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 October 19.
 
The number who say the country is heading in the right direction is down one point from the previous week. This finding has now been in the 23% to 27% range nearly every week since early June and has been below 30% most weeks for the past year. 
 
Sixty-six percent (66%) of voters now believe the nation is headed down the wrong track. This is up one point from the previous survey.
 
A year ago at this time during the partial federal government shutdown, 17% said the country was heading in the right direction, while 75% thought it was going down the wrong track.
 
Despite the concern registered at that time, 82% of voters now say the impact of the shutdown on them personally has been small at best.
 
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The national telephone survey of 3,500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on October 13-19, 2014. 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.
 
Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans and 70% of voters not affiliated with either major political party think the country is on the wrong track. Democrats say the country is heading in the right direction by a narrow 46% to 43% margin.
 
Roughly two-thirds of voters of all ages agree the country is on the wrong track.
 
Seventy-one percent (71%) of whites and 56% of other minority voters say it's on the wrong track. Blacks are evenly divided over the direction of the country.
 
Eighty-six percent (86%) of conservatives and 61% of moderates say the country is headed down the wrong track. Liberals feel the country is going in the right direction by a 47% to 40% margin.
 
Sixty-one percent (61%) of the Political Class believe the country is headed in the right direction, but 78% of Mainstream voters disagree. 

Only 34% of all voters think America's best days still lie in the future.

Just over half of voters still believe the economy is fair to blacks, Hispanics and women, but nearly two-out-of-three continue to feel the economy is unfair to the middle class.

That’s a problem when 85% of Working Americans consider themselves middle class.

With midterm elections less than two weeks away, only 40% of voters think U.S. elections are fair to voters.

Homeowners’ short- and long-term confidence in their home’s value remain at levels seen since early 2013.

Americans aren’t panicking over Ebola, but they have become more critical of the federal government’s response and less confident that the U.S. public health system will be able to contain the deadly virus.  

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