5 research outputs found
Partisan-Colored Glasses? How Polarization has Affected the Formation and Impact of Party Competence Evaluations
The potential effects of mass polarization has become a major subject of study in political science. Multiple studies have shown that polarization at the mass level has caused political attitudes and opinions to be increasingly driven by party identification over the past few decades. Even responses to questions as nonpartisan as “Has the economy gotten better or worse over the past year?” show a partisan bias (Bartels 2002). In this paper, I look at whether party identification is having an increasing impact on party competence evaluations, as would be expected if polarization has happened at the mass level. I first study whether the effect of party identification on vote choice in House and Senate elections from 1986 through 2012 has increased, or whether the growing power of party identification is being filtered through party competence evaluations, causing the effect of these evaluations on vote choice to increase. I then look at the direct effect of party identification on party competence evaluations to see if the effect of party identification on competence evaluations has grown between 1986 and 2012, and if the effect of retrospective economic evaluations on competence evaluations has decreased at the same time. Results show that there is no clear trend in the effect of party competence evaluations and party identification on vote choice over time. However, the effect of party identification on competence evaluations has clearly risen between 1986 and 2012
Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: Attitudes on LGBT Nondiscrimination Laws and Religious Exemptions - Finding from the 2015 American Values Atlas
Across 2015, the year that saw same-sex marriage become legal in all 50 states following the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in June, public opinion on same-sex marriage remained remarkably stable. Based on interviews with more than 42,000 Americans conducted between May and December 2015, PRRI finds that 53% of Americans support allowing gay and lesbian people to legally marry, while 37% are opposed.In surveys conducted during May 2015, the month before the Supreme Court decision, 53% of the public on average supported same-sex marriage. Weekly tracking polls showed no significant shift in opinion as a result of the court decision, with the June average showing 55% support and the July average showing 53% support
Anxiety, Nostalgia, And Mistrust: Findings from the 2015 American Values Survey
The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) conducted the 2015 American Values Survey among 2,695 Americans between September 11 and October 4, 2015. The sixth annual AVS measures public opinion about the economy, racial discrimination, the criminal justice system, trust in public institutions, perception of the Tea Party, the relationship between religious affiliation and political attitudes, views of immigrants, and how demographic changes impact the cultural landscape in the country