DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04661.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Poll #1, June 2006
title: Version 1

description: This poll, conducted June 22-25, 2006, is part of a
continuing series of monthly polls that solicit public opinion on the
presidency and on a range of other political and social issues.
Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way President
George W. Bush was handling the presidency and issues such as the
economy and the situation in Iraq. Several questions asked which
political party respondents trusted to handle the main problems the
country would face in the next few years, whether they would vote for
a Democrat or Republican candidate if the November 2006 election for
the United States House of Representatives were being held that day,
and which issue was most important in their vote. Views were sought on
the war in Iraq and whether it had improved the lives of the Iraqi
people, encouraged democracy in other Arab nations, and contributed to
the long-term security of the United States. Respondents were polled
on whether the Bush Administration and the Democrats in the United
States Congress had a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq,
how well the United States campaign against terrorism was going,
whether the country was safer from terrorism than before September 11,
2001, and whether President Bush would be remembered more for the
United States campaign against terrorism or the war in Iraq. A series
of questions asked respondents whether they approved of the way United
States military forces in Iraq were doing their job, whether a
deadline should be set for their withdrawal from Iraq, and
respondents' reactions to the alleged killings of Iraqi civilians by
United States military forces. Additional topics addressed the death
penalty, the federal government's detention of suspected terrorists
without trial in the United States military prison in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, and the federal government's progress in its efforts to rebuild
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Demographic variables include sex,
age, race, education level, household income, political party
affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration status,
religious preference, and whether respondents considered themselves
born-again or evangelical Christians.
description: The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be
 used in analyzing the data. The data were weighted using demographic
 information from the Census to adjust for sampling and non-sampling
 deviations from population values. Respondents customarily were
 classified into one of 48 cells based on age, race, sex, and
 education. Weights were assigned so the proportion in each of these
 48 cells matched the actual population proportion according to the
Census Bureau's most recent Current Population Survey.
description: Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within
 households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the
 household who last had a birthday and who was home at the time of the
interview.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: ABC News/Washington Post Poll #1, June 2006
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with
telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: telephone interviewThe data available for download are not weighted
and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.Original
reports using these data may be found via the
ABC News Polling Unit
Web site and via the
Washington
Post Opinion Surveys and Polls Web site.System missing values
were recoded to -1.FIPS and ZIP variables were recoded for
confidentiality.The variables PCTBLACK, PCTASIAN, PCTHISP,
CONGDIST, BLOCKCNT, MSAFLAG, STCODE, CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, ZIP, and
NIELSMKT were converted from character to numeric.According to
the data collection instrument, code 3 in the variable Q909 also
included respondents who answered that they had attended a technical
school.Value labels for unknown codes were added in the CSA,
METRODIV, and MSA variables.Several codes in the variable CBSA
contain diacritical marks.The CASEID variable was created for use
with online analysis.