Loading…
How often people trust the government in Washington to do what is right. ANES has asked since 1958; its cumulative file stops in 2012 because later studies changed the answer scale (adding 'about half the time'). Pew's compilation of many pollsters carries the series to 2025.
Latest: 17% answered “Just about always or most of the time” in Pew trust compilation, 2025.
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 (or one year’s average, for frequent series), 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).
Groups differ from everyone by 7 points on average across all answers, in Pew trust compilation.
| Line | Question | Match | How answers map |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANES | Trust in federal government to do what is right People have (1958,1964: I’d like to talk about some of the) different ideas about the government in Washington. These ideas don’t refer to Democrats or Republicans in particular, but just to government in general. We want to see how you feel about these ideas. (1996 and later: For example:)
How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right – just about always, most of the time (not 1966: or) only some of the time (1996: or almost never)? | identical | None of the time/never (VOLUNTEERED); almost never (1966 only) → Only some of the time or never; Some of the time → Only some of the time or never; Most of the time → Just about always or most of the time; Just about always → Just about always or most of the time |
| Pew trust compilation | Trust in the federal government to do what is right How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right: just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time? (Wording varies slightly across pollsters; Pew reports the combined share answering just about always or most of the time.) Caveat: Pew's compilation of many pollsters (Pew, CBS/NYT, ABC/Post, Gallup, CNN, and NES), published as the combined share only, with don't know in the base; wording and mode vary by pollster. | equivalent | Just about always/most of the time → Just about always or most of the time |
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, in Pew trust compilation.
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.