Republicans’ outlook on the direction of the country has soured dramatically, according to a new AP-NORC poll that was conducted shortly after the 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.
Interviews with Republicans who took the poll suggest that political violence and nagging worries about social discord are playing a role in the notable shift in their mood after a summer scarred by killings of figures on both sides of the political spectrum, although they also mentioned another array of worries, including jobs, household costs and crime.
“I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about the worsening political discourse and, now, the disturbing assassinations,” said Chris Bahr, a 42-year-old Republican from suburban Houston.
“If you’d have talked to me two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have brought it up as a main concern but more of a gnawing feeling,” the software administrator said. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. But now it’s violence, while before it was just this sense of animosity and division.”
Among Republicans younger than 45, the decline is particularly glaring: 61% say the country is headed in the wrong direction, a spike of 30 percentage points since June, the last time the question was asked.
Mostly, 42-year-old truck driver Mustafa Robinson, a Republican, is troubled by the cost of living, but he has been increasingly bothered by what he wishes was a stronger sense of national unity.
“It’s like, you think you’re heading in the right direction with your career and your job, but everything around you is going up in price. It seems like you can’t catch a break,” said Robinson, a married father of three who lives in Delaware County just southwest of Philadelphia. “But we are also supposed to be united as a country and coming together. And we are not. I’m so perplexed how we’re not on the same page about anything, so bad that these people are being shot.”
