Archive for the ‘opinion polls’ tag
How Gay Marriage Polls #
Two things I’ve been meaning to share from Political Animal:
- A historical analysis of poll shows acceptance grows about about a point a year, with some violent perterbations around all the hubub of 2004. (via)
- And a recent California poll suggest voters actually support it, and oppose a ban. (via)
American Attitudes toward Climate Change #
Wired Science found a recent Pew survey on climate change both weird and confounding:
Over the last year and a half, the number of Americans who believe the Earth is warming has dropped. The decline is especially precipitous among Republicans: in January 2007, 62 percent accepted global warming, compared to just 49 percent now.
Seeing as how 2007 was the second-warmest year on record, and the popular press finally took climate change seriously, I’m not sure how attitudes shifted in this manner. That’s the troubling part.
The confounding part: among college-educated poll respondents, 19 percent of Republicans believe that human activities are causing global warming, compared to 75 percent of Democrats. But take that college education away and Republican believers rise to 31 percent while Democrats drop to 52 percent.
They Like US #
Get it? US as in “we Americans” and as in United States. Anyway… the BBC — who recently redesigned — are reporting that around the world opinions of America are less bad than they recently were. Hardly a vote of confidence — still more people think we’re bad than good — but a step in the right direction.
The average percentage of people saying that the US has a positive influence has risen to 35% from 31% a year ago, according to the survey.
Those saying the US has a negative influence fell five percentage points to 47%.
(via Passport)