CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, January 2008

This poll, fielded January 9-12, 2008, is a part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicits public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. A national sample of 1,191 adults was surveyed, including an oversample of African Americans, for a total of 185 African American respondents, including 141 African American Democratic primary voters. Views were sought on how well George W. Bush was handling the presidency, whether the country was moving in the right direction, the most important problem facing the nation, and the condition of the national economy.
Respondents were asked how much attention they were paying to the 2008 presidential campaign, whether they would vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate if the election were held that day, whether they were more likely to vote in a Democratic or Republican primary or caucus in their state, who they would like their party to nominate, their level of support for this candidate, and who they expected to actually win. Respondents gave their opinions of Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, Republican presidential nominees Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Other questions asked about preferred qualities in the next president, whether respondents thought that most Americans and they themselves would vote for a presidential candidate who was an African American and a presidential candidate who was a woman, whether it was appropriate for candidates to show their emotions, and the importance of the results of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries in their vote. Additional questions addressed the war in Iraq. Demographic variables include sex, age, race, education level, marital status, whether respondents had children under 18 years of age, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration status and participation history, household income, religious preference, frequency of religious attendance, and whether respondents considered themselves to be a born-again Christian.