DOI: 10.3886/icpsr32545.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, September 2010
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded September 30 through October 2010, 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 1,002 adults was surveyed. Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way Barack Obama was handling the presidency and the economy, whether they approved of the way the United States Congress was doing its job, which party they trusted more to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years, and who they trusted more to do a better job handling the economy, health care, immigration issues, the war in Afghanistan, the federal budget deficit, and taxes. Respondents were queried on whether they approved of the way their own representative in Congress was handling their job, whether they have heard about Republican congressional candidates signing something called a "Pledge to America" that pledges them to keep certain campaign promises if they are elected, whether they were inclined to vote to re-elect their representative in Congress in the next election, whether they were following the November election closely, whether they were planning to vote in the Congressional election in November, which party they would vote for in the election, whether they thought that this congressional election was more important or less important as past congressional elections, and whether voting in midterm elections was something they usually do. Respondents were also asked whether they thought it would be a good thing or a bad thing if control of Congress switched from the Democrats to the Republicans after November's election, which party they thought had better ideas about the right size and role of the federal government, how they would rate the state of the nation's economy, whether they thought that the nation's economy was getting better or worse, and whether they thought the money the federal government had spent on the economic stimulus had been mostly well spent or mostly wasted. Finally respondents were asked whether they supported or opposed the changes to the health care system that have been enacted by Congress and the Obama Administration, whether they would support or oppose an effort to cancel these changes in the health care system, whether they support or oppose the Tea Party movement, and how much they thought a Tea Party candidate would change the culture in Washington if they were elected.
Demographic variables include sex, age, race, household income, education level, political party affiliation, political philosophy, political ideology, religious preference, and whether the respondent is a born-again Christian.
description: The data contain a weight variable (POST2) 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. In this data, the weight variable was not labeled WEIGHT, please use variable POST2 for any weighting purposes.
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 Monthly Poll, September 2010
description: Persons aged 18 years and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
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, and ZIP were converted from character variables to numeric.To preserve respondent confidentiality, codes for the variables FIPS (FIPS County), ZIP (ZIP code), and QD1A (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, and METRODIV.In this data, the weight variable was not labeled WEIGHT, please use variable POST2 for any weighting purposes.The data collection was produced by Taylor Nelson Sofres of Horsham, PA. Original reports using these data may be found via the ABCNews Polling Unit Web site and via the Washington Post Opinion Surveys and Polls Web site.