What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending January 26, 2019

The tug of war for and against continued funding for the wall along the Mexican border led to a second missed paycheck yesterday for furloughed federal workers.

Voters blame President Trump for the ongoing partial shutdown of the federal government and tend to oppose the compromise proposal he’s made to bring it to an end. 

The president late Wednesday announced he would delay his annual State of the Union message until after the partial government shutdown ended. Most Republicans think the president should give the speech as planned despite the shutdown; most Democrats disagree.

There are other fronts in the tug of war over illegal immigration.

A federal judge in New York has ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to restore a citizenship question to the 2020 census, even though 66% of Americans think the U.S. Census should ask respondents whether they are U.S. citizens. The Trump administration is appealing that decision.

In at least a temporary victory for Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed his administration’s ban on transgender military service members to go into effect, and it continues to be a particularly divisive issue for Americans, especially along party lines.

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Despite Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's continuing medical issues and her unprecedented absence from the high court, voters aren’t convinced the 85-year-old jurist will step down in time for Trump to name her replacement. 

Just after the 46^th  anniversary of the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade, most voters are pro-choice and think the ruling is likely to stick for years to come.

Participation in this past Sunday’s Women’s March appears to have gone down dramatically from two years ago when the first such march was held, but voters are little changed in their view that the annual event is good for women in general.

Meanwhile, voters continue to lack trust in the federal government’s ability to get things right, and most still believe the government is out for itself.

In other surveys last week:

-- Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week compared fighting climate change to being like a World War. Most voters disagree with that comparison, and even a plurality of Democrats don’t think it’s true.

-- News that publisher Gannett is potentially being bought by hedge-fund-backed media group Digital First Media is just the latest sign that print news organizations are consolidating.  Americans have more faith though that online and other news sources will be able to make up the difference. 

-- This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Americans weren’t particularly optimistic about the state of race relations in this country today.

-- Thirty-three percent (33%) of voters think the country is heading in the right direction.

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