Trust in federal government at all-time low: Poll

Administration Trust in federal government at all-time low: Poll Comments: by Sophie Brams - 06/19/26 6:16 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Sophie Brams - 06/19/26 6:16 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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Public trust in the federal government has reached its lowest level in more than two decades as nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters say they are not satisfied with the direction of the country, according to a new Fox News poll.

The poll, released Wednesday, found that 25 percent of registered voters said they “generally trust” the federal government compared to 74 percent who said they don’t and one percent who were unsure.

That figure is down from 32 percent in the two previous summers, taken before the final six months of the Biden administration and after the first six months of the second Trump administration.

Trust has been hovering in the mid-to-low 30s since June of 2013, reaching a previous record low of 31 percent in late June 2023, according to the poll. That reading came just weeks after President Trump was indicted on 37 federal charges for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The earliest Fox News polling shows that more than half of voters trusted the federal government in 2002, when George W. Bush was president, but that number has not gone above 40 percent since the second Obama administration.

On the other hand, distrust has been steadily rising over the past decade, and 74 percent of voters now say they generally don’t trust the federal government, according to the poll.

That number is highest among Democrats, 83 percent of whom said they do not currently trust the federal government compared to 73 percent who said the same last year.

About two-thirds of Republicans expressed distrust in the most recent poll, while about one-third said the opposite. Eight in 10 Independents are distrustful compared to only 18 percent who said they trust the government, the same number as a year ago.

The polling comes as yet another warning sign for the Trump administration, which has taken a hit in popularity due to the economic turmoil caused by the war with Iran, ahead of the November midterms.

More than half of voters hold a pessimistic outlook on the economy and believe Trump’s economic policies benefit people with more money than them, according to the survey. Only 12 percent think they are getting ahead financially, whereas 44 percent feel they are falling behind and 43 percent believe they are “holding steady.”

The president has repeatedly promised that economic relief would soon follow once the Middle East conflict was resolved, suggesting this week that the U.S. avoided “catastrophe” when it reached a deal with Tehran.

“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened,” Trump told reporters in France on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

The stock market rebounded and crude oil prices fell after the agreement, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, was announced.

The Fox News poll was conducted from June 12 to June 15 among 1,002 registered U.S. voters. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.