Elections Before 2008

Summary of Findings With three months to go until the presidential election, the American public remains largely dissatisfied with economic conditions and with President Bush’s stewardship of the economy. Two-thirds rate the national economy as “only fair” or “poor,” while just one-third judge it to be “excellent” or “good.” Accordingly, Bush gets low ratings for […]

As the Democratic National Convention began, the presence of several dozen accredited bloggers reaped the lion’s share of attention from reporters on the Internet beat. But a two-minute cartoon parody of the presidential race has reaped the lion...

The Democratic Party has achieved a small gain in party affiliation and holds a 33%-29% edge over the GOP in Pew surveys conducted in 2004. This represents a modest shift from the two year period following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the Republican Party had drawn virtually even with the Democrats. The current […]

Despite Sen. John Kerry’s military background and his campaign’s concerted efforts to court veterans, he runs no better among this group than Al Gore did four years ago. Based on surveys conducted March, May, June and July, men who have served in the armed forces favor Bush over Kerry by a 49% to 40% margin. […]

Candidates, political organizations and the news media are paying greater attention to Latino voters in 2004 than in any previous election year.

The rapid growth of the Latino population has been a subject of intense public attention since the 2000 Census reported a 58% increase over the 1990 total and later Census Bureau estimates concluded that Hispanics had surpassed African Americans in number.

Summary of Findings Sen. John Kerry enters the Democratic convention next week bolstered by a number of favorable trends in public opinion, although he remains locked in a statistical tie for voter support with President George W. Bush. His party is dominant on key domestic issues and at least competitive with the Republicans on every […]

Lead Changes Contribute to Erroneous Perception

If presidential campaigns are about character and control of message, neither candidate has had much success so far, a new PEJ study finds.

Summary of Findings The presidential election is capturing the public’s attention much more now than it did at this point four and eight years ago. Nearly half of Americans (47%) say they are more interested in politics than they were four years ago, up from 38% who expressed that view in June 2000. Public attention […]