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BIDEN PESSIMISM SETS IN. One of the most basic measurements in political polling is the so-called “right track, wrong track” number. For years, pollsters have asked a variation of this question: “Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?”
Most of the time, more people believe the country is on the wrong track than believe it is on the right track. The last time it was even tied (an equal number answering right and wrong track) was for a brief moment in June 2009.
There were huge negative gaps during the Obama years — times in which the wrong track outpolled the right track by 30, 40, or even 50 points. Things were more settled during President Donald Trump’s years (yes, they were) when an increasing number of people believed the country was on the right track and the negative gap narrowed to between 10 and 20 points.
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That all changed in 2020, with the beginning of the Covid pandemic and the presidential election, when large numbers of people said the country was on the wrong track. On Jan. 19, 2021, Trump’s last day in office, 69.6% believed the country was on the wrong track, while just 21.4% believed it was on the right track — a gap of 48.2 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
President Joe Biden’s arrival brought an immediate improvement in the numbers. The wrong track number was still higher — that seems to have become a permanent feature of American life — but by May, the gap was down to single digits, once as low as six points.
Then came August, and the number of people who believe the country is on the wrong track began to grow, while the number who think it is on the right track began to shrink. Now, the gap has grown to 28 points — more than it was at any time in 2018 and 2019. Biden pessimism has set in.
And why shouldn’t it? Inflation, a debacle in Afghanistan, a debacle on the southern border, falling voter confidence in the president’s job performance — together, it is a recipe for greater pessimism about the direction of the country. No, Biden pessimism has not reached the depths that were common during the Obama years. But it appears to be headed in that direction.
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