Patriotism Hits Record Low as Democrats, Independents Lose Pride in America: Gallup

U.S. patriotism has plunged to a historic low, a new Gallup poll has found, driven by a collapse in national pride among Democrats and Independents, as Republicans continued to express overwhelming pride in being American.

According to the poll, released on June 30, 58 percent of U.S. adults said they are either extremely (41 percent) or very (17 percent) proud to be American, down 9 points from 2024 and 5 points below the prior low recorded in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sharpest decline came from Democrats, among whom only 36 percent now say they feel extremely or very proud to be American, down from 62 percent a year ago and marking a record low. It’s only the second time Democrats’ pride has fallen below the majority level; the first was when it hit 42 percent in 2020.

Independents also recorded a new low, with 53 percent expressing strong national pride—a drop of 7 points from last year. Their sense of patriotism has been steadily waning for decades, slipping below 80 percent in 2005, below 70 percent in 2019, and now below 60 percent for the first time.

Much of the drop in Democratic pride in being American is connected to the Trump era. When President Donald Trump assumed the presidency in 2017, about two-thirds of Democrats felt proud of their country, and that number plunged to 42 percent by 2020, the final year of the first Trump presidency.

Although Democratic pride saw a 20-point recovery during President Joe Biden’s first full year in office, it remains below where it stood before Trump’s term.

By contrast, Republicans remained highly patriotic, with 92 percent saying they are extremely or very proud to be American, up from 85 percent in 2024. National pride among Republicans has been consistently high over the several decades of Gallup polls on the issue, with the lowest reading—84 percent—coming in 2022, during President Joe Biden’s first full year in office.

Generational differences also underscore the overall decline in national pride. Over the past five years of Gallup surveys, only about four in 10 members of Generation Z—born between 1997 and 2012—said they felt strong pride in being American, compared with roughly six in 10 millennials and more than seven in 10 adults from older generations.

Twenty-five years ago, U.S. adults were nearly unanimous in saying they were extremely or very proud to be American, with that unity dissolving amid rising political polarization, cultural divides, and shifting generational attitudes toward the country and its institutions.

“These changes have occurred mostly over the past decade, and have done so amid greater pessimism about the economic prospects for young people, widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, greater ideological divides between the parties, unfavorable images of both parties, and intense partisan rancor during the Trump and Biden administrations,” Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup, wrote.

Gallup first began measuring national pride in January 2001, just months before the Sept. 11 attacks, when patriotism surged across the political spectrum. In the years immediately following, about nine in 10 Americans consistently said they were extremely or very proud to be American.

The first major drop—from 91 percent in 2004 to 83 percent the year after—corresponded with growing public discontent over the Iraq War, increasing casualties abroad, and domestic debates about the war’s justification and cost. That period also saw a decline in satisfaction with the way things were going in the United States, which fell from 46 percent in January 2004 to 31 percent in December 2005.

The latest results were based on telephone interviews conducted from June 2 to June 19, with a random sample of 1,000 adults in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.