Gallup Survey: 73% of Americans Worry About Multiple Election Integrity Issues Ahead of 2026 Midterms

Nearly Three in Four Americans Worried About Election Integrity

A new survey from Gallup and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation's Democracy for All Project finds 73% of Americans hold at least a fair amount of concern about multiple aspects of the 2026 midterm election process.

The survey ran April 24 through June 10, 2026, and polled more than 23,000 U.S. adults, according to Gallup News. That's a massive sample size, far bigger than a typical poll, which means the numbers carry real statistical weight.

The top concern nationally: 67% of Americans worry, a great deal or a fair amount, about political leaders pressuring election officials to change outcomes. Second on the list is ballots not being properly handled, counted, or secured, at 57%. Third is voter intimidation near polling places, at 52%. Even further down the list, 40% of Americans say they're worried about being personally confronted, followed, or recorded while voting.

The Partisan Split Is Real, and It Cuts Both Ways

Democrats and Republicans aren't equally worried about the same things.

Democrats are far more likely to worry about political leaders pressuring election officials to overturn results, 77% versus 56% for Republicans, according to Gallup. Democrats also report more concern about voter intimidation at polling places, 60% versus 46% for Republicans.

Flip it around. Republicans are more concerned than Democrats or independents about ballots being improperly handled, counted, or secured. Two-thirds of Republicans, 66%, hold that concern, compared with 52% of Democrats and 54% of independents.

Both sides have a legitimate case here. Democratic concern about officials pressuring election outcomes traces back to real, documented episodes in recent election cycles where losing candidates and their allies pushed local officials to challenge or delay certification. That's a fair thing to worry about regardless of party.

Republican concern about ballot handling and chain-of-custody issues is also mainstream, not fringe. Wanting paper trails, signature verification, secure drop boxes, and transparent counting procedures is a reasonable ask. Gallup's data doesn't say this concern is baseless. It says it's a widely-held view among Republicans, and to a lesser but still real extent among Democrats and independents too. An election system that a majority of one major party doesn't fully trust has a transparency problem worth taking seriously, whether or not any specific fraud claim from a past cycle panned out.

On other questions, the parties look nearly identical. Concern about whether a ballot will actually be counted, whether voters have enough information to make informed choices, and fear of being confronted or recorded while voting all land at similar levels across party lines, per Gallup.

Social Media Use Tracks With Anxiety

One of the more striking findings: the more time someone spends on social media, the more worried they are about the election process, across nearly every category Gallup tested.

Concern about voter intimidation near polling places climbs from 48% among people who don't use social media at all to 60% among heavy users, defined as three or more hours a day. Concern about ballot handling and security jumps from 48% among non-users to 65% among heavy users.

Gallup's data shows a correlation, not a proven cause. It doesn't tell us whether heavy social media use is driving the anxiety, whether anxious people simply consume more political content, or both. That's a real unresolved question the survey doesn't answer.

Concerns Go Well Beyond Election Day

The worry isn't confined to ballots and polling places. Americans are also broadly concerned about the health of the political system overall.

According to Gallup, 80% of Americans express at least a fair amount of concern about political leaders taking actions they know may be illegal. Close behind, 78% worry about wealthy people or organizations making large, anonymous donations to political campaigns. Gerrymandering and manipulation of voting district boundaries also ranks high on the list of systemic concerns Gallup measured.

Those three numbers, all north of three-quarters of the country, suggest the anxiety isn't really about Election Day mechanics alone. It's about whether the people running the system, and funding it, are playing straight.

What's Unresolved

Gallup's survey measures perception, not proven fraud. It doesn't establish that ballots are actually being mishandled, that officials are actually being illegally pressured, or that intimidation is actually occurring at the rates people fear. What it establishes is that trust in the system is thin and getting thinner heading into November 2026, and that Republicans and Democrats are worried about different failure points within the same system. Whether state election officials, both parties' campaign committees, and platforms hosting political content take any concrete steps before the midterms to address these specific concerns—ballot chain-of-custody transparency for the GOP's worries, anti-intimidation enforcement for Democrats' worries—remains to be seen.