Gallup Poll: 77% Say Founders Would Be Disappointed, 69% Say U.S. Has Made Fair or Great Progress

A Gallup poll conducted May 1-17 found that 77 percent of Americans say the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed by the United States today. Axios reported the result as the highest level of disappointment Gallup has recorded on the question. Nineteen percent of respondents said the founders would be pleased, down from 27 percent in 2013.

The share varied by party, with 25 percent of Republicans, 21 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats expressing that view. In 2013 the partisan pattern reversed, when 42 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans said the founders would be pleased. Both readings remained lower than earlier surveys across parties.

Twenty percent of Americans said the country has succeeded a great deal in achieving its founding ideals, while 49 percent said it has progressed a fair amount. Those figures are below the 77 percent who gave one of those answers in 1976 and the 84 percent who did so in 2002.

Among adults aged 18 to 34, 8 percent said the country has succeeded a great deal, compared with 24 percent among the oldest respondents.

The telephone survey of 1,001 adults carried a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.