DOI: 10.3886/icpsr24590.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Labor Day Poll, September 2007
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded September 4-7, 2007, is a 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 George W. Bush was handling his job as president, whether they approved of the way he was handling the situation in Iraq, and whether they approved of his handling of the United States campaign against terrorism. Respondent's opinions were solicited on whether they trusted the Democrats or the Republicans to do a better job in handling the war in Iraq and the campaign against terrorism. Respondents were asked for their opinions on multiple issues associated with the war in Iraq such as whether the war was worth fighting, whether respondents thought the United States would win or lose the war, how confident respondents were in the Iraqi government to fulfill their commitment to restore civil order in Iraq, whether the war had contributed to the security of the United States, and whether the United States had made progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq. Questions about the United States military force focused on whether respondents thought the increase in United States forces improved the situation in Iraq and Iraq's security situation within a few months, whether military forces should be further increased or decreased in Iraq, and whether withdrawing from Iraq would do more to increase the risk of a terrorist attack occurring in the United States. Additional questions addressed whether respondents were satisfied with the choice of candidates for the 2008 presidential election and for whom they were going to vote, General David Petraeus' progress report on the war in Iraq, respondent's confidence in the ability of the government to prevent further terrorist attacks against Americans, whether the war on terrorism could be a success without the United States winning the war, and whether the country was safer at the time of this poll versus September 11, 2001. Demographic information includes sex, age, race, education level, household income, military service, religious preference, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), political party affiliation, political philosophy, and voter registration status.
description: The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be used in analyzing the data. The data were weighted using demographic information from the Census to adjust for sampling and nonsampling deviations from population values. Respondents customarily were classified into one of 48 cells based on age, race, sex, and education. Weights were assigned so the proportion in each of these 48 cells matched the actual population proportion according to the Census Bureau's most recent Current Population Survey.
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 Labor Day Poll, September 2007
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: telephone interviewICPSR created a unique sequential record identifier variable named CASEID for use with online analysis.The data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.Variables MSA, CSA, CBSA, and METRODIV contain unknown codes.The variables PCTBLACK, PCTASIAN, PCTHISP, BLOCKCNT, MSAFLAG, CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, ZIP, and NIELSMKT were converted from character to numeric.Variables FIPS and ZIP were recoded and variable SMSKEY was removed to protect respondent confidentiality.Several codes in the variable CBSA contain diacritical marks.The data collection was produced by Taylor Nelson Sofres of Horsham, PA. Original reports using these data may be found via the ABC
News Polling Unit Web site and via the

Washington Post Opinion Surveys and Polls Web site.System missing values were recoded to -1.