#public-opinion

#public-opinion

The big picture: Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, fueled by dissatisfaction with Trump's impact on the economy and immigration, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution. By the numbers: Of all racial groups, Black Americans (84%) and Latinos (70%) are the most dissatisfied with the country's direction, according to the poll that surveyed Americans on religion, values and moods. In addition, 60% of Black Americans and 51% of Latinos say their economic situation has worsened this year. Over half of Black (53%) and Latino (56%) respondents say they feel like "strangers in their own country" - a record high in the poll's 16-year history. Only 16% of Black Americans and 30% of Latinos view Trump favorably.

AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin A whopping 85% of Americans said in a recent survey that political violence in the United States was growing, with Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly blaming the other side. According to a Pew Research poll, which surveyed nearly three-and-a-half thousand Americans following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last month, 85% of those polled said that politically motivated violence in this country was on the increase.

Over four in five drivers (84%) say they wouldn't be willing to own a driverless car, according to Quotezone 's new survey, and only 12% of those surveyed have a positive opinion on the technology. One of the main reasons for the reluctance is concern around safety and accident risk, with nearly a quarter (24%) identifying safety as their biggest worry. Other concerns include the risk of technical failures or malfunctions (18%), lack of human control (17%), and cybersecurity threats such as hacking (12%).

"There are a variety of very significant concerns that Americans have with higher education that are not unrelated to the topics the Trump administration cites or references as justifications for their crackdown," said Matt Baum, the Marvin Kalb Chair of Global Communications at the Harvard Kennedy School, a public policy professor and one of the survey researchers. Still, "the fact that Americans have these concerns doesn't necessarily translate to agreeing with the corrective measures the Trump administration is advocating and implementing."

This week's episode of The Third Rail focuses on the R line, running from Forest Hills to Bay Ridge, and what commuters have to say about the 2025 NYC Mayor's Race and other big topics affecting the city.

April M. Perry, a federal judge, barred the Trump Administration from deploying the National Guard in Illinois, for at least the next fourteen days. "I have seen no credible evidence that there is danger of rebellion in the state," Perry noted from the bench. J. B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, who had been resisting the deployments to Chicago, celebrated the ruling on social media, writing, "Donald Trump is not a king-and his administration is not above the law."

A majority of voters, 58 percent, said presidents should only send military forces to cities that face external threats. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to U.S. President Donald Trump during a roundtable discussion in the State Dining Room of the White House on October 8, 2025.Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images Two sets of recent polling data demonstrate that Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump's actions in office so far - particularly his mobilization of the National Guard in U.S. cities.

More than 50 years ago, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall observed that the key issue in understanding public attitudes toward the death penalty is "not whether a substantial proportion of American citizens would today, if polled, opine that capital punishment is barbarously cruel, but whether they would find it to be so in the light of all information presently available." This information, Marshall predicted, "would surely convince average citizens that the death penalty was unwise."

A controversial figure, Putin has been accused of voter fraud, human rights violations, and restricting Russia's freedom of the press. In 2022, Putin led the invasion of Ukraine, and fighting continues to this day. Worldwide, the opinion of Putin is unfavorable in most countries. According to Pew Research, only 26% of people globally have confidence in Putin to do the right thing.

He has repeatedly claimed he is the only person capable of keeping Israel safe and has tried to market himself as a big strong guy who won't let Israel get pushed around. But Oliver said he has also been in charge of the longest and deadliest war in Israel's history and one that is not currently that popular in Israel with polls showing he would lose an election if held today.

Moshe Abutbul, a 39-year-old bible teacher in Sderot, the southern Israeli city by the perimeter of Gaza, thinks life is OK, even good. Autumn is on its way which means his small home is less stifling. He enjoys his work. His four children are well; so too is his wife, an English teacher. As for Israel's growing international isolation, he is unbothered. We are a peace-loving country, but we have to defend ourselves,

However, generally politicians seem to want to avoid measures that might make them unpopular in the short term, even if action would mean saving voters' children from destructive weather later this century. But an EU-wide survey on taxes and subsidies showing the popularity of various fiscal measures to meet climate goals could be a useful guide to chancellors who want to be popular and do the right thing by the next generation.

A growing number of Americans believe that gender-affirming care will become less accessible in their lifetime, a new 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll finds - reflecting a political landscape that has become increasingly hostile toward transgender health care. Nearly 4 in 10 Americans think gender-affirming care will become less accessible over the course of their lifetime. A year ago, The 19th and SurveyMonkey found only 20% of Americans felt that way.

A whopping 53 percent of just over 5,000 US adults polled in June think that AI will "worsen people's ability to think creatively." Fifty percent say AI will deteriorate our ability to form meaningful relationships, while only five percent believe the reverse. While 29 percent of respondents said they believe AI will make people better problem-solvers, 38 percent said it could worsen our ability to solve problems.

A troubling poll from YouGov illustrates the extent of the problem. The survey, which was conducted on Sunday 24 hours after Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) revealed that Tyler Robinson, the man arrested for allegedly assassinating Charlie Kirk, was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology, and the same day that Cox confirmed Fox News reporting that Robinson had a transgender romantic partner, found that more Americans believe Robinson was a Republican (24%) than a Democrat (21%).

A new study from Pew suggests that Americans aren't particularly optimistic about AI. A full 50 percent of respondents said they were more concerned than excited about the use of AI in their daily lives. That's down ever so slightly from 52 percent in 2023, but it's up significantly from 37 percent in 2021. Americans expressed a number of concerns about AI, chief among them that it will negatively impact our ability to think creatively and form meaningful relationships with other people.

A majority of people across the EU's five biggest member states believe the European Commission sold citizens out when negotiating a humiliating tariff deal with Donald Trump that benefits the US far more than Europe, a survey has shown. The poll by Cluster17, which is published on Tuesday, found 77% of respondents ranging from 89% in France to 50% in Poland thought the deal would benefit above all the US economy, with only 2% believing it would benefit Europe's.

So we really beat them by much more than you think, Trump joked. This is the 201st executive order, sir. This relates to hostages and wrongfully detained Americans. This provides a new legal mechanism to declare foreign countries to be countries that engage in those sorts of practices and gives your administration powerful tools to get American hostages out, Scharf added as he moved on to the next EO.

As a young man, Seth Ferranti ran a drug-dealing operation distributing vast volumes of cannabis and LSD across college campuses in the United States. It was the 1980s and US President Ronald Reagan had proclaimed that marijuana pot, grass, whatever you want to call it is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States. I didn't believe them, says Seth Ferranti, now a documentary filmmaker and director of Tortured Mind: The Reality of Post Incarceration Syndrome.