(TNND) — Democrats have record-low confidence in key American institutions, according to a new Gallup survey.

Meanwhile, Republican confidence has rebounded.

But even with President Donald Trump in the White House, just 37% of Republicans have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in nine institutions tracked for over four decades by Gallup.

Overall, just an average of 28% of Americans expressed confidence in those nine institutions tracked over the long term: the church or organized religion, the military, the Supreme Court, banks, public schools, newspapers, Congress, organized labor, and big business.

For context, an average of 48% of Americans expressed confidence in those nine institutions during the first year of tracking, 1979.

Republicans’ confidence is up nine points this year and is the highest reading since 2020.

Democrats’ confidence decreased by five percentage points this year to reach a record-low 26%.

Just a quarter of independents are confident in those American institutions.

Confidence yo-yos depending on who holds power.

When President Joe Biden was in the White House, Republicans’ confidence took a nosedive.

Now that Trump is in the White House, it appears Democrats’ confidence is doing the same.

“We're so polarized, affectively polarized. We don't like each other, and we're ideologically polarized. And so, you get this pattern that does yo-yo,” Oklahoma State University politics professor Seth McKee said. “ ... But (the trend is) on the way down. And so that really speaks to the health of our governmental system or lack thereof. And that's hard to change.”

Jake Neiheisel, a political scientist at the University at Buffalo in New York, said people answering Gallup’s survey questions might be “trained on salient stories and narratives that they're hearing in their information environment.”

For others, he said, it could be “pure knee-jerk partisanship."

McKee said the more politicized the institution, the more partisan politics will weigh on the response.

For institutions that are less political in nature, Americans might factor in true performance more.

McKee said you could swap in the word “trust” for “confidence” and get similar results.

But a lot of what Gallup’s survey shows is political cue-taking, he said.

While just nine institutions have been tracked consistently since 1979 by Gallup, this year’s survey included 18 American institutions. Among them were unions, tech companies, public schools, and TV news.

One of them, the presidency, showed a huge swing for both Republicans and Democrats.

Eighty percent of Republicans said they are confident in the presidency, up 73 percentage points from last year.

Just 3% of Democrats expressed confidence in the presidency, plummeting 58 percentage points since last year.

Gallup said just three institutions — small business (70%), the military (62%) and science (61%) – have majority confidence among all Americans.

Forty-five percent of Americans said they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police.

And every other institution, from higher education to Congress, fell below the majority mark.

Both McKee and Neiheisel said the lack of confidence in institutions is damaging to American society.

“We're in such a terrible state, but you have to have better leaders,” McKee said. “You have to have better people who want to serve us. You've got to have people with integrity and honesty who are not afraid to run for office and lose.”

Vietnam and Watergate were turning points, Neiheisel said. Since then, Americans have been less trusting of their institutions.

And that trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Neiheisel said he’s not sure how we restore our national confidence.

“I think that the partisan blinders are on, and they're really hard to take off,” he said.