DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03053
title: ABC News/Washington Post Poll, April 2000
title: Archival Version

description: This poll, fielded March 28, 2000, is part of a continuing
 series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the
 presidency and on a range of other political and social issues.
 Respondents were asked whether they intended to vote in the November
 7, 2000, presidential election and for whom they would vote if the
 election were held that day, given a choice between Vice President Al
 Gore (Democrat) and Texas governor George W. Bush (Republican). Views
 were sought on the importance of a list of issues to the respondent's
 electoral decision and which candidate could be trusted to address
 them. The list of issues included gun control, campaign finance
 reform, protecting patients' rights in the health care system, Social
 Security, taxes, the economy, crime, foreign affairs, education,
 encouraging high moral standards, the federal budget, protecting the
 environment, abortion, the death penalty, and women's
 issues. Respondents were asked whether federal spending on education
 should be increased, whether they supported or opposed a plan to reduce
 federal education spending in school districts whose students don't
 improve on standardized tests, and whether federal money should be
 used to send children to private schools in areas where the local
 public schools were not improving. A series of questions addressed
 crime control, including respondent support for gun control, whether
 stricter gun control laws would reduce the amount of violent crime,
 the best way to reduce violent crime, and the influence of the
 National Rifle Association (NRA). Attitudes were also elicited
 regarding whether campaign finance reform would reduce the influence
 of money in politics and the most effective ways to reduce improper
 campaign fundraising. Respondents were asked whether they favored a
 smaller government with fewer services or a larger government with
 more services and how often they trusted the government. An additional
 question sought respondents' opinions on whether Elian Gonzalez, the
 six-year-old Cuban boy whose mother drowned when they attempted to
 immigrate to Florida, should be returned to his father in Cuba or
 allowed to remain with his relatives in Miami. Background information
 on respondents includes age, gender, political party, political
 orientation, voter registration and participation history, education,
 religion, labor union membership, household gun ownership, Hispanic
origin, household income, and children in household.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: ABC News/Washington Post Poll, April 2000
description: (1) The data are provided as an SPSS portable file.
 (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.