Article by Gallup: “Five measures of trust in the federal government are at low points in Gallup’s trends. One-third or less of U.S. adults have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the executive (33%) and legislative branches (28%) and the federal government’s ability to handle both international and domestic problems (both at 33%). More, 46%, trust the judicial branch, but its trust has never been lower than now.
These results are from Gallup’s annual Governance poll, conducted Sept. 1-17. Gallup has asked Americans about trust in government institutions since 1972, including every year since 2000.
Public trust in government has been trending downward for the past two decades, but this year brings steeper declines in some measures. Trust in the federal government’s ability to handle international problems is down 12 percentage points from last year, and trust in the executive branch is down eight points. Trust in the federal government to deal with domestic problems is five points below last year’s level.
The drop in trust in the executive branch leaves it seven points below its prior low of 40%, recorded twice. The first was in 1974 during the Watergate era that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation from office. The second was in 2024, after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign following a poor performance in a presidential candidate debate.
Meanwhile, trust in the government’s ability to handle international problems is six points below its prior low (39% in 2021), after the United States’ troubled military withdrawal from Afghanistan…(More)”.
