J. Baxter Oliphant

About half of U.S. adults say the country's mission in Afghanistan has mostly failed in achieving its goals, while about a third say it has mostly succeeded.

The U.S. public is about evenly split on whether the U.S. economic system is more secure today than it was before the financial crisis. Republicans are now more likely to view the system as more secure.

Public support for the death penalty, which reached a four-decade low in 2016, has increased somewhat since then. Since 2016, opinions among Republicans and Democrats have changed little, but the share of independents favoring the death penalty has increased 8 percentage points.

Fifteen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the American public is divided over whether using military force was the right decision.

Overall, two-thirds of Americans say recent reports of sexual harassment and assault reflect widespread problems in society.

Americans’ concerns about prescription drug abuse have risen over the past four years, with some of largest increases coming among well-educated adults.

About one-in-five U.S. gun owners say they have ever contacted a public official to express their opinion on gun policy, compared with 12% of non-gun owners.

Issues of race have long divided Americans along racial and partisan lines, and these differences extend to views of whether white people in the U.S. benefit from advantages in society that black people do not have. A majority of Americans (56%) say that white people either benefit “a great deal” (26%) or “a fair amount” […]

Republicans and Democrats find rare common ground on some gun policy proposals in the U.S., but there are sharp partisan differences on other issues.

Americans have broad exposure to guns, whether they personally own one or not. About seven-in-ten say they have fired a gun at some point and 42% currently live in a gun-owning household.