88 percent say US is on wrong track: survey

Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say the country is headed on the wrong track, according to a survey from Monmouth University Poll released on Tuesday.

The survey found that just 10 percent said the country is headed in the right direction — an all-time low since the pollster began asking the question in 2013 — while 88 percent said it is on the wrong track.

The proportion of respondents who said the country is on the wrong track jumped by 9 percentage points from when the question was asked in May, which was also a record at the time.

Only 6 percent of Republicans said the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 18 percent of Democrats. Ninety-two percent of Republicans said the country has gotten off on the wrong track, as do 91 percent of independents and 8 in 10 Democrats.

Older Americans were more likely to believe the country is headed in the right direction.

Sixteen percent of those aged 55 and older said the U.S. is headed in the right direction, compared to 8 percent of those aged 35 to 54 and 5 percent of those aged 18 to 34.

Monmouth conducted interviews both before and after the Supreme Court voted late last month to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, ending the constitutional right to abortion.

Less than 1 percent of respondents had indicated abortion as their top issue in previous instances of the poll dating back to 2015, but the figure jumped to 5 percent in the latest poll release.

Nearly half of respondents named gas prices or inflation, which is the highest in decades, as their biggest concern.

“The state of the economy has Americans in a foul mood,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “They are not happy with Washington.”

As the Federal Reserve rapidly raises interest rates to curb rising prices by making borrowing more expensive, a growing number of economists are warning of recession risks.

The Biden administration has articulated a more optimistic outlook, arguing a recession is not inevitable.

“However, that has not changed the overall picture of whom they want in control of Congress,” said Murray. “The question is who actually shows up to vote in the fall.”

Thirty-eight percent of respondents want Democrats to control Congress, compared to 36 percent of respondents who preferred Republicans.

The poll was conducted between June 23 and 27 with 978 U.S. adults. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.