Government corruption ranked first in the August 2026 Compass Poll when voters selected their top political concerns, ahead of inflation, healthcare costs, and immigration. We covered what voters say that word means to them last week. The same survey of 2,045 registered voters, conducted August 8 through 13, 2026, with a modeled margin of error of ±2.3 percentage points, also asked what voters would do to address corruption. Age limits for elected officials, ethics rules, and lobbying restrictionsare popular across party lines.
Bipartisan legislation to ban congressional stock trading advanced through the House Administration Committee in April and passed the full House in July. In September, the bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate. Our survey was fielded between the two votes.
Age Limits for Congress and the Presidency
The U.S. Constitution sets no maximum age for serving in Congress or the presidency. Voters support changing that.
83% say Congress should have a maximum age limit. Democrats (86%), independents (85%), and Republicans (81%) are within five points of each other. For the presidency, 78% support a cap. The gap is wider there: Democrats (88%) and independents (84%) support a presidential limit at higher rates than Republicans (66%). Marjorities of women (80%) and men (76%) both support age limits.
Anti-Corruption Proposals
Voters were asked whether they support or oppose four specific reforms. Three of the four reforms we asked about have the support of 88% to 90% of voters. Support for the fourth, annual release of presidential and vice presidential tax returns, is 77%.
Banning Congressional Stock Trades
88% of voters support banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks while in office. 83% say they strongly support the measure. The partisan breakdown is nearly uniform: 89% of Democrats, 86% of independents, and 88% of Republicans. Opposition is 4% overall.
Supreme Court Ethics Code
90% of voters support requiring Supreme Court justices to follow a binding code of ethics, like other federal judges already do. 76% say they strongly support it. Democrats are at 95%, independents at 89%, and Republicans at 85%, all three groups above 80%.
Post-Service Lobbying Restriction
88% of voters support prohibiting former members of Congress from becoming lobbyists for at least five years after leaving office. 76% strongly support it. This is the one measure in the battery where Republican support (90%) is higher than that of both Democrats (88%) and independents (83%).
Presidential Tax Returns
77% of voters support requiring the president and vice president to release their tax returns every year, roughly 10 points below the other three proposals. The partisan pattern is different here. Democrats are at 95%, independents at 87%, and Republicans at 58%, with 25% of Republicans opposed. Total opposition across all voters is 12%.
The first three proposals target Congress or the courts. The tax return requirement targets the executive branch directly. On congressional and judicial reforms, Republican and Democratic voters are within a few points of each other. On the presidential proposal, the gap is more than 35 points. The same holds for age limits, where support is majority across party lines but narrows for presidential age limits.
Methodology
Polling was conducted online from August 8 to 13, 2026. Using Dynamic Online Sampling to attain a representative sample, Change Research polled 2,045 registered voters nationally. The modeled margin of error is ±2.3 percentage points. Members of AAPOR's Transparency Initiative disclose all relevant details about our research, with the principle that the public should be able to evaluate and understand research-based findings, in order to instill and restore public confidence in survey results.
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