DOI: 10.3886/icpsr24601.v1
title: Washington Post Virginia Poll, October 2007
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded October 4-8, 2007, is a part of continuing series of monthly
polls that solicit public opinion on various political and social issues.
This poll focused on Virginia and the state elections.
Virginia residents were asked what was the biggest issue facing Virginia at that
time, whether they thought the state of Virginia was moving in the right
direction, and to rate the condition of Virginia's economy.
Several questions asked whether respondents approved of the way the Virginia state
legislature was handling its job, and for opinions of Governor Tim Kaine,
Senator James Webb, Senator John Warner, the Republicans and Democrats in the
state legislature, Junior Senator Mark Warner, Former Governor Jim Gilmore, and
Congressman Tom Davis.
Respondents were asked how closely they had been following the races
for general assembly and state senate in Virginia, how likely they would be to vote in
the Virginia state elections and for whom they would vote if the 2008 United States senate
race were being held that day, which political party they would like to see in control
of the state legislature, and which issues would be most important in their vote for the
Virginia state legislature.
A series of questions asked respondents about immigration, including how many recent
immigrants lived in the respondents' area at the time, how much contact they had with
recent immigrants, their opinions of immigrants and how they
affect the country, whether illegal immigration was a problem in their area, and how
federal, state, and local governments should handle illegal immigration issues.
Information was also collected on how closely respondents were following the
2008 presidential race, how likely they were to vote in the 2008 presidential
primaries in their state, for whom respondents would vote if the Democratic
and Republican primaries and presidential election were being held that day,
and for their opinions on the 2008 potential presidential candidates.
Respondents were asked which political party they trusted more to handle issues such as taxes and the war in Iraq, which political party they preferred the next president to belong to, as well as whether they approved of the way George W. Bush was handling the presidency.
Additional topics included the Iraq War, traffic congestion in their area of the state, Virginia's transportation
funding plan, and Virginia's law on abusive driver fees. Demographic information includes sex, age, race, education level, household income, religious preference, frequency of religious
attendance, whether respondents considered themselves to be a born-again
Christian, whether anyone in the household was a military veteran, marital
status, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), whether respondents were born in the United States, how many years they had lived in the state of Virginia, voter registration
status and participation history, political party affiliation, political
philosophy, and the presence of children under the age of 18 in the household.
description: The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be used in analyzing the data. The weights were derived using demographic information from the Census to adjust for sampling and nonsampling deviations from population values. Until 2008 ABC News used a cell-based weighting system in which respondents were classified into one of 48 or 32 cells (depending on sample size) based on their age, race, sex, and education; weights were assigned so the proportion in each cell matched the Census Bureau's most recent Current Population Survey. To achieve greater consistency and reduce the chance of large weights, ABC News in 2007 tested and evaluated iterative weighting, commonly known as raking or rim weighting, in which the sample is weighted sequentially to Census targets one variable at a time, continuing until the optimum distribution across variables (again, age, race, sex, and education) is achieved. ABC News adopted rim weighting in January 2008. Weights are capped at lows of 0.2 and highs of 6.
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: Washington Post Virginia Poll, October 2007
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the state of Virginia.
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)The CASEID variable was created for use with online analysis.To preserve respondent confidentiality, codes for the variables FIPS (FIPS County) and ZIP (ZIP Code) have been replaced with blank codes.System-missing values were recoded to -1.The data collection was produced by Taylor Nelson Sofres of Horsham, PA. Original reports using these data may be found via the Washington Post Opinion Surveys and Polls Web site.Several codes in the variable CBSA contain diacritical marks.The variables PCTBLACK, PCTASIAN, PCTHISP, BLOCKCNT, MSAFLAG, CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, ZIP, NIELSMKT, STCODE, and CONGDIST were converted from character to numeric.The variable CBSA contains unknown codes.The data available for download are not weighted. Users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.