Overview

Just over half of the public (53%) say they followed news about Hurricane Sandy and the storm’s impact very closely last week, outpacing interest in the 2012 presidential election (47% very closely) and news about the U.S. economy (38% very closely).

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Nov. 1-4, 2012, among 1,011 adults, finds that interest in the storm is

particularly high in the Northeast: fully 73% of those living in this region say they are following news about Sandy very closely, compared with 53% of those in the South, 46% of those in the Midwest and 43% of those in the West.

Interest in Hurricane Sandy is far higher than for Hurricane Isaac earlier this year (31% very closely) and ranks as one of the most closely followed storms in Pew Research surveys dating to 1989. Interest is comparable to that for Hurricane Ike in September 2008 (50% very closely), but remains well below the 70% who were following Hurricane Katrina very closely in September 2005.

Interest in 2012 Campaign Lags Behind 2008

Overall, 47% say they have been following news about the candidates for the 2012 presidential election very closely, down modestly from 52% a week ago. Campaign news interest has lagged behind measures from comparable points in 2008 in four out of the past five weeks. And the high mark for campaign interest measured in 2012 (52% in the Oct. 25-28 survey) is lower than the high measured in 2008 (61% in the Oct. 17-20, 2008 survey).

Views of Economic News

As has been the case throughout 2012, most Americans

(55%) say they are hearing a mix of good and bad news about the U.S. economy. A third (33%) say they have been hearing mostly bad news about the economy, up slightly from October (28%). Just 10% are hearing mostly good news about the economy, though this, too, has risen since the summer. In August, just 3% said they were hearing mostly good economic news.

The percentage of independents who say they are hearing mostly bad news about the economy has risen over the past month. In the current survey, 38% of independents say the economic news they have been hearing is mostly bad, up from 29% at the start of October. Views of Republicans and Democrats are little changed.

Less Bad News about Gas Prices

While overall views of economic news have shifted only slightly, news about gas prices has improved dramatically since early October. Overall, half (50%) say they are hearing mostly bad news about gas prices, down 22 points from a month ago. More now say they are hearing a mix of good and bad news (30%) or mostly good news about gas prices (16%) than did so in October (21% and 4%, respectively).

News about other economic sectors has been more stable over the past month. Overall, 46% say they have been hearing mostly bad news about the job situation, 37% say they have been hearing mixed news, and just 14% say they have been hearing mostly good news.

News about real estate and financial markets remains mixed, with little change in views from October.

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted November 1-4, 2012 among a national sample of 1,011 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (606 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 405 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 212 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted 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. 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 and region to parameters from the March 2011 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and population density to parameters from the Decennial Census. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status, based on extrapolations from the 2011 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 among respondents with a landline phone. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the unweighted 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.