DOI: 10.3886/icpsr24592
title: ABC News/Washington Post Poll, October 2007
title: Archival Version

description: This poll, fielded October 29 through November 1, 2007, 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 1,131 adults was surveyed, including an oversample of African Americans, for a total of 203 African Americans respondents. Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way George W. Bush was handling his job as president, and whether they approved of the way the Congress was doing its job, whether they approved of the way the Republicans in Congress and the Democrats in Congress were doing their jobs, and who respondents wanted to see in control of Congress after the next congressional election. Opinions were sought on whether things in this country were on the right track, and who could be trusted more, the Democrats or the Republicans, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, health care, the United States campaign on terrorism, the economy, taxes, and immigration issues. Several questions were asked about the war in Iraq, including whether the war was worth fighting, whether the United States was making progress in restoring civil order in Iraq, whether the number of military forces should be increased, and whether United States forces in Iraq should be withdrawn immediately. Respondents were also asked how closely they were following the 2008 presidential race, for whom they would vote if the 2008 presidential primary were held that day, their opinion of the candidates, who they thought was best able to handle various situations facing the country, and their opinion of the most important issue in their choice for president. Additional topics covered whether the respondent was a feminist, whether smaller or larger governments were favored, whether homosexual couples should be allowed to form recognized civil unions, whether giving illegal immigrants the right to legally live in the United States was supported, whether abortion should be legal, and opinions about the nation's economy and a possible recession. 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, and political party affiliation.
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. 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. The oversample of African Americans was weighted back to their correct share of the national population.
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 respondents were oversampled.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: ABC News/Washington Post Poll, October 2007
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.The variables FIPS and ZIP were recoded to protect respondent confidentiality.The 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.