Local Elected Officials Trust In Residents Drops; Trust In Democracy Holds Fast

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 11/20/2025) A new statewide survey of local government leaders across Michigan shows a paradox: officials say local democracy is functioning well, even while their trust in residents has fallen to its lowest recorded level.

According to the spring 2025 wave of the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS), only 40 percent of local officials say they trust residents “nearly always” or “most of the time,” down sharply from 53 percent in 2012 and a high of 65 percent in 2020. Meanwhile, 21 percent of officials say they “seldom” or “almost never” trust residents to participate responsibly — the highest such figure in the U of M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy’s Michigan Public Policy Survey

These trust metrics track alongside a drop in how constructive officials say policy discussions with residents are. The share of officials who believe discussions are constructive fell from 70 percent in 2012 to 59 percent.

Yet in what may seem a contradictory turn, the share of officials who say that their local democracy is functioning “highly well” ticked up — to 82 percent, from 79 percent just the year before. Meanwhile, those reporting that local democracy “poorly” functions dropped dramatically, from 7 percent to 2 percent.

“We last asked these questions in 2020, which interestingly, was kind of an anomalous year that was the highwater mark of good feeling and trust, which was spring 2020 right at the onset of the COVID pandemic and then here we are five years later,” said Center for Local, State and Urban Policy Director Stephanie Leiser.

Leiser said the researchers expected a drop in how elected officials saw residents interacting with them.

“But not this much. The magnitude has really been kind of discouraging to be honest,” she said.

She said the survey has been going since 2009, but they’ve been asking the questions related to democracy since 2012, and this was the highest level of mistrust coming from elected officials since that time. The survey had a 70 percent return rate and she said they tried very hard to get as high a rate as possible.

“We hear a lot about things going on at the federal level, but we really want to get a sense of what’s going on in Michigan communities,” she said.

The survey showed that local elected officials' mistrust cut across all political parties and among the unaffiliated. The biggest change in trust came from Republican local officials, who went from 69 percent trusting citizens to be responsible at least most of the time in 2020 to 40 percent in 2025. Democrats went from 59 percent in 2020 to 39 percent in 2025. Independents went from 61 percent in 2020 to 37 percent.

An October survey gave some of the reasons behind the changes with the most common problems being that the local government saw the same people show up to the meetings over and over and that a small vocal minority of residents were negatively affecting the overall engagement. The lack of staff and time or resources came in third and fourth, with the partisan politics of state or national coming in fifth.

Leiser said the partisan politics descending on a local board or council was a very visible thing covered by news, but made up less than 30 percent of respondents' issues overall.

“Those numbers are a little bit higher for cities. Cities and counties report bigger problems with the broader partisan politics. But the definite biggest gripe seems to be that there’s a vocal minority of people who come again and again,” she said.

She said she doesn’t see the results as a reflection of quality of government, but a disconnect between local government and residents, despite trying to engage residents more. That in itself has seen a change in the tone from residents.

The increase in divisive tone from residents in public discourse had gone from 10 percent to 18 percent in 2025.

The amount of constructive discussion dropped from 42 percent in 2022 to 30 percent in 2025.

“70 percent say it’s mostly constructive and that really hasn’t changed in the last few years,” she said.

She said there seems to be a frustration coming from local officials about not being able to connect with residents to get feedback.

Despite not getting feedback and being yelled at by residents, the feeling there is a strong local high-functioning democracy hasn’t changed, with 82 percent saying it is seven or above on a scale of 10.

“Local officials will tell you, ‘We’re doing all right. We are struggling with low engagement and deteriorating discourse, and we don’t know how to engage people, but we’re still getting our job done,’” Leiser said.