Two-thirds of voters say the country is on the wrong track ahead of the 2024 election

Two in 3 voters say the country is on the “wrong track” as voters weigh whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump would be better able to change that less than two months from Election Day. 

The latest NBC News national poll finds 65% of registered voters surveyed this month say the country is on the wrong track, while 28% say it’s on the right track. 

The figure is one of the “warning signs” for Democrats ahead of November, said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the poll along with GOP pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. 

“While the wrong track data is now under 70% for the first time since September 2022, it is still a terrible 65% for the party in power,” Horwitt said. “Related, the cost of living remains the dominant issue, and the share of voters who say their family’s income is falling behind is the highest we have recorded at 66%.”Views of the countries’ direction do fall along party lines, with 92% of Republicans saying the country is on the wrong track, compared with 36% of Democrats and 70% of independents. 

McInturff pointed to the pessimism about the country’s direction as one of the factors explaining the relatively low levels of enthusiasm about the election. Asked to rate their interest in the election on a scale of one to 10, 65% marked themselves as 10, or “very interested” in the election. That is a 10-point drop from the same point in the 2020 election. 

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NBC News surveys have found steadily high rates of voters’ saying the country is on the wrong track for years — and especially since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020. And that pessimism has spelled trouble for the party that controls the White House. In the four elections since 1992 when the president's party lost the White House, on average 66% of voters said the country was on the wrong track, according to NBC News polling. 

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Harris is not the incumbent, but she is part of the current administration. She does have an advantage over Trump when voters were asked which candidate better represents change, with 47% saying Harris and 38% saying Trump. 

The national NBC News poll of 1,000 registered voters — 870 of whom were reached via cellphone — was conducted Sept. 13-17 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.