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Americans' confidence in gov't rebounds: Gallup

Xinhua, September 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Americans are becoming slightly more confident in their government after their confidence dwindled for years, Gallup found in a poll released Monday.

Americans' confidence in the judicial branch has recovered from last year's 53 percent to 61 percent this year. Meanwhile, confidence in the presidency has climbed 8 percentage points to 51 percent in the last two years, and confidence in the legislative branch has gained 7 points to 35 percent, the Sept. 7-11 poll found.

Confidence in each government branch is now similar to where it stood in 2013, but is still well below the averages in Gallup's annual trend since 1997, which saw 68 percent for the judicial branch, 55 percent for the presidency and 49 percent for the legislative branch, Gallup said.

Up to 24 percent of Americans currently say they have no confidence in the presidency, 20 percent have no confidence in the legislative branch, and 9 percent have no confidence in the judiciary. The remainder have "not very much" confidence in each branch or have not expressed any opinion, Gallup found.

The recent increase in public trust in the executive branch largely comes from Democrats' rising confidence, which jumped from 77 percent in 2015 to 84 percent this year, consistent with President Barack Obama's improved job approval ratings.

Currently, 49 percent of Americans say they trust the government's handling of international problems, up slightly from 45 percent in 2015 and 43 percent in 2014. Confidence in the government's handling of domestic problems is now at 44 percent, up from 38 percent in 2015.

Democrats' confidence in the government's handling of domestic problems has risen 11 points over the past year, to 64 percent, and their confidence in the government's handling of international problems has increased 10 points to 72 percent. Republicans' confidence in the government's handling of each dimension is unchanged, Gallup found.

The current pattern of high Democratic confidence and low Republican confidence in government's capability will likely continue if Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election. Conversely, partisan confidence levels could reverse if Republican candidate Donald Trump clinches the White House, Gallup said. Endi