Gary Langer, president of Langer Research Associates, and Yulia Baskakova, its international projects director, gave presentations at this week’s conference of the World Association for Public Opinion Research in Salzburg, Austria. Baskakova, an expert in Russian public opinion, spoke on public attitudes in Russia toward the war in Ukraine; see her presentation here. Langer spoke on the topic of “Protecting the Integrity of Survey Research,” a paper published last spring in PNAS Nexus, the second journal of the National Academies of Sciences. See the text of his talk here.

The New York Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research honored Gary Langer with its Harry W. O’Neill Outstanding Achievement Award at a dinner event in New York this evening. Prof. Jon Krosnick of Stanford University introduced Langer, whose acceptance remarks focused on three foundations of success in the field of survey research: Developing strong reportorial skills, building the knowledge base that leads to informed judgment and exercising that judgment with integrity. See his comments here.

President Joe Biden’s job approval rating hit a career low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, with a broad 68 percent of Americans say he’s too old for another term as president – views that put him in a trailing position against top Republicans in early preferences for 2024. In addition to coverage by ABC and the Post, results have been picked up by The New York Times, NBC News, CBS News, Bloomberg, Axios,  and The Atlantic, among others.

The poll also covered views on the debt limit debate, finding that Americans divide closely on whom they’d blame if the federal government defaults on its debts. In a separate finding, 51 percent now think Supreme Court justices base their rulings mainly on their personal political opinions, not on the law. Coverage (beyond ABC and the Post) includes Yahoo News, NBC News, MSN, MSNBC News, Fox Business, and the Washington Examiner, among others.

We’re proud to be associated with a newly published article in the scientific journal PNAS Nexus, titled “Protecting the Integrity of Survey Research.” The article suggests 12 steps to improve the integrity, utility and understanding of public opinion surveys, centered around three themes: transparency, clarity and correcting the record.

In sum, the paper calls on survey researchers to be transparent in describing their work, so the research community can independently assess their methods and claims; to be clear and precise in describing their work, including its limitations; and to be willing to issue clarifications and corrections as needed. It encourages all those involved in the survey enterprise – including practitioners, scholars, survey vendors, leaders of professional associations, journal editors, reporters and publishers – to adopt and promulgate these scientific norms.

The paper is an outcome of a two-day virtual conference among 20 senior survey researchers, convened in November 2021 by Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and co-hosted by the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The proceedings were coordinated by Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the APPC, who together lead-authored the paper.

Co-authors include Ashley Amaya of the Pew Research Center; Henry E. Brady of the University of California, Berkeley; René Bautista of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago; Joshua D. Clinton of Vanderbilt University; Jill A. Dever of RTI International; David Dutwin of NORC; Daniel L. Goroff of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; D. Sunshine Hillygus of Duke University; Courtney Kennedy of the Pew Research Center; Gary Langer of Langer Research Associates; John S. Lapinski of the University of Pennsylvania; Michael Link of Ipsos; Tasha Philpot of the University of Texas, Austin; Ken Prewitt of Columbia University; Doug Rivers of Stanford University; Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles; David C. Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley; and Marcia K. McNutt.

PNAS Nexus is an open-access sibling journal to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published by the NAS in partnership with Oxford University Press. See the article here, and please share it with your circles.

Americans’ confidence in how police are trained and their treatment of Black people both have fallen to new lows in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, with coverage (beyond ABC and the Post) by NBC News, Forbes, The Hill and The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, among others.

As Joe Biden headed into the 2023 State of the Union, 41 percent were not as well off financially as they were when he took office and just 36 percent said he’s accomplished a great deal or good amount as president. Looking forward to 2024, nearly six in 10 Democratic-aligned adults don’t want to see Biden renominated, and half on the Republican side would rather not see Donald Trump as their party’s nominee. In addition to coverage by ABC and the Post, results have been picked up by CNN, USA Today, The Week, MarketWatch, U.S. News & World Report, The Hill (here and here), Politico and Axios, among others.

­We’re proud to have partnered with the Charles Butt Foundation in its fourth annual survey of public attitudes toward public education in Texas. Parents are broadly satisfied with the quality of their child’s education, the survey finds, and the vast majority of Texans say a teacher of theirs positively impacted their life.

Given that goodwill, the poll finds strong, bipartisan support for increasing state funding for public schools, including specifically to boost teacher salaries.

There are challenges: Just 39 percent of Texans would like to have a child of their own take up teaching in the public schools, down 10 points in a year. Three-quarters think public school teachers are undervalued or disrespected by society; 66 percent see teachers as overworked.

On school safety, 53 percent of Texans see at least a moderate risk of a mass shooting event at a public school in their community. Among parents, four in 10 see at least a moderate risk to their own child.

The survey also covers Texans’ views on vouchers, the effectiveness of the standardized STAAR test, students’ belonging and inclusion and the public’s engagement with local public schools. See the full report, topline and methodology here, as well as coverage in The Texas Tribune, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Texas Standard, the San Antonio Report, the Texas AFT and in county newspapers across the state.

Our final ABC/Post pre-election poll found a 50-48 percent Republican-Democratic split in House vote preference among likely voters, with economic discontent and President Joe Biden’s unpopularity fueling Republican prospects. Despite these headwinds, our ABC News exit poll analysis indicates that support for abortion rights, negative views of Donald Trump, rejection of election denial, broad backing from young voters and surprising strength among independents helped to keep the race for House and Senate control competitive. See additional coverage by The New York Times, Forbes, MSNBC, PBS, Vox, The Week, The Global Herald, The Hill, the New York Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times, among others.

Sixty-two percent of drivers in the United States admit having driven while they were so tired they had a hard time keeping their eyes open. Among them, a quarter – the equivalent of approximately 37 million adults – report doing so at least once a year, or more often than that.

That’s the case even though 95 percent of adults call drowsy driving extremely or very risky.  Even among drivers who call it extremely risky, six in 10 say they have driven drowsy at some point.

Results are from a survey we produced for the National Sleep Foundation in conjunction with its 15^th annual Drowsy Driving Week. See the full report here and more information about Drowsy Driving Week here.

Gary Langer joined Courtney Kennedy of the Pew Research Center in an hourlong webinar for journalists on how to cover election polls, sponsored by the SciLine program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. See Gary wave his arms and foam at the mouth here.

Our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds the Democratic Party struggling to find traction in the midterms, Joe Biden’s economic stewardship under fire and his overall job approval under 40 percent. A clear majority of Democrats say the party should replace Biden as its nominee for president in 2024. In addition to coverage by ABC and the Post, we’ve seen pickup by Yahoo News, Newsweek, Fox News, Fox Business, Bloomberg and The Hill, among others.