Short-term optimism rises, especially among Republicans
With President Donald Trump's return to the White House just around the corner, Americans are ushering in the new year with a little more spring in the air. The long-awaited end of the Biden-Harris era.
When the calendar year finally reached its inevitable conclusion, 30 percent of Americans said the previous 12 months had been the worst for the country, and another 26 percent said they had been the worst. Annual survey by YouGov. That's a pretty damning number: 56% of Americans have a pessimistic view of the republic's experience.
The survey found that 22% of Americans think last year was the worst, and 27% say last year was the worst. 7 points to stay away from negative thoughts. Among Republicans, the proportion saying the past year has been bad fell from 44% to 26%. Among Democrats, the number rose from 11% to 18%.
When asked about their predictions for next year, Eighteen percent of Americans say the new year will be a great year for the country, and 21 percent say it will be a good year. This is up from 8 percent who think great things will happen in 2024 and 15 percent who think this year will be a good year. 18% say this year will be a bad year, down from 23%, and 17% say this year will be a bad year (down from 20%).
You won't be surprised to learn that public opinion about next year is highly partisan. Thirty-four percent of Republicans expect a great year, and 36% expect a good year. Make the Republican Party a party of 70% optimists. At the end of 2023, just 7% of Republicans expected it to be a great year, and 8% expected it to be a good year. Just 3% of people expect 2025 to be a terrible year, down from 33% the year before.
Democrats are less hopeful about 2024 and less optimistic about 2025. A year ago, 13% of Democrats expected a great year and 28% expected a good year. Currently, only 9 percent expect a great year and 10 percent expect a good year. On the pessimistic side, 37% of Democrats say they expect this year to be a bad year The country saw an increase from 9% last year.
The long-term outlook also looks good.
Long-term expectations have also changed. 44% of Americans now say they expect things to get better over the next 10 years Personally, that's up from 38% a year ago. 36% expect the next decade to be better for the country, up from 24% a year ago.
Republicans have seen a 20 point increase in their personal expectations for the next 10 years, with 53% now expecting it to do better, compared to 33% a year ago. 63 percent of Republicans 26 percent say the next 10 years will be better than the past 10 years, up from 26 percent a year ago.
Even Democrats' optimism was a little off when it came to how they were doing personally, and eroded when it came to the broader question of how the country was going to fare. 38 percent of Democrats The number of people who say they personally think things will be better over the next 10 years is down from 46% a year ago. But just 18% of people say they think this will be a better decade for the country, down from 32% a year ago.
The main points to be gleaned from analyzing party affiliation are: Rising Republican optimism has more than overcome Democratic declinefor both individual and national expectations.
Separately, Gallup's latest poll shows that 58% of Americans think Trump can improve the economyand 39% think they won't. Fifty-four percent said they expected Trump to cut taxes. Forty-seven percent of Americans think Trump could lower the prices of groceries and other goods, but 51% say he would not do so.
This is not an accurate depiction of a nation experiencing economic well-being. A better characterization is as follows realistic and cautious optimism. This is certainly an improvement over what many of us have felt over the past four years.
