DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03918.v2
title: CBS News Monthly Poll #2, August 2003
title: Version 2

description: This poll, conducted August 26-28, 2003, is part of a continuing series of monthly polls that solicit opinions on political and social issues. Views were gathered on the 2004 presidential election, as well as President George W. Bush and his handling of the presidency, foreign policy, and the economy. Respondents were asked about the condition of the economy and whether it was better, worse, or the same as when George W. Bush first took office, how concerned respondents were that a member of their household would lose his or her job in the next year, and the degree of progress made by the Bush Administration in making the United States safe from terrorism, improving the economy, reducing taxes, creating new jobs, and improving the environment. A series of questions addressed whether the war with Iraq was worth it, if the number of troops in Iraq should be increased, decreased, or maintained, whether the Bush Administration told the entire truth, the success of United States efforts to bring order and stability to Iraq, and whether the United States or the United Nations should be responsible for Iraq's new government. Additional questions asked if respondents believed that the threat of terrorism increased, decreased, or stayed the same as a result of United States military action against Iraq, how concerned they were about the loss of civil liberties as a result of the measures enacted by the Bush Administration, whether government warnings about possible terrorist attacks on Americans were useful or harmful, and the likelihood of another terrorist attack in the United States in the next few months. Respondents were queried on how much attention they paid to the 2004 presidential campaign, whether they would vote to re-elect George W. Bush, whether George W. Bush or a Democratic nominee would likely win the election in 2004, whether foreign policy or domestic issues mattered more in deciding who to vote for, whether candidates should spend more time talking to voters or explaining their positions, and what one issue candidates should discuss. Respondents were asked for their opinions of Democratic presidential nominees John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, Howard Dean, and Dick Gephardt, who the Democratic Party should nominate as its candidate, whether this candidate should be liberal, moderate, or conservative, which Democratic presidential candidate had the best chance of winning, whether the respondent was satisfied with the Democratic nominees, and the likelihood that the respondent would vote in a Democratic or Republican presidential primary or caucus. Specific questions addressed whether respondents preferred a Democratic presidential candidate who would support the war in Iraq or oppose it, seek common ground with George W. Bush or challenge him, support gun control or oppose it, and eliminate recent federal tax cuts or keep them in place. Background variables include age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, religion, education, household income, political orientation, political ideology, if the respondent was registered to vote, if the respondent voted in the 2000 presidential election, and if so, for whom (Democrat Al Gore, Republican George W. Bush, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, or Green Party candidate Ralph Nader).
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
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.
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over having a telephone at home.
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).