Posts Tagged ‘PEW’

PEW’s most recent poll on “What the Public Knows” is confirming for me but not surprising. Republicans are more informed than Democrats yet on the whole, Americans are uniformed unless it comes to popular culture or ‘Hollyweird’.

Public Knowledge: Senate Legislative Process a Mystery to Many

The public has consistently expressed strong interest in the health care debate, but relatively few Americans can correctly answer two key questions related to the Senate’s consideration of health care legislation.

In the latest installment of the Pew Research Center’s News IQ Quiz, just 32% know that the Senate passed its version of the legislation without a single Republican vote. And, in what proved to be the most difficult question on the quiz, only about a quarter (26%) knows that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster1 in the Senate and force a vote on a bill. The survey was conducted before Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won a special election to the Senate on Jan. 19; Brown’s election means Senate Democrats can no longer count on a 60-vote majority once he takes office.

snip…Republicans More Knowledgeable on Many Issues
Republicans, on average, answered one more question correctly than Democrats (5.9 vs. 4.9 correct). These differences are partly a reflection of the demographics of the two groups; Republicans tend to be older, well educated and male, which are characteristics associated with political and economic knowledge. Still, even when these factors are held constant, Republicans do somewhat better than Democrats on the knowledge quiz.

There’s more unsurprising results when looking at the knowledge gap with young vs. older Americans.

Continue reading…..

PEW, American knowledge, American Government