Survey: Voters happy, worried

The 2008 presidential
election has many people paying attention.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Julie Murray says life is good. Yet gasoline prices are crimping her grocery budget, she can’t afford a larger house, and she says President Bush is not focused enough on people’s problems at home.

“My husband and I are happy,” said Murray, 46, a homemaker from Montpelier, Miss. “We just wish we could buy more into the American dream.”

Like Murray, most in the U.S. say they are personally happy and feel in control of their lives and finances, according to an extensive Associated Press-Yahoo News survey on the mood of voters. Scrape beneath the surface, though, and a wellspring of personal and political discontent is bubbling.

The AP-Yahoo News survey will track voters’ perspectives during the run-up to next year’s election, interviewing more than 2,000 people repeatedly about their lives and views about the country, candidates and issues. The polling, conducted by Knowledge Networks, will let the AP and Yahoo track how and why opinions form and change during the campaign.

People are paying attention to the 2008 presidential campaign. Solid majorities think their vote matters and say this wide-open presidential contest is more important than usual.

Stirred in are warning signs for Republican candidates: Democrats seething after nearly seven years under President Bush are happier and more psyched up about this election than Republicans.

More Democrats than Republicans say they are hopeful about the voting, 54 percent to 39 percent, and more of them are interested in it. Republicans are more likely to say the election leaves them frustrated and bored.

On a personal level, two-thirds say it has become difficult to get ahead financially, including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats. The same proportion say they don’t trust many people, while only a quarter or fewer say they know numerous neighbors or have many in their lives they can turn to for support.

Most say they encounter stress at least sometimes in their daily lives, including more than a third who say they face it frequently, especially women and young people.

Layered on top is a widespread unease — shared by 77 percent — that the country has meandered off in the wrong direction. One third voice frustration about the upcoming elections, particularly Republicans.

Happy and unhappy people alike lean more toward the Democratic nominee, with the unhappy — who are likelier to be lower-income and less educated — giving Democrats a bigger, 2-to-1 margin. When it comes to the candidates battling for those nominations, the two front-runners — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and former GOP New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani — are faring about equally among the happy and unhappy.

Nearly all Democrats and more than six in 10 Republicans think the country has taken the wrong course. Yet their prescriptions for what the key issues should be differ somewhat — Democrats list the economy and health care followed by Iraq, while Republicans name three equally — terrorism, the economy and Iraq.

Joseph Lyon, a 22-year-old Republican from Houston, is most troubled by a fear the U.S. will leave Iraq too soon and by immigrants who stream into the U.S. but do not learn English.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Lyon, who begins serving with the Marines early next year. “They come here to live and expect us to assimilate to them. It’s our country.”