Des Moines, Iowa – Republicans’ perceptions of the direction of the country have deteriorated sharply, a new AP-NORC poll conducted shortly after last week’s assassination of conservative activists Charlie Kirk.
According to the Associated Press-Nok Public Affairs Research Center survey, the share of Republicans who have seen the country move in the right direction has dropped sharply in recent months. Today, only about half of the Republicans see the country on the right-hand route, while 70% in June fell. This shift is even more pronounced among Republican women and the party’s under-45s.
Overall, about a quarter of Americans say things are heading in the right direction in the country, down about June 10. Democrats and independents have not changed meaningfully.
Interviews with Republicans polled by polls show that political violence and concerns about social disharmony played a role in their emotional shift after the summer was hurt by digital killings on both sides of the political spectrum, although they also mentioned another set of concerns, including work, family costs and crime.
“I spent a lot of time worried about political deterioration, and now it’s an unsettling assassination,” said Chris Bahr, a 42-year-old Republican from the suburbs of Houston.
“If you talked to me two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have it as a main issue, but a breathtaking feeling,” the software administrator said. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. But now it’s violence, and it’s just this feeling of hostility and division.”
The view of the direction of the country is often quite stable, but major events sometimes shake the guerrillas’ feelings about the state of the country even when political parties are in power. For example, Democrats are more likely to say that the U.S. leadership was wrong after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, a milestone decision to establish federal abortion rights. Democrat Joe Biden is the president.
But the optimist Republican transformation, especially among young Republicans and Republican women, is of noteworthy scale. The decline in Republicans moving in the right direction is greater than the decline between October 2020 and December 2020 after the Republican president lost his reelection. Its range is more similar to the declines that occurred in the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among Republicans under 45, the decline is particularly noticeable: 61% say the country is heading in the wrong direction, with a 30 percentage point rise since June, the last time the question is raised.
Mustafa Robinson, a 42-year-old truck driver of the Republican, was plagued by the cost of living, but he was increasingly greeted with his hopes as a stronger sense of national unity.
“It’s like, you think your career and work are heading in the right direction, but everything around is rising in price. It seems you can’t take a break.” Robinson is a married father whose three married fathers live in Delaware County in southwest Philadelphia. “But we should also be united as a country and unite. We are not. I’m so confused that nothing is on the same page that these people are shot.”
KirkHe formed the Arizona-based political group Turning Point America and was a former leader of Trump’s young conservatives, who died on September 10 after being shot dead during his outdoor activities at Utah Valley University.
On June 14, Melissa Hortman, a Democrat of Minnesota State Legislative Councillor, was shot dead with her husband at her home in a suburban Minneapolis home, authorities called targeted political violence.
In April, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, his family and guests fled the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg after a man broke into his home and lifted a fire to cause major damage. It takes place during the Passover Jewish holiday, where Shapiro was Jewish.
Last year, Trump was the target of assassination in an election campaign held in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot.
For many Americans, worrying about political violence is nothing new. In October last year, an AP-NORC poll found that 42% of adults in the United States were “extremely” or “very” worried about the possibility of increased political violence against politicians or election officials following the presidential election.
Trump accuses “radical left” Kirk’s Kill people and discuss the responses of groups pursuing progress. Without any link to last week’s shooting, he and his administration members discussed classifying certain groups as family terrorists, ordered extortion investigations and revoked tax-exempt status for certain people.
According to the polls, Republican women think almost as much about the national curriculum as younger Republicans think. About three-quarters of Republican women say the country is in the wrong direction, up from 27% in June. By comparison, 56% of Republican men said the country was in the wrong direction, up from 30% in June.
Not everyone who thinks the trajectory that America is worried about stands out in their minds. Joclyn Yurchak, 55, from northeastern Pennsylvania, ticked a range of issues she believes putting the United States on the road to decline.
Yurchak, a warehouse worker who returned to school to open, said good jobs were hard to find and required a longer commute. Although she believes Trump has begun to break in and is concerned about criminal drug activities in her area, she is troubled by illegal immigration.
ask Kirk And other political goals, Yurchak attributes these plots to the wider wear and tear of the country’s social structure.
“It’s all violence, not just political,” Yurchak said. “No one respects anyone anymore. This is sad. ”
Like everyone else, Minnesota Republican Jeremy Gieske first saw economic uncertainty as the main reason for his wrong repertoire opinions, then hovered instead of prompting what he called “all political poison.”
“We’re on each other’s throats,” said the 47-year-old product manager for Rogers in northwest Minneapolis. “This viciousness on both sides. We have made others vicious, just as we are on the verge of a social collapse. Kirk Straw that breaks the camel’s back or sheds powder buckets? In everyone’s mind. ”
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Sanders reported from Washington.
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A sample from NORC probability-based Amerispeak panel was conducted on September 11-15, which was designed to represent the U.S. population. The margins of the adult population sampling error are added or subtracted by 3.8 percentage points.
