Only two in five people in the U.S. trust their political leaders, the lowest level in the history of the 46-year Gallup poll, released Wednesday evening.
Since the Watergate scandal in 1972, Gallup has tracked Americans’ faith in political leaders. In 1976, 86 percent of people trusted their leaders. Since then, that number has been cut in half, allowing non-politicians such as Donald Trump to pick up a lot of support. However, despite his winning the Republican nomination in July, Trump has the lowest-ever public image of a presidential candidate.
Low numbers are somewhat standard at the conclusion of a president’s time in office. Following every presidential election since 1996, trust in politicians has jumped 5-10 points and slowly come back down. That was no different at the conclusion of George W. Bush’s second term in 2008, when trust plunged.
But President Obama, who was welcomed to Washington in 2008, a time when two-in-three trusted government leaders, could leave office with the lowest-ever public rating of politicians.
The poll was conducted by telephone with 1,020 random U.S. adults and had a 4 percent margin of error.
