Poll: Majority of voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction

A national poll found that most voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Yet, this new data also showed that Democratic voters are now much more likely to say that the country is headed in the right direction when compared to a similar poll conducted in early July.

The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted from Oct. 2-4, found that 60% of voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, while 30% say it is headed in the right direction, and 9% are unsure.

The poll was conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights and surveyed nearly 2,600 registered voters, including 1,135 Republicans, 1,162 Democrats, and 263 true (non-leaning) independents. It has a margin of error of 2.1%. The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll is one of only six national tracking polls in the United States.

When voters were asked the same question in early July, 65% said the country was headed in the wrong direction, 24% said it was headed in the right direction, and 11% said they were unsure.

Republicans overwhelmingly believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, data which has remained consistent over the past few polls. Only 9% of Republicans believe the country is headed in the right direction, with 86% saying it is headed in the wrong direction.

The independents polled were much more closely aligned with Republican concerns about the country’s direction. Sixty-eight percent of independent voters said they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, 16% said they believe the country is headed in the right direction, and another 16% said they were not sure.

While both Republicans and independent voters have remained consistent in their concerns about the direction of the country over the last few polls, Democrats seem much more confident about the direction of the country since July. Black and Hispanic voters also have a much more favorable view of the direction of the country compared to July.

In the July poll, 43% of Democrats said America was heading in the right direction, while an almost equal percentage – 42% – said the nation was headed in the wrong direction. Sixteen percent said they were not sure.

In the most recent poll, conduced from Oct 2-4, 33% of Democrats say they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. While this is still a third of all Democrat voters, it is a nine percentage point decrease from July. In the latest poll, 51% said they now believe the country is headed in the right direction, while 16% said they are unsure.

Part of that shift could be explained by Vice President Kamala Harris taking on the Democratic nomination for president in late July after President Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing his nomination.

Ultimately, it is unclear if Democratic voters who are concerned about the country’s direction see Harris’ candidacy as a change from the current Biden administration.

“That is actually one of the big open question marks that I think we might not know until Election Day,” David Byler of Noble Predictive Insights told The Center Square.

Byler added that, though voters are often sour on the country's direction, this does not always indicate an election's outcome. Yet, it has put Harris in a difficult position.

“Along with Biden’s approval rating, this does illustrate why Harris is on this tightrope where she has to both affirm that she was a Democratic vice president for four years but also distance herself somewhat from Biden in order to stay in a tight race with Trump,” Byler said.

Building a new image has been a challenge for Harris, who recently said that she would not have done anything different from Biden if she was president.

Byler pointed out that Democratic voters seem much more enthusiastic about voting for Harris than they did for Biden, which might affect their view of the nation's direction.

“There is increased enthusiasm on the Democratic side,” he said.