After a week of revelations about government spying on reporters and the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives, most voters feel “like the federal government has gotten out of control and is threatening the basic civil liberties of Americans.” At the same time, a new Fox News poll finds disapproval of […] Read more »
Obama’s rating steady in face of controversies, likely buoyed by rising economic hopes
Majorities of Americans believe that the Internal Revenue Service deliberately harassed conservative groups by targeting them for special scrutiny and say that the Obama administration is trying to cover up important details about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans last year. But a new Washington Post-ABC […] Read more »
Public Sharply Critical on IRS, Benghazi; But Economy Cuts Obama Some Slack
Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll sharply reject special scrutiny of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, suspect an administration cover-up of the Benghazi incident and express substantial distrust of the federal government more generally. Yet the national survey also finds no backlash against Barack Obama, at […] Read more »
Partisan Interest, Reactions to IRS and AP Controversies
So far, public interest in a trio of controversies connected to the Obama administration has been limited. Roughly a quarter (26%) of Americans say they are closely following reports that the IRS targeted conservative groups. About the same number (25%) are tracking the Benghazi investigation, and even fewer (16%) are […] Read more »
Ruckus over Benghazi, IRS is driven by politics
Americans are divided over whether to believe the White House on controversies over the Libyan attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and the Internal Revenue Service targeting of Tea Party groups, but they overwhelmingly agree on this: The furors are going to make it harder for President Obama to get […] Read more »
Reform After the IRS Scandal? Don’t Bet on It.
… In survey questions that Conor Dowling and I fielded in 2012 via the CCES and the CCAP as part of work on a forthcoming book, we asked respondents a series of questions designed to assess their knowledge of the legality of various activities during presidential elections. … Our findings are […] Read more »