Most people feel that their own vote matters and think that their own Congressional representative is effective. However, the population is more distrustful when asked various questions about the reliability of gov- ernment as a whole. The overall trend is a decline followed by a recovery, but there is a lot of variation in trend- lines from one measure to the next.

DETAILS
▪ “My vote matters”: NES asks people to respond to this statement: “So many other people vote in the na- tional elections that it doesn’t matter much to me whether I vote or not.” We include those who do not agree.

▪ “People like me have a say in government”: NES asks people whether they agree that: “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.” We count all those who do not agree.

▪ “The NES trust in government index” is a measure constructed by NES that includes the more trusting responses to these four statements:
▫ “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right?”
▫ “Would you say the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all the people?”
▫ “Do you think that people in the government waste a lot of money we pay in taxes, waste some of it, or don’t waste very much of it?”
▫ “Do you think that quite a few of the people running the government are crooked, not very many are, or do you think hardly any of them are crooked?”

▪ “Confidence in the press”: GSS asks: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?” We include questions on “the press” and include those respondents who say they have a great deal of confidence.”

▪ “Trust the media”: NES asks: “How much of the time do you think you can trust the media to report the news fairly?” We count those who say, “Just about always” or “Most of the time.”