Politics & Policy

Overview Pew Research Center’s final 2010 pre-election survey finds the Republican Party continuing to hold a solid lead in preferences for Tuesday’s midterm election. The poll, conducted Oct. 27-30 among 2,373 registered voters, including 1,809 voters considered the most likely to vote, shows that 48% of likely voters say they will vote for the Republican […]

Republicans continue to hold a solid lead in preferences for Tuesday's midterm elections among likely voters -- enough so as to suggest they will win control of the House. The GOP owes its lead to strong backing from independents and record-levels of engagement among its partisans.

There will almost certainly be far more nonvoters than voters this year. Nonvoters are younger, less educated and more financially stressed than likely voters. They are also significantly less Republican and more likely to approve of Obama's job performance.

Hawaii Lt. Governor James “Duke” Aiona‘s religious beliefs and his past involvement with an international Christian organization, the International Transformation Network, have become an issue in his bid for the governor’s office, according to Hawaiian media reports. Aiona, a Republican, is running against Democrat Neil Abercrombie, who represented Hawaii’s 1st District in Congress from 1991 […]

The national political backlash against illegal immigration has created new divisions among Latinos and heightened their concerns about discrimination against members of their ethnic group-including those who were born in the United States or who immigrated legally.

The online rhetoric heated up last week as bloggers from the left and right responded to statements from two controversial GOP figures. On Twitter, users marveled over an unorthodox space launch while on YouTube, the subject of UFOs was front and center.

Overview Views about the existence and causes of global warming have changed little over the past year. A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 59% of adults say there is solid evidence that the earth’s average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In October 2009, 57% said this. Roughly a […]

A majority of Americans say the earth is warming, but far fewer than said so in 2006. The decline has come mostly from Republicans, and very few Tea Party supporters say there is solid evidence of global warming. Also, the public is divided on the question of whether scientists themselves agree that the earth is warming.

Two years ahead of the next presidential election, the public is divided (47% yes, 42% no ) over whether Barack Obama should run for a second term. However, this is better than the outlook for Ronald Reagan in August 1982

Overview Two years ahead of the next presidential election, the public is divided over whether Barack Obama should run for a second term as president. About half (47%) say they would like to see Obama run again in 2012, while 42% say they would not. This is better than the outlook for Ronald Reagan in […]