Pollster Mallory Newall said in an interview that aired Thursday on Hill.TV’s “What America’s Thinking” that Americans tend to feel more positive about the direction of their own city or state than they feel about the direction of the country as a whole.
“When you’re thinking about the direction of the country, you’re thinking very high level about what’s going on here in Washington, and that has stayed negative regardless of who’s in power consistently,” Newall, research director of Ipsos Research, told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on Wednesday.
“But if you ask people how they feel personally about their own lives, or even if you ask people how they feel about the direction of their city or their state, sure, the more local it is, or the more close it is to you personally, the better you’re going to feel about it,” she continued.
A Pew Research Center survey, released last year, found that 67 percent of Americans said they had a favorable view of their local government, while only 35 percent said they had a favorable view of the federal government.
A RealClearPolitics average of polls on Thursday found that 56.3 percent of Americans said they felt the U.S. was on the wrong track, while 35.5 percent said they believed the country was on the right direction.
The RealClearPolitics average was compiled amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, which has entered its fourth week due to a lack of compromise between the White House and Democrats.
— Julia Manchester
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