2008-07-03T18:26:12Z tag:blog.washingtonpost.com,2008:/behind-the-numbers//291 Copyright (c) 2008, WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive 2008-07-03T18:26:12Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-07-03:/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/navigating_the_playing_field_o.html

Sen. John McCain's trip to Latin America this week--his third foreign trip since clinching the Republican nomination--has brought immigration back to the forefront of the presidential campaign. As McCain hits Mexico City today and both candidates step up their efforts to reach out to Hispanic voters, a number of surveys shed light on Americans' views on the contentious topic. Overall, immigration is broadly considered one of the top issues in the campaign, but neither presidential...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-07-01T18:44:06Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-07-01:/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/mccain_courts_public_opinion.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-06-26T18:17:55Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-26:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/scotus_dc_gun_law.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jon Cohen 2008-06-25T16:16:39Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-24:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/heating_up_on_energy.html

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....Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-06-20T11:12:56Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-20:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/postprimary_views_of_clinton.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-06-18T11:15:05Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-18:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/the_better_halves.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-06-17T21:17:00Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-17:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/about_those_independents.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-06-17T16:22:23Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-17:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/scotus_gitmo_ruling.html

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),...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jon Cohen 2008-06-24T19:22:36Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-06:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/campaign_myth_1_mccain_voters.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jon Cohen 2008-06-24T19:22:36Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-06-04:/behind-the-numbers/2008/06/new_exit_poll_tables_1.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jon Cohen 2008-05-30T19:15:23Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-14:/behind-the-numbers/2008/05/six_months_before_the_general.html

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...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-05-30T19:15:23Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-08:/behind-the-numbers/2008/05/clintons_broader_base.html

UPDATE: This post has been updated to correct Bush's margin among white voters in 2000. Hillary Clinton's comments to USA Today arguing that her support among white voters in the primaries provides her with a broader base of support have set the blogosphere abuzz. In the interview, Clinton referred to polling data "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-05-30T19:15:23Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-07:/behind-the-numbers/2008/05/more_sincere_crossover_1.html

Here's more data for the raging debate over GOP mischief in last night's Democratic primary in Indiana: On balance, network exit polls show Republican crossover voters expressing little other than a sincere preference for Clinton over Obama. First, Clinton edged Obama in Indiana's open primary among self-identified Democrats, 52 to 48 percent. And removing all GOP-identifiers from the voter pool does not budge the overall result. Perhaps the focus on non-Democrats is misplaced. But the...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jon Cohen 2008-05-30T19:15:23Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-02:/behind-the-numbers/2008/05/white_catholics_for_clinton_a.html

Throughout the Democratic party's nomination process, white Catholics have consistently been a strong point for Hillary Clinton, a group among which she tops or ties Barack Obama in almost every single state where exit polling has measured their votes. Exit polling conducted in Pennsylvania shows that Clinton's edge with Catholics is not a function of the demographic makeup of Catholics themselves, but instead cuts across demographic lines. In Pennsylvania, Clinton racked up her biggest margin...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta 2008-05-30T19:15:23Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-29:/behind-the-numbers/2008/04/the_impact_of_wright.html

Public polling has revealed several potentially troubling trends for Barack Obama's campaign over the last few days, from the evaporation of his lead over Hillary Clinton in Gallup's daily tracking poll to a resurgent Clinton outperforming Obama against John McCain in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll, but perhaps none more so than what Newsweek's poll found among the Senator's own partisans. The poll found the starkest evidence yet that Sen. Barack Obama's run for the presidency...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Jennifer Agiesta