If it's in the News, it's in our Polls. Public opinion polling since 2003.

Political Commentary

Most Recent Releases

White letter R on blue background
August 23, 2012

Akin's Consistency Is GOP's Real Problem By Froma Harrop

The political convulsion over Missouri Republican Todd Akin's bizarre talk of "legitimate rape" highlights an issue that the GOP had buried in its campaign.

While the U.S. senatorial candidate's grasp of reproductive science is shockingly lacking -- he said real rape victims rarely get pregnant -- his position that abortions be banned with no exception for rape happens to be in the new Republican Party platform. It is a stance that most Americans, including most registered Republicans, disagree with and probably didn't know was an official party position. Now they do.

White letter R on blue background
August 23, 2012

GM Goes From Bad to Worse Despite Obama Bailout by Michael Barone

Readers with long memories may recall that Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors and nominee for secretary of defense, got into trouble when he told a Senate committee, "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country."

White letter R on blue background
August 22, 2012

Who Is Paul Ryan? By John Stossel

I wanted to like Paul Ryan. Before he was nationally known, Rep. Ryan visited me at ABC, and we went to lunch. He was terrific. He was a rare politician, one who actually cared about America's coming debt crisis and the unfairness of entitlements. He even talked about F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom"! If only more politicians thought that way.

White letter R on blue background
August 21, 2012

The Delusions in Ryan's Medicare Vision By Froma Harrop

Paul Ryan has bold economic ideas. Or maybe he doesn't. It's really hard to know what Mitt Romney's VP pick thinks, since his budget plan includes Obamacare's $716 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years, but his election plan has him saying he would restore those spending cuts. Romney is accusing president Obama of "robbing" that money from today's beneficiaries.

White letter R on blue background
August 20, 2012

Romney and Ryan Turn the Tables on Obama By Michael Barone

Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan was supposed to be a problem for the Republicans. So said a chorus of chortling Democrats. So said a gaggle of anonymous seasoned Republican operatives. All of which was echoed gleefully by mainstream media.

White letter R on blue background
August 17, 2012

Ryan's Hope: Voodoo Economics Still Isn't a Plan By Joe Conason

By naming Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential nominee, Mitt Romney has endorsed what used to be known as "voodoo economics" -- and restored that special brand of Republican superstition to the center of national debate.

To take Ryan seriously, as all too many pundits and politicians insist we must, requires everyone to behave as if the plans he produced as House Budget Committee chairman represent a meaningful effort to improve the nation's fiscal future. Sooner or later, however, real analysts will scrutinize the Ryan budget using honest math instead of humbug and magic.

In fact, they already have done so -- and that is where the myth of Ryan as a serious, scrupulous and bold reformer begins to disintegrate.

August 17, 2012

Reaction to Ryan: A Gap Between Mainstream America and Official Washington By Scott Rasmussen

One of the things Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate ensures is a series of polling questions over the coming months asking voters what's more important: creating jobs or cutting government spending; helping the economy or cutting deficits; repealing the president's health care law or focusing on the economy.

White letter R on blue background
August 16, 2012

The Mixed Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown By Froma Harrop

It took a poor girl from the Ozarks to look upon the candy store of sex and money that was postwar urban America and rearrange the shelves. Helen Gurley Brown was she, the brains behind the racy Cosmopolitan magazine empire and author of the 1962 sensation "Sex and the Single Girl." Was her influence good, bad or an in-between thing? Answer to come.

White letter R on blue background
August 15, 2012

There Ought Not to Be a Law By John Stossel

I'm a libertarian in part because I see a false choice offered by the political left and right: government control of the economy -- or government control of our personal lives.

People on both sides think of themselves as freedom lovers. The left thinks government can lessen income inequality. The right thinks government can make Americans more virtuous. I say we're best off if neither side attempts to advance its agenda via government.

White letter R on blue background
August 14, 2012

Spending We Can Believe In by Froma Harrop

When Curiosity touched down on Mars, joy erupted at NASA's lab in Pasadena, Calif., and national pride swelled. America the Demoralized had briefly vanished. Our research instruments were going where no research instruments had gone before. America was back at its game.

White letter R on blue background
August 13, 2012

Romney-Ryan Ticket Puts Entitlement Crisis at Center of Campaign by Michael Barone

On the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk harbor, a coatless Mitt Romney named a tieless Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee.

White letter R on blue background
August 10, 2012

Can President Obama Survive His Economic Record? by James E. Campbell

Forget Bain Capital, tax returns, whether the President says you built your business or not, Fast and Furious, Romneycare, Obamacare, overseas gaffes and the campaign story du jour. These are side issues and distractions. This presidential election should be primarily about one thing, which is the issue that is perennially most important to American voters: the economy.

White letter R on blue background
August 10, 2012

Akin Favored In Missouri by Kyle Kondik

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) got the opponent she wanted. But she still enters the general election season as an underdog.

August 10, 2012

Government Has No Business Dabbling in Business By Scott Rasmussen

Just 16 percent of voters nationwide believe it was a good idea for the government to provide Solyndra with loan guarantees. The solar power company went bankrupt and stuck taxpayers with the tab for a half-billion dollars. 

White letter R on blue background
August 9, 2012

The 'Missing Evidence' in Romney's Tax Records by Joe Conason

Harry Reid has provoked outrage among liberals as well as conservatives, who seem to believe he has violated propriety by repeating gossip about Mitt Romney's taxes. The Senate leader says someone connected with Romney told him that the Republican candidate paid no income taxes for a period of 10 years. Offended by Reid's audacity, commentators on the right have indicted him for "McCarthyism," while others on the left have accused him of inventing the whole story.

White letter R on blue background
August 9, 2012

Conservatives Outsource Moralizing to Liberals by Froma Harrop

It's a given in many conservative circles that the rise of single-parent families is the biggest cause of increasing economic inequality and that liberals are to blame. The first "given" is correct. The second "given" is entirely in conservative heads -- though a means to play politics without doing the heavy lifting.

White letter R on blue background
August 9, 2012

More Scared of History Than Destined To Repeat It by Michael Barone

Traumas suffered by a society generations ago can still have a negative effect centuries later.

White letter R on blue background
August 8, 2012

Wars To End War by John Stossel

On his recent trip abroad, Mitt Romney observed an American taboo by not criticizing President Obama's military policy. But before his trip, he made his position clear. Obama has "exposed the military to cuts that no one can justify," Romney said.

White letter R on blue background
August 7, 2012

The Grand Old Party's Breaking Up by Froma Harrop

When traditional Republicans tell their tea party wing that they have to negotiate with Democrats, the radicals' frequent response is: No, they don't. One side has to win. But before that fistfight at the edge of the falls can take place, one side has to win within the Republican Party. Civil wars are not pretty.

White letter R on blue background
August 6, 2012

Supporters of Ted Cruz and Chick-fil-A Break News by Michael Barone

Americans keep behaving in ways that baffle the liberal mainstream media. Two examples figured prominently -- or should have -- in last week's news.

Daily Presidential
Tracking Poll

President Biden's approval numbers posted every weekday

Top Stories

  1. Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
  2. Biden Approval Declines Again in June
  3. Happy Independence Day!
  4. ABC News: 'Answer Our Questions -- Or Else!'