Anti-Establishment Candidates Gain Ground as Trust in Congress Sinks to 9%

1 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jul 20

Gallup’s latest polling shows confidence in U.S. institutions near historic lows, with just 9% of Americans expressing confidence in Congress.
That erosion is helping anti-establishment candidates outperform traditional politicians, as voters increasingly favor disruption over incremental change from institutions they no longer trust.
Zohran Mamdani in New York, Graham Platner in Maine and Troy Jackson’s emergence after Platner’s exit are cited as examples of candidates benefiting from that outsider demand.
The argument is that democratic socialism and right-wing populism are less ideological shifts than parallel reactions to the same broader collapse in institutional legitimacy.