Fox News Poll: Ahead of 2024, voting retains title as top patriotic act

As 2024 election coverage intensifies, the latest Fox News Poll finds voting in elections remains the top act American voters consider patriotic.

The survey, released Thursday, asks voters whether they consider several individual actions as patriotic. “Voting in elections” keeps the title of most patriotic, as nine in 10 say so (91%).

Second is “flying the flag” at 83%, followed closely by “joining the military” at 82%. Three-quarters say “volunteering time to community service” (77%) and “serving on a jury” (76%) are acts of patriotism, while almost seven in 10 say “paying taxes” (68%) and “staying informed on the news” (66%) show loyalty. “Participating in political protests” comes in at 57% patriotic.

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Nearly all Democrats and Republicans think voting is an act of faithfulness, but it lands in a different order for each. For Republicans, the top acts are flying the Star-Spangled Banner (94%), voting (93%) and joining the military (88%), while for Democrats, it’s voting (91%), joining the military (78%) and volunteering (77%).

The degree to which voters view each act of patriotism has declined over the last decade. Staying informed on the news has experienced the biggest drop (-13 percentage points).

In 2014, 79% felt keeping up on the news was an act of patriotism. That number fell to 67% in 2019 and decreased another point to 66% in 2023.

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The next largest decline in loyalty is flying the flag (-11 points), then paying taxes (-10), enlisting (-8), serving on a jury (-7), and political protests (-4).

“It’s clear that increasingly negative attitudes toward the news media are taking a toll,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who helps conduct the Fox News Poll along with Democrat Chris Anderson. “When voters are suspicious of the veracity of information, it’s no surprise they don’t see it as essential for Americans to follow the sources.”

Some of the main shifts on being up on the news come from voters under age 30 (-21 points), Republicans (-20), women (-20), Black voters (-14), independents (-13) and White voters (-12).

Since 2019, the first time it was asked, volunteering in the community is down 3 points from 80% saying it was patriotic to 77% today.

Voting has held relatively steady in recent years: 93% in 2014, 90% in 2019 to 91% today, far more than the 80% who felt that way in 2002 when the question was first asked.

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Conducted June 23-26, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,005 registered voters nationwide randomly selected from a voter file who spoke with live interviewers on landlines and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.