Giving up on D.C.: Americans now think state and local institutions are best equipped to solve major problems

The preference for governance closer to home carries across ages and genders. Sixty-seven percent of men favored state and local institutions over national ones, compared to the breakdown among women of 61 percent for local and state level versus 27 percent for national. Poll participants who identified as Republicans expressed some of the least regard for leadership at the national level. Just 14 percent of Republicans said the national level was marching ahead toward its goals; Republicans, who have long advocated for a smaller footprint for the federal government, overwhelmingly favored the activity of state and local institutions.

But not all poll respondents disliked national level institutions and leadership in such an extreme fashion. The youngest generation, combined with the 60- to 64-year-olds, expressed the greatest amount of hope in progress at the national level. Thirty-one percent of adults ages 18 to 29 favored national institutions over local ones, while 34 percent of adults ages 60 to 64 preferred the national level.

Democrats also viewed the national and local divide in a less-skewed way, with 44 percent of them favoring national level leadership and 48 percent preferring local and state. African-Americans were the only group to praise progress at the national level more than at the state level; 50 percent of them preferred national level leadership and institutions, compared to 43 percent who preferred state and local.