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Poll: Voters Want Solutions for Government Corruption
Jul 14, 2026
A new Brennan Center survey finds that large majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents share deep-seated concerns about government corruption, which most voters define broadly and blame for many of the country’s biggest problems going unaddressed. The survey, fielded to 2,000 registered voters across the country between April 28 and May 6, also finds widespread support for key anticorruption reforms, such as new limits on money in elections and stronger protections against self-dealing by high-ranking government officials.
The key findings include:
- Voters see corruption as a big problem that permeates every government institution. More than 9 in 10 voters (92 percent) — including supermajorities of Republicans (90 percent), Democrats (93 percent), and independents (93 percent) — believe corruption is a big problem in politics and government. Large majorities of voters also view the last two presidents, Congress, and the Supreme Court as corrupt.
- Voters define corruption broadly. Most voters say corruption covers a range of conduct, including officials using their position for personal gain (97 percent) and prioritizing the interests of billionaires and big corporations over those of the public (94 percent), waste of taxpayer dollars (90 percent), and officials who are unresponsive to their constituents (76 percent).
- Voters identify several causes of corruption in elected officials. Voters point to a lack of consequences for corrupt behavior (79 percent), officials prioritizing personal financial gain (79 percent), and campaign contributions from billionaires (64 percent) and big corporations (62 percent) as top causes of corruption.
- Voters blame corruption for kitchen-table issues going unaddressed. Overwhelming majorities believe corruption is responsible for big problems that government has failed to solve (88 percent) and for dysfunctional public services (83 percent).
- Voters want significant reforms. Major anticorruption policy proposals command widespread support across self-identified partisanship, including a constitutional amendment to restore limits on money in elections (79 percent), mandatory disclosure for all federal campaign contributions and spending (85 percent), the creation of a new federal ethics enforcer (81 percent), and a constitutional amendment limiting the president’s pardon power (69 percent).
Voters See Corruption as a Major Systemic Problem
Voters across the political spectrum identify corruption as a widespread, systemic problem. The poll finds that 92 percent of voters say corruption is a big problem in U.S. politics and government, with 62 percent — including 71 percent Democrats, 64 percent independents, and 53 percent Republicans — calling it a very big problem. Ninety-three percent of voters are somewhat or very concerned about corruption influencing elected officials.
Voters see corruption as endemic to U.S. government. When asked whether corruption is driven by individual choices or is instead an embedded structural problem, nearly two-thirds of voters said the latter. More than half of respondents (55 percent) say the process of running for office and serving in government makes officials corrupt, compared with 45 percent who say people who run for or serve in office tend to be corrupt.
Voters identify the major institutions of the federal government as corrupt, including Congress (85 percent), the president (68 percent), the cabinet (81 percent), and the Supreme Court (62 percent). With respect to Congress, these findings are broadly consistent across every demographic tested: political party, race, education, income, age, urban/suburban/rural, and geographic region.
Voters Define Corruption Expansively
As for what qualifies as corruption, voters across party lines are in agreement. They understand corruption broadly, centered in part on the perception that government primarily works for the ultrawealthy and well-connected and doesn’t prioritize the interests of most voters. The poll finds that while 97 percent of voters say that a government official using their office for personal gain is corrupt, almost as many (89 percent) say the same about billionaires and big corporations having an easier time being heard than the general public.
Large swaths of the electorate across party lines also associate corruption with government inefficiency and inaccessibility. Ninety percent say that taxpayer dollars spent on programs that do not seem to benefit the public constitutes corruption, and 79 percent point to Congress not focusing on the problems faced by the public as another example.
Please indicate if the following are examples of corruption.
Total Yes — very and somewhat corrupt
0%20%40%60%80%100%A government official who uses their position for personal gain98%96%96%A government official who prioritizes the interests of billionaires and big corporations over those of the public97%94%91%A government official who bends the rule of law96%95%94%A government official who lies to the public94%94%94%Billionaires and big corporations having an easier time having their voices heard by the government than the general public94%90%83%Taxpayer dollars spent on programs that do not seem to benefit the public90%88%94%Congress not focusing on solving the problems faced by the public82%77%80%A government official who is unresponsive to their constituents78%75%76%DemocratIndependentRepublicanSource: Brennan Center poll of 2,000 registered voters conducted between April 28 and May 6, 2026Voters Agree Corruption Has Many Causes
Voters across the political spectrum most often say corruption is caused by a lack of consequences for corrupt behavior (79 percent) and elected officials prioritizing personal gain (79 percent). Not far behind, and again with large bipartisan majorities, were campaign contributions from big corporations and billionaires, with 62 and 64 percent.
Voters Believe Corruption Has Serious Consequences for Their Daily Lives
Voters link corruption directly to kitchen-table issues and the problems with government they experience daily. Eighty-eight percent blame corruption for the persistence of today’s biggest problems that government has failed to solve, and 83 percent say corruption is responsible for public services not working properly.
Eighty-nine percent of voters — overwhelming majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents — say corruption is responsible for policies that benefit billionaires and big corporations at the expense of the American people.
Demand for Change Across Party Lines
Voters’ perception of widespread corruption and its consequences for their daily lives translates into a mandate for solutions. Every reform tested in this survey polled nearly at or above 70 percent — with majority support across party lines. In fact, most proposals commanded supermajority support from each party and independents. They also garnered widespread support across other demographics, including race, income, age, gender, education, and geographic region. Even among the small minority of voters (8 percent) who do not view corruption as a big problem, nearly every anticorruption proposal received majority support.
An overwhelming majority of voters across party lines support campaign finance reforms. These include legislation to end “dark money,” or funds from groups that do not disclose their donors (85 percent overall, with 88 percent support among Democrats, 84 percent among independents, and 85 percent support among Republicans) and a constitutional amendment to overturn Supreme Court rulings that have struck down limits on money in elections (79 percent overall, including 84 percent support among Democrats, 81 percent support among independents, and 75 percent support among Republicans).
Supermajorities in regions across the country support amending the Constitution to restore campaign finance limits, with backing from more than three-quarters of voters in the West (82 percent), South (78 percent), Northeast (81 percent), and Midwest (76 percent). The same is true across the urban (81 percent), suburban (79 percent), and rural (76 percent) divide.
Voters also support major reforms to curb self-dealing at the highest levels of government. Voters of all political affiliations, for example, are aligned in wanting to strengthen federal ethics laws for all three branches of the federal government. That includes banning presidential conflicts of interest (83 percent), requiring the Supreme Court to adopt a binding code of ethics (84 percent), banning congressional stock trading (81 percent), creating a new federal agency to enforce anticorruption laws (81 percent), and passing a constitutional amendment to limit the president’s unilateral power to issue pardons (69 percent).
At least 70 percent of young voters (ages 18 to 34) back the reforms aimed at addressing the misuse of government power for graft. These solutions also have large majority support across all other age groups, with voters 65 or older often showing the highest levels of support.
The Brennan Center’s survey shows that the public believes corruption is serious and exists in all corners of government. It also offers some hope: Americans across party lines overwhelmingly support solutions that address the role of concentrated wealth in politics and unchecked self-enrichment by those in power in order to restore the government’s ability to serve the public and confidence in government.
Research Analyst Emily Gill made substantial contributions to the survey instrument and underlying research for this analysis.
Poll: Voters Want Solutions for Government Corruption was first published by the Brennan Center and republished with permission.
Alex Brunet is a Research Associate, Elections & Government
Marina Pino is Counsel, Elections & Government
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The Rule of Law depends on action, not blind optimism. Explore how critical hope, civic engagement, and accountability can strengthen democracy.
Aitor Diago / Getty Images
Only Collective Action Can Turn Outrage Into Accountability and Protect the Rule of Law
Jul 13, 2026
The past year has shaken our faith in institutions and, perhaps, in each other. If not already eviscerated, the Rule of Law is under attack. In this atmosphere of constant chaos, we have become numbed by the events of each day and the scope of unprecedented executive action. Yet, even in the face of growing autocracy and oligarchy, the Rule of Law can prevail.
“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” In the current moment, it is tempting to reach for hope as comfort, or to repeat familiar lines about resilience, unity, or the promise of American ideals—such as this one from Leonard Cohen. But as educator Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade warns, not all hope is created equal. The kind of hope that ignores suffering, that insists the Rule of Law will revive itself without action, is not hope at all. It is what he calls “hokey or “mythical hope,” a passive optimism that ultimately deepens despair. What this moment demands instead is “critical hope”: a form of hope grounded in struggle and action.
Americans are increasingly pessimistic about their futures and our country’s direction. That pessimism is not irrational; it is a response to the suffering produced by governmental systems that strip people of dignity and due process. To respond with platitudes about national strength or eventual progress would be to participate in the very false hope that obscures that suffering. Critical hope begins by rejecting that illusion. It insists that we look directly at injustice—not as an aberration, but as something embedded in our political and social structures. When officials attempt to justify violence by dehumanizing its victims, or when agencies disregard court orders with impunity, we are not witnessing isolated failures. We are observing what happens when power operates without accountability to the Rule of Law.
We can find light and hope in acts which have come across ideological lines. Many federal judges have followed their judicial oaths to enforce constitutional limits regardless of who appointed them. Earlier this year, Judge Patrick Schiltz (appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2006) found that overzealous Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis ignored or refused to follow almost 100 court decrees. At the same time, lawmakers across both parties attempted to curb additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security, asserting that the agency had demonstrated reckless overreach. More recently, bipartisan opposition has emerged against a slush fund for allies of the president, including those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th.
In response to questions about whether there is any limit to his power, President Trump recently asserted that his own morality is the only thing that can stop him. This underlines the urgency of the moment. We cannot succumb to thinking that “everything will be okay.” The Rule of Law can prevail, but only through sustained pressure.
This requires critical hope, painful honesty, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about American society and our own role within it. It means recognizing that outrage is not something to suppress, but something to channel. The anger many feel right now is not a problem requiring management. It is, in many ways, an appropriate response to injustice. The question is whether that outrage will dissipate into cynicism or transform into sustained action.
Critical hope is rooted in solidarity—the understanding that the suffering of others is not distant or abstract, but shared. It rejects the idea that democracy is maintained solely by institutions. Instead, it recognizes that those institutions are only as strong as the people willing to demand that they function justly. Here, the metaphor of light penetrating the “cracks” to provide hope is more than poetic. There are cracks in systems that appear immovable, but they do not appear on their own—nor do they widen without effort. They are made through protest, advocacy, organizing, litigation, and the refusal to submit.
There is nothing inevitable about justice prevailing. Justice is only a possibility, contingent on what we do next. If we settle for comfort, symbolic gestures, or the illusion that progress will unfold on its own, we will find ourselves deeper in despair. But if we pair our moral outrage with material action, honest reflection, and collective struggle, then even now, in the midst of fear and uncertainty, we can begin to build something more durable than optimism. Each of us who cares has a responsibility to act, in whatever space we can. Martin Luther King, Jr. popularized the phrase “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” We hope that may be true, but nothing is preordained.
We must acknowledge the exigence of the moment and act. In the words of James Baldwin, “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Jay Blitzman is a retired Massachusetts Juvenile Court Judge and former Executive Director of Massachusetts Advocates for Children. Jay is a law school lecturer who consults on youth and criminal issues. Blitzman is a volunteer with Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
Javier Irizarry is a Juris Doctor candidate at Boston College Law School in the class of 2027. Javier received his Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Spanish from Amherst College.
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Millions of Americans face rising healthcare costs and coverage gaps. Learn how strengthening the Affordable Care Act can improve affordability and access.
Getty Images, aaaaimages
When Health Care Becomes a Choice, Something Is Broken
Jul 13, 2026
Recently, a nurse told me she had to choose between paying for her husband’s surgery and putting a new roof on their home. “We’re praying for no rain,” she said. In that moment, the distance between political promises and real life collapsed. This is what the economy feels like for millions of Americans — not a graph, not a headline, but a quiet calculation of which basic need they can afford to meet. No family in a nation as wealthy as ours should have to rely on the weather to survive.
For years, Americans were promised that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would be replaced with something better, cheaper, and available to everyone. That promise never became policy. Congress never passed a comprehensive replacement. The closest attempt, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), collapsed under the weight of its own numbers. The Congressional Budget Office found that it would have left 23 million more Americans uninsured, caused 14 million to lose coverage in the first year alone, cut Medicaid by $834 billion, and raised premiums for older adults to levels many could never pay. A 64‑year‑old making $26,500 a year would have seen premiums jump from $1,700 under the ACA to more than $14,000. Protections for people with pre‑existing conditions would have weakened. That is not “better.” That is not “cheaper.” And it certainly was not “for everyone.”
Despite the AHCA’s collapse, the administration moved ahead on Day 1 with actions that weakened the ACA. It revoked a Biden-era order that had extended enrollment periods and restored funding for Navigators — the trained professionals who help families sign up for coverage. Those supports had been designed to make enrollment easier and more accessible. Removing them made it harder for people to get help, harder to understand their options, and harder to keep the coverage they already had. Families woke up to fewer tools and a more fragile system.
When Congress failed to pass the president’s healthcare plan, it did not stop the administration from weakening the ACA anyway. Key protections were rolled back with no replacement ready — a political victory for those intent on dismantling President Obama’s legacy, but a devastating loss for the people who depended on those protections to survive. Loyalists in Congress allowed it to happen, and now Americans of every party, in every state, are struggling with the consequences.
Then came the consequences. Key ACA protections were eliminated without putting a functioning healthcare plan in their place, leaving families in a system weakened by years of political fighting and offering nothing to replace what had been dismantled. Premiums rose. Protections thinned. Coverage grew more fragile. And the people who were told help was coming were left to fend for themselves.
One of the most persistent misconceptions is that states rejected the ACA because they “couldn’t afford it.” The data show the opposite. Under the ACA, the federal government pays 90 percent of Medicaid expansion costs permanently. States pay 10 percent. Because Medicaid expansion reduces uncompensated care, mental‑health spending, and emergency‑room costs, states that expanded Medicaid actually saved money. Louisiana saved $199 million in its first full year. Montana saved $28 million in two years. Kentucky projected $820 million in savings over five years. Arkansas saved $444 million between 2017 and 2021.
When protections weaken, people do not lose “coverage” in the abstract. They lose chemotherapy. They lose insulin. They lose the ability to see a doctor before a condition becomes life‑threatening. Uninsured adults are twice as likely to delay care until it becomes an emergency. Hospitals provide more than $40 billion in uncompensated care each year. Rural hospitals in non‑expansion states are six times more likely to close. One in four insulin users reports rationing because of cost. Many families pay $300 to $600 per vial. During the recent Medicaid unwinding, more than 20 million people lost coverage, and 70 percent of them lost it because of paperwork, not because they were ineligible. After the individual‑mandate penalty was eliminated, premiums rose 7 to 10 percent in many states. These are not isolated stories. They are the predictable outcomes of policy choices.
Consider Nancy Linder, 47, who lives outside Atlanta. When the enhanced ACA subsidies expired, her family’s monthly premium jumped from $162 to $483 — nearly $3,900 more a year on an income of about $30,000. Nancy has a history of a brain tumor, Parkinsonism, and relies on multiple specialists and medications. “I have to have health insurance,” she said. But like millions of others, she now faces a choice between coverage she cannot live without and costs she cannot afford.
Part of the problem is that we rarely evaluate what works, monitor what doesn’t, or adjust policies based on real‑world results — and families pay the price.
Restoring the ACA would not mean returning to the past and walking away. It would mean restoring what worked and then doing what responsible systems do: reviewing, monitoring, adjusting, and evaluating results on an ongoing basis. Congress could set a clear timeline — annual reviews of coverage rates, affordability, emergency‑room usage, state budget impact, and medication access — and adjust the law as needed. That is what a functioning democracy does. It learns from evidence, responds to real‑world outcomes, and adapts to protect its people. Given the current state of the economy, with families stretched to the breaking point, this is not only a policy choice. It is the human thing to do.
There are solutions. Congress can restore the enrollment supports that worked — extended sign‑up periods, full Navigator funding, and stable subsidies that keep premiums within reach. States can protect Medicaid expansion and the 90/10 federal match that has saved budgets and lives. And policymakers can commit to something we rarely see in health care: ongoing evaluation. If a policy reduces costs and expands coverage, keep it. If it fails, fix it.
None of this is complicated. It simply requires choosing people over politics.
Health care should never force families into impossible decisions. When coverage becomes a choice between survival and sacrifice, something fundamental has broken. We can repair it — not with slogans or shortcuts, but with policies that put people first and protect the dignity of every family. That is the work of a functioning democracy, and it is work we cannot afford to postpone.
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and former adjunct instructor who writes about civic responsibility, democratic norms, and the human impact of public policy.
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America's 250th anniversary is more than a celebration—it's a call to strengthen civic education, democracy, and community for generations to come.
pamelasphotopoetry / Getty Images
America’s 250th Was Never the Finish Line
Jul 13, 2026
On July 4, Americans gathered in city parks, libraries, museums, historic sites, schools, houses of worship, and around kitchen tables to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
They came together for concerts and parades. They attended naturalization ceremonies. They visited historic places, planted liberty trees, volunteered in their communities, read the Declaration aloud with their families, and reflected on the ideals that have shaped our nation for two and a half centuries.
In the months leading up to the anniversary, many wondered whether America could still find ways to celebrate together. Some worried that the nation had become too divided, too fragmented, or too distracted to mark such a significant milestone in a meaningful way.
What we witnessed instead was something both quieter and more encouraging.
America celebrated. Not through a single defining national moment, but through thousands of local acts of participation, reflection, learning, service, and civic connection.
And that is exactly why America's 250th matters.
The anniversary was never meant to be an endpoint. It was an invitation.
The Declaration of Independence marked the beginning of the American experiment, not its completion. The work of turning revolutionary ideals into durable institutions would take decades. The generation that declared independence in 1776 still had to win a war, build a nation, establish a system of self-government, and confront profound disagreements about what the future should look like.
Things did not always go according to plan.
The Articles of Confederation proved insufficient to meet many of the challenges facing the young nation. Economic instability, political divisions, and questions about national authority threatened the durability of the republic. Americans disagreed fiercely about the path forward. Many wondered whether the experiment would survive.
And yet they persevered.
Through debate, compromise, civic participation, and constitutional imagination, Americans built something extraordinary: the United States Constitution, the oldest continuously operating written national constitution in the world.
That achievement should remind us of something important today.
The generation of 1776 did not inherit a finished democracy. They built one. So must we.
That is why we believe the most important work of the semiquincentennial begins now. Over the next decade, as the nation moves toward the Constitution's 250th anniversary in 2037 and the Bill of Rights' 250th anniversary in 2041, America has an opportunity to undertake a new era of civic renewal.
Not because our challenges are identical to those of the founding generation, but because self-government always requires renewal. Democracy has never been self-executing. Every generation must learn it, practice it, strengthen it, and pass it on.
The civic decade ahead should be marked by new investments in civic education, both inside and outside the classroom. It should be marked by renewed support for civic institutions like museums, libraries, historic sites, parks, archives, schools, and community organizations that help Americans encounter one another and engage with our shared constitutional inheritance. It should be marked by efforts to rebuild social trust and strengthen the relationships that sustain healthy communities.
At a time when loneliness and social isolation have become defining challenges of modern life, civic institutions have a particularly important role to play. They create opportunities for people of different backgrounds and perspectives to gather around shared questions, shared experiences, and shared responsibilities. They help transform strangers into neighbors and communities into places of belonging.
The work ahead will not be easy. Building civic knowledge, strengthening civic habits, restoring trust, and creating opportunities for meaningful participation will require sustained effort. It will require leaders, educators, parents, students, philanthropists, policymakers, community organizations, and citizens working together over many years.
But great civic achievements have never been easy. The generation that followed 1776 faced uncertainty, disagreement, and fragility. They understood that the future of self-government depended not simply on lofty ideals, but on the hard work of building institutions capable of sustaining those ideals. Their work became our inheritance. Our work will become the inheritance of future generations.
So if America's 250th did not inspire you to stay engaged, consider joining us for the civic decade ahead.
The fireworks have ended. The celebrations have concluded. But the most important work is just beginning.
The story of America has never been defined solely by what happened in 1776.
It has always been defined by what each generation chooses to do next.
Vince Stango is the Interim President and CEO of the National Constitution Center.
Julie Silverbrook is the Chief Content and Learning Officer of the National Constitution Center.
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