As lame-duck President Joe Biden’s administration prepares to depart, his legacy of division and distrust is solidifying in the American psyche. This damage is evident in a record low of just 35 percent of Americans expressing confidence in the judicial system, according to a Gallup poll released on Tuesday. This marks a staggering 24-point decline over the past four years.
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At the center of this dramatic decline is none other than President-elect Donald Trump. His legal battles have become a flashpoint. Together, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the first-ever indictment of a former president created a turbulence in trust that is not confined to one side of the political spectrum.
This resulted in a national crisis of confidence in the judiciary. Both Biden’s supporters and critics saw a sharp decline in confidence—17 points among those who disapproved and 18 points among those favorable to Biden’s leadership.
Trump faced four criminal indictments, but only the falsified business records case in New York went to trial, resulting in a guilty verdict before he won his presidential campaign. Since then, special counsel Jack Smith has dropped two federal cases: one concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the other over classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. A separate case in Georgia regarding election interference is largely stalled.
Additionally, following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, Democrats’ trust in the judicial branch plummeted 25 points — from 50 percent to 25 percent — between 2021 and 2022. While confidence rebounded slightly to 34 percent in 2023, it dropped again to 24 percent in 2024.
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America now finds itself among nations that have experienced extreme political instability and authoritarianism in recent decades, with significant drops in confidence in their judicial systems over a similar four-year period. These nations include Myanmar (2018-2022) during the return to military rule in 2021, Venezuela (2012-2016) amid deep economic and political turmoil, and Syria (2009-2013) in the lead-up to and early years of its civil war.
This finding contrasts with the period between 2006 and 2020, when Americans’ trust in their courts was similar to that of other wealthy nations. Since 2020, confidence in courts has remained stable in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, resulting in a 20-point gap between the U.S. and these nations this year.
The judiciary has seen a larger drop in public confidence than most other U.S. institutions during the Biden administration. While trust in the national government also declined by 20 points to 26 percent in 2024, the 24 percent drop in judicial confidence is notably steep. Although other countries have experienced bigger declines in government trust, few have seen a similar loss in confidence in their judiciary.
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The net result? For the first time on record, more Americans trust the integrity of their elections (51 percent) than trust their judicial system (35 percent).
The Gallup survey was conducted from June 28 to August 1 in telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,000 U.S. adults.
