USA — Poll Shows High Public Confidence in Military

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2010 — Amer­i­cans have more con­fi­dence in the mil­i­tary than they have in banks, the media, pub­lic schools and orga­nized reli­gion, accord­ing to a recent nation­al poll.

More than 1,000 adults answered ques­tions about their con­fi­dence in 18 U.S. insti­tu­tions — includ­ing the mil­i­tary — for the Asso­ci­at­ed Press-Nation­al Con­sti­tu­tion Cen­ter poll, con­duct­ed in August by mar­ket-research firm GfK Rop­er Pub­lic Affairs and Cor­po­rate Communications. 

In the poll, respon­dents had more con­fi­dence in the U.S. mil­i­tary than Con­gress, state, fed­er­al and local gov­ern­ments, the Supreme Court, and print, broad­cast and online news. 

On the ques­tion of mea­sur­ing con­fi­dence in the mil­i­tary, 13 per­cent of respon­dents were “extreme­ly con­fi­dent,” 30 per­cent were “very con­fi­dent,” and 43 per­cent were “some­what con­fi­dent. Only 13 per­cent were “not too con­fi­dent” or not con­fi­dent at all, and 1 per­cent “did­n’t know.” 

This poll agrees with the results of two recent annu­al polls -–from Gallup in Wash­ing­ton and Har­ris Inter­ac­tive in New York –- that also show high lev­els of con­fi­dence in the U.S. military. 

In the July Gallup sur­vey, 76 per­cent of peo­ple queried said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of con­fi­dence in the military. 

The Feb­ru­ary Har­ris poll showed 59 per­cent had a “great deal of con­fi­dence” in the “peo­ple in charge of run­ning” the military. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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