17 striking findings from 2017

Pew Research Center studies a wide array of topics both in the U.S. and around the world, and every year we are struck by particular findings. Sometimes they mark a new milestone in public opinion; other times a sudden about-face. From an increase in Americans living without a spouse or […] Read more »

44% of Americans believe the press invents negative stories about President Trump, including 74% of Republicans

Distrust of the news media didn’t start with Donald Trump, but he has amplified and stoked those doubts like no American president before him. Trump is also not the first politician to discredit any negative reporting on him, but his effort to undermine a shared understanding of facts conveyed in […] Read more »

19 Things We Learned from the 2016 Election

We can all agree that the presidential election result was a shocker. According to news reports, even the Trump campaign team was stunned to come up a winner. So now seems like a good time to go over various theories floating around in political science and political reporting and see […] Read more »

America’s chaotic, crazy, challenging, great, tumultuous, horrible, disappointing year

Would you say this was a good year for the United States? For decades, Americans’ sense of how their nation was doing was closely linked to the economy. Through Democratic and Republican presidencies, through divided and unified sessions of Congress, Americans were consistent. When they saw jobs and GDP growing, […] Read more »

The Politics of Global Warming Beliefs

Seven in ten registered voters (72%) think global warming is happening. This includes nearly all liberal Democrats (97%; six percentage points higher than in our first survey in 2008), about nine in ten moderate/conservative Democrats (89%; eight points higher than in 2008), and a majority of liberal/moderate Republicans (63%). In […] Read more »