DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04014.v3
title: CBS News National Super Tuesday Poll, February 2004
title: Version 3

description: This special topic poll, fielded February 24-27, 2004, is
part of a continuing series of monthly polls that solicit public
opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social
issues. Views were sought on the 2004 presidential campaign prior to
the upcoming presidential primaries held on Super Tuesday, March 2,
2004, as well as President George W. Bush and his handling of the
presidency, foreign policy, the economy, the situation with Iraq, and
the war against terrorism. Respondents were polled on how much
attention they paid to the 2004 presidential campaign, whether they
would vote for President Bush or a Democratic candidate, whom they
expected to win, whether their mind was made up, what issue they most
wanted candidates to discuss, and whether they planned to vote or had
already voted in a Republican or Democratic primary or caucus.
Opinions were solicited on Independent presidential candidate Ralph
Nader, as well as Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards,
John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton. Respondents were asked
who the Democratic party should nominate as its presidential
candidate, whether they preferred a candidate who supported more or
less restrictions on foreign trade, whether a candidate's position on
issues or ability to defeat Bush was most important in their choice,
whether they had ever supported candidate Howard Dean, and their level
of satisfaction if Kerry or Edwards won the nomination. Respondents
also rated their level of confidence in the ability of Bush, Kerry, and
Edwards to handle an international crisis, whether each cared about
the needs and problems of people like the respondent, and whether
their decisions were influenced by special interests. Several
questions asked whether the result of the war with Iraq was worth the
human and economic costs, whether the United States made the right
decision in taking military action against Iraq, whether Iraq was a
threat to the United States before the war, whether it had weapons of
mass destruction, and how well the Bush administration assessed the
threat of these weapons prior to the war. Additional topics addressed
the condition of the national economy, the effect of the Bush
administration's policies on the number of jobs available, whether
respondents would support or oppose a constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriage, and whether they would ever vote for a candidate
who didn't share their views on gay marriage. Background variables
include age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, education, religion,
religiosity, household income, number of telephone lines in household,
political party affiliation, political orientation, and voter
registration and participation history.
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).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News National Super Tuesday Poll, February 2004
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over
having a telephone at home.
description: This collection has not been processed by ICPSR
staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this
collection in essentially the same form in which they were received.
When appropriate, documentation has been converted to Portable
Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to
non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to
ensure respondents' anonymity.The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.