By Eloise Gilbert Bartell ‘25, Alex Glotzer ‘25, and Sam Hollander ‘25
Overview
This blog post will look at survey responses from two surveys regarding the perceived state of democracy in the United States. The first survey, conducted by the Wesleyan SurveyLab, was meant to capture general political attitudes of the Wesleyan student body over the age of 18 in the lead-up to the national election. The Wesleyan student survey had a sample size of 616 students. The second survey was designed by the Wesleyan SurveyLab and fielded by YouGov, with a sample size of 1,350. The sample is meant to be politically representative of U.S. adults. Using these two surveys, this blog post will analyze questions on the perception of democracy in the U.S. Overall, we find that right before the 2024 election, Republicans in the general public and Wesleyan Democrats were the groups least satisfied with the state of democracy. However, Wesleyan students overall seem to be less satisfied with the state of democracy than respondents in the national survey. Finally, among the Wesleyan student sample, we show that views on the health of U.S. democracy were related to how respondents voted in the general election, including whether they supported minor party candidates.
Measuring Concerns About U.S. Democracy
There has been a recent uptick in levels of concern for the state of democracy in the United States. For example, Pew Research Center reports that out of 3,600 U.S. adults surveyed in 2024, 72% of respondents think the U.S. used to be a good example of democracy, but it has not been in recent years. This indicates some concern for the state of democracy in the U.S because it demonstrates that people used to feel more confident about its functionality than they do now. It is likely that concern for the state of democracy was a factor in the 2024 presidential election, and this blog post aims to analyze how survey participants’ vote choices were affected by their level of concern.
To accomplish this, our blog post uses multiple questions from the two surveys. In both surveys we ask “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?” which has 19 possible responses,1 and “On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the way democracy works in the United States?”2 The Wesleyan Student Survey also measured concern for democracy with a question that asked respondents which of the following came closest to their opinion: (1) Democracy in the United States is strong enough to withstand the outcome of the 2024 presidential election no matter who wins, (2) Democracy in the US could be at risk depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election, or (3) Democracy in the US is already so seriously broken that it doesn’t matter who wins the 2024 presidential election. This question was used in AP/NORC polls in recent years.
Respondents in the national survey differ from the respondents to the Wesleyan survey in many ways. Many more YouGov respondents indicated that they were Trump voters than Wesleyan respondents – 41% of the national sample compared to only 7% of Wesleyan’s sample. This difference indicates that the Wesleyan students skew more to the political left and were more likely to vote for Harris than the average American.
Moreover, when the satisfaction with democracy data is broken up by party affiliation, an interesting pattern emerges, particularly among Wesleyan students. We consider respondents satisfied with democracy if they answer “very satisfied” or “fairly satisfied” and dissatisfied if they answer “not very satisfied” or “not at all satisfied.” Wesleyan Republicans and Democrats are almost the mirror image of each other in terms of satisfaction with democracy. Among Wesleyan students, 72% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents reported that, to some degree, they were dissatisfied with the state of democracy. Conversely, 73% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said that they were satisfied with the state of democracy. As for true independents, they aligned very closely with Democrats but were even more dissatisfied with democracy, with 79% being not very or not at all satisfied with the state of democracy.
The national survey results paint a different picture. In fact, just like the results for the Democrats and Republicans mirrored each other on the Wesleyan survey, the YouGov results inverted the Wesleyan results. While nearly three quarters of Wesleyan Democrats were dissatisfied with democracy, 66% of national Democrats reported that they were some level of satisfied. Equally interesting, 55% of Republicans said that they were dissatisfied with the state of democracy in the U.S. Finally, independents in this survey aligned with Republicans instead of Democrats, with 63% of independents reporting some level of dissatisfaction with democracy.
As mentioned before, Wesleyan students skew more politically left than the general public. That said, the self-identified Democrats in our national sample appear to be more supportive of Biden than their Wesleyan counterparts, as seen in Figure 1. Almost 33% of national Democrats strongly approved of Biden’s job as president compared to about 7% of Wesleyan Democrats. Wesleyan Democrats may be less supportive of Biden because they are disappointed with politics and democracy in general, as indicated by the above statistics. In addition, Biden may not have been viewed as progressive enough by some Wesleyan students.
Figure 1: Biden Job Approval Between Wesleyan and National Democrats
The differences between the surveys remain apparent when the data is broken down by which candidate survey respondents voted for. For example, in the Wesleyan student survey, 15% of respondents who voted for Donald Trump indicated that they were very satisfied with the state of democracy, while only 3% of them were not at all satisfied. In the national survey, however, only 7% of Trump voters were very satisfied with the state of democracy, while 21% indicated that they were not at all satisfied, showing that Trump voters were different in each survey. These results were reversed for Harris voters in the Wesleyan student survey, with less than 1% of respondents indicating that they were very satisfied with democracy, while 14% were not at all satisfied. In the YouGov survey, 19% of Harris voters were very satisfied with democracy, while 7% were not at all satisfied.
These findings demonstrate that different populations of the same party affiliation have different opinions on the state of democracy. These differences could be a result of a disagreement about which candidate would preserve the state of democracy. Harris campaigned on the prospect that Trump posed a threat to democracy. Conversely, Trump claimed his second term was likely stolen in 2020 and the Democrats are unfairly keeping him and conservatives from power. So, it is reasonable to conclude that national Democrats believe that with Joe Biden in charge, our democracy is currently being kept on track. Additionally, the Republicans could be in line with Trump in thinking that the Democrats stole the 2020 election.
Most Important Issue Facing the Country
Another way of assessing concerns about the state of democracy is looking at answers to the question about the most important issue facing the country today. The state of democracy was the most common answer for Wesleyan students when asked to identify the most important problem facing the country, with 20% choosing this option, as seen in Figure 2. Interestingly, only 7% of respondents in the national survey thought that the state of democracy was the most important problem in the U.S. In the national survey, respondents cared most about inflation with 20% choosing this option.
Figure 2: Most Important Problem: Wesleyan Students vs. National Sample
Harris voters were more likely than Trump voters to see the state of democracy as the most important problem facing the country in both surveys, although this is more clear in the Wesleyan survey. In the national survey, 91% of people that cited the state of democracy as the most important problem in the U.S. voted for Harris. This trend holds true for Wesleyan at an even higher rate, as 96% of those who see the state of democracy as the most important problem voted for Harris. In the Wesleyan survey, out of Harris voters, 22% saw the state of democracy as the most important problem, which was the most common answer. It was the most common answer for Harris voters in the national sample as well, but by a smaller margin. Fifteen percent of Harris voters in the national sample said the state of democracy was the most important problem, while 14% selected the economy, and 15% selected inflation. In comparison, only a combined 3% of Wesleyan Harris voters said either the economy or inflation were their most important problem. Among Trump voters, only 1% cited the state of democracy as the most important problem in the national sample and 8% cited it as the most important problem in the Wesleyan sample.
Democracy and the 2024 Election
Figure 3 shows the percentages of respondents in the Wesleyan Student Survey who voted for each candidate depending on their answer to a question about whether democracy was at risk in this election. The question had three response options: (1) “Democracy in the United States is strong enough to withstand the outcome of the 2024 presidential election no matter who wins,” (2) “Democracy in the US could be at risk depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election,” and (3) “Democracy in the US is already so seriously broken that it doesn’t matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.
Of those who said democracy could be at risk depending on who wins the 2024 election, 97% said they were voting for Kamala Harris. Among those who think democracy in the U.S. is strong enough to withstand the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, support for Trump and Harris was much closer, with 47% voting for Harris and 38% voting for Trump. One additional notable finding is that while respondents who believe the state of democracy to already be past the point of no return favored Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, such respondents are also more likely to support someone other than the two major party candidates.
Figure 3: Presidential Vote Based on Concern for Democracy (Wesleyan only)
Conclusion
Overall, both surveys show partisan differences in expressed concern for and satisfaction with democracy. Democrats in both surveys were more likely to list the state of democracy as the most important problem facing the country. Additionally, Wesleyan students in particular showed high levels of concern for democracy and low levels of satisfaction with the way it is currently functioning in the United States. Concerns about the state of democracy have persisted since the election, especially among Democrats. More recent polls indicate that the public remains concerned about the state of democracy post-election, suggesting the need for continued research into the topic and potential partisan splits in how the public views democracy in the United States.
1International students at Wesleyan received slightly different question wording, with the question reading: “What do you think is the most important problem facing the United States today?”
2This question was only asked to half the national sample, with the other half receiving different question wording.