Poll: Just 16 Percent Say Democracy Is Working Well in US

The survey from The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only 16 percent of Americans surveyed believe democracy is working extremely well or well in the US, while 38 percent said it is only working somewhat well and 45 percent said it is not functioning properly.

The poll found higher rates of Democrats than Republicans said they think that democracy is working well in the US.

Among Democrats, 22 percent said democracy is working extremely/very well, compared to 10 percent of Republicans. Forty-eight percent of Democrats surveyed said it is working somewhat well, compared to 26 percent of Republicans, The Hill reported.

This represents a steep drop for Republicans since October, when about 68 percent said it was working at least somewhat well. During the same period, self-identified Democrats rose from 37 percent believing it has worked at least somewhat well in October.

Since the fall, former US president Donald Trump has mounted a series of baseless attacks on the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, including addressing a crowd on Jan. 6 in Washington that sought to overturn the election.

After his speech to that crow, a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol, leading the Democratic House to impeach Trump an unprecedented second time. Republican officials in states Trump lost, as well as figures like then-Attorney General William Barr, have said there is no evidence to support Trump’s election fraud claims.

Republicans are less likely than the general public to acknowledge US President Joe Biden was legitimately elected. About two-thirds of Americans acknowledge Biden as the winner of a fair election compared to about 1 in 3 Republicans who acknowledge the same.

Pollsters surveyed 1,055 adults from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.