29% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Likely U.S. Voters now think the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey for the week ending July 23.

This finding is down three points from 32% the week before. Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare and gay marriage, the number of voters who said the country is heading in the right direction climbed into the 30s and stayed there for three weeks.

From late December through the beginning of March, 30% or more of voters said every week that the country was heading in the right direction, but the weekly findings fell back into the mid- to high 20s after that. A year ago at this time, 24% felt the country was heading in the right direction, while 68% thought it was on the wrong track.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters now believe the nation is headed down the wrong track, up a point from a week earlier.

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The national telephone survey of 2,500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports from July 19-23, 2015. 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-six percent (86%) of Republicans and 66% of voters not affiliated with either major political party think the country is on the wrong track. Democrats by a narrow 48% to 43% margin believe the country is headed the right way.

Most voters of all ages agree the country is headed in the wrong direction, but voters under 40 are slightly less pessimistic than their elders. 

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of whites and 60% of other minority voters believe the country is headed down the wrong track. Black voters are more closely divided.

Liberals are far more confident about the direction of the country than conservatives and moderates are. 

The more strongly a voter approves of President Obama's performance, the more likely he or she is to think the country is headed in the right direction. 

Despite its recent victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, the president’s health care law is still disliked by most voters who expect it to worsen the quality of care and make it more expensive.

The U.N. Security Council last week endorsed the agreement the Obama administration negotiated with Iran to slow the Iranian nuclear development program. But most U.S. voters aren’t impressed. Just 24% say they have a more favorable opinion of the deal with Iran now that the United Nations has signed off on it, while 33% say they view the agreement less favorably.

Voters are less likely than ever to think the U.S. system of justice is fair to the majority of Americans. But race remains a big factor in how voters respond.

Praise and criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court are inching down again after last month's major rulings on Obamacare and gay marriage, and voters are more likely now to think the court’s ideology skews liberal.

Voters still think something criminal was going on when the IRS targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups, and they are even more suspicious of what the president knew about it.

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