Informat.ro Barometer – Inscop Research: How voters see the direction in which Romania is heading

Judging from the perspective of the data from the latest Barometru Informat.ro – Inscop Research regarding the direction in which the country is heading, we cannot help but notice that the anxieties and discontent of recent years have increasingly raised the percentage of those who are pessimistic, reaching the point where 7 out of 10 respondents say that Romania is on the wrong path.

And the figures show us that pessimism is significantly more pronounced among the electorate that votes for PSD and AUR than among the voters of PNL and USR. No less than 75% of those who declare their sympathy for the social-democratic party and 87% of the respondents who vote for AUR believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, while the same opinion is shared by only 34% of PNL voters and 36% of USR voters.

The reason must be sought in the structure of the electorate of the four parties. In general, people who declare that they vote for PSD or AUR have lower incomes, are often residents of rural areas or smaller towns, are in one form or another dependent on the state (through pensions, benefits, allowances, jobs in public institutions), and often have a lower level of education. On the other side of the political preferences, PNL and USR voters generally have higher incomes, live in larger cities, and have a higher proportion of secondary or higher education.

As a result, the PNL and USR electorate is less exposed to inflation, tax increases, or unemployment than the PSD and AUR electorate. However, the fact that people are struggling, or that they feel vulnerable in the face of the possibility that things could go from bad to worse pushes them towards pessimism and makes them easy prey for the parties that promise an easy way out of the distressing situation they find themselves in. The only difference (not necessarily achievable) is the proposed route. As for Romania, it is becoming increasingly schizoid, being more and more strongly divided between pessimists and optimists.

Methodology: The data from the 7th edition of the BAROMETRUL Informat.ro - INSCOP Research were collected between January 12-15, 2026. Research method: interview via questionnaire. The data were collected using the CATI method (telephone interviews), with a simple, stratified sample volume of 1100 people, representative of significant socio-demographic categories (gender, age, occupation) for the non-institutionalized population of Romania, aged 18 and over. The maximum allowable error of the data is ± 3%, at a confidence level of 95%.