Poll: Strong majority of voters think a more powerful government leads to less individual freedom

Forty-nine percent of respondents identifying as Democrat has concerns about more government power impacting individual freedom.

By Daniel Payne

Published: February 18, 2021 11:30am

Updated: February 18, 2021 2:14pm

A strong majority of U.S. voters say an increase in the power of government leads to a decrease in individual freedom, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.

Sixty-three percent said increasing government's power means individual Americans will enjoy less freedoms. Just 22% disagree with that proposition, while 15% were "not sure."

Just the News Daily Poll

(Just the News)

The responses by party affiliation were largely as expected, with a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats expressing concern about the loss of individual freedom. However, some of the responses appeared unexpected:

Seventy-nine percent of Republicans said more government means less freedom, but a near-majority Democrats – 49% – also had that concern, as did 50% of "somewhat liberal" respondents.

The survey of 1,200 registered voters was conducted from Feb. 11-13 by Rasmussen using a mixed-mode approach. The full sample has a sampling-error margin of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Click here to see the poll's cross-demographic tabulations.

Click here to see the poll's methodology and sample demographics.