Traditional polling forces citizens to place themselves into set categories, even on issues in which they are uninformed and uninterested.
The Mood of the Nation poll gives citizens a series of open-ended questions, allowing them to answer in their own words—saying what is on their minds, what is important to them, and thereby providing a unique window on contemporary American politics.
Read more about how the poll was conducted and the team that makes it happen.
Latest Poll Reports
The McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s new Mood of the Nation Poll finds Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump locked in a close race for the national popular vote.
Forty-eight percent of the likely electorate plans to vote for Harris, while 45 percent plan to vote for Trump. Given the poll’s ±4.2 percentage point margin of error, as well as the five percent of the electorate that remains undecided, the lead in the race is unclear.
This poll also finds that voters’ preferences in the presidential race are related to their opinions about democracy as a system of governance.
Nine in ten Americans can name either a recent news event or something about American politics that made them angry, while only half could identify a recent news event or something about American politics that made them proud, according to the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s latest Mood of the Nation Poll, conducted with 997 American adults from January 11 to 17, 2024.
In addition, when asked how angry or proud whatever they had identified made them feel, 46% of respondents said they felt “extremely angry,” over double the percentage who indicated feeling “extremely proud.”
Two-thirds of American adults indicate that they experienced at least one of five major weather events in 2023, according to the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s latest Mood of the Nation Poll, conducted with 1,000 American adults from January 11 to 17, 2024.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that 2023 was the fifth hottest in U.S. history and the country saw a record 28 separate billion-dollar weather disasters. It turns out these conditions were not at all lost on the American people.