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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Gallup. Now, the headline to this story: "Obama's Economic Approval Slips to 35%." That's not the way to look at this, because they have a chart here. Let me read to you the lead from the story. "Despite President Barack Obama's renewed focus on the nation's economy this summer, he scores worse with Americans on the economy than he did in June. His approval rating on the issue, now 35%, is down seven percentage points, and his ratings on taxes and the federal budget deficit are each down five points. During the same period, his overall approval...

Most current smokers in the U.S. would like to give up smoking. Perhaps as a testimony to their desire to quit, 85% of smokers say they have in fact tried to quit at least once in their lifetime, including 45% who have tried at least three times. ~snip Smokers on average are engaging in a habit they wish they didn't have, and, in fact, the average smoker has attempted to quit at least three times in their lifetime. The difficulty in quitting is attested to by the fact that more than seven in 10 smokers say they are addicted to...

Note well: It’s not 52/43 in favor of legalizing gay marriage. It’s 52/43 in favor of requiring, as a matter of federal statute, that gay marriage be permitted even in states where a majority oppose it. In other words, you’ve got majority support here for the anti-DOMA. Something to bear in mind come 2016, when inevitably some socially conservative GOP candidate will start talking about a Federal Marriage Amendment again. At this point, the public’s likelier to support an FMA that makes gay marriage legal as a matter of constitutional law than an FMA that outlaws it.The most arresting data...

Gallup Organization has agreed to pay the government $10.5 million to settle a false claims case against the company for allegedly inflating cost estimates in government contracts. The Justice Department announced the settlement Monday, resolving a complaint originally brought under the Whistleblower Protection Act by a former Gallup director of client services. Gallup, a research and analytics company known especially for its political polling, admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. According to the original complaint filed in 2009, Gallup allegedly inflated estimates of labor hours required for market research contracts with the U.S. Mint and U.S. Passport Agency

Gallup has released the results of a new survey of Americans and their primary news sources. Radio was ranked fourth overall, with TV ranked #1 for information about current events. According to Gallup, 55 percent of Americans turn to television as their main source for news, followed by the Internet (21 percent), print media (nine percent) and then radio (six percent). Radio answers totaled up to six percent overall, with four percent simply answering "radio," one percent saying NPR and another one percent mentioning "Talk radio."

A recent Gallup poll, timed for the Fourth of July, found that while most Americans (85%) are “proud to be an American,” most (71%) also believe that our Founding Fathers would be “disappointed” in the America of today. The numbers highlight the difference between our regard for our Constitution and for the people who make America great, on the one hand, and our collective distrust of government overreach on the other. The daily news is a patchwork story of America’s great people -- and I’ll share one touching example in a moment -- as well as our very real political...

July 8, 2013 Gallup: Fox Is America's Main Source For News Noel Sheppard This will REALLY make liberal heads explode! A Gallup poll released moments ago found more Americans consider Fox News their main source for news than any other news outlet in the nation: Television is the main place Americans say they turn to for news about current events (55%), leading the Internet, at 21%. Nine percent say newspapers or other print publications are their main news source, followed by radio, at 6%. And who came in first amongst television news providers? Fox is considered the number one news...

If you had a child/son/daughter, would you like to see him or her go into politics as a life’s work? That’s how Gallup phrased its questions to a random sample of 2,048 adults, 18 and older, living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The telephone survey on June 20-24 found that by a 2-to-1 margin—64 percent to 31 percent—the answer was no, Americans would not like their child to go in to politics as a career. … Gallup found that non-whites were much more likely than whites to want a political career for their offspring. Democrats tended...

In recognition of Independence Day, Gallup has released a poll on whether American citizens are still proud to be American.

The vast majority of Americans, 81%, say they are aware of the 2010 Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) requirement that most Americans must carry health insurance or pay a fine. Americans who are currently uninsured -- those most directly affected by this requirement -- are much less likely to be aware of the provision, with 56% saying they know about it and 43% saying they are unaware. The results are based on a June 20-24 Gallup poll, which asked a series of questions on the ACA, the comprehensive healthcare reform bill signed into law by President Obama in 2010. Many of...

Americans' confidence in newspapers fell slightly to 23% this year, from 25% in 2012 and 28% in 2011. The percentage of Americans saying they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers has been generally trending downward since 1979, when it reached a high of 51%. Newspapers rank near the bottom on a list of 16 societal institutions Gallup measured in a June 1-4 survey. Television news is tied with newspapers on the list, with 23% of Americans also expressing confidence in it. That is up slightly from the all-time low of 21% found last year....

In a Gallup tracking poll released Tuesday, former-President George W. Bush currently stands with a favorability rating of 49%, compared to 46% who see the 43rd president unfavorably. Meanwhile, another Gallup poll shows President Obama with only a 47% approval rating, with 44% disapproving. …

As the world waits breathless for some Goldilocks print in tomorrow's non-farm payroll data, Gallup's most recent survey of employment trends does not paint a pretty picture for the real economy. Though, by the 'adjustment bureau' and their Arima-X goal-seeking, nothing is ever clear, not only is the payroll-to-population (the number of people working) worse than a year ago but the unemployment rate is also rising with under-employment - at 18.0% - near 15 month highs. If the NFP print plays out in line with this, the estimate of 165k will be woefully over-optimistic, leaving the question of whether...

The Gallup Poll’s misfire in the 2012 election was caused by a variety of defects in the way the firm conducts surveys, according to the organization’s top pollster, who provided the most detailed explanation to date of how the firm plans to improve their polling accuracy in future elections. The four factors he listed: 1. Likely voter model shifted too far toward Romney While most likely voter models improved Romney’s 2012 standing, Gallup’s resulted in a larger-than-average four-point shift. In particular, the finding mirrors problems in the 2008 New Hampshire primary, when Gallup’s likely voter model produced larger errors than...

Gallup's U.S. Job Creation Index increased to 22 in May, the highest score for any month since April 2008. The Job Creation Index is now much improved from the all-time monthly low of -5 recorded in February and April 2009. The net job creation score is based on 37% of workers telling Gallup that their employer is hiring new people and expanding the size of its workforce, and 15% saying their company is letting people go and reducing the size of its workforce. The percentage "hiring" is the highest since August 2008 and the percentage "letting people go" is the...

Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) say religion is losing its influence on American life, while 20% say religion's influence is increasing. These represent Americans' most negative evaluations of the impact of religion since 1970, although similar to the views measured in recent years. Americans over the years have generally been more likely to say religion is losing rather than increasing its influence in American life. In addition to the previous peak in views that religion was losing its influence measured in 1969 and 1970, at least 60% of Americans thought religion was losing its influence in 1991-1994, in 1997 and...

Forty-one percent of Americans now characterize their economic views as "conservative," or "very conservative," the lowest since President Barack Obama took office in 2009 and on par with where views were in May 2008. This year's downtick in the percentage of Americans identifying as economically conservative has been accompanied by an uptick in the percentage identifying as economically moderate -- now 37% of Americans, up from 32% last year. The percentage of Americans calling themselves economic liberals has remained virtually unchanged from last year at 19%, and has not fluctuated much since 2001. The findings are based on Gallup's annual...

May 21, 2013|8:34 am A Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now believe that sexual relations between two men or two women, and unmarried women having a baby, are morally acceptable. In the new survey, 59 percent of American adults answered that gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable, a 19 percentage point increase since 2001 when only 40 percent said it was morally acceptable.Sixty percent of respondents said that having a baby outside of marriage was morally acceptable, a 15 percentage point increase since 2002 when only 45 percent said it was morally acceptable.Of the 20 issues which...

Slim majorities of Americans are very or somewhat closely following the situations involving the Internal Revenue Service (54%) and the congressional hearings on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and its aftermath (53%) -- comparatively low based on historical measures of other news stories over the last two decades. These results are based on a May 14-15 Gallup poll. Despite extensive news coverage of these stories in recent days, the level of attention being paid to each is below the average 60% of Americans who have closely followed more than 200 news stories Gallup has measured over...

Fifty-three percent of Americans say the law should recognize same-sex marriages, the third consecutive reading of 50% or above in Gallup polling over the past year. The 53% in favor ties the high to this point, also measured last November and in May 2011. Gallup's May 2-7 poll suggests Americans' support for gay marriage is solidifying above the majority level. Recently, Rhode Island and Delaware legalized same-sex marriage, and Minnesota is likely to follow suit. That would bring the total number of states legally recognizing same-sex marriage to 12. Just three years ago, support for gay marriage was 44%. The...