With President Obama set to deliver his second State of the Union address tonight, a new national poll finds that Americans are more optimistic about the state of the country than they have been in nearly four years.
In a CNN poll released today, 43% of Americans said things in the country were going either “very” or “fairly” well, the highest level of confidence CNN has measured since April 2007. That result also represents a 14-point increase from just one month ago, when only 29% of Americans said the country was in good shape.
Despite the surge in optimism, the majority of Americans are still generally pessimistic about the state of the nation. Fifty-six percent of respondents said the country was faring “very” or “pretty” badly. Still, that’s down from 71% one month ago, and significantly lower than the record high of 83% that CNN measured in November 2008.
Americans’ brightening view on the country in general correlates nicely to a recent uptick in their confidence in the economy. A CNN poll released last week showed optimism about the economy inching up, while pessimism dropped to its lowest level since August 2008. Also, a recent Pew poll found that fewer people were hearing “mostly bad” economic news than at any time since December 2008, when Pew began polling the question.
The CNN poll was conducted January 21-23 among 1,012 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of 3.0%
