Americans' optimism about country's direction over next year drops nearly 20 points since May: POLL

In May, a little more than a third were pessimistic. Now, it is a majority, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.

As President Joe Biden completed 100 days in office, the country was optimistic about the coming year, but now, just after hitting the six-month mark, Americans' optimism about the direction of the country has plummeted nearly 20 points, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds. A majority -- 55% -- of the public say they are pessimistic about the direction of the country, a marked change from the roughly one-third (36%) that said the same in an ABC News/Ipsos poll published May 2. In the early May survey, Americans were more optimistic than pessimistic by a 28-percentage point margin. Optimism is now under water by 10 points. Looking ahead to the next 12 months, fewer than half -- 45% -- now report feeling optimistic about the way things are going, a significant drop from about two-thirds (64%) in the May poll. The decline in optimism has occurred across the board among Democrats, Republicans and independents. Optimism is down about 20 points among Democrats and Republicans and down 26 points among independents. Among Democrats, about 7 in 10 (71%) now say they are optimistic about the direction of the country over the next 12 months. That's much lower than the near universal (93%) approval from Democrats on Biden's handling of the pandemic. In politics today, partisans usually are more unified in their support or opposition to particular issues or people. The optimism-pessimism flip comes as Americans give Biden his lowest approval rating for his handling of the pandemic yet in ABC News/Ipsos polling. A little over 6 in 10 (63%) approve of the president's response to the coronavirus, according to the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel.