DOI: 10.3886/icpsr32507
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #2, September 2010
title: Archival Version

description: This poll, fielded September 10-14, 2010, 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 approved of the way Barack Obama was handling his job as president, the economy, and the situation with Afghanistan. Respondents were also asked what they thought was the most important problem facing the country, whether they thought things in the country were going in the right direction, whether they approved of the way Congress as a whole and individual Democrats and Republicans in Congress were handling their jobs, whether they thought the economy was getting better and their rating of the economy. Opinions were sought on the Republican and Democratic Party, whether the Congressional representative from their district and members of Congress deserved to be re-elected, and whether they thought Republicans in Congress or Barack Obama had a clear plan for solving the nation's problems. Respondents were asked multiple questions about Barack Obama including whether he has made progress in fixing the economy, whether he has expanded the role of government too much in trying to solve the nation's economic problems, whether the Obama Administration had increased taxes for most Americans, and whether respondents thought he had a clear plan for creating jobs. Information was collected on whether respondents thought the country needed a third political party, whether they would rather have a smaller or bigger government, whether the Republicans or the Democrats had better ideas about solving the nation's problems, whether respondents approved of the health care law that was enacted the previous March, whether Congress should repeal this health care law, and who they thought was doing more, Barack Obama or the Republicans in Congress, to improved the economy. Respondents were asked whether they thought Arab Americans, Muslims, and immigrants from the Middle East were being singled out unfairly by people in the United States, whether respondents themselves had negative feelings towards Muslims because of the attack on the World Trade Center, and whether they knew anyone that was Muslim. Additional questions focused on Sarah Palin, the war in Iraq, personal finances, the war in Afghanistan, and the Tea Party movement. Demographic information includes sex, age, race, education level, household income, employment status, military service, religious preference, reported social class, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration status, and whether respondents thought of themselves as born-again Christians.
description: The data contain weight variables that should be used in analyzing the data. According to the CBS News Web site, the data were weighted to match United States Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. The data were also adjusted for the fact that people who share a telephone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own telephones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one telephone number.
description: A variation of random-digit dialing (RDD) using primary sampling units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone numbers identical through the eighth digit and stratified by geographic region, area code, and size of place. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. Within households, respondents were selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and modified by Charles Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1963).
description: Datasets: DS1: CBS News Monthly Poll #2, September 2010
description: telephone interviewThe data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.The CASEID variable was reformatted in order to make it a unique identifier.Truncated value label in variable EDUC was corrected.This data collection was produced by CBS News, New York, NY.