May 28, 2024

An Unsettled Electorate: How Uncertainty and Apathy Are Shaping the 2024 Election

A survey of more than 6,500 US adults focused on the 2024 presidential election reveals a pessimistic and unsettled American electorate fractured by education, ideology, class, and gender. Continue Reading →

Young man sitting in a dark room before a wall featuring various conspiracy theory-related items illuminated by a computer screen

September 28, 2023

America’s Crisis of Confidence: Rising Mistrust, Conspiracies, and Vaccine Hesitancy After COVID-19

Findings from the May 2023 American Perspectives Survey

America is experiencing a crosscutting crisis of expertise and scientific distrust accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic that poses significant challenges to democratic debate and public decision-making Continue Reading →

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Steer N' Stein bar at the Iowa State Fair on August 12, 2023. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

September 10, 2023

Trump is Not as Strong as He Looks

With just a few months before the first votes are cast in the Republican primary, Donald Trump commands a 41-point lead according to the polling average calculated by Real Clear Politics. Even more impressive, his lead appears to have grown in recent months. But Trump’s position is more tenuous than it appears. Continue Reading →

farmers in the fields

August 17, 2023

Boys Aren’t Growing More Conservative. They’re Just Not That Into Politics.

The rapid increase in liberal identity among young women has led some to speculate that young men are moving in the opposite direction. Continue Reading →

Abortion protesters gathered with "love them both" and "keep abortion legal" signs

June 29, 2023

Nonreligious Americans are the New Abortion Voters

When Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, many white evangelical Protestants didn’t just see the Supreme Court’s ruling as a political win — it was a spiritual victory. For decades, religious conservatives have been singularly focused on ending the constitutional right to abortion, a priority that few other demographic groups shared. Continue Reading →

An empty debate stage featuring red and blue podiums below a stage light face an audience of nearly-empty seats.

June 29, 2023

The 2024 Presidential Election: Evolving Political Coalitions and Familiar Partisan Divisions

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the AEI Survey Center on American Life conducted a national survey of Americans that explored a wide range of political attitudes, current voting preferences, and perceptions of the political parties. Continue Reading →

Former President Donald Trump spoke via video to attendees of the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off on April 22. Data suggests Trump is weaker among college-educated white evangelical voters than he was in his 2016 campaign. SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES

May 18, 2023

Some Evangelical Voters Aren’t Sold On Trump. Will That Help DeSantis?

The issue of abortion could be one of former President Donald Trump’s biggest weaknesses in the Republican primary — and Ron DeSantis is trying to take advantage of it. “He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not,” the governor of Florida said on Tuesday, referring to a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Continue Reading →

Bisexual people in the color of the bisexual flag. Silhouette vector stock illustration. Bisexuals as a community of LGBTQ, bisexualism. People's faces in profile. Isolated illustration

April 26, 2023

Does Politics Make People More Likely to Identify as LGBTQ?

A novel survey experiment tests the relationship between LGBTQ identity and political ideology. Continue Reading →

President John F. Kennedy delivers his famous “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962. (Source: NASA)

April 11, 2023

American Politics Needs a New National Purpose

The United States seems to have lost its way as a country. Americans have generally low regard for our political leaders, little faith in our institutions, and even less in each other. Our politics are defined by acrimony and division. Continue Reading →

Image of people standing in line to vote.

January 30, 2023

The Politics of Immigrants

While immigration has played a central role in American political life in recent years, less attention has been paid to the politics of immigrants themselves. How do different groups of immigrants vary in their political beliefs and attitudes? What role will immigrant communities play in this year’s midterm elections? Continue Reading →

Generation Uncoupled

Generation Uncoupled book

Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection

Buy Now

Survey Reports

Daniel A. Cox
July 23, 2026

A Digital Divide in American Adolescence: Gender, Class, and the New Teenage Experience

If teenage years once represented a time of rebellion, teenagers’ lives today are marked less by pushing boundaries and more by building their own. Many teenage experiences are less common than they once were—dating, working a part-time job, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol are less common experiences. The 2026 American Teenagers Survey from the Continue Reading →

Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields
April 27, 2026

Strangers Next Door: The Decline of Neighborhood Socializing and the Class Divide in Belonging

Acknowledgment The American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life is grateful to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for its generous support of this research. As Americans spend more of their time online, the neighborhood—once a primary physical location for real-world socialization—is playing less of a central role than ever before. Since Continue Reading →