Over the past few months, Republican views on the state of the nation have turned more negative; just 29% of Republicans now say they are satisfied with the state of the nation, an eleven-point drop in two months, and half the proportion expressing satisfaction in January 2007. In January 2007, 58% of Republicans were satisfied with the way things were going. This fell to 47% in December 2007 and 40% in March. Currently The decline in satisfaction among Democrats has been less steep, mostly because opinions of national conditions were already so negative. In January 2007, just 16% of Democrats were satisfied with the state of the nation; half as many (8%) say the same today. Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.