Overview

Americans do not have a clear point of view on how the massive anti-government protests in Egypt will affect the United States. More than half (58%) say the protests will not have much of an effect (36%), or offer no response or are noncommittal (22%). Of the minority that thinks the protests will have an effect on the U.S., nearly twice as many say their impact will be negative rather than positive (28% vs. 15%).

This lack of agreement notwithstanding, a majority (57%) says the Obama administration is handling the situation in Egypt about right, while much smaller numbers say the administration has shown too much support (12%) or too little support (12%) for the protestors.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Feb. 2-7, 2011 among 1,385 adults, finds that nearly half (48%) say they have heard a lot about the anti-government protests in Egypt; about the same proportion (52%) report hearing little or nothing.

The survey finds that majorities of Democrats (69%) and independents (57%) say the Obama administration is handling the situation in Egypt about right; fewer Republicans (43%) give the administration positive ratings. Roughly equal numbers of Republicans say the administration is showing too much support (19%) and too little support (15%) for the protesters.

Republicans and independents are more likely than Democrats to say the Egyptian protests will end up having a bad effect on the United States. Nearly four-in-ten Republicans (37%) say the protests will have a negative effect on the U.S., while just 8% think their effect will be positive. Twice as many independents say the protests will end up having a negative (28%) rather than positive (14%) effect on the U.S. Among Democrats, as many say their impact will be positive as negative (21% each).

Among those hearing a lot about the anti-government protests, 35% think they will have a bad effect on the U.S. while 18% think the impact will be positive. Among those who have heard little or nothing, 21% say the protests will end up having a bad effect on the U.S., while 12% say the impact will be positive. Fully 67% of those who have heard little or nothing about the protests in Egypt say they will not have much an effect on the U.S., express no opinion or volunteer another response, compared with 48% of those who have heard a lot about the protests.

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted February 2-7, 2011 among a national sample of 1,385 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (952 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 433 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 197 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/politics/methodology/

The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin, region, and population density to parameters from the March 2010 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status and relative usage of landline and cell phones (for those with both), based on extrapolations from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size within the landline sample. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.

In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.