Politics

More voters favor than oppose Mitt Romney’s proposal for an across-the-board 20-percent cut in federal income tax rates according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. But there’s an even split on his call to repeal the landmark health-care law passed in 2010.

Support for two of Romney’s marquee proposals is sharply divided along partisan lines, as is support for President Obama’s economic policies.

Fully three-quarters of Republicans have favorable views of Romney’s proposed tax cut and a roll-back of the president’s health-care legislation. About six in 10 Democrats throw cold water on the ideas.

The Pew Research Center’s latest detailed study of survey quality paints a worrisome picture for survey response rates, but again shows that a well-done telephone poll — even one with response rates in the high single-digits — accurately represent the U.S. population on a broad range of political and demographic measures.

The apparent accuracy of results from a survey where fewer than one in 10 people completed the interview parallels previous studies showing a weak connection between response rates and survey quality. A 2008 study of more than 100 surveys, including many media polls, concluded that “lower response rates do not notably reduce the quality of survey demographic estimates.”

The centerpiece of the new Pew report was a specialized version of their standard five-day national survey, which dials randomly selected landline and cellphones. Instead of asking a series of questions about national politics, Pew included a battery of questions comparable to high-response rate surveys conducted by the federal government.

Voters divide straight down the middle on President Obama’s recent statement that he supports allowing gays and lesbians to get married, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

As with the issue itself, views of the president’s major announcement last week are closely related to partisanship, education and age, with Democrats, more highly educated and younger adults generally supportive of Obama’s move. But there also a twist to the latest breakdowns: although African Americans typically oppose gay marriage, most in the new poll have favorable impressions of Obama’s support of it.

Overall, voters split 46 percent in favor of the move, and 46 percent opposed to it. Intensity runs marginally against the president’s statement supporting legal gay marriage. White Protestants are the most stridently opposed.

Fully 70 percent of Democrats express favorable opinions of the Democratic president’s move, as do 49 percent of independents (43 percent hold unfavorable ones). Republicans are lined up on the other side, with 76 percent holding unfavorable views, including 65 percent “strongly unfavorable” impressions.

Age is a similarly big divider, with more than six in 10 adults under 30 years old supportive of the president’s announcement, and a similar proportion of seniors opposed to it.

More than half of all African Americans in the poll back the president’s statement: 54 percent have favorable impressions; 37 percent unfavorable ones. The sample size of black respondents is relatively small in this poll (results have a more than 10-point error margin), but the results are an intriguing contrast to where African-American opinion has been on the subject of gay marriage.

In a large-scale Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll in November, 58 percent of African Americans called same-sex marriage “unacceptable;” far fewer, 35 percent said it was “acceptable” in terms of their own values and morals.

Nearly two-thirds of those who live in states that have legalized gay marriage have positive views of Obama’s statement; in the 31 states where the practice is banned by voter preference, it’s a more even 41 percent in favor, 51 percent opposed.

(Additional breakdowns from the poll linked here.)

Use the interactive below to see how different groups have changed (or not) their views on gay marriage in recent years.

A dissection of voting groups in Virginia shows President Obama holding together key parts of his 2008 coalition. Mitt Romney has some ground to cover to match or exceed John McCain’s 2008 performance in several areas, according to a new Washington Post Virginia poll.

Read the full poll story here. Explore more of the Virginia poll results with the The Washington Post’s exclusive interactive graphics.

Obama’s Groups: It’s tough to improve upon a 92 percent vote share, but Obama inched up to 97 percent among African Americans in the new poll. He has a comfortable lead among women: 56 to 38 percent, better than his 2008 margin. He tops 60 percent in the populous D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia. He is extending his wide 2008 margin among those ages 18 to 29.

Washington Post Virginia poll, April 28 to May 2