Ann Coulter’s worst nightmare has become a reality. Over the past few days, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey that showing young Americans age 18-29 are paying closer attention to the World Cup than they are to the various “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration, including the problems with Veterans Affairs, the IRS and the crisis in Iraq.
Of the Americans in that age bracket surveyed by Pew, 24% said they were following the World Cup “very closely.” 15% said the same for the VA story, while those numbers were 13% for the violence in Iraq and just 10% for the IRS missing emails investigation. The numbers for the 2014 midterm elections and recent Supreme Court rulings were even lower.
When Americans of all age groups were included, the World Cup did not come out on top. Instead, the VA backlog garnered the most attention at 28%, followed by Iraq at 25%, the IRS at 21% and then the World Cup at 17%.
For each of the major news items, interest grew incrementally through each age bracket, with interest in the World Cup declined. The 65+ group was most likely to be following the news while least likely to be following the World Cup.
There were also differences along partisan lines. While Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to be following the World Cup, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to be following each of the news stories. The split was most striking when it came to the IRS missing emails, which had the strong attention of 33% of Republicans but just 16% of Democrats.
View the full survey at pewresearch.org.
[Photo via WENN.com]
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