Americans’ Views About the Separation of Powers and Our System of Government
A significant majority of Americans approve of our constitutional system of separation of powers, according to new polling from States United.
The Constitution established our states as power centers, with the responsibility to govern their own people and to serve as a check on the federal government. The survey shows that most Americans across all party affiliations believe that either the balance of power is right, or the federal government has too much power. However, very few have concerns about states having too much authority.
The survey also showed broad support for other core principles of our system of government like the separation of powers and the idea that laws should be applied equally. Americans also expressed views about limiting the power of the executive branch when asked the best way to change public policy in the United States. A majority of Americans believed that should happen through a bill in Congress, not executive order by the president.
States United partnered with YouGov on a national survey of 1,524 adults between March 4 and 6, 2025.
- Very few Americans believe that states have too much power relative to the federal government.
- 9 in 10 Americans agree that the law should be applied equally to all people, businesses, and governments in the United States.
- Most Americans approve of our system of separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
- Nearly three quarters of Americans think that policy should change by Congress passing a bill that becomes a law, not through the President’s use of executive orders.
- Only about 22% of Americans agree that judges who rule against the Trump administration should be impeached and removed from office.
Americans don’t appear to be concerned whether state governments have too much power relative to the federal government. Most think that either the federal government has too much power (31%) or that the balance of power between the federal and state governments is about right (39%). Only about 7% report that state governments have too much power. The patterns of opinion among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are about the same, though do note that 43% of independents say they don’t know.
Nearly three quarters of Americans (74%) strongly or somewhat approve of the U.S. system of separation of powers. Approval is high among Democrats (78%) and Republicans (75%). A majority of independents (55%) also approve, though their level of approval is lower than that shown by partisans.
Nearly all Americans (91%) somewhat or strongly agree that the law should be applied equally to all people, businesses, and governments in the U.S. Levels of agreement are very high among Democrats (92%), Independents (79%), and Republicans (90%). Just 3% of Americans disagree.
Consistent with the form of government designed by the Constitution, a supermajority of Americans (73%) say that Congress passing a bill that becomes a law is the best way to change public policy in the U.S. Majorities of Democrats (85%), Republicans (62%), and independents (56%) say the same. Only 11% of Americans say that changing policy by the president issuing an executive order on his own is the best method.
Most Americans (57%) say that they either somewhat or strongly disagree that judges who rule against the Trump administration’s actions should be impeached. Whereas 83% of Democrats and 57% of independents express some level of disagreement, only 30% of Republicans do the same. The plurality of Republicans – about 4 in 10 – agree that these judges should be impeached. Notably, significant majorities of Americans across all parties agree that Trump should respect court rulings, even when those rulings declare that his administration’s actions are illegal or unconstitutional. The partisan messengers noted in this question likely impacted the result.
This survey is based on 1,524 interviews conducted on the internet of U.S. adults. Participants were drawn from YouGov’s online panel and were interviewed between March 4 and 6, 2025. Respondents were selected to be representative of American adults. Responses were additionally weighted to match population characteristics with respect to gender, age, race/ethnicity, education of registered voters, and U.S. Census region based on voter registration lists, the U.S. Census American Community Survey, and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, as well as 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error for this survey is approximately ± 2.7 percentage points, though it is larger for the analysis of partisan subgroups described above. Therefore, sample estimates should differ from their expected value by less than the margin of error in 95% of all samples. This figure does not reflect non-sampling errors, including potential selection bias in panel participation or measurement error.