ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, April 2005 (ICPSR 4326)

Version Date: Dec 11, 2006

Cite this study |

Principal Investigator(s):
ABC News; The Washington Post

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04326.v1

Version V1

Slide tabs to view more

Summary

This poll, conducted April 21-24, 2005, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the current presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were queried on such topics as Social Security benefits, parenthood, young people joining the military, capital punishment, same-sex marriage, stem cell research, and whether abortion should be legal in all cases. Respondents were asked how President George W. Bush was handling his presidency, the economy, the situation in Iraq, and the United States campaign against terrorism. A series of questions also focused on Tom Delay, the majority leader of the United States House of Representatives, and the ethics charges made against him, and whether he should step down as majority leader.

A random national sample of 1,082 adults were given this poll, including an oversample of 284 Catholic respondents, who were asked an additional group of questions about Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church. Questions asked included their feelings about the selection of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope, whether they approved or disapproved of the selection, if they thought he should maintain the traditional policies of the Church, and what should be his highest priority (e.g., responding to the concerns of women in the Church, encouraging human rights, or addressing the issue of sexual abuse by priests). Other questions included whether the Roman Catholic Church was in touch with the views of Catholics in America, whether the respondent would want their son to become a priest, and whether they would support the Catholic Church denying communion to Catholic politicians who are in favor of legal abortion.

Demographic variables include race, gender, age, level of education, income, political party affiliation, political philosophy, and religious affiliation.

Citation

ABC News, and The Washington Post. ABC News/Washington Post Monthly Poll, April 2005. [distributor], 2006-12-11. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04326.v1

Export Citation:

  • RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
  • EndNote

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Hide

Time Period(s)

2005-04

Date of Collection

2005-04-21 -- 2005-04-24

Data Collection Notes

  1. (1) The data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis. (2) Additional information about sampling, interviewing, and sampling error may be found in the codebook. (3) A complete list of the variables corresponding to questions asked only of the Catholic oversample can be found in the appendix of the codebook. The questionnaire also indicates which questions were asked of the Catholic respondents. (4) 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.
Hide

Sample

Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the household who last had a birthday and who was home at the time of the interview.

Universe

Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States.

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Hide

Original Release Date

2006-12-11

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • ABC News/The Washington Post. ABC NEWS/WASHINGTON POST MONTHLY POLL, APRIL 2005. ICPSR04326-v1. Horsham, PA: Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch [producer], 2005. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-12-11. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04326.v1

2006-12-11 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 online analysis version with question text.
Hide

Weight

The data contain two weight variables that should be applied prior to performing any analysis. The random digital dialing (RDD) weight (variable RDDWT) was derived using demographic information from the Census to adjust for sampling and nonsampling deviations from population values. Respondents customarily were classified into one of 48 cells based on age, race, sex, and education. The RDD weights were assigned so the proportion in each of these 48 cells matched the actual population proportion according to the Census Bureau's most recent Current Population Survey.

A total of 1,082 respondents were surveyed, including an oversample of 284 Catholic respondents, who were also asked approximately twenty additional questions. The second weight variable, OSWGT (oversample weight), should be applied when analyzing the responses to these questions. Otherwise, use the RDDWT variable. A complete list of the variables corresponding to the questions asked only of the Catholic oversample can be found in the appendix of the codebook.

Hide

Notes