Fifty-two percent of voters surveyed said that they support allowing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. When the same question was asked on April 4, 59 percent said they supported it.

From the poll:

Illegal immigrants should be required to leave, 30 percent of voters say, up from 25 percent four weeks ago.

Creating a path to citizenship for illegal aliens would increase the likelihood of terrorism, 22 percent of voters say, while 66 percent say it will not make a difference. And 23 percent of voters say that the Boston bombing has changed their mind on whether there should be a path to citizenship for such immigrants.

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From the survey:

Only 38 percent of Americans who believe a revolution might be necessary support additional gun control legislation, compared with 62 percent of those who don’t think an armed revolt will be needed. “The differences in views of gun legislation are really a function of differences in what people believe guns are for,” said Cassino. “If you truly believe an armed revolution is possible in the near future, you need weapons and you’re going to be wary about government efforts to take them away.”

The poll also found that 25 percent of those surveyed "think that facts about the shootings at Sandy Hook elementary last year are being hidden." 11 percent are unsure.

h/t TPM.

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From CBS News:

Still, those following the news about Syria very closely are far more likely to think the U.S. has a responsibility to get involved there. Nearly half (47 percent) of that group thinks the U.S. has a responsibility to get involved there -- though about as many do not (48 percent).

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From PPP:

Ayotte now has a negative approval rating with 44% of voters giving her good marks and 46% disapproving. That's down a net 15 points from the last time we polled on her, in October, when she had a 48% approval with 35% disapproving. 75% of New Hampshire voters- including 95% of Democrats, 74% of independents, and 56% of Republicans- say they support background checks. And 50% of voters in the state say Ayotte's 'no' vote will make them less likely to support her in a future election, compared to just 23% who consider it to be a positive.

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The poll surveyed Americans, and asked, "Which word best describes how you feel about the fact that this gun legislation did not pass?" In response, 32 percent said they were "disappointed" and 15 percent said they were "angry."

That's compared with 20 percent said they were "very happy," and 19 percent said they were "relieved."

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This is up from 51 percent in 2011.

From the poll:

Public concern about global warming has waxed and waned over the past two decades, ranging between 50% and 72%. The average percentage over time for "worrying a great deal/fair amount" comes in at just under 60%, similar to the March 7-10 reading from Gallup's 2013 Environment poll.

But the poll also finds that 15 percent believe that the effects of global warming will never happen, while 41 percent believe new reports about the subject are exaggerated.

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The poll also found that almost half of Americans say they've tried pot:

The survey finds that an increasing percentage of Americans say they have tried marijuana. Overall, 48% say they have ever tried marijuana, up from 38% a decade ago. Roughly half in all age groups, except for those 65 and older, say they have tried marijuana.

Tom Angell of Marijuana Majority said in a statement that this is a good sign for legalization: "A majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, and you're going to start seeing more politicians running toward our movement instead of away from it, just as we've seen happen with marriage equality recently."

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Thirty-seven percent of voters, including 58 percent of Republicans, believe that global warming in a hoax. Six percent believe Osama bin Laden is still alive, while 13 percent think Barack Obama is the antichrist (including 22 percent of Romney voters). Five percent believe Paul McCartney actually died in 1966.

Perhaps the weirdest: 4 percent say "they believe 'lizard people' control our societies by gaining political power."

More from the survey:

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According to the poll, which measured what Americans dislike about each party, 21 percent of national adults said Republicans don't compromise, including 26 percent of Republicans, 17 percent of independents and 22 percent of Democrats. The second most common criticism was that Republicans are for "protecting the wealthy, not the middle class."

For Democrats, 14 percent said they spend too much, including 23 percent of Republicans, 11 percent of independents and 10 percent of Democrats. The second biggest criticism was that Democrats were also "unwilling to compromise."

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Forty-five percent of conservative Republicans say the Supreme Court is liberal, while 39 percent say it's "middle of the road."

On the other side, 48 percent of liberal Democrats view the Roberts Court as conservative, 31 percent say it's middle of the road, and 15 percent say it's liberal.

According to Pew, overall, "A plurality (40%) now say the court is middle of the road, while 24% say it is liberal and about the same share (22%) says it is conservative."

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Eighty-eight percent say they support background checks, while 10 percent oppose them -- and 85 percent of gun owners say they support them as well.

The poll comes as Sen. Harry Reid put in motion a Senate debate on a gun control bill, which includes background checks and school safety measures. Roll Call reports:

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Americans' negative view of the war reached its high point in 2008, when 63 percent said it was a mistake.

From Gallup:

Americans initially supported the war, with substantial majorities in 2003 saying the U.S. decision to get involved in Iraq was not a mistake. However, attitudes changed relatively quickly, and by the summer of 2004, a majority of Americans called the war a mistake.

Opinions fluctuated somewhat thereafter but, with one exception, since August 2005, a majority has said the war was a mistake each time Gallup has asked the question -- and at several points, more than 60% said so. The last time Gallup asked this question, in August 2010, 55% called the war a mistake.

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The NRCC, which campaigns on behalf of House Republicans, has acknowledged that it underestimated Democratic voter turnout and turnout of minorities last election cycle, which accounted for its flawed predictions in November. But Republicans don't want to make the same mistake in 2014 when Democrats will try to pick off the GOP's 17-seat majority in the House.

From Politico:

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By a margin of 43-39 percent, voters in the state oppose allowing the moratorium on fracking to be lifted, up slightly from last month when the same poll found that 40 percent opposed it, while 40 percent also supported it.

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From the poll:

This compares to a 48 – 46 percent statistical tie among all voters on same-sex marriage December 5 and reverses the 55 – 36 percent opposition in a July, 2008, survey by the independent Quinnipiac University.

“Catholic voters are leading American voters toward support for same-sex marriage,” Peter A. Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, wrote in a statement.

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The survey, conducted by the Center for Gun Policy and Research and initially released without racial breakdowns in late January, showed strong support overall for many of the proposals being discussed in Congress to limit gun violence. But the researchers broke down the numbers by race this week and shared the results with Salon.

Overall, 22 percent of Americans were found to own guns, while another 11 percent live in homes with someone else who owns guns. Among whites, the number of gun owners is slightly higher, at 26 percent, with an additional 13 percent who live in gun-owning households.

But only 12 percent of African-Americans and 13 percent of Latinos own guns. Just 5 and 7 percent of each ethnic group, respectively, lives in a household with someone else who owns a gun.

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Civil libertarians often gripe about the fact that no one, especially mainline Democrats, seems to care much today about their issues, even though civil liberty concerns helped galvanize the opposition to George W. Bush in his second term and propel Democrats to victory in 2006 and 2008.

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According to PPP, Fox News has hit a record low in credibility, with 41 percent of voters saying they trust the network, and 46 percent saying they do not. In 2010, when PPP first started doing the poll, the results were 49 percent-37 percent.

But people also had strong feelings both ways about Fox News' trustworthiness:

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According to this measure, the 10 most conservative states in the country, in order, were Alabama, North Dakota and Wyoming (tied for second), Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, and Nebraska and Arkansas. That list diverges fairly significantly from the results of the November election. The 10 states that give Republican Mitt Romney the largest margin, in order, were Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas, Nebraska, Kentucky, Alabama and Kansas. The two lists share seven states, but only Wyoming is in the same rank order. This disparity held true for a meta-survey Gallup also released this week, which asked respondents about partisanship, instead of ideological belief.

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The post concerns a recent survey that is actually pretty useful, in that it supports what should already be common sense: People have been led to believe that Social Security faces a crisis in funding. When you tell people some proposals for fixing it, they a) overwhelmingly choose to fund it more generously and b) decide that the program actually does not face any sort of crisis at all. A marketing firm hired by the National Academy of Social Insurance surveyed a random sampling of Americans and discovered that what people want is to raise taxes on rich (and regular!) people in order to fund more Social Security benefits, which is a good idea because the program is currently pretty stingy by international standards and Americans don't actually have pensions anymore.

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