Trust In Federal Information Falls Across Major Issues As Election Certification Confidence Drops Ahead Of The 2026 Midterms
Americans are increasingly skeptical of information coming from the federal government, with distrust extending across elections, politics, immigration, foreign affairs and the environment, according to a new national survey.
The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USA Facts found about 6 in 10 U.S. adults have little or no trust in federal information on several major issues.
The findings show mistrust has grown since 2024 and is also higher than it was near the end of President Donald Trump’s first term.
Concern is particularly pronounced around elections as voters prepare for the 2026 midterms.
Only 34% of adults say they trust government certification of election results “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” compared with 40% in 2024.
Election certification, typically the routine process through which state and local officials confirm vote totals, has increasingly become a political flashpoint since Trump disputed his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Trust Falls Across Government Information
Distrust has increased on nearly every subject tracked in a similar survey dating back to 2019.
Education saw one of the clearest shifts. The share of Americans expressing low trust in federal education information has increased from 37% in 2019 to 53% today, including a 9-percentage-point jump over the past year.
The survey comes after significant changes across the federal government since Trump returned to office.
His administration has moved to eliminate programs, reduce federal staffing and dismantle portions of the bureaucracy. Thousands of federal employees have been fired or left their positions, including statisticians and other specialists whose work helps produce government data.
Changes in health and environmental policy have also created friction between federal agencies and outside experts.
Shannon Ingram, a 46-year-old Democrat from Maryland, said changing health recommendations have made it increasingly difficult to know what information to believe.
“It’s pretty hard to trust anything that’s being communicated,” Ingram said. “There is a significant amount of bias, and it comes from the people who are authoring the content.”
Distrust is not limited to Trump’s political opponents.
Jeremy Cove, a 44-year-old Missouri Republican who voted for Trump, said he trusts the administration on some issues but questions other priorities.
“I love Trump; I voted for Trump, but some of the things he’s doing just makes me distrust more,” Cove said.
Partisan Divide Widens
Trust in federal information has become increasingly tied to which party controls the White House.
Republican distrust grew while former President Joe Biden was in office before declining after Trump returned. Democratic confidence moved in the opposite direction, improving under Biden before dropping sharply during Trump’s second term.
For example, 61% of Democrats now report low trust in federal budget information, compared with 42% of Republicans.
On crime, 60% of Democrats express low trust compared with 32% of Republicans.
Vaccines are a notable exception to the partisan split. Roughly 6 in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents say they trust federal information about vaccine recommendations and safety only a little or not at all.
Election Confidence Remains Low Ahead Of Midterms
Public skepticism is also extending beyond government agencies to the political parties themselves.
Only about 1 in 10 Americans say campaign messages from either the Democratic or Republican Party are always or often based on factual information.
Even voters do not strongly trust messaging from their own side. Only about one-quarter of Democrats and a similar share of Republicans say their respective party’s campaign information is factual at least often.
Confidence in election certification has also declined sharply among Democrats. Forty-four percent now express high trust in certified results, down from 65% in 2024.
Among Republicans, 29% express high trust, only slightly higher than in 2024.
Just under half of Americans also say they are extremely or very concerned that the federal government could publicly question election results, interfere with results or pressure state officials over how votes are certified or reported.
Trump has continued to repeat disproven allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election while advocating new voting restrictions and proof-of-citizenship requirements ahead of this year’s midterms.
The AP-NORC/USA Facts survey included 1,036 adults and was conducted from July 29 through Aug. 10. The overall margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
