A majority of Americans believe US President Donald Trump is a “potentially dangerous dictator” whose power must be checked.

The findings in a national survey released late Tuesday (local time) revealed a deepening public pessimism about America’s direction ahead of next month’s midterm elections.

The 2026 American Values Survey, conducted by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Brookings Institution, found that 58 per cent of Americans agree that “President Trump is a potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy”.

That’s up from 52 per cent who said Trump is a possibly dangerous dictator in last year’s survey.

Among Democrats, 90 per cent consider Trump a dangerous dictator, while 64 per cent of independents and 20 per cent of Republicans felt the same way.

Two-thirds (68 per cent) of respondents said their opinion of Trump had mostly worsened in the past two years, including in communities that had been among his core supporters.

Trump’s favourability among Hispanic Protestants has dropped from 51 per cent in 2024 to 31 per cent, and Hispanic Trump voters were twice as likely as white Trump voters to say they regret supporting the President.

“The coalition that put Donald Trump back in the White House is breaking apart, with 76 per cent of Americans saying the economy is on the wrong track,” PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman said.

“His 2024 gains are clearly not a long-term realignment, as we see black, Hispanic, and young male voters moving back to Democrats.”

Meanwhile, just 37 per cent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that Trump is “a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness”.

Regarding one of those powers – the ability to set immigration policy – a majority of Republicans (62 per cent) and white evangelicals (53 per cent) said they supported locking up undocumented immigrants in “internment camps”, a policy backed by 16 per cent of Democrats and 28 per cent of independents.

Nearly half of those surveyed (48 per cent) said the Make America Great Again movement “poses a serious threat to the country”, compared with 36 per cent who said the same of the Democratic Socialists of America.

More than eight in 10 Democrats (82 per cent) see MAGA as a serious threat, while seven in 10 Republicans (72 per cent) said the same of the DSA.

The survey showed that only about half (52 per cent) of respondents have confidence in US elections, and that 82 per cent of Republicans believe that the biggest problem in the nation’s elections is “ineligible people casting votes”, while 80 per cent of Democrats said the biggest problem is “eligible voters being denied the right to vote”.

More than one-third (35 per cent) of respondents said that “if there are serious concerns about voter fraud in a local voting location, the President should order federal agents to seize the ballots and take over the vote counting”, with six in 10 Republicans agreeing with the statement.

The survey showed growing dissatisfaction regarding the country’s trajectory. Seven in 10 respondents (71 per cent) said the United States is headed in the wrong direction, while 76 per cent said the same of the economy.

Both figures have risen substantially since last year.

The survey also found that an “empathy gap” – the level of belief in the importance of empathy – is growing between white conservatives and other Americans.

While two-thirds of Americans, including 84 per cent of Democrats and 70 per cent of independents, said they believe that “empathy is a foundational moral value that helps build a healthy society”, only 54 per cent of Republicans and 48 per cent of white evangelical Protestants agreed.

Fifty-four percent of white evangelical Protestants said they believe the opposite – that “empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth”.

“As Christian nationalist leaders attack the sentiment of empathy, a disturbing ‘empathy gap’ has opened, separating Republicans and white evangelicals from most other Americans,” PRRI president and founder Robert P. Jones said.

“Such orchestrated attacks are typical of violent authoritarian movements and should be disturbing to all who care about the moral foundations of our pluralistic democracy.”