WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A Democratic pollster said voter surveys have showed Americans are generally confident the U.S. economy is improving slowly in line with government statistics.
Anna Greenberg said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday that as the jobs numbers hold up, consumer confidence has increased, which she said countered Republican predictions that the public put little stock in the election-year unemployment stats.
"This jobs report is not dodging a bullet," said Greenberg. "It is actually consistent with what most Americans think about the economy; that it's getting better."
Greenberg said while there is still a majority who believe the country is "going in the wrong direction," the number has plummeted 15 percentage points since 2010. "They don't think it's great, they think we still need to do a lot, but we are in a much better place than we were," she said.
Political analyst David Gergen added that the economic numbers would not necessarily have the most influence with voters on Tuesday. He said a large portion of the electorate had become entrenched along party lines and was not interested in stepping outside those boundaries.
Gergen said he was of the opinion that neither Obama nor Romney would be able to break the partisan deadlock in Washington and accomplish what they promised to do on the campaign trail. "I don't think the winner is going to have a clear mandate," Gergen predicted. "We are really going to have a country that remains bitterly and closely divided and it's tough to govern."
