The End of Christian America. The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Apr 4, 2009 - 223 comments

Rethinking Public Opinion - the immense importance of public opinion polling in American politics, and the under-reported problems at the heart of the enterprise, combine to call for a serious critique of the polling industry, its assumptions, and its method
posted by Gyan on Nov 8, 2008 - 40 comments

Maybe America needs Barack more than Barack needs America... It's got to be tough being Barack Obama these days. Just managing to hang onto a slim lead in the polls against a truly horrifying Republican ticket - after eight years in which a Republican administration has all but destroyed the nation. Having to explain to people over and over again that no, he's really not a Muslim, and people still don't believe him. Sarah Palin. Maybe America isn't worth Barack's trouble. Maybe there's other fish in the sea, America. Maybe you ought to think about that a little and stop being this way. Canada has an election coming up too, and given what they've got to work with, more and more Canadians are starting to take a hard look south of the border.
posted by Naberius on Sep 23, 2008 - 78 comments

Obama: The Price of Being Black
posted by wittgenstein on Sep 22, 2008 - 76 comments

According to a recent international survey, there remains no global consensus regarding who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. "On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator... The U.S. government was to blame, according to 23 percent of Germans and 15 percent of Italians." The poll was collected by World Public Opinion, a neat website filled with various polls about interesting topics.
posted by Baby_Balrog on Sep 11, 2008 - 131 comments

Margins of Error We can't seem to let the future alone. Even though we often get predictions about it so wrong. Because, as Niels Bohr once said, "Prediction is very difficult. Especially if it is about the future." What are the origins of political polling (beware of awful interface design)? And how is political polling evolving?
posted by jeanmari on Sep 8, 2008 - 5 comments

Who are Muslims? Gallup has conducted a poll "in 40 predominantly Muslim nations and among significant Muslim populations in the West. It is the first set of unified and scientifically representative views from 1.3 billion Muslims globally." They'll be parsing and interpreting this data for years, but for the time being, they've offered some of their key results online and in print. See also, the Muslim-West Facts Initiative. (via) [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea on Jul 28, 2008 - 37 comments

State by state electoral college analysis and predictions for the main 2008 presidential candidates, based on polling data and updated daily. [more inside]
posted by Brian B. on May 29, 2008 - 106 comments

Election poll fatigue? Diversify your daily dose of stats with What Japan Thinks. Check out Japan's favorite emoticons, thoughts on drinking vinegar, and of course awwcats. [more inside]
posted by soma lkzx on Jan 25, 2008 - 28 comments

Ask 500 (or 100) people: Random participants answer each other's polls on prayer in school, the bible, philosophers, iraq, social habits, love & marriage, materialism, freedom of speech, or whatever topic of interest someone wants to open up for a very momentary spotlight, and reasonably accurate data. [more inside]
posted by mdn on Nov 25, 2007 - 29 comments

People vandalising Wikipedia is hardly a new thing but now even the office of the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, is getting into the act. Website Wiki-Scanner (previously) has traced several edits to Wikipedia articles by the Prime Ministers staff, according to Australian newspaper The Courier Mail. And they aren't confined solely to the Wikipedia entry on the PM himself; there was even an act of vandalism on a martial-arts related entry, in which one of Howard's ministerial staffers wrote, “Poo bum dicky wee wee” on the page. Not good news on the eve of a federal election that the PM is largely expected to lose. Meanwhile, 'new media' is being put to good use at Opposition leader Kevin Rudd's website, Kevin07, where a recent blog entry compiles Youtube's 'best' political videos. Hours of fun for the whole family!
posted by Effigy2000 on Aug 23, 2007 - 17 comments

A poll that the GOP is actually winning Reagan?! What is happening to The Atlantic?
posted by papoon on Nov 9, 2006 - 85 comments

Introducing Pollster.com. PoliticalArithmetik and the Mystery Pollster combine to form Pollster.com (about; FAQ; guide to charts and data). The site features nifty charts and graphs of state-by-state senatorial and gubernatorial races. [more inside; via]
posted by kirkaracha on Sep 2, 2006 - 5 comments

As in the 2004 elections, several useful sites have sprung up to keep track of the 2006 midterms for House, Senate and state gubernatorial races. Some have a political point of view, others don't, but they don't differ significantly on the outcome at this point. One of the veterans in this game is ElectionProjection.com, which was pretty close to actual results in '04. (A creation of "the Blogging Caesar"). From the right, there's MyElectionAnalysis.com, while ElectionPredictions seems to come from a neutral corner. All of these track statewide polls as they are published; they may differ in how they weight results. For a more subjective approach, see Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball or the Cook Political Report. Overall, the consensus seems to be that the GOP will hold both houses, but with slimmer margins, and lose on the gubernatorial front.
posted by beagle on Jul 10, 2006 - 30 comments

Mexico's election: now being recounted, but some are saying it was stolen with our help. Many countries in Latin and South America have been moving to the left lately, following in the footsteps of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile. Argentina actually caught us messing with things during their election, too. Exit polls in Mexico (as in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004) showed a lead for the more leftist (relatively) candidate, and for those who scoff at using exit polls as evidence--in 2004, US Republican Senator Richard Lugar, in Kiev, cited the divergence of exit polls and official polls as solid evidence of “blatant fraud” in the vote count in Ukraine. As a result, the Bush Administration refused to recognize the Ukraine government’s official vote tally. So, honest election, or what?
posted by amberglow on Jul 3, 2006 - 65 comments

updated red state/blue state map of America with recent poll results in place. Bush still (alarmingly) holding down Utah, Idaho & Wyoming, otherwise, not so great...
posted by jonson on May 19, 2006 - 53 comments

Bush out of favor in 47 out of 50 states. The SurveyUSA 50-state-poll shows some interesting details on Bush's approval rating, which has fallen to just 35% in North (and South) Carolina, 29% in Missouri, and 42% in Texas. He remains popular in only three states: Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Could the Democrats have a shot even in Utah in the not-too-distant future? A lot of Utahns think so.
posted by insomnia_lj on May 16, 2006 - 89 comments

A recent poll ranks atheists as America's most distrusted minority. Despite some inroads into American's acceptance of religious diversity, distrust of the godless appears to have held steady. Should atheists evangelize, or perhaps follow in the footsteps of certain Christian fundamentalists and seek an Atheist Homeland? The sticks and stones seem endless, after all. via
posted by maryh on Mar 22, 2006 - 305 comments

Nearly Half of Americans want to let states legally regulate and tax marijuana the way they do liquor and gambling.
Zogby International will pimp there services to just about anyone these days, including NORML for a poll on American's attitudes towards pot. According to the poll 65% of 18-29 year olds and 50% of 50-64 year-olds are cool with weed being legal and controlled like booze. The former slackers of Generation X, 30-49 year-olds, oppose it by 58% and the geezers over 65 oppose it by only 52%.

The pool shows some interesting generational attitudes. Is the 30-49 age group still following Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" mantra or is this the attitude of parents worried about their kids? I thought these folks were supposed to be the slacker generation, and now they're the strongest opponents to legalization.
posted by DragonBoy on Mar 17, 2006 - 130 comments

The happiness poll results are in and to no one's surprise, rich people are happier than poor people. Also, Republicans are happier than Democrats.
posted by mr_crash_davis on Mar 16, 2006 - 65 comments

US Troop poll results in: 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately. In other news, 58% of Americans think the troops should stay. Back to the troops: 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks,” 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.”
posted by caddis on Feb 28, 2006 - 74 comments

The 100 Greatest Americans ? This Sunday night at 8:00, the Discovery Channel will begin a seven hour series that starts with the top 100 Americans nominated by an on-line poll and culminates in real-time election- style voting, as America selects one person to be named the "Greatest American." Dr. Phil vs. Oprah, Barbara Bush vs. Laura Bush, and Jacko vs. Madonna. Can you feel the excitement?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy on Jun 3, 2005 - 45 comments

Time Mag's 100 All Time Best Flicks Compiled by their OWN critics, of course. Hence no Kevin Smith masterpieces mentioned. The List also fails to mention some of the most popular movies of all time. It can't be right if it doesn't include the Wizard of Oz.
posted by PrincessLara on May 27, 2005 - 35 comments

A new poll finds that the American public would significantly alter the Bush administration’s recently proposed federal budget. Presented a breakdown of the major areas of the proposed discretionary budget and given the opportunity to redistribute it, respondents made major changes. The most dramatic changes were deep cuts in defense spending, a significant reallocation toward deficit reduction, and increases in spending on education, job training, reducing reliance on oil, and veterans. These changes were favored by both Republicans and Democrats, though the changes were generally greater for Democrats.
What America Gets Right (pdf) via The Gadflyer
posted by y2karl on Mar 8, 2005 - 49 comments

As Iraqis go to the polls on Jan. 30, it will be a daunting first exercise in democracy.
posted by furtive on Jan 26, 2005 - 31 comments

As the polls close election results come in. (A full list of official election result websites inside.)
posted by calwatch on Nov 2, 2004 - 441 comments

           This November
  Voters Will Go To The Polls
       And Elect A President
       But More Importantly
       They Will Also Select
        The Supreme Court

 And now, the ultimate reality show

     Supreme Court Survivor

     (courtesy of Michael Bérubé)
posted by y2karl on Nov 1, 2004 - 4 comments

Former Bush ghostwriter confirms Bush had plans for Iraq in 1999. Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father’s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “Suddenly, he’s at 91 percent in the polls, and he’d barely crawled out of the bunker.”
posted by RavinDave on Oct 28, 2004 - 37 comments

World supports Kerry: BBC World Service's online poll results by language, religion, sex and age
posted by hoder on Oct 25, 2004 - 16 comments

The National Journal opens up its doors to the public for two weeks every four years. Best known for its annual vote ratings (which declared John Kerry most liberal senator of 2003), there's also ads galore, snarky coverage of the media, and more polls than you can shake your fist at.
posted by calwatch on Jul 24, 2004 - 6 comments

Voice of a Superpower --Foreign Policy magazine puts together an interview with John & Jane Q. Public on us, the world, terror, and stuff--based on our responses to public-opinion polls from a wide variety of sources.
posted by amberglow on Jun 7, 2004 - 5 comments

A choice quote, probably soon to fall down the memory hole:

More people than not believe that going to war with Iraq was the right thing to do, but that number has declined to 48 percent in this poll, compared to 53 percent in April.

Any other amusing misprints, on either side of the debate?
posted by effugas on May 14, 2004 - 35 comments

Zogby calls the election for Kerry
John Zogby goes out on a limb and predicts John Kerry will be the next POTUS.
posted by wsg on May 11, 2004 - 38 comments

Understanding polls. For those of us who slept through statistics.
posted by skallas on Apr 23, 2004 - 10 comments

POLL: should gays be able to marry? The American Family Association wants to know what you think - should gays be able to marry? They plan to tell Congress about the results. Let them hear from you.
posted by subpixel on Dec 18, 2003 - 60 comments

Three million Germans have voted post-war Chancellor Konrad Adenauer as the greatest German of all time. Reformation Monk Martin Luther came second, with communist philosopher Karl Marx third. Composer Johann Sebastian Bach and writer Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe were also in the running. Adolf Hitler and other Nazis were excluded from the poll.
posted by stbalbach on Nov 30, 2003 - 16 comments

How the Poll Results on Iraq Were Manipulated by James Zogby, Special to Arab News - ...In fact, Zogby International in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the American Enterprise Institute did publish their interpretation of the findings. But the AEI’s "spin" and the vice president’s use of their "spin" created a faulty impression of the poll’s results and, therefore, of the attitudes of the Iraqi people. Consider some of the other poll findings: Over 55 percent give a negative rating to "how the US military is dealing with Iraqi civilians." Only 20 percent gave the US military a positive rating... When asked whom they preferred to "provide security and restore order in their country," only 6.5 percent said the US...
posted by y2karl on Oct 23, 2003 - 16 comments

100 Documents that Shaped America. (Via Fark, of all places.)
posted by PrinceValium on Sep 29, 2003 - 18 comments

The tide is turning. A new poll from the Pew Research Center indicates that the Bush Administration is losing support for a war against Iraq, with only 29% favoring war if U.N. inspectors fail to find weapons of mass destruction. Polls are looking considerably worse in Great Britain, where 47% of the public disapprove of an attack on Iraq, compared to just 30% in favor of such an attack. Blair is certain that he can get the British public to support war, however, even if Britain goes to war without U.N. support. "When and if that time came, people would find the reasons acceptable and satisfactory because there is no other route available to us."
posted by insomnia_lj on Jan 21, 2003 - 55 comments

The BBC World Service are searching for the World's favourite song. If hundreds of Irish students have their way it'll be the kitschy rebel song A Nation Once Again but by the look of the contenders they'll have a fight on their hands.

What would your choice be?
posted by stunned on Dec 12, 2002 - 26 comments

A monster of a poll (by America's monster pollster PEW) asking 38.000 people (!) in 44 countries what they think of America. VERY interesting!
posted by acrobat on Dec 9, 2002 - 41 comments

Voter News Service has abandoned its state and national exit polls. VNS, a group formed by the major media (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and Associated Press) to provide exit polls, rebuilt it's computer system after the 2000 media debacle, which VNS was blamed for. The computer system still did not work today. Rather than face embarrassment again, VNS has decided to not give any projections to the media.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Nov 5, 2002 - 40 comments

Conservatives rare species on campus "A poll by the Enterprise Institute showed that professors registered as Democrats outnumbered Republicans at Stanford, 151 to 17. At Berkeley, the lopsided score was 59-7. At Cornell, 166-6. And so on." When I was in college, I guess I was too busy trying to earn my degree to notice if conservatives were allowed to exist or not. I don't remember much political indoctrination in my physics or differential equations classes. Are the campuses really like what this columnist suggests?
posted by munger on Oct 21, 2002 - 148 comments

Canadians fuzzy on concept of left and right. A new poll suggests that three quarters of Canadians have trouble telling political left from right. Sort of makes me wonder why voter turnout is higher in Canada than the U.S.. Canadians are also hard to pin down politically, as polls suggests they generally want less taxes and more government spending.
posted by bobo123 on Apr 30, 2002 - 17 comments

Polls Come Under Fire. Watchdog Group Issues Rebuke on Poll on Islamic Countries. Meanwhile, those bogus aggregates continue to circulate freely in this country and around the world.
posted by semmi on Mar 22, 2002 - 16 comments

Public Survey for Input to the Planetary Decadal Survey. The Planetary Society is seeking input from the public for NASA's planetary research priorities for the next 10 years. The deadline for taking the survey is January 31st.
posted by homunculus on Jan 26, 2002 - 4 comments

"Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke
Apparently we've reached that point in the US.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 19, 2002 - 43 comments

Can internet savvy skew a poll? When the stakes are high, is it fair for someone to bring an email plea to friends and relatives outside of the target area to influence the results? Here, the band at the school with the most votes gets to do a warm-up with the famous Blast! ensemble. The numbers are interesting (and yes, I probably do have inside info on this). As long as the same opportunities are available for others, is it still 'cheating'?
posted by rich on Jan 18, 2002 - 20 comments

Here's what American Muslims think. What do you think? They come off modestly better than they did in a poll conducted in England a month back. But then, no embarrassing questions were asked this time.
posted by Real9 on Dec 22, 2001 - 6 comments

Let us now bandy about statistics. NPR (et al.) has released a poll concerning beliefs about civil liberties in the wake of You Know What and the subsequent military response, as well as another (less in-depth) supplement on Military Tribunals. Also, Talk of the Nation did an excellent program (RealAudio) on the subject. Since we're going to continue discussing it anyway, we may as well be informed.
posted by Hildago on Dec 4, 2001 - 12 comments