Americans’ Optimism for the Future Has Cratered by Nearly 20 Points in 2 Months: POLL

A new study shows a sharp increase in the number of Americans who have become pessimistic about the future of the country’s direction.

ABC News and Ipsos released a poll which found that 55 percent of the public are no longer optimistic about America’s future. This study notes that pessimism seems to be rising across the board for all political groups, and it’s a significant increase from the 36 percent of participants who expressed these feelings in the last version of this poll, published in early May.

The poll finds that President Joe Biden still enjoys support among Democrats and some Independents with his handling of the coronavirus. His numbers are in decline, however, since he only has a tiny majority of approval for his approach to economic recovery and the withdrawing of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. On top of that, Biden’s approval rate on handling crime is at 39 percent, his approach to gun violence is at 37 percent, and his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border situation is at 37 percent.

The poll goes on to note the split amongst Americans about whether Biden is living up to his 2020 campaign promises. The president is seeing a slip among Democrats and Independents who are still optimistic about the year to come, and 55 percent of poll participants say they’re pessimistic about the future versus the 45 percent who say the opposite.

“The decline in optimism has occurred across the board among Democrats, Republicans and independents,” ABC News states in their summary of the poll data. “Optimism is down about 20 points among Democrats and Republicans and down 26 points among independents. Among Democrats, about 7 in 10 (71%) now say they are optimistic about the direction of the country over the next 12 months. That’s much lower than the near universal (93%) approval from Democrats on Biden’s handling of the pandemic.”