75% of Republicans Believe the Country Is Better Off Than It Was Four Years Ago

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A huge majority of Republicans think the United States is in better shape now than it was four years ago. This view stands in stark contrast to the opinion of voters at large.

A CBS News poll found that 75% of self-identifying Republican voters think the country is better off than it was in 2016, while 25% disagreed with the premise.

“For most Republicans, America is a nation where the economy is still fairly good, where the effort to handle the coronavirus is going at least somewhat well and the president is doing a very good job on it,” CBS News notes.

“For them, the virus elicits less concern in the first place. They believe the 170,000 fatalities is an overstated count and one which, for many, can so far be considered acceptable.”

The poll was conducted among registered voters, who were asked what gave them confidence that the country was better. A huge majority of Republican voters – 82% – cited their faith in President Donald Trump’s leadership.

“There is plenty of what’s called negative partisanship at work here, as well,” the CBS News report says.

“For four in 10 Republicans, their allegiance to the GOP is based not so much on liking all that it stands for, but mainly on disliking what Democrats stand for.”

Republican voters’ views on the state of the nation, and in particular the economy and Covid-19, are wildly different from those of most voters, who take a negative view of both.

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