DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02164
title: Washington Post 1996 Politics Poll, Wave 1, September 1996
title: Archival Version

description: This special topic poll, conducted September 20-26, 1996,
 is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public
 opinion on the presidency and on a range of political and social
 issues. The focus of this data collection was on the upcoming 1996
 presidential and congressional elections. Those queried were asked
 about the likelihood that they would vote, for whom they would vote if
 the election were held that day, when they decided on their candidate,
 whether they had learned enough about the candidates to make an
 informed choice, and whether factors such as leadership and a
 candidate's stance on issues were major or minor reasons for their
 vote. Respondents were quizzed on their knowledge of the presidential
 and vice-presidential candidates, party platforms, campaign funding,
 which presidential candidate was leading in the polls, and which party
 had the most members in the United States Congress. Views were sought
 on the media's treatment of the presidential candidates, campaign
 advertisements featuring Newt Gingrich and the issue of Medicare,
 whether presidential campaigns were more negative than in the past,
 the influence of the recent party conventions, and whether the news
 media should report public opinion poll results. Other topics
 addressed abortion, sources of campaign information, how much
 attention respondents paid to media coverage of the presidential
 campaign, and whether they cared who won. Demographic variables
 include sex, age, race, ethnicity, education level, marital status,
 household income, political party affiliation, political philosophy,
 labor union membership, voter registration status, religious
 preference, and whether respondents thought of themselves as
born-again or evangelical Christians.
description: The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be
 used in analyzing the data. This poll consists of "standard" national
 representative samples of the adult population with sample balancing
of sex, race, age, and education.
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: Washington Post 1996 Politics Poll, Wave 1, September 1996
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with
telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: telephone interview(1) The data available for download are not weighted
 and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis. (2) Original
 reports using these data may be found via the
 Washington
 Post Opinion Surveys and Polls Web site. (3) The meaning
 of the variable SELECTB is unknown and may be associated with the
 sampling method of selecting a respondent based on the adult living in
 the household who last had a birthday. (4) According to the data
 collection instrument, code 3 in the variable EDUC includes
 respondents who answered that they had attended a technical school.
 (5) Value labels for unknown codes were added in the AGE, Q10, Q37,
 POLPARTY, and POLPHIL variables. (6) The CASEID variable was created
for use with online analysis.