Trust in Election Certifications Falls to 34% as Americans Question Government Information

Only about one-third of U.S. adults express high confidence in government certification of election results, while skepticism toward federal information and political campaign messaging extends across party lines.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.

Americans’ confidence in government certification of election results has fallen heading into the 2026 midterms, with just 34% of U.S. adults saying they trust the process “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts poll.

That represents a decline from 40% in 2024 and comes amid broader public skepticism about information supplied by the federal government, political parties and national news organizations.

Election certification is the formal process through which local and state election officials confirm vote totals. The latest polling shows confidence in that process remains limited among members of both major political parties, though the largest change since 2024 occurred among Democrats.

Among Democrats, 44% now say they have a great deal or quite a bit of trust in government certifications of election results, down sharply from 65% two years ago. Republican confidence stands at 29%, representing only a slight increase from 2024.

The findings also show concern about potential federal involvement in the election process. Just under half of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned that the federal government could publicly discredit or question election results, tamper with results, or pressure state election officials to alter how results are certified or reported.

Distrust is not confined to election administration.

About 6 in 10 Americans report having little or no trust in federal government information concerning several major subjects, including the environment, foreign affairs, elections and politics, abortion and immigration.

The erosion of confidence has occurred across nearly every subject measured when compared with an earlier 2019 AP-NORC/USAFacts survey.

Education stands out as one of the areas where the change has been particularly pronounced. Fifty-three percent of adults now say they have low trust in federal government information about education, compared with 37% in the earlier survey. The figure has increased by 9 percentage points during the past year alone.

Partisanship has become an increasingly important dividing line in attitudes toward government information, with the differences between Democrats and Republicans now considerably wider than during President Donald Trump’s first term.

On federal budget information, 61% of Democrats report low trust, compared with 42% of Republicans. On information concerning crime, 60% of Democrats have low trust, compared with 32% of Republicans.

The broader pattern has shifted depending on which party controls the White House. Republican mistrust increased while former President Joe Biden was in office and subsequently declined after Trump returned to the presidency. Democratic distrust moved in the opposite direction, falling during the Biden administration before increasing after Trump returned to office.

Independents followed a different trajectory. Their distrust of federal government information increased during the Biden administration and has not substantially shifted since the change in presidential administrations.

One notable exception to the partisan divide involves vaccination recommendations and safety.

About 6 in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents say they trust federal government information on vaccine recommendations and safety “only a little” or “not at all,” making it the surveyed issue where mistrust is broadly similar across partisan groups.

Skepticism is also directed at the political parties themselves.

Only roughly 1 in 10 U.S. adults believes campaign messages from either the Democratic or Republican Party are “always” or “often” based on factual information.

Even partisan allegiance provides relatively little protection against that skepticism. Only about one-quarter of Democrats say their own party’s campaign messages are factual at least “often,” while approximately the same proportion of Republicans says that about Republican campaign messages.

Confidence in other sources used by Americans to learn about election outcomes is similarly weak. National news organizations and cable television news networks also receive low levels of public trust, according to the poll.

The results collectively point to distrust that crosses institutional and partisan boundaries rather than being limited to one source of political information. Americans report skepticism toward government agencies, election certifications, party campaign communications and news organizations, while their degree of distrust on particular government subjects often changes substantially according to party affiliation.

Larry Haith, a 76-year-old Republican from Idaho, said his own view of the federal government has moved in the opposite direction from the broader decline in public confidence.

“Generally speaking, I’ve got more confidence in the federal government today than I’ve had in years,” Haith said.

The poll nevertheless shows that such confidence is far from widespread as the midterm elections approach. Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans now express strong trust in official election certifications, and only small minorities say they routinely regard campaign communications from either major political party as factual.

The decline from 40% trust in election certification in 2024 to 34% today is especially notable because it occurred alongside widening partisan differences in confidence toward federal information. Democrats registered the steepest decline in trust in election certifications, while Republican confidence increased only slightly.

At the same time, the findings show that mistrust cannot be attributed exclusively to either political party. Large shares of Democrats and Republicans distrust federal information on major issues, members of both parties question the factual reliability of their own campaigns, and roughly 6 in 10 people across all three major political affiliations express low confidence in federal vaccination guidance.

The result is a political information environment in which skepticism now extends beyond disagreements over individual policies or political leaders. As Americans prepare for another national election, the poll finds that confidence in the institutions and sources responsible for reporting, explaining and certifying political information remains limited across much of the country.