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Find Public Opinion Polls and Surveys

Public opinion polls and surveys document the mentality or psychology of a time, or of a group. They provide evidence of a world view, a set of attitudes, or the popular understanding of an event or condition at the time it occurred.

Online sources

Eurobarometer: Public Opinion in the European Union
Presents results of public opinion surveys on social, political, and economic attitudes and issues in EU countries. Check Pathfinder (UC Berkeley) for older issues in print. Current unbound issues available in the North Reading Room, Doe Library floor 2.

Field (California) Poll   (UCB access only)
The Field Poll is an independent, non-partisan, media-sponsored public opinion news service. Each year the poll covers a wide range of political and social topics examining California public opinion.

Gallup Brain   (UCB access only)
The Gallup Brain is a searchable, living record of more than 60 years of public opinion. Inside, you'll find answers to more than 125,000 questions, and responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed by The Gallup Poll since 1935. This unparalleled poll database also houses current Gallup Poll News Service articles that feature the latest in depth poll analyses and replicas of news stories and press releases linked to the surveys.

Polling the Nations   (UCB access only)
Compilation of questions and responses from more than 6500 national, state, and local surveys in the US and from more than 70 nations. Coverage includes 1986 to the present.

Public Opinion Poll Question Database. Odum Institute Data Archives
The Institute for Research in Social Sciences at the University of North Carolina is one of the largest and oldest data archives in the US. It is the repository for all Louis Harris public opinion data and Roper Center nonproprietary poll data, and the headquarters for the National Network of State Polls. IRSS maintains a computerized catalog of more than 2800 studies and series in its data holdings arranged by title, principal investigator, and subject.

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research Center
The Roper Center was founded in 1946 and its collection of domestic and international collections of survey data is the most complete in existence. The Center's Public Opinion Location Library (POLL) gives online access to a database including poll questions asked in US from 1936 to present. It is available by subscription from the Roper Center (UC Berkeley has membership - inquire at the UC Data Survey Research Center), and through LexisNexis Academic (UCB access only), via Reference > Polls & Surveys.

Zogby International
Zogby International has been tracking public opinion since 1984 in North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.

Print sources

Pathfinder is the catalog for most of the UC Berkeley libraries.

Find national public opinion polls in Pathfinder:

  • Use the Advanced search.
  • Choose Subject [keyword] as your search type.
  • Enter the phrase public opinion polls united states as your search.

Find international public opinion polls in Pathfinder:

  • Use the Advanced search.
  • Choose Subject [phrase] as your search type.
  • Enter the phrase public opinion polls periodicals as your search.
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