Survey Report

Fully 63% of Americans approve of the Obama administration’s decision last month to re-establish diplomatic ties with Cuba after more than 50 years. And there is equally broad support for going further and ending the decades-long U.S. trade embargo against Cuba (66% favor this).

Yet there is broad public skepticism that a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations will lead to greater democracy in Cuba. Only about a third (32%) say they think Cuba will become more democratic over the next several years, while 60% say it will be about the same as it is now.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 7-11 among 1,504 adults, finds strong support among Democrats and independents for the restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba, and for ending the embargo. About three-quarters of Democrats (74%), along with 67% of independents support the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, with similar levels of support for ending the trade embargo, “which would allow U.S. companies to do business in Cuba and Cuban companies to do business in the U.S.”

Republicans are more divided in their views:  just 40% of Republicans approve of the re-establishment of relations with Cuba, while 48% disapprove. There is somewhat more support among Republicans for an end to the trade embargo, though as many say they oppose lifting the embargo as say they favor it (47% each).

Just a third (33%) of conservative Republicans approve of resuming diplomatic relations while 55% disapprove; among moderate and liberal Republicans the balance of opinion is reversed (54% approve, 33% disapprove). Similarly, conservative Republicans are less likely to favor ending the trade embargo than moderates and liberals in the party (40% vs. 61%).

Support for both the restoration of diplomatic ties and an end to the trade embargo is seen broadly across demographic groups: 62% of whites, 64% of blacks and 65% of Hispanics approve of re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.

While majorities of those in all age groups approve of the move toward normalization of diplomatic relations, Americans younger than 50 are more supportive than older Americans: 67% of those 18-49 support the re-establishment of relations, compared with 57% of those age 50 and older, with similar divisions in views about the trade embargo.

College graduates are particularly supportive of a restoration of diplomatic ties: 77% approve of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, while 78% favor an end to the embargo.

When asked whether Cuba will become

more democratic, less democratic or remain about the same as it is now over the next several years, six-in-ten (60%) Americans expect little change, and this is the majority view among Democrats, Republicans and independents. But Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the communist nation will shift in a democratic direction: 41% of Democrats say this, compared with just 24% of Republicans.

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted January 7-11, 2015 among a national sample of 1,504 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (528 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 976 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 563 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 2013 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 (landline only, cell phone only, or both landline and cell phone), based on extrapolations from the 2014 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.