The AP-National Constitution Center poll, conducted August 18 to August 22 of this year, asked respondents whether they are “extremely confident, very confident, somewhat confident, not too confident, or not confident at all in the people who are running” that institution. Here’s what the respondents said, broken down into rough bands:
| Band | Institution | % saying extremely/very | % saying somewhat | % saying not too/not at all % | (Extremely/very percentage) minus (not too/not at all percentage) |
| 1 | Congress | 8 | 35 | 57 | -49 |
| 2 | Blogs | 8 | 39 | 47 | -39 |
| 2 | Banks | 10 | 42 | 47 | -37 |
| 2 | Federal government | 10 | 42 | 47 | -37 |
| 3 | Print media | 12 | 48 | 39 | -27 |
| 3 | Broadcast media | 13 | 47 | 40 | -27 |
| 3 | Organized labor | 14 | 45 | 38 | -24 |
| 3 | Major companies | 12 | 52 | 35 | -23 |
| 3 | Online news media | 13 | 49 | 34 | -21 |
| 3 | State government | 13 | 54 | 33 | -20 |
| 4 | Religious institutions | 18 | 46 | 34 | -16 |
| 4 | Public schools | 20 | 44 | 36 | -16 |
| 4 | Local government | 15 | 55 | 29 | -14 |
| 5 | State courts | 19 | 58 | 21 | -2 |
| 5 | Supreme Court | 24 | 54 | 21 | 3 |
| 6 | Charitable institutions | 26 | 56 | 17 | 9 |
| 7 | Scientific community (universities & research institutes) | 33 | 50 | 16 | 17 |
| 8 | Small and local companies | 40 | 51 | 8 | 32 |
| 9 | Military | 54 | 38 | 8 | 46 |
The big changes since last year’s poll were a 16% increase in the spread for the military, a 12% increase in the spread (meaning greater confidence) for big business and the Supreme Court, a 9% increase in the spread for banks and charities, and a 7% decrease in the spread (meaning lesser confidence) for Congress.
Naturally, this sort of data is of limited relevance, since many respondents might not have a firm preexisting opinion on the subject, and their response after a few seconds might differ sharply from their views if they discussed the matter for some time. Moreover, some of the categories are pretty wide, and it may well be that people have a much more positive view of (for instance) some organized religious institutions than others. Nonetheless, I thought I’d pass it along in case people were interested.