Political & Civic Engagement

The Census Bureau today released a report summarizing levels of voting and voter registration in the November 2008 presidential election. Based on the November 2008 Current Population Survey Voting and Registration supplement, the Census Bureau reports that over 131 million people cast a vote in 2008, up from 126 million in 2004. The 2008 electorate […]

Just as in offline politics, the well-off and well-educated are especially likely to participate in online activities that mirror offline forms of engagement. But there are hints that social media may alter this pattern.

The electorate in last year’s presidential election was the most racially and ethnically diverse in U.S. history, with nearly one-in-four votes cast by non-whites, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data.

A year and a half after a lengthy, often rancorous debate over immigration reform filled the chambers of a stalemated Congress, the issue appears to have receded in importance among one of the groups most affected by it--Latinos.

Fully 46% of all Obama voters expect to hear directly from Barack Obama or other officials affiliated with the new administration at least occasionally over the next year, and 15% of Obama voters expect to hear from the new administration on at least...

A wrap-up of possibly overlooked polling trends and end-of-campaign happenings.

Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December 2008 for the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life to look at the impact of religious voters in the 2008 election. John Green, a senior fellow in religion and […]

Overview A week after the election, voters are feeling good about themselves, the presidential campaign and Barack Obama. Looking ahead, they have high expectations for the Obama administration, with two-thirds predicting that he will have a successful first term. The quadrennial post-election survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds […]

Hispanics voted for Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden over Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin by a margin of more than two-to-one in the 2008 presidential election, 67% versus 31%.