Forty-three percent of voters are dissatisfied with both major political parties, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll — the latest sign that the frustration that has built over the last decade will continue to roil American politics for the foreseeable future.

The survey’s findings highlight the risks for both parties heading into the midterms and the next presidential election, with Democrats deeply discontented with their own party and an increasingly unpopular Republican president continuing to consolidate support among his loyalists.

The results come as Americans’ political disillusionment seems only to be deepening. It has been nearly a quarter-century since a majority of voters thought the country was headed in the right direction. Trust in the government and many other institutions remains near all-time lows, and there have been several recent high-profile incidents of political violence. While ideas like significant overhauls of the parties still face stiff headwinds, the level of dissatisfaction with the status quo has created better conditions for such efforts than has existed in a long time.

Overall, the Times/Siena survey found that just 26% of voters felt satisfied with the Democratic Party and that 33% felt satisfied with the Republican Party.

Alienation is felt most intensely among younger voters; nearly two-thirds of respondents under the age of 30 expressed dissatisfaction with both parties. Young voters are increasingly likely to identify as politically independent — a recent report from Gallup had the number of independents at a three-decade high — and, so far, they are more likely to remain that way as they age than they were in previous generations.

“Both parties are the same,” said Max Cook, 24, a college student in San Diego. “They both have the same level of corruption. They both take lobbying money. It’s different lobbying but the same corruption.”

Cook said he did not vote in 2024 because he did not care for either major party candidate. He added that he leaned toward Republicans as the “lesser of two evils” but worried that neither party was putting America first.

He is far from alone. Many dissatisfied voters lament that Washington is focusing too heavily on foreign affairs. Nearly two-thirds of those unhappy with both parties want politicians to “pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate more on problems here at home,” compared with 47% of those who are satisfied with at least one of the political parties.

The idea of putting America first was a central component of the rise of the Tea Party and President Donald Trump’s brand of politics. The dissatisfaction with foreign policy evident in the poll speaks to the magnitude of the risk Trump is taking with the war in Iran, even as he brushes aside complaints about the war’s effects on the economy, and his steadfast support for Israel.

The question of how much the U.S. government should support Israel has already upended the Democratic Party, contributing to its defeat in 2024. And the poll found that it was one of the issues that most divided Republicans, too: Thirty-eight percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they wanted the party to move away from Trump on Israel.

About 80% of dissatisfied voters in the poll opposed economic and military aid to Israel, and references to Israel came up time and time again in follow-up conversations.

“Donald Trump said he was going to drain the swamp, and if anything, it’s gotten worse,” said Dakota Janssen, 26, a machinist from Saratoga County, New York, who identifies as a libertarian. “And Democrats don’t end up doing what they say they’re going to do.

“There’s a lot of corporate greed that goes on,” he added. “A lot of foreign donations from Israel.”

With widespread concern about the nation’s economy, candidates as politically disparate as Trump and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City have been able to engage dissatisfied voters through populist messaging. Eighty percent of dissatisfied voters said the economic and political systems needed major changes or to be torn down entirely, and 77% said the economic system was generally unfair.

“I don’t care which party I’m voting for as long as they’re representing people instead of corporations,” said Tai Vetrone, 18, of Waltham, Massachusetts.

In the survey, dissatisfaction was felt most acutely among Democrats. Forty-four percent said they were unhappy with the Democratic Party, compared with about a quarter of Republicans who said the same of the Republican Party.

This dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party has resulted in a rejection of several establishment candidates in primary elections over the last year. Progressive candidates like Graham Platner in Maine and Mamdani in New York were once seen as operating on the fringes of the party, and are now being discussed, however fancifully, as the future of the Democratic Party.

But as American politics becomes more polarized, the parties risk alienating the electorate. A majority of dissatisfied voters want the Democratic Party to move toward the ideological center, while a staggering 90% want the Republican Party to move away from Trump.

“The parties have gone pretty wide on the spectrum of left and right, while most people are more in the middle and agree with points on both sides,” said Patrick Tehonica, 25, a construction worker in upstate New York who said he voted for Trump in 2024 but felt he had not had good choices. “I don’t really feel like I have a political home.”

Going forward, the question is whether dissatisfied voters will look for other options or opt entirely out of the system.

“I don’t vote for federal elections,” said Elizabeth Arias of Seattle, who added that she used to vote mostly for Democrats. “I only vote for my local elections.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Ruth Igielnik/Michael Swensen
c. 2026 The New York Times Company