Your monthly support provides voters the knowledge they need to make confident decisions at the polls. Donate today.
Pliny's Point on June 21, 2017
June 21, 2017: An average of recent polls reveals that 35 percent of people in the U.S. are pleased with the direction the country is heading, while 58 percent think it is on the wrong track. New polling data released this week from Rasmussen Reports showed a drop in satisfaction of two percentage points, while the Politico/Morning Consult poll showed a five-point drop. CBS News also released a new poll this week. All polls showed less than half of respondents think the country is heading in the right direction.
| Source | Date range | Sample size | % who think the U.S. is headed in the right direction | Margin of error (+/-) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Politico/Morning Consult[1] | 6/15 - 6/19 | 2,051 registered voters | 38% | 2% |
| CBS News[2] | 6/15 - 6/18 | 1,117 adults | 31% | 4% |
| Rasmussen Reports[3] | 6/11 - 6/15 | 2,500 likely voters | 35% | 2% |
| Economist/YouGov[4] | 6/11 - 6/13 | 1,310 registered voters | 35% | 3.1% |
| Reuters/Ipsos[5] | 6/9 - 6/13 | 1,492 adults | 28% | 2.9% |
| IBD/TIPP[6] | 5/30 - 6/6 | 903 adults | 43% | 3.3% |
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account for major news events as we attempt to balance the need for a larger sample of results with the need to remove outdated information.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:
Stay in the know:
- The Weekly Brew
- The Daily Brew
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition, 2016-2017
- Policy issues under the Trump administration, 2017-2021
- 115th United States Congress
- Special elections to the 115th United States Congress (2017-2018)
Footnotes
- ↑ Politico/Morning Consult, "National Tracking Poll," June 15-19, 2017
- ↑ CBS News, "Poll: Positive views of U.S. economy on the rise," June 20, 2017
- ↑ Rasmussen Reports, "Right Direction or Wrong Track," June 19, 2017
- ↑ YouGov, "The Economist/YouGov Poll," June 11 - June 13, 2017
- ↑ Ipsos, "Ipsos Poll Conducted for Reuters: Core Political Data," June 14, 2017
- ↑ Investors.com, "Trump's Approval Drops As His Spending, Tax Cut Plans Gain Wide Support: IBD/TIPP Poll," June 7, 2017
