Poll: Majority says U.S. headed in wrong direction, but less than under Biden
As America approaches the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, the majority of voters say the nation is on the wrong track, but fewer do than before Trump was reelected.
The Center Square’s Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted April 15-18 by Noble Predictive Insights, surveyed 1,187 Democrats; 1,089 Republicans; and 251 non-leaning Independents. The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll is one of only six national tracking polls in the United States. It was scheduled to coincide with Trump’s 100th day in office, which is Tuesday, April 29.
Out of the 2,527 respondents, 54% say the country is going in the wrong direction, while 35% say it is headed in the right direction and 11% remain unsure.
But the numbers are more positive than they were in October 2024, when President Joe Biden was still in office, when 60% of voters held a negative view and only 30% held a positive view, as The Center Square reported.
The most recent poll shows that 86% of Democrats think the country is heading in the wrong direction while 9% say it is going in the right direction, with 5% remaining unsure.
Republicans are less unanimous, with 22% say America is on the wrong track and 63% thinking it is on the right track. Fourteen percent are undecided.
Non-leaning independents are the most unsure at 25%, though the majority, 59%, hold a negative view of the country’s direction. Only 16% think the country is headed in the right direction.
“Democrats are feeling really unified and really upset, and Republicans are kind of, [but] not as much, and this happens constantly when a party takes power,” David Byler, head of research at Noble Predictive Insights, said. “As you spend political capital, you unify your opposition and your own base gets complacent.”
Trump’s second term has been characterized by a whirlwind of controversial activity, including ramping up border security and deportations, dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, imposing wide-scale tariffs, and creating the Department of Government Efficiency, which has slashed tens of billions in federal grants and contracts.
The actions have evoked mixed reactions from Republicans and condemnation from Democrats, who have accused Trump of pandering to “his billionaire friends.”
The Voters’ Voice Poll numbers on where the country is headed did not vary significantly based on income bracket. But higher income earners (those earning more than $100,000 annually) were more likely than lower income earners to say that the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Urban and suburban voters were also much more likely to hold negative views of the country’s trajectory than rural voters, with the former saying it’s headed the wrong way by 59% and 57%, respectively, and 42% the latter making the same choice.
The poll has a +/- 2.0% margin of error.
