{"id":13863,"date":"2015-01-20T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/state-of-the-union-2015\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:21:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:21:03","slug":"state-of-the-union-2015","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2015\/01\/20\/state-of-the-union-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"State of the Union 2015: How Americans see the nation, their leaders and the issues"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>
(Photo by Bill O’Leary\/The Washington Post via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n

President Obama and other administration officials have been road-testing several possible themes and proposals that are likely to come up in his State of the Union speech today. Here’s a look at public opinion on the issues that Obama and Republicans say they will push in the coming year, as well as Americans’ views of their leaders and how well (or not) they think things are going in the country.<\/p>\n\n

What’s most important: Domestic issues<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/strong>Despite a year of turmoil and new threats abroad, Americans still overwhelmingly say it is more important for Obama to focus on domestic policy<\/a> than foreign policy, although by a smaller margin than previous years. The public has put the priority on domestic matters each year during\u00a0Obama’s presidency. This year, 67% hold that view, lower than previous years, when it was as high as eight-in-ten or more. One-in-five Americans want Obama to focus more on foreign policy; that figure had been in single digits the previous three years.<\/p>\n\n

Terrorism<\/strong>:\u00a0For the first time in five years, as many Americans cite defending the U.S. against terrorism<\/a> (76%) as a top policy priority as say that about strengthening the nation\u2019s economy (75%). There has been little change from previous years in the public’s worries about an imminent threat<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0about seven-in-ten (72%) Americans say the government is doing very or fairly well<\/a> in reducing the threat of terrorism.<\/p>\n\n

Economy<\/strong>: Since the end of the recession, the share of Americans who cited the economy and the jobs situation<\/a> as a top priority for Obama and Congress has declined. Three-quarters of Americans say strengthening the economy should be a top priority, down 11 points from 2013.\u00a0Perhaps more important, almost twice as many expect the economy to be better than worse a year from now (31% vs. 17%). But just 16% of Americans regard the economic recovery<\/a> so far as a strong one. See our key data fact sheet<\/a> for more background on economic issues.<\/p>\n\n

Immigration:\u00a0<\/strong>Republicans, now in charge of both houses of Congress, have already begun an effort to roll back<\/a> Obama’s executive actions<\/a>\u00a0expanding the number of unauthorized\u00a0immigrants permitted to work and stay in the country. Americans are divided over Obama’s move with half disapproving of the actions and 46% in support. It’s a big partisan issue: About\u00a0eight-in-ten Republicans (82%) disapprove of Obama’s executive actions and about seven-in-ten Democrats (71%) approve. See our key data fact sheet<\/a> for background on public opinion on other immigration issues, including our latest estimate of the unauthorized immigrant population.<\/p>\n\n

Cybersecurity and privacy:\u00a0<\/strong>Obama plans to announce initiatives<\/a> to enhance cybsersecurity for businesses and the government, as well as safeguards against identity theft and intrusions into peoples’ privacy.\u00a0This comes at a time when our surveys show the public has little confidence in the security of their everyday communications.\u00a0Fully 91% of adults agree that “consumers have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by companies.” Just 2% of American adults view social media sites as “very secure,” while 14% feel “somewhat secure” sharing sensitive information on social media. See our fact sheet on cybersecurity and privacy<\/a> for more background on these issues.<\/p>\n\n

Community colleges<\/strong>: Obama recently\u00a0unveiled an expensive plan to provide free\u00a0community college education<\/a>\u00a0for millions of Americans. The proposal\u00a0could have a significant impact on Hispanics.\u00a0Hispanics make up a growing share<\/a> of the nation’s nearly 7 million community college students. In 2013, 22% of all enrolled public two-year college students were Hispanics — a greater share than their makeup of all students – and that figure has risen from 14% in 2000. The share of black students in public community colleges increased at a much lower rate over the same time period, from 12% to 15%, while the share of white and Asian\/Pacific Islander students declined.<\/p>\n\n

Energy and environment:\u00a0<\/strong>There are two issues in particular this year on which Obama and Republicans are facing off: building of the Keystone XL pipeline<\/a>, which would carry crude oil from\u00a0Canada tar sands to U.S. Gulf ports, and Obama’s efforts to cut emissions from power plants. Americans favor building the pipeline by nearly two-to-one (59% to 31%), although that margin has slipped somewhat since March 2013. Republicans are heavily in favor, while Democrats are more divided. When it comes to the Obama administration’s proposal to cut power plant emissions<\/a>, the public favors stricter limits by a 64% to 31% margin. For more public opinion on these and other issues, see our energy and environment fact sheet<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Deficit<\/strong>:\u00a0The percentage of Americans who say that reducing the budget deficit should be a top priority for the president and Congress rose 19 points between 2009 and 2013, but has fallen eight points<\/a> over the past two years, to 64%.\u00a0Historically, the party holding the White House tends to place less importance on reducing the deficit compared with the party out of power. That remains the case today, with 72% of Republicans and 55% of Democrats rating deficit reduction as a top policy priority, although the number of Republicans holding this view is down 12 points since 2013.<\/p>\n\n

Obama<\/strong>:\u00a0About as many Americans approve (47%) of Obama’s overall job performance<\/a> as disapprove (48%), compared with\u00a0the 55% who gave him positive marks shortly after his election in 2012.\u00a0Nearly four-in-ten (38%) say Obama\u2019s economic policies since taking office have made economic conditions better<\/a>, while 28% say they have made the economy worse; 30% think they have not had much of an effect. In the international arena, there has been a sharp increase since 2012 in the share of Americans who say Obama\u2019s approach to foreign policy<\/a> and national security issues is “not tough enough.” More than half (55%) of Americans currently regard him as not tough enough, with 89% of Republicans holding that view compared with\u00a035% of Democrats.<\/p>\n\n

Republicans<\/strong>:\u00a0The Republican Party is seen favorably<\/a> by 41% of Americans and unfavorably by 53%. (By comparison, the public is divided about the Democrats with 46% having positive views of the party and 48% having negative ones.) Overall, 49% of the public disapproves of Republican congressional leaders\u2019 policies<\/a> and plans for the future; slightly fewer (40%) approve.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As President Obama delivers the State of the Union address Jan. 20, here’s a primer of U.S. public opinion on top issues, the state of the nation and the country’s political leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[],"bylines":[859],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[520],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-13863","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-bruce-drake","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-politics"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":1005,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2015\/01\/20\/state-of-the-union-2015\/","art_direction":{"A1":{"id":26121,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp?w=564&h=317&crop=1","width":564,"height":317,"chartArt":false},"A2":{"id":26121,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"A3":{"id":26121,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp?w=194&h=110&crop=1","width":194,"height":110,"chartArt":false},"A4":{"id":26121,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"XL":{"id":26121,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp?w=640&h=405&crop=1","width":640,"height":405,"chartArt":false},"social":{"id":26121,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/01\/FT_Obama_SOTU-jpg.webp?w=640&h=420&crop=1","width":640,"height":420,"chartArt":false}},"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"State of the Union 2015: How Americans see the nation, their leaders and the issues","description":"Here's a State of the Union primer of U.S. public opinion on top issues, the state of the nation and the country's political leaders.","og_title":"State of the Union 2015: How Americans see the nation, their leaders and the issues","og_description":"As President Obama delivers the State of the Union address Jan. 20, here's a primer of U.S. public opinion on top issues, the state of the nation and the country's political leaders.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":26121,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"bec0867e-cb28-4fa8-b90b-b4b281a09109","termId":859}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/13863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/13863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103509,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/13863\/revisions\/103509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=13863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}