COVID-19, Protests Against Police Push US 'Satisfaction' To 9-Year Low - Poll

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th August, 2020) Americans' overall satisfaction with the direction of the nation plunged more than 32 percent since reaching a 15-year high at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in February, a Gallup poll revealed on Tuesday.

"The 13% of Americans who are satisfied with the way things are going in the US is down from 20% in June and 45% in February," a press release explaining the poll said.

Gallup attributed the pessimism to the recent surge in US COVID-19 infections, the most challenging economic conditions since the Great Depression as well as a reckoning with racial issues sparked by the death of George Floyd in late May and nationwide protests that followed.

"These events have greatly altered the national mood this year, from one that was brighter than it had been in over a decadeo one of the dourest in the past 40 years," the release said.

The plunge in the US mood, both in the past month and since February, mostly occurred among Republicans, whose satisfaction rate of 20 percent fell 60 percent since February, the release added. The poll also recorded declining satisfaction rates among independent voters.

However the pandemic and racial turmoil had little impact on Democratic voters, whose current satisfaction rate of 7 percent has remained relatively constant during the Trump presidency.