DOI: 10.3886/icpsr27321.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, July 2008
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded July 10-13, 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 1,119 adults was surveyed, including an oversample of African Americans. Information was collected on how closely respondents were following the 2008 presidential race and the chances that they will vote in upcoming presidential election in November. Respondents were also queried on which candidate they would vote for if the 2008 presidential election were being held that day and who they would like to see win the Democratic nomination. Views were sought on how well George W. Bush was handling the presidency and if he has improved America's image in the rest of the world. Respondents were asked if they approved of the way the United States Congress is doing it's job and to rate how important certain issues are in their choice for president. Respondents were also queried on whether they thought the war in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth fighting, whether significant progress was made toward restoring civil order and whether they thought the United States must win the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for the war on terrorism to be a success. Several questions asked respondents to compare Barack Obama and John McCain, and which candidate they trusted to handle issues such as the war in Iraq, immigration, international affairs, the economy, and social issues, such as abortion and gay civil unions. Respondents were asked how financially secure they felt and if financial situations were a major cause of stress in their life. Information was also collected on respondents views of homosexuals serving in the military. Demographic variables include sex, age, marital status, race, income, voter registration status, political ideology, political party affiliation, political philosophy, military status, education level, religious preference, labor union membership, and whether respondents considered themselves to be a born-again Christian.
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. The oversample of African American respondents was weighted back to their correct share of the national population.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Standardized missing values.; Created online analysis version with question text.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, July 2008
description: ABC News/Washington Post Poll Series
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) 
The data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.
The variables PCTBLACK, PCTASIAN, PCTHISP, MSAFLAG, CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, NIELSMKT, BLOCKCNT, STCODE, CONGDIST and ZIP were converted from character variables to numeric.
To preserve respondent confidentiality, codes for the variables FIPS (FIPS County) and ZIP (ZIP Code) have been replaced with blank codes.
System-missing values were recoded to -1.
The CASEID variable was created for use with online analysis.
Value labels for unknown codes were added in variables MSA, CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, and NIELSMKT.
The variable CBSA contains 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. 
STCODE and CONGDIST were changed from character to numeric variables. In the process certain values were added to the correct numerical value.
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
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. This poll included an African American oversample. Please refer to the codebook documentation for more information on sampling.