U.S. Elections & Voters

Electability is an issue, and one that both Obama and Clinton are likely to use to woo the superdelegates. But our polling suggests that neither candidate has a demonstrable advantage to tout.

The Pennsylvania primary looms large in the tight contest for the Democratic nomination. In an interview with Pew Forum Associate Director Mark O’Keefe, Senior Fellow John Green explains why the connections that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama make – or fail to make – with the state’s religious voters could have major consequences on April […]

Obama's high favorable ratings are more influenced by how he makes voters feel than by specific characteristics they attributed to him. Clinton's image, in contrast, is driven by opinions about her own qualities.

About two-in-five voters now say they have received a pre-recorded call about the campaign. Meanwhile, Democrats are far more engaged in campaign activities than are Republcians -- including donating money to a candidate.

The presidential candidates have recently intensified their efforts to woo Catholic voters, underscoring the election-year significance of this key swing constituency. Pew Forum Senior Fellow John Green discusses Catholic voting trends in past elections, the challenges facing the campaigns as they reach out to Catholics and how the church’s growing Hispanic population may impact future […]

Summary of Findings Hillary Clinton’s retraction of her claim that she came under sniper fire while visiting Bosnia in 1996 was one of the main campaign storylines last week. But the controversy over her statements did not resonate as widely as the furor over statements made by Barack Obama’s pastor earlier in March. Roughly four-in-ten […]

Summary of Findings Barack Obama’s March 18th speech on race and politics is arguably the biggest political event of the campaign so far. Fully 85% of Americans say they heard at least a little about Obama’s speech, and most (54%) say they heard a lot about it. Not surprisingly, Barack Obama has been far and […]

Summary of Findings The videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons and Barack Obama’s subsequent speech on race and politics have attracted more public attention than any events thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign. A majority of the public (51%) said they heard “a lot” about the videos, and an even larger percentage (54%) […]

The balance of party identification in the U.S. electorate now favors the Democratic Party by a decidedly larger margin than in either of the two previous presidential election cycles including in some key swing states.

Summary of Findings Not only are Americans following election news in record numbers this year, they are tracking the details of the campaign — the charges, countercharges and controversial advertisements — extremely closely. Large majorities say they have heard at least something about rumors that Barack Obama is a Muslim; Hillary Clinton’s 3:00 a.m. phone […]