Trend Spotting: What we found interesting this week

Watch this space for a recap of the latest polls and data-driven studies curated by the CBS News Election & Survey Unit!

5/16/19 Notes on abortion views

Recent legislation in states restricting abortions has put the topic back into the headlines. As has been the case for many years in CBS News polling, today a large majority of voters believes abortion should at least be available, though many of them say they’d like to see it under stricter limits than it is currently. One in five voters says abortion should not be permitted.

In the 2018 midterms, exit polls asked voters what the Supreme Court should do with Roe v Wade. Two-thirds, 66%, said the Supreme Court should let it stand one-quarter, 25%, said the Court ought to overturn it. (CBS News Exit Poll Nov 2018 MOE 2%) — by Anthony Salvanto

5/10/19 Trend Spotting: What we found interesting this week

Americans more willing to vote for a gay candidate for President, but a socialist not so much

Seventy-six percent of Americans say they would vote for a qualified gay or lesbian candidate for president, according to a Gallup Poll out this week. The figure marks a new high in Gallup polling. The survey asked about 12 hypothetical candidates.

More Americans are also open to candidates of different religious backgrounds. “Eighty percent of U.S. adults would vote for an evangelical Christian for president — up from 73 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who would vote for a Muslim has grown from 58 percent in 2012 to 66 percent today,” according to the poll.

Six in 10 would vote for an atheist, a new high. Just 47 percent say would vote for a socialist for president, the lowest for any attribute asked about in the poll. Read the full poll results here and chart from Gallup below.

More on Socialism…

According to a recent Monmouth University Poll, most Republicans hold a negative view of socialism, while most Democrats have a neutral opinion. Looking behind these broader views, a majority of Republicans say the phrase “it takes away too many individual rights” describes their view of socialism either a great deal (64 percent) or somewhat (17 percent). Fewer Democrats hold this view. For most of them, the descriptor of socialism as “a way to make things fairer for working people” matches their view a great deal (25 percent) or somewhat (51 percent).

The poll also found most Americans favor creating a universal health care system and when asked how they viewed that policy, far more called it socialist (37 percent) than capitalist (4 percent), but most described it as neither (53 percent). More from the poll here.

Most Obama-Trump voters still view the President favorably, but fewer than in 2016

According to a survey conducted by the Voter Study Group, 66% of Obama-Trump voters have a favorable opinion of President Trump, although this is lower than the 85% of this group who viewed him favorably in 2016, shortly after he was elected president. Overall, President Trump’s favorability ratings have held steady. Eight-five percent of Americans have not changed their minds when it comes to the President’s favorable ratings in the last two years, according to the survey. Read more here

Most Value Workplace Diversity, But Few Think Race Should be a Consideration in Hiring

“Americans have a complicated, even contradictory, set of views about the impact of diversity and the best way to achieve it”, according to a recent Pew Research Center Survey. Three in four Americans say it’s very or somewhat important for companies to promote racial and ethnic diversity in the workplace, but most say only qualifications should be taken into account when making hiring and promotion decisions; just a quarter think race or ethnicity should be taken into account.

“The view that employers should only take a person’s qualifications into account is widespread among whites (78 percent) and Hispanics (69 percent); about half of blacks (54 percent) share this view.” Table from Pew Research below and more from the survey here.