Health of US democracy in decline, based on multiple evaluations | Pew Research Center Most Americans say democracy in the United States used to be a good example for other countries to follow but has not been in recent years.

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Americans stand out internationally for their pessimism about the nation’s political system | Pew Research Center People in higher-income countries are generally less likely to say their nation’s political system needs major changes or complete reform. Americans are an exception.

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Second, new ratings from several organizations show a weakening of U.S. democracy over the past decade, including notable declines in 2025.

This comes as most Americans say that democracy in the U.S. used to be a good example for other countries to follow, but has not been in recent years.

Two new posts from us at @pewresearch.org today (links in replies).

First, it is generally the case that higher income countries are less likely to say their political system needs big changes. But the U.S. is an exception.

This post shows how the U.S. both does and does not stand out on this.

The full dataset from Pew's 2025 Global Attitudes Survey is available for download!

A great resource for anyone interested in public opinion that contains rich data from 25 countries.

www.pewresearch.org/dataset/spri...

Gas Prices Are Americans’ Top Iran War Concern | Pew Research Center About this research This Pew Research Center report looks at Americans’ views of the U.S. military action against Iran, which began in February 2026, as well as Americans’ confidence in…

www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/...

Majorities in both parties agree that Iran is not doing enough to avoid civilian casualties.

But Democrats are three times more likely than Republicans to say the U.S. is not doing enough to avoid civilian casualties.

Gas Prices Are Americans’ Top Iran War Concern | Pew Research Center About this research This Pew Research Center report looks at Americans’ views of the U.S. military action against Iran, which began in February 2026, as well as Americans’ confidence in…

www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/...

Republicans (47%) are much more likely than Democrats (5%) to say the U.S. military action against Iran will make the Iranian people better off.

But within the GOP, there are big age divides. Republicans 65 and older are about twice as likely as those under 30 to say Iranians will be better off.

Gas Prices Are Americans’ Top Iran War Concern | Pew Research Center About this research This Pew Research Center report looks at Americans’ views of the U.S. military action against Iran, which began in February 2026, as well as Americans’ confidence in…

Read the full report here: www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/...

New from @pewresearch.org:

About a third of Americans have confidence in Trump to make good decisions when it comes to policy toward Iran.

That number has declined since he was a candidate for president in 2024, including by 18 points among Republicans.

Continuity and Change in Trust in Scientists in the United States: Demographic Stability and Partisan Polarization Abstract. Americans’ trust in scientists has been stable and high, relative to other political and social institutions, for the last half century (Krause,

"Concomitant with the emergent partisan gap [in trust in science] is a massive perceptual gap among Democrats, who perceive a partisan divide more than double its actual size. Democrats vastly underestimate Republicans’ trust in scientists" academic.oup.com/poq/advance-...

The most religiously diverse countries
1 Singapore
2 Suriname
3 Taiwan
4 S Korea
9 Australia
10 France
11 Canada
12 UK
16 NZ
20 Germany
24 Japan
32 US
34 Nigeria
78 India
83 Brazil
126 China
160 Egypt
201 Yemen
www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...

Really excited to see our article examining trends in public confidence in scientists over the last five decades in print.

Check it out here and let me know your thoughts:

An extremely fun post from Pew today: Our graphics team's favorite data visualizations of 2025!

Including my personal favorite, a 'beeswarm plot' showing the partisan divide over trust in different news sources, with each dot representing a different news source.

pewrsr.ch/4s5jncn

1 country is home to 67% of all religiously unaffiliated people (and 18% of the world's population).

While there continues to be much attention paid to the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population in Europe and North America, two-thirds of the world’s 1.9 billion religious “nones” (67%) live in China.

Striking findings from 2025 Here’s a look back at 2025 through 12 of our most striking research findings.

2025 striking findings from @pewresearch.org! Highlights include:
- Views of the U.S. are down, views of China up in many countries
- More Americans say higher education is going in the wrong direction
- Young men have grown more critical of sports betting

Check it all out here: pewrsr.ch/3KJ56Rz

Representation in science and trust in scientists in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour Druckman et al. document gaps in trust in scientists in the USA. People from groups less represented among scientists (for example, women and those with lower economic status) are less trusting. Incre...

In a new article out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com, we find that members of demographic groups with lower trust in scientists increase their trust when presented with scientists who look like them. Not just on gender and race, but also rurality and class.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Representation in science and trust in scientists in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour Druckman et al. document gaps in trust in scientists in the USA. People from groups less represented among scientists (for example, women and those with lower economic status) are less trusting. Incre...

New research from the #NetSI team + colleagues shows: groups with historically lower trust—women, Black people, rural and lower-income residents—trust scientists more when they share their identity. Greater representation across communities can boost trust in science.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Americans are following the news less closely than they used to In 2016, 51% of U.S. adults said they followed the news all or most of the time, but that share fell to 36% in 2025.

Americans aren’t following the news as closely as they were a decade ago. And that’s true for older and younger Americans and Republicans and Democrats alike.

New today from Pew: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

A series of blue and green bars on a horizontal chart showing that social trust is higher in wealthier countries and lower in middle-income countries

Across 25 countries we surveyed earlier this year, trust in others varies widely. But it tends to be higher in high-income countries than in middle-income ones.

People who trust others tend to support international cooperation more than those who don’t In many countries outside the U.S., those with higher levels of social trust are also more likely to view several international organizations positively.

Check out the full post here:

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

And that's not just the case in the U.S.!

Specifically, Americans who say most people can be trusted are more likely to...
- say the U.S. should be active in world affairs
- view NATO, the EU and the UN positively
- support the U.S. compromising with other countries
- support various forms of foreign aid

We've previously found that trusting others is associated with things like higher confidence in public school principals and greater life satisfaction.

In a new post out today, we find that whether people trust others also relates to how they think about international affairs.

Where most people trust others and where they don’t around the world Trust tends to be higher in the high-income countries surveyed than in the middle-income ones.

Check out the full post here: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Generally speaking, would you say that most people can or can't be trusted?

In our new post out today, we asked this question in 25 countries.

55% of Americans say that most people CAN be trusted. The U.S. is consistent with a wider trend of people in high-income countries being more trusting.

Canadians’ opinions of the U.S. and its president are at or near historic lows About a third of Canadians (34%) have a favorable opinion of the United States today. This is down 20 percentage points since last year.

Canadians’ views of the U.S. are among their most negative in our two decades of polling.

Majorities of Canadians say that the U.S. is the world’s leading economic power and that the U.S. poses the greatest threat to their country.

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

In many countries, views of the national economy are closely related to partisanship In nearly all the countries we surveyed, supporters of the governing party view their economy more positively than nonsupporters.

Read our full analysis of how views of the economy in countries around the world relate to partisanship, elections, GDP growth and economic shocks here:

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Following elections in the U.S. and the UK in 2024 where the party in power changed, views of the economy along partisan lines also shifted.