We know, we know. Every week there’s a new poll about the things Americans don’t know, so there’s really no need to get all worked up about it at this point. Also, not everyone reads blogs all day, every day, like we (and some of you, thank God) do, etc. But still, it seems reasonable to expect that people would have absorbed the most basic information about an election that just happened two weeks ago and thoroughly dominated all forms of media. Yet over half of Americans have not.
According to a Pew survey, only 46 percent of Americans know that the Republicans won the House but not the Senate. “About one-in-seven (14%) say the GOP won both the House and Senate; 8% say they won just the Senate; 5% do not think they will have a majority in either chamber; and 27% do not know.” As a measure of how disengaged from politics young people become when a race does not revolve around an exciting young black man, only about a quarter of 18-to-29-year-olds were able to answer the question correctly.
Public Knows Basic Facts about Politics, Economics, But Struggles with Specifics [Pew]
