FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Republicans’ outlook on the direction of the country has soured dramatically, according to a new AP-NORC poll that was conducted shortly after last week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The share of Republicans who see the country headed in the right direction has fallen sharply in recent months, according to the September survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Today, only about half in the GOP see the nation on the right course, down from 70% in June. The shift is even more glaring among Republican women and the party’s under-45 crowd.
Overall, about one-quarter of Americans say things in the country are headed in the right direction, down from about 4 in 10 in June. Democrats and independents didn’t shift meaningfully.
Republicans cited political violence and worries about social discord as their top reasons for a drop in optimism. The scale of the shift is noteworthy. The AP notes that the “drop in Republicans who see the country headed in the right direction is bigger than the decline between October 2020 and December 2020, after President Donald Trump, a Republican, lost his reelection bid.”
The scale is most similar to the decline pollsters sawd in the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican optimism about the county plunged from 75% saying the country was on the right track in June to just 49%. Younger and female Republicans are especially pessimistic. https://t.co/w7s5iWXEBX pic.twitter.com/NhQhApOUhz
— AP-NORC Center (@APNORC) September 19, 2025
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