DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04649.v1
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, December 2006
title: Version 1

description: This poll, conducted December 8-10, 2006, 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 whether they approved of the way President George W. Bush was handling the presidency and issues such as foreign policy and the economy. Respondents voiced their concerns about the most important problem facing the country, the condition of the national economy, their own household's financial security, and whether the country was moving in the right direction. A series of questions addressed respondents' feelings about the newly elected United States Congress, and whether the United States should intervene in other countries' affairs. Views were sought on the war with Iraq, whether the Iraqi government was strong enough to withstand pressure from the insurgents, and whether the United States government should solicit the help of neighboring countries in the Middle East in its efforts to create stability in Iraq. Other questions addressed the recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group commissioned by Congress, and whether the United States had a responsibility to make sure Iraq had a stable government before withdrawing its troops. Respondents were also asked about their own opportunities to succeed compared to those of their parents' generation, whether they expected their children to have better opportunities than they did, how often they experienced stress in their daily life, and how often this stress was caused by financial difficulties. Additional topics addressed holiday spending, retirement savings and investments, the real estate and stock markets, and whether respondents rented or owned their home. Demographic information includes sex, age, race, education level, household income, marital status, religious preference, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration status and participation history, the presence of household members between the ages of 18 and 24, whether respondents had children under 18, and whether they considered themselves to be born-again Christians.
description: The data contain weights that should be used for analysis.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
description: telephone interview 
The data available for download are not weighted, and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.
The CASEID variable was reformatted in order to make it a unique identifier.
The value label for code 38 in variable Q3 was assumed to be outdated and was changed to refer to the president in office at the time of the survey.
A value label for an unknown code was added to variable Q3.
Truncated value labels in Q3 and EDUC were corrected.
description: Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.
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).