Statement of Methodology      
 

The following statement conforms to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls:

How this poll was conducted: This SurveyUSA poll was conducted by telephone in the voice of a professional announcer. Respondent households were selected at random, using Random Digit Dialed (RDD) sample provided by Survey Sampling, of Fairfield CT, unless otherwise indicated on the individual poll report. All respondents heard the questions asked identically. Within the report, you will find: the geography that was surveyed; the date(s) interviews were conducted and the news organization(s) that paid for the research. The number of respondents who answered each question and the margin of sampling error for each question are provided. Where necessary, responses were weighted according to age, gender, ethnic origin, geographical area and number of adults and number of voice telephone lines in the household, so that the sample would reflect the actual demographic proportions in the population, using most recent U.S.Census estimates. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin of sampling error, in one direction or the other, had the entire universe of respondents been interviewed with complete accuracy. There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely voter). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. Fieldwork for this survey was done by SurveyUSA of Clifton, NJ.

Definitions

For those survey results which include data crosstabbed by "generation" the definitions are:  

Generation
Birth Years
 Gen Y
 1979 to present
 Gen X
 1966 to 1978
 Jones
 1954 to 1965
 Boomers
 1942 to 1953
 Mature
 1941 and before

For those survey results which include a "Region" crosstab, the regions are defined here.