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35% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction

Thirty-five percent (35%) of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, September 16.

That’s down two points from 37% the week before, the highest level of optimism since late June 2009, but is still the highest weekly finding since early April 2010.

From July 25 through December 11 of last year, voter confidence in the nation's current course resembled levels measured in the final months of the George W. Bush administration, remaining in the narrow range of 14% to 19%. That finding began climbing in early January of this year to a high of 34% in the second week of February and had been in the high 20s to low 30s in weekly tracking until two weeks ago.

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The national telephone survey of 3,500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen September 10-16, 2012. 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.

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We conduct public opinion polls on a variety of topics to inform our audience on events in the news and other topics of interest. To ensure editorial control and independence, we pay for the polls ourselves and generate revenue through the sale of subscriptions, sponsorships, and advertising. Nightly polling on politics, business and lifestyle topics provides the content to update the Rasmussen Reports web site many times each day. If it's in the news, it's in our polls. Additionally, the data drives a daily update newsletter and various media outlets across the country.

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