U.S. Elections & Voters

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 majority of American adults went online in 2008 to keep informed about political developments and to get involved with the election.

One-word descriptions of President Obama have changed dramatically since he was a candidate.

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...

Overview: Bush and Public Opinion As George W. Bush prepares to leave the White House, the United States is in many ways dramatically different from when he took the oath of office in 2001. His first few months as president were largely unremarkable, despite the contentious 2000 election. But the horrific terror attacks of Sept. […]

The latest study of Pew Research Center election surveys analyzes the effects of conducting both landline and cell phone interviews. While the addition of cell phones had at most a modest effect on estimates of candidate support in individual surveys, when looked at in the aggregate clear patterns emerge.

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 […]

What was the big religion story of the general election? A new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in conjunction with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life examines how the media covered religious matters.