Americans overwhelmingly say it’s extremely or very important for people to stay informed about a range of news topics, including the healthcare system (82%), voting and election processes (82%), and what the president can and cannot do (80%).

But far fewer say they’re extremely or very informed about these topics themselves, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March.

For this analysis, we surveyed 1,031 U.S. adults from March 6 to 9, 2026. The survey was conducted by SSRS for Pew Research Center on the SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus. The SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus is a national, multimode (web and phone), probability-based panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey is weighted to represent the target population of U.S. adults ages 18 and older.

Here are the survey questions used for this analysis, the detailed responses and the survey methodology.