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 7. 

This finding is up one point from the previous week. The number of voters who think the country is on the right course has now ranged from 23% to 27% nearly every week since early June and has been below 30% most weeks since June of last year.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of voters now believe the nation is headed down the wrong track, down two points from last week. 

A year ago at this time, 28% said the country was heading in the right direction, while 65% thought it was headed down the wrong track.

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 The national telephone survey of 3,500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports from December 1-7, 2014. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans and 68% of voters not affiliated with either major political party think the country is on the wrong track. Democrats are almost evenly divided.
 
 Black voters by a 49% to 35% margin think the country is heading in the right direction. Seventy percent (70%) of whites and 60% of other minority voters disagree.

Voters under 40 are only slightly less pessimistic than their elders.

Those who earn $100,000 or more a year are more likely than those who make less to think the country is heading in the right direction.

Those who have an immediate family member in the military are more pessimistic than those who don't have a family member in uniform. 

One-out-of-two working Americans expect a pay raise in the coming year. But fewer of these employed adults are confident that their next job will be better than the one they've got now. L

Despite high hopes to the contrary, voters continue to believe the racial picture in this country has gotten worse since the election of the first black president. 

Voters continue to give mediocre reviews to America’s public schools.

Most Americans strongly view their local police as protectors and give them high marks for the job they do. But Americans are less convinced of the need for police to use factors such as race, ethnicity and overall appearance to determine whom they should randomly search.

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