DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03836.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Poll, January 1995
title: Version 1

description: This poll, conducted January 26-29, 1995, is part of a 
 series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the 
 presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. 
 Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President Bill 
 Clinton and his handling of the presidency and the economy. A series 
 of questions addressed whether President Clinton and the Republicans 
 in Congress were trying to work with or against each other and 
 whether this was a good or bad thing, whether Clinton or the 
 Republicans would do a better job dealing with the country's 
 problems, whether the changes they were seeking were right or wrong 
 for the country, and which cared more about serving lower income, 
 middle income, and upper income people. Questions were posed 
 regarding how well the United States Congress was doing its job, 
 whether Congress was able to deal with the main issues facing the 
 country, and whether the federal government should be allowed to 
 impose regulations on state and local governments without providing 
 the necessary funding. Respondents were polled on whether they 
 supported or opposed issues such as banning assault weapons, raising 
 the minimum wage, imposing term limits for United States 
 Representatives, and giving loan guarantees to Mexico. Those surveyed 
 were asked whether balancing the federal budget would make the 
 country's problems better or worse, whether it could be done without 
 cutting useful government programs, which programs should be cut, the 
 percentage of federal tax dollars that they felt were wasted, and 
 whether they supported or opposed a constitutional amendment 
 requiring a balanced federal budget. Questions regarding the 
 professional major league baseball strike polled respondents on 
 whether they sided with the players or the owners, whether there 
 should be a limit on players' earnings, whether they believed the 
 owners' claims that some teams could be forced to move if players' 
 salaries were not limited, and whether replacement players should be 
 used. Several questions asked whether respondents considered 
 themselves baseball fans, how closely they would follow the season if 
 replacement players were used, whether the league playoffs and World 
 Series should be cancelled if the strike was not settled by the end 
 of the season, whether the strike would hurt baseball's popularity, 
 and whether or not President Clinton and Congress should force a 
 settlement of the strike. A series of questions addressed how often 
 respondents flew on commercial airlines, what factors were important 
 in choosing an airline, and the overall safety of commercial air 
 travel. Opinions were solicited on Newt Gingrich's handling of his 
 job as Speaker of the House of Representatives, whether respondents 
 had heard or read anything about his book publishing contract, and if 
 he did anything illegal or wrong in the book deal. Respondents were 
 also polled on whether their family's financial situation was better, 
 worse, or about the same compared to two years ago and the degree to 
 which President Clinton was responsible, whether they considered 
 themselves religious or spiritual, and how often they prayed or 
 attended religious services. Additional questions asked respondents 
 how closely they followed the O.J. Simpson case, whether he was 
 guilty or not guilty, and whether the news coverage of the trial was 
 good or bad. Background variables include sex, age, ethnicity, 
 household income, marital status, employment status, religion, 
 education, subjective size of community, political orientation, 
 political party, labor union membership, social class, whether the 
 respondent was registered to vote, whether they voted in the 1992 
 presidential election, and if so, for whom (Democrat Bill Clinton, 
Republican George H.W. Bush, or Independent candidate Ross Perot).
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, January 1995
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with 
telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: (1) Additional information about sampling, 
 interviewing, weighting, and sampling error may be found in the 
 codebook. (2) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff. 
 ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this collection 
 in essentially the same form in which they were received. When 
 appropriate, documentation has been converted to Portable Document 
 Format (PDF), data files have been converted to non-platform-specific 
 formats, and variables have been recoded to ensure respondents' 
 anonymity. (3) The codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable 
 Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by 
 Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader 
 software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to 
 obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web 
site.