Poll: Record Low Satisfied in U.S. with ‘Way Democracy Is Working’ Under Biden

A record low percentage of Americans are satisfied with the “way democracy is working” during Joe Biden’s presidency, a Gallup poll found.

Only 28 percent of adults living in the United States — a constitutional republic — are satisfied with the state of democracy, down from 35 percent when Gallup polled on the issue after January 6, 2021, according to the poll.

“The more recent declines of the past two years (to varying degrees for different partisan groups) may reflect economic unease amid higher prices, disapproval of the jobs President Joe Biden, Congress and the Supreme Court are doing, increasing hostility between the political parties, former President Donald Trump’s persistent political strength, and concerns about election security, voting rights and the independence of the courts and the justice system,” Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones analyzed.

By political affiliation, Republicans are least likely to say they are satisfied (17 percent) and Democrats are most likely (38 percent). Twenty-seven percent of independent voters feel the same way.

“All three party groups are less satisfied now than they were in 2021, when 47 percent of Democrats, 21 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of independents were satisfied shortly after Biden took office,” according to the poll report.

Jones noted that partisans are typically more satisfied with democracy when a president of their own affiliation is in office.

“Between 1984 and 1992, spanning the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, Republicans expressed greater satisfaction than Democrats in each of the four surveys conducted,” he wrote. “All of the more recent surveys have been conducted in years when a Democratic president was in the White House. Democrats have been more satisfied than Republicans in all of those except one: the 1998 survey conducted after the Republican-led House impeached Clinton.”

Gallup has polled Americans about their satisfaction with U.S. democracy nine times since 1984. The highest reading came from the first polling when 61 percent of Americans reported being satisfied. The percentage was similar at 60 percent in 1991, according to the poll report.

Gallup polled 1,013 U.S. adults between Dec. 1-20, 2023. The margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.