US News & World Report: Donald Trump Is Wrong

[DonViejo]

The Republican says America is falling apart, polls show many voters don't agree.

By Kenneth T. Walsh | Contributor

Sept. 9, 2016, at 6:00 a.m.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump argues that the nation is going to hell. As he accelerates his campaign in the final two months before Election Day, the billionaire real-estate developer is escalating his claims that the economy is in shambles, poverty is climbing, the health care system is a wreck, roads and bridges are crumbling, public schools are failing and America's position around the world is in steep decline. Sounds awful. The problem for Trump is that things actually are looking up for most Americans, says a new Gallup Poll in a little-noticed but positive sign for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, 48.9 percent of Americans said they were "thriving," according to a survey by Gallup and Healthways, a health care company. This assessment has substantially improved during Obama's eight years in office. "The 55.4 percent who are thriving so far in 2016 is on pace to be the highest recorded in the nine years Gallup and Healthways have tracked it," a Gallup spokesman said.

These results help to explain why Obama's job-approval ratings have been markedly better and why Clinton is leading in most polls against Trump. Fifty-four percent of the voters now approve of his job performance and 43 percent disapprove, according to the latest Fox News poll. This is also a good sign for Clinton, who pledges to continue most of Obama's policies. A majority of polls also give Clinton a strong advantage in the battleground states that will decide the election.

She is reinforcing this dynamic by portraying herself as the candidate of optimism. She says the policies of Obama and the Democrats have helped to lift the economy out of the severe recession that Obama inherited, and made life better for most Americans. And she says the future will be bright if these policies are retained.

She is onto something. Delving more deeply into Gallup's survey research, it turns out that the "thriving factor" runs wide and deep. "The percentages of U.S. whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians who are thriving have all increased during the Obama era," the Gallup spokesman said. The percentage of whites, blacks and Hispanics who say they are thriving has increased by an average of 6 points for each group since 2008, and among Asians it has gone up by 10 points. Specifically, the percentage of whites who are say they are thriving has increased from 49.2 to 55.7. For blacks, it's gone up from 46.8 to 53.2. For, Hispanics, it's increased from 49.2 to 55.7, and for Asians, from 52.8 to 62.8.

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http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-09/donald-trump-is-wrong-americans-say-they-are-doing-well?emailed=1&src=usn_thereport