Most Say Fundamental Rights Under Threat

West Long Branch, NJ – Most Americans are worried that their fundamental freedoms could be at risk according to the Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll. While both Republicans and Democrats express this concern, the rights they focus on are very different. Only 4 in 10 Americans feel our system of government is basically sound and few have a great deal of trust in the judgement of the American people as a whole. Republicans tend to be somewhat more negative than Democrats on these measures, with fully 2 in 3 Republicans continuing to believe that voter fraud determined the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

A majority (55%) of Americans are very concerned that their fundamental rights and freedoms are under threat – with Republicans (63%) being somewhat more likely than Democrats (53%) or independents (51%) to feel this way. Another 29% of the general public is somewhat concerned about threats to their rights and about 1 in 6 is either not too (11%) or not at all (5%) concerned.

While both Republicans and Democrats express concern about risks to their freedoms, the specific types of rights they worry about losing are very different. Among Republicans, 38% say their freedom of speech or First Amendment rights are under threat and an identical 38% say the same about their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Other concerns Republicans mention include specific references to freedom of religion (12%) and concerns about government overreach and Fourth Amendment infringements such as illegal search and seizure (6%).  Democrats, on the other hand are most concerned with restrictions to abortion access along with other women’s rights (36%). They also mention threats to freedom of speech (14%), voting access and the election process (12%), freedom from gun violence and other safety issues (8%), as well as LGBTQ+ rights (8%).

“One of the interesting things in the survey responses is that Republicans are more likely to use the phrases ‘freedom of speech’ or ‘right to bear arms’ or simply give amendment numbers when describing threats to their fundamental rights. Democrats’ First Amendment worries are more likely to reference specific restrictions such as book banning. Also, Democrats’ top concerns focus on the Constitution’s implied privacy rights such as a woman’s ‘reproductive autonomy’ or societal norms such as keeping their children safe from gun violence,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “It is also worth noting that a small but measurable number of Republicans are concerned about Fourth Amendment infringements. It certainly isn’t good for democracy if there really is widespread abuse of government search and seizure powers. It can be just as destabilizing, though, if people believe this is happening even when it is not. This is how we get events like January 6.”

The poll finds that 3 in 10 Americans (30%) – including two-thirds (68%) of Republicans – believe that Joe Biden only won the presidency because of voter fraud. This result has been a nearly constant percentage in Monmouth’s polling since the November 2020 election. About two-thirds (66%) of the public says the incident at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 is appropriately described as a riot while 35% say it can be called a legitimate protest. Americans are more divided on whether it is (47%) or is not (43%) appropriately described as an insurrection. Democrats and independents have been fairly consistent in their description of these events over the past two years. Republicans, on the other hand, have become less likely to cast the Capitol attack in negative terms. Just 44% of Republicans call it a riot, which is down from 62% in June 2021, and only 15% say it is appropriately described as an insurrection, which is down from 33% two years ago. Just over half of Republicans (51%) describe January 6 as a legitimate protest, which is similar to two years ago (47%).

“You basically start out with a majority of the Republican Party saying there were legitimate gripes about the 2020 election outcome, but two years ago most felt the violence of January 6 was taking things too far, even if it did not rise to the level of an insurrection in their minds. Now, that view has changed, which raises the question of what actions are acceptable when you are unhappy with a political outcome,” said Murray.

Just 42% of Americans feel our system of government is basically sound. This result is down from 50% in September, but similar to prior polls between January 2021 and August 2022, which ranged from 36% to 44%. In polls taken between 2017 and 2020, the portion of the public who said our system is basically sound ranged from 50% to 55%. An Opinion Research poll taken in 1980 put this number at 62%. In the current poll, 29% of Americans say that the system is not at all sound and needs significant changes. Republicans (38%) are more likely than independents (28%) and Democrats (21%) to feel this way.

Just 16% of the public says that Americans are united and in agreement about the most important values while 81% feel we are greatly divided. This marks a numerical high for the view that the country is divided since Monmouth started asking this question in 2016. Prior results for this question ranged from 68% to 78% greatly divided. Just 11% of the public has a great deal of trust and confidence in the American people as a whole when it comes to making judgments under our democratic system and 44% have a fair amount of trust and confidence. This combined level of trust (55% great deal or fair) is slightly lower than in past polls, which ranged from 58% to 64% between 2016 and 2021. Republicans (46%) are significantly less likely than Democrats (65%) to express at least a fair amount of confidence in the American people’s judgement in our democratic system.

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from May 18 to 23, 2023 with 981 adults in the United States.  The question results in this release have a margin of error of +/- 5.6 percentage points for the full sample. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.

QUESTIONS AND RESULTS     

(* Some columns may not add to 100% due to rounding.)

[Q1-9 previously released.]

[QUESTIONS 15-17 WERE ROTATED]

Turning to the incident at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021…

[Q18-29 previously released.]

[Q30-37 held for future release.]

Methodology

The Monmouth University Poll was sponsored and conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from May 18 to 23, 2023 with a probability-based national random sample of 981 adults age 18 and older. Interviews were conducted in English, and included 352 live landline telephone interviews, 512 live cell phone interviews, and 117 online surveys via a cell phone text invitation. Telephone numbers were selected through a mix of random digit dialing and list-based sampling. Landline respondents were selected with a modified Troldahl-Carter youngest adult household screen. Interviewing services were provided by Braun Research, with sample obtained from Dynata (RDD, n= 669), Aristotle (list, n= 140) and a panel of prior Monmouth poll participants (n= 172). Monmouth is responsible for all aspects of the survey design, data weighting and analysis. The full sample is weighted for region, age, education, gender and race based on US Census information (ACS 2021 one-year survey). For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling has a maximum margin of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points adjusted for sample design effects (1.79). Sampling error can be larger for sub-groups (see table below). In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

Click on pdf file link below for full methodology and crosstabs by key demographic groups.