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For First Time in Years, Most Feel America’s Best Days Lie Ahead

Americans are feeling better about the future than they have in over 12 years of regular surveying.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters now say America’s best days are in the future. This is the first time a majority of voters has expressed this sentiment in surveying since November 2006.

The previous high was 47% in December 2016 just after Donald Trump’s election. But in most surveys over the last 12-plus years, the number of voters who felt America’s best days still lie ahead ran in the mid- to upper 30s.

Only 28% now think the country’s best days are in the past, a new low. As recently as May 2017, this figure stood at 52%. Eighteen percent (18%) remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on April 28-29, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

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