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Just 34% Say America’s Best Days in the Future

Voters continue to have little faith in the future of America. 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 34% of Likely U.S. Voters think America’s best days are in the future.  A plurality (46%) believes the nation’s best days are in the past, while 19% more are not sure.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

In late July, 32% were confident in the future of our nation, just a point above the all-time low of 31% reached in April. That marked the low point in nearly five years of surveying.  Since November 2006, optimism has ranged from 31% to 47% but has generally hovered in the high 30s and low 40s for much of that time.  Those who think America’s best days are behind us have ranged from 37% to 53% in that time period.

Separate polling finds that just 16% of voters believe the country is heading in the right direction. That finding is down 13 points from a year ago.

(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 national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 31-September 1, 2011 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 . See methodology.

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