Americans don't expect much from their government in 2016, but are slightly more optimistic about their own lives
As President Obama prepares to give his final State of the Union address, Americans don’t expect much will be accomplished in 2016 – not by the President or Congress. And while the public in the latest Economist/YouGov Poll is more optimistic about their family’s future in 2016 than they are about the year for the world, fewer than half are optimistic even for their family’s year.
This negative assessment of what will happen in the world in the next year has been the case for a while, though the level of optimism is still lower today than it was in January 2015. In both polls, Republicans were much more pessimistic than Democrats. This year, half of Republicans are pessimistic about the world, compared with less than one in four Democrats. When it comes to their own families, while optimists outnumber pessimists in both parties, nearly a third of Republicans remain pessimistic about their own family’s 2016.
A turn towards a more pessimistic mood occurs both in the foreign and the domestic sphere. Pessimism about the war in Afghanistan has jumped ten points from this time last year; while optimism about the economy in respondents’ own communities has dropped nine points since last January.
At the start of 2015, Republicans were hopeful that the GOP-controlled Congress would be successful, many expecting that it would accomplish more than it did in 2014. While Congress is still controlled by the Republican Party, Republicans are nowhere near as hopeful now as they were a year ago. There has been a drop of 30 points in the percentage of Republicans thinking Congress will do more than it did the year before, and a drop of 20 points in the percentage of Republicans who think it will accomplish more than usual.
Last year at this time, the current Speaker of the House, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin was a potential GOP candidate for President, and one of the best-liked of those contemplating running. 67% of Republicans held a favorable view of Ryan and only 7% were unfavorable at the beginning of January 2015. Now just 45% of Republicans are favorable towards the new Speaker, and nearly as many, 39%, are not.
Last January, there were low expectations for what President Obama could accomplish. In 2015 he was facing a Congress run by the opposing party, and only 10% of the public believed he would accomplish more than they expected in the coming year. That percentage hasn’t changed much.
Like last year, most expect little or no progress from the President, now entering his last year in office, in fulfilling the promises made in the 2008 campaign: improving the economy, improving the U.S image abroad, and changing the partisan tone at home.
See the Economist/YouGov results
Economist/YouGov poll archives can be found here.
