as named health care.

Other public polling out more recently shows a similar trend. The Gallup/USA Today poll found Obama holding a nearly 20-point advantage on handling energy policy (including gas prices), with 51 percent calling the issue "extremely important" to their vote, just a hair more than said so of the economy more generally (49 percent) and ahead of Iraq (44 percent).

Newsweek's poll found 48 percent said they thought Obama would do a better job handling energy policy, 34 percent chose McCain.

Still, when a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll asked about policies (although without pairing them with specific tradeoffs), few opposed those McCain is proposing. Three-quarters favored increased drilling for oil in the U.S. and in the Gulf of Mexico, and more than half favored drilling in a small area of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. A slim majority (51 percent) was in favor of building more nuclear power plants.

But, there is a trade-off: fewer would favor relaxing environmental standards in order to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, according to the Fox poll, and a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll finds majority support for expanded drilling to be conditional on environmental protections. Just 13 percent would favor drilling without those regulations.

The Post-ABC News poll found broad support for encouraging the development of alternative energy sources through tax breaks, 63 percent said they support such incentives, while just a third felt alternative energy should be left to the open marketplace.

Regardless of who you may support, 
who do you trust more to handle...

Gasoline prices:

            Obama   McCain
All           50      30
Democrats     75      11
Republicans   20      56
Independents  45      32

Global warming and other environmental issues:

            Obama   McCain
All           55      28
Democrats     80      11
Republicans   23      53
Independents  50      29

Energy policy:

            Obama   McCain
All           51      36
Democrats     76      16
Republicans   17      75
Independents  48      33

In the first Washington Post-ABC News poll since she ended her presidential bid, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's favorability ratings have rebounded after reaching a campaign low-point in April.

After dipping toward the end of the long Democratic nomination battle, Clinton's favorability rating is once again in positive territory: 54 percent now have a positive view of the junior senator from New York; 43 percent said they see her unfavorably.

Nearly all of the improvement in the public's view comes from whites, whose favorable views jumped 11 points to 49 percent ("strongly" favorable views went up six to 24 percent). The proportion of whites holding strongly unfavorable views fell from an election-cycle high of 44 percent in April to 31 percent in the new poll.

At the same time, Clinton failed to make up any of her lost ground among African Americans. Her overall favorability among blacks group remained stable - 68 percent in April and 67 percent now - following a 13-point decline shortly after her big New Hampshire victory in January.

Although much of Clinton's campaign success derived from support among women, positive perceptions of her rose about evenly across gender lines: Favorable views of Clinton are up 10 points among men, nine among women.

And little of the improvement comes from fellow Democrats. Instead, favorable reviews of Clinton are up eight points among Republicans and 14 points among independents (her favorability among independents had dropped 20 points from January to April; it now stands in positive territory with a narrow majority expressing a favorable view).

She also picked up steam among those who wanted Barack Obama to win the Democratic primaries, improving by 10 percentage points among these voters to 63 percent favorable. Among her own supporters, more than nine in 10 express a positive view, about the same as in April.

But none of this may be enough to boost her chances of becoming Obama's running mate. Overall, 23 percent said adding Clinton to the ticket would make them more apt to vote Democratic in November, but about as many, 22 percent, would move toward the GOP should Clinton get a spot on the Democratic slate.

The prospects are worse among those not already supporting Obama; just 12 percent of those not backing the Illinois senator in this poll would be more likely to vote for him if Clinton were his selection, while 37 percent would be more inclined to choose John McCain.

And among those groups so key to Clinton's success in the primaries? Looking at whites without a college degree and white women of all partisan leanings, Clinton wouldn't do much to bring in these groups. More in each segment would be pushed toward McCain and his eventual running mate should Obama add Clinton to the ticket than would be more apt to support the Democrats.

As Americans wade through the glut of information about the presumptive presidential nominees of each party, they also get to know the candidates' better halves. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows both Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama hold net positive favorable ratings, but many have yet to form opinions on either potential first lady.

About half view Obama favorably, including 42 percent of men, 54 percent of women and 66 percent of Democrats. Republicans (30 percent favorable) and independents (44 percent) are less positive, Republicans due to much higher negative perceptions (50 percent unfavorable) and independents because of a larger bloc of undecideds (28 percent). About a quarter of all adults have no opinion.

Obama could be the nation's first black first lady, and nearly nine in 10 African American women view her positively. About half of white women, a far less Democratic group, share a positive outlook. Like her husband, Obama appeals to younger women (64 percent favorable among those under age 45) more than their elders (44 percent among women age 65 and over), but enjoys mostly positive reviews from both married and single women. About half of those who backed Clinton in the primaries have a positive view. Self-described feminists are also in Obama's corner: 60 percent have a favorable view of her.

Fewer Americans express an opinion about Cindy McCain, who, with the GOP nomination battle wrapped up in early March, spent less time on the primary campaign trail than Michelle Obama did. More than a third have not yet formed an opinion of McCain, but nearly four in 10 express a positive view. Republicans (62 percent favorable) are far more likely than Democrats (29 percent) or independents (35 percent) to say they have a favorable opinion of McCain, and as with Michelle Obama, for different reasons. Democrats are more apt to view McCain negatively (37 percent unfavorable) while four in 10 independents have no opinion on her.

There's less of a gender gap in sizing up McCain, 37 percent of men and 40 percent of women see her favorably. But unlike Michelle Obama, she is more positively viewed among married women (44 percent favorable), than single women (35 percent favorable). Just 25 percent of black women view McCain positively, 44 percent of white women do.

Support for a candidate, however, does not necessarily translate into support for his wife. Just 56 percent of John McCain's supporters have a favorable view of Cindy McCain, while about three-quarters of Barack Obama backers have a positive take on his wife.

Looking at assessments of husband and wife together, 44 percent of adults have a favorable view of both Obamas, 21 percent take the negative view on both. For the McCains, 31 percent see both husband and wife in a positive light, 18 percent view both negatively.

A Pew Research Center poll released yesterday also finds more people familiar with Michelle Obama than with Cindy McCain, but goes one step further to explore the tenor of news coverage about the two women. About half of those who have heard at least something about each say the coverage has been a mix of positive and negative, but reports about Obama are more likely to be seen as negative than those about McCain.

Among those who have heard news coverage on Obama, about a quarter say it has been mostly negative. Slightly fewer, 21 percent, said they've seen mostly positive coverage of the Illinois senator's wife. Coverage of Cindy McCain, by contrast, is perceived as being far more positive. Just 7 percent said most of what they have seen about her has been negative and 31 percent report it's been mostly favorable.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll hints that the 2008 presidential election could mark the year independents reclaim their status as a swing group. After Karl Rove's 2004 strategy attempted to circumvent independents by focusing on the GOP base, independents appear to be back in the driver's seat.

In this poll, independents split evenly between Barack Obama (44 percent) and John McCain (43 percent).

A closer look at their views on the candidates themselves and key issues and attributes hints that McCain faces a more uphill battle to convince independents that he is the better candidate to handle many top domestic issues or reflect their personal values. But even with these obstacles, McCain is viewed positively and runs about evenly with Barack Obama in a general election match-up.

Here are more crosstabs from the latest poll.

Q. If the 2008 presidential election were being held today 
and the candidates were (Barack Obama, the Democrat) and 
(John McCain, the Republican), for whom would you vote?

 NET LEANED VOTE

                Obama   McCain
All adults        48      42
Independents      44      43

The following results are only among political independents:

Q. Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of (NAME)?

                Obama   McCain
Favorable NET     63      57
  Strong fav.     29      18
  Somewhat fav.   34      39
Unfavorable NET   32      38
  Somewhat unfav. 13      21
  Strong unfav.   19      17

Q. Regardless of who you may support, who do you trust 
more to handle [ITEM] - (Obama) or (McCain)?

                        Obama   McCain
Issues of special
 concern to women        56       25
Global warming and
 other environmental
 issues                  50       29
Health care              50       32
Energy policy            48       33
Gasoline prices          45       32
The economy              49       37
Appointments to the
 U.S. Supreme Court      45       39
Taxes                    43       41
The war in Iraq          43       45
International affairs    42       45
The U.S. campaign
 against terrorism       33       55

Q. Regardless of who you may support, who do you 
think [ITEM] - (Obama) or (McCain)?

                             Obama  McCain
Would do more to bring
 needed change to Washington   64     22
Better understands the
 problems of people like you   50     32
Would do more to stand up to
 lobbyists and special interest
 groups                        49     35
Better represents your own
 personal values               49     36
Is the stronger leader         44     45

Q. Which of these is more important to you in a 
candidate for president: (strength and experience) 
or (a new direction and new ideas)?

Strength and experience       39
New direction and new ideas   51

Most Americans oppose last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba should be able to challenge their incarcerations in the civilian court system.

In the new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 61 percent said non-citizens suspected of terrorism should not have these rights under the U.S. Constitution; 34 percent said they should. The view that these suspects do not share these privileges cuts across party lines, with majorities of Democrats (53 percent), independents (56 percent) and Republicans (77 percent) taking that position.

But not all groups so clearly stand with the minority in the court's 5-4 split decision.

A majority of African Americans, 54 percent, said the detainees should be able to challenge their confinements. And liberals divide about evenly on the issue (48 to 47 percent) as do those younger than 30 (49 to 48 percent), in stark contrast to conservative and seniors who believe by greater than 3 to 1 margins that these suspects should not be able to test their cases in civilian courts.

Those backing John McCain in a match-up against Barack Obama are overwhelmingly against these detainee rights, while those supporting the Democrat are evenly divided (47 percent in favor; 47 percent opposed).

Complete question wording available here.

Democrats eager to tamp down talk of disappointed primary voters bolting to John McCain point to the "fact" that a majority of McCain's own backers threatened to vote for Al Gore when George W. Bush secured the Republican nomination in 2000.

But the numbers of crossover voters frustrated by the nominating process was actually far less than that.

In Post-ABC and Pew national polling as the 2000 GOP primary wound down, more than seven in 10 Republicans who supported McCain also said they would back Bush over Gore in the general election. That is far lower than the 93 percent who backed Bush on Election Day, suggesting some bluster in the heat of battle, but nowhere close to a minority of voters.

The source for the mischaracterization appears to be the report from a March 2000 Pew poll, which states "Gore leads Bush by a 51%-44% margin among voters who say they backed McCain during the primary process."

Those data are not what they seem.

Pew asked all respondents, not just Republican primary voters, whether at "any point in the presidential campaign, did you want John McCain to win the Republican nomination?" And 88 percent of Democrats who wanted McCain said they would vote for Gore, as did 54 percent of independents. Just 14 percent of Republican McCain supporters said they would back the Democratic candidate.

To get the 51 percent figure for Gore, Pew then looked just at only those Democrats, Republicans and independents who "strongly" wanted McCain at some point in the primaries. But that is not a meaningful figure for understanding potential Republican defections; many of these voters did not vote or could not vote in a GOP primary in 2000.

There is also an oft-misunderstood related data point from the 2000 exit poll. In that poll, 37 percent of McCain supporters said they voted for Gore. But again, these were not necessarily GOP primary voters; instead, they were those who considered themselves his "political supporters," a far larger group.

Thanks to ABC News, we now have our clearest view yet of all the voters who participated in caucuses and primaries in the 39 states that had exit polls.

ABC is one of six partners in the National Election Pool (NEP), which sponsors the exit polls conducted by Edison-Mitofsky, and its polling unit has put together helpful new tables on the nominating contests. The newly-assembled data show how Democratic and Republican voters divided between the presidential hopefuls.

The "NET" column on the left is the biggest contribution. Here we can see the percentage of all Democratic voters in these states who were women (57 percent), and how they voted overall (52 percent supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, 43 percent Barack Obama). On the GOP side, 54 percent of all voters were men, and 43 percent of them opted for John McCain, 25 percent for Mitt Romney and 21 percent for Huckabee.

The data are the final, and cleanest, presentation of what we have reported throughout the long campaign. For example, "change" was the top issue among Democratic voters, and helped propel Obama to the nomination (all together he won these voters by nearly 40 percentage points). The economy topped the issue list among voters from both sides.

Happy exploring: Democrats here ; Republicans here .

One limitation of these data is that they include only the subset of states that had exit polls. While most contests were covered - 68 in all - there are some holes, particularly on the Republican side where exit pollsters stopped collecting data after the Mississippi primary in mid-March. (McCain had become the presumptive GOP nominee by that point.)

The Washington Post subscribed to many of these exit polls, but we are not part of the NEP consortium of networks and The Associated Press. The ones we purchased are organized by question and displayed here .

Six months before the general election, public perceptions of the relative strengths and weaknesses of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and Democratic front-runner Barack Obama are relatively static, though recent shifts on leadership, empathy and personal ethics hint at the battles to come.

The two months of campaigning in the time since we last checked in on perceptions of these two candidates have done little to change minds. In comparing McCain and Obama on eight key candidate attributes in the new Washington Post-ABC News poll, McCain continues to be seen as the more experienced candidate and the one with better knowledge of world affairs, while Obama is broadly seen as the one who would do more to affect change, with the better personality for the job and with a clearer vision for the future.

But the two candidates have become more evenly matched on the question of who is the stronger leader and who has higher personal and ethical standards. Obama erased McCain's double-digit edge as the stronger leader (in the new poll, Obama also for the first time bests Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, on this measure), while McCain closed a 12-point gap as the candidate with higher personal and ethical standards.

Obama maintains a wide advantage as the more empathetic candidate, but the margin between the two candidates narrowed slightly from 27 points to 19.

To overtake McCain on the leadership front, Obama has some convincing to do among fellow Democrats. About a quarter of Democrats call McCain the stronger leader, compared with 12 percent of GOPers who choose Obama on this score.

McCain's progress on empathy comes largely from bringing Republicans back into the fold, in March, 55 percent of Republicans said he was the candidate who better understands their problems; now 66 percent do.

And on personal and ethical standards, more than one in five partisans are "cross-overs," choosing the other party's standard bearer as the one with higher standards. Obama cedes more than a third of Clinton supporters on this question, while McCain surrenders a quarter of conservatives.

Q. Regardless of who you may support, who do you think...

a. is the stronger leader

                       Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     46       42       -4
3/2/08      51       40      -11

b. has the better experience to be president

                            Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     71       18      -53
3/2/08      70       19      -51

c. would do more to bring needed change to Washington

                            Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     29       59      +30
3/2/08      31       56      +25

d. has a better personality and temperament to be president

                            Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     32       56      +24
3/2/08      28       57      +29

e. better understands the problems of people like you

                            Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     35       54      +19
3/2/08      29       56      +27

f. has a clearer vision for the future

                            Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     34       54      +20
3/2/08      32       53      +21

g. has higher personal and ethical standards

                            Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     41       42       -1
3/2/08      31       43      +12

h. has better knowledge of world affairs

                            Obama
          McCain   Obama   -McCain
5/11/08     65       24      -41
3/2/08      64       24      -40