Record Number Of Voters Think US Gov’t Has Become Too Powerful, Poll Shows

A record number of Americans believe the U.S. government presently has “too much power,” according to a Gallup poll released Friday.

The newly released survey found that 62% of Americans said the federal government has too much power, marking a record high. This number is up from 51% one year ago and is also the highest amount in Gallup’s trend since 2002, according to the poll. 

The previous highest number of Americans who thought the U.S. government possessed too much power was 60%, which was recorded during former President Barack Obama’s second term in both 2013 and 2015, Gallup reported.

Moreover, 66% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the government has become overly powerful, up from 25% in 2024, according to the poll. Meanwhile, 58% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the same, down from 75% in 2024, Gallup’s poll found.

The survey results released Friday notably mark the first time since 2003 to 2007 that Democrats have been more likely than Republicans to respond that the federal government holds too much power, according to Gallup.

Additionally, some polling released this year shows that the majority of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. A separate Gallup poll released on Aug. 7 found that Congress received just a 26% overall approval rating among Americans.

The survey was conducted via telephone interviews from Sept. 2 to 16, with a random sample of 1,000 adults living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.