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Pliny's Point on February 14, 2017

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By Ballotpedia Staff

February 14, 2017: An average of recent polls indicates that a majority think the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction. 34 percent believe the country is on the right track, the same as last week, despite the addition of new polling data from Rasmussen Reports. All the polls included in this average are listed below.

SourceDate rangeSample size% who think the U.S. is headed in the right direction
Rasmussen Reports[1]2/5 - 2/92,500 likely voters45%
Economist/YouGov[2]2/5 - 2/71,315 registered voters31%
Reuters/Ipsos[3]2/3 - 2/71,896 adults32%
CBS News[4]1/13 - 1/161,257 adults29%
Wall Street Journal/NBC[5]1/12 - 1/151,000 adults37%
Washington Post/ABC[6]1/12 - 1/151,005 adults29%

Methodology

For Ballotpedia's presidential approval, congressional approval, and direction of the country polling results, we take an average of the most recent polls on one or more of these topics conducted by 12 sources. Polls may be included in the average for up to 30 days, though this timeline may be adjusted to account for major news events as we attempt to balance the need for a larger sample of results with the need to remove outdated information. For a full description of our methodology and polling explanations, see: Ballotpedia's Polling Indexes.

What's in a name?

Pliny the Elder, a scholar from the Roman Empire, is most well known for writing the encyclopedic work Naturalis Historia, or “Natural History.” His extremely thorough work covered everything from botany to technology. Naturalis Historia, one of the largest Roman works that still exists from the first century A.D., became an example for future encyclopedic works through its formatting, references, and comprehensiveness.

Today, Ballotpedia works to preserve and expand knowledge, just like Pliny did hundreds of years ago. One of the features of Ballotpedia, the encyclopedia of American politics, was a daily statistic called Pliny’s Point. Each day, between January 20, 2017 and September 1, 2017, readers learned where Americans stood on the direction of the country, or their approval of elected officials.


Click here for more Pliny's Point articles.

See also

Ballotpedia daily polling averages:

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Footnotes