“The majority levels of optimism among political independents are more significant for Trump's re-election prospects—and something Trump will want to maintain in 2020 to stay competitive,” Gallup said.
For historical perspective, from 1998 to 2000 at least half of Americans rated their personal finances as being better than in the previous year, but that number fell to under 50% from 2001 to 2018, with a low of 23% in May 2009 during the Great Recession, the polling company noted.
The data came from the recent Mood of the Nation poll, which was conducted by telephone between Jan. 2 and Jan. 15, with a random sample of 1,014 Americans over the age of 18 across the country. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 4 percentage points.