When Ronald Reagan sought reelection in 1984, Americans once again pondered the question he famously posed in his 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
A Gallup poll in 1984 found 44% of Americans said yes to that question, and Reagan went on to a 49-state landslide.
Now, 56% say they are better off now after nearly four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a new Gallup survey.
Only 32% say they were worse off.
President Trump reacted to the poll Thursday via Twitter.
“The Gallup Poll has just come out with the incredible finding that 56% of you say that you are better off today, during a pandemic, than you were four years ago (OBiden),” he wrote. “Highest number on record! Pretty amazing!”
Gallup noted that when Barack Obama sought reelection in 2012, 45% said they were better off, and Obama went on to victory.
In 2004, George W. Bush won reelection after 47% in October said the same.
But when his father, George H.W. Bush, sought another four years in 1992, the figure was only 38%, and he lost.
In February – just before the coronavirus pandemic and the economically devastating lockdowns – 61% said they believed they were better off than before Trump took office in January 2017.
See President Reagan asking in 1980 “Are you better off?”:
