Forty-six percent (46%) of U.S. voters say Congress should be able to overturn presidential pardons it thinks are unjustified, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Two-thirds of adults in Illinois (66%) are opposed to a presidential pardon for former Governor George Ryan, according to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state.
Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. is the clear favorite of Illinois Democrats among the party’s top five candidates to succeed Barack Obama as the state’s junior U.S. senator.
Republican Senator Arlen Specter is potentially vulnerable in his 2010 bid for re-election. A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Pennsylvania voters finds Specter leading MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews by just three percentage points, 46% to 43%, in a match-up that may foreshadow one of the nation's most closely-watched Senate races.
Seventy-four percent (74%) of U.S. voters continue to believe the federal government is not doing enough to secure the country’s borders, even as President-elect Obama has named a new secretary of Homeland Security who is opposed to a border fence.
Nearly three-out-of-five U.S. voters (59%) say a terrorist attack in the United States like the one last week in India is at least somewhat likely in the next year. Twenty-three percent (23%) say it is Very Likely.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of Americans are at least somewhat confident that Barack Obama’s economic team can lead the country out of its current economic problems. Twenty-five percent (25%) are Very Confident.
Only 12% of U.S. voters say Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has done a good or excellent job handling the country’s credit crisis and the bailout programs aimed at helping the economy.
Voters are evenly divided over the man Barack Obama wants to be the next attorney general of the United States, but 54% don’t know enough about him to have an opinion, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
America’s at war and in the midst of economic problems of an historic magnitude. We’re also at the end of one presidency and the beginning of the next, with a largely new cast of characters to lead the nation at this critical time.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of American voters see Barack Obama as politically liberal, including 41% who say he is very liberal.
Nearly half of U.S. voters (47%) say Vice President-elect Joseph Biden will not play as important a role in the Obama Administration as Vice President Dick Cheney did during the Bush years.
Gates, who has been defense secretary for two years, is viewed favorably by 44% of U.S. voters, with 16% rating their view as Very Favorable. He is regarded unfavorably by just 21%, including seven percent (7%) who say their opinion of him is Very Unfavorable.
The key Democrats on Capitol Hill who will be working to reverse the country’s financial downturn are better known than Barack Obama’s new economic team but not better thought of by voters.
Wall Street is reportedly reassured by President-elect Obama’s choice of Timothy Geithner to be secretary of the Treasury, but right now 53% of U.S. voters don’t know enough about him to have an opinion about his selection.
Nearly half of U.S. voters (49%) say the United States should not close the terrorist prison camp at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, but the identical number (49%) also say Barack Obama is Very likely to close it in the first year of his presidency.
This time it looks like Congress is listening to the voters. Nearly half of U.S. voters (48%) told Rasmussen Reports this week that it is better for the economy to let companies like General Motors fail rather than providing government subsidies to keep them in business.
Over half of U.S. voters (53%) give Barack Obama good or excellent marks on how he will handle the economy, up five points since right after Election Day, although he won’t formally begin to execute his plans for another two months.
Hillary Clinton hasn’t made up her mind yet whether to take the job, but 28% of U.S. voters say she would make the best secretary of State for incoming President Barack Obama.
Depending on voters’ political party and ideology, Barack Obama’s appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court will either be too liberal or about right. Very few, however, expect his choices for the high court to be too conservative.
