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Whether the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves, or for the benefit of all.
Latest: 83% answered “A few big interests” in ANES, 2024.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. ANES → mixed mode (2012).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each column is one survey wave, evenly spaced rather than to scale in time; hover for exact shares.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. ANES → mixed mode (2012).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each point is one survey wave at the middle of its field period. Lines from different surveys are never spliced together.
Groups differ from everyone by 5 points on average across all answers.
| Line | Question | Match | How answers map |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANES | Government run by few big interests or for all Would you say the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all the people? | identical | Few big interests → A few big interests; Benefit of all → Benefit of all |
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. ANES → mixed mode (2012).
Groups differ from everyone by 3 points on average across all answers.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. ANES → mixed mode (2012).
Subgroup charts are picked automatically. Of every breakdown in the data (party, ideology, age, sex, race, education, income, region, religion, and community type), these two put their groups furthest from everyone’s answers: the gap is averaged across all answer categories and waves, with each group weighted by its share of respondents. Party and ideology count as one choice, so the second chart shows a different kind of split. Groups with an effective sample under 50 in a wave are left out of that wave.