More Americans than ever now believe corruption is widespread across the U.S. government.
A new Gallup poll found that nearly nine in 10 Americans now believe corruption is prevalent across the government—a 10-point increase from the same survey last year, in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Those figures mean the United States has the highest level of perceived government corruption among countries with advanced economies, according to Gallup, which polled 1,000 Americans in May and June.
The increase has been particularly pronounced among Democrats, whose views have shifted sharply since Trump returned to the White House.
In 2024, during Joe Biden’s presidency, 57 percent of Democrats said corruption was widespread. That figure increased to 76 percent in 2025, Trump’s first year back in office, and reached 91 percent this year, according to Gallup.
Republican views, by contrast, have changed comparatively little over the same period. This year, 83 percent of Republicans said corruption was widespread, compared with 90 percent of independents.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Polls point to a likely brutal midterms for Republicans, with perceptions of corruption within the Trump administration likely a factor in the grim GOP outlook. A recent Emerson College poll has Democrats leading Republicans by eight points on the generic congressional ballot.
Democrats have increasingly focused their criticism on what they describe as potential conflicts of interest and “self-dealing” within the Trump administration. The allegations include scrutiny of a proposed $1.8 billion compensation fund for administration allies who said they had been unfairly investigated, as well as no-bid contracts awarded to individuals and firms with ties to Trump allies.
The issue has also drawn attention to Trump’s personal financial activity while serving as president.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia sent Trump a 17-page letter last month demanding an explanation for the more than 21,000 stock trades made in his name in 2025, followed by another 3,500 in the first three months of 2026. The transactions generated more than $2.2 billion in revenue last year, according to The New York Times.
Warren and Garcia characterized the activity as extraordinary, writing: “The sheer volume of stock trading by a sitting president is unprecedented. You—or the entities responsible for your accounts—made an average of approximately 50 trades every day markets were open during the first quarter of 2026.”
The lawmakers also pointed to 15 transactions they argued could present potential conflicts of interest. One involved Trump’s purchase of Nvidia and AMD stock on Jan. 6, shortly before the administration announced policy changes that would make it easier for the companies to sell chips to China.
Trump has said he does not participate in the decisions underlying his investments. White House officials have likewise claimed that the president and his relatives have not, and would not, engage in conflicts of interest.
Congressional Democrats are also expanding their scrutiny to members of Trump’s family.
House Democrats announced last week that they had launched an investigation into Donald Trump Jr. and 1789 Capital, the venture capital firm he joined after his father returned to the White House.
In a letter obtained by MS NOW, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked whether 1789 Capital’s investment decisions since January 2025 benefited from access to the Trump administration.
“There is a broad base consensus for the fact that something is broken in Washington,” David Szakonyi, a political science professor at George Washington University, told The Washington Post.
