A new New York Times/Siena College poll finds that nearly half of all voters are skeptical that America’s self-governance experiment is working, and 45% believe the country’s democracy is working well to represent ordinary people. I don’t think so.
Three-quarters of U.S. voters say democracy is under threat, but perceptions of the forces threatening democracy vary widely along partisan lines. And a majority of voters believe the country is plagued by corruption, with 62% saying the government primarily acts in the interests of its own country and elites rather than the common good.
Confidence in America’s nearly 250-year-old system of governance follows four years of unprecedented challenges. namely, the violent insurrection that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the conviction of former President Donald J. Trump, and Mr. Trump’s continuing sentence. Claim that the democratic process is rigged.
Coupled with stubborn inflation, a divisive culture war, and a geopolitical crisis, voters are expressing resentment toward American politics and a government that is failing to serve them at the most basic level.
Tyra Jackson-Taylor, 51, a social worker from Norfolk, said: “Sometimes I have to go to food banks, my husband and I earn a decent salary, and we still have three children. It’s not like you can make a full living without it,” he said. Va. “It’s really hard because I have to work and he has to work overtime to make ends meet.”
Because of these dissatisfaction, 58% of voters believe the country’s financial and political systems need major changes or an overhaul. Some wonder why the government is unable to make significant progress on pressing issues.
“I’m 21 years old, and there are school shootings all the time,” said Sarah Washington, a temp worker in New Orleans. “We need stricter laws to get guns, for example. And there has been discussion about how that would be done, but nothing has been done about it yet. But then something else happens.”
But despite these widespread headwinds, voters expressed confidence in the process of selecting America’s leaders in the upcoming election. Almost 80 percent of voters, including a majority of Republicans, Democrats, and independents, believe the results of the 2024 presidential election are accurate. This confidence level is an improvement from two years ago, when about 70% of voters said they had confidence in the results of the midterm elections. Americans pointed to mainstream media and social media as having a particularly negative impact on democracy, but Republicans were more likely than Democrats to blame news organizations. But political polarization is also affecting Americans’ perceptions of what their responsibilities are.
Republicans see Vice President Kamala Harris, President Biden, and Democrats in general as bad for democracy. They also mention voting by mail, electronic voting machines, immigration and even the Justice Department.
Democrats see Trump as one of the central threats to democracy.
“He’s the embodiment of a dictator,” said Jeffrey Braman, a 51-year-old military veteran from Lansing, Michigan, referring to the number of votes Trump received in 2020. “More than 70 million Americans voted for him. I believe that,” he expressed concern. “More than 70 million. That means they want a king. Someone please tell them.”
Such deep concerns about Trump may help explain the shift in Harris’ campaign speech toward the end, portraying Trump’s second term as a dark slide into fascism.
But few voters say concerns about democracy are central to their vote. Only 7% of voters said democracy was the most important issue when choosing a president.
Still, voters, as well as Democrats, expressed concerns about the authoritarian tendencies of political leaders. A cross-section of likely voters agreed that presidents should be able to go beyond the law and do what leaders think is best, rather than staying within existing rules and laws. It was only 21% of the total. Two years ago, 30% of voters agreed with the idea of a president acting outside the law.
Voters have strong concerns about how the election results will be handled if Trump loses. Six in 10 voters have no confidence that Trump will accept the results. And nearly half of all voters, including 12% of Republicans, are worried that Trump and his allies will try to overturn the election through illegal means.
“Trump is really radical,” said Katherine Muth, 74, from Elk County, Pennsylvania.
Most voters across the political spectrum are confident that Harris will accept the election results, and few are concerned that she will try to overturn them if she loses.
But while voters expressed widespread concern about Trump’s new attempts to overturn the election, they also appeared to be influenced by his repeated falsehoods about fraud in American elections. Although fraud is extremely rare and Mr. Trump often makes unsubstantiated claims, voters are more concerned about people voting illegally than they are about being prevented from voting. This is a change from two years ago, when slightly more voters were concerned about voter suppression than fraud.
Trump supporters and Harris supporters are about equally likely to say democracy is under threat. The voters least likely to say our democracy is in shaky state are those who voted for Biden in 2020 or dropped out of that election and now support Trump in this election. . None of these voters cited democracy as the most important issue motivating them to vote.
“I think I’m going Republican this time because the economy is really the biggest issue for me,” said Oliver Funk, an Atlanta voter who supported Biden in 2020 but plans to vote for Trump this year. he said. “I think Donald Trump will be able to deal with everyday prices better than what we’ve seen over the last four years.”
He expressed skepticism that democracy was truly in danger.
“I think it’s strange to say that “American democracy is under threat,”” said Funk, 25. “The fact is, democracy is under threat all over the world. We’re so spoiled, we’re so safe. Very secure, in fact.”
The poll also showed that voters did not necessarily believe some of Trump’s most provocative statements. When asked about his recent threat that he might need to deploy the National Guard to deal with what he calls the “enemy from within,” Americans, just under half of all voters, including a quarter of Republicans, said said they were taking Trump’s comments seriously. Trump’s allies often argue that voters shouldn’t take the former president literally when he makes these kinds of statements. The results suggest voters agree.
But voters believe some of Trump’s more consistent campaign speeches. Three-quarters of voters say Trump is serious about deporting millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S., and nearly 60% say Trump is taking judicial action to prosecute political opponents. He responded that he takes the use of the ministry seriously.
But Trump’s rhetoric about his fellow countrymen as “the enemy from within” has not necessarily stuck with his base. Only 11% of Trump supporters said their voters chose Harris as their opponent. Rather, the majority said they were just fellow Americans who disagreed.
In fact, Harris supporters are slightly more likely to view voters as hostile to Trump. 16% said this.
Still, most voters believe Mr. Trump is fueling partisan divisions in the country. Nearly 60% of voters said Trump has worsened partisan divisions in the country. Thirty-seven percent said the same about Harris.
Centrists, about a third of voters, believe the country’s problems are so severe that it is on the brink of collapse. A majority of Republicans and 16 percent of Democrats have a fatalistic attitude about the country’s future.
Randall Parr, 72, a former farmer from Lebanon, Indiana, said, “The elites in Washington control everything and the will of the people is ignored. And it’s not just Democrats and Republicans; elite,” he said.
He added: “Too much money is being thrown around by lobbyists who are corrupting Washington, D.C., and it’s tearing us all apart.”
How this poll was conducted
Here’s what’s important to know about this poll published by The New York Times and Siena College:
The Times/Siena poll is conducted by phone using live interviewers in both English and Spanish. Overall, 98% of respondents in this study communicated via mobile phone. Here you can see the exact questions asked and their order.
Voters for the survey are selected from a list of registered voters. This list includes information about the demographic characteristics of all registered voters, ensuring that you have the right number of voters for each party, race, and region. In these polls, interviewers made more than 260,000 phone calls to more than 80,000 voters.
To further ensure that the results reflect the electorate as a whole, not just those willing to participate in the poll, we looked at underrepresented groups among survey respondents, such as those without a college degree. give more weight to respondents from certain demographic groups. Further information about respondent characteristics and weighted samples can be found under ‘Sample Composition’ at the bottom of the Results and Methodology page.
The margin of sampling error among likely voters is about plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. In theory, this means that the results should most often reflect the opinions of the entire population, but many other challenges create additional sources of error. When the difference between two values is calculated (such as a candidate’s lead in a race), the margin of error is doubled.
Complete results and detailed methodology can be found here. If you’d like to learn more about how and why we conduct surveys, you can find answers to frequently asked questions or submit your own question here.
