DOI: 10.3886/icpsr24591.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Poll, September 2007
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded September 27-30, 2007, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the current presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. A national sample of 1,114 adults was surveyed, including an oversample of African Americans, for a total of 212 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 he was handling of the situation in Iraq, health care, the federal budget deficit, the economy, and the United States campaign against terrorism. Respondents were asked whether they approved of the way the Republicans in Congress and the Democrats in Congress were doing their jobs. Opinions were sought on the amount that Congress had accomplished that year, and whether Democrats or Republicans in Congress could be trusted more to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, health care, the United States campaign on terrorism, the economy, and the federal budget deficit. Several questions were asked about the war in Iraq, including whether the war in Iraq was worth fighting, whether the United States should keep military forces in Iraq until civil order is restored, whether an increase in United States forces in Iraq made the situation there better, whether the pace of troop reduction in Iraq should be increased, and whether a funding request for the war should be approved by Congress. 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, and whether they would vote for specific candidates if they won their party's nomination. Several questions also addressed Hillary Clinton including whether her views on issues were too liberal, whether she would take the presidency in a different direction than her husband if elected, whether her campaign was engaging in improper fund raising, and whether respondents felt comfortable with the idea of Bill Clinton as a first gentleman. Other topics included whether the respondent considered her or himself to be a feminist, quality of health care, health care costs, whether the cigarette tax should be increased to support federal spending on children's health insurance, and whether respondents approved of the way Bill Clinton handled his job as president while in office. 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 data were weighted 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.
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, September 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.Variables FIPS and ZIP were recoded to protect respondent confidentiality.The variables CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, and MSA contains unknown codes.The variables PCTBLACK, PCTASIAN, PCTHISP, BLOCKCNT, MSAFLAG, CSA, CBSA, METRODIV, ZIP, and NIELSMKT were converted from character to numeric.