DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04177
title: CBS News Public Pulse Data and Instant Polls of Undecided Voters for 2004 Presidential Debates 1 and 3 and Vice-Presidential Debate
title: Archival Version

description: The data were gathered through two different processes.
The data in Parts 1, 3, and 5 were gathered by asking respondents
questions concerning the 2004 United States Presidential Election and
the debates between the presidential and vice-presidential
candidates. Questions from Parts 1, 3, and 5 concerned opinions of
presidential candidates Senator John F. Kerry (Democrat) and President
George W. Bush (Republican) and vice-presidential candidates Senator
John Edwards (Democrat) and Vice-President Dick Cheney (Republican)
before and after their respective debates, opinions of each
presidential and vice-presidential candidate's qualities and
attributes, which candidate was more likely to win his debate, and
which candidate won his debate. Further debate questions addressed the
likelihood respondents were going to watch each debate, the level of
influence and importance of the debates, and whether one candidate
unfairly attacked his opponent in the debate. Also, respondents were
asked for their opinion of George W. Bush's handling of the presidency,
whether the country was going the right direction, the degree to which
their opinion of the vice-president affected their vote for president,
their opinion of the condition of the national economy, whether the
candidates shared the moral values of many United States citizens, the
likelihood the respondent was going to vote in the 2004 presidential
election, and what mattered more in the presidential election: national
security or the national economy. Pulse data (Parts 2, 4, and
6) were collected in order to obtain response time reactions to the
candidates and their statements. They were obtained by panelists being
instructed to move their cursor to the left and right to indicate how
much they like or dislike the messages being delivered by each
candidate throughout the debate. Background information for Parts 1,
3, and 5 includes age, education, employment status, head of
household status, home ownership status, household income and whether
the household was dual-income, housing type, labor union membership
status, likelihood of voting in the 2004 election, marital status,
military service status, number of children in the household,
political party affiliation, political ideology, race, religious
affiliation, sex, voter registration status, and whether the
respondent voted in the 2000 United States presidential election.
description: Response Rates: Presidential Debate 1: 79 percent, Vice-Presidential
Debate: 68 percent, Presidential Debate 3: 66 percent
description: A panel sample was used.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Presidential Debate #1
DS2: Presidential Debate #1 Pulse Data
DS3: Vice-Presidential Debate
DS4: Vice-Presidential Debate Pulse Data
DS5: Presidential Debate #3
DS6: Presidential Debate #3 Pulse Data
description: Registered voters who were undecided at the time of debate
and would be very likely or somewhat likely to watch the debate.
description: web-based surveyIn Parts 2, 4, and 6 the format of the TIME
variable was changed from DATE (hh:mm:ss:ss) (F11.2) to Numeric (F11.2)
for the sake of conversion between statistical packages. Users may
want to convert the TIME variable back to its original date
format.The data in Parts 2, 4, and 6 were measured every
second in order to get aggregate data concerning the degree to which
the message was liked or disliked. Within eight minutes after each
debate was over, data were collected on respondents' views of each
candidate's performance during the debate.