Pessimism overflowing in new poll
By: CNN's Jeff Simon
July 25th, 2011
(CNN) - While most Americans are feeling a fiscal pinch, a new poll reveals a stunning amount of pessimism over the long-term outlook of the nation's economy.
According to a CNN/ORC poll released Monday, 84 percent of Americans feel the economy is in poor shape. While some expect economic conditions to improve, a majority-59 percent-believes the economy will still be in poor shape one year from now. It's the first time in the 14 years that CNN has asked the question that a majority has been pessimistic about the country's economic future.
Full results after the jump:
"That's a very significant, and very discouraging change in public attitudes toward the economy," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "It's unclear what caused this newfound pessimism. The length of the current economic downturn and concerns over the chances that the debt ceiling will go unresolved are probably contributing factors."
Full results [pdf]
Economic pessimism has hurt the re-election chances of some previous incumbents who presided over tough times. But that's not a guarantee that Obama will lose the general election next November. Despite the fact that Obama has been in the White House for nearly two and a half years,
57% of all Americans say they think that George W. Bush and the Republicans are more responsible than Obama and the Democrats for the country's current economic problems.
But when pollsters removed President Bush's name from the question, blame was spread evenly between the parties, with 38 percent blaming Democrats, 35 percent blaming Republicans and 22 percent blaming politicians on both sides of the aisle.
"That finding suggests that the Democrats need to pin the blame on George W. Bush, not the Republican party in general," says Holland. "Expect to hear Bush's name a lot in campaign ads next year."
The poll was conducted for CNN by ORC International on July 18-20, with 1,009 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/25/pessimism-overflowing-in-new-poll/
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