Gallup Poll: Public Support for the Death Penalty Lowest in a Half-Century

Public sup­port for the death penal­ty is at its low­est lev­el in a half-cen­tu­ry, with oppo­si­tion high­er than any time since 1966, accord­ing to the 2020 annu­al Gallup poll on Americans’ atti­tudes about capital punishment.

Fifty-five per­cent of respon­dents to a nation­al sur­vey con­duct­ed between September 30 and October 15, 2020 told Gallup that they were ​“in favor of the death penal­ty for a per­son con­vict­ed of mur­der,” down one per­cent­age point from the lev­els report­ed in 2018 and 2019. The fig­ure tied with 2017 for the low­est sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since 50% of Americans told Gallup in March 1972 that they were in favor of the death penal­ty, just months before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down exist­ing death penal­ty statutes in Furman v. Georgia.

Forty-three per­cent of respon­dents told Gallup that they were opposed to the death penal­ty as a pun­ish­ment for mur­der, the most since 47% of Americans expressed oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the May 1966 Gallup sur­vey. The num­ber was one per­cent­age point high­er than the lev­el of oppo­si­tion report­ed in 2019 and two per­cent­age points high­er than in 2017 and 2018. 

The results fol­lowed the con­tin­u­ing pat­tern of declin­ing death-penal­ty sup­port found in the organization’s polling. In May 2020, a record-low 54% of Americans said they believed the death penal­ty is ​“moral­ly accept­able,” and in October 2018, 49% of Americans — also a new low — said they believed the death penal­ty was ​“applied fair­ly.” The 2019 nation­al sur­vey found that a record 60% of Americans favored life impris­on­ment over the death penal­ty, which Gallup called ​“a dra­mat­ic shift from prior years.” 

Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey M. Jones said the pollster’s ques­tions on death penal­ty trends reflect that “[m]any Americans are … con­flict­ed on the death penal­ty. … [A]bout one in five Americans express the­o­ret­i­cal sup­port for use of the death penal­ty but believe life impris­on­ment is a bet­ter way to pun­ish con­vict­ed mur­der­ers,” Jones said. 

The Demographics of Death-Penalty Support

The Gallup topline num­bers again found sub­stan­tial dif­fer­ences in sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment based on gen­der, race, age, polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, and polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy. 59% of men said they were in favor of the death penal­ty, while 39% said they opposed. By con­trast, 52% of women favored and 47% opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Whites favored the death penal­ty 60%-39%, while non-whites opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment 51% to 47%. Younger Americans aged 18 – 34 opposed the death penal­ty 52% to 48%, while those aged 35 – 54 sup­port­ed it 53%-44%, and those 55 and old­er sup­port­ed it 63%-35%.

Level of edu­ca­tion also affect­ed views on the death penal­ty, with col­lege grad­u­ates oppos­ing the death penal­ty 53%-45%, those with some col­lege edu­ca­tion sup­port­ing it 59%-40%, and those with a high school edu­ca­tion or less sup­port­ing the death penal­ty 62% to 37%. 

The great­est dif­fer­ences in Americans’ views were reflect­ed in par­ty iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy. Those cur­rent­ly iden­ti­fy­ing as Republican over­whelm­ing­ly favored the death penal­ty, 82% to 17%. On the oth­er hand, Democrats opposed the death penal­ty 58%-39%, while Independents nar­row­ly opposed it, 50%-49%. By 10 per­cent­age points, those iden­ti­fy­ing as con­ser­v­a­tives were less sup­port­ive of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment than those iden­ti­fy­ing as Republicans, with 72% say­ing they were in favor of the death penal­ty and 28% say­ing they were opposed. Those describ­ing them­selves as lib­er­al opposed the death penal­ty, 67% to 32%, while those self-iden­ti­fy­ing as mod­er­ate favored the death penal­ty, 55%-42%.

Demographics trends show con­tin­u­ing decline in death penal­ty sup­port

Support for the death penal­ty has declined among all age groups, across race and eth­nic­i­ty, and for indi­vid­u­als of every lev­el of edu­ca­tion­al attain­ment over the past decade, Gallup report­ed. For each demo­graph­ic group, Gallup mea­sured the aver­age lev­el of sup­port for the death penal­ty for the years 2000 – 2010, 2011 – 2016, and 2017 – 2020. Nationwide, aver­age lev­els of sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment declined by 10 per­cent­age points, drop­ping five per­cent­age points between the 2000s and the first half of the 2010s (from 66% to 61%) and anoth­er five per­cent­age points over the past four years (61% to 56%). 

Support for the death penal­ty declined among all gen­er­a­tions of Americans, declin­ing more the younger the age group. Support among mil­len­ni­als (born 1980 – 1996) fell 10 per­cent­age points from 61% in 2000 – 2010, to 55% in 2011 – 2016, to 45% over the past four years. It fell 9 per­cent­age points among Generation X (born 1965 – 1979), from 66% to 63% to 57%; 8 per­cent­age points among baby boomers (born 1946 – 1964), from 67% to 64% to 59%; and 5 per­cent­age point among tra­di­tion­al­ists (born before 1946), from 67% to 65% to 62%. 

Support fell 9 per­cent­age points among non-Hispanic white adults, from 70% to 67% to 61%; and 6 per­cent­age points among non-white adults (who already had low sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment), from 52% to 46%, where it remained over the last four years. Support for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment fell most sharply among col­lege grad­u­ates, drop­ping by 14 per­cent­age points, from 60% to 53% to 46%. It fell 9 per­cent­age points among those who did not attend or did not grad­u­ate from col­lege, from 69% to 65% to 60%. 

Additionally, Gallup sug­gest­ed, demo­graph­ic trends across the United States, ​“may lead to fur­ther ero­sion in death penal­ty sup­port.” ​“Groups that are con­sti­tut­ing a greater share of the U.S. adult pop­u­la­tion over time — includ­ing mil­len­ni­als and Generation Z, non-White adults and col­lege grad­u­ates — all show below-aver­age sup­port for the death penal­ty,” Jones said. 

Gallup report­ed con­tin­u­ing declines in death penal­ty sup­port among those iden­ti­fy­ing as Democrats or Independents, while sup­port among those iden­ti­fy­ing as Republicans remained steady. In the years 2000 – 2010, an aver­age of 55% of Democrats said they sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, falling to 47% in 2011 – 2016 and 39% in 2017 – 2020. Among Independents, sup­port fell 10 per­cent­age points, from an aver­age of 64% to 61% to 54%. However, aver­age sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment bare­ly changed among those iden­ti­fy­ing as Republicans, start­ing at 80% in 2000 – 2010 and remain­ing at 79% in 2011 – 2016 and 2017 – 2020.