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At Start of New Administration, Consumer Reports Finds 66% of Americans Don’t Trust the Government to Protect Their Interests

Consumers lack confidence in key areas including access to healthcare, the cost of higher education, and the protection of personal data.

Release date 01/19/2017

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YONKERS, NY – On the eve of the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States, 66% of Americans say they do not trust the government to protect consumer interests and rights, according to the 2017 Consumer Voices Survey from Consumer Reports. Coupled with a new Congress, America could face an historic transformation.  

At Consumer Reports, we are steadfast in our belief that consumer power can be a force that unites all Americans and leads to commonsense solutions that create a better world.

The survey, conducted in January 2017, sought the opinion of Americans regarding the government and key consumer issues including healthcare, higher education, food safety, and privacy. The data was statistically weighted so that responses to the survey are demographically and geographically representative of the U.S. population. Today’s results are the first in a series of Consumer Voices Surveys Consumer Reports plans to conduct throughout 2017.

Other highlights from the survey include:

• 64% of American consumers have at least some confidence that good healthcare is available, but 55% lack confidence that they can afford it.
• 69% of Americans lack confidence that everyone who wants to seek higher education will be able to pay for it.
• 65% of Americans lack confidence that their personal information is private and secure.

“At Consumer Reports, we are steadfast in our belief that consumer power can be a force that unites all Americans and leads to commonsense solutions that create a better world,” said Marta L. Tellado, President and CEO of Consumer Reports. “Harnessing that power starts with listening to the voices of consumers and building a better understanding of their priorities, their aspirations, and their concerns, and this survey will be an important tool to help ensure that consumers are truly heard by the decision makers who serve them.”

Consumer Confidence Drought on Key Issues

With a dramatically reshaped administration about to make its mark in our nation’s capital, Consumer Reports sought to benchmark whether Americans are confident our government is looking out for consumer interests. Regardless of their political leanings, all consumers are wary about the future of specific consumer protections and rights.

• The burden of higher education weighs heavily. Despite the attention paid to higher education during the election season, nearly 70% of Americans are not confident that going forward those that want to seek higher education will be able to afford it. As student loan debt becomes an enormous weight on families and students for decades, 45% of 21 to 40 year olds with student loan debt didn’t think going to college was worth the cost according to a survey by Consumer Reports in the spring of 2016.
• Americans fear lack of access to affordable healthcare. As the Affordable Care Act is on the table for either replacement or repeal, CR’s survey shows that while close to two-thirds of Americans are at least moderately confident that good healthcare will be available to them, 55% are not confident that they and their loved ones will be able to actually afford it.
• Personal data privacy is top-of-mind. Many (65%) Americans are either slightly or not at all confident that their personal data is private and not distributed without their knowledge. Experts expect more than 20 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020 offering innumerable opportunities for malicious players to access personal information.
• A national food supply that is safe, affordable, and sustainable is important. Each year in the U.S., about 48 million people are sickened by foodborne illness and at least two million are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Food safety resonated with survey respondents; six out of 10 Americans are either slightly (30%) or not at all confident (30%) that our country’s food supply is safe, free of contamination, and produced without unnecessary antibiotics.
• The financial services industry will act transparently. Nearly two thirds of Americans are either slightly (34%) or not confident (31%) that banks and investment companies are acting transparently and responsibly to charge reasonable fees and protect their investments.

For more information about the Consumer Voices Survey visit: www.ConsumerReports.org/consumer-voices .

Consumer Reports 2017 Consumer Voices Survey Methodology In January 2017, the Consumer Reports National Research Center conducted a nationally representative phone survey to assess the opinion of Americans regarding the government and key consumer issues. Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) of Princeton, New Jersey administered the survey to a nationally representative sample of 1,012 U.S. residents through its CARAVAN Omnibus Survey. Respondents were selected by means of random-digit dialing and were interviewed via phone. The data were statistically weighted so that respondents in the survey are demographically and geographically representative of the U.S. population. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

About Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports is a nonprofit membership organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. For 80 years, CR has provided evidence-based product testing and ratings, rigorous research, hard-hitting investigative journalism, public education, and steadfast policy action on behalf of consumers’ interests. Unconstrained by advertising or other commercial influences, CR has exposed landmark public health and safety issues and strives to be a catalyst for pro-consumer changes in the marketplace. From championing responsible auto safety standards, to winning food and water protections, to enhancing healthcare quality, to fighting back against predatory lenders in the financial markets, Consumer Reports has always been on the front lines, raising the voices of consumers.

© 2017 Consumer Reports. The material above is intended for legitimate news entities only; it may not be used for advertising or promotional purposes. Consumer Reports® is an expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. We accept no advertising and pay for all the products we test. We are not beholden to any commercial interest. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports® magazine, ConsumerReports.org® and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants. Our Ratings and reports are intended solely for the use of our readers. Neither the Ratings nor the reports may be used in advertising or for any other commercial purpose without our prior written permission. Consumer Reports will take all steps open to it to prevent unauthorized commercial use of its content and trademarks.

Douglas Love (914) 378-2437 [email protected]

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Republicans are more likely to trust Trump than official election results: AP-NORC/USAFacts poll

While most Americans trust government-certified election results at least a “moderate” amount, Republicans are more likely to trust Donald Trump and his campaign, according to a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.

FILE - President Donald Trump supporters gather with some signs claiming a stolen election outside the Philadelphia Convention Center as they await general election tabulation results, Nov. 6, 2020, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

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CHICAGO (AP) — For Christopher Pugh, the 2020 election was a turning point.

He already distrusted the government. But as he watched Fox News coverage in the immediate aftermath of the election and read posts on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X, that distrust grew. He now believes the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen and trusts few people other than former President Donald Trump to deliver him news about election results.

“I trust Donald Trump, not the government,” said the 38-year-old Republican from Gulfport, Mississippi. “That’s it.”

While most Americans trust government-certified election results at least a “moderate” amount, Republicans are more likely to trust Trump and his campaign, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts . Americans also are heading into the November election with concerns about misinformation. Many have low trust that the information they receive from presidential candidates — particularly Trump, but also Vice President Kamala Harris — is based on factual information.

Trump continues to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election , saying it was rigged against him even after dozens of his court challenges failed , reviews , recounts and audits in battleground states all affirmed President Joe Biden’s win, and Trump’s own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Despite no evidence of any widespread fraud, a 2023 poll found that most Republicans believe Biden was not legitimately elected president.

As Trump runs as the Republican candidate for the third time, he also is signaling that he can only lose through widespread fraud. Over the weekend he threatened to prosecute those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election should he win in November.

AP AUDIO: AP-NORC/USAFacts poll: Republicans are more likely to trust Trump than official election results

AP correspondent Julie Walker reports a poll shows Republicans are more likely to trust Trump than official election results.

“The only way they can beat us is to cheat,” Trump said at a Las Vegas rally in June.

The recent findings from the AP-NORC survey show that a significant chunk of Trump’s supporters might be more inclined to believe what he says about the upcoming election results than they are to trust government certifications of election results .

About two-thirds of Republicans trust Trump’s campaign at least a moderate amount to provide accurate information about the results of the 2024 election, while only about half say the same about the official certifications of results, the survey found. By contrast, about 9 in 10 Democrats trust the government certification at least a moderate amount, and an overwhelming majority, 82%, also have at least a moderate amount of trust in Harris and her campaign.

Most Americans — around 7 in 10 — trust the government certifications of election results at least a moderate amount, according to the survey. Majorities also trust national and local TV news networks, as well as local or national newspapers, to provide accurate information about the outcome of this year’s presidential election.

Danielle Almeida, a 45-year-old Democrat from Briarcliff Manor, New York, said she trusts government-certified election results and finds it alarming that some Americans don’t.

“In order to have a democracy, we have to trust the system and the results of our elections,” she said, adding that she thinks Trump “does not care about fact-checking because he believes his supporters don’t care, either.”

Americans are less likely to trust the campaigns overall — compared to sources such as the government and the media — but they have a higher level of trust in Harris and her campaign than in Trump and his campaign to provide accurate information about the outcome of the election. About half have at least a “moderate” amount of trust in Harris and her campaign. By contrast, about 4 in 10 have at least a moderate amount of trust in Trump and his campaign.

Some Republicans’ distrust of election results started far before the 2020 election.

Richard Baum, 60, a conservative independent from Odessa, Texas, said his suspicions began in the 2000 U.S. presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. After Bush won by a slim margin, “hanging chads” became an unlikely symbol of a disputed presidential election as small anomalies common in elections ballooned into major national controversies.

“There was some stuff there that didn’t seem right that made a lot of doubts in my mind about if you can trust the government,” Baum said.

Baum said he would trust election results only if voting took place on only a single day, early voting and mail-in ballots were banned and photo IDs were required at all polling places.

Many Americans doubt the veracity of both presidential candidates’ campaign messages, but skepticism about Trump’s campaign is higher, the USAFacts/AP-NORC survey found.

About 6 in 10 Americans believe that Trump’s campaign messages are “rarely” or “never” based on factual information, compared to 45% who say that about Harris’ campaign messages.

Many Americans also say it’s hard to discern fact from fiction when it comes to the candidates. Slightly less than half of Americans say it’s “very easy” or “somewhat easy” to find factual information about the candidates and their positions, and only about one-third say it’s easy to know if what candidates are saying is true or not.

About 6 in 10 Americans say it’s easy for them to understand the difference between fact and opinion when it comes to information about the upcoming presidential election, but only about 4 in 10 say it’s easy to know whether information is true or not.

Americans are, however, more confident about factual information related to election logistics: About 7 in 10 Americans say it’s easy to find information about how to register to vote, and about 6 in 10 say it’s easy to find information about how to cast their ballot.

Michele Martin, a 56-year-old Pennsylvania Democrat, said she is “very concerned” about misinformation from politicians but finds it much easier to access basic voter information.

“It’s online. It’s mailed to you. It’s not hard to find,” she said.

About 8 in 10 Americans say that when it comes to getting information about the government, the spread of misinformation is a “major problem.” That is essentially unchanged from when the question was asked in 2020.

Lisa Kuda, a 57-year-old Republican from Palm Harbor, Florida, said she gets most of her news from social media and friends. She said she feels alienated from most news sources other than Fox News.

“Misinformation is everywhere,” she said. “It’s really difficult to find information about candidates.”

When Americans see news about the election and want to find out whether it’s true, 40% say they turn to an internet search first. Much smaller shares — around 1 in 10 for each — say they first check cable news, national TV news or social media.

Baum, from Texas, said he finds it difficult to easily access information about candidates because he believes social media platforms “are censoring conservative ideologies.” He also doesn’t trust Google and instead turns to conservative networks and podcasts such One America News and conservative podcasters to fact-check claims he’s unsure about.

Almeida’s process looks much different. She starts with a Google search and wades through multiple articles from news outlets such as The New York Times and NBC News, making note of any differences. If multiple articles have the same information, she said, she’s more likely to trust it.

“Misinformation is a huge problem,” she said. “You have to take time to do your research.”

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report. Sanders reported from Washington.

The poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here . The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Americans losing appetite for a TikTok ban; 'Out of sight, out of mind' during election

by CORY SMITH | The National Desk

(TND) — A TikTok ban is losing popularity in the U.S., newly published survey results from the Pew Research Center show.

And Americans are largely skeptical TikTok will ever be banned in the U.S.

Surveys conducted over the summer show just 32% of Americans now support the government banning TikTok.

That’s down from 50% when the question was asked a year and a half ago, and it’s down from 38% support for a ban last fall.

President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package in April that included a requirement for TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the platform to a U.S.-approved buyer within nine months or face a ban.

U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns over data security and privacy for TikTok users, as well as suspicions of Chinese government influence over TikTok’s content.

ByteDance filed a federal lawsuit in response to the new law, as have TikTok content creators and the Liberty Justice Center .

Oral arguments over the legal challenges are set for next week.

The new Pew Research Center polling found half of Americans see a TikTok ban as unlikely.

Thirty-one percent of those surveyed said a ban is at least somewhat likely. Another 19% said they aren’t sure if TikTok will be banned.

Public support for a TikTok ban has been falling, including from folks on the right and the left.

Republicans are still more supportive of a TikTok ban than Democrats, but both trend lines are moving in the same downward direction.

Sixty percent of Republicans supported a TikTok ban in March 2023. That’s now down to 42%.

Similarly, 43% of Democrats supported a TikTok ban in March 2023. That’s fallen to 24%.

Just 10% of U.S. adults who use TikTok support a ban, down from 19% in March 2023.

And 42% of U.S. adults who don’t use TikTok support a ban, down from 60% a year and a half ago.

Why has there been a change of heart among Americans?

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Andrew Selepak , a social media expert who teaches at the University of Florida, said of a potential TikTok ban.

People aren't being reminded about the problems and dangers of the app, he said.

The cases are likely to drag out in the courts. And this fall’s election could reshuffle Washington politics, so it’s even unclear if the White House and Congress will continue to have the same resolve for potentially banning TikTok going forward.

“You haven't had Biden, who signed the bill, say anything about it. Instead, you had Biden being on TikTok for his campaign,” Selepak said. “You haven't had (former President Donald) Trump talking about it. Instead, you have Trump being on TikTok for his campaign. You haven't had (Vice President Kamala) Harris talking about it. Instead, ... same thing. So, when you look at the three national politicians, they're not talking about it. It's not a top-of-mind story.”

And Selepak said it doesn’t make sense for politicians to talk about banning TikTok in the heat of an election with the risks of alienating an important bloc of young voters who like the app.

There could be “landmark” legal implications in TikTok’s challenge of the potential ban, Timothy Edgar, a professor of the practice of computer science at Brown University and a Harvard Law lecturer, previously told The National Desk .

“This is about whether the government can essentially erect a digital wall around the United States and say other countries, countries that we have strong national security problems with, can't play in our sandbox,” he said.

It's likely to be a very close call in the courts, he said.

And it seems inevitable that whichever side loses in the lower courts will appeal to the Supreme Court.

“If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down,” reads a portion of TikTok’s suit.

Edgar said that argument is essentially right.

“The question is whether there's a compelling (national security) interest and whether this is the ... least restrictive means of achieving that interest,” he said in May. “That's basically the strict scrutiny test under the First Amendment.”

Selepak said Monday that TikTok should be banned if it’s not sold.

“I think for the United States, the best outcome is sold or banned,” Selepak said.

TikTok is different than U.S.-based social media apps, he said.

And the argument for banning TikTok must be firmly grounded in legitimate national security concerns in order for this to avoid setting a dangerous precedent of censorship, he said.

AP-NORC/USAFacts poll: Republicans are more likely to trust Trump than official election results

President Donald Trump supporters gather with some signs claiming a stolen election outside the Philadelphia Convention Center as they await general election tabulation results, Nov. 6, 2020, in Philadelphia. Credit: AP/John Minchillo

CHICAGO — For Christopher Pugh, the 2020 election was a turning point.

He already distrusted the government. But as he watched Fox News coverage in the immediate aftermath of the election and read posts on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X, that distrust grew. He now believes the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen and trusts few people other than former President Donald Trump to deliver him news about election results.

“I trust Donald Trump, not the government,” said the 38-year-old Republican from Gulfport, Mississippi. “That’s it.”

While most Americans trust government-certified election results at least a “moderate” amount, Republicans are more likely to trust Trump and his campaign, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts. Americans also are heading into the November election with concerns about misinformation. Many have low trust that the information they receive from presidential candidates — particularly Trump, but also Vice President Kamala Harris — is based on factual information.

Trump continues to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election, saying it was rigged against him even after dozens of his court challenges failed, reviews, recounts and audits in battleground states all affirmed President Joe Biden's win, and Trump's own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Despite no evidence of any widespread fraud, a 2023 poll found that most Republicans believe Biden was not legitimately elected president.

Get the latest breaking news as it happens.

By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy .

As Trump runs as the Republican candidate for the third time, he also is signaling that he can only lose through widespread fraud. Over the weekend he threatened to prosecute those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election should he win in November.

“The only way they can beat us is to cheat,” Trump said at a Las Vegas rally in June.

The recent findings from the AP-NORC survey show that a significant chunk of Trump's supporters might be more inclined to believe what he says about the upcoming election results than they are to trust government certifications of election results.

About two-thirds of Republicans trust Trump's campaign at least a moderate amount to provide accurate information about the results of the 2024 election, while only about half say the same about the official certifications of results, the survey found. By contrast, about 9 in 10 Democrats trust the government certification at least a moderate amount, and an overwhelming majority, 82%, also have at least a moderate amount of trust in Harris and her campaign.

Most Americans — around 7 in 10 — trust the government certifications of election results at least a moderate amount, according to the survey. Majorities also trust national and local TV news networks, as well as local or national newspapers, to provide accurate information about the outcome of this year's presidential election.

Danielle Almeida, a 45-year-old Democrat from Briarcliff Manor, New York, said she trusts government-certified election results and finds it alarming that some Americans don’t.

“In order to have a democracy, we have to trust the system and the results of our elections,” she said, adding that she thinks Trump “does not care about fact-checking because he believes his supporters don’t care, either.”

Americans are less likely to trust the campaigns overall — compared to sources such as the government and the media — but they have a higher level of trust in Harris and her campaign than in Trump and his campaign to provide accurate information about the outcome of the election. About half have at least a “moderate” amount of trust in Harris and her campaign. By contrast, about 4 in 10 have at least a moderate amount of trust in Trump and his campaign.

Some Republicans' distrust of election results started far before the 2020 election.

Richard Baum, 60, a conservative independent from Odessa, Texas, said his suspicions began in the 2000 U.S. presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. After Bush won by a slim margin, “hanging chads” became an unlikely symbol of a disputed presidential election as small anomalies common in elections ballooned into major national controversies.

“There was some stuff there that didn’t seem right that made a lot of doubts in my mind about if you can trust the government,” Baum said.

Baum said he would trust election results only if voting took place on only a single day, early voting and mail-in ballots were banned and photo IDs were required at all polling places.

Many Americans doubt the veracity of both presidential candidates’ campaign messages, but skepticism about Trump’s campaign is higher, the USAFacts/AP-NORC survey found.

About 6 in 10 Americans believe that Trump’s campaign messages are “rarely” or “never” based on factual information, compared to 45% who say that about Harris’ campaign messages.

Many Americans also say it's hard to discern fact from fiction when it comes to the candidates. Slightly less than half of Americans say it’s “very easy” or “somewhat easy” to find factual information about the candidates and their positions, and only about one-third say it’s easy to know if what candidates are saying is true or not.

About 6 in 10 Americans say it’s easy for them to understand the difference between fact and opinion when it comes to information about the upcoming presidential election, but only about 4 in 10 say it’s easy to know whether information is true or not.

Americans are, however, more confident about factual information related to election logistics: About 7 in 10 Americans say it’s easy to find information about how to register to vote, and about 6 in 10 say it’s easy to find information about how to cast their ballot.

Michele Martin, a 56-year-old Pennsylvania Democrat, said she is “very concerned” about misinformation from politicians but finds it much easier to access basic voter information.

“It’s online. It’s mailed to you. It’s not hard to find,” she said.

About 8 in 10 Americans say that when it comes to getting information about the government, the spread of misinformation is a “major problem.” That is essentially unchanged from when the question was asked in 2020.

Lisa Kuda, a 57-year-old Republican from Palm Harbor, Florida, said she gets most of her news from social media and friends. She said she feels alienated from most news sources other than Fox News.

“Misinformation is everywhere,” she said. “It’s really difficult to find information about candidates.”

When Americans see news about the election and want to find out whether it’s true, 40% say they turn to an internet search first. Much smaller shares — around 1 in 10 for each — say they first check cable news, national TV news or social media.

Baum, from Texas, said he finds it difficult to easily access information about candidates because he believes social media platforms “are censoring conservative ideologies.” He also doesn’t trust Google and instead turns to conservative networks and podcasts such One America News and conservative podcasters to fact-check claims he’s unsure about.

Almeida’s process looks much different. She starts with a Google search and wades through multiple articles from news outlets such as The New York Times and NBC News, making note of any differences. If multiple articles have the same information, she said, she’s more likely to trust it.

“Misinformation is a huge problem,” she said. “You have to take time to do your research.”

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report. Sanders reported from Washington.

The poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

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Avoid This Color if You're Painting Your Front Door

Here are various paint colors that may wow prospective buyers — and colors that fall short.

Do you find yourself browsing homes on Zillow and pausing at a home that has a stand-out front door? Maybe it’s a bright red or a sunshine yellow. There’s a reason you paused — and it’s likely because the seller was hoping to catch your attention . And hey, it worked! But not all colors work the same way on the same features of a home.

What colors should I avoid?

Compared to all of the other decisions you need to make about your home, the color of your front door can potentially boost — or reduce — the price of the offer you receive on your home when you’re selling it.

“You want the buyer to fall in love as soon as they pull up [to your home],”  said Dallas-based Zillow Premier Agent Christie Cannon , during a 2023 Zillow virtual panel . “Then they're getting out of the car with their agent, they're walking up to the front door. And that front door matters. It's the pop of the color of the door that shows how much depth, how much personality, and how much sophistication [the home has].”

There are a number of paint colors that may help change buyer perception — for better or worse.

Gray is a very popular color for a home's interior. In fact, Zillow has found that dark gray is associated with higher offer prices than white in a home's kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom.

But no matter how trendy a color may be, there is a right way and a wrong way to do color. That's according to Mehnaz Khan, a color psychology specialist and interior designer in Albany, New York. he color gray just doesn’t hit the mark for a home’s front door.

Zillow’s research finds that both recent and prospective buyers would offer $3,365 less for a home with a cement gray front door.

Going bold or experimental doesn’t appear to pay off either. While buyers are somewhat likely to say they like a home with a bright red front door, they are less interested in the listing and aren't as eager to actually tour the home.

A bright shade of red isn't a very popular color for home exteriors or interiors. Red can be hard to work with inside the home when it comes to furniture and countertops. And outside, it can be too bold and come across as a wild color. However, more reserved shades of red can be better for front doors.

Saturated blue & olive green

In the same vein, front doors painted a saturated blue and olive green are associated with buyers being least likely to want to take a tour. These two shades are also associated with a lower offer price — about $1,300 less.

While these colors are not so popular for front doors, many of HGTV's 2024 Colors and Palettes of the Year pointed to shades of blue and green as very trendy for home interiors. Mind you, this list is made up of colors that the paint companies themselves heralded as their most notable for 2024.

More about blue

The list included Benjamin Moore's 2024 Color of the Year — Blue Nova — as well as Sherwin Williams' January 2024 Color of the Month, pale blue Upward .

Color theory states blue is a calming color , and that's why it's best saved for spaces inside the home, like the bedroom or bathroom. Painting your front door in one of these more reserved shades might be fine, but going with a bright, saturated blue may be too loud and attract too much attention for many potential buyers.

Why not green?

HGTV mentioned Graham & Brown's 2024 color of the year, Virdis — a muted, mossy green. This paint, and similar greens, give off earthy vibes. James Hardie's moody Mountain Sage is similar, reminiscent of the dark-green mountains.

Olive green, like these other two shades, is a more neutral tone compared to many other greens. If the rest of the home's exterior is already pretty neutral, a door in the same family may have buyers seeing a bland front entrance.

Paint your front door these colors

Black front doors not only made a home seem more appealing, but buyers are more likely to follow up for an in-person tour if the door is black. More Zillow research indicates a black front door is associated with the highest resale price compared to other front door colors like red and blue. This shade could boost an offer price by about $6,450 more than the typical U.S. home value in 2022. That’s a major return on investment considering the cost of a can of paint.

Mid-tone brown is one color that prompts buyers to make a higher offer, likely because this rosy, terracotta hue feels more like an oak wood instead of paint, thus its durability and timelessness could prompt shoppers to offer more for a home. Zillow research found this shade is associated with a $300 higher offer compared to an offer for a white front door.

Additionally, bathrooms painted terracotta brown, a 2023  color of the year , could help a home sell for $1,624 more than similar homes.

White or chalky blue

White front doors, along with those painted a chalky blue, bring higher intentions to tour the home, as well as higher general interest from home shoppers. These are classic colors that don't draw much attention, so you can let the rest of the home stand out.

Once you can bring prospective buyers through the entryway, your interior staging can do the rest of the work.

Of course, just because you chose your front door color wisely doesn’t mean you can guarantee you’ll maximize the price you’ll ultimately sell for. Numerous other cosmetic factors, including digital curb appeal , could skew a buyer’s perception of your home. It’s also important to consider the color and material of your home’s exterior to determine if a paint color is a good fit. Need more color inspiration? Here are the best colors to paint your home’s interior if you’re looking to sell it.

Next: How to bump up your curb appeal to impress home shoppers.

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Key things to know about U.S. election polling in 2024

Confidence in U.S. public opinion polling was shaken by errors in 2016 and 2020. In both years’ general elections, many polls underestimated the strength of Republican candidates, including Donald Trump. These errors laid bare some real limitations of polling.

In the midterms that followed those elections, polling performed better . But many Americans remain skeptical that it can paint an accurate portrait of the public’s political preferences.

Restoring people’s confidence in polling is an important goal, because robust and independent public polling has a critical role to play in a democratic society. It gathers and publishes information about the well-being of the public and about citizens’ views on major issues. And it provides an important counterweight to people in power, or those seeking power, when they make claims about “what the people want.”

The challenges facing polling are undeniable. In addition to the longstanding issues of rising nonresponse and cost, summer 2024 brought extraordinary events that transformed the presidential race . The good news is that people with deep knowledge of polling are working hard to fix the problems exposed in 2016 and 2020, experimenting with more data sources and interview approaches than ever before. Still, polls are more useful to the public if people have realistic expectations about what surveys can do well – and what they cannot.

With that in mind, here are some key points to know about polling heading into this year’s presidential election.

Probability sampling (or “random sampling”). This refers to a polling method in which survey participants are recruited using random sampling from a database or list that includes nearly everyone in the population. The pollster selects the sample. The survey is not open for anyone who wants to sign up.

Online opt-in polling (or “nonprobability sampling”). These polls are recruited using a variety of methods that are sometimes referred to as “convenience sampling.” Respondents come from a variety of online sources such as ads on social media or search engines, websites offering rewards in exchange for survey participation, or self-enrollment. Unlike surveys with probability samples, people can volunteer to participate in opt-in surveys.

Nonresponse and nonresponse bias. Nonresponse is when someone sampled for a survey does not participate. Nonresponse bias occurs when the pattern of nonresponse leads to error in a poll estimate. For example, college graduates are more likely than those without a degree to participate in surveys, leading to the potential that the share of college graduates in the resulting sample will be too high.

Mode of interview. This refers to the format in which respondents are presented with and respond to survey questions. The most common modes are online, live telephone, text message and paper. Some polls use more than one mode.

Weighting. This is a statistical procedure pollsters perform to make their survey align with the broader population on key characteristics like age, race, etc. For example, if a survey has too many college graduates compared with their share in the population, people without a college degree are “weighted up” to match the proper share.

How are election polls being conducted?

Pollsters are making changes in response to the problems in previous elections. As a result, polling is different today than in 2016. Most U.S. polling organizations that conducted and publicly released national surveys in both 2016 and 2022 (61%) used methods in 2022 that differed from what they used in 2016 . And change has continued since 2022.

One change is that the number of active polling organizations has grown significantly, indicating that there are fewer barriers to entry into the polling field. The number of organizations that conduct national election polls more than doubled between 2000 and 2022.

This growth has been driven largely by pollsters using inexpensive opt-in sampling methods. But previous Pew Research Center analyses have demonstrated how surveys that use nonprobability sampling may have errors twice as large , on average, as those that use probability sampling.

The second change is that many of the more prominent polling organizations that use probability sampling – including Pew Research Center – have shifted from conducting polls primarily by telephone to using online methods, or some combination of online, mail and telephone. The result is that polling methodologies are far more diverse now than in the past.

(For more about how public opinion polling works, including a chapter on election polls, read our short online course on public opinion polling basics .)

All good polling relies on statistical adjustment called “weighting,” which makes sure that the survey sample aligns with the broader population on key characteristics. Historically, public opinion researchers have adjusted their data using a core set of demographic variables to correct imbalances between the survey sample and the population.

But there is a growing realization among survey researchers that weighting a poll on just a few variables like age, race and gender is insufficient for getting accurate results. Some groups of people – such as older adults and college graduates – are more likely to take surveys, which can lead to errors that are too sizable for a simple three- or four-variable adjustment to work well. Adjusting on more variables produces more accurate results, according to Center studies in 2016 and 2018 .

A number of pollsters have taken this lesson to heart. For example, recent high-quality polls by Gallup and The New York Times/Siena College adjusted on eight and 12 variables, respectively. Our own polls typically adjust on 12 variables . In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary to have that much intervention by the pollster. But the real world of survey research is not perfect.

Predicting who will vote is critical – and difficult. Preelection polls face one crucial challenge that routine opinion polls do not: determining who of the people surveyed will actually cast a ballot.

Roughly a third of eligible Americans do not vote in presidential elections , despite the enormous attention paid to these contests. Determining who will abstain is difficult because people can’t perfectly predict their future behavior – and because many people feel social pressure to say they’ll vote even if it’s unlikely.

No one knows the profile of voters ahead of Election Day. We can’t know for sure whether young people will turn out in greater numbers than usual, or whether key racial or ethnic groups will do so. This means pollsters are left to make educated guesses about turnout, often using a mix of historical data and current measures of voting enthusiasm. This is very different from routine opinion polls, which mostly do not ask about people’s future intentions.

When major news breaks, a poll’s timing can matter. Public opinion on most issues is remarkably stable, so you don’t necessarily need a recent poll about an issue to get a sense of what people think about it. But dramatic events can and do change public opinion , especially when people are first learning about a new topic. For example, polls this summer saw notable changes in voter attitudes following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. Polls taken immediately after a major event may pick up a shift in public opinion, but those shifts are sometimes short-lived. Polls fielded weeks or months later are what allow us to see whether an event has had a long-term impact on the public’s psyche.

How accurate are polls?

The answer to this question depends on what you want polls to do. Polls are used for all kinds of purposes in addition to showing who’s ahead and who’s behind in a campaign. Fair or not, however, the accuracy of election polling is usually judged by how closely the polls matched the outcome of the election.

By this standard, polling in 2016 and 2020 performed poorly. In both years, state polling was characterized by serious errors. National polling did reasonably well in 2016 but faltered in 2020.

In 2020, a post-election review of polling by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) found that “the 2020 polls featured polling error of an unusual magnitude: It was the highest in 40 years for the national popular vote and the highest in at least 20 years for state-level estimates of the vote in presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial contests.”

How big were the errors? Polls conducted in the last two weeks before the election suggested that Biden’s margin over Trump was nearly twice as large as it ended up being in the final national vote tally.

Errors of this size make it difficult to be confident about who is leading if the election is closely contested, as many U.S. elections are .

Pollsters are rightly working to improve the accuracy of their polls. But even an error of 4 or 5 percentage points isn’t too concerning if the purpose of the poll is to describe whether the public has favorable or unfavorable opinions about candidates , or to show which issues matter to which voters. And on questions that gauge where people stand on issues, we usually want to know broadly where the public stands. We don’t necessarily need to know the precise share of Americans who say, for example, that climate change is mostly caused by human activity. Even judged by its performance in recent elections, polling can still provide a faithful picture of public sentiment on the important issues of the day.

The 2022 midterms saw generally accurate polling, despite a wave of partisan polls predicting a broad Republican victory. In fact, FiveThirtyEight found that “polls were more accurate in 2022 than in any cycle since at least 1998, with almost no bias toward either party.” Moreover, a handful of contrarian polls that predicted a 2022 “red wave” largely washed out when the votes were tallied. In sum, if we focus on polling in the most recent national election, there’s plenty of reason to be encouraged.

Compared with other elections in the past 20 years, polls have been less accurate when Donald Trump is on the ballot. Preelection surveys suffered from large errors – especially at the state level – in 2016 and 2020, when Trump was standing for election. But they performed reasonably well in the 2018 and 2022 midterms, when he was not.

During the 2016 campaign, observers speculated about the possibility that Trump supporters might be less willing to express their support to a pollster – a phenomenon sometimes described as the “shy Trump effect.” But a committee of polling experts evaluated five different tests of the “shy Trump” theory and turned up little to no evidence for each one . Later, Pew Research Center and, in a separate test, a researcher from Yale also found little to no evidence in support of the claim.

Instead, two other explanations are more likely. One is about the difficulty of estimating who will turn out to vote. Research has found that Trump is popular among people who tend to sit out midterms but turn out for him in presidential election years. Since pollsters often use past turnout to predict who will vote, it can be difficult to anticipate when irregular voters will actually show up.

The other explanation is that Republicans in the Trump era have become a little less likely than Democrats to participate in polls . Pollsters call this “partisan nonresponse bias.” Surprisingly, polls historically have not shown any particular pattern of favoring one side or the other. The errors that favored Democratic candidates in the past eight years may be a result of the growth of political polarization, along with declining trust among conservatives in news organizations and other institutions that conduct polls.

Whatever the cause, the fact that Trump is again the nominee of the Republican Party means that pollsters must be especially careful to make sure all segments of the population are properly represented in surveys.

The real margin of error is often about double the one reported. A typical election poll sample of about 1,000 people has a margin of sampling error that’s about plus or minus 3 percentage points. That number expresses the uncertainty that results from taking a sample of the population rather than interviewing everyone . Random samples are likely to differ a little from the population just by chance, in the same way that the quality of your hand in a card game varies from one deal to the next.

The problem is that sampling error is not the only kind of error that affects a poll. Those other kinds of error, in fact, can be as large or larger than sampling error. Consequently, the reported margin of error can lead people to think that polls are more accurate than they really are.

There are three other, equally important sources of error in polling: noncoverage error , where not all the target population has a chance of being sampled; nonresponse error, where certain groups of people may be less likely to participate; and measurement error, where people may not properly understand the questions or misreport their opinions. Not only does the margin of error fail to account for those other sources of potential error, putting a number only on sampling error implies to the public that other kinds of error do not exist.

Several recent studies show that the average total error in a poll estimate may be closer to twice as large as that implied by a typical margin of sampling error. This hidden error underscores the fact that polls may not be precise enough to call the winner in a close election.

Other important things to remember

Transparency in how a poll was conducted is associated with better accuracy . The polling industry has several platforms and initiatives aimed at promoting transparency in survey methodology. These include AAPOR’s transparency initiative and the Roper Center archive . Polling organizations that participate in these organizations have less error, on average, than those that don’t participate, an analysis by FiveThirtyEight found .

Participation in these transparency efforts does not guarantee that a poll is rigorous, but it is undoubtedly a positive signal. Transparency in polling means disclosing essential information, including the poll’s sponsor, the data collection firm, where and how participants were selected, modes of interview, field dates, sample size, question wording, and weighting procedures.

There is evidence that when the public is told that a candidate is extremely likely to win, some people may be less likely to vote . Following the 2016 election, many people wondered whether the pervasive forecasts that seemed to all but guarantee a Hillary Clinton victory – two modelers put her chances at 99% – led some would-be voters to conclude that the race was effectively over and that their vote would not make a difference. There is scientific research to back up that claim: A team of researchers found experimental evidence that when people have high confidence that one candidate will win, they are less likely to vote. This helps explain why some polling analysts say elections should be covered using traditional polling estimates and margins of error rather than speculative win probabilities (also known as “probabilistic forecasts”).

National polls tell us what the entire public thinks about the presidential candidates, but the outcome of the election is determined state by state in the Electoral College . The 2000 and 2016 presidential elections demonstrated a difficult truth: The candidate with the largest share of support among all voters in the United States sometimes loses the election. In those two elections, the national popular vote winners (Al Gore and Hillary Clinton) lost the election in the Electoral College (to George W. Bush and Donald Trump). In recent years, analysts have shown that Republican candidates do somewhat better in the Electoral College than in the popular vote because every state gets three electoral votes regardless of population – and many less-populated states are rural and more Republican.

For some, this raises the question: What is the use of national polls if they don’t tell us who is likely to win the presidency? In fact, national polls try to gauge the opinions of all Americans, regardless of whether they live in a battleground state like Pennsylvania, a reliably red state like Idaho or a reliably blue state like Rhode Island. In short, national polls tell us what the entire citizenry is thinking. Polls that focus only on the competitive states run the risk of giving too little attention to the needs and views of the vast majority of Americans who live in uncompetitive states – about 80%.

Fortunately, this is not how most pollsters view the world . As the noted political scientist Sidney Verba explained, “Surveys produce just what democracy is supposed to produce – equal representation of all citizens.”

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