U.S. Elections & Voters

The race for Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat began largely drama-free and little-covered and ended as the most surprising and intensely-covered political story in the country. Which candidate got the most favorable attention? How did coverage change over time? How did the local Boston papers differ in their reporting? A new study examines newspaper coverage of the race.

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.

In its Topic A feature for Sunday April 4, 2010, the Washington Post asked several experts -- among them the Pew Research Center's Director of Survey Research Scott Keeter -- whether the Republican Party would win in November with a negative strategy.

At a conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, Pew Research Center analysts and outside experts discussed research findings about the Millennial generation, the American teens and twenty-somethings now making the passage into adulthood. The last of three sessions addressed the question of whether Millennials, who rocked the vote in 2008, will show up at the polls this November and how they may shape the political landscape beyond?

The latest in a series of reports about the Millennial Generation, from Pew Social and Demo...

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.

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 […]

Overview The mood of America is glum. Two-thirds of the public is dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. Fully nine-in-ten say that national economic conditions are only fair or poor, and nearly two-thirds describe their own finances that way – the most since the summer of 1992. An increasing proportion of […]

Despite such challenges as a growing wireless-only population, possible racially-related response bias and greater-than-usual difficulties in forecasting turnout, polllsters' methods were evidently adequate to the task.

Overview Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has seen his favorability ratings improve and now enjoys a positive balance of opinion among the general public: 40% rate him favorably, 28% unfavorably. This marks a reversal of opinion from February 2008, during the latter stages of the GOP primary campaign, when just 30% viewed him favorably and […]