Americans are frustrated, not apathetic

With the 2026 midterm elections on the horizon in the United States, it’s a good time to check in on how Americans feel about democracy today, and whether they see the same trends that experts have called “democratic backsliding.”

The 2026 Kettering-Gallup Democracy for All Project survey lends insight. With more than 20,000 US adults in the sample, the results offer a detailed portrait of American public opinion on democracy across a broad swathe of the population and on a range of issues. And comparison with the 2025 survey enables us to identify changes in public sentiment in the last year.

The data offer a clear message about the pulse of public opinion at this time: Americans feel that their democracy is performing poorly, and even more are reporting this than they did a year ago. And yet, most people still see democracy as the best form of government, and these numbers have not changed. This means that even though democracy in the US is not living up to citizen expectations, the people still strongly value democratic governance.

Moreover, a key message to emerge from this survey is that Americans are paying attention to political developments and are attuned to the meaning of what has transpired.

American Dissatisfaction with Democracy Continues to Grow

American discontent with democracy today coincides with expert assessments that the quality of democracy in the US is indeed declining. Over the course of the past year, democracy experts have sounded the alarm bell that the US is experiencing democratic backsliding.

According to the Democracy for All Project, Americans are expressing discontent with democracy across a range of indicators. A majority (56%) states that democracy is performing poorly, with only 19% stating that it is performing well. These negative views have increased since 2025, with the shift primarily occurring among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

Large numbers of Americans also have a dim outlook of the future: nearly half (45%) of Americans report that they think democracy will be even weaker in the next 50 years. This dissatisfaction with democracy emerges in multiple arenas. More than half of Americans think that political leaders are not held accountable to the country’s laws and constitution. Nearly half question whether US leaders are committed to democracy. Many are concerned with the executive branch growing too powerful, with a majority saying it has too much power. A majority of respondents also report that the system of checks and balances is too weak. And more than 60% report that Congress and the legislative branch are not working well. These numbers have all worsened since 2025.

Perhaps the darkest spot of the report is the feelings Americans have about the freedom with which they can discuss these viewpoints at all: less than half of respondents feel comfortable expressing their views about government and laws, a number that has also worsened in the last year. To be fair, it is possible that this sentiment is based on discomfort discussing politics in today’s polarized political climate rather than concerns about threats to free speech. But in either instance, this statistic is indicative of underlying democratic distress.

Democratic Commitment Remains Strong

A positive message to emerge from this survey, however, is that even amid rising dissatisfaction, Americans’ commitment to democracy persists. Despite giving democracy a negative report card, public support for democracy as a political system remains positive. Roughly two-thirds of Americans think democracy is the best form of government, and this number has not changed since 2025. Americans may not like what they see in today’s democracy, but they still have faith in this style of governance.

Alignment with Expert Assessments

Democracy experts identify a number of telltale signs that democracy is under threat. These are government attacks on the media, harassment of political opponents, attacks on civil liberties, undermining of judicial independence, and other actions that weaken checks on the executive branch. While these things on their own do not necessarily signal democratic collapse, together they aggrandize executive power in ways that threaten democracy. Without mechanisms of accountability, most leaders eventually end up tinkering with the electoral process in their favor and damage the free and fair electoral process democracy relies on.

The consensus among experts is that the United States is checking all these boxes of democratic backsliding. Consistent with this, both Freedom House and the Varieties of Democracy Institute—the two central organizations that track global trends in democracy—document decreases in the US democracy score since 2025, with the latter asserting that the US has lost its status as a liberal democracy for the first time in over 50 years. For these reasons, both experts and watchdog organizations have sounded the alarm bell about the state of democracy in the US.

The good news is that American citizens appear to be attuned to this. Though they may disagree about who is to blame for the deterioration of democracy in the US and precisely why it is happening, a majority are aware that something is wrong. For example, just as experts are concerned with expansion of executive power in the United States, a majority (58%) of American citizens think that the executive branch has grown too powerful. Similarly, while experts have flagged the decision of Congress to give up many of its powers to the executive branch as alarming, we have seen a large increase in the percentage of Americans who think Congress isn’t working well (now 61%). The pulse of public opinion is thus in line with what democracy specialists have identified as troubling.

This alignment is tremendously important. Restoration of democratic health cannot happen if citizens are unaware or, even worse, are unconcerned that the system needs saving.

Solutions for Democracy’s Ailments

The survey gave Americans the chance to offer their views on the solutions to democracy’s problems today, as well. About a third of Americans emphasized the need for either more accountability, public voice, or checks and balances—all precisely the sorts of things experts see as vital to a healthy democracy given research showing they can help reverse a democratic slide.

Perhaps most importantly, very few people thought nothing could be done. This is not an apathetic population that has given up, but rather one that wants to re-establish representation, accountability, and checks and balances.

Americans Are Democratic Citizens

That American citizens are frustrated with the performance of their democracy—on the very metrics that experts deem to be red flags—is precisely what you would hope to see among a healthy democratic citizenry.

Americans are thus living up to their responsibility as democratic citizens to express healthy criticism with the system that governs them. For democracy to function, it requires that the people living under it are attentive to political developments and cast a watchful eye over their political leadership. Apathetic and tuned out citizens make vertical accountability, where the people hold government accountable via elections, impossible. Democracy cannot survive absent an engaged and critical citizenry.

The road ahead will not be easy for American democracy. Partisanship likely influences who Americans hold responsible for today’s ailments and understanding of how we got here. But surveys such as this one should give us optimism. Though American democracy may not be healthy in this moment, its citizens are.

Erica Frantz is an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University and is a Charles F. Kettering Foundation research fellow..