Poll: Americans divided on whether country will be better off after first Trump term
Just days before President Trump took office, Americans were split down the middle on whether the United States would be improved after he concludes his first term, according to a new poll.
Gallup released a survey Tuesday showing that 48 percent of Americans believed that the U.S. would be better off in 2020, compared to 46 percent that thought the country would be worse off after four years.
However, there’s a deep partisan divide when it comes to those numbers: 85 percent of Republicans believe that the U.S. would be improved after four years. Just 14 percent of Democrats believed that. On the other hand, 79 percent of Democrats think the state of the nation will deteriorate, compared to 11 percent of Republicans. Independents, in comparison, are cleaved in two: Forty-four percent believe the U.S. will be better, 48 percent say it will be worse.
Americans are dramatically less optimistic about Mr. Trump’s first term than they were ahead of former President Obama’s first days in office. In January of 2009, just over 7 in 10 Americans believed the nation would be better off four years after Obama became president.
The numbers for Mr. Trump, who lost the popular vote by more than 2 million ballots, hew closer to those of former President George W. Bush, who also lost the popular vote in 2000. In January of 2001, about 46 percent of Americans had a positive view of how the country would turn out, compared to 42 percent that said they thought the country would be worse off.
The Gallup poll was conducted Jan. 4-8 with a sample of 1,032 adults. The margin of error was four percentage points.