Survey Report

The public paid far more attention to last week’s cold snap than to the controversy swirling around New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. There also has been little short-term change in opinions about Christie: 60% say their opinion of Christie has not changed in recent days, while 16% now view him less favorably and 6% more favorably.

The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 9-12 among 1,006 adults, finds that just 18% paid very close attention to Christie’s apology on Jan. 9 for the highway lane closures ordered by his aides. By contrast, 44% very closely followed news about the cold winter weather that gripped much of the U.S. and 28% tracked news about the economy.

The release of a book by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that criticized the Obama administration drew even less interest than news about Christie. Just 11% followed news about Gates’ book very closely.

The survey finds that majorities of Republicans (69%), Democrats (55%) and independents (60%) say that their opinion of Christie has not changed lately. Among Republicans, about as many say their opinion has become more favorable (9%) as less favorable (10%).

More Democrats say their opinion has become less favorable (25%) than more favorable (3%). Among independents, 14% say their opinion of Christie has become less favorable and 6% more favorable.

Those who followed news about Christie’s apology at least fairly closely are more likely to have changed their opinions about the New Jersey government in recent days. Nonetheless, 57% of those who tracked news about Christie say their opinion of him has not changed; 29% say it has become less favorable, while 11% say it has become more favorable.

Republicans are about as likely as Democrats to have followed the Christie story at least fairly closely last week (43% vs. 46%). Like Republicans overall, those who followed the story at least fairly closely are closely divided between those who are more favorable to Christie (18%) and less favorable (17%), with 62% saying their opinion hasn’t changed.

Democrats who closely followed Christie’s apology have come to have sharply less favorable opinions of Christie: 43% say their opinion is now less favorable, 3% more favorable, and half (50%) say their opinion hasn’t changed.

This Week’s News

The most closely followed story of the week was the cold winter weather that swept much of the country. About three-quarters of the public followed the news very closely (44%) or fairly closely (32%). Attention was lowest in the West, where 28% paid very close attention to the news, compared with 55% of those in the Midwest, 51% of those in the East and 43% of those in the South.

About three-in-ten (28%) very closely followed reports about the U.S. economy, while two-in-ten (19%) very closely tracked the debate in Washington over extending long-term unemployment benefits.

Overall, 18% say they followed news about Christie’s apology for the lane closures ordered by his aides very closely. Interest in this story was higher in the East (26% very closely) and Midwest (23%) than in the South or West (14% each).

Just one-in-ten (11%) very closely followed news about former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ new book, in which he is critical of the Obama administration. An identical percentage (11%) paid very close attention to the fighting in and around the Iraqi city of Fallujah. More Republicans (17%) than Democrats (7%) very closely followed the story last week.

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted January 9-12, 2014 among a national sample of 1,006 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in the continental United States (502 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 504 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 288 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 http://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 nativity and region to parameters from the 2012 Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and population density to parameters from the Decennial Census. 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 2013 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.