Polls

The percentage of Californians who believe air pollution is a "big problem" has dropped precipitously in recent years, especially in Los Angeles County and the Central Valley, among the nation's dirtiest regions, according to a new survey.

Americans are becoming less religious, increasingly turning away from many denominations that once served as their spiritual homes, according to a major national survey released Monday. The percentage of people who do not claim a religious identity has nearly doubled since 1990, growing to 15% of Americans last year, researchers with the American Religious Identification Survey found. Mainline Christian denominations, once bulwarks of the religious landscape, have suffered most from the drift.

After a summer of healthcare battles and sliding approval ratings for President Obama, the White House is facing a troubling new trend: The voters losing faith in the president are the ones he had worked hardest to attract. New surveys show steep declines in Obama's approval ratings among whites -- including Democrats and independents -- who were crucial elements of the diverse coalition that helped elect the country's first black president. Among white Democrats, Obama's job approval rating has dropped 11 points since his 100-days mark in April, according to surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili sent his countrymen to the polls Saturday in a snap presidential election, a risky gamble designed to quiet complaints of creeping authoritarianism and prove the once and would-be future president is still a pro-democracy icon. With his credibility on the line, Saakashvili abruptly stepped down as president a year and a half ahead of schedule and called for this weekend's vote as a referendum on his rule.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has begun detailed polling and sophisticated voter analysis in all 50 states as he considers an independent bid for president, associates said Wednesday. The information gathering quietly started months ago, and when the analysis begins shortly, it will provide the data-obsessed billionaire businessman with the information he will use to decide whether to launch a run for the White House.

Nearly one-third of directors at U.S. public companies think chief executives are overpaid, according to a survey released Tuesday. The study by Chicago-based executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc. and USC's Center for Effective Organizations questioned 227 directors. Of them, 32% said CEO pay was "too high in most cases," up from 25% in 2001.

Based on polls of voters and their rank-and-file members, leaders of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs said Tuesday they would ask county supervisors to appoint former Lt. Bill Hunt to replace Michael S. Carona as the next sheriff.

Super Tuesday may have lacked a runaway winner in either party, but when it came to anticipating the outcome of both primaries in California, there was one clear loser -- the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll. "We blew it," pollster John Zogby said. He pointed out that the polls he supervised got the victors right in six other races Tuesday (impressively, his had Barack Obama winning narrowly in Missouri, unlike other last-minute surveys).

Top U.S. chief executives expect their industries to fare worse over the next six months as economic growth slows to a snail's pace, whether the United States is in recession or not. According to a Business Council survey released Thursday, 81% of CEOs polled by the group expected "sluggish" U.S. economic growth of 0% to 2% this year.

The current attitude of California voters can be summed up like this: A pox on politicians of both parties. There's one exception: Barack Obama, according to a new poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. In the statewide survey released today, 61% of likely voters hold a favorable opinion of the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Only 34% have an unfavorable view.