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In a time of political polarization and economic uncertainty, Iowans are putting their faith in soldiers, troopers and the highest power in the universe.

Across a range of institutions affecting their lives and livelihoods, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll finds Iowans have the most confidence in the armed forces, God and the Iowa State Patrol.

(Mom and apple pie weren't polled.)

Congress, the news media and the presidency, meanwhile, receive skepticism tinged with disdain.

Emily Moore, a poll respondent from Waukon, was among those placing great trust in the military and State Patrol and very little in Congress and the media. She drew a distinction between institutions working toward the greater good and those focused on narrow or self-serving interests.

“They are people who put others first,” Moore said of soldiers and law enforcement. “They uphold the values of serving others and having pride in their community and country.”

Moore, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom and substitute teacher, said the media and Congress, by contrast, seem to pursue narrower interests.

“The media used to be respectful and actually put the truth above their agenda,” she said. “That’s been lost. And as far as Congress, they’re in the same boat. They have an agenda, and they’re going after it even if it’s bad for the country.”

The poll asked respondents to rate their confidence in 17 government, cultural and spiritual institutions on a 6-point scale — the higher the number, the greater the faith.

God and the armed forces each receive an average score of 5.1 on that scale, followed by the State Patrol at 4.6. At the other end of the scale, Congress rates a 2.7 average, the media 2.9 and the presidency 3.1.

A wide swath of institutions — from local schools and the state Legislature to the FBI and organized labor — falls somewhere in between.

The poll of 800 Iowa adults, conducted July 9-13 by Selzer and Co., has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Fully three-quarters of poll respondents have high confidence in the U.S. armed forces, giving the military a 5 or a 6 on the 6-point scale. Just 5 percent assign a 1 or 2, indicating low confidence.

Those figures represent a high-water mark for trust in the military, which rated relatively low in Iowa Polls from the late 1970s and early 1980s, but has grown in esteem in the post-9/11 era.

Poll respondent Scott Bappe, a farmer from rural Woodbury County, said he has faith in the armed forces despite doubts about the civilian leadership that commands them and the years-long, unresolved conflicts they’re engaged in.

“I guess I have faith in the men and women that are serving, and maybe not so much in the people giving orders and making decisions,” said Bappe, 59.

As trust in the military has risen, it looks like Iowans may be losing a little faith in God. Polls from 2002, 1989 and 1981 showed confidence in the deity averaging a 5.5 on the 6-point scale, far and away highest of any entity tested. Now, it’s 5.1, with 68 percent of respondents indicating high confidence, 8 percent medium confidence of 3 or 4 on the scale and 10 percent low confidence.

Organized religion, too, has seen an erosion of trust, receiving a 3.7 average on the 6-point scare. That’s down from 3.9 in 2002 and 4.2 in earlier years.

Poll respondent Mark Welch, 60, a self-employed contractor from Pleasantville, said he has strong faith in God but little patience for churches that he believes have become politicized or captive to leaders willfully misinterpreting the scriptures.

“To me, there’s a lot of hypocrites in church. They believe in one thing but don’t practice it,” he said. “I was brought up that Jesus was good to the people, especially the poor. But now you’ve got all these evangelicals that are Republicans who want to take from the poor and give tax breaks to the rich.”

Iowans continue to trust the troopers patrolling their highways, with 63 percent of respondents saying they have high confidence in the State Patrol. The statewide law enforcement agency rated a 4.6 average, a figure in line with previous polling dating to 1977.

So who gets the no-confidence votes? Politicians, mainly, but also reporters.

Forty-seven percent of respondents have low confidence in Congress, compared to just 12 percent who indicate a high level of trust in the federal legislative branch. There’s a bit of partisanship at play here: 57 percent of Democrats have low confidence in Congress, which is controlled by the GOP, compared to 35 percent of Republicans.

Independents are mostly with the Democrats: 52 percent have low confidence in Congress. And Republicans are by no means brimming with faith — just 14 percent say they have high confidence in the federal legislature.

Des Moines independent Marcia Beck has lost faith in Congress’ ability to get anything done, whether it’s investigating Russian meddling during the 2016 election or reforming the Affordable Care Act.

“We have a Republican president, we have a Republican Congress and Senate, and so you would think they would be able to pass some legislation,” the 64-year-old retired nurse said. “That hasn’t happened.”

It wasn’t always this way. As recently as 2002 — the last time the Iowa Poll tested confidence in this manner — Congress’ average rating was 3.6. That’s a 25 percent drop in confidence in 15 years.

The presidency, too, suffers from a scarcity of trust — and an abundance of partisanship.

Although the average rating, at 3.1, is right near the middle of the scale, a 47-percent plurality of respondents say they have low confidence in the president of the United States. And the partisan divisions are sky-high.

With a Republican now occupying the White House, 68 percent of GOP respondents report high confidence in the presidency — a view just 5 percent of Democrats share. Eighty-five percent of Democrats say they have low confidence in the president, along with just 6 percent of Republicans.

As with Congress, the independents tend toward distrust: 53 percent have low confidence in the presidency, compared with 22 percent with high confidence.

And the media?

As with Congress and the presidency, a 47 percent plurality of Iowans have low confidence in the news media, and just 22 percent indicate high levels of trust in journalists.

The media’s trustworthiness is low among Republicans, 71 percent of whom rate it a 1 or 2 on the 6-point scale. Independents are largely distrustful too, with 49 percent rating the media a 1 or a 2.

A 42-percent plurality of Democrats have high confidence in the news.

Kevin Gibbens, a convenience store manager from Creston, was among those registering no confidence in the news media. His beef, he said, is with journalism’s emphasis on the sensational rather than the substantive.

“They want a story, and they don’t care what it is or even if they’ve got all the information,” he said.

Gibbens, 42, called national news organizations worse offenders than local outlets, and saw the tendency to overplay or misrepresent stories as especially acute in political journalism. To truly understand the news, he said, he has to compare coverage across multiple sources.

“It seems like I’m doing the research the papers and news agencies should be doing themselves,” he said. “It used to be you had your trusted paper you could read and know what’s going on in the world. Now it’s just crazy.”

Iowans’ confidence in the media is in long-term decline. In 1977, Iowa Poll respondents rated the news media a 3.7. It’s been all downhill since, landing in the current poll at 2.9 on the scale.

Faith in others hits the middle

Faith in many Iowa institutions — including some prominent in the news lately — rates in the wide, vague middle.

Iowa’s Department of Human Services, the massive wing of state government that administers Medicaid and other benefits programs and oversees foster care and child services, averaged a score of 3.3 percent, with a 41 percent plurality of respondents rating it a 3 or a 4.

That collective opinion is pretty much unchanged from 15 years ago, and comes as the department faces controversies over its foster-care oversight and handling of child abuse cases as well as the privatization of Medicaid management.

Organized labor — which saw its power in public sector employment slashed by the state legislature earlier this year — averages a 3.6 rating on the 6-point scale. Thirty-eight percent of Iowans rate labor unions a 3 or 4, and another 23 percent indicate even higher confidence.

The numbers suggest organized labor is trusted by a wider swath of the Iowa population than are actually represented by unions. Federal data shows 10.5 percent of Iowa workers had union representation in 2016, and that 8.9 percent were union members.

About the poll

The Iowa Poll, conducted July 9-13 for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 800 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted households with randomly selected landline and cell phone numbers supplied by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age and sex to reflect the general population based on recent census data.

Questions based on the sample of 800 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the percentages shown here by more than plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age— have a larger margin of error.

Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to The Des Moines Register and Mediacom is prohibited.

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