DOI: 10.3886/icpsr09801
title: CBS News/New York Times October Politics Survey, October 15-17, 1991
title: Archival Version

description: This survey focused on George Bush and the field of Democratic presidential candidates for the 1992 presidential election. Respondents were asked whether they approved of Bush's handling of the presidency, whether they would vote for Bush or for the Democratic nominee if the elections were held that day, and if there were any circumstances in which Bush supporters would change their votes to the Democratic candidate and vice versa. Respondents were also asked who they would like to see win the Democratic nomination, whether they were satisfied with the candidates, if the Democratic candidates had important differences, whether Mario Cuomo or Jesse Jackson should run for president in 1992, and whether the Democrats should nominate a liberal, a moderate, or a conservative. Those surveyed also considered whether a presidential candidate currently serving as governor could fulfill responsibilities to his or her home state and still run for president, whether marital infidelity, exaggerated war records, or homosexuality on the part of a candidate would influence the respondent to vote for someone else, whether Bush would be re-elected, and whether foreign policy or domestic issues would matter more in deciding how to vote. The survey posed additional questions, including whether Bush or a Democratic president would be more likely to do a better job of handling foreign policy and the economy, reducing the deficit, raise taxes, improving education, improving race relations, and improving health care, whether Bush or a Democratic president would be more likely to raise taxes, whether it would be preferable to have a candidate whose political experience was mostly outside Washington, whether most candidates for public office are financially corrupt and run because they want power and prestige, if a presidential candidate's opposition to the Persian Gulf War would influence the respondent's vote, whether the respondent would vote for a generally well-qualified Black presidential candidate if nominated by his or her party, and whether most White Americans would vote for a generally well-qualified Black presidential candidate if nominated by their party. Other questions involved the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and the Senate hearings on Anita Hill's sexual harassment charges against Thomas, limited terms for members of Congress, romantic relationships between men and women, and televised sports events.
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: Created variable labels and/or value labels..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: A weight variable has been included that must be used in any analysis. Telephone exchanges have been recoded to "999" and names of respondents have been blanked for reasons of confidentiality.
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over living in households with telephones.
description: A variation of random digit dialing 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. 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]).