Does democracy work in the US? Answers may depend on your politics, poll says
Half of Americans believe the country’s system of democracy is not working, according to new polling.
In a Quinnipiac University poll released on March 27, a plurality of respondents, 49%, said America’s democratic system is not working, while 46% said it is functioning.
The poll, conducted by phone March 21-25, sampled 1,569 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Responses were largely divided along partisan lines, with most Democrats, 66%, saying the system is working and most Republicans, 62%, saying it is not. About half of independents, 45%, said it is working.
More than 90% of Democrats and Republicans said that their party’s presumptive nominee — President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump — is better suited to preserve democracy.
Safeguarding democracy is by far the top issue for Democrats, while Republicans and Independents are more concerned with immigration and the economy, according to the poll.
When respondents were asked whether they believe American democracy will end in their lifetime, the majority, 68%, said no. About one in five respondents, 21%, said they believed it would end before they died.
Only 13% of Democrats said they believed democracy would end in their lifetime, while nearly twice as many Republicans and Independents, 23%, said the same.
The poll follows other surveys that have found satisfaction with democracy has decreased, at home and abroad.
A January Gallup poll revealed that 28% of American adults are happy with the way democracy is functioning in the country, marking a record low.
Enthusiasm for democracy in many other nations has dropped since 2017, according to a February poll from the Pew Research Center. The poll, which sampled respondents from 24 countries, found a median of 59% are not satisfied with how their country’s democracy is working.
This story was originally published March 28, 2024 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Does democracy work in the US? Answers may depend on your politics, poll says."