DOI: 10.3886/icpsr27763.v1
title: ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, March 2009
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded March 26-29, 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, foreign policy, and the economy. Respondents were asked whether the Obama administration or the Republicans in Congress could be trusted to do a better job coping with the economic problems the nation faces and whether things in the country were going in the right direction. Respondents were also asked their opinions of First Lady Michelle Obama as well their opinions on the roles of banks, the Bush administration, large businesses and consumer debt, and the state of the national economy. Non-economic questions focused on the role of the United States in Afghanistan, confidence in the Obama administration in the handling of Afghanistan and the Taliban, efforts made in building relationships between the United States and Muslim-majority nations, and the general world image of the United States. Personal financial and economic topics addressed how concerned respondents were that they could maintain their current standard of living and in what areas they are experiencing spending cutbacks. Additional topics addressed familiarity and understanding of the Islamic religion and Muslims, and whether respondents had shopped at a Walmart store in the past 12 months. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, political political philosophy, party affiliation, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), education level, religious preference, employment status, 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, March 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, 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.