Tracking Trump - Direction of the Country for January 19th:
Bottom Line: For years, despite generally favorable approval ratings for President Obama, we'd collectively been unhappy with the overall direction of our country. In the first year of the Trump Presidency we've seen the scenario reversed.
Where we stood on Inauguration Day:
Right Direction: 30%
Wrong Track: 59%
Net: -29%
Last Week:
Right Direction: 37%
Wrong Track: 53%
Net: -16%
And Today:
Right Direction: 36%
Wrong Track: 54%
Net: -18%
Change: +11% under Trump & -2% from last week
For months in the weekly look at President Trump's approval rating I've broken out the difference in Trump's approval rating based on the level of political engagement. Simply put, the more engaged someone is the higher the President's approval rating. We're also seeing that show up in the direction of the country question. Consider...
On the question of whether the country is heading in the right direction...
- With adult only samples: 30%
- With Registered voters: 39%
- With Likely voters: 40%
A ten point spread is obviously a huge gap and you can fill in the blanks as to what happens with what Rush would refer to as "low information" people.
Of course, there's plenty of reason for that optimism...
Economic growth over 3% for the first time in 12 years
Base unemployment rate is the lowest in 17 years
Corporate profits are at all-time highs
The stock market is at all-time highs amid a record run
Retirement account balances are at all-time highs
Wage growth is at ten+-year highs
Combined wage growth & impact of tax reform savings has led to the largest one-year increase in average retained income in 32 years (7%+)
So now the question becomes the looming budget deadline. What's next? We'll know pretty quickly.