Partisanship & Issues

Overview With four months to go before Election Day, voting intentions for the House remain closely divided, and neither party has gained or lost much ground over the course of 2010. However, Republicans are much more engaged in the coming election and more inclined to say they are certain to vote than are Democrats. This […]

The drive for health care reform legislation proved to be the most passionate and polarizing policy fight of Barack Obama’s first year in office, with the public and Congress deeply divided over the initiative. And much of that battle played out through a changing media universe. A new PEJ study, examining 10 months of health care stories, identifies some of the key elements of that coverage.

With Congress putting one of Wall Street’s big-name firms on the hot seat, the economy topped the news agenda last week. Increasingly grim news about the Gulf Coast oil spill and the polarizing debate over Arizona’s immigration law also attracted significant coverage. Meanwhile, a prominent GOP defector drove coverage of the mid-term elections.

Overview The public remains doggedly downbeat about the condition of the national economy, even as many experts and economists see signs of recovery. As has been the case for most of the past two years, about nine-in-ten (88%) rate national economic conditions as only fair or poor, and over the past year there has been […]

Overview By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days. A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government – a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials. Rather than an […]

A New York Times/CBS poll of Tea Party supporters finds that this group "actually are just as likely as Americans as a whole to have returned their census forms, though some conservative leaders have urged a boycott."

If you are a Republican, what's not to like about the Tea Party movement? From this vantage point, a number of risks seem possible, if not probable.

While there is every reason to believe that the party is in trouble and will lose seats this year, there are no solid data that would justify a view shared by many here in Washington that the Democrats are destined to lose control of the House.

The "Millennial Generation" of young voters played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly over the course of 2009.

Summary of Findings Nine months ahead of the midterm elections, voters have conflicted attitudes about both political parties. Opinions of the Republican Party have improved significantly, and for the first time in years the GOP’s favorable ratings nearly equal the Democratic Party’s. Voting intentions for the fall elections also remain closely divided. However, the Democratic […]