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US Survey: Nearly Half of Americans Are Angrier at Current Events


A New York police officer helps manage the crowd during the hours leading up to the annual New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, Dec. 31, 2015, in New York.
A New York police officer helps manage the crowd during the hours leading up to the annual New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, Dec. 31, 2015, in New York.

A new U.S. survey shows that nearly half of Americans are angrier at current events than they were a year ago, with whites, Republicans and women the most outraged.

Overall, the NBC News/Survey Monkey/Esquire online poll released Sunday said that 49 percent of Americans found themselves feeling angrier about the news in 2015. Whites were the angriest, with 54 percent saying they were more outraged in the last year, compared to 43 percent of Latinos and 33 percent of blacks.

The poll also showed Republicans angrier than Democrats, with 61 percent of Republicans saying that current events irk them more now, compared to 42 percent of Democrats. The survey showed that Republicans are most upset about the dysfunction of the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress and consumer fraud, while Democrats ranked white police shootings of unarmed black men as the issue that made them maddest.

The survey showed 53 percent of women were angered at news of the day compared to 44 percent of men.

The sentiments were recorded as the U.S. nears months of state-by-state political contests to select 2016 Republican and Democratic presidential nominees ahead of next November's national election to pick a successor to President Barack Obama, who leaves office in January 2017.

The first voting is set for February 1 at party caucuses in the farm state of Iowa, followed in the weeks after by party primaries in other states.

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