More than half of Americans don’t believe democracy is working well in the U.S., according to a recent AP-NORC poll. This survey of 1,074 adults was conducted from Nov. 30 through Dec. 4.
Overall, 51% of respondents said they thought that democracy was not working very well or very well at all. That’s up from 49% in June but down from a peak of 53% in January 2022.
Most Americans also had little confidence in the process the Democrat and Republican parties have to select candidates for the 2024 presidential election. Confidence in the GOP dropped from 30% to 19% and lack of confidence grew from 43% to 53%. While confidence in the Democratic party increased (from 23% to 25%), nearly half of the people polled (47%) said they were only a little or not at all confident in the party’s process to find a candidate.
Throughout the year, political headlines have been a bit bleak.
Let’s start with the likely 2024 candidates. Former President Donald Trump is in his late 70s and President Joe Biden is in his 80s. Americans have worried that both are too old to serve another term as Commander-in-Chief.
Trump is facing a growing mountain of legal troubles that have already likely booted him from one state’s GOP primary ballot. He’s also fueled a lack of confidence in the political system by making repeated, unfounded claims about election fraud tied to the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden.
Biden’s son Hunter is also embroiled in his own legal drama. So far, the president hasn’t been linked to his son’s legal issues, but the optics aren’t great. Trump has recently pulled ahead of the president at the polls.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – son of assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and nephew of assassinated President John F. Kennedy – caused a stir in politics this year as well. He announced his intention to run against Biden to be the Democrat candidate but then declared he would run as an independent.
“I’m in better shape than any independent for 100 years, since Teddy Roosevelt. And, it’s because of young people,” Kennedy said during a November rally in South Carolina.
Congress has had a messy year as well.
It took the GOP-led House of Representatives a long time to pick former Speaker Kevin McCarty (R-Calif.), but then they quickly ousted him. After that move, Republican lawmakers again squabbled about his replacement, churning through multiple candidates before finally voting in current Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
More chaos from the House came this month when former New York representative George Santos was expelled. His expulsion came long after news reports revealed his many lies and authorities leveling criminal charges against him. In the Senate, controversy came in the form of a pornographic video, featuring a Senate aide and filmed in a Senate meeting room, that was shared online.
Political standoffs in Congress over the debt ceiling also contributed to a Fitch Ratings decision to downgrade the U.S. debt rating.
Results from the AP-NORC poll showed that an estimated 68% of Americans have a pessimistic view of politics in the U.S., up from 63% at the start of the year. More respondents (54%) had a pessimistic view of the future of the Republican party compared with the Democrat party.
Looking forward, 67% of those polled said the outcome of the 2024 presidential election will be extremely important for the future of American democracy. Still, they did not seem enthusiastic about the current frontrunners – 48% said that a win for Biden would weaken democracy in the country and 54% said a win for Trump would weaken democracy in the U.S.