26% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction

Twenty-six percent (26%) of Likely U.S. Voters think the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey for the week ending December 15.

That’s down two points from 28% the previous week which was the highest level of confidence since late September. In early October during the federal government shutdown, confidence in the country’s course fell to 13%, the lowest finding in five years. A year ago, 37% said the country was heading in the right direction.

During President Obama’s first months in office, the number of voters who felt the country was headed in the right direction rose steadily to 40% in early May 2009. In 2010 and 2011, confidence fell to the narrow range of 14% to 19%, levels similar to those measured in the final months of the George W. Bush administration. Optimism began easing up in again in mid-December 2011.

Sixty-six percent (66%) of voters now think the country is headed down the wrong track, up one point from the week before but down from a recent high of 80% in October. From January 2009 until October 2012, belief that the country was on the wrong track ranged from 55% to 80%, but it tracked in the low 50s from just before Election Day until early December last year.

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The national telephone survey of 3,500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on December 9-15, 2013. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Fieldwork for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of voters prefer a federal budget that cuts spending, but they’re closely divided over the new bipartisan budget deal that would restore some of the across-the-board sequester spending cuts from earlier this year.

Ninety percent (90%) of Republicans and 71% of voters not affiliated with either major political party still think the country is on the wrong track. Among Democrats, 48% believe the country is heading in the right direction, while 40% think it’s on the wrong track.

Forty-seven percent (47%) of black voters feel the country is heading in the right direction. Seventy-one percent (71%) of whites and 56% of other minority voters disagree.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters under 40 think the country’s on the wrong track, a view shared by roughly 70% of their elders.

Eighty-six percent (86%) of conservative voters and 62% of moderates say the country is on the wrong track, but 50% of liberal voters think the country is heading in the right direction.

Republicans and Democrats are running even on the latest Generic Congressional Ballot. 

Opposition to Obamacare's requirement that every American must have health insurance has risen to its highest level ever.

Just seven percent (7%) think Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Forty-six percent (46%) believe that President Obama is doing a poor job when it comes to handling the economy.

President Obama’s daily approval ratings are recovering from the high negatives he was earning as a result of the disastrous rollout of the new national health care law. 

Voters continue to believe the U.S. economy is fair to women, blacks and Hispanics but unfair to the middle class.

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