WSJ/NBC News Poll: 78 Percent Say Nation is On Wrong Track

Nearly eight in 10 Americans say the nation is on the wrong track, the highest number since the worst of the recession in 2008, according to new poll results released on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey of 800 adults conducted Oct. 7-9 found that 78 percent said that America was on the wrong track. That compared with 14 percent who responded that the nation was going in the right direction.

Overall, survey respondents gave the Republican Party its lowest marks since the Journal began conducting surveys in 1989.

Urgent: Should GOP Stick to Its Guns on Obamacare? Vote Here.

More than twice as many — 53 percent — responded that they held negative views of the GOP, compared with 24 percent positive, and the results were 40 percent negative — versus 39 percent positive — for the Democratic Party.

And 53 percent of respondents blamed the GOP for the federal shutdown, which entered its 10th day on Thursday. Thirty-one percent blamed President Barack Obama.

According to the survey results, the Republicans were being blamed more now than they were during the last federal shutdown 17 years ago, under President Bill Clinton.

The government was shut down then for a total of 28 days, intermittently between November 1995 and January 1996, costing American taxpayers $1.4 billion.

"What is stunning about these results is just how hard and how quickly public attitudes have landed on the shutdown," said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who worked on the survey, told the Journal.

Hart conducted the survey with another Democratic pollster, Fred Yang, and Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

Hart noted that the survey underscored "a broad disgust for the political system."

Urgent: Should GOP Stick to Its Guns on Obamacare? Vote Here.