Your polls on Protestants, pets, and print media
Welcome to YouGov's weekly newsletter The Surveyor, with new polling data, insights, and charts on politics, life, and other topical issues — from our U.S. News team.
This week, we're spotlighting surveys about Donald Trump, Pope Leo XIV, religion, media consumption, pet ownership, disease outbreaks, married names, the Democratic and Republican parties, hitchhikers, and dinosaur theme parks.
Results from your poll ideas
Last week we asked you for ideas on interesting questions YouGov could use as crosstabs for Donald Trump job approval — and you responded with lots of great suggestions for ways to compare attitudes to Trump that go beyond the standard age and gender numbers!
A few of these ideas relate to data we already collect. For the rest, we ran a couple of new polls with questions based on your suggestions.
Some of the results are extremely striking, while others are a lot more subtle. Both types are interesting! Below are some of the more interesting results from reader suggestions.
Before we go forward I want to repeat a note from last week's newsletter: These crosstabs show correlation between Trump approval and other questions, not causation. It's entirely possible that some third variable not included in the poll is actually causing an apparent result.
Now, without further ado: Read on for Trump's strength with Protestants, radio listeners, and dog owners, and weakness with atheists, magazine readers, young women, and people with lots of close friends.
Reader Lawrence wrote:
I’d like to see the data broken down by religious affiliation in three broad categories: Christian (further broken down into Protestant and Catholic, and perhaps white and nonwhite Christian), other religion, and no religion. I believe the second category could just miss the exact 10% threshold, though
Lawrence is in luck! Religion is a standard question we ask for all YouGov panelists. That means we can roll up weekly Economist/YouGov surveys from the past four weeks (when Trump's approval has been fairly stable) to get a larger sample size, and thus look at smaller subgroups than would normally be possible on a standard survey — the 10% threshold Lawrence mentions that we set as a minimum last week.
Reader Izzi asked:
primary source of news! (e.g. Broadcast TV, Local News, Social Media (can be further broken down by social media platform like Twitter, TikTok, or Facebook/Instagram))
We'll talk more about specific social networks in the future, but here's a breakdown of Trump approval by which sources Americans have consumed news from in the past month:
Reader Milan asked a question that, like Andrew's above, requested numbers for a small subgroup but one we ask about often, letting us roll up two consecutive Economist/YouGov surveys for a bigger sample:
If sample size is large enough, would love to see voters 18-29 broken out by race, gender, and education level.
Izzi asked about "size of social circle or self-described introvert/extrovert status — how many close friends do you have?"
Reader Eli McKown-Dawson — a former YouGov contributor — reached back to one of the polls he ran while writing for YouGov to suggest we look at pet ownership. Well, Eli's request was a little more specific, but first, here's the big picture on pets:
Now to Eli's main request, which concerned a 2023 experiment he ran asking people whether they would choose to save pets or people from sinking boats, if they could only save one boat. The full experiment asked about a number of different scenarios, including saving one dog versus saving one person, one dog versus multiple people, and — for people who owned pets — saving their own pet versus one or more people. For this experiment, we re-ran the simplest version to crosstab with Trump approval: whether Americans would save one dog from drowning or one person.
Thank you again to everyone who suggested ideas! We hope to run more polls based on reader suggestions in the future, so please share this newsletter with friends who might like the possibility to participate!
Charting opinions
How Americans rate Donald Trump's handling of 52 issues
Among the 52 issues on the survey, Trump performs worst on inflation/prices (-26 net approval), changes to geographic names (-21), federal workforce reductions (-17), relations with Canada (-16), presidential pardons (-16), and tariffs and trade (-15). The only issues for which more Americans approve than disapprove of Trump's handling are crime (+9 net approval), border security (+4), national security (+1), and immigration (+1). (Taylor Orth)
70% of Americans say it’s somewhat or very likely that the U.S. will experience a widespread outbreak of a new infectious disease in the next 10 years, including 35% who consider it is very likely. Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to think this is very likely (49% vs. 25%). (Jamie Ballard)
How big are the Democratic and Republican Party tents?
Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say there is room in their party for people who support legalizing most abortions (77% vs. 22%), are democratic socialists (64% vs. 10%), are transgender (76% vs. 23%), support giving citizenship to most undocumented immigrants (56% vs. 6%), support diversity, equity, and inclusion (86% vs. 37%), and are feminists (72% vs. 33%). Democrats are less likely than Republicans to say there is room in their party for people who support deporting most undocumented immigrants (19% of Democrats vs. 82% of Republicans), support banning most abortions (13% vs. 66%), support banning gender-affirming care (17% vs. 64%), oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion (18% vs. 61%), support Christian nationalism (18% vs. 60%), and oppose same-sex marriage (22% vs. 63%). (Taylor Orth)
Among married women in the U.S., two-thirds changed their last name after the wedding
69% of married women say their current last name is one they took when they got married. 29% of married women still have the last name that was on their birth certificate. Among married men, fewer than 1% have a last name they took when they got married that differs from the one on their birth certificate, and 94% have their last name from birth. (Jamie Ballard)
When do Americans think life in the U.S. was great?
While no single era earns universal praise, Americans generally view the Reagan Era, the Clinton Years, and the Postwar Baby Boom more positively than others. The Great Recession and the Great Depression are the most commonly cited historical parallels to the present day. A caution: There is no broad consensus on when certain periods start and end, or their names, and our decisions on defining eras could have affected the results. (Taylor Orth)
Quick takes
Pope Leo XIV: 56% of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of the recent election of U.S.-born Cardinal Robert Prevost as the new pope; 7% strongly or somewhat disapprove and 37% aren't sure
Jurassic Park: 29% of Americans say they would visit a theme park with genetically resurrected dinosaurs; 50%
have seenJurassic Parkwould notAbove average: 65% of Americans think they are more empathetic than the average person
Hitchhikers: 31% of Americans say they have picked up a hitchhiker before, including 22% of 18- to 29-year olds and 45% of adults 65 or older
Elsewhere
Polling partnerships
CBS News + YouGov on the next pope
The Economist + YouGov on Trump's job approval, recession fears, and grades for top universities
Polling abroad
VE Day 80: European and American attitudes towards World War 2 (YouGov UK)
Many Europeans and Americans think World War 3 is imminent (YouGov UK)
Polling in the press
Opinion | A new poll shows World War II’s legacy is getting muddled (Washington Post)
4 in 10 say US in recession: Survey (The Hill)
Using Marijuana Reduces Alcohol Cravings In People Who Drink A Lot, Federally Funded Study Shows (Marijuana Moment)
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This newsletter is compiled by David Montgomery and Carl Bialik
This is so cool!! I’m so glad a couple of my suggestions got used, excited to see what the YouGov team comes up with in the future 😄
Its just a hypothesis at this point, but I'd hypothesize that dog ownership leads to dog empathy and that dog ownership is subject to selection bias based on life stage, home ownership, and having children in the house, which in turn are based upon income.