Nine in 10 Americans believe there’s widespread corruption in the federal government, the highest level reached since Gallup began polling the public on the matter decades ago.
The large share—89 percent, to be exact—has grown rapidly since President Donald Trump took office, surpassing the steady levels set between 2006 and 2024. Around seven in 10 Americans held similar beliefs during that timespan.
The swell is partially the result of increased skepticism among Democrats and independents, of whom 90 percent see corruption, but most Republicans have said the same throughout Trump’s second term. Eighty-three percent told Gallup this year that there’s widespread crookedness, a two-point rise from 2025.
“This ought to concern all Americans,” Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican, said in a Wednesday X post.
He, along with most of his GOP colleagues, has allowed Trump to bypass Congress on many of his agenda items, further eroding the separation of powers principle and degrading the independence of White House watchdogs.
Last month, all but two present Republicans voted to confirm Todd Blanche, the president’s former personal lawyer, as attorney general. In his acting role, Blanche set up a $1.8 billion fund for so-called victims of government “weaponization,” including those prosecuted for the January 6th insurrection, and only officially closed it after a handful of Republicans threatened to block his confirmation.
Democrats have depicted themselves as defenders of democracy, but executive power also grew under the Biden administration. The former president pushed through some policy without congressional authorization, although the courts curtailed a few high-profile initiatives.
“Scholarly models of presidential power, which assume that once elected, a president works with Congress to achieve election platform aims, are outdated, a limitation enhanced by partisan polarization,” Desmond King, an American government professor at the University of Oxford, wrote in a journal earlier this year. “Sidelining Congress makes persuasion less necessary.”
Democrats will likely try to assert power over Trump beginning next year, when they are expected to have control of the House and, if the winds blow their way, the Senate, too. Years of congressional passivity will make their efforts more difficult, however, and Republican allegiance with Trump will stimy Democratic efforts to restore checks and balances.
The administration’s actions are proving to be unpopular, though, as Gallup’s poll shows, and the public appears to be fed up with the White House’s growing power. Whether those feelings bring about concrete change remains to be seen.
