Gallup: Democrats, Republicans divided on state of economy

Democrats and Republicans have grown much more divided over the state of the economy this year, Gallup said Tuesday.

With voters headed to the polls on Tuesday, the polling company said that its economic confidence index ticked up to -17 in October, which tied for the best monthly reading since 2008.

Democrats and independents both became more confident in the economy last month, Gallup said. Gallup’s economic confidence index combines people’s opinions of current conditions and where the economy is headed.

The findings come as voters are deciding between President Obama and the GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, in a race dominated by the economy.

As the campaign season heated up, Gallup found that Republicans became less and less confident about the economy, dropping from a -46 in January to a -59 in October. 

Democrats, meanwhile, became increasingly bullish, moving from the negatives (-3) into the positive range (27) on the index. Independents were somewhere in the middle, becoming moderately more confident since the start of the year (-30 to -20).

In all, the gap became Democrats and Republicans on the Gallup confidence index became twice as pronounced from the start of the year until now – from 43 points to 86 points. 

Gallup found that the population as a whole saw both current and future conditions improving in October, though people still had a rather pessimistic take on the state of the economy.

According to the polling company, more people in the U.S. than not – 53 percent to 43 percent – believe the economy is getting worse. More than twice as many people, 40 percent to 16 percent, also said the economy was doing poorly than said it was doing excellent or good. 

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