DOI: 10.3886/icpsr24604.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Pre-Super Tuesday Poll, January 2008
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded January 30 - February 01, 2008, 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. A national sample of 1,249 adults was surveyed, including an oversample of African Americans and Latinos, for a total of 215 African Americans respondents and 186 Latino respondents. Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way George W. Bush was handling his job as president, and whether they approved of his handling of the war in Iraq and the economy. Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way United States Congress as a whole was doing its job, as well as whether they approved of the way Republicans in Congress and Democrats in Congress were doing their jobs. Opinions were sought on the amount that Congress had accomplished that year, and who could be trusted more, the Democrats or the Republicans, to do a better job handling the war in Iraq, health care, the United States campaign on terrorism, the economy, taxes, and the federal budget deficit. Questions were asked about the war in Iraq, including whether the war was worth fighting, and whether respondents thought the United States was making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq. Respondents were also asked how closely they were following the 2008 presidential race, the probability that they would vote in the primary, for whom they would vote in the general election and their state's presidential primary if the election were held that day, their opinion of the candidates, who they trusted to handle various issues, whether they would vote for specific candidates if they won their party's nomination, and what they felt was the most important issue in their choice for president. Opinions were sought on Bill Clinton and whether respondents felt comfortable with the idea of Clinton being a first husband and whether Clinton played a positive or negative role in Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Other topics included the state of the nation's economy, the financial situation of the respondent's family, and how respondents would spend a federal rebate check. Demographic information includes voter registration status and participation history, sex, age, race, income, marital status, religious preference, religious service attendance, education level, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), political philosophy, political party affiliation, and whether the respondent or anyone in the home was a military veteran.
description: The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be used in analyzing the data. The weights were derived using demographic information from the Census to adjust for sampling and nonsampling deviations from population values. Until 2008 ABC News used a cell-based weighting system in which respondents were classified into one of 48 or 32 cells (depending on sample size) based on their age, race, sex and education; weights were assigned so the proportion in each cell matched the Census Bureau's most recent Current Population Survey. To achieve greater consistency and reduce the chance of large weights, ABC News in 2007 tested and evaluated iterative weighting, commonly known as raking or rim weighting, in which the sample is weighted sequentially to Census targets one variable at a time, continuing until the optimum distribution across variables (again, age, race, sex and education) is achieved. ABC News adopted rim weighting in January 2008. Weights are capped at lows of 0.2 and highs of 6.
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. African American and Latino respondents were oversampled.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: ABC News/Washington Post Pre-Super Tuesday Poll, January 2008
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)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.ICPSR 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.Several codes in the variable CBSA contain diacritical marks.System missing values were recoded to -1.Variables FIPS and ZIP were recoded to protect respondent confidentiality.Variables MSA, CSA, CBSA, and METRODIV contain unknown codes.The variables PCTBLACK, PCTASIAN, PCTHISP, CONGDIST, BLOCKCNT, MSAFLAG, CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, ZIP, and NIELSMKT were converted from character to numeric.