Survey Says: Americans Are Undivided on the Urgency to Change the Census to Strengthen Elections

The FAIR Elections Fund is run by Cleta Mitchell, an attorney and election activist, who was instrumental in the investigations of irregularities during the 2020 election. Mitchell was also a part of then-former President Donald Trump's legal team in his battles with the state of Georgia over those results. 

Mitchell's 501(c)3 organization commissioned a poll to gauge Americans' sentiment on the U.S. Census, and how it weights against election integrity. The findings revealed two things: One, the vast majority of Americans are in agreement that only U.S. citizens should be counted when considering states' representation for the House of Representatives, and two, the Census should include a citizenship question.

EXCLUSIVE: New polling obtained exclusively by @fdrlst shows that Americans overwhelmingly believe congressional seats should be distributed solely based on the number of U.S. citizens in each state. They also think there should be a citizenship question on the census.

Those are… pic.twitter.com/efjzLW0pzT

— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) September 30, 2026

EXCLUSIVE: New polling obtained exclusively by @fdrlst shows that Americans overwhelmingly believe congressional seats should be distributed solely based on the number of U.S. citizens in each state. They also think there should be a citizenship question on the census.

Those are two of the key findings from a national survey conducted by @jmclghln @McLaughlinAssoc indicating significant public support for policies — long opposed by the left — that the Trump administration is pursuing pertaining to the crucial decennial count 

The Federalist gained exclusive access to the survey and its findings.

The survey, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on Sept. 23, shows that of 1,000 likely voters, nearly two-thirds, 65 percent, believe the congressional apportionment base should be comprised solely of U.S. citizens.

Strikingly, not only four in five self-identified Republicans, but also 54 percent of Democrats and nearly 60 percent of independents polled also somewhat or strongly agree with a policy that would necessarily exclude illegal aliens and other noncitizens from the count.

The poll also found that 75 percent of likely voters, including nearly two-thirds of Democrats, somewhat or strongly agree that census respondents should disclose whether they are U.S. citizens on the census form. Such a query could be used to facilitate efforts to exclude noncitizens from the apportionment base.

This has been a battle waged during both Trump administrations. The Trump 45 Commerce Department attempted to limit the Census to only United States citizens, and to restore the citizenship question to the Census surveys. The administration ran into the buzzsaw of radical leftist lawfare, and the clock was run out. 

Now, the Trump 47 Commerce Department is trying again.

These findings come days after the Commerce Department, under which the Census Bureau sits, proposed a rule to exclude all but U.S. citizens and green card holders from the population numbers used to distribute congressional seats. That rule would modify the Census Bureau’s… pic.twitter.com/hPQzGyOWWy

— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) September 30, 2026

These findings come days after the Commerce Department, under which the Census Bureau sits, proposed a rule to exclude all but U.S. citizens and green card holders from the population numbers used to distribute congressional seats. That rule would modify the Census Bureau’s “residence criteria,” under which past administrations had distorted the apportionment base by counting “residents” of each state irrespective of their immigration status — thereby including millions of illegal aliens. This has led to the disproportionate allocation of representatives and electoral college votes to states with large non-citizen populations, rewarded sanctuary jurisdictions with undue power, diluted the voting power of Americans, and entrenched foreign influence in our political system.

The proposed rule also indicates that the bureau may add a question to the census to ascertain the “legal status” of respondents to implement the contemplated apportionment policy.

Benjamin Weingarten's piece continued:

While unclear how the second Trump administration’s renewed efforts will fare in the court of law, the polling provides evidence of bipartisan popularity for the initiatives in the court of public opinion.

Something else from the survey Americans agreed upon: the methods used for 2020 Census were questionable, at best, and wholly corrupt at the worst. So, if the Commerce Department fails to enact its desired changes, Americans will have no confidence that the 2030 Census will be conducted accurately. More from The Federalist's report:

The survey asked other questions relevant to Trump administration efforts to correct problematic aspects of prior decennial counts. One query concerned whether respondents would be confident in the accuracy of the 2030 census, given the fact that the 2020 census used “algorithms and projections” to complete the population count instead of an “actual headcount” and that the Census Bureau admitted to making errors leading to a misallocation of House seats. A majority, 52 percent of respondents, indicated they were “Not Confident” the 2030 count would be accurate. Sixty-four percent said they would have more confidence in the count if it the bureau were “required to simply count the actual U.S. population” this time around.

This question alluded in part to the practice of “differential privacy,” a process used in the 2020 census whereby the bureau introduced “statistical noise to protect confidentiality.” Trey Mayfield, counsel to the director of the Census Bureau at the end of the first Trump administration, testified before a House Judiciary Committee panel last year that under the practice, the bureau “adds fake people where they do not live and subtracts real people from where they do live. Thus, all the reported enumeration census data from 2020 below the state level is false.” He and other authorities argue that the method is both unconstitutional, violating Congress’ duty to conduct an “actual enumeration,” and illegal.

We are 33 days from the November 2026 midterm election, so this survey will not move the needle this election cycle. However, it will weigh mightily in the 2028 election, and will be critical for the 2030 midterms.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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