Posted by Mark Silva at 10:07 am CDT

Republican gun owners – and there are a lot of them – are less likely to support the Republican Party's leading candidate for president, Rudy Giuliani, than those who don't own guns.

The findings of Gallup Polls which surveyed more than 2,000 Americans – 670 gun-owners among them – also suggest that firearms play a greater role in the Republican primary contest than in the Democratic contest.

In general, Gallup found, more gun owners identify themselves as Republicans or leaning toward the Republican Party (53 percent) than those who vote or lean Democratic (39 percent.) And there are enough of them, Gallup concludes, "that gun owners could be a considerable factor in the Republican nomination.''

In two polls this month, Gallup found that roughly one in three Americans say they are gun owners.

Posted by Frank James at 12:50 pm CDT

A new Gallup Poll found only 25 percent of Americans are satisfied with how things are going in the U.S., with 73 percent saying they were disatisfied.

It was one of the lowest ratings since 1979 when Gallup first asked the question. Iraq was the problem survey respondents fround most troubling, Gallup tells us.

As with everything in this politically polarized nation, party affiliation has nearly everthing to do with whether the glass is viewed as half empty or full, with Republicans more likely to be satisfied than Democrats.

Here are some key passages from Gallup's report on its findings:

The current 25% satisfaction level is very low by historical standards. Since Gallup first asked this question in 1979, the average percentage of Americans saying they are satisfied with conditions in the country is 43%...
...

In fact, this is only the 20th time in more than 200 Gallup readings when satisfaction has been this low. Most of the historically low satisfaction readings came when the economy was suffering because of high gas prices, high unemployment, or recession...

...

Posted by Mark Silva at 6:20 am CDT

Public approval for the work that Congress is performing has slipped again, with the latest Gallup Poll today showing only 29 percent of Americans surveyed approve and 64 percent disapprove of the job that Congress is doing.

President Bush's own job approval remains in the low 30s.

Both are running lower than their averages for the year, according to the results of a May 10-13 Gallup Poll released today.

Congress had reached a relative high point in public approval, at 37 percent in February, during the opening months of a new Democratic-controlled House and Senate. But now, at 29 percent, approval is running slightly below its average of 32 percent for the first five months of 2007. Still, this is better than last year's overall average, during the final year of the last Republican Congress, when just 25 percent approved.

Posted by Mark Silva at 9:25 am CDT

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois stands up best against the Republican Party's early front-runner in the 2008 presidential campaign, according to a new poll today. That poll also shows Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York losing some of her edge in the Democratic race.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, fares best among Republican candidates in the new national survey from Quinnipiac University's polling institute – though, Giuliani, like Clinton, has lost some of the advantage he had held in a February survey. And in a head-to-head match-up with the Democrats' leading candidate, Clinton, Giuliani holds a 49-40 percent advantage.

But when Giuliani is pared with Obama in a potential presidential match – remember, this is 18 months from Election Day – it's a near-statistically even contest: Giuliani with 44 percent, Obama with 41 percent, in a survey with a possible 2.9 percentage-point margin of error.

Obama also draws a dead-even tie with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona in this survey – while McCain, like Giuliani, is favored over Clinton among likely voters polled.

Overall, another new poll shows that Giuliani appears to be the most popular of all the candidates. The newest Gallup Poll's favorability ratings of major candidates shows: Giuliani's favorability rating at 57 percent, Obama's at 52 percent, Edwards 52, McCain 51, Gore 48 and Clinton 45 percent.

Posted by Mike Dorning at 10:55 am CDT

A national poll released by NBC and the Wall Street Journal on the eve of today's first Democratic presidential debate is the latest to show Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois closing in on front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Obama has cut Clinton's lead from 12 points in March down to 5 points in the latest poll. A month ago, Clinton led 40 percent to 28 percent; the latest poll showed her with support from 36 percent versus 31 percent for Obama.

Edwards was in third place with 20 percent support, up 5 points from a March poll taken before his wife announced that her cancer had returned. No other Democrat received support from more than 3 percent.

Posted by Mark Silva at 3:15 pm CDT

One week after the shooting of 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech, a fresh survey shows the tragedy has had little immediate impact on public attitudes toward gun control.

Six-in-ten Americans say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 32% say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, in the most recent survey by the Pew Research Center.

And that represents little change since 2004, when Pew found that 58 percent said it was more important to control gun ownership than to protect the rights of gun owners.

Posted by William Neikirk at 6:15 a.m. CDT

Today is Earth Day. It is the 38th such day in our history. And never has the planet been under such threat, or so many scientists tell us. A United Nations scientific panel says that there is a 90 percent chance the earth is warming, with possible catastrophic effects later in this century.

Just as a dormant plant springs to life in spring, our politicians have awakened to these warnings. Just a few years ago, they treated global warming as one of those theoretical issues hardly worth attention.

And the public was swimming in ennui about the issue. Four years ago, the Gallup Poll called global warming "a bit of a yawn" to most Americans. Half the population worried about it to some extent, the other half didn't.

Now, global warming is heating up as an issue. News about melting glaciers and ice caps and endangered polar bears have had a huge impact on our psyche. The UN studies are unsettling, even if some question the data.

Posted by William Neikirk at 6:25 a.m. CDT

Former President Bill Clinton played a little game of political diversion on Larry King Live Thursday night. He had a hard time saying the name "Obama."

When asked by King about the threat posed by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to his wife's candidacy, he gave no direct answer. Instead, he said Democrats have such a great field that "nobody has to vote against anybody."

Posted by Mark Silva at 6:15 am CDT

Americans are divided over the state of the nation’s gun laws – with 50 percent saying they are “satisified’’ with the gun laws in the most recent Gallup survey. But Americans also have demonstrated a willingness to consider stricter laws – with 56 percent saying they would support that in January.

Support for stricter laws has tended to increase marginally after dramatic gun crimes – with 66 percent saying they would support stricter gun laws after the shootings at Colorado’s Columbine High School eight years ago. So it’s possible that support could build in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.

“These data suggest that if one result of the Virginia Tech shootings is to increase calls for gun control legislation, such calls will be well received by more than half the population,’’ Gallup reports.

Posted by Frank James at 3:36 pm CST

When it comes to the public perceptions in the U.S. of how Iraq is going, there's good news for the Bush White House and bad news for congressional Democrats in a new poll just released by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

First, the good news for President Bush. A lot of Republicans and political independents believe the Iraq surge is working. It appears the president's political base and then some are encouraged by reports out of Iraq about the decline in violence in Baghdad.

Most Republicans (53%) believe that the troop increase put in place by George W. Bush is already making things better in Iraq, and 68% say that the surge will make things better in the long run. Democrats are dubious that the troop increase is either currently improving the situation in Iraq, or will have a positive effect in the future. Independents are generally skeptical the troop increase is making things better now, but 38% believe that the surge will make things better in the long run.