DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03839
title: ABC News/Washington Post Poll, March 1995
title: Archival Version

description: This poll, conducted March 16-19, 1995, is part of a 
 continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on a 
 range of political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give 
 their opinions of President Bill Clinton and his handling of the 
 presidency, the economy, foreign affairs, and crime. Respondents were 
 polled on the most important problem facing the country, whether they 
 approved or disapproved of the way Speaker of the House Newt 
 Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and the United States 
 Congress were doing their jobs, whether President Clinton or the 
 Republicans in Congress would do a better job handling the country's 
 problems, and whether each was seeking the right or wrong changes for 
 the country. Opinions were solicited on whether the Republicans in 
 Congress had begun to gridlock Washington, whether they kept most of 
 their campaign promises, whether they proposed too many, too little, 
 or the right amount of program cuts, and whether respondents 
 supported or opposed most of their "Contract with America." A series 
 of questions addressed the condition of the national economy, whether 
 the federal budget could be balanced without raising taxes or cutting 
 spending on Social Security and the military, and whether it was more 
 important to pass a balanced budget amendment or to protect Social 
 Security, maintain military spending, or hold down taxes. Respondents 
 were asked whether they would vote for President Clinton or a 
 Republican nominee in the 1996 presidential election, who the 
 Republican and Democratic parties should nominate for president, and 
 whether respondents held favorable or unfavorable views of Newt 
 Gingrich, Bob Dole, Vice-President Al Gore, Senator Phil Gramm, 
 former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, Republican 
 presidential nominee Lamar Alexander, and California Governor Pete 
 Wilson. Opinions were also solicited on whether respondents had more 
 trust in their federal, state, or local government to handle issues 
 such as fighting crime, setting environmental regulations, 
 establishing welfare rules, and protecting civil rights, and whether 
 they supported or opposed term limits for United States 
 Representatives, as well as laws discouraging frivolous lawsuits. 
 Questions regarding affirmative action addressed whether women and 
 minorities should receive preference in hiring and college admissions 
 to make up for past discrimination, whether affirmative action 
 programs increased opportunities for these groups, and whether they 
 should be continued, changed, or eliminated. Respondents were also 
 asked whether these programs resulted in fewer opportunities for 
 White men, whether this would be justified, whether the respondent or 
 a family member felt they had been denied a job because of their race 
 or sex, and whether it made them angry. Additional questions asked 
 how closely respondents followed the O.J. Simpson trial, whether he 
 was getting a fair trial, and whether he was guilty or innocent. 
 Background variables include age, sex, ethnicity, education, 
 religion, employment status, household income, political orientation, 
 political party affiliation, subjective size of community, social 
 class, number and sex of children, labor union membership, whether 
 the respondent was registered to vote, whether he or she voted in the 
1992 presidential election, and if so, for whom.
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, March 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.