Investigations & Accountability
NEW SURVEY FINDS TRUST IN FEDERAL INFORMATION FALLING ACROSS MAJOR ISSUES — A national AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found trust in federal information declined across most subjects measured against 2024. The AP-NORC and USAFacts study documents broad skepticism about government information, election certification and AI-generated answers ahead of the midterms.
Liberty starts with the sample: 1,036 adults interviewed July 29 through August 10 through NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Only 9% reported high confidence that AI, chatbot or search-result information is reliable and factual. Liberty tests what the survey measures without turning public confidence into a verdict on truth.
Respondents describe difficulty identifying reliable information in a fragmented and increasingly AI-mediated environment. That is an attributed position, not an independently established result. The survey measures opinion and confidence; it does not independently prove that any particular government statement is false.
The findings matter because people must act on government information about elections, health, jobs and emergencies. Low confidence can discourage legitimate compliance, but confidence alone is not a truth test. Agencies still must publish methods, underlying data, revisions and accountable explanations.
The boundary of the evidence matters. The available record does not yet resolve how trust changes during the campaign and whether specific institutions can rebuild credibility. Public X posts and Google Trends were reviewed only for leads; neither was treated as proof. Required scans of Fox News/Fox Digital, JustTheNews.com, Redacted.inc and OffThePress.com were also treated as lead surfaces, and any claim used from them was checked against a primary document or independent report.
The next checkpoint is specific: Future surveys and documented corrections will show whether the decline persists. Until then, the supportable conclusion remains narrower than the loudest online version. A national AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found trust in federal information declined across most subjects measured against 2024.
That distinction is the reason this assignment belongs to Liberty Belle on the Investigations & Accountability desk. Readers can verify the dated action in the sources below, distinguish the interested parties’ characterizations from the record, and return to the named next step when new evidence arrives.
For now, the unresolved question is how trust changes during the campaign and whether specific institutions can rebuild credibility. Reporting it as unknown is not evasive; it protects the difference between an opening development and a completed outcome. The story will be updated when the relevant institution releases a ruling, result, dataset, operational assessment or other verifiable record.
Sources
- AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — State of the Facts 2026 (09-09-2026)
- Associated Press — Mistrust of US government information is rising across major issues, new poll shows (09-09-2026)