The American Communities Project found 70% of U.S. adults agreed the country is in decline and 47% said rising prices caused serious financial problems ahead of the 2026 midterms on Nov. 3.
The decline measure matched the 70% recorded in 2023, after falling to 55% in 2025. The share reporting serious financial problems from price increases rose 17 percentage points from 2025. Meanwhile, 49% named inflation or rising costs as one of their top three local issues, close to the 50% recorded a year earlier.
SSRS interviewed 2,155 adults during two field periods, Sept. 3-6 and Sept. 17-21, and reported a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. The year-over-year comparisons span different polling firms: ACP used Ipsos in 2025 and SSRS in 2026.
More than half of respondents in five ACP community types reported serious hardship from price increases: African American South, Evangelical Hubs, Hispanic Centers, Native American Lands and Working Class Country. ACP described these types as relatively rural, with none classified as wealthy.
Health care ranked among respondents' top three local issues for 30%, up 10 percentage points from 2025. That question measured issue priority, not changes in medical prices. Separately, a Pew Research Center survey of 5,062 U.S. adults, conducted Sept. 28-Oct. 4, found 73% were very concerned about food and consumer prices, 69% about health care costs, 66% about housing costs and 74% about gasoline and energy prices. Pew asked about national cost concerns, rather than ACP's local issue rankings.
In the ACP survey, 47% were hopeful about the country's future over the next few years, down from 55% in 2025. At the same time, 72% agreed Americans have more in common than people generally assume, up from 69%.
Voters will choose all 435 House members and roughly one-third of Senate members on Tuesday, Nov. 3, determining control of both chambers. ACP plans to conduct the survey again in early 2027 after the new Congress is seated.
