DOI: 10.3886/icpsr27766.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, July 2009
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded July 15-18 2009, 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. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President Barack Obama and his handling of the presidency, the federal budget deficit, health care, the situation in Afghanistan, and the economy. Respondents were asked whether the Obama Administration or the Republicans in Congress could be trusted to do a better job handling the economy, health care, and the federal budget deficit. Respondents were also asked their opinions of Obama, whether the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration were to blame for the current economic situation, whether they approve of the parties in Congress and the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor. Several questions addressed federal spending, the respondent's personal economic situation, opinions on the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq as well as opinions on Vice President Joe Biden, Republican Sarah Palin, the United States space program and the 1969 moon landing. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, political philosophy, party affiliation, education level, religious preference, household income, and whether respondents considered themselves to be a born-again Christian.
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. 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.
description: Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within households, the respondent selected was the youngest adult living in the household who was home at the time of the interview. Please refer to the codebook documentation for more information on sampling.
description: Datasets: DS1: ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, July 2009
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 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, STATE, CONGDIST, and ZIP were converted from character variables to numeric.To preserve respondent confidentiality, codes for the variables FIPS (FIPS County) and ZIP (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.Several codes in the variable CBSA contain diacritical marks.Value labels for unknown codes were added in variables MSA, CSA, CBSA, COLLEDUC, and METRODIV.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.