Partisanship & Issues

Summary of Findings With less than five months to go before Election Day, Democrats hold two distinct advantages in the midterm campaign that they have not enjoyed for some time. First, Americans continue to say they favor the Democratic candidate in their district, by a 51% to 39% margin. Second, the level of enthusiasm about […]

Phoenix Park Hotel Washington, D.C. In February of this year, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., led a coalition of 55 Catholic House Democrats in issuing a “Statement of Principles,” which explains how religious faith and the church’s social teachings influence them as legislators. The statement is also a public effort by Catholic Democrats to redefine themselves […]

The Differences that Divide Us are Much Smaller than Those that Set Us Apart from the Rest of the World

Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists and distinguished scholars gathered in Key West, Florida, in May 2006 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker William A. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and formerly a key domestic policy adviser to President […]

Although President Bush's approval rating has declined as much among white evangelicals as among the public as a whole, so far evangelicals don't seem likely to abandon the GOP this fall.

Summary of Findings The American public is angry with Congress, and this is bad news for the Republican Party. The belief that this Congress has accomplished less than its predecessors is markedly higher than at any point in the past nine years, and by a wide margin Republican leaders are blamed for this. Many more […]

Summary of Findings Nine months before the midterm elections, the Democrats hold a sizable lead in the congressional horse race and an advantage on most major issues. Democrats lead by 50%-41% among registered voters in the test ballot, which is little changed from last September (52%-40%). While retaining a huge advantage on traditional party strengths […]

Summary of Findings As President Bush prepares for his Jan. 31 State of the Union address, the public remains skeptical that the economy is improving, in spite of recent positive signals. Overall, about a third of Americans (34%) rate economic conditions as excellent or good, while nearly twice that number say they are fair or […]

Summary of Findings The public has been hardly stirred by the flurry of major Washington news in the early days of 2006. Jack Abramoff’s admission that he bribed members of Congress has sparked little interest, with just 18% paying very close attention to news reports on the disgraced Washington lobbyist. An overwhelming majority of Americans […]

Summary of Findings Americans express increasingly negative views of a wide range major institutions, reflecting strong discontent with national conditions. Over the past year, ratings have tumbled for the federal government and Congress. And it is not just Washington institutions that are being viewed less positively. Favorable opinions of business corporations are at their lowest […]