Last week, the RealClearPolitics Institute of News & Information (RCPINI) introduced its current project exploring the loss of trust in southwestern Pennsylvania. As we noted, the loss of trust in society and in our institutions is one of the defining challenges of our times, and one that seems particularly relevant in a region that has witnessed seismic political shifts over the past 20 years.
This week we begin diving into our polling results. As mentioned in our initial piece, we partnered with Emerson Polling, one of the most accurate pollsters in the country, to produce a high-quality, large-sample poll of southwestern Pennsylvania. The poll sampled 1,500 residents of the 10 counties we mentioned from July 15 to July 19, 2025, with additional samples drawn for six smaller counties. The error margin is +/- 2.4%.
Overall, respondents in the region indicated that they still retained at least some trust in a number of institutions. Scientists, nonprofit organizations, the military, religious leaders, and public school officials all earned positive reviews from our sample.
We note, however, that none of the groups or institutions were trusted by a majority of respondents to do the right thing “a great deal.” In fact, only one (the military) was trusted to do the right thing “a great deal” by even 40% of respondents. We further note that the term “a fair amount” is actually ambiguous as to whether it reflects an overall positive view, a negative one or simple ambivalence; one could make the case for all of the above. So our celebrations of trust, where we can find things to celebrate, are still cautious.
At the other end of the spectrum, we see low levels of trust in institutions that are expected to inform residents and to create jobs for them to earn a living. Journalists, business leaders, and national news earned particularly low marks in our sample. Only 49% of respondents trust journalists to do the right thing “a great deal” or “a fair amount,” while just 45% said the same about business leaders. Only 38% trust the national news media to do the right thing “a great deal” or “fair amount.”
Some groups received were particularly polarizing. Immigration enforcement in particular was one of the few areas where more people trusted it “a great deal” than those who reported “a fair amount.” It was also the only group where more people expressed no trust at a higher rate than “not much.” Unsurprisingly, Republicans expressed much higher rates of trust here (78.5%) than Democrats (22.2%), a majority of whom expressed no trust at all.
University professors and religious leaders also were polarizing, along somewhat predictable lines. Among Republicans, 75% of respondents expressed “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in religious leaders. Among Democrats, the numbers were lower: 48%, meaning that a majority of Democrats expressed “not much” trust or “none at all” in religious leaders.
For university professors, the results are almost exactly flipped. An astonishing 84.5% of Democratic respondents expressed “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in professors, with just 4% expressing “none at all.” Among Republicans, 40.4% expressed “a great deal” or “none at all” when it came to trust, with one in five respondents expressing no trust in professors.
Finally, we note that residents of this region seem much more comfortable with local leaders and culture than with national. Local government officials did not inspire confidence – 11% trusted them most of the time while 41% trusted them a fair amount. Statewide leaders performed similarly, with 11% of respondents expressing high levels of trust and 39% trusting them a fair amount – within the error margins. Federal officials, on the other hand, were widely distrusted, with just 8% trusting them most of the time, and only 28% trusting them a fair amount.
The same was true of news media. Local news broadcasts were trusted (58% a fair amount or a great deal) to a much greater degree than national news (38% trust). Despite this, only 13% of Pennsylvanians get their news from local sources, something that we will likely explore more in subsequent pieces. In Greene and Armstrong counties – two rural counties – nearly one in five respondents report difficulty keeping up with local news and issues.
Around 31% turn to the national news, while 22% rely on social media. As we might expect, national news viewership skews older, with 51% of individuals over the age of 70 reporting that they get their news from these sources, while the under-40 group hovers at around 18%. A near-majority of people under the age of 30 get their news from social media, while just 5% of age 70+ respondents claim the same.
We also explored the availability of health care in the region. Here we have actual good news: Only 5% of respondents described their health care as bad, and only 14% said it was “fair.” Three out of four respondents say it is “very” or “somewhat” easy to access health care providers, although in places like Greene County, Washington County, and Indiana County the percentage reporting difficulty in accessing health care rises to about a third; questions about the accessibility of mental health care yield a similar result, as well as a similar rural/urban split.
Finally we explored community connectivity. The decline in connections has been a mainstay of research into American “untogetherness,” starting with the groundbreaking research of Robert Putnam in “Bowling Alone.” Some reporters have done regional studies, most notably Salena Zito, who has done extensive, indispensable reporting in southwestern Pennsylvania, and Kathy Cramer, whose “The Politics of Resentment” is something of the urtext for exploring the problems of rural America.
First, the good news: Fifty-seven percent of Pennsylvanians have “a lot of people” (22%) or a “fair amount of people” (35%) they can rely on for help and support.
Now the bad news: That means two in five residents of southwestern Pennsylvania don’t even have that basic support network. Among the elderly, only 20% of residents have a lot of people that they can rely upon. In Lawrence and Washington counties, majorities of respondents have low feelings of connection to their communities.
These are just the topline responses. Over the next few weeks, we expect to dig down in more depth to explore some of these particular issues, leveraging the high sample size we enjoy. We also have more surveys in the works, to enable more granular analysis of issues.
