72% of Americans say the U.S. used to be a good example of democracy, but isn’t anymore
A median of 40% of adults across 34 other countries surveyed in 2024 say U.S. democracy used to be a good example for other countries to follow.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Americans have mixed views about how the news media cover Biden’s, Trump’s ages
Similar shares of U.S. adults believe news organizations are giving too much attention (32%) or too little attention (29%) to Biden’s age.
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Third-party and independent candidates for president often fall short of early polling numbers
Given the number of third-party and independent candidates in the 2024, we examined how such candidates fared in past elections.
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Americans are more pessimistic than optimistic about many aspects of the country’s future
63% of Americans are pessimistic about the country’s moral and ethical standards, and 59% are pessimistic about its education system.
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NATO Viewed Favorably Across 13 Member Nations
Ahead of the June 2025 NATO summit, international views of Putin and Russia remain negative, while Zelenskyy gets mixed ratings overall.
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2. Views of the country’s progress on racial equality
About half of U.S. adults (52%) say that, in the last 60 years, the country has made a great deal or a fair amount of progress in ensuring equal rights for all people, regardless of race or ethnicity. A third say the country has made some progress, and 15% say the country hasn’t made much […]
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2. Views on the impact of science on society
The share of Americans who say science has had a mostly positive effect on society has declined in recent years. In the new survey, 57% say science has had a mostly positive effect on society, while 34% say science has had about equal positive and negative effects and 8% say science has had a mostly […]
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Views on America’s global role diverge widely by age and party
A third of adults under age 35 say it is extremely or very important that the U.S. play an active role in world affairs.
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4. Racial identity and views about the news
Americans who say that being Black is important to their identity often differ from other Black adults in their views about coverage of Black people, solutions to unfair coverage and the role of Black journalists. (Previous Center findings provide more details on race being central to the identity of Black Americans.) For example, about two-thirds […]
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6. Black Americans and mistrust of the U.S. health care system and medical research
Editorial note to readers A version of this study was originally published on June 10. We previously used the term “racial conspiracy theories” as an editorial shorthand to describe a complex and mixed set of findings. By using these words, our reporting distorted rather than clarified the point of the study. Changes to this version include: an […]
